The House of the Spirits

  Dejected, Senator Trueba signed the paper. Then he painfully made his way to his granddaughter and put his arms around her, caressing her hair with unaccustomed tenderness.

  “Don’t worry, my dear. Everything will turn out fine. They can’t do anything to you. This is all a terrible mistake,” he murmured. “Be calm.”

  But the man shoved them apart and shouted to the others that it was time to go. Two of the men took Alba out, practically lifting her off the floor. The last thing she saw was the pathetic figure of her grandfather, pale as wax, trembling in his nightshirt and shoeless, promising her from the doorway that the next day he would get her out, that he would go to speak with General Hurtado, that he would take his lawyers to find her wherever they took her, that he would bring her home.

  They lifted her into a van alongside the man who had hit her and another who was whistling at the wheel. Before they put adhesive tape over her eyelids, she looked back one last time at the empty, silent street, surprised that despite the uproar and burning books not a single neighbor had stuck his head out to see what was going on. She supposed that, just as she had done so many times herself, they were peering through the chinks of their venetian blinds and the space between their curtains, or else they had put pillows over their heads so they would not have to know what was going on. The van started to move. Blind for the first time in her life, she lost all sense of time and space. She felt a large, wet hand on her leg, kneading, pinching, climbing, and exploring, and then a heavy breath on her face whispering, “I’m going to warm you up, whore, you’ll see,” and other voices and laughter, while the van turned and turned in what seemed to her an endless ride. She did not know where they were taking her until she heard the rush of water and felt the wheels of the van cross planks of wood. Then she knew her destiny. She invoked the spirits of the days of the three-legged table and her grandmother’s restless sugar bowl, and all the spirits capable of bending the course of events, but they appeared to have abandoned her, for the van continued on its way. She felt it brake, heard the heavy doors of a gate squeak open and shut behind them after they drove through. It was then that Alba entered the nightmare that her grandmother had apparently not seen on her astrological chart when she was born, and that Luisa Mora had seen in a fleeting premonition. The men helped her down. She had not taken two steps before she felt the first blow strike her ribs and she fell on her knees, the breath knocked out of her. Two men lifted her by the armpits and dragged her a long way. She felt the earth beneath her feet and then the harsh surface of a cement floor. They stopped.

  “This is Senator Trueba’s granddaughter, Colonel,” she heard one say.

  “So I see,” another man replied.

  Alba immediately recognized the voice of Esteban García. At that moment she understood that he had been waiting for her ever since the distant day when he had sat her on his knees, when she was just a child.

  — FOURTEEN —

  THE HOUR OF TRUTH

  Alba was curled up in the darkness. They had ripped the tape from her eyes and replaced it with a tight bandage. She was afraid. As she recalled her Uncle Nicolás’s training, and his warning about the danger of being afraid of fear, she concentrated on trying to control the shaking of her body and shutting her ears to the terrifying sounds that reached her side. She tried to visualize her happiest moments with Miguel, groping for a means to outwit time and find the strength for what she knew lay ahead. She told herself that she had to endure a few hours without her nerves betraying her, until her grandfather was able to set in motion the heavy machinery of his power and influence to get her out of there. She searched her memory for a trip to the coast with Miguel, in autumn, long before the hurricane of events had turned the world upside down, when things were still called by familiar names and words had a single meaning; when people, freedom, and compañero were just that—people, freedom, and compañero—and had not yet become passwords. She tried to relive that moment—the damp red earth and the intense scent of the pine and eucalyptus forests in which a carpet of dry leaves lay steeping after the long hot summer and where the coppery sunlight filtered down through the treetops. She tried to recall the cold, the silence, and that precious feeling of owning the world, of being twenty years old and having her whole life ahead of her, of making love slowly and calmly, drunk with the scent of the forest and their love, without a past, without suspecting the future, with just the incredible richness of that present moment in which they stared at each other, smelled each other, kissed each other, and explored each other’s bodies, wrapped in the whisper of the wind among the trees and the sound of the nearby waves breaking against the rocks at the foot of the cliff, exploding in a crash of pungent surf, and the two of them embracing underneath a single poncho like Siamese twins, laughing and swearing that this would last forever, that they were the only ones in the whole world who had discovered love.

  Alba heard the screams, the long moans, and the radio playing full blast. The woods, Miguel, and love were lost in the deep well of her terror and she resigned herself to facing her fate without subterfuge.

  She calculated that a whole night and the better part of the following day had passed when the door was finally opened and two men took her from her cell. With insults and threats they led her in to Colonel García, whom she could recognize blindfolded by his habitual cruelty, even before he opened his mouth. She felt his hands take her face, his thick fingers touch her ears and neck.

  “Now you’re going to tell me where your lover is,” he told her. “That will save us both a lot of unpleasantness.”

  Alba breathed a sigh of relief. That meant they had not arrested Miguel!

  “I want to go to the bathroom,” Alba said in the strongest voice she could summon up.

  “I see you’re not planning to cooperate, Alba. That’s too bad.” García sighed. “The boys will have to do their job. I can’t stand in their way.”

