june 1977
“Rise and shine, cow,” said Lentil Eyes, kicking the bed. “It’s time for your exercise. Doctor’s orders.”
Doctors in the prison, just as Flavia said. The junta had established a full institution inside these walls.
Lentil Eyes led Lorena to a room in the basement with a metal table in the center. He didn’t remove her blindfold.
When the junta discovered Lorena was pregnant, they started calling her names—Trotsky whore, cow—and regarded her with a brand of disgust she found preferable to the predatorial stares they cast over the bodies of other female prisoners. By the time the baby began sliding against the inside wall of her uterus, tiny lumps of movement traveling across Lorena’s belly, she knew in her soul that it was a girl. She thought incessantly of Flavia’s story. If she could just stay alive, her baby could be safe, too—with Esme—and Lorena could see Matías again, if only for a moment.
It’s all right, my girl. Lorena murmured a silent prayer to her baby. I’m here.
“Put your hand on the edge and walk around it fifty times. Go.”
Lorena did as she was told, walking around the table, dragging her fingers along its surface. All the while, she thought about what Flavia had told her. Maybe the baby would save her life.
“Keep walking.”
The concrete floor was gritty under the soles of her feet. She counted the laps. Twelve, thirteen. She sensed that Lentil Eyes sat nearby, watching as he always did when she “exercised,” his face surely hardened into the same disinterested expression she’d caught glimpses of from underneath her blindfold.
“Keep going,” he said, bored.
Thirty-eight laps. Forty-one. Forty-two. Forty-three.
As Lorena navigated the next lap around the table, a warm fluid wet her inner thighs. The slipperiness made its way down one of her legs, reaching the top of her right calf. Her heart started pounding. It was happening.
Forty-eight. Forty-nine.
A faint cramp took hold of her uterus, then subsided. The wetness grew.
Fifty.
“That’s enough,” said Lentil Eyes in a gruff voice. From the hall, another officer’s voice summoned him. Chair legs scraped against the concrete floor as he perked up.
“Stay here,” he said.
Outside the room, the men’s voices were deep and muffled. She smelled cigar smoke. When Lentil Eyes returned, he pulled off her blindfold. She startled, clearing her throat.
“It’s your lucky day, Rabbit House,” he said.
She despised this stagecraft, the way the junta infused power into a crust of bread or a pitying gesture, only to snatch it away again.
A young officer trailed in and took hold of Lorena by her bicep. When she looked directly at him, a clear display of insubordination, he hesitated. She could sense his youth, his intense focus—something big was on the line for him. He jerked her by the arm, irritated.
“Let’s go,” he said.
He brought her into another concrete room with two tables and a pile of dirty cushions on the floor.
“Wait here.” The heavy door slammed shut.
Lorena sat on the cushions and cradled her belly, wrists still cuffed. She contracted the muscles in her pelvic floor. What would they do to her?
There was a movement in her womb, and she took deep breaths, restoring what little strength she had to the places that needed it to keep her baby contained. Whatever they were about to do to her, they couldn’t take her baby away. She was prepared to fight to the death to make sure of that.
It seemed like hours passed before a surge of commotion erupted. Four men barged into the room with such urgency, Lorena had a flash of hope that something greater was underway. Was the building being attacked? No. Because there, among the uniforms, was a white doctor’s coat. Cold terror spread through her chest. She didn’t trust them with her body or her baby.
The junta forced her onto the table, removed her wrist cuffs and took off her clothes. She scanned their faces for some sign of humanity, but their eyes were distant, unreachable. A young officer fastened her wrists to the table with leather straps—she was face up now, completely exposed—as another tightened more leather around her ankles. She risked kicking them, but the leather wouldn’t give. She finally, silently, began to cry.
The three officers exited the room, leaving her alone with the doctor. Someone new—a woman—appeared beside her. A nurse.
