The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos (18 page)

Alejandro told Amparo that it was as though he had forgotten who he was, the enemy, an agent of the thousand-headed soul-killing
terrophagus. All at once he felt on the side of the people in the clearing and, overcome with emotion at the conclusion of
the song, he began shouting “Viva!” as wildly and enthusiastically as the others.

When Garcia made his way back to where Alejandro was standing, Alejandro clapped him vigorously on the back and said, “I feel
that you and your friend have returned to me something I had lost; you must introduce me to this Ismael Martinez.”

After the crowd had dispersed, the three of them—Alejandro, Diego and Ismael—sat on the ground under the stars, drinking shots
of agua ardiente and talking long into the night.

After that, Alejandro shared with his two new friends an intellectual love affair and boyish camaraderie that would last the
rest of his life. The three met frequently under the Aguilar roof, sharing information, planning and plotting acts of resistance
to the regime of El Colonel: Alejandro from within, Garcia and Ismael from the outside. Together, they founded the radio voice
of the Guajiro resistance movement,
Buenos días Guajiro,
along the lines of Cuba’s
Radio rebelde.
They used adolescent code names to communicate with each other. Alejandro was Speed Racer, Ismael was El Zorro, and Diego
was El Negro Catire. It would have been comic, if their vocation had not been deadly serious, and even life-threatening.

After two aborted attempts, the P.E., along with allied movements, mounted an unrelenting street protest in every major city,
paralyzing businesses and transportation. It was this third thrust that finally sent El Colonel fleeing into exile. But not
before his henchman, Pedro Lanz, director of the Department of Security and Classified Information, almost made Ismael disappear.

A year after Consuelo and Ismael were married, Amparo received a cable from Ismael from a small town in the southwestern provinces.
Consuelo had suffered her first miscarriage. Hoping that the company of her closest friend would serve as a balm for her sorrow,
Ismael had decided to bring her to Tamanaco. They arrived in the month of October, and Amparo and Alejandro had welcomed them
with open arms. Amparo allowed Consuelo nine days of tears, the time it took to complete the obligatory Novena for the unborn
baby’s soul, before instituting a regime of fun and happiness. It was not long before she had coaxed her friend into mornings
of beauty parlors and shopping for pretty things, afternoons of movies and museums, evenings of boisterous card games, late
nights of singing and laughing. Ismael spent most of his days with Alejandro at the office.

On the evening of November 1, he asked Alejandro to stop at a florist on the way home so that he might buy flowers. It was
Consuelo’s thirtieth birthday. Since there was no place to park anywhere near the flower shop, Alejandro dropped Ismael off
and instructed his chauffeur to drive around the block a couple of times. After sixteen times around the block and still no
sign of Ismael, Alejandro got out and went into the flower shop, but the florist said there had been no customers in over
an hour. Alejandro used the phone at the flower shop to tell Amparo what had happened but urged her not to alarm Consuelo.
He would wait at the florist awhile longer, he said.

“These men!” Amparo exclaimed to Consuelo with a lightheartedness she did not feel. “If it weren’t for women they’d lose their
own heads.”

When the doorbell rang at six p.m., the maid had left and Amparo was in the shower. Consuelo ran to answer it. She barged
into the bathroom, carrying a lavish bouquet of white roses, and stammering so badly that Amparo could not make head nor tail
of what she was trying to say.

“Pero qué te pasa, Consuelo? Slow down, I can’t understand a word.”

“For me, from Pedro Lanz,” Consuelo said.

When Amparo heard that, a chill of fear ran down her spine—for Ismael, for Consuelo, and indeed for them all. As director
of Security and Classified Information, Pedro Lanz was in charge of his own section of secret police, a man believed to be
so devoted to his job that it was claimed he slept with his eyes open. Certainly not a man to be taken lightly. To make matters
worse, when Amparo had introduced him to Consuelo a little over a year earlier, Consuelo had reprimanded him for staring at
her breasts and gone off to dance with Ismael. And it was not a matter of classified information that Ismael was no friend
of the Department of Security and Classified Information.

