by Pam Lewis
Sander stonewalled her.
“I’ll tell all of it to the police. Kidnapping, murder. You’ll never see the light of day again, if I have anything to do with it. You’ll rot in prison along with Tessa and Frederik Dietz. In all Zef’s life, I will never tell your son about you. You’ll be lost to him. You’re already just a ghost.”
“What will become of me?” Fenna shrieked. “What about Woodrow?”
“You knew,” Minke said flatly. “What do I care about you?”
Fenna looked down at the baby. “We needed the money. Without the money, we’d have starved.”
“Don’t look at me for this. It was Dietz,” Sander said.
“He didn’t take Zef, Sander. You gave him Zef in exchange for your gambling debts.”
“I did what I had to do. For us.”
She belted out a peal of vicious laughter. “For us. You bully, you outlaw. For us. Money, money.” She reached into her pocket, found some money—coins and paper bills—and threw them at him, hitting him hard enough in the face to make him jump to his feet and raise a hand at her. The baby was screaming at the raised voices. Fenna gathered up the money and stuffed it into her pocket.
“Don’t let him go to jail, Minke,” Fenna sobbed. “Please. Please.” She rocked and cried. “Think of Woodrow. If not for me, for the baby.”
“You think of Woodrow. Protect him yourself. From the world. From Sander. My God, from yourself. I pity this child more than you know. What a life he has in store with you two as parents.”
“You have no proof,” Sander said. “No proof at all.”
“The whole village knew of the kidnapping. They’ll tell.”
“Grow up, Minke. It’s thousands of miles away.”
She realized something new, fresh. A new side that darkened it more. “You knew exactly where he was all along. You knew he’d be well fed, have a roof over his head. Dreadful people, the Dietzes, but you knew Zef was safe while I didn’t. You watched me suffer and let me suffer. No wonder you were so cold, so sanguine. I, on the other hand, was left to the terrors of my imagination.” She pushed him. “Look at me, you bastard.”
Outside there came the sounds of a siren, car doors slamming, and raised voices. That got to him all right. He sat up, whipped his head around. Glared at her. “You didn’t.”
“I did.”
She fingered the half wedding ring in her pocket. Since the beginning, it had been the same contrast of smooth curved metal to jagged edge. She withdrew it and laid it on the table.
PART FOUR
COMODORO RIVADAVIA,
CHUBUT PROVINCE,
ARGENTINA
* * *
December 30, 1920
25
THE MACEIÓ STEAMS into Comodoro Rivadavia harbor on a hot December day across a calm cerulean sea. At its bow, Minke, Zef, and Elly stand at the forefront of the press of passengers against the rail.
The town opens wide before them. It has spread to double, no, triple in size. Some of the buildings are three stories tall. New houses have sprouted to the north, the south, and up the base of the Cerro Chenque.
Minke has to pull Zef back from leaning too far over the rail. At eight, the boy is fearless. Elly, the cautious one, draws back into her mother’s protection, but her brown eyes are keen with excitement.
“On the new year, we’ll swim in the sea,” Minke promises, and they all look down into water so clear they can see to the bottom. In only ten days at sea, the sun has colored their winter-city faces, whitened Zef’s hair, and streaked Elly’s with honey gold.
They are among the last to board the tender and the last brought to shore, where wagons are being loaded with goods, logs, boxes, and barrels—a familiar scene but on a larger scale than before. Some children are playing games on the beach. They stop to watch Zef and Elly with interest. Elly and Zef watch them back.
Minke recognizes that she is at exactly the place on the beach where Zef was kidnapped. She stops. Zef and Elly gladly stop too and drop her hands so they can take in their new surroundings. She has relived the moment of Zef’s capture so often she expects to remember every inch, every grain of sand. But it has changed. The sand, packed solid from activity over the years, has become as hard as the surface of any street in New York City. Heavy chains for the hauling up of goods are permanently fixed in the seawall and extend across the sand to the water. She is reentering a world that is at once familiar and lost to her.
