by Janet Dawson
“What is the Aragón family history?” Lindsey asked.
“Humberto was born on the finca,” Merle said. “Humberto’s grandfather Ramón came over from Spain in the eighteen-eighties. That’s when the coffee elite started building their dynasties and amassing huge estates. The Aragóns have owned a big chunk of Chalatenango department since then and kept adding to it. Ramón’s son Agustín continued the tradition. The coffee growers in El Salvador ran the country until the Thirties. They still have enormous power. They call them the Fourteen Families. Agustín Aragón was a big political conservative back then. La Matanza, the bloodletting, that was in ’thirty-two. A peasant uprising was put down, brutally. Thousands of campesinos died, some on the Aragón finca. Lord knows how many peasants have died over the past hundred years so the Aragóns could be members of the coffee elite.” Merle raised her coffee mug. “Makes me wonder sometimes how much blood and sweat went into growing and processing those beans so I can have freshly ground French roast.”
“Some coffee beans are grown by cooperatives,” Lindsey said.
“Yes, cooperatives are trying to give the small farmers a fair shake. Reform efforts in the early Eighties were supposed to redistribute land. The idea was to take parcels from landowners who owned more than twelve hundred acres and give them to the campesinos who’d been working the land for generations. But the landowners resisted. They hired private armies and dared the government to come and take their land. Humberto’s thugs were better armed than some of the Salvadoran army outfits I saw.”
“What about Humberto’s wife and children?” Lindsey asked.
“His wife, Nella, died of cancer. She was from a coffee-growing family in Santa Ana department. They had three children—Severino, Cristina, and Roberto. Severino now runs the finca. Roberto’s a rancher. Cristina married a politician named Francisco Medrano. I think the woman in blue at the finca that day was Cristina. I heard Severino tell her to call Francisco.”
“And the dark-haired man in the hallway?”
“I didn’t get a good look at him. Maybe he was the coffee broker they were talking about. He seemed upset by the whole thing. But he never stepped forward to support my story, or challenge it.”
“You never saw the children?”
Merle shook her head. “I heard a baby cry. I assumed the children were in the house. But I can’t be sure. All I had to go on was Ana, the servant. When I asked about the kids, I’m sure she nodded. But she didn’t say anything. In my story I wrote that the children had been taken from the village and were missing. I didn’t mention Ana. She would have been in danger. I wonder what happened to those kids.”
So did Lindsey.
21
I should have kept my mouth shut, Lindsey told herself, that Monday night after the long drive home from Ashland. It wouldn’t have made our relationship any worse than it already is.
She’d finally told Nina who her father was. Now her daughter was angry.
There was never a right time for that revelation, she thought. Unless I was open about it from the start. But I couldn’t. There were other people involved. I had my reasons, good reasons. The cat is out of the bag now. It has claws.
Nina was in the hall, her bags packed, her face hostile. “I’m moving in with Tess. She’s on her way over to pick me up. I don’t want to be here with you.”
Lindsey felt her own ire rise. “Why are you so angry? I could have had an abortion. But I chose to be your mother. I walked the floor with you those nights when you had colic. I worked all these years to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. You’re my child. I love you. Why isn’t that enough, Nina? Why is it never enough? Why does it boil down to who donated the sperm that fertilized the egg?”
“I could deal with it easier if it was some anonymous donor,” Nina snapped. “If you’d told me something, anything, instead of nothing. I appreciate the fact that you gave birth to me, Mother. Thanks for the food, the roof over my head, college. Yes, all of that was your choice. But you also chose to be dishonest with me, to lie, to deceive me. Why couldn’t you answer the question before now? I have a father. I could have seen him now and then. I could have had a relationship with him. But you robbed me of that. Does he even know I’m his daughter? Were you ever going to tell him?”
“He doesn’t know. I decided not to tell him,” Lindsey said.
“You made a choice for me, too. One I had no say in. Why? Why couldn’t you be up front about it, from the start?”
“I had my reasons. I didn’t want to hurt other people.”
“Other people are hurt,” Nina cried. “Me. I’m hurt. And I’m pissed. I feel as though my whole identity has been stolen from me.”
