buenos aires
december 1976
Matías drifted off in Esme’s lap on the narrow bench in the police station hallway. She swept a lock of damp hair across his forehead.
“Next,” an officer barked from behind the pass-through window.
Esme roused her grandson and hurried to the counter.
“Good day, officer.” She produced the wedding photo she’d taken from the broken frame in Lorena’s living room. Her hand was shaking slightly. “This is my daughter and son-in-law. They were arrested late last night. I’m trying to find out where they’re being held.”
The officer glanced at the photo. “Name?”
“María-Lorena Arias de Ledesma.” Esme pointed to her daughter’s face in the photo, the tip of her fingernail on Lorena’s bridal veil. “And her husband, José Ledesma. My son-in-law.”
The officer peered at her. “Your name, señora.”
“Oh.” Esme hesitated. She looked down at Matías, who rubbed his eyes. She shouldn’t be here. It was all wrong. “Esmeralda Arias,” she said, presenting her identification card.
The man jotted down her name. Maybe the junta would return to her house tonight and kidnap her too. Esme draped a protective arm around Matías’s shoulder as the officer ran his eyes over a page in an open binder.
“Ledesma,” he said. “They’re not here.” He slid the binder to the side, handed back the ID card, and looked past her. “Next?”
A man too young to be leaning on a cane rose from the bench and approached the window.
“Wait,” said Esme. “Please. I just need to know where they are. They were taken last night from their home. This is my daughter’s boy—he’s only two. Can you help me?”
The man’s forehead lifted. “Write down their names,” he said, irritated.
Trembling, she did as she was told. “Will you tell me where they are?”
“I’ve already told you what I know. They’re not here.”
“Where could they be, then?”
The cop shook his head. “I have no other knowledge as to the whereabouts of your family. I’m not sure why you’d think I’d be withholding that information.”
Esme’s mouth went dry. “No, not withholding, señor. Of course not. It’s just that it was the authorities—”
“You’re certain they were detained by officers in uniform?”
Esme nodded. “Military police.” She swallowed. “At least some of them. Well, one of them, at least.”
The man raised an eyebrow. “What was the officer’s name?”
Esme’s voice rose in pitch. “I don’t know.”
“Do you have his identification number?”
Her chest tightened. “No.”
“And you’re telling me this happened in the middle of the night?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Are you sure this is a police matter? Perhaps your daughter and son-in-law had other involvements.” He peeked over the counter at Matías. “It doesn’t seem responsible to me—especially with a young child—but I can’t speak to the choices of others these days, now, can I?”
Esme’s grip on her purse straps tightened. “They were taken,” she said, trying desperately to maintain her poise. Lorena and José had been wrongfully arrested, which meant that they would be accounted for, surely, in a jail somewhere. There were missing person flyers throughout the city, stories of people who had disappeared without a trace. Esme pushed them from her mind. It was the only way to ward off the terror expanding in her chest.
“Were there any other witnesses to this supposed arrest?” the officer asked.
Esme looked down at Matías, as if he could help. The commotion in the night was loud. Could a neighbor have overheard? There was a family next door, to the right of Lorena’s house. She’d seen them in church with their teenage daughter. But they gave disapproving looks when Lorena served dinner on the patio, especially when Claudio was there. Damn you, Claudio Valdez. Lorena was galvanized by the man; he wore his insurgency like a strong cologne. For all Esme knew, the neighbors had been the ones who reported José and Lorena to the authorities just for fraternizing with the likes of Claudio. Even if they’d heard the arrest, she knew the neighbors wouldn’t admit to it. She couldn’t blame them. It was far too risky.
“I was there myself,” said Esme, her voice growing desperate. “I witnessed it with my own eyes.”
The officer seemed energized now. “And yet you seem to have no useful information as to the parties involved. What were the charges?”
“I don’t know,” said Esme. She recalled the green Ford Falcon she’d seen drive off from Lorena’s house, its license plate covered. She never should have come here.
“Innocent people are not typically arrested,” the officer countered.
