buenos aires
april 1976
Not long after the coup, Claudio came to the house for dinner and announced to Lorena and José that he was going underground.
“It’s getting too dangerous,” Claudio explained over the steaks Lorena made. “You probably won’t see me for a while.”
José waved him off. “You’ll be back in a month.”
“If the junta doesn’t catch up with us first.”
Lorena poured them all second glasses of Malbec, finishing off the bottle, and watched Claudio carefully as he ate. He spoke casually, but his tone was suggestive as he caught Lorena’s eye.
“We still need help. There are plenty of small ways to support us if you change your minds.”
“What can we do?” Lorena asked.
“No.” José lifted his hand, shutting her down. “We’ve discussed this, Lorena. No.”
Her skin burned, but she held her tongue, resentment simmering.
Claudio grinned. “You’re so precious, José. Sitting here playing house while our people starve, while these imperialists hoard all the power.”
José cut into a piece of his steak. “You think killing cops is going to help? More bombings and kidnappings—is that your answer?”
“You’re on the wrong side of history, my friend.”
“Leave us a number to reach you,” said Lorena. “Just in case.”
“It sounds like you have no reason to reach me,” said Claudio, peering at José.
But later, before he left, he jotted a phone number on the notepad in the front hall and gave it to Lorena. “Only if things get bad.”
Lorena waited until he was gone to tuck the number in the drawer. They heard nothing from Claudio for months.
* * *
During his absence, el Proceso took hold in earnest. Officers lined the streets. Takedowns became a daily occurrence. Tanks lined the Plaza, daring anyone to demonstrate, and José’s urging to stay calm was a loose lid on Lorena’s boiling indignation. Calm down. Keep quiet. We have a family now. There are things you can’t control. He poured drinks for himself and made trite commentary about the bleak state of the world as she struggled to prepare dinner and chase a toddler. She became downright hostile. They stopped making love.
In September, a group of high school students in La Plata organized a protest to reduce bus fares. They were mostly sixteen- and seventeen-year-old kids, members of the students’ union, putting up banners and picketing. The junta arrested a group of them for the display. The kids were publicly beaten; some went missing entirely.
The news covered the story, portraying the students as dissidents, but on her way to Esme’s house one morning, Lorena ran into an old university acquaintance who knew the parents of one of the teenagers who had been taken. The junta denied knowing anything about the missing kids, she’d said, but the parents believed they were kidnapped, possibly executed. Rumor had it that one of the teenage girls may have been raped.
They showed photos of some of the students on television that evening. The girls reminded Lorena of herself as a teenager. What had been done to them? And why? Lorena followed José through the house that night, whispering so as not to wake Matías.
“How can you bury your head in the sand like this? How can you stay silent?” They were standing in the bathroom now, José brushing his teeth while she slathered face cream on her neck. “If my father was still alive, he’d be out in the streets.”
José spit in the sink. “And he’d be arrested for it. Maybe get himself killed.”
“At least he’d be taking a stand. We need to do something.” She rubbed the remaining face cream into her hands and moved to put the bottle away. “I think we should call Claudio.”
José wiped his mouth with a towel and threw it on the counter. “Is that what you think, Lorena? That’s your big plan? To call Claudio?” He grabbed her abruptly by the biceps, startling her into momentary silence. She dropped the bottle of Olay. José had never laid a hand on her before.
“I’m not going to say this again, do you hear me?” he hissed. “We’re not ‘taking a stand.’ It’s different now. We have a son. You’re going to shut the hell up about all of this. We’re doing nothing, all right? Now stop talking about it. People will hear you. Not a word about it again—not to me, not to anyone.”
Perhaps if she had just been willing to keep quiet, things would’ve been different. If only her fear had been stronger than her rage, the fault line in their marriage might never have fully fractured.
She waited until José was out of the house the next afternoon before dialing the number. The receiver shook in Lorena’s hand. It rang several times before an unfamiliar woman’s voice answered.
“Hello?”
“I’m trying to reach Claudio Valdez.”
“Who is this?”
If she had the wrong number or said too much, the junta might come after her. She’d be on a list somewhere; she could easily be turned in to the authorities.
“It’s—I’m an old friend. He gave me this number.”
There were muffled sounds on the other end of the receiver. “He’s not here. I’ll tell him to call you back.”
Lorena hesitated, then gave the woman her information. She sat by the phone in the front hall. She opened its small drawer, where José kept rolling papers and the tobacco he occasionally smoked. She rolled a cigarette and lit it, coughing a little. Fifteen minutes passed. She drew a little sketch of a Darwin’s slipper flower on the notepad and smoked a second cigarette. Finally, the phone rang.
“Lore?”
A rush of warmth came at the sound of his voice—relief, validation.
“Claudio,” she said. “I want to help. We need to do something.”
There was a pause. “Does José know you’re calling?”
Another pause, longer this time.
“Right,” he said. “Meet me tomorrow morning in the faculty lounge. As early as you can, understand? I’ll try my best to be there.”