Lindsey’s voice sharpened. “It’s not always about you, Nina. Your identity does not depend on the man who fathered you. You are who you are. You’re also my daughter. I love you. That should be enough.”
“Well, it’s not.” Nina turned away as the doorbell rang, opening the front door.
“Hi,” Tess said to Lindsey. “I’m here to pick up Nina. My roommate’s moving out sooner than expected, at the end of the week. For now she can sleep on the sofa.”
“Works for me,” Nina said. She glanced at Lindsey. “I left your key on the dresser.” She stepped past Tess onto the porch and went down the steps.
“I had a late appointment with a client in Oakland,” Tess said. “I was leaving his office when Nina called my cell phone, so I came right over. She said you’d had a blow-up. I’m sorry. I hope you work it out.”
“So do I.” Lindsey smiled, a poor attempt to mask the turmoil she felt.
“I’ll talk with her. Maybe I can help. Have you had a chance to...?”
“The banker’s box?” Lindsey shook her head. “Not yet.”
When Tess’s car pulled away from the curb, Lindsey leaned against the porch column, the weather-roughened wood prickling her cheek. Tears came. She felt heartsick, the way she had last December when Nina left with her boyfriend. Had she finally lost her daughter for good?
I can’t think about that now.
She went into the house, tired from the journey and this latest emotional battle. At least the cats were glad to see her. Clementine and Lola meowed as they circled her legs, telling tales of abandonment and imminent starvation. The note Gretchen had left on the kitchen counter belied their protestations. Lindsey washed and dried the cat bowls, then opened a can. The cats purred and happily consumed their dinner.
Lindsey took a half-full bottle of Chardonnay from the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of wine. Tears threatened again, but she fought them back. She couldn’t think about Nina right now. She had to think about something else. She carried her wine back to her office, turned on her computer, and listened to the messages on the answering machine. A couple of hang-ups, two calls from friends. Nothing from Lily Hsu. She contemplated the banker’s box she’d pushed against one wall. Pandora’s Box, open now, already letting the evil escape. She sat cross-legged on the floor and pulled the box toward her. She had to know. Ever since she’d heard Merle Sefton’s version of events in El Salvador, Lindsey had wondered about the tall, dark-haired man the reporter saw in the hallway at the Aragón house. Hal Norwood? What if he’d known about the San Blas massacre and cover-up? That wasn’t like Hal, to keep quiet about something so horrible. Or was it? How well did she know him? How well did she know any of her friends? Lately they seemed like strangers.
Lindsey separated the box’s contents into categories. The artifacts, as she thought of them, went to her left. There were the obvious keepsakes, gilded baby shoes for each of Annabel’s three children, a small handprint on a round plaster plaque that Tess had made in kindergarten, a wooden tray with Adam’s name scratched on the bottom, a painted china dish signed by Sharon. These were the trinkets mothers kept, treasured because they were made by little hands in art class or wood shop, presented with great flourishes on Mother’s Day, birthdays, Christmas. Their intrinsic valu
e was in who made them, who wore them. Lindsey also had such keepsakes, lovingly preserved, including the bronzed baby shoes, a mosaic plaque created from wooden sticks and the contents of Grandma’s button jar, and a plump little cat Nina had sculpted out of clay and painted in decidedly non-cat colors, blue and purple and green.
Tears welled again as she thought of Nina. She sipped wine and examined Annabel’s keepsakes. The oxidized metal wind chimes tinkled as she set them on the floor. She picked up the tarnished silver pineapple and crystal fragment, then set them aside and peered into the box. Here were the address books she’d looked at last week, trying to locate Lily Hsu. And the book with the strange inscription, a slim volume by Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet. She looked at the words written on the title page. Were they in Welsh? The name below the inscription looked like Rhonda. Annabel must have felt some connection to the person who’d given her this book, because she’d kept it with her other treasures. Lindsey put the book on her office chair. She’d look up the words on the Internet.
