I

            I knew I shouldn’t have gone to that meeting. There I was, facing four plainclothes policemen and the first thing I thought of was that meeting.

“Get up!”

            It’s probably to go to the washroom. I walk single file with my hands on the right shoulder of the person in front of me. I know that he is also a detainee; I can feel the sackcloth on his head brushing against my hand.

“Stop!”

            They arrested me yesterday. In my fantasies, the arrest, which I wasn’t expecting, would be like the movies. Actually, it was so easy, just another routine for the police. They came to the office. I had just returned from running some errands a few minutes earlier.

“Mr. Barnet?”

“Yes,” I replied questioningly.

“Come with us and don’t make a scene.”

            They pointed a gun at me, cuffed my hands behind my back and took me to the elevator. My colleagues were stone-faced, afraid; they pretended they weren’t watching.

“You, let’s go, hurry up,” I hear a voice say as they grab me by the arm.

            The washroom is just a hole but it’s the only place where I can be alone. After I come out, I have to stand in single file, blindfolded. When the last one’s done, we have to walk back to our places, a gym mat probably two centimetres thick lying in the middle of a large room. I think this place may be a hangar because of the cold air that seeps in and the light filtering through from up above.

            How many of us are there? What do they know about me? It was probably that meeting in Paternal. Because that was all I ever did. Shit, it’s cold in here now. And what do I tell them? “I only went to one meeting, I was never politically active.” They aren’t going to believe me. Should I lie? That I never even went to anything? But if they already know, they won’t believe anything else I say.

            I feel like having a smoke. Just to sit in the square and smoke, listening to the shouts of children playing in the distance.

            What are they going to do to me? I’m such an asshole! I’m so afraid but I’d like to be a hero. You’re such an idiot, Marcelo! Do you want them to beat the crap out of you? It sounds heroic, doesn’t it? Yeah, and when I get out, with only a wound to my left shoulder, like in the movies, a cute chick will take me to the beach and take care of me. When I get out.

            It must be nighttime because they shouted an order to go to sleep. It’s cold. One can hear the sounds of torture. Screams, loud laughter, choking.

            It’s like when I would go to bed hungry and tried to convince myself otherwise. That’s what I’ll do. I’m not under arrest. I’m not under arrest.

            It doesn’t work. Enough already, I want to sleep, I need to rest, I want to escape from all this. ENOUGH!

II

            The meeting was on a Saturday at three, close to Nazca and Juan B. Justo. Marcelo had arrived in the area ten minutes early.

            He buzzed up at exactly three o’clock.

“Who is it?” he heard a woman’s voice ask.

“Is this the sports meeting?”

“Come on up,” and he was buzzed through.

            He got off at the sixth floor and rang the doorbell of apartment C. The door opened.

            The first to speak was Cacho.

“It’s disgusting that all the faculties have unrestricted admissions except for Engineering. It’s a move by the Dean to decide who gets in and who doesn’t.”

“People,” Azucena got up and spoke, “the purpose of this measure, which will undoubtedly be followed by the suspension of evening classes, is to eliminate the working class from the Faculty. It’s an elitist blow.”

            Marcelo decided to listen. He had often asked himself why he hadn’t gone to any meetings and tried to do something. The situation in the faculty was really turning ugly. The entrance courses had absolutely nothing to do with what would be learned upon being accepted. Four subjects only indirectly related to engineering and given at a very basic level. For the first time in his life he had decided to go to a political meeting. It was supposed to be an open talk, with no party lines.

            Mario suggested a list of demands be drawn up in a petition and signed by the students in the faculty.

“‘We, the students of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Buenos Aires,'” Mario began reading what he had just finished writing but Cacho interrupted him.

“No! That form is exclusionist. We have to include everyone with, for example, ‘People, in the Faculty…'”

            Cacho was interrupted by Azucena.

“No! the main thing is the problem itself: ‘The prerequisite courses in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Buenos Aires allow the authorities to regulate…'”

“Azucena, that’s very naive. It’s not that it allows them to regulate. That’s the main idea,” cut in Manuel. “We have to say these things without being afraid or beating around the bush: ‘Now more than ever, we must oppose the tyrannical methods of control and racism imposed by the Manichaean leadership.”