Lorena tried to catch her eye, but the woman wouldn’t return her attention, focusing only on assisting the doctor as he examined Lorena, his fingers prodding, violating. When he was finished, he nodded to the nurse, who put her hands under Lorena’s back. She lifted Lorena’s right shoulder and hip, rolling her on her side, her right limbs pulled taut by the leather straps. As she pinned her down in this position, Lorena felt a cold smear on her back and the pinch of an injection there. Her whimpers were pleading; she was too terrified to resist, even to make the smallest move.
The nurse let her go and, in a rush of heat, Lorena’s legs and torso went tingly. She mustered her energy and tried to kick again. They couldn’t do this to her. She wouldn’t let them take her baby.
“All right, calm yourself.” The nurse held Lorena’s shins until her legs were numb, then pressed a musty-smelling cloth over her eyes.
A clink of metal was followed by a ragged, tugging sensation across Lorena’s lower abdomen, then a terrifying pressure on her belly—a sliding, an emptying. No, no. Her water had already broken. Why were they cutting her open? She pulled her elbows in to lift up, but the wrist cuffs were too tight. They cannot take my baby away. She was woozy now. From a dreamlike state, she felt something vital inside of her being manipulated, the slip of a bean from its pod, and then, from somewhere outside of her body, a shocking cry. There was more emptying, more cutting, and when the nurse removed her hand from the cloth over Lorena’s eyes, Lorena shook it off her face entirely. There, above her, was her baby, tiny, coated, still connected so intrinsically to her that Lorena had the sensation it was a part of her own body in the nurse’s arms, being wiped down with a towel, crying.
She pulled against the restraints to reach up for the baby, but they were too tight. The nurse flicked the rag back over Lorena’s eyes. The tugging at her pelvis continued, small and tight now—the doctor was stitching her up. The baby’s cry waned, moving away from her toward the other table. There were more metal clinks—the doctor rolling up his instruments, leaving—and an officer entered, unfastening Lorena’s restraints and removing the rag from her eyes. She swiveled her head to locate the nurse, who held the baby wrapped in a towel. When she handed Lorena the infant, it was as though the hand of God delivered her.
Lorena embraced her baby girl against her bare body, soaking in everything about her. The child’s little face was scrunched, still blooming, and she resembled Matías at birth, though much smaller. When she opened her newborn eyes, Lorena recognized her father, then Esme. Tears slipped down Lorena’s cheeks. We have to get out of here, she thought.
She bracketed her daughter firmly in the frame of her arms. The frame of her arms—she’d learned the phrase during a tango lesson she’d taken with her father once. The infant suckled feebly. In the distance—just beyond this tiny, precious being—blue-black stitches tracked a jagged incision between Lorena’s hip bones. Her pelvis was pink and sore, preternaturally bloated, but it didn’t matter. What else could matter now except keeping her baby close?
One officer beckoned to another in the hall, who carried in a new pile of clothes and tossed them to the nurse, leaving the two women alone in the room. The nurse placed the clothes over Lorena’s legs in a gesture that fell just short of compassion. They were quiet for an extended time—Lorena lying on the table, concentrating on her baby, the nurse standing near the door, on guard.
Lorena thought back to her labor with Matías, how charmed her life was then—maternity blouses, a kitchen egg timer to track her contractions. She missed José terribly. Not the injured, weakened José handcuffed upstairs, but the sweet-tasting academic in his button-down shirt who doted on his pregnant wife when she went into labor, bringing her glasses of fresh water.
Water. She was so thirsty now.
Through months of daily battles in prison, she’d grown ever more nostalgic for the civility of her old life, ever more remorseful of the way she’d dismissed José’s caution. She’d spent hours shaping piles of dust into little works of art on the floor with her fingernails, longing for art, music, refinement. José had been right. Claudio was reckless and so was she.
On the ceiling above her now, two large cracks in the cement intersected. Over the past six months, she’d thought of every possible way to escape—every concrete wall, loose bolt, and metal handle—but there was only one way out of this place: through the people who ran it. Lentil Eyes was a wall of bricks, the junta a guild of apathetic faces—but now she was alone with the nurse.