Next were three brown accordion folders, each one numbered, with a flap closing the top. Lindsey picked up a folder. The contents spilled into an untidy pile in front of her. She picked up an old black-and-white photograph showing a young woman dressed in a white blouse and gray skirt with a hemline below the knee. Her dark hair was arranged in a Forties style. Written on the back of the photograph was the legend INÉS MARGARITA ARAGÓN, SAN SALVADOR, 20TH BIRTHDAY, 2 APRIL 1949. So this was Annabel’s mother. George Dunlin had been seventy-five when he died in 1989, so he’d been fifteen years older than the woman he married.
Lindsey sifted through the papers, photocopies from the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner of the 1950s, with dates written in the margins. The society pages of both newspapers had noted the Dunlin wedding in June 1950, and Annabel’s birth in January 1952. In subsequent years the newspapers had chronicled and examined, in articles and photos, the social life of the Dunlins, at parties and receptions, the opera, ballet, theater and symphony. Mr. Dunlin always looked the same. But Mrs. Dunlin had changed. She looked increasingly stylish, her sophistication growing with each passing year.
Lindsey picked up a news article with a headline announcing the death of Mrs. George Dunlin. The woman had stumbled on the stairs of the Pacific Heights house and plunged down, hitting her head on the newel post. The body had been found by her sister-in-law, Mrs. Lawrence Megarris. Police were investigating and an inquest was pending. The inquest gave the coroner’s final ruling—accidental death. A private family service had been held at a funeral home a few days after Mrs. Dunlin died. Then Lindsey found an article dated September 1961, stating that Mrs. Rebecca Megarris, widow of the late Lawrence Megarris and George Dunlin’s sister, had been elected to the board of directors of the Dunlin Corporation. How did Mrs. Megarris’s election to the board fit into the story of Annabel’s mother?
She straightened the papers and returned them to the file, ignoring the other two folders. She’d been sidetracked long enough. She wanted to find out where Hal Norwood had been in April 1989. She sorted through Annabel’s datebooks and calendars until she found the datebook from 1989, the year of the massacre at San Blas. It was a spiral-bound book decorated with lush color reproductions of paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe. Annabel’s handwriting crowded every page with the record of her life. January—SHARON/DENTIST/2 P.M. February—ADAM/DOCTOR/10 A.M. March brought TESS/SCHOOL PLAY/7 P.M. Annabel had attended the symphony, the opera, the ballet, and in March—LINDSEY/DINNER/PLAY.
She flipped through the calendar to the fourth week in April, where, on Wednesday, Annabel had written SFO/NYC and a series of numbers. Flight numbers, departure and arrival times, and a Manhattan hotel reservation. Annabel had gone to New York City—by herself, or with Hal? Lindsey scrutinized the other entries in the datebook. Two Broadway shows, the Met, MOMA. Then on Saturday—MEET HAL MAD SQ GDN/DINNER W/FRED & ROBIN.
Annabel had accompanied Hal to a trade show, Lindsey guessed. Sunday’s entry in the datebook noted the number of their flight to San Francisco, and the departure and arrival times. Sunday was the day of the San Blas massacre. So the dark-haired man Merle had seen at the Aragón finca wasn’t Hal. But the conversation Merle overheard indicated he had some connection with the Dunlin firm.
I need to talk with Max Brinker, Lindsey thought. He knows everything.
The phone rang. The voice on the other end belonged to Lily Hsu.
“I’m so glad you called,” Lindsey said. “Annabel asked me to contact you. She had a stroke and she’s in rehab. She really wants to see you.” Lindsey gave Mrs. Hsu the address and phone number of the hospital. “Could we meet tomorrow? I’d like to talk about Annabel.”
Silence, as though Lily Hsu were considering whether or not she wanted to have that conversation. Then she gave Lindsey the address of a restaurant on Clement Street in San Francisco’s Richmond District. “I will meet you at one.”
22
On Tuesday morning, Lindsey told Flor about her conversation with Merle Sefton. “She thought she heard a baby cry at the Aragón house. The woman who worked there seemed to confirm this. The reporter never saw the children. They were probably taken to an orphanage.”
“That much I guessed,” Flor said. “But this doesn’t help me get Efraín back. I went to the Farmers Market on Saturday but he wasn’t there. That leaves me with the high school. What else can I do?” She looked at Lindsey, her face full of hope and trust, seeking answers.