She takes the children’s hands again, up the ramp to the top of the seawall toward San Martin Street. Toward the Almacén. Everything depends on what happens next. She must accomplish this before she does anything else. Without it, they are doomed.
She barely finds it, crowded among the other buildings. The sign has changed from the rough black sticks spelling out the name to a blue-and-yellow-painted sign that hangs over the street and says simply ALMACÉN.
Inside is familiar, but only just. Now there is a quantity of goods to rival that of the stores in New York. The shelves reach to the ceiling. A balcony runs all around, reminding Minke of the great hall at Ellis Island, replacing the ladders that Bertinat used to reach merchandise on the high shelves. There are Goodyear tires for sale, Singer sewing machines, packs of cigarettes, and cameras. The place bustles with customers. She scans faces; some are familiar, but she sees no one she knows. To the left are fabrics, exactly where they were before but now so many more bolts, with more variety, more colors, more textures. Spools of ribbon take up an entire shelf.
She spots Bertinat on the balcony, where he is pulling out a bolt of cloth; he sees her and stops. He blushes. His hair is gray at the temples now. “Señora?” he asks, looking down on her and the children. It’s been seven years.
“Señor,” she says. “Es bueno volver a verte.” The children are startled to hear their mother speak an unfamiliar language. “It is good to see you again.”
Bertinat pushes back the bolt of fabric, disappears from the balcony, and in a moment is crossing the floor with a smile. He speaks to her in rapid Spanish. So happy to see her. What a surprise. Is she well? On and on. He has certainly taken note of the children, of Zef in particular, and she knows he remembers the kidnapping. He must be wondering, but he is far too polite to ask, for fear of causing her distress. Elly presses against Minke and takes in every detail of the meeting. Zef examines a pair of shiny binoculars for sale on a counter nearby.
“May we speak privately?” she asks.
“Sí, sí.” Bertinat directs them to a small back room, crowded with boxes and containers of merchandise. She has dressed herself and the children for this exact moment, wearing clothing she has made by hand with the greatest of care to show off her considerable skill. “Señor. Allow me to show you what I have learned in America.” She holds out her wrist and indicates the cuff. “See how the stitches are so fine as to be almost invisible.” Bertinat examines the sewing and nods approval. Zef removes his summer jacket and she shows Bertinat the work, inside and out, the finishing of the seams, the difficult tailoring. Bertinat knows his fabrics, and he knows sewing. He says nothing but looks with great interest. He smiles when she shows him the buttonholes, not just stitched but bound in fabric, and for the finale, the curved seams on her own and Elly’s dress and the skillful matching of patterns.
“It’s excellent work,” he says.
“I propose a partnership, señor. A collaboration.” If he will allow her a small space to use in the store, she will be the finest seamstress in Chubut Province. She will pay him 10 percent of what she earns in return.
Mr. Wiley has told her that such arrangements are commonplace in the grand department stores of New York City. He insisted that she join as an independent businesswoman, not an employee. He made her promise not to bury herself away in a room alone, taking in other people’s mending, but to put her gifts on display.
Bertinat smiles broadly. He can see nothing wrong with the plan. Mr. Wiley assured her the man would be a fool to turn down such an
offer in which he had virtually nothing to lose.
“Then I shall begin on Monday,” she says.
LIKE THE ALMACÉN, the Nueva Hotel de la Explotación del Petróleo has competition. Two newer hotels made of brick and mortar stand nearby and look more prosperous, with motorcars drawn up in front. Minke swings open the door to the hotel and is almost overcome by its familiar smell—of men and smoke and roasting meat. She has expected this feeling of being in two worlds at once, of having two warring emotions at every turn: the bliss she associates with her year in Comodoro and the heartbreak of what came afterward.
Their bags, their only possessions, have been brought to the hotel and lie in a corner of the lobby. She feels electric with certainty and the power of her own courage.
After finding Zef, she had made a comfortable life for herself and the children in New York. The Wileys were good to them. But Zef was restless and needed so much more to keep his interest. And Elly was content to stay quietly in the sewing room. Too content. They were becoming children of New York, their lives spent too much in the kitchen and small quarters of their mother. New York was not a place to raise her children. She had tasted better, far better. Comodoro was her gift to them.