“They haven’t—” Esme’s breath quickened. “They’re good people, señor. This is just a mistake. If you could just tell me where they are—”
“Please be conscious of your tone and of what you are suggesting”—he glanced down at his notepad—“señora Esmeralda Arias,” he warned. “I’ve told you that your daughter and son-in-law are not here. They are not in custody with us. You are free to check with the other local stations, but for now you must please be on your way.”
Esme took a steadying breath. God, help me. If she lost her wits now, it would only take the slightest flick of a pen for her name to end up on the wrong list.
Matías picked at a piece of chipping paint from the concrete wall beneath the window. Esme brushed his little hand away. The man with the cane cleared his throat and shuffled closer to the window.
“Thank you for your help,” Esme hissed, turning away with her chin in the air.
* * *
There were two other police stations within walking distance, but neither had a record of the arrest either. Again, Esme was asked to provide her name and address; again, she managed to uphold her manners. Before long, Matías was exhausted and crying for his mother. Esme carried him back to his pillaged home, fed him lunch, and put him down for a nap.
Once Matías was asleep, Esme paced the house, wringing her hands. Going to the police stations had made her feel like a criminal. She was more afraid than ever. She recalled the days when Lorena was a toddler, when Gustavo was still working and Esme had taken care of her friends’ children, her home filled with the sounds of little ones. Lorena had been a leader even then, her clear voice rising above the other children’s. Esme never would have admitted it to Gustavo, let alone Lorena, but she was relieved when the military took over. She had been as tired as everyone else of the civil unrest and guerrilla attacks. Someone had to take control. But it was never supposed to be like this.
Esme lifted the tapestry from the living room floor now, a sob rising in her throat. She choked it back down. She couldn’t let this overcome her. She had to clean up and go back out quickly. She had to be smart and find out where they’d taken Lorena. There was no time to waste. Matías needed his mother.
* * *
When he awoke, Esme took him to the bus stop, and they rode to three more police stations. Every officer she spoke to had no record of the arrest, but Esme was made to write her name and address in a register regardless. Matías squirmed and whimpered on the bus ride home. Esme kissed the top of his head, breathing in the lingering scent of Lorena. The lump in her throat hardened. She wanted to throw her head back and scream, pound her fists into the seatback, but a tall officer presided over the silent passengers. Matías settled to sleep in Esme’s lap just as the bus door screeched open at Alvarez Thomas Street.
Evening fell. The cat mewed in the kitchen, eager to be fed. Esme gave Matías a bath, diapered him for the night, and sang him to sleep.
“Mamá,” he said, just before his eyes finally closed. Esme’s own eyes welled with tears.
When all was quiet, she sat alone on the bed Lorena shared with José.
Perhaps this was Gustavo’s fault. Esme recalled her beautiful, bold adolescent daughter when she was first brimming with her father’s ideals, back when their potency was still brewing, before Gustavo passed away and acrimony came to a boil within Lorena. Back when Lorena was just an idealistic kid—that’s what they all started out as, these guerrillas and revolutionaries—when Lorena had first met José and the young Claudio Valdez. Claudio was every bit Lorena’s equal in his intellect, his outspokenness, his radicalism and passion for social justice. Esme had done all she could to steer Lorena toward José, a boy who didn’t foolishly take up fights, a boy who calmed and grounded Lorena the way Esme had grounded Gustavo.
Esme considered this now. Lorena had looked so unhappy at dinner. José was quick to answer on her behalf. We’re not involved. She couldn’t imagine José doing anything to risk bringing the junta into their home, but perhaps Esme had missed signs. Perhaps Lorena knew they were being targeted and Esme had missed her daughter’s cry for help.
Her tears spilled over now. She longed for a friend—but who could she call at this hour? What friend would risk having their name added to a list just to console her? No one in their right mind would believe that Lorena wasn’t to blame for her own arrest. Subversion was a contagion these days. All of Gustavo’s friends who could have helped were unreachable now, underground or in exile. Esme collapsed to her knees by the bedside, the tile floor hard and cold against her shins. She covered her face with her hands and prayed through her sobs.
