Mapuche (39 page)

“Don't hurt us,” she implored him, “I beg you . . . ”

In his mother's arms, the child began to cry.

Rubén stuck the killer's Beretta in his belt, pushed the garden table against the flaking white wall, put one of the plastic chairs on top of it, and climbed up on the shaky edifice, praying that no one was waiting for him up there. The neighbor watched him, terrified, clutching her child as if he might fly away. Rubén grabbed a bit of smashed fencing and managed to hoist himself up to Prat's terrace. It was deserted, the sliding door wide open. He rushed toward the stairway, his finger curled on the trigger.

The kitchen and living room were empty. He ran to the bedroom, gun in hand, saw the canvas bag on the bed, the roses scattered on the floor. Ledzep shot out of his hiding place and took off toward the hall, his claws slipping on the floor. Rubén pointed the Beretta toward the adjacent bathroom, but it too was empty. He thought he heard tires squealing in the street, raced to the French doors in the living room and onto the little balcony, his heart beating wildly.

Too late: the kidnappers' vehicle had disappeared around the corner of Gurruchaga Street. By the time he reached his car, they would be far away.

It was several seconds before Rubén realized: slowly his face fell—Jana.

El Toro was grinding his teeth in the back of the plane's cabin. That little whore had almost blown his brains out: a few inches more to the left and he could have said goodbye to his bonus. In the meantime, the pain in his ear was intense and it was still bleeding despite the handkerchief he was using to stanch the flow. El Picador was teasing him as they sat side by side at the back of the cabin.

“Masturbation makes you deaf anyway!” he guffawed over the noise of the plane's motor.

El Toro shrugged, planning his revenge. In the seat in front of them, Etcheverry was feeling depressed: assigned to drive the van to the airfield, the head of the task force that had staked out the place in Colonia had just lost his best man. Puel, whom he had watched hitting a Slavic giant with chains for hours (the man was a force of nature whose bones refused to break, but Puel had beaten him to death almost without stopping to rest), whom Etcheverry had fished out of the river just a week earlier, while the others were setting fire to the house, Puel was dead. Worse yet, they'd had had to leave him there . . . Etcheverry leaned toward the pilot.

“How long before we get there?”

“Fifteen minutes,” Del Piro replied.

They were flying over the delta, an expanse of jungle cut by muddy streams that inspired nothing but disgust in him. Del Piro had had to rush back to Buenos Aires, putting the two brutes in the seaplane and leaving the task of guarding the prisoner to Puel's men, who were accompanying the boss. Parise, who was in charge of the operation, was sitting with his legs jammed up against the instrument panel, wearing a pair of extra-large Ray-Bans. He had just finished a call on his cell phone—the boss was complaining, as usual. Calderón was still at large, one of their men had been left behind, and they had been able to kidnap only the girl. Nobody was paying any attention to her, a simple “package” thrown in the back of the fuselage.

There was little turbulence on this clear, sunny day. Jana came to, feeling like a snake in formaldehyde; her limbs were hobbled, her brain functioned intermittently. There was the sound of a motor—was it an airplane? The Mapuche was lying on the floor, her muscles still aching from the electric shock, her mind hazy. She had been drugged. For sure. Her eyes turned toward the front of the cabin, but she could see nothing more than heads sticking up over the seat backs. Four of them, plus the pilot. Jana thought she recognized the fat man with the swine's face, a red handkerchief pressed against his ear, then felt herself fading as the plane bounced around. Her brain slipped back and sank, in much the same way as one forgets, without realizing it.

A black hole.

 

*

 

The house was on the south side of the island, lost in the jungle of the delta. The canal was fairly narrow at that point, and there was hardly any traffic. The taxi boats that roamed the arms of the river could not get through because of the trees that had fallen during storms, and the closest house was miles away. The island was infested with mosquitoes that attacked en masse as soon as the sun went down.