            By seven p.m. they still hadn’t been able to draw up the document nor even agree on the first ten lines of it. The disagreements over style left no room to discuss the problem, possibilities or the future.

            Marcelo felt frustrated. A whole afternoon wasted. At least he found out how arrogant these people were, how much they wanted to show off. He didn’t feel so guilty anymore for not having participated in politics until now. This was perhaps a cheap consolation, but he used to feel uncomfortable for not doing anything and seeing so many others who did. He assumed there were people who took this seriously. But that wasn’t what he saw that afternoon.

            This meeting surprised him in yet another way. The moment it ended, most everyone ran for the phone. Like some sort of Jekyll and Hyde, the political part had ended and, after all it was Saturday night, plans had to be made. He heard them make invitations over the phone to go bowling in Martínez, to go dancing somewhere or to eat at The Embers. Some of the participants who couldn’t make plans over the phone decided to get together. Marcelo noticed that most of them had never gone out together before. And they decided to go out in pairs, not as a group. Marcelo preferred to spend the evening alone. He went home, ate something and lay on his bed to read.

III

            It wasn’t a dream. I finally fell asleep. God it’s cold! And it’s already morning. Birds can be heard. God it would be so nice to have a bed with clean sheets and blankets.

            I’m so uncomfortable, the cuffs are digging into my wrists. I would love to wash my face, brush my teeth, go for a walk, have breakfast.

            I better think about something else. Those birds probably have no idea where they are. I have to be able to picture the outside. I have to be able to look outside. What neighbourhood am I in? You can hear planes. Could it be Palomar, Aeroparque? Probably Palomar. In Aeroparque planes would be passing over one after another.

            Because of the cold I figure the building isn’t completely closed. There’s a peaked roof. No, it couldn’t be a peaked roof. I don’t know, the walls don’t go all the way up to the roof, there’s a space, for ventilation. Maybe to release the exhaust fumes. Maybe it’s not even a hangar. But when they give orders there’s an echo that comes from high up.

            What day is it? I have to get a handle on the time. I think today is the first of October, 1976. But I’m not sure, I have to check, if I can.

            I’m afraid. They’re coming to take us to the washroom again. What a relief! They’ll cuff my hands in front. They come in twos. One covers me from the front and holds the gun barrel to my chest. The other goes behind me and opens the handcuffs. If I try to rub my wrists he shouts ‘No’. They order me to move my hands from behind and to put them in front of me, and they handcuff me.

            They take us to the washroom, single file. With both hands on the shoulders of the person in front. It feels so good to be able to raise my hands. And to touch someone. Only one minute in the washroom. We are not allowed to take off the hood. But all I try to do is to get my pants down as fast as possible and position myself over the hole. I squat and keep balanced with my hands between my legs, touching the floor. I could try not to touch it, but that would take too long. And I need part of that minute for myself.

            I finish and quickly pull up my pants. I try to do everything in silence. I take one step forward so as not to trip over the latrine. I raise my hands and lift up the sack which is stained with dry blood and vomit. I can see a door made of planks which swings shut by itself. There are cracks between the planks and it wouldn’t be good if they noticed that I’m looking. But I have to look at something, even if it’s only at the planks, I have to see something. I promise myself that every time I come to the washroom I have to look at something, even if it is only the floor, a wall, the door, a plank, a face.

            Of course, I must remember. Even if I get out of this, I’ll be so afraid that I won’t be able to lay a formal complaint. God how horrible! I don’t want to be here. And it’s real, it’s not a dream, it’s real, real, real. It’s not a dream, it’s real. It’s real, real. I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.

“Barnet, get out!”

            I hurry to fix my pants. It’s not just that I’m here. They’re in power.

“Walk faster, who do you think you are, king shit?”

“Come on, let’s go” says another guy.

            I have my mattress, my place. It’s so strange, how one gets used to everything.

IV

            What time is it? It’s probably five in the morning. One can see a bit of light, it’s very quiet, not even the birds are singing. There aren’t any more sounds of torture. One can hear some voices, from one of the rooms. They’re going out to the hall. I better keep quiet, I don’t move.

