buenos aires
august 2005
The taxi’s engine idled in front of Marcela’s apartment. As they stood together on the sidewalk, Marcela plucked a butterscotch candy from her coat pocket and put it in Rachel’s hand.
Rachel laughed. “You’re an old lady.”
“I aspire to be,” said Marcela. “Good luck, girl. It’s still just the beginning for you.” She gave Rachel a quick hug and disappeared through her front door.
Rachel sat close to Mat in the backseat and clutched the hard candy in her fist until the taxi reached the Abuelas’ office. She dashed up the stairwell ahead of him, taking two steps at a time to the fourth floor. When she pushed open the heavy office door, a tingling rush of blood crept across her chest.
Esme approached her first, eclipsing her view.
“Are you all right, dear?” Esme asked.
Rachel nodded into Esme’s embrace, her cinnamon scent already familiar.
Mari appeared behind Esme, a worried look on her face. She stepped back, opening Rachel’s view to the large parlor, where a familiar figure perched on the edge of a high-backed upholstered chair. Rachel drew in a sharp breath.
“Mom?”
Her mother stood up with an apologetic smile. “You look disappointed.”
“No, I’m not. I’m just—” Rachel hesitated, the queasiness in her stomach returning. Her anger, which had been bitter and pungent moments earlier, took on a more complex flavor now. She glanced back at Mari and Esme, then turned to Vivian again, suddenly eager for the comfort and familiarity of her embrace. “What are you doing here?”
“I needed to see you—to bring you something.” In her mother’s hand was a manila envelope and the poetry book Rachel had left on the kitchen table in Virginia. She reached out her arms hopefully. “I couldn’t let you be here alone, honey.”
Rachel’s head was spinning. Esme touched her back, prompting her attention toward the conference table in an adjoining room, where a small old man sat waiting.
“Let’s all sit down and talk, shall we?” said Esme in Spanish. She positioned herself between Rachel and her mother like a deeply rooted tree. Mari interjected to translate for Vivian.
“Please, come sit,” Esme said again. “We need to have a discussion with Tomás. It’s important. Matías, would you bring out those facturas from the kitchen, please? And let’s put on some tea.” Esme motioned to where the man was seated with a folio and a laptop. “Do you like tea?”
Vivian nodded as they all moved toward the table. Mat brought out the platter of pastries. Mari picked up a green paperback book from a stack at the center—the Abuelas’ published chronicles of all registered disappeared children—and flipped through its pages idly. Black-and-white square photos of disappeared parents appeared next to empty gray boxes. Baby due to have been born April 1977, a caption read. On the opposite page: Baby due to have been born in July 1978. Hundreds of empty gray boxes.
As Rachel scooted in her chair, heaviness descended. She longed for the levity of Marcela’s presence. Esme’s tone was formal as she introduced Rachel to the man at the table.
“Tomás is a dear friend,” said Esme. “Who also happens to be a very capable attorney.”
“Pleasure,” said Tomás. He raised his eyebrows and smiled, the papery skin of his forehead wrinkling like ripples of sand at the bottom of a riverbed. He nodded politely toward Vivian, who he seemed to have already met, as she lowered herself apprehensively into a chair.
Tomás looked at Rachel now with all the care and finality of a parent explaining to a child that everyone is going to die someday.
“Miss Sprague,” he said. “As I mentioned over the phone, the results from the national genetic data bank came back. May I share them with you now, in present company?”
Rachel glanced anxiously at Mat. “Yes?”
“We’ve confirmed your identity as the daughter of Lorena Ledesma. You’ve been registered as an official child of a desaparecida. Lorena was abducted in 1976, as you know, and has been missing ever since. We believe her to be deceased.”
Rachel spoke quietly. “But you don’t know for sure.”
“We don’t have proof,” said Esme. “But your mother is gone, my love.”
Mat cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry,” said Esme, her eyes glassy. “But it’s the truth. I’ve been coming to grips with that for nearly thirty years. I know I’ll see my Lorena again someday, but it won’t be in this world. Your mother is gone from this earth, my dear. I can’t prove it to you, but I won’t let them do to you what they did to me all those years. Lorena is gone. You mustn’t keep that door open.”