* * *
On the baby’s outer thigh was a dark splotch—a birthmark. Lorena ran her fingertip over the tiny skin and gathered her courage. When the nurse took a cushion from the floor and gave it to Lorena to prop her upper back, Lorena saw signs of an opening. If they tried to separate her from her baby again, someone had to know this child was hers.
“She’s got a birthmark here,” Lorena said, her voice groggy from lack of use. “On her right thigh. You see it?”
“Hush up,” snapped the nurse, but she didn’t call the guards.
When Lorena’s legs regained feeling, she accepted the nurse’s help descending from the table, a balled-up towel clutched against her incision. Her body was tender, raw. As the nurse helped her dress, Lorena studied the woman’s face again. Could she offer hope? A line of communication? It was impossible to tell. If they took her baby away, who else could ever prove she was Lorena’s?
Lorena curled up on the floor cushions, bruised, and stared at the baby as she nursed for some time. Without looking up, Lorena dared again to speak.
“My name is Lorena Ledesma. My mother is Esme Arias. Please, I beg you. Tell my mother I’m here. Tell her she has a granddaughter.”
“Be quiet,” the nurse hissed.
“My name is Lorena Ledesma,” Lorena whispered, still looking down at the baby. Then she said, “My baby’s name is Ana.”
The nurse pursed her lips disapprovingly, opened the door, and left.
Please, God.
When she returned, she brought two clean towels and a cup of water. She didn’t speak or look Lorena in the eye. When she left again, Lorena adjusted Ana’s makeshift blanket and re-dressed her own wound. For hours, she lay nursing the baby alone, drowsily watching her daughter, waiting for and dreading the next visit.
Through the room’s single high window, night fell. Lentil Eyes arrived with a large amount of bread and two whole oranges on a metal tray. No blindfold, no cuffs. He didn’t look at Lorena or the baby.
She ate shakily, and when she pulled Ana from her breast, it was a relief to see the yellowish colostrum in the baby’s tiny cat-mouth. Lorena’s lower body ached, but at least she could nourish her daughter.
In the morning, two officers slammed open the door, one wheeling a mop in a bucket of gray water. The nurse stood outside in the hall behind them.
“The maternity ward is closed,” he yelled. “Clean this place up.”
The nurse entered, crouching down, and tried to take the baby from Lorena, but Lorena shook her head fervently.
“I’ll hold her,” the nurse said. Then, more quietly, “I’ll hold Ana.”
Lorena looked up at the officer, who glared back. “Clean it up.”
She rose from the cushion with the nurse’s help, pressing the towel over the place where they’d cut her open. The nurse coaxed Ana from her arms, and the baby started wailing. Lorena shuffled over to the bucket, lifted the mop, which was heavier than she anticipated, and began pushing it across the cement floor with one hand while clutching the towel against her abdomen with the other. Blood and gray water smeared into puddles. The more insistent Ana’s cries became, the faster Lorena tried to clean. She dragged the mop around the cell, under the tables, where its yarn collected small snips of blue surgical thread and one veined, bloody mass—her placenta, she realized. When she couldn’t manage another stroke, she lifted the mop into its wringer and felt a muted pop along her incision. She buckled, retreating to the cushions. The nurse gave her the baby, who quieted immediately and latched on to Lorena’s breast. She pulled her legs in close to her body to ease the pain.
“You’re a shitty maid,” said the young officer, wheeling the mop away as his companion laughed.
Alone again in the room with Ana, Lorena held the towel tight to her abdomen, but before long, she had bled through it. Ana started to cry. She was so tiny—too tiny. Lorena massaged her breasts with her free hand, coaxing her milk, which had yet to come in. Her nipples were chapped and raw.
When the nurse returned, she poured a cold, stinging fluid over Lorena’s incision and taped a new swath of gauze over it.
“You’re going back upstairs soon,” she said. “You need to feed her so she stops crying.”
“My milk hasn’t come yet,” Lorena said. It was almost time. Why did they cut me open?
The nurse gave her a reproving look, then left.