Del Piro had parked the seaplane on the opposite bank, along a dock built where a stretch of water that was broader and less full of branches made it possible to tie up. The plane was bobbing there after its early morning flight. The whole team had assembled on this island in the delta: Parise, the head of the Santa Barbara security police, El Toro and El Picador, his longtime henchmen, the ex-lieutenant Etcheverry, who had been in charge of the task force in Uruguay, Frei, who was the prisoner of his neck brace and moved with all the grace of a turret, and finally Gómez and Pina, who had staked out Calderón's office in vain.

The boss had arrived with them by boat the preceding evening: General Ardiles, wearing a red Lacoste polo shirt and Porsche glasses, escorted by a taciturn gorilla, Durán, and the always stylish Dr. Fillol—Jaime “Pentothal” Fillol, as the pilots had nicknamed him at the time. He was the one who had operated on his friend Ardiles in a Santa Barbara private clinic in 2005, and provided the medical certificates for the old general so that he could avoid going before the tribunal. Fillol owed the general part of his fortune—a clinic with state-of-the-art equipment, ready cash in foreign accounts, a younger wife. He didn't much like thinking about the past, but his name was also on the ESMA form dug up by the Campallo girl. Fillol had attended her mother in childbirth thirty-five years earlier, and pulled her sick brother out of her belly. A strange reunion. The doctor remembered especially the violet-colored head of the baby as it came out of the vagina, the umbilical cord that was strangling it, and what he had done to save it. His profession. The infant's heart had been damaged, suggesting that he wouldn't live long, but he had survived: he was there, before his eyes, thirty-five years later. Miguel Michellini. Yes, a strange reunion.

“What do you think, Doc?”

Fillol gulped on seeing the condition of the broken puppet lying on the table and put away his stethoscope.

“His heart is weak,” he said, “but he should be able to hang on a little longer.”

Leandro Ardiles was grumbling as he sat on a chair that did not relieve his discomfort. The action had partly failed because the detective was still on the loose.

“O.K.,” the general said to the bald man who was to lead the interrogation. “Let's not lose any time.”

Jana had awakened in a room with drawn curtains, her thoughts muddy, her ankles and wrists bound with plastic cable ties that were cutting into her skin. She was lying on the iron plate of a table, naked. She didn't know where she was or what had happened to Rubén. Woozy from the chemical vapors, it took her several seconds to realize that she was not alone: a face was across from her, almost unrecognizable under its mask of dried dung, that of Miguel. Or rather what remained of Paula, tied to the neighboring table. The transvestite's white dress had been half torn off and was stained with blood, but he was still breathing. Jana didn't have time to talk to him: a group of men had come into the room to examine Miguel without paying any attention to her.

Jana gulped, her back pressed against the iron plate. There were five of them around the poor fellow, an old man in a Lacoste shirt, his hair dull and his eyes steely, another who must be a doctor was rolling up his stethoscope, followed by a bald giant with pocked skin, a kind of syphilitic pimp, and the fat guy with the pig's face who had Tasered her in the bedroom. They soon turned to her, tied to the table next to Miguel.

El Toro passed in front of the spread-eagled body of the Indian woman and assessed her torso.

“Amazing tits,” he said ironically.

The asshole.

“Let's go,” Parise urged.

Some people could endure unimaginable physical pain: very few could watch others being tortured without flinching, especially if they were friends or relatives—usually women whose babies were put on their bellies and tortured talked as soon as the kids screamed.

El Picador set up the machine. The
picana
: two copper clamps connected to an electrical transformer that the torturers applied to the most sensitive parts of the body—the anus, the genitals, the gums, nipples, ears, armpits, nasal cavities. The procedure was not new: Lugones, a police chief who was also the son of the great Argentine poet, had already tested the machine in the 1930s. The French instructors returning from the Algerian War had brought it back into fashion.

Miguel was weeping quietly as El Picador put the clamps on his ears. Parise bent over Jana, who was drunk with fear.

“Listen to me, Indian. You are going to tell me everything you know, including your mother's name if you know it, without lying: we're in a hurry, and patience isn't my strong point,” he warned her with a grimace that didn't need to be threatening. “That means that the first time you give the wrong answer your homo pal will be transformed into an electrical generating plant. Understood?”

Jana could hardly breathe; she nodded, looking at her friend imploring her.