Rachel turned to Mari, who reached over and touched her hand softly. Tomás deferred to Esme, who nodded for him to continue.
“We also tested your DNA against a sample from José Ledesma’s body.”
Rachel pivoted to face Mat, who looked prepared to wince. His face was backdropped by a wall gallery of black-and-white photos of the desaparecidos.
“The result came back negative. We’ve confirmed that José Ledesma is not your biological relation.”
Mari reached over and took Mat’s hand now. He closed his eyes for a moment, then glanced away.
Tomás looked at Vivian, who was still holding the envelope and book. His speech pattern was calm, as though he were diffusing a bomb with every fragile, potentially fatal word.
“Back in April, a woman from Rosario contacted our offices with some information about her late friend, Graciela Ruiz. She agreed to do an interview with Dr. Rey.” He passed a transcript across the table to Rachel. “According to her testimony, Graciela was a domestic worker at the home of Helena Silva, cousin of commanding officer Ricardo Prieta, with whom we believe your adoptive father conspired. This woman’s testimony alleges that, with the assistance of Helena Silva, Jonathan Sprague hired Graciela Ruiz to help him travel to the US with a newborn infant adopted through the military.”
The envelope in Vivian’s lap crinkled as she tightened her grip on it. Rachel closed her eyes. A massive weight descended on her chest. Somewhere far away, Mari’s hand touched her forearm.
“There are flight manifests that support this woman’s story,” said Tomás. “Your adoptive father was on a PanAm flight from Buenos Aires to Miami with Graciela Ruiz in July of 1977. These are facts, and they were enough to lead us to you. But our witness’s story was hearsay, circumstantial at best. We didn’t have any proof of what your adoptive father had done until”—he looked meaningfully at Vivian—“Ms. Sprague brought us her own testimony and the papers she’s holding in her hands now.”
Rachel’s breath felt labored. She glanced over at the envelope and poetry book Vivian placed on the table, then up at Vivian. Vivian clasped her elbows, her thin cardigan sweater pilling. When Rachel opened the poetry book now, she saw Helena Silva’s stationery. Her mother had been trying to show her this. From the envelope, Rachel tugged a narrow ream of collated papers covered in Jonathan’s handwriting. Tomás nodded toward the documents.
“We now know that you were put up for adoption by the military government through an agency working in partnership with the Catholic Church.”
Rachel’s eyes returned to the adoption papers and shifted wildly across them. NN. She turned to Vivian. “Did you know about this?”
A pained expression crossed Vivian’s face, and her eyes spilled over. Esme passed her a box of tissues, letting her hand linger tenderly.
“I wouldn’t have been able to keep it from you if I’d known,” she said.
“It was a proxy adoption,” said Tomás, “which means Mrs. Sprague wasn’t present or directly involved at the time. There was a representative from the adoption agency who was supposed to manage the administrative coordination with the US, but your adoptive father intervened.”
Rachel squinted. “Why would he do that?”
“We believe he staged your abandonment in the United States,” said Tomás.
Rachel looked to Vivian, desperate to make any part of it untrue. “But why?”
“We wanted a baby,” said Vivian. “And your father wanted a certain kind of life for you.” She wiped her eyes. “He was trying to protect you.”
“He knew your parents were desaparecidos,” said Mari.
A sudden gust passed through Rachel’s chest. “No,” she said. It wasn’t a sufficient explanation. Her father had colonized her identity.
“Rach.” Vivian touched the tip of her nose with a tissue. “Look at the life you’ve had. If it hadn’t been for him, who knows what would have happened to you?”
Esme lifted her hand from the tissue box slowly, poised as steel.
“She could’ve been with us,” said Mat.
Tomás cleared his throat and turned to Rachel. “Ms. Sprague, we should talk more about the DNA results. We did, in fact, confirm a match for your biological father.”
The chant from the escrache still rang in Rachel’s head: Que se vayan todos . . .
