The Memory Stones

by Caroline Brothers

  She is impatient for the man’s arrival; she has so much she wants to ask him; heaven knows, he might even bring a message from Graciela herself.

  It’s an overcast day made darker by the density of the foliage and the ivy that has spilled out of the rockeries and is inching like a tide across the lawn. Yolanda finds herself turning to check it hasn’t crept up on her, then laughs at herself for imagining herself brought down by the tendrils’ snare.

  Her hips start to ache and her legs grow heavy as she adjusts and readjusts her weight. Her heart seems to have resumed its odd tripping rhythm, but she puts that down to her nerves. There are no benches in this corner of the gardens; she’s been standing for fifty minutes and the basket handles are cutting into her hands.

  Romulus and Remus crouch beneath the she-wolf as Yolanda wonders what is holding the man up. She is grateful the rain hasn’t started again, though her shoes are damp from walking. Drops of water blown from the leaves keep finding the back of her neck.

  In the glaucous light there are no shadows by which to measure the passing of time.

  Suddenly she sees a figure, a dog that’s part Alsatian, gliding through the gloomy trees. Collarless, ownerless, it moves through the ivy towards her as if on a mission to find her, baring its teeth in a growl. Nervous since a child around big dogs, Yolanda retreats as it keeps advancing; she can see the hard white of its canines, the mottled pink flesh of its gums. Its angry eyes lock on her and she stares back at them, clutching her basket to her like a shield. The animal snarls; her throat constricts; it could fell her with a single leap.

  Then, from across the gardens, a fusillade of barking, and the dog’s flattened ears shoot up. It snarls again, then abandons her and races towards the sound.

  Shaken, Yolanda paces briskly up and down the pathway. She spots a distant bench where she can rest and still keep an eye on the statue, but she retraces her steps when she finds it is wet from the rain.

  Her legs and feet are numb when, four hours after she got there, she understands that the man isn’t going to show up. Something has gone wrong, she thinks, some accident or obstacle, some insurmountable delay. Hungry, deflated, she limps towards the gate that leads to the Plaza de Italia, watched by the eagle and the half-wild cats.

  She waits a long time at the bus stop. When the collectivo finally gets there the seats are already taken, and no one seems inclined to relinquish theirs.

  As they lumber across the intersections Yolanda sees herself in the window. A middle-aged woman stares back at her, hair frizzed by the damp and the winter, raincoat tugged about her like a sack. Tied with its purple ribbon, the parcel sits unopened in her basket, the tissue paper pockmarked by the rain.

  But the basket itself is lighter now because the other things it’s been carrying, hope and longing accumulated over these long months of absence, and the promise this man held out to her, are trickling away through its weave.

  At 2 a.m. the phone rings, tearing Yolanda from her Valium sleep.

  Is it Graciela? Is it Osvaldo is it her brother? Is it Eduardo is it Constanza is it Julieta in Miami is anything wrong?

  She is flushed with panic and disoriented when she picks up the receiver in the hall.

  The silence she hears sounds hollow. She can tell there is somebody there.

  ‘Graciela?’ she says.

  She holds on, scarcely daring to breathe. She waits. She waits.

  And then it erupts. No words, nothing but a voice. A man’s voice. And the voice is laughing. Great guffaws of laughter that have an edge to them, and more than that, a sneer in them; that echo down the line and ring in her ears as she shivers in her nightdress in the hallway, as the malice seeks its target and bores into it, searing her heart like a brand.

  4

  Buenos Aires

  May 1980

  All night rain rinses the pollution from the streets, and the sunrise wrings out mornings of luminous blue. Buildings sway like paper cut-outs against the azure skies and the evening sunshine sets the trees aflame. Men go to work in shirt-sleeves; in the citrus light of evening women linger in thin cotton frocks.

  By rights it should be autumn. Plane trees fill the gutters with leaves that curl like wood-shavings; behind the stadium in La Boca, ash trees sprinkle the footpaths with golden stars. But the temperature in Buenos Aires has climbed back into the twenties, and people’s spirits have lifted with it – a windfall second summer on borrowed time.