            There are two men and a woman. They talk and laugh, discussing movies, they talk about Cabaret. The woman’s voice sounds familiar. But from where? It sounds a lot like Marisol’s voice, from the meeting. I’m almost sure of it. I’d also often seen her at the university. That’s her laugh, sharp and penetrating. What a bitch! She turned me in. And how many others? What else did she do? How many committees was she on? How many times did she go to throw leaflets with the others.

            Could they have tortured her? No, from the way she’s talking, the way her voice changes, that cold tone; she was one of them from the beginning. What a bitch! Marisol. Marisol Martínez. Ha, a made-up name. An alias. And she doesn’t care that we can hear her or maybe she thinks we’re all sleeping or that no one can recognize her.

            What will I do if I get out of here? Will I look for her? No. I’d be afraid to find her. What would I do if I met her in the subway or on a bus? “You, you bitch, you sent me to prison.” No, I couldn’t say it to her. How many people has she fucked like this? And what is she doing here now, getting new orders or making sure they have us?

            At least now I know that they know I was at the meeting. I have to figure out what to say, how I can explain myself so they see me as innocent. They’re going to laugh at me, but I have no other choice. Maybe I’ll tell them I was interested in one of the girls who was going to go to the meeting. Does that sound really stupid?

V

                                                                                                                                October 20, 1976

My dearest Daniel:

I’m in an insane asylum, but everyone pretends to be sane. It’s a detention centre. I want to tell you what it’s like. I want to tell you because I want to tell myself. Because I’m afraid of forgetting. Because it’s like when I would be at a bus station, and something little would happen to my suitcase before the trip even started, the handle would come off or something and I would try hard to remember this because otherwise I was afraid that later, so many things would happen to me on the trip, and that once I arrived at my destination, I’d forget. And so I’m writing you this letter, which of course will never be mailed, which I’m not even going to write on paper, I just want to give some structure to what is happening to me. It’ll also help me kill a few hours.

Dear Daniel, I’ve been here for three weeks. No, I’ve been here for twenty days. The worst part is that this isn’t even an insane asylum. In an insane asylum I would at least feel free, free to shout, to feel miserable. Here it’s as though there’s a normality lurking beneath it all. I have no idea what kind of a monster could contemplate a normality like this. It’s unthinkable. It’s scary how well everything functions. It’s a very big place, a hangar, I think. It’s quite cool, especially at night. There’s tons of space and a lot of mats on the floor. Gym mats, those really thin blue ones. They’re hardly wider than a person and not even as long as I am. I have no idea how many of us there are here. One hundred, three hundred? I don’t know. I know there are a lot of people guarding us, and they don’t seem to be conscripts. Or at least they were picked, they’re real sons of bitches. One thing I haven’t managed to do here is talk. There’s no one to talk to. Besides, one word and you could be dead.

I’ll tell you everything in order because the thoughts are pounding in my head and I want to organize them somehow. Very early in the morning, I figure around six, things start moving. One can hear them preparing breakfast, but not ours. Ours is so lousy that it probably doesn’t take long to fix. One can hear the cars outside, braking. Loud laughter inside. People are starting to wake up. The sound of bodies stretching. One can hear their clothes rubbing against the mats, and the sacks on their heads rubbing against them too. That’s the worst part, a filthy, puked on, disgusting sack covering your head. But you get used to it. During the day we have to be sitting, all day. We aren’t allowed to lie down, it’s torture. We can change position, squat or kneel. At first our hands were tied behind our backs all the time except for eating or going to the washroom. Later they decided we could have our hands cuffed in the front. Actually, we could decide to all run and try to do something but if we can’t even talk to each other how could we organize it? And besides, I want to live. But I hardly did anything to end up here. I want to make it out alive.

They bring us breakfast. They leave a tin cup of disgusting coffee in front of each of us, it probably isn’t even chicory. A piece of bread. They blow a whistle. We can raise the sack up to our noses with one hand so that only our mouths can show. You have to eat fast because they immediately take everything away. There’s another whistle and you’re not allowed to eat any more. If someone breaks a rule, several soldiers come and beat him, leaving him lying there for several hours.