Her lie to José the next day came easily: she was going to visit her mother for breakfast. She took his house keys and dropped Matías off at her mother’s, then made her way to the university. The junta were everywhere, but she had her story prepared: her husband was a professor. He’d left some personal effects inside. She was going to retrieve them for him now.
She arrived early enough to enter the building without being stopped. The little blue-and-white soccer ball on José’s metal key ring dangled as she unlocked the faculty-room door with his key. She stood in the cramped corner, rolled another cigarette, and stood by the open window, smoking and waiting.
When the door to the lounge opened, she spun around. Claudio looked different, fitter—his hard arms filled the sleeves of a guayabera shirt and grown-out curls thickened at the base of his neck. He wore a fedora, which was both ridiculous and attractive, and Lorena stiffened, conscious of the danger his new appearance implied. Also, of being alone in a room with him. She hadn’t fully prepared herself for the effect his presence would have on her when they were alone together. How the hell had he gotten in so easily?
“You look nice,” he said, approaching her.
She exhaled, a little scared. “Don’t . . . say that.”
He put on a casual air, but beneath it, he seemed tense, alert. There was an electric kettle on the counter behind her, just inches from where she stood, and he made his way to it, filling it with water from the tap and plugging it in. An old bag of yerba maté and three gourds had been left on the counter—by whom?—and she wrapped her free arm tightly around her torso and watched him prepare the tea, trickling hot water into the packed leaves. She was close enough to catch his scent: velvety soil and a hint of something powdery.
“What the junta did to those kids in La Plata,” she whispered. “The way people go missing with no answers—it’s making me so paranoid. I hate them. They’re everywhere. I feel like they can hear my thoughts.”
“Shh,” he said. “That’s their intention. Don’t give them the power they want.”
Claudio straddled a chair and removed a tin of loose tobacco from his own pocket to roll a cigarette. Lorena stubbed hers out in a clay ashtray and sat down across from him. Morning sunlight streamed in, spotlighting swarms of dust motes in the air between them. Claudio licked the edge of the rolling paper to seal his smoke.
“So what do you want to do?” he asked. “You want to help?”
When Lorena picked up the maté, her hands were trembling. She thought of the junta she’d walked past on her way here—their boots, their guns. They would surely stop her on the way out.
“Yes, I just—I have to be careful.” Her skin burned at the prospect of disappointing him. It felt so good just to be near him again.
“We all have to be careful these days.”
“I have to think of Matías.” She feigned immunity to the chemistry between them, the perpetual invitation in his body language. It had been years since that night in his student apartment, where he’d painted the red closet door with a crosshatched black gun and staff, a mark of his allegiance to the Montoneros. José had never known. Claudio was just as magnetic now, attracting and repelling her with the slightest turn.
“And José wouldn’t—”
“No,” Claudio cut her off gently. He flicked his silver lighter and stared into the tall, blue flame, holding the unlit cigarette between the tips of his fingers. He brought it to his lips, lit it, and took a deep, smoldering pull. “José wouldn’t understand. We both know that.” He waved his index finger back and forth between them, lassoing them together, and exhaled. “But we do.”
She wondered what it would feel like to pass her hands along his skin again, then physically shook her head to rid it of the idea.
“I want to do whatever I can to help,” she said, standing. “But you know I haven’t been involved for years, and you know where José stands. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do anything worthwhile.”
He stood too, locking eyes with her. Why did he seem amused? Why had he come here to meet her so quickly after she’d called when she had so little to offer him?
“I think you can do just about anything you like, Lorena. You’ve always been a fighter.”
She was silent for several beats, wrestling with the glimmer in his eye, the magnetic field that pulled her to him. He was close enough that his shirt brushed against hers.
“I just meant—what can I do?” She studied the flecks of gold slicing his brown irises and tilted her head back slightly. When the back of her hand grazed his, he took it, lifting it between them without breaking their gaze. Her heart pounded. From his shirt pocket, he pulled a ballpoint pen and started writing on her palm.
“We can always use help with distribution,” he said. “And if you can get away for a few hours, it would be good to spend time with you. Maybe we could talk, like we used to.” He smiled, surrendering her hand. “Meet me back here on Saturday and bring the supplies on this list. Don’t share it with anyone else. Wash it off good.”
Saturday. How would she possibly get away?
“And next time you call,” he said, “don’t use your real name.”
“What name should I use?”
He lifted his right shoulder. “I’ve always liked the name Ana.”
* * *
On Saturday morning, Lorena fumbled with her shopping bags outside the Social Sciences building. She’d lied to José again, but not nearly as confidently. Claudio pulled up to the curb in a car. He was wearing a false mustache.
“Get in,” he said, leaning over to unlock the passenger door. Panic set in, but Lorena pulled on the door handle and got in the car. Once she was in the passenger seat, he handed her a thin sleep mask.
“Put it on under your sunglasses,” he said. She turned to Claudio questioningly. The fabric of the makeshift blindfold was slippery between her fingers. “It’s better if you don’t know how to get there.”