  Banked up for blocks behind the level crossing, the traffic is immobile, and Yolanda is impatient to be on the move. Halfway down the bus, she is nursing a shopping basket by the window and examining an address she has circled on the map in the Guía ‘T’. She hadn’t trusted the forecast, and as the sun beats down on the grimy glass she regrets having worn her raincoat over the top of her too-heavy dress.

  Behind her are two other Grandmothers who will alight at the same time she does, if the train ever lets the traffic through.

  The denuncia came handwritten on heavy, plain white notepaper. Yolanda hasn’t asked how it reached the Grandmothers; she knows only that it was sent a month ago by the director of a kindergarten, and that it is genuine because the Grandmothers have followed it up.

  ‘There is a confidential matter I wish to discuss with you,’ the letter had said. ‘Please send someone I can trust.’

  The Grandmothers at first were wary, uncertain whether this might be some kind of trap. But they investigated, and took precautions, and two of them volunteered.

  They agreed on a neutral place, and Patricia and Marta were waiting when the director arrived. Immediately she expressed concern about a child enrolled at her kindergarten. She was worried about a discrepancy between her date of birth and the results of her medical exam.

  Though apparently not quite three, the girl – whose name was Ana – seemed older than her birth certificate would have it, so the doctor requested a copy of her medical records at birth. The documents, duly provided, did nothing to diminish his perplexity. Either the entries had been confused with those of some other child, or the documents’ dates were erroneous, because his own observations did not correlate with a child of that age.

  Since the girl was a late enrolment, the director knew little about her, only that she came from an irreproachable home. She’d met the parents in person, Señora Bielka sitting straight-backed in her office in a slim-line sleeveless dress, a chiffon scarf knotted at her throat. A little older than the other mothers, she was also twice as elegant, and carried herself with poise. Still, the director thought, there was something about her, perhaps some strain or brittleness, behind the layers of mascara and kohl.

  The father, in full uniform, was overdressed for a kindergarten meeting; she appraised him against the hundreds of other parents she’d invited into her office over the years. His unctuousness oppressed her and bordered on condescension; his self-assurance was a little too loud. He had neatly combed hair, and a narrow face, and a look in his eyes of a man used to getting his way. The couple didn’t hold hands like other first-time parents, and it occurred to the director, just fleetingly, that he might have been seeking to deflect her attention from his wife.

  These, the director stressed to the Grandmothers, were purely subjective impressions. She filed them at the back of her mind for refining or correcting over time.

  A fastidious woman, however, it was the paperwork that left her uneasy. She’d seen birth certificates before that had been signed by military doctors; numerous military families had enrolled their children with her over the years. What bothered her in this case was that the documentation failed to match up.

  The discrepancy niggled, but she kept her concerns to herself. She had no explanation, no appetite for conflict, and no desire, should it come to that, for entanglement with the board. Still, it troubled her when facts were not in order. She sensed there might be a matter of some delicacy to confront.

  On the other hand, she knew about the Grandmothers – she herself was of the
ir generation. When her doubts refused to dissipate, she resolved to take the unusual step of raising the issue with them.

  Two of the Grandmothers were searching for children whose age might correspond to that of the little girl concerned. One didn’t know the sex of the child she was looking for. The other, as it happened, was searching for a little boy.

  So it is that Yolanda comes to be getting off a bus and walking towards a kindergarten one unseasonably warm May lunchtime, Constanza and Patricia at her side. They stop at a bench to rest their legs just as the children pour into the yard.

  Of all the shouting-tripping-giggling three- and four-year-olds, Yolanda knows immediately which child the director meant.

  A little girl hangs back inside the doorway instead of scrambling into the courtyard; she stands with one foot on top of the other one as if hesitant about going outside.