Mat shifted in his chair. Vivian looked desperately at Tomás. He slipped on his glasses and lifted a page on his legal pad.
“Your father was a registered Montonero imprisoned during the dictatorship. His name is Claudio Valdez.”
Vivian let out a soft, abrupt sob.
“He went into exile for a time after his release,” said Tomás, “but he lives in La Plata now, not far from here.”
Rachel opened her mouth. Her heart rate caught up with her racing mind. Her biological father was alive. All this time. The air in her lungs was displaced by some invisible weight on her chest. She had the urge to stand up and run—to escape, to find him. Tears pricked her eyes.
“I don’t understand,” said Mat.
Esme looked sad. “I asked Claudio to provide a DNA sample,” she said.
“We’ve invited Mr. Valdez to the office to complete the official case register,” said Tomás. “Although you are under no obligation to see him.”
Mat stood up and reached for his coat. “I can’t be here right now.”
Mari moved to follow him, but Esme touched her arm. “Let him go.”
Rachel’s eyes followed. She wanted to leave too.
Esme turned to her. “Are you all right, child?”
She nodded blankly, a lie. The lift in her stomach was a rising sob the size of a tidal wave, and she wasn’t sure it could pass through her without causing permanent damage. She lifted a hand to her clammy forehead, compelled to move physically away from this situation, but her equilibrium was precarious, as though the slightest shift in her weight might tip the entire earth in the wrong direction.
Vivian’s face crumpled again. “I know I played my part in what happened. That’s the reason I’m here, Rachel. I don’t even know how to begin to ask for your forgiveness, honey. I know what your father did was wrong, but—I don’t know how to say this—to me, it was worth it. Having you as my daughter was so much more than I ever hoped for or deserved.” Her voice broke. “I couldn’t imagine what my life would have been like without you.”
The words floated at the edge of Rachel’s consciousness, obstructed by more consuming thoughts—of Claudio, of Mat, of how she would take her next breath or manage to go anywhere else but inside this room, which was forever stained by what she’d learned here: that every time her dad had made her doubt her own instincts, it was only a mask for his lie; that her own biological father had been walking this earth all these years. Rachel didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to comfort Vivian right now.
There was a long pause.
Vivian turned to Tomás. “Will Jon be prosecuted?”
“Do you understand the implications of what you’re asking, señora?”
“Please,” said Esme softly. “Now is not the time to discuss that.”
“What’s going to happen to my dad?” Rachel asked.
Tomás looked warily at Esme, then Mari. “Well, there are Argentine laws that prohibit abducting a minor, and section 142—illegal deprivation of freedom—but these are Argentine laws. Even if we could prove he broke them, which isn’t a given, he would have to be in the country to be charged.”
“And there was no forgery of documents on his part, technically speaking,” said Mari. The words poured forth like water.
“If any money changed hands with the junta,” said Tomás, “the baby could be considered an ‘article of export,’ but that would be very difficult to prove. And even if those charges stuck, the sentencing is minimal. Sometimes just a small fine.”
“Child abduction is a felony in Virginia,” said Mari. “And so is kidnapping, but the adoption in the US was legal.”
“Perfectly legal,” said Vivian.
“Child abandonment would be difficult to uphold,” said Tomás.
Rachel could see her own hands resting on the table in front of her, but she was no longer certain she still existed in the room. The faces of Mari, Tomás, and Vivian seemed to be floating, looking to her as though seeking permission for something.
“Did he commit a crime or not?” asked Rachel.
Esme turned to Rachel and took her hands. They were trembling.
“There are the international treaties,” Esme said. “We rely on these in cases where other laws have failed us.” She looked at Tomás, who began reading from his notepad.
“The UN Convention on the Rights of a Child, Articles 7 and 8, requires ‘state parties to respect the right of the child to preserve her identity, including nationality, name, and family relations without unlawful interference. The child must be registered immediately after birth and have the right to a name and to acquire a nationality and, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by her parents.’ And Article 11 requires that ‘state parties must take measures to combat the illicit transfer and non-return of children abroad.’ Not all of these have been ratified by every country, unfortunately, but it’s enough to bring charges against him under international law.”