Then they take us to the washroom in groups of about twenty. There are about eight toilets, I like the three at the back because they have a full door and I can raise the sack and look around with less worry, even if it’s only at the door and the walls. Some people wrote things, with their fingernails. The other toilets have doors made of planks, and they can see us from the outside but I still look down. I make like I’m holding my head in my hands and I raise the sack a millimetre. I have a shirt, a pair of pants and a sweater, I haven’t had a bath in three weeks. When we go to the washroom, we have to get up in single file, put both arms on the shoulders of the person in front and walk. God how good it feels to have some contact! To touch someone! To be touched by someone! I wonder if it might be a pretty woman, who knows. And then I have so much time for thinking. Nothing but thinking. You can’t talk. I tried once and they gave me such a kick in the back of the neck that they knocked me flat on my face.

At noon they bring us a foul meal, some kind of soup in a large cup and another piece of bread. In the early afternoon, to the washroom again. Hours and hours to think. And in the meantime, listening to torture. There are inhuman screams. Screams of having reached the breaking point, of desperation, of madness. The worst is when they stop screaming. Are they dead, did they faint, did they talk? There are indescribable odours of blood, excrement, urine, burns, other things. The torture sessions last from the middle of the afternoon until well into the night. Worst of all is listening to sounds of torture at the time of day that one feels the weakest.

At night they take us to the washroom again. Every time we go we get one minute. If you aren’t finished, they open the door and kick you out. And you get everything dirty if you haven’t really finished. The washroom is just a filthy latrine, but it’s the only place where nobody watches me, I think.

 At first I couldn’t sleep, I was cold, I couldn’t fathom it, I didn’t want to be here. But now I can sleep. On the contrary, I want to sleep, it’s a means of escape. I dream of ice cream and steak, going for a drive in the car, the Costanera, planes, travelling. This is hell on earth, Daniel, hell on earth. They haven’t talked with me yet, nor interrogated me. Of course, I’m probably not very important to them. I know they know I went to a meeting; actually, it was the only one I ever went to, but how can I convince them of this? And why should I have to convince those fucking bastards? They have no right to be doing what they’re doing. But they’re in power. This place is a shithole, Daniel. Sometimes I lose all hope, and I wonder if I’ll ever get out. And I think no, I’m going to die, tortured. I’m so afraid! Afraid because when I thought they could arrest me I saw it as something heroic, even the torture, and I’m so ashamed for having felt that way. Maybe they’ll torture me today, or tomorrow. And it has to really hurt, if it doesn’t hurt, it isn’t torture. And why would they release me? And I go over it in my mind, again and again. And it’s to no avail. It’s like having a nightmare and waking up and then feeling safe, but all in reverse. I dream of food, I wake up, and I’m trapped and hungry. And I’m afraid. I don’t think I’ll ever get out of here, ever. I have no one to talk to.

Worst of all is that this place works like a factory. People come, they get tortured, some die, some leave, people come. You get used to each little thing. I know the sounds of those around me. I feel so secure listening to the nylon jacket, which is to my left, rub against the mat. It’s like having a friend. And the only thing I know about him or her is the nylon jacket.

VI

Dear Daniel:

P.S.: I forgot two things in yesterday’s letter. Firstly, to say “I send you a hug and see you soon,” and secondly, to sign “Marcelo.” When I thought about forgetting those things, I realised that my name hasn’t existed for the last three weeks. No one uses my name, they all use Barnet. And they hardly even use that. They shout and you’re supposed to instinctively know it’s at you.

Saying “I send you a hug and see you soon” makes me feel so lousy. Sure, we might not have seen each other that often, but we could. And my body needs to be hugged. A strong, warm hug. “See you soon.” How nice it would be to just pick up the phone and say “what are you doing this afternoon, do you want to go play pool?”

Sometimes I think I’m losing my mind here. I think about such things. I start to think they’re right, if you’re bad, you deserve to be punished. You played the game and you were caught. Sometimes I think they want to do good, and this is the price one has to pay. I already know that I’m completely crazy. When I hear the torture I realise no one could condone this. But still I feel so bad. So many thoughts go through my head.