  But before Yolanda can indicate anything to Constanza, a woman in a pink sheath dress and stylish heels swoops across and scoops the child onto her hip. She kisses her and smoothes her hair and talks to her, then sets her back down on the stoop. They descend the steps together, the little girl taking them from side to side, her mother holding her firmly by the hand. Then the woman straps her into the back of an American sedan that is double-parked opposite the gates.

  Yolanda’s heart is thudding. She presses her hand against it but she can’t tear her gaze from the girl. Isn’t that Osvaldo’s forehead? Aren’t those Graciela’s eyes? And isn’t that how Graciela used to stand when she was little, one foot on top of the other in her red leather shoes with the buckles, getting dust on the bridge of her socks?

  Yolanda thinks she is right but she can’t be certain. A child’s stance in a doorway is proof of nothing, she knows that; she needs evidence that would stand up in a court of law.

  And yet, and yet. The possibility beats insistently at her chest. Surely this is her grandchild, surely this is she.

  And then it becomes unbearable to her to imagine her grandchild’s life: being kissed by strangers’ lips, her naked body bathed by strangers’ hands. She has to get nearer . . . The traffic up ahead is slowing; when the cars come to a halt there will be a brief second to act. The sedan is nearly in front of them; Yolanda is measuring the distance between herself and the vehicle’s windows, with no plan other than slamming the roof and pounding till they open the door.

  All she needs is to embrace her, to bury her nose in the nape of the little girl’s neck. She knows she will know from the scent of her, from the texture of her skin, whether this child is blood of her blood, flesh of her daughter’s flesh.

  Suddenly a hand is gripping her by each elbow. Patricia is on one side, Constanza on the other; as the car slides towards them they see the expression on Yolanda’s face. The hands stay on her arms as the car moves level with them and then continues, as she stands there in an agony of confusion, letting the moment pass.

  She watches the trees bend and the buildings arch and the falling leaves eddy in the reflection of the windows as the vehicle accelerates through the sunshine, whisking the little girl away.

  They discuss it in a café on the other side of town, out of earshot of any eavesdroppers who might be lurking near the school.

  For now, they will keep watch over the girl, it is decided. They will take photographs of her, discreetly, from between the cars and the trees. They will learn her routines and follow them and keep note if anything should change.

  Yolanda will be the one to take the photos since, rummaging for some papers in the back of Osvaldo’s desk, she came across his camera the other day. Either Constanza or Patricia will accompany her, keeping watch at her side.

  But first, Yolanda must establish herself in the neighbourhood. She has to shop at the greengrocer’s and the bakery, have coffee at the corner café. She should blend in with the residents, passing the kindergarten so often she becomes invisible, so that anyone who notices her will think that she lives nearby.

  ‘She needs a dog,’ Constanza says with a laugh. ‘Who’s got a dog they can lend?’

  ‘A dog!’ Yolanda says. ‘I don’t think my knees would hold out.’

  ‘I’m serious,’ Constanza says. ‘People see the pet and not the person – it’d be the perfect disguise.’

  ‘Not in that barrio,’ Patricia says. ‘Didn’t you see those dog-walkers – eight animals at a time? That’s the way they do it over there.’

  ‘Even better,’ Constanza says. ‘We can get Yolanda a job.’

  ‘Hold it right there,’ she says. ‘I already have a job, if you remember. It might be part-time at the moment, but I still have to show up at school.’

  But Constanza isn’t listening. ‘Oh, God,’ she says, blue eyes lighting up. ‘I’ve just had an idea.’

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ says Yolanda. She cuts her off because the same thought has also occurred to her: how to learn more about the family; how to get close to the child. ‘Not a dog-walker, not a nanny, not a maid,’ Yolanda says. ‘They’d see through me the second I walked through the door.’

  ‘What about an Avon lady? A demonstrator of Tupperware wonders? A holder of private showings of baby clothes?’

  Yolanda laughs, then turns sober when she sees Constanza’s face.

  ‘He’s a military man, Constanza. To go into their home . . .’ She imagines it for a second, and then dismisses it.

  ‘Let’s start with the photos,’ she says.