“Please, God,” she wept aloud. “Protect Lorena tonight, wherever she is. Keep her calm. Keep her safe. Gustavo, my love, if you can hear me, your daughter needs you now. Please watch over her. Please help bring her back to me.”
“’Buela,” a small voice called from behind her.
Matías, who had escaped from his crib, stood in the bedroom doorway.
“Oh, sweet boy.” Esme wiped the tears from her eyes and picked him up. “I’m sorry. You startled me.”
“Mamá,” he said.
“They’ll be home soon, little one. They’ll be home in no time.” She carried him back to bed.
* * *
Esme stayed at Lorena’s house in case Lorena or José returned, and because it was familiar to Matías. On the second day, she went to four more police stations, none of which had arrest records for anyone named Ledesma. Matías developed a cough from being dragged around the city. They needed groceries. The living room floor was still littered with pillow feathers. Esme had to stay strong, vigilant, prepared.
Three days passed. On Sunday, Esme took Matías to church, where Lorena’s neighbors eyed them warily. After the services, Esme approached the priest she’d known for years, a man of whom she never asked anything other than forgiveness at confession.
“Padre,” she said. “I was wondering if I might ask for your guidance. It’s a personal matter.”
They sat in an empty pew as Esme explained, through sheepish tears, about the arrest and the fact that Lorena had not turned up in any of the local jails.
The priest took her hand and bowed his head. He was silent for a long time.
“I’m sorry you’re facing this, my child,” he said finally.
Esme dabbed her nose with an embroidered handkerchief. “Perhaps you might be willing to help me with a letter to the authorities.” She dried her eyes. “My Lorena was baptized in this parish, you know. Perhaps if it came from the Church . . . ”
The priest lifted his eyes, though not his head. “I remember your daughter.”
Esme leaned in as the priest’s brow furrowed.
“I haven’t seen her at mass in years,” he said.
Esme removed her hand from his and blew her nose.
“We don’t always understand the Lord’s intention for us,” he went on, “but our heavenly Father always has a greater plan. Many of us have been pushed to the edge of our faith in these difficult times, but we must always trust in the Will of God, and in the leaders of our country.”
Esme recoiled. “My daughter is a good woman, Father.”
The priest closed his eyes patiently for a moment, as though Esme was missing the point.
“She was taken from her home.” Esme’s voice rose to a loud whisper. “Taken away from her son. And no one will give me any answers.”
The priest glanced around with alarm as though Esme had cried out in blasphemy. Her handkerchief was damp with tears and mucus now. Matías shifted restlessly in the pew.
“I don’t have answers,” said the priest softly. “But I will pray for you.”
Esme glanced up at the altar, at Christ on the crucifix with his punctured ribs, Pontius Pilate’s INRI inscription. What kind of test of faith was this? She knew God. This was not God’s plan for Lorena. Esme took Matías’s hand and filled the church with the echo of her retreating footsteps as they walked away.
The deacon, a stout man with whom Esme always exchanged congenialities, was unlocking the offertory box near the entrance.
“Señora,” he whispered. “If your children really were arrested, they have to be brought forth for charges. Go to the Ministry and ask where they are.”
Esme gave him a watery smile, his brave kindness flooding her with warmth.
* * *
The next day, Esme knocked on the neighbor’s door. The teenage girl answered. She looked younger than Esme anticipated, with a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
“Would you like to babysit?” Esme inquired politely. “Earn a little extra money? Matías is no trouble at all. Just a few hours while I run some errands.”
“Where are his parents?” asked the girl. She was smarter than Esme had hoped.
“Not home right now,” Esme said with a quick smile, reaching for her purse. She had a small savings from Gustavo’s monthly pension checks. “How’s twelve hundred pesos?”
* * *
Once the freckled neighbor girl was comfortably situated in the house with Matías, Esme went straight to the Ministry of the Interior. Armed officers monitored the crowded lines inside the building. Esme held her head high and spoke to no one, eavesdropping on the muted whispers of others waiting in line. She was not the only one with missing loved ones.