  There was a brief silence and she made a superhuman effort to remember the pine forest and Miguel’s love, but her ideas got tangled up and she no longer knew if she was dreaming or where this stench of sweat, excrement, blood, and urine was coming from, or the radio announcer describing some Finnish goals that had nothing to do with her in the middle of other, nearer, more clearly audible shouts. A brutal slap knocked her to the floor. Violent hands lifted her to her feet. Ferocious fingers fastened themselves to her breasts, crushing her nipples. She was completely overcome by fear. Strange voices pressed in on her. She heard Miguel’s name but did not know what they were asking her, and kept repeating a monumental no while they beat her, manhandled her, pulled off her blouse, and she could no longer think, could only say no, no, and no and calculate how much longer she could resist before her strength gave out, not knowing this was only the beginning, until she felt herself begin to faint and the men left her alone, lying on the floor, for what seemed to her a very short time.

  She soon heard García’s voice again and guessed it was his hands that were helping her to her feet, leading her toward a chair, straightening her clothes, and buttoning her blouse.

  “My God!” he said. “Look what they’ve done to you! I warned you, Alba. Try to relax now, I’m going to give you a cup of coffee.”

  Alba began to cry. The warm liquid brought her back to life, but she could not taste it because when she swallowed it was mixed with blood. García held the cup, guiding it carefully toward her lips like a nurse.

  “Do you want a cigarette?”

  “I want to go to the bathroom,” she said, pronouncing each syllable with difficulty with her swollen lips.

  “Of course, Alba. They’ll take you to the bathroom and then you can get some rest. I’m your friend. I understand your situation perfectly. You’re in love, and that’s why you want to protect him. I know you don’t have anything to do with the guerrillas. But the boys don’t believe me when I tell them. They won’t be satisfied until you tell them wh
ere Miguel is. Actually they’ve already got him surrounded. They know exactly where he is. They’ll catch him, but they want to be sure that you have nothing to do with the guerrillas. You understand? If you protect him and refuse to talk, they’ll continue to suspect you. Tell them what they want to know and then I’ll personally escort you home. You’ll tell them, right?”

  “I want to go to the bathroom,” Alba repeated.

  “I see you’re just as stubborn as your grandfather. All right. You can go to the bathroom. I’m going to give you a chance to think things over,” García said.

  They took her to a toilet and she was forced to ignore the man who stood beside her, holding on to her arm. After that they returned her to her cell. In the tiny, solitary cube where she was being held, she tried to clarify her thoughts, but she was tortured by the pain of her beating, her thirst, the bandage pressing on her temples, the drone of the radio, the terror of approaching footsteps and her relief when they moved away, the shouts and the orders. She curled up like a fetus on the floor and surrendered to her pain. She remained in that position for hours, perhaps days. A man came twice to take her to the bathroom. He led her to a fetid lavatory where she was unable to wash because there was no water. He allowed her a minute, placing her on the toilet seat next to another person as silent and sluggish as herself. She could not tell if it was a woman or a man. At first she wept, wishing her Uncle Nicolás had given her a special course in how to withstand humiliation, which she found worse than pain, but she finally resigned herself to her own filth and stopped thinking about her unbearable need to wash. They gave her boiled corn, a small piece of chicken, and a bit of ice cream, which she identified by their taste, smell, and temperature, and which she wolfed down with her hands, astonished to be given such luxurious food, unexpected in a place like that. Afterward she learned that the food for the prisoners in that torture center was supplied by the new headquarters of the government, which was in an improvised building, since the old Presidential Palace was a pile of rubble.

  She tried to count the days since she was first arrested, but her loneliness, the darkness, and her fear distorted her sense of time and space. She thought she saw caves filled with monsters. She imagined that she had been drugged and that was why her limbs were so weak and sluggish and why her ideas had grown so jumbled. She decided not to eat or drink anything, but hunger and thirst were stronger than her determination. She wondered why her grandfather still had not come to rescue her. In her rare moments of lucidity she understood that this was not a nightmare and that she was not there by mistake. She decided to forget everything she knew, even Miguel’s name.

  The third time they took her in to Esteban García, Alba was more prepared, because through the walls of her cell she could hear what was going on in the next room, where they were interrogating other prisoners, and she had no illusions. She did not even try to evoke the woods where she had shared the joy of love.

  “Well, Alba, I’ve given you time to think things over. Now the two of us are going to talk and you’re going to tell me where Miguel is and we’re going to get this over with quickly,” García said.

  “I want to go to the bathroom,” Alba answered.

  “I see you’re making fun of me, Alba,” he said. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have any time to waste.”

  Alba made no response.

  “Take off your clothes!” García ordered in another voice.

  She did not obey. They stripped her violently, pulling off her slacks despite her kicking. The memory of her adolescence and García’s kiss in the garden gave her the strength of hatred. She struggled against him, until they got tired of beating her and gave her a short break, which she used to invoke the understanding spirits of her grandmother, so that they would help her die. But no one answered her call for help. Two hands lifted her up, and four laid her on a cold, hard metal cot with springs that hurt her back, and bound her wrists and ankles with leather thongs.