“What shall we do?” Amparo asked, when Alejandro returned.

“We will make discreet inquiries,” he said.

While Amparo took charge of the phones, Alejandro used his connections to obtain any information on the possible detention
of Ismael. And Consuelo took to the streets, looking everywhere she could think of—military headquarters, police lockups,
hospitals, mortuaries. Amparo knew she had every reason to be concerned for the life of her husband as well as that of Ismael.
It was dangerous to appear to care too much about those who disappeared. After two tense weeks, she received the news she
had been dreading. It was Lily Percomo on the line, an American woman who worked as her husband’s secretary at TVista.

“Some Seguridad Nacional officials are here,” Lily Percomo whispered into the receiver.

“Put me through to my husband,” Amparo said urgently. The secretary complied, but, before Amparo could utter a word beyond
hello, Alejandro said, “Polenta criolla will be fine for dinner.”

“Está bien, mi amor,” said Amparo, breaking out into a cold sweat, “I’ll see you at the usual time, around seven?”
Polenta criolla
was code for an emergency. And
seven
meant that Amparo should send the kids to her mother’s in Valencia.

“Seven, perfecto.”

Amparo packed a suitcase and sent Alex and Isabel with the driver to her mother’s. When she informed Consuelo of the situation,
Amparo expected her to fall apart, but she was strangely composed. In fact, it was Amparo who was nervous, who would jump
out of her skin every time the phone or the doorbell rang. Consuelo poured her a scotch and together they waited for Alejandro
to come home.

Alejandro returned only at eight, his face haggard, his eyes grave. The Seguridad National men had interrogated him for three
hours in his office on his connection with Ismael Martinez. Alejandro had maintained that his wife and the wife of Ismael
Martinez were friends from childhood. Then they suddenly switched gears and grilled him about his car.

“That’s a pretty fancy car you have. Where did you get that car?” they said, as if they didn’t know already.

“I bought it from a dealer in sports cars.”

“Really, and do you have a receipt for it?”

“As a matter of fact I do.” After he showed them the receipt in his file, the tone of the interrogation alternated between
chatty and menacing. Alejandro secretly recorded the exchange, pressing a button under his desk.

Are you aware that the dealer you bought your car from is trafficking stolen vehicles?...no...luckily for you we can’t find
the original owner of your Corvette and anyway it’s not you we’re interested in...you were seen having dinner at El Carrizo
last weekend with Ismael Martinez who we believe is connected to another man we are very interested in...our wives are childhood
friends...yes, so sad for your wife and your wife’s good friend...she won’t be seeing him for a while...arrested...¿qué dices
hombre? there must be some mistake...no we don’t think so or maybe you know something we don’t...is it possible to contact
him?...no of course not you cannot contact him, no one is allowed to contact suspected traitors to the nation...but, his wife,
what is she supposed to do?...por supuesto it’s a bum rap for the wife, these damn revolucionarios never think about their
families never think they’re going to get caught but they all do in the end and poof! keep your nose clean hombre.

When he came home, Alejandro played the recording for Amparo, and continued to play it in his head, over and over, especially
the “poof,” which had been punctuated by one of the Seguridad Nacional thugs making his hand into the shape of a gun and pointing
it at Alejandro’s head. They tried to evaluate his own performance, whether he might have slipped up anywhere, given unintended
information, put anyone else under suspicion. Sleepless in bed that night, Alejandro told Amparo that the hardest part was
pretending that he didn’t give a damn about Ismael being arrested. And the feeling of powerlessness. Because even though he
was a public figure with a certain amount of clout, even though he had maintained his friends in government, if Alejandro
showed too much interest, too much concern, about what had happened to Ismael, it would be only a matter of time before the
shadow of Pedro Lanz swallowed him as well. Political unrest was growing, crackdowns had become routine, these days no one
was above suspicion.