By noon, the line had scarcely advanced.
“Ministry is closing for lunch,” said one of the guards, ushering them out of the building and locking the doors. “Come back at two if you still require assistance.”
Esme felt short of breath. As she walked past the cathedral to the Plaza de Mayo, a sturdy woman about her age approached and tapped her on the arm.
“Excuse me, señora,” the woman said in a hushed voice. “I noticed you coming out of the ministry. Did you have a daughter who went to the national school? Pretty girl, with long dark hair—she was in the student government?”
Esme stared at the unfamiliar woman, overcome with hope. “Yes!” she breathed. “My daughter, Lorena.”
“I thought I recognized you. I remember when your husband passed—such a tragic loss. My condolences.”
“Did you know Lorena? Do you know where she is now?”
She placed both hands on Esme’s forearm as if to settle her. “No, I don’t. My name is Alba Ramos. I’m looking for my son, Ernesto. He was a friend of Lorena’s once, I believe. They were in the student union together.”
Esme thought she recalled the name, but she couldn’t be certain. Lorena was social. She had so many friends at school.
The woman’s eyes were sad but sincere. “My Ernesto was arrested at the bus stop near the Obelisco Norte on November twelfth.” She quickly showed Esme a wallet-sized photo of a young man Esme didn’t recognize. “We haven’t heard a word since.”
Esme apologized reflexively, but Alba seemed to seek no pity.
“Has Lorena gone missing?” asked Alba.
Esme let out a wavering sigh. “They took her in the middle of the night,” she blurted. “Along with my son-in-law, José. Lorena’s son is only two years old. I’m watching him now until they—”
“Shh,” Alba hushed. “Let’s keep walking. If we stand around talking like this, they’ll arrest us for public gathering.”
Esme’s muscles tensed. Walking with Alba seemed risky. While it was a relief to talk aloud to someone about Lorena, Esme didn’t want to be aligned with this woman and her plight. Even if Alba’s son was as innocent as Lorena, which Esme wasn’t certain he was, he’d been missing for over a month. Esme, on the other hand, would find Lorena any day now.
“My husband and I filed a writ of habeas corpus, but we’re still waiting to hear back,” Alba went on. “The police won’t tell us a thing, of course. But if you file a writ for a judge to review, the judge can make demands of the authorities to produce the person who was arrested.”
“How did you file the writ?” asked Esme. “That’s what I came here to do. I need to know where they’re keeping Lorena and José. They have to tell me that, don’t they?”
“You’ll need a lawyer to help you file it,” said Alba, digging in her purse. “There’s no sense in waiting around at the Ministry until you have one. Here.” She handed Esme a business card. “This is the one we’re using. His name is Marcos Suarez. He’s filed writs for the families of other missing people. He knows what to do.”
“Thank you very much.”
“Good luck to you, señora. God bless you,” said Alba, though she looked crestfallen. “May God protect your daughter and son-in-law. I hope you find them soon.”
* * *
By the time a full week had passed, Esme was crawling in her skin. She put up a small Christmas tree at Lorena’s house and stared at it for a long time. She wrapped a few gifts for Matías—a Zorro doll, a plush bear—and stashed them in Lorena’s bedroom closet. Seeing her daughter’s clothes hanging there filled her with grief, then rage. It was torture: the uncertainty, the not knowing, the waiting up each night.
The lawyer, Suarez, didn’t return her calls. She left messages with his secretary and those of two other attorneys—the ones with the biggest ads in the phone book—every morning. Esme constantly felt torn between the desire to go out and look for Lorena and the fear that she wouldn’t be home if Lorena returned.
Eleven days after the arrest, government offices began shutting down for the holiday, and Esme had established a daily routine of calling the attorney’s office and leaving messages. She called the babysitter, who could only stay for an hour, and returned to the Ministry of the Interior on its last day open. She had to appease the agonizing sense of impotence that arose from doing nothing else. Perhaps someone there could refer her to a lawyer who would at least return her calls.