WAITERS AT THE Explotación bar wear crisp white aprons and black waist-length jackets. Minke enters, her head held high. Chin up. People look at her, then go back to what they were saying. Guiding the children ahead of her, she threads her way to Meduño, who has become stout, his face a cinnamon balloon. He sits by the cash register, hands thrust into his pockets, directing his staff with a tip of the head, a dart of the eyes.
“Señor Meduño, do you remember me? I am Minke DeVries.”
“Sí,” he says. His face is utterly placid, but the eyes are alive with interest. They dart across her face to the children. Meduño was always shrewd. He has not forgotten her. At an invisible sign, two waiters leap to set up the table that once was Minke’s. Perhaps also the same table where Sander had gambled away his son and their life in Comodoro. Meduño himself pulls out the three chairs and settles his great bulk in the fourth. He opens his hands, rolls his eyes heavenward. She had forgotten the man has a streak for the dramatic. “You’ve come back to us for a visit,” he says.
“To live,” she says.
“Magnífico.” He squints at the children, his eyes resting on Zef. He counts on his fingers and makes a face that says, Can this be the child?
“Sí,” she says quickly, before more questions can be asked. Meduño will not be so polite as Bertinat. Mr. Wiley warned her that to speak of Sander’s infamy is to brand the children as offspring of a heartless criminal. Cassian reminded her of what he had said all those years ago on board the Frisia—truth is what you put in and what you leave out. There’s no one absolute truth for everyone. “Tell what is public,” Cassian said, “but not what is private.”
“My son was found in the care of Frederik and Tessa Dietz,” she says, and gives him a warning look that means Let’s put the matter to rest. “Safe and sound,” she adds. She draws the money from her purse. “We would like a room.”
Meduño takes the money, but he is distracted. He can’t take his eyes from Zef. She puts a finger to her lips when Meduño is about to speak, to ask more questions. As it is, the news will spread like wildfire.
THE NEXT DAY there is everything to be done. She enrolls the children in Escuela No. 24, which is in the solid brick building that once housed the bakery. Forty students are enrolled, covering grades one through ten. Zef and Elly stand holding hands before a nun who asks them questions in Spanish. Minke replies for them. They are eight and seven years old, she says. They have attended school in New York City. They speak English and Dutch flawlessly, and for that reason they will learn Spanish in no time. The nun is new to Comodoro. Perhaps she belongs to the order of Father Bahlow and the nuns from the Frisia.
Minke takes them to the house where both were born. They stand together on the street, observing. The roof no longer is weighed down with debris to keep it from blowing away. The new owners have secured it with nails. There are flowers planted in front. Minke takes the children’s hands again, and they walk to the Cerro Chenque. Zef and Elly run ahead, and by the time Minke reaches the top, they have been there for some time.
“It was different then,” she says. They are children, not interested in the way things were but in the way things are. They are excited by seeing their school from the Cerro, the hotel where they slept, the Maceió still in the harbor. They are excited by seeing how what they have already seen is joined together. She points out anyway what’s left of the obras. “Uncle Cassian built every bit of it,” she says, and they take notice but only at the mention of their beloved uncle. There’s nothing to see. The obras is a shambles of blowing weeds. The house and the factory have collapsed. “And that—” She points to the now booming oil production, with its four sets of barracks and an impressive stone building, the office, she supposes, covered in green creepers. “That once belonged to Meneer Dietz.”
They know the name and peer down at it with interest. They know that Zef was kidnapped by Meneer Dietz and lived with him and his wife for a year before Minke found him again. They do not know that Tessa subsequently suffered a breakdown and was sent away. Nor do they know about the case against their father and the Dietzes or that it failed. Dietz hired the best attorneys to fight extradition and defend himself. His claim? Incredibly, that the Dietzes took Zef in with the full consent of both Sander and Minke, and no money changed hands. His attorney stated that Minke and Sander were only too happy to give away their son because calamity had befallen them when the obras collapsed after the attack on Dr. Tredegar. Kidnapping? Ludicrous!