  A week later, when Yolanda and Constanza arrive outside the kindergarten, the grounds are different. Child-sized chairs and trestle tables stand in a horseshoe beneath the jacaranda. Woodchips clinging to their clothing, two fair-haired boys hang like fruit bats from the jungle gym; most of the other children have gone indoors. But, deep in concentration, the little girl is out there, sitting at one of the tables. Smock rolled up to her elbows, she is immersed in finger-paint.

  Yolanda’s finger is on the shutter. She has found a way to work the camera without her glasses, and has framed the child between the tree and the kindergarten fence. The two of them are locked in concentration, Yolanda focused on the little girl who is focused on the peacock brilliance under her hands.

  In the soundlessness of that moment, the world seems to hold its breath. A single leaf-curl flutters free and lands on the child’s hair.

  Aware perhaps of the stillness, the girl glances towards Yolanda the moment the shutter clicks. To Yolanda, it sounds as though the jacaranda has been struck by lightning; she braces herself for it to come crashing to the ground. But the girl goes back to her painting and Yolanda, mesmerised, hides inside the tiny square and hurriedly winds on the film. She is about to press the button again when the girl looks up and smiles directly at her, and holds her two palms up to her, like orange and lilac butterflies hovering behind a wire fence. Yolanda squeezes, winds on again. A third time she releases the shutter before the girl plunges back into her artwork, seascapes of green and purple escaping from the colour blue.

  Yolanda is taken aback, she turns hot and cold with the shock of it; she had thought herself concealed by the cars. Could this be her grandchild? She is almost certain, she wants it to be, she can’t be completely sure. But the child’s gaze went right through her, and her heart is still rebounding from being seen.

  Constanza leans towards her, shifting a bag of groceries from arm to arm. ‘Did you get her?’ she says softly, as if the trees themselves could hear.

  ‘I got two or three shots,’ Yolanda says. ‘But I think she noticed me.’

  ‘She saw you?’ Constanza looks stricken. ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Let’s go.’

  Yolanda slips the camera down beside the celery and fights an overwhelming urge to turn and wave. She needs the girl to forget her; she needs her not to talk about what took place.

  They leave it a week before they return. They watch till all the parents have come to claim their charges, but the little girl is nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Perhaps she stayed home today,’ Constanza
says. ‘Children are always giving each other their germs.’

  But Yolanda is worried. For days now she has had an uneasy feeling, after what took place last time.

  ‘They’ve gone,’ the director says, when finally, discreetly, Patricia reaches her by phone. ‘They said they were moving away.’

  Yolanda, standing beside her friend as she dials the number, feels faint when she overhears the words.

  Away? Where away? Across town? Another city? Abroad?

  ‘They took her out of kindergarten last Friday,’ Patricia says as she replaces the receiver. ‘The director understands the father has been transferred to his next assignment; she presumes he wasn’t allowed to say where.’

  Yolanda’s knees give way. She subsides into the nearest chair.

  Patricia comes and sits beside her.

  ‘I’m sorry, Yolanda,’ she says, taking Yolanda’s hand in her own. Then, after a moment, ‘If it’s any comfort, we have copies of the documents, the birth certificate and so on. I’ve given them to Constanza to keep safe.’ She stops talking for a moment, and clears her throat. ‘There is one thing we are going to have to bear in mind, however: this family is going to be difficult to trace. We tried looking up the Bielkas when they first came to our attention. There isn’t even an entry in the telephone book.’

  Yolanda looks at her, unable to speak.

  ‘We’ll keep looking, of course we will. But it’s not going to be easy. Even if we could be certain about the little girl. Even if the father were not a military man.’ She pauses. ‘And we have to keep an open mind, Yolanda. The little girl might not be the Bielkas’, but she might not be yours either. It might even turn out you are looking for a little boy.’

  Head swimming, Yolanda delves into her handbag for an aspirin, or for something to take in order to steady her heart beat, and finds Osvaldo’s camera there instead. She curls her fingers around it and holds on to it, firm in its soft leather case.