They drove for about fifteen minutes. Lorena saw shifts of light, nothing more. When the engine went quiet, she removed her eye covering. They were parked outside a nondescript flat. His silly mustache was gone.
“Follow me.”
Inside, she stood in the middle of the living area on a braided rug. Facing Claudio, she dropped the bags. The place seemed to be a stash pad—there was a couch and two tables, oddly positioned—and Lorena had a visceral sense that something of significance was being concealed in the boxes all around her. Weapons, maybe. She didn’t ask.
“Good work, my helper.” Claudio eyed the bags. His demeanor was abrupt.
“Did I bring enough? I wasn’t sure what the occasion—”
“Shh. It’s fine.” He pointed to the far side of the room, where a half-dozen banker’s boxes were lined up next to two larger cardboard ones. “The small ones, there. They’re already packed. Just make them look as pretty as you can.”
“It’s safe to move them?”
“They’re not bombs, Lore.” He smiled at her with the familiar face of her friend from university, the courageous man she so admired, who spoke up for what was right with a force that inspired her. Why hadn’t she chosen Claudio back then? She’d trusted him; she’d shared his beliefs. She’d felt every ounce of his conviction, his voice sending chills through her entire body. But unlike him, she didn’t have the luxury of disregarding the practical implications of her political beliefs. As a woman, Lorena had to consider every outcome of marrying a man who risked his skin to prove his truth—both for herself and for her future children.
Or maybe that was just the excuse she made for her own fear.
Maybe she was here in this apartment because she had never been brave enough to follow her heart and it had finally caught up with her. She’d chosen safety and security over her calling, and now she had something to prove to herself. Her bottled-up passion had percolated to an explosive boil. In this one moment, she could do this one thing.
Lorena got to work, gathering the wrapping paper, foil, and ribbon she’d purchased with the loose bills she kept hidden in the faience box on her dresser. She wrapped all six boxes meticulously and tied them with bows, curling each ribbon. They were heavy—documents, she suspected—but she asked no questions. She would’ve wrapped them even if they were bombs.
When she finished, Claudio moved away from the window where he’d been keeping watch. He knelt on the floor beside her.
“José would hate me if he knew you were here,” he said. Claudio leaned toward her and lifted a piece of stray ribbon from the floor.
“It’s not you he’d hate.” She’d already betrayed José; there was little risk left in speaking openly about it. “I’m so angry all the time. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
“I’m angry too,” Claudio offered, dropping the ribbon into her open hand. Lorena stared up at him with wide eyes. She waited for him to say something else—that she shouldn’t worry, that it would all be okay—but he just leaned his weight back on one arm, looking at her. Then he lifted his hand to her throat, touching the loose knot in her scarf.
“Maybe we’re both losing our minds,” he said. He untied the scarf with his fingers and let it hang open around her neck. Then he tugged at one end, slipping it off. He held it in his fingers for a moment, staring at it as though he couldn’t understand how it got there.
It happened in a flurry of hushed, firm movements, an evolution of mutual surprise. Claudio dropped the scarf and lifted his hand to the back of her neck. His fingers entered her hair and made a fist of it, locking her face to his, and her entire body—which had become so utilitarian and neglected in recent months—came alive. She lifted her chin, open to his kiss, but Claudio just examined her face. There was no going back.
Lorena raised her hands to his shoulders, and he guided her to the floor, moving on top of her and pressing his lower body against hers. He parted her legs with his knees, but it wasn’t until his full weight was on her bones that his mouth finally found hers. She kissed him back with all her might and was grateful that he conceded nothing, pushing back with equal force.
We can’t do this, she thought briefly, but it was interrupted by the scent of Claudio’s bare skin, the novelty of his body shape, his movement, now, almost inside of her. Through the window of view beneath his bicep and torso, she caught sight of her own skin, her bare thigh in the distance, moving in rhythm with their bodies.
When her sighs became audible, he wrapped his hand around her mouth, and she bit him, hard; he tucked his chin and bit her shoulder in response. He moved urgently, like a drowning man trying to reach the water’s surface, as though his next breath of air was somewhere deep inside of her body.
Once they finally lay still, Lorena rose from the carpet, shocked, and fumbled to thread her foot through the leg hole of her underpants. Claudio stared up at her from the floor, eyes shining. From this angle, she recognized the vulnerability beneath his bravado, the falseness of all his flagrant dalliances with obvious women over the years—just a way of distracting from the fact that he was in love with his friend’s wife. Lorena had no way to prove it, of course, and she’d never dare to say it aloud, but she knew it to be true regardless: she was the only woman Claudio had ever loved. She was his warrior, locked away in hiding. The proof was right here, in the way he was looking at her at this moment.
“Run away with me,” he said suddenly. “Let’s go to Tucumán, right now.”
She smiled, tears pricking her eyes, then bit her lip and fell quiet for a respectful moment to let the fantasy die.
“I have to pick up Matías,” she said.
Guilt crept in then, cold and serious, even though she felt more alive than she had in years.
Claudio rolled to a seated position. When he tugged on his unbuckled pants and stared up at her, she could practically see his heart breaking beneath his bare chest.