            You know what’s worse than death? Dying for being such an idiot. For having gone to one stupid meeting. Because, at least if I’d been participating for months or years. But for one stupid meeting! It’s absurd, isn’t it? Because if I’m going to die, I’m going to die. But this death makes me more afraid and more ashamed, it really pisses me off, that’s the word for it, pissed off. All for nothing. At least if I’d picked up some chick at that meeting, I could say “fine, it was an expensive little screw” but at least I could revere that screw. But I didn’t even pick anyone up, I didn’t really even go to pick up a girl, although there were some cute ones there. But I just thought that they know so much about politics and I don’t know anything so I didn’t even say a word, I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t think I was in their league.

I even looked at Marisol a little, but she’s not my type, she had on too much make-up for my taste. Oh, Daniel, what a piss off, I don’t know, it’s so absurd, isn’t it? Dying is dying, but this is so pointless. And on top of it all, you know Daniel, I started to think that someone on death row knows when he’s going to die. On such a day, at such an hour. He knows his death is coming. It must be horrible, but he knows.

I could die at any time, without even expecting it, not even knowing it. A shot in the back, or in the chest, what’s the difference. By torture. And the feeling of not knowing. The feeling that dying here is such a daily event, so simple and routine. The feeling that nobody cares about anything. And not knowing. Suddenly, from one moment to the next you simply don’t exist.

Who’s going to know that I’m here, Daniel? Who’s going to know? That’s also horrible. Disappearing and not even becoming a statistic. Maybe they’ll never even find my bones.

Sometimes I do think of nice things, Daniel, you wouldn’t believe it. I remember playing when I was a kid, my first kiss, when I decided to go to university. The time I saw my dad. I can’t stand it any more, Daniel, I can’t stand it. But I don’t want to die.

I’m sending you a big hug and I hope to see you soon, Marcelo.

VII

            I dream that they’re coming to get me. It’s at night. I know it’s for the interrogation. They tell me to get up and take me to one of those small rooms at the entrance. I’m standing in the middle of a room. I have the sack on my head and I’m handcuffed. I hear things in the distance but nothing in that room. I don’t know if someone else is there or not. Someone comes and pushes me backwards. I fall into a chair that a soldier had put there. It really bothers me that I wasn’t able to hear the soldier.

            I’m trembling with fear. I want to convince myself that it’s all a dream. And although it is, it seems so real. I can feel air coming in from the hallway. That distinctive light filtering through the sack.

            My fourth grade teacher comes in. She asks me why I haven’t written “I should not misbehave” one hundred times. I tell her I did do it. She doesn’t believe me. She hits me with a ruler. She screams at me several times. She kicks me in the shin. I tell her I did write it. That I had already given it in last week. She keeps on screaming at me and kicking me. She insults me.

            I gather up my courage and I start to scream at her. You old witch, piece of shit, who the hell do you think you are. It feels very good, so good. A dream cannot feel so good in such a horrid place. I wake up, tense, agitated and thirsty. But mostly, I’m very sad, immensely so.

VIII

            Marcelo started university, Engineering, in 1973. He wasn’t sure that he even wanted to go to university. He was very shy, he had gone to very small schools. And although others generally viewed him with respect, or rather they didn’t bother picking on him, he didn’t know if university was for him.

            He remembered when he went to his first class at the beginning of 1973. Cámpora had already won. How was he to find the room in such a big building; he was a bit afraid to ask. He found it, entered and sat down. He asked the guy next to him if, if this was the right class.

            The Rodríguez family from the fourth floor, apartment A, had always insisted that Marcelo study Engineering, Electronic Engineering, that he really had a head for it. They’d buy him electronic games for his birthdays, they insisted on it. And they helped him. Mrs. Rodríguez was a Highschool Math teacher. Her husband had been a school principal in one of the provinces before coming to Buenos Aires. In the Capital, he dedicated himself to painting and composing music. They lived very modestly. And made ends meet. They were a happy couple, with no children. They had resigned themselves to certain things, to the lack of money, to missing their province. They were quiet but happy.