It took a long while for the officers to get Lorena back upstairs on foot. When she finally arrived, José was nowhere to be seen. Lentil Eyes didn’t cuff or blindfold her. She lay on her side, coddling the baby and pressing against the gauze, which she’d bled through again. Ana’s tiny lips were dry, her cry a flat line of hunger.
“Shut that baby up,” grunted Lentil Eyes.
“She needs milk,” said Lorena, courageous enough without the blindfold to speak. Lentil Eyes glowered but didn’t immediately retaliate. When he returned with the nurse several minutes later, the woman reached for Ana. Lorena recoiled, recalling the night she’d handed Matías to Esme.
“I’ll bring her back,” the nurse assured her.
Lorena stared at the nurse, desperately trying to make an impossible assessment. Her breasts ached, and there was a troubling heat growing near her wound. When she wiped a matted lock from her forehead, the sudden coolness against her exposed skin caused her to shiver abruptly.
“I’m just going to feed her,” said the nurse. “That’s all. Then I’ll bring her back to you.”
Carefully, Lorena handed her baby to the nurse.
Ana fussed when the nurse took her away, her cries abating as they crossed the room and disappeared downstairs. Lorena lay on her side. The coldness surrounding her sharpened Ana’s absence. Before long, Lorena shook with chills, sobbing. What had she done? How could she have let them take her baby?
Time stood still. She was freezing. As her shoulders quaked, pain stabbed at the place where the doctor had cut her open. Bloody fluid had seeped through the gauze again. In time, she fell into a fitful state that never quite reached sleep. She woke up in a sweat when Lentil Eyes kicked her bed frame.
“Get up,” he said, setting a tray on the bed—a large helping of rice and bananas. He pulled a pen and notepad from his pocket. “You’re going to write a letter to your family. Your baby’s going back to them. You’re going to be transferred.”
Lorena blinked, taking the notepad. She studied Lentil Eyes through a cold lens of distrust. Was anything he said true? He handed her a pen. She hadn’t held one in over six months.
“What do I write?”
He shrugged. “Whatever they need to know. How much milk to give, that sort of thing.”
“They’ll give this letter to my mother?”
He nodded deeply. “We have all her information on file.” This was the longest conversation she’d ever had with him.
Lorena propped herself up on one elbow and rested the notepad on the mattress. She wrote: Dear Mamá, her name is Ana. As she formed the words on the page, an ugly pang of jealousy flared. If the junta killed her, it would be Esme, God willing, who would raise her babies. She needed Ana to be safe, but how would Esme raise her daughter when she’d always tried to suppress Lorena’s fervor? It should be Lorena who held her own babies, touched their soft skin, watched them grow, sang them songs. It should’ve been Lorena with Matías now, hearing his voice, putting him to bed, watching him smile. A mother should see her child looking up at the sky.
Lentil Eyes watched with anticipation and—she caught a flash of it then, just behind his eyes—amusement. She put the pen down. Even if the letter made it to Esme, there was nothing else she could say that would make a difference.
“Go on,” he urged.
She looked him in the face, a blatant encroachment, and noticed a scab on his cheek where he’d nicked himself shaving, maybe just this morning, in some finely tiled bathroom of some spacious home somewhere, out there in a world in which she was nothing more than a task that required handling.
She picked up the pen again and wrote: I’m still here. Love, Lorena. Then she pushed the notepad and pen to the edge of the mattress and rolled over.
Lentil Eyes picked up the note and, as punishment for her brevity, the full tray of food, taking both away with him when he left.
A long stretch of time passed.
“Are you all right?” The nurse had returned, holding Ana. Lorena reached for her baby—Ana was safe, her pink lips plump and hydrated—and immediately started to sob, almost as much for the miracle of the nurse’s fulfilled promise as for the reunion with her daughter. As she quietly cried, a tingling sensation ran down her neck and chest, coursing through her breasts, which began to throb. Her milk was letting down. Thank God. Ana latched on, nursing heartily, and Lorena took a breath of relief. Her baby could stay with her now. She wouldn’t cry. No one would take her away again.