In the end, the case never went to trial.
And what of Sander? Minke knows only that Fenna and Sander found employment as cook and driver for a large household on Fifth Avenue. Woodrow, age six, is enrolled in the Lillie Devereaux Blake School, Public School 6, which is reputed to be excellent.
Something catches Elly’s eye in the distance. “Mama!” she cries. A cloud of dust rises in the distance, kicked up by the hooves of approaching horses. As Minke had hoped, but had not told the children for fear of disappointing them, the gauchos often come to Comodoro when a ship arrives.
By the time they have descended the Cerro and walked back to the center of town, the races have begun up and down San Martin Street. The streets are lined with people—hundreds, it seems, and most of them foreign. Like them. The gauchos race on their splendid ponies. The ground vibrates with hoof beats, and the air is alive with red and silver and the shiny flanks of the beautiful ponies. From the Almacén to the outskirts of town, the men race one another, thundering past. They are exactly the spectacle Minke wanted, the glue that will cement her children to this place. Zef must be restrained; he is completely enthralled and twice gets dangerously close to the races. Nothing in New York City can match this. The crowd stays to watch until long after the dinner hour because the sun remains long in the sky. Minke, Zef, and Elly fall into their beds at the Explotación, exhausted.
In the morning Zef and Elly are up with the sun, tugging at their mother’s arm. “We want to go for a swim in the ocean,” Zef says. “You promised.”
And so she has. They pass through the center of town on their way to the water. All is quiet this morning.
Minke spreads a blanket at a spot where they will have solitude. The children play, and she stands with them, skirts raised up to her calves, in the lovely green water. The children have swum at Coney Island in New York and cannot believe that this is the same ocean. The waves are gentler, the temperature so much warmer.
She feels the vibration of approaching horses, and her heart skips a beat. She calls the children to her. She wants to hold their hands until any danger is past. But the horses slow and approach at a walk. The rider is a gaucho, practically square, he’s so strongly built, with wide shoulders and chest, his porkpie hat riding low on his forehead, leading his string of
seven or eight ponies.
The gaucho comes to a stop and studies her. “¿Te acuerdas de mí?” Do you remember me?
She cannot believe her good fortune. “Goyo.”
He smiles, showing large white teeth. Zef’s mouth is agape, seeing that his mother knows someone like this. Minke is beyond excited.
“I saw you yesterday. I saw today when you came to the water. I followed.”
“I hoped I would see you again,” she says.
“I see you found him,” Goyo says with a tip of his hat toward Zef. It is a statement of fact, no more.
“You were blamed,” she says. “My heart breaks over the terrible injustice to you.”
Goyo smiles and shrugs. “Long ago. No matter,” he says.
“I bleed for our friend Pieps,” she says, coming up with the Spanish words, to her own surprise. “He lost his life for a lie.”
“Eh?” Goyo frowns, and Minke tries again, thinking she hasn’t stated it correctly, but he cuts her off. “I know what you said.” He throws his head back and laughs.
She wonders if laughter is the gaucho way of honoring the dead.
“He didn’t die,” Goyo says, as if it is obvious, and he laughs again.
“Mi esposo le disparó.” My husband shot him.
“Es verdad.” It’s true. Goyo opens his massive hands in a show of agreement. “But Pieps didn’t die.”
She makes him repeat it several times.
He sits beside her on her blanket, holding the reins of the lead pony. Elly falls to her knees in the sand beside Minke and stares as Goyo tells Minke what happened. Zef can’t take his eyes from Goyo’s horses. He reaches out a hand for the lead horse.
Pieps, Goyo says, was wounded and left for dead, left for the ravens to eat. He lay bleeding for a time before one of the skinners came looking for him and carried him home. Word spread among the gauchos, who brought a curandero, a healer, to minister to Pieps. Over time, Pieps recovered from his wounds. Goyo, with a quick look to the children, said, “I came to Comodoro to kill your husband, señora, but he was gone.”