            Marcelo would study and observe, rather than participate. At first he studied in group. Later, he noticed that when he prepared to study in group, he gained much more from what he was reading. He noticed that he allowed himself to be swayed by fads. The trend was to meet in groups of four or five, chat, study a bit, and then keep on chatting. He wasn’t convinced by the method.

            However, it was hard at the start of university to be himself and to accept how he felt. Anyway, he did find that he studied better by himself, in some quiet place. Often it was too noisy in the small apartment he shared with his mother, so he would go to a quiet bar on the corner of Rivadavia and Alberti. There he could find a bit of peace for a few hours, having only a cup of coffee.

            A lot of people around him were politically active. But Marcelo didn’t want to be, partly out of fear. Partly because he saw the people who were political and their way of talking, and something just wasn’t right for him. Sure it was necessary to help the poor. But becoming politically active was often just a show, contrived, and gimmicky. Such a strong desire to become independent from Mom and Dad; to be heroic; important; to receive an order from the movement. Like, for instance, to go to a hotel to hide with a girl, and although the instructions were to just go there, not to get involved, it was nothing more than orders, which could be disobeyed. Marcelo felt as though he were caught in a whirlwind. And studying was his way of anchoring himself, being on solid ground. Although he sympathized with the left, he always managed to stay out of it.  

            Marcelo felt as though he were on an island, in the middle of an extremely turbulent sea, both at the university and at work. It was hard to explain his position to his university mates, because more than anything it was intuition, because it went against the current, it threatened the others, and once more it made him different. It was different at work. Marcelo was an apprentice at an architectural studio. The people who worked there only seemed to be concerned about their personal lives. In a certain way they were more honest than the people at the university.

IX

“Stand up,” a soldier shouts at me, shoving me with his boot. It must be around four in the afternoon and I’m trying to think rationally because I know what’s happening. This isn’t the time for the washroom, nor for eating. They’re taking me to the interrogation room. “Stand up,” shouts the voice. I stand up. I feel the tension in the mats next to me. The conscript in the front leads me as though he were ashamed; as though he didn’t want to be there. The one behind isn’t like that, he shoves me to walk faster. The room seems to be big. They sit me down on a small stool in the middle of the room. I hear noises, loud laughter, and screams from other rooms. I figure I’m alone with the two conscripts. I can smell that they’re smoking. Just then the door opens and two or three more people enter. “Let’s see, Barnet,” a guy says to me, “how much are you going to make us work?” “See, they don’t pay us too well,” and he laughs. Son of a bitch. The other is saying “we have to make the fringe benefits for ourselves.” I know there’s still another person, or perhaps two, but they remain silent.         I assume one of them is Marisol. What a piss off that I have to tell these assholes the truth, the fucking bastards.

“Listen up, skinny,” the second one says to me, putting his hand on my shoulder, “we know that you know a lot. Better you squeal and save yourself a beating.”

            I’m really afraid but I know they’re playing good cop/bad cop. And I know they’re just playing at it because the one who’s supposed to be the good cop isn’t a very good actor.

“We know you’re a guerrilla,” the first one says. What am I going to tell them? They want me to confess anything and be happy they didn’t kill me.

“All we want are the names of the entire commando.” Bastards.

            The one playing good cop cuts in, “Look, Cacho, maybe the kid wasn’t that involved, only a few protests, little things like that. Squeal kid, you wouldn’t want to see Cacho get angry.”

            Jerks.

“Are you going to talk or not?” I hear a metallic noise, like a spark.

“I wasn’t involved in politics.”

“Sure, be a smartass,” Cacho says, “they all say that. At the beginning. You want to make us work?”

            Angrily I decide to risk it, to tell them, although these shitbags don’t deserve a thing.

“I only went to one meeting. At the university.” One of them punches me really hard in the jaw. I’m thrown to the floor. A kick in the stomach, I’m gasping for air. I crawl over to a wall. Looking for protection. They kick me in the shins. I don’t know what part of my body I should protect.

            The good guy says to Cacho “let him talk, if we kick him for everything he says, he won’t want to talk. Come on talk, kid, talk,” he says in a childish voice, “we only want to help you.”