The day after Ismael disappeared, police fired guns at students who were chanting, “Down with the dictatorship.” While children
were falling to the ground like rain, El Colonel appeared on television, telling the people how lucky they were to be living
in an economic democracy. What he really meant was that
he
and his cronies were lucky, because they were indulged by the Americans in exchange for millions of barrels of oil each day.
It was no wonder, said Alejandro, that El Colonel was completely enamorado with the gringos, who had already awarded him the
Legion of Merit.

Lily Percomo, the American woman who worked as Alejandro’s secretary, was married to Ralph Percomo, an attaché who worked
at the American Consulate under the nondescript title Advisor, Foreign Affairs. Ralph Percomo and his wife were frequent social
guests at the Aguilar residence. A cordial diplomat in public, Ralph Percomo was suspected by Alejandro of being an American
intelligence operative. He was also a binge alcoholic. When he drank too much, he beat his wife, Lily, who he prevented from
leaving him by locking up her passport. He always punched her in the ribs or stomach, never in the face, preferring not to
review his handiwork the day after. When she arrived for work at TVista wincing, it was Alejandro who shut the door to his
office and poured her a scotch. And it was Alejandro who twice took her to the hospital to wrap her broken ribs. Lily Percomo
would do anything for Alejandro. And when she said she could find out where Ismael was being held, Alejandro believed her.
After a few days, she said she had the information, but it was not good: Ismael was being held in the capital at the Ministerio
de Defensa, an impregnable fortress from which no detainee had ever been released.

Alejandro went pale. “God help him,” he said, before driving home with the news.

Lily Percomo phoned Amparo the next day, wondering whether they could have lunch together. There was such an urgency to her
tone that Amparo, who was planning to make hayacas that day, changed her mind. “Bring your friend, Consuelo,” said Lily Percomo.
They agreed to meet at an open-air restaurant near Alejandro’s office.

When Amparo and Consuelo arrived, Lily Percomo was already seated at a table, nervously smoking a cigarette. While they waited
for their order of sandwiches and coffee, Lily Percomo began to describe her plan to free Ismael. It was stunningly simple,
so simple as to appear desperate and even stupid. It was a plan Alejandro would never approve. Lily Percomo said her husband
kept a box of official stationery locked in his briefcase. She said she knew where he kept the key. She would draft a letter
to the Director of Security and Classified Information, Pedro Lanz, saying that Ismael Martinez was an American asset, an
“information gatherer” whose information was culled, manipulated, and then disseminated through TVista to serve the incumbent
government’s interests. This would also explain any intelligence the government might have acquired regarding Alejandro’s
link with Ismael, beyond the friendship of their wives, and even, perhaps, the link with Diego Garcia. The letter would request
Ismael’s release, quietly, without any publicity.

“What about the signature?” asked Amparo. But Lily Percomo smiled and said she could forge her husband’s signature, that she
had done it before, on checks.

It would have to be hand-delivered to appear authentic; such messages would not be sent by post. And it would have to be done
during one of Ralph’s bimonthly trips to the United States. Lily Percomo said no one would question her if she personally
delivered the letter to Pedro Lanz, as she had acted as her husband’s courier on earlier occasions.

Consuelo listened without comment while Lily and Amparo discussed the timing of the letter’s delivery. Should it be delivered
immediately or just before the planned coup of the P.E. and its allies on New Year’s Day?

The advantage of waiting, Amparo noted, was that even if the coup failed, as had the one before, there would still be so much
confusion that Ismael might be able to escape the city before the women’s duplicity could be discovered. But if it
were
discovered, Lily Percomo would be the first one incriminated. She would have to go into hiding once the letter was delivered.
They would not tell Alejandro anything until it was a
fait accompli
; only then would they ask him to make arrangements to hide Lily until it was safe to spirit her out of the country, most
likely via Curaçao. Lily would write a note for Ralph saying she was leaving him.