Confession is good for the soul, so goes the saying. Thus far, revealing secrets had left Lindsey’s soul feeling bruised. But she couldn’t keep the information from Flor any longer. She took a deep breath. “I know who he is. I know the people who adopted him.”
Trust ebbed from Flor’s face. “Why did you keep this from me?”
Lindsey faltered, her words awkward, excuses rather than explanations. “I didn’t know he was Efraín until you pointed him out. I’ve known his adoptive parents for years. The orphanage in San Salvador said his parents were dead.”
Flor was angry now. “I’m alive. I’m his mother. I want my son. Tell me where he is.”
“Please give me some time. He doesn’t have any idea you’re alive. I’ve been waiting for the right moment to talk with my friends. Let me tell them. Then I’ll arrange a meeting. Give me a few days.”
Flor shook her head as she pushed back her chair. “I’ve waited weeks. I will give you a day. If I don’t hear from you by noon tomorrow, I will go to the high school and stand outside until I see him, no matter how long it takes. Find a way to tell them.”
“I will.” But there would never be a good time to have that conversation with Gretchen and Doug. “Oh, Flor...I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
* * *
The Dunlin Building on the corner of Montgomery and California streets was a matronly dowager of graceful proportions, with decorative cornices on the roof and ledges and sensible sash windows that opened to let in breezes from the bay, unlike its towering neighbors with their sealed glass and air conditioning, their bland postmodern masks. The building harked back to a different San Francisco, when life was slower, more ordered, more elegant, and people wore gloves and hats when they went downtown. Now security guards staffed a barrier in front of the elevators, a sign this was no longer that gracious time. In an alcove off the lobby, an espresso bar and retail shop dispensed Dunlin coffee and tea.
Lindsey had called Max early this morning, before leaving to meet Flor. As long as she was going to be in San Francisco, she hoped to talk with him. He’d agreed to meet her in the lobby and talk on the way to his lunch appointment. How would she find out what she needed to know? Max could spot a concocted story a mile off. The truth, or a variation thereof, was best.
“Max. How are you?”
“Fine.” For a man his age, Max looked good in his well-cut gray suit, still big and broad-shouldered, with more wrinkles on his face. What hair remained was white. He smiled at her. “
Good to see you. I understand your daughter, Nina, is temping, as Claire’s assistant.”
Lindsey felt a pang as she thought about Nina. “Yes. She started this morning.”
They walked out to California Street. Max cut through the lunch-hour crowds like a battleship followed by a tugboat. “What’s on your mind, Lindsey?”
She chose her variation of the truth carefully, though her story sounded threadbare to her. “I’m working on a book. I need background detail about the coffee business in El Salvador during the civil war. Dunlin Corporation has connections there. I’d like to talk with someone who traveled to coffee plantations and may have observed the conflict. I’ve interviewed an immigrant who was there in the spring of nineteen eighty-nine, working on an estate in Chalatenango department. I thought I’d start with you. You’re chief of operations and you’ve been with the company since—”
“Since Moses was an altar boy,” Max finished as they walked up Montgomery Street.
“Hal has visited Salvadoran growers,” Lindsey said. “But I don’t want to bother him. What about you? Have you been there?”
“Not me. I don’t travel much, never did.” Max gave her a sidelong glance that left her feeling as though he’d figured out there was more to her variation of the truth than book research. “El Salvador... Specifically ’eighty-nine?”
“Since my other source was there that year it would be good to get another viewpoint from the same period.”
“I certainly remember the civil war,” Max said. “The rebels targeted coffee growers, trying to shut down production and paralyze the economy. You should talk with Rod Llewellyn.”
“There’s a name from the past. He was one of the guards at the Berkeley house.”
Max nodded. “He’s now a senior vice president in Operations, based in Houston. I’m sure he visited El Salvador in ’eighty-nine.”
They crossed Market Street at Third, stopping on the corner in front of the Rand-McNally store, its window displays full of maps and guidebooks about Latin America. “What’s his phone number in Houston?” she asked.