“I went to one meeting. I was interested in a girl.”

“What girl?” It was a woman’s voice; Marisol.

“Susana,” I invent a name. A common name which I hope exists. “She took Currents 1 with me. She wasn’t at the meeting.”

“Look, kid, don’t fuck with us,” and the beating rains down on me again.

            The first cop shouts at me “What else did you do, you fucking idiot, what else did you do?”

“Nothing. I didn’t do anything” I say, weeping and angry.

            I can feel a change in their attitude. I can feel that they know there’s nothing else. I think Marisol is taking them aside and talking to them. I can hear a few words “silent…, I never saw him again.”

            The cops pull me up by my sweater and hold me up against the wall. They shout in my face “Son of a bitch, you’re such an asshole, do you know what could have happened to you, and all for some chick, what a fucking idiot.” They slap me, and let go of me. I have to force myself to remain standing. My whole body aches. But I know I’m alright.

            The second policeman shouts “If you lied, you’re dead.” And they leave. I slide down to the floor and stay there, sitting.

            I hear a few steps, it’s Marisol. She says “Shhh,” kneels next to me and puts her hand on my crotch. Bitch.

X

            Look kid, you’re going to leave. Not that we think that in your case you have to leave, but you are. We think people like you shouldn’t even exist. There are weak people in this world, and the Canadian government takes a few prisoners whose cases haven’t been judged and we aren’t going to give them anyone important. We’ll give them an idiot like you who says he only went to one meeting, and maybe did some other things, who knows. We aren’t going to give them someone who was heavily involved. So we’re going to release you. You’re going to go to Canada. And you will never come back to this country.

XI

Dear Daniel:

I’m so happy, I have a really strong feeling. This afternoon they told me I’d be leaving. At first I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was a lie, that they were going to question me more, that they were going to ask me to conspire in something. But then I remembered having read in the newspaper that certain people left for Sweden, Canada and Holland.

They said I’m going to leave in a few days. I’m so overcome by emotion. It would be awful to leave here, never to return to Argentina. They told me I could never come back. I don’t know if that’s true or not. It probably would be for a few years.

I feel weak, as if I had a fever. The thought of leaving makes me very happy. I know very little about Canada: Expo 67, the Olympics. I know the names of a few cities, that they make really good documentaries, and that it’s a clean country. I’m going to leave. I can hardly believe it. I really want to but I’m also really afraid. I know it’s true, yet I find it hard to believe.

I sure won’t miss this place. I figure I’ll miss a lot of other things, but if I stay locked up here I’ll miss them even more. I feel as if I were a bit removed from this place, a bit above it. Although one can still hear the torture in the distance.

I don’t think I can say goodbye to anyone. I’ve never flown in a plane. I’d like to have a window seat and see the city from up above. I can’t start saying goodbye because I can’t believe I’m going. Goodbyes are so dumb because you say goodbye when you’re still there with the other person. Goodbye should be when you’ve already left. You can’t store up friendships, hugs and kisses.

I’ll leave in a few days. I’m sending you a big hug and I’ll write you from Canada if everything goes well. Marcelo.

XII

            Cardozo instructs corporal Pierronucci:

“Look, eight would be better, we have two vests. We want to try various distances. Do you want to come Marisol?”

“Where to Cardozo? ’cause I have to watch myself with you.”

“Yeah, if you like it.”

“Don’t be a smartass or I’ll talk with the captain.”

“O.K., come on, don’t get mad. You like to look good.”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with this. Where to Cardozo?” in the tone of let’s change the subject, this is getting on my nerves.

“To try out the new vests, we just received two of them. One from Germany and another from South Africa. They’re advertising them like they’re something extraordinary, they’re a lot thinner than the ones before. But I have serious doubts, so we’re going to test them. Do you want to come?”

“Is it far?”

“A bit, it’s at the shooting range.”

“Yeah, I want to go.”

            Pierronucci knew there would be more tests. He decided to take two from A, two from B, two from C, and two from D. They wouldn’t use more than forty in all, it would take too long. He asked a soldier for the list and he checked off the first two As, the first two Bs, Cs and Ds. Barnet came after Ballesteros and before Barragán. He marked them down, gave it to the soldier to type up the list. Then it was taken to Cardozo.