“Who told Calderón about this? The Campallo daughter?”

“I . . . I don't know.”

Parise clicked his tongue to El Picador.

“I don't know!” Jana cried. “I don't know, he was the one who came to find me!”

“Who else knows about it?”

“The . . . the Grandmothers.”

“Who else?”

“A cop . . . Anita something. A friend of Calderón's. She's helping him in his investigation. I don't know any more, he hasn't told me anything.”

“Who else?”

“Nobody!”

“Who else?”

“Nobody, God damn it! Nobody!”

At a sign from the boss, El Picador switched on the
picana
. Miguel stamped on the iron plate.

“Mama! Ma-ma!”

El Toro smiled—they all ended up calling for their mothers.

“Nobody,” Jana repeated, weeping, “nobody . . . stop it, stop it, shit!”

The prisoner writhed even more. Jana closed her eyes but her friend's screams were tearing her apart. Finally they turned off the electricity.

“O.K.,” Parise went on. “Now tell me how you found Montañez.”

Miguel was moaning like a puppy, she was going to go crazy.

“His name . . . his name was on the internment form,” Jana replied, looking away. “The form for the parents, the
desaparecidos
.”

Parise turned to General Ardiles, who had a ringside seat. The old man's emaciated face went ashen. He signaled to them to continue the interrogation.

“Did Calderón dig up the skeletons?”

“The skulls . . . ”

“To compare the DNA with María Campallo's?”

“Yes.”

Jana was panting, she had to have answers.

“Where did this internment form come from?”

“The ESMA.”

“I know that,” the bald man growled. “I'm asking who gave it to you?”

“The old woman,” Jana whispered. “The laundress. She'd kept a copy.”

Parise grimaced: the old witch . . . They had, however, searched her shop.

“Calderón,” he said, “is he the one who has the original?”

“No, just a copy.”

“You're lying, you
India de mierda
.”

“No! No!” Jana begged.

“Who has the original?”

“Díaz!” she recalled. “Franco Díaz!”

Parise turned again to his boss, who responded with a doubtful grimace—clearly the name was unknown to him.

“Who is this Díaz?” the head interrogator went on.

“Ossario's neighbor. In Colonia. He fled after the attack,” she said, her eyes full of tears. “He's a former member of the secret services. An Argentine. A retired officer who served in the Falklands War. I don't know him,” she added hastily, “I've never seen him.”

“And Calderón?”

“He hasn't either, he's looking for him.”

General Ardiles wrote Díaz's name in his notebook.

“Calderón was trying to compromise Campallo, but Cam-pallo is dead,” Parise continued. “Who are the next targets?”

“I . . . I don't know,” she answered, taken aback.

“Don't play games with me, you little whore: the obstetrician, the chaplain, the officer assigned to carry out the extraction, everybody's name is on the internment form!”

Jana stared at him, helpless.

“I don't know . . . ”

“You're lying.”

“No! No, damn it! You're going to kill us anyway!”

El Toro looked at the weakling on the neighboring table: it was true that he didn't look so good.

“Well?”

“The copy we got was in bad condition,” she finally said. “Names were missing, at least half the names! Miguel's mother tore the form into little bits; she . . . she ate the paper, her hair, that was her mania, she was sick, completely crazy. Calderón cut the pieces of the puzzle out of her stomach.”

There was a short silence.

“And you think I'm going to believe such bullshit?” Parise said, furious.

He made a sign to El Picador, who flipped the switch. Miguel let out a shrill scream of pain.

“Stop, I'm begging you, stop!”

“You're lying, you dirty little whore!” Parise shouted.

“No!”

“You're lying!”

Miguel was shrieking but Jana no longer heard him. She spat in the giant's face, her saliva landing on his eyelid.

He broke her nose with his fist.

“Take it easy!” Ardiles hissed behind him.

`Jana's head had bounced off the table. The pain burned her face. She felt warm blood running onto her neck, and the tears welling up blinded her. A hellish heat permeated the room, her naked body, her veins. Parise wiped off her saliva with his sleeve and sized up the spread-eagled Indian, her face bloody. He gave the boss a sign to indicate that the session was over.