At the Ministry, she saw Alba again. An officer was monitoring the line to keep order, so Esme just smiled at Alba and said nothing. Minutes after their eyes met, Alba began to cough loudly.
“Such a cold!” complained Alba once she’d gained composure. She rummaged through her purse, sniffling now. “You don’t happen to have a tissue, do you?” she asked Esme. “Or a cough drop?”
Esme unzipped her pocketbook to check as Alba moved closer to her. In an instant, Alba reached over and pushed a small piece of paper into Esme’s purse.
“Oh, here, look,” said Alba, tugging a cloth from her own purse and dabbing her nose. “I’ve found one. Never mind. Thank you anyway.”
Both women glanced at the stone-faced officer without making eye contact. When the ministry finally shut down before the full line had advanced, Esme rushed home and dismissed the babysitter. She opened the folded-up paper Alba had given her. It listed the name and address of a prominent café. Please come for tea at four o’clock on the day after Christmas. There are other mothers.
Esme folded the note back up hastily and stashed it in a drawer in Lorena’s kitchen, repelled by its very presence. What was Alba thinking? Esme wanted no part of other women’s troubles. She and Alba had nothing in common other than the fact that they were mothers whose children had gone missing. It was hardly enough of an alliance to put herself—or Matías—in danger. What would the junta do with a group of mothers conspiring to track down their arrested children when every bus-stop advertisement and television commercial explicitly prohibited organizing under penalty of law?
For five days, Esme’s thoughts circled through the possibilities of Alba’s note. Other mothers. It would likely only mean meeting a few women at a café, after all. It wasn’t as though they were forming an underground militia. But perhaps Alba’s son, Ernesto, had been a guerrilla or a criminal. Esme didn’t want to know. The less she knew, the safer she would be. Just meeting a friend for tea. That’s what she could say if the junta questioned her on the street. If the mothers talked quietly, perhaps no one would even notice them. She practiced it in the mirror above Lorena’s dresser, pretending to be bored. Just meeting a friend for tea.
* * *
Christmas marked the sixteenth day without Lorena. Esme helped Matías unwrap the gifts. He sat on the floor and knocked Zorro’s head against a block, looking up at her with eyes that were too wise for his age.
“Mamá,” he said.
Esme wanted to scream. Instead, she picked up the discarded wrapping paper, cut up a piece of fruit for Matías, and wiped down the kitchen table. She sat down and said her rosary, dabbing at her tears with a threadbare pocket square. She glanced at the drawer that contained Alba’s note.
All the government ministries would be closed until January. None of the lawyers’ offices had responded to her calls. If there was even the slightest chance that any of the other mothers knew how to access information that could be useful—where Lorena was being kept, under what conditions, whether, God forbid, she was still alive—Esme had to find out. She needed answers.
* * *
On the day after Christmas, Esme dug the note from the drawer and called the babysitter again.
“I won’t be very long,” she told the girl.
As Esme crossed Avenida del Libertador, wind lifted bits of trash from the street around her. The plaza opened up to the yellow sky of late afternoon, where feathery palms rustled against stucco bell towers and spired cupolas.
“Where are you headed?” one of the officers asked Esme.
“Just there.” She motioned toward the bistro at the edge of the plaza. “I’m meeting a friend for tea.”
They checked her identification routinely, and she entered the café. Alba was sitting at a far table with one other woman Esme didn’t recognize, who wore tinted glasses and a pretty floral blouse.
“This is Reina,” Alba said casually, as though Esme were an old friend.
“Hello,” said Esme, taking the third seat at the table. Alba’s small talk with the waiter seemed exaggerated, overly polite. Up close, Reina looked to have been recently crying. Esme resisted the urge to leave.
“There are several of us,” Alba whispered to Esme once the server was gone. “But I’ve kept this to a small affair, to give you a quick update. Reina’s son, Paulo, was taken by the junta three months ago,” Alba poured tea into Esme’s cup and went on before Esme could ask questions or offer condolences. “Marcos Suarez helped her file a writ of habeas corpus.”