“Here you are, lieutenant.”

“Let’s see,” said Marisol, looking over his shoulder. “Ah, I know Barnet. I hope he drops dead.”

            Cardozo wasn’t sure why she said that. Was it because she hated him for being a staunch communist or was it because he made her hot.

“Barnet, get up.” Marcelo stood up.

            He knew it was an odd time. Mid-morning.

“Medical check-up.”

            A soldier walked in front of him and another behind. He followed the first one. For a moment he thought that perhaps he wouldn’t be returning, but then he knew he would, he’d return, he’d return to his mat before nightfall. It was a cool day.

            The list was: Álvarez, Arditti, Ballesteros, Barnet, Cernik, Clarici, Dalessio and Dorlán.

            The lieutenant looked over the list and asked Pierronucci:

“Are any of these for Canada?”

            Pierronucci went to check and answered:

“Yes, Barnet and Dalessio.”

“O.K., it doesn’t matter,” said the lieutenant, “either they won’t go or they’ll end up so scared shitless they won’t ever speak again.”

            They took them by truck. Marcelo could feel that it was a dirt road with a lot of potholes. They were out in the open and that made him feel very good, despite the handcuffs and the sack on his head.

            There was another prisoner on his left, and a soldier on his right. It felt different. The slight brushing of the pants and sleeves. On one side, ease, nothing to loose. On the other, tension,  contradictions, false securities.

            Suddenly they stopped and had to get out. They were taken to a large building. They could hear shots from all sides. Not just small arms but also larger explosions, like grenades.

            They were being taken one at a time, outside, to another compound, about 100 metres away. The handcuffs were removed, a bullet-proof vest was put on the subject and the hands were cuffed to some pipes on the wall, waist high. With the back to the wall, facing forward. There was a window just overhead, on the right side of the prisoner.

“Pierronucci,” said Cardozo, “you keep the stats.”

“Yes, lieutenant.”

            After compulsively taking notes for several minutes, Pierronucci says to the lieutenant:

“There are eight targets, lieutenant. We have two jackets. We can try two calibers and two distances. Do we keep using a target while he has vital signs or do we rotate them?”

“Rotate them, Pierronucci. Don’t you see that this way if he lives he’ll tell everyone else in the hangar and the fear will work to our advantage.”

“As you say, lieutenant.”

            Pierronucci drew up the list. They started with the German vest, by alphabetical order. First, the first A, then the first B, and so on. The shooting order would be: target A, 38 calibre at two metres; target B, 38 calibre at four metres; target C, 45 calibre at two metres; target D, 45 calibre at four metres. Then they would repeat the test using the South African vest with the second A, B, C and D.

            The first four subjects survived. Two fainted after being fired on but it was from fear.

            When they went to get the second A, Arditti, he had already fainted.

“Fuck,” said Pierronucci, “this changes the statistics,” and scratching his head, “we’ll start with the second B, C and D, and then right after, Arditti.”

“Barnet, take a step forward,” ordered a soldier.

            They take him to the testing compound. They put the vest on him, and tell him it’s for taking some special x-rays with a portable machine in order to improve medical attention for soldiers hurt in battle.

            Marcelo wants to believe this. But he knows it’s not so. He wants to think but his mind cannot. He remembers the boys in the square, when he was ten years old and he doesn’t understand why he’s thinking about them now. He feels very warm inside, in complete contrast to the cool day, to the orders being barked, to what’s happening around him.

            The soldier gets ready with the 38, at two metres, positioning himself at the chalk-line marked by Pierronucci on the floor.

            He fires.

            The bullet tears into his chest. Not knowing how, when nor why, Marcelo is dead.

“Pierronucci, mark an X in the corresponding column. Fuck, those shitty South Africans,” says Cardozo, “they’re good at screwing negroes but they don’t know shit about self-defence. Idiots.”

            Marisol looks at Marcelo, hanging loose from the cuffs, and smiles to herself.

Copyright David Mibashan