Rachel stood up. “I need some air.”
“We won’t do anything you don’t want us to,” said Mari.
“I need to find Mat,” said Rachel.
“Wait,” said Esme.
But Rachel hurried past her grandmother, through the door and down the first two flights of stairs without feeling her feet touch the floor. On the landing, she nearly crashed into Patricia, who was on her way up to the office carrying a box of printer paper.
“Ana?” Patricia said.
Through the stairwell window, sunlight bounced off Patricia’s tarnished silver earrings, little butterflies. Rachel forced a quick smile, then descended faster, fearing Patricia would chase after her—one disappeared child after another.
She picked up her pace down the last flight, rushed through the door to the street, and banged her shoulder against a man coming in.
“Lo siento,” she mumbled, but the man glared hard at her, sending a scattered tingle across the back of her neck like the one she’d felt when she first saw Matías on the street in New York. She kept going without looking back, gripping the butterscotch candy in her pocket. How she wished Marcela was there. The tears that spilled from her eyes turned icy on her cheeks in the wind.
Through the cold air, she quickened her steps to escape the image of the adoption papers, the thought of international charges against her dad. She wanted to tear open her chest and step out of her skin. She’d never asked for any of this.
She ran east on Avenida Belgrano, trying to calculate the direction of Marcela’s apartment relative to the Abuelas’ office and her hotel. Dead reckoning: it was a method her dad had taught her. She would always carry his voice with her. She would never escape him.
The street opened to a wide boardwalk running along the river. Rachel clutched her bag. Inside it, along with her passport and money, she’d stashed her sacred blanket. She stopped at a metal gangway leading to a departing double-decker catamaran ferry. The mud-colored river lapped at the retaining wall below. She pulled her collar up, wrapping her coat tightly around her body. Above the water, the winter sky was sunny and clear. She could board the boat, she fantasized, and sail away until she lost sight of the shoreline. She could run away forever. It wouldn’t matter who she really was. She gripped the railing and watched the ferry push slowly off into the river.
As the cold air pelted her face, a rolling grief set in. She reached into her bag and took out her blanket—sweet and threadbare—and held it over the reddish water of the Río de la Plata. The wind picked up, whipping at the white fabric.
Rachel gazed through the glinting afternoon sun until her eyes started to dry. When she closed them, tiny capillaries in her eyelids lit up like rivers carving through land. She thought of how perfectly Mother Nature repeated herself in the body and the natural world: how microscopic images of skin cells had always reminded her of rocky shoals; how, at close range, bacteria looked like giant sea creatures, and the texture of bone resembled coral. Perhaps the entirety of human history grew quietly within the flesh—dark and lush, revealing itself over time and through generations. Like a bloom bearing remnants of the secrets buried in its soil. Like the place that had been stifled within her all these years, yearning to be discovered.
She put the blanket to her face and took a deep breath.
It was still there. The scent of hydrangeas, the notes of the saxophone player on the subway platform, even the angels Vivian created for her in her childhood bedtime stories. Rachel rubbed her blanket between her frigid fingertips. It didn’t matter which of these things had begun as lies. She’d always known those angels were a part of her. Now she knew their names: Lorena Ledesma and Claudio Valdez. She was their daughter. She belonged to them. And at least one of them was still alive, on this very earth.
“¡Esa es ella!”
The wind reached down and snapped at her coat with an angry, haphazard smack, opening her eyes to a stark awareness.
Twenty feet down the boardwalk from where she stood, Mat called to her. Beside him, the man with whom she’d collided in the entryway to the Abuelas’ office stood with his hands in his coat pockets. He stared directly at Rachel. She recognized the shape of his eyes, the straightness of his brow, and, through the creases of age, the playful glint she’d seen in the photo of him looking fondly down at Lorena in a lawn chair.
Claudio.
Like a shy child, Rachel lifted both hands and covered her face with the blanket.