Reina dropped her head. “It was rejected,” she sniffed.
“Why?” gasped Esme.
Alba glared at her, a warning to keep her voice down, and coaxed Reina subtly toward composure, glancing around.
“The judge who reviewed Reina’s filing wasn’t willing to make demands of the junta,” Alba’s voice was eerily pleasant as she moved sugar cubes toward Esme’s tea with a tiny silver spoon. “Sugar?”
Esme nodded dumbly. A tear streamed from below Reina’s glasses, but she caught it swiftly with the corner of her scarf and flashed a weak smile at the passing busboy.
“No judge in their right mind is going to ask this military to produce missing people,” said Reina. “It would put their family at risk.”
Alba’s expression remained stiffly cheerful as she lifted her teacup.
“But there are so many judges,” Esme whispered. “You can try again. Surely there has to be a braver judge. We need to know where they’re keeping our children.”
Reina and Alba exchanged a doubtful look.
“Reina hasn’t heard from Suarez in weeks,” Alba said through her teeth.
“I’m not surprised,” said Esme, her tone more accusatory than she’d intended. “I haven’t heard from him either. He doesn’t return calls. It’s unprofessional.”
“You don’t understand,” said Alba. “Suarez was arrested by the junta two weeks ago.”
“The lawyer?” Esme’s skin warmed. The junta targeted guerrillas, young radicals, Montoneros, members of the Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo—the ERP—but the prospect of a lawyer being kidnapped intensified her terror. She tried desperately to mimic Alba, to steady her shaking hand to sip her tea.
Alba nodded slowly. “He’s missing.”
Reina dabbed at the corner of one eye beneath her glasses, then quietly described the incident as it had been relayed to her. It happened outside the ministry, with Suarez being forcefully ushered into the back of a Ford Falcon by the junta in broad daylight.
Esme’s chest constricted. They might very well take her, too, especially if she kept this up with Alba. What would happen to Matías then?
“So, I can’t file the writ.” Esme whispered the words as she realized them.
“I’m sorry to tell you this,” said Reina. “But no lawyer is going to help you. It’s too risky. And even if they did, there wouldn’t be much hope.”
Esme hated Reina for saying what she knew was true.
“I can pay.” Esme’s voice sounded desperate to her own ears. “I have a little money saved up.”
“Pshh.” Reina shook her head. “How much do you think you would have to pay someone to take the risk of being kidnapped?”
“Quiet,” said Alba. They sat in silence as the server refilled the water glasses.
“You can certainly try to find a lawyer to file, Esme,” Alba said softly once the waiter had gone. “And maybe another judge would handle it differently. We each have to do what we think is best.”
“No lawyer is going to help you,” Reina repeated flatly.
“There’s another woman I met,” said Alba. “Her brother went missing. She used to work in a legal office, and she has a typewriter. She’s going to type up a writ and try to file it on her own without help from a lawyer. Maybe she can help you too.”
Esme glanced through the plate glass window at the junta on the street. These women were grasping at straws, but Esme didn’t have a better option. Perhaps she wasn’t so different from Alba after all.
“There must be a brave judge.”
Reina let out a dubious sigh, trilling her lips.
Esme dropped her gaze to the napkin in her lap. “I asked my priest for help.” When she looked up, Alba and Reina had locked eyes.
Alba leaned in. “I know a mother who was working with a group of nuns in a parish in the suburbs. The nuns were going to help petition on her behalf.”
Esme lifted a hand to her mouth, then quickly dropped it. “And?”
“A group of their clergy members got into a car accident last month, including two of the nuns,” said Alba. “They didn’t survive.”
Esme drew in a small breath.
“No one from the church is helping us either,” said Reina. “It’s far too risky.”
“Well, we can’t just do nothing,” said Esme.
The server arrived to clear the table and all three women smiled politely. Alba perked up falsely, gestured for the bill.
“You were telling us about your holiday, Esme,” said Alba loudly.
Outside, the junta loomed, their shadows darkening the tablecloth.