  “For the last time, Alba. Where is Miguel?” García asked.

  She shook her head in silence. They had tied her head down with another thong.

  “When you’re ready to talk, raise a finger,” he said.

  Alba heard another voice.

  “I’ll work the machine,” it said.

  Then she felt the atrocious pain that coursed through her body, filling it completely, and that she would never forget as long as she lived. She sank into darkness.

  “Bastards! I told you to be careful with her!” she heard Esteban García say from far away. She felt them opening her eyelids, but all she saw was a misty brightness. Then she felt a prick in her arm and sank back into unconsciousness.

  A century later Alba awoke wet and naked. She did not know if she was bathed with sweat, or water, or urine. She could not move, recalled nothing, and had no idea where she was or what had caused the intense pain that had reduced her to a heap of raw meat. She felt the thirst of the Sahara and called out for water.

  “Wait, compañera,” someone said beside her. “Wait until morning. If you drink water, you’ll get convulsions, and you could die.”

  She opened her eyes. They were no longer bandaged. A vaguely familiar face was leaning over her, and hands were wrapping her in a blanket.

  “Do you remember me? I’m Ana Díaz. We went to the university together. Don’t you recognize me?”

  Alba shook her head, closed her eyes, and surrendered to the sweet illusion of death. But she awakened a few hours later, and when she moved she realized that she ached to the last fiber of her body.

  “You’ll feel better soon,” said a woman who was stroking her face and pushing away the locks of damp hair that hid her eyes. “Don’t move, and try to relax. I’ll be here next to you. You need to rest.”

  “What happened?” Alba whispered.

  “They really roughed you up, compañera,” the other woman said sadly.

  “Who are you?” Alba asked.

  “Ana Díaz. I’ve been here for a week. They also got my compañero, Andrés, but he’s still alive. I see him once a day, when they take them to the bathroom.”

  “Ana Díaz?” Alba murmured.

  “That’s right. We weren’t so close back then, but it’s never too late to start. The truth is, you’re the last person I expected to meet here, Countess,” the woman said gently. “Don’t talk now. Try to sleep. That way the time will go faster for you. Your memory will gradually come back. Don’t worry. It’s because of the electricity.”

  But Alba was unable to sleep, for the door of her cell opened and a man walked in.

  “Put the bandage back on her!” he ordered Ana Díaz.

  “Please . . . Can’t you see how weak she is? Let her rest a little while. . . .”

  “Do as I say!”

  Ana bent over the cot and put the bandage over her eyes. Then she removed the blanket and tried to dress her, but the guard pulled her away, lifted the prisoner by her arms, and sat her up. Another man came in to help him, and between them they carried her out because she could not walk. Alba was sure that she was dying, if she was not already dead. She could tell they were walking down a hallway in which the sound of their footsteps echoed. She felt a hand on her face, lifting her head.

  “You can give her water. Wash her and give her another shot. See if she can swallow some coffee and bring her back to me,” García said.

  “Do you want us to dress her?”

  “No.”

  * * *

  Alba was in García’s hands a long time. After a few days, he realized she had recognized him, but he did not abandon his precaution of keeping her blindfolded, even when they were alone. Every day new prisoners arrived and others were led away. Alba heard the vehicles, the shouts, and the gate being closed. She tried to keep track of the number of prisoners, but it was almost impossible. Ana Díaz thought there were close to two hundred. García was very busy,
but he never let a day go by without seeing Alba, alternating unbridled violence with the pretense that he was her good friend. At times he appeared to be genuinely moved, personally spooning soup into her mouth, but the day he plunged her head into a bucket full of excrement until she fainted from disgust, Alba understood that he was not trying to learn Miguel’s true whereabouts but to avenge himself for injuries that had been inflicted on him from birth, and that nothing she could confess would have any effect on her fate as the private prisoner of Colonel García. This allowed her to venture slowly out of the private circle of her terror. Her fear began to ebb and she was able to feel compassion for the others, for those they hung by their arms, for the newcomers, for the man whose shackled legs were run over by a truck. They brought all the prisoners into the courtyard at dawn and forced them to watch, because this was also a personal matter between the colonel and his prisoner. It was the first time Alba had opened her eyes outside the darkness of her cell, and the gentle splendor of the morning and the frost shining on the stones, where puddles of rain had collected overnight, seemed unbearably radiant to her. They dragged the man, who offered no resistance, out into the courtyard. He could not stand, and they left him lying on the ground. The guards had covered their faces with handkerchiefs so no one would ever be able to identify them in the improbable event that circumstances changed. Alba closed her eyes when she heard the truck’s engine, but she could not close her ears to the sound of his howl, which stayed in her memory forever.

  Ana Díaz helped her to resist while they were together. She was an indomitable woman. She had withstood every form of cruelty. They had raped her in the presence of her lover and tortured them together, but she had not lost her capacity to smile or her hope. She did not give in even when they transferred her to a secret clinic of the political police because one of the beatings had caused her to lose the child she was carrying and she had begun to hemorrhage.