The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos (30 page)

The senior producers at TVista are of the opinion that footage of three dead Guajiro males and one female of mixed race wearing
rebel armbands, three shot three times in the back, and one in the stomach, is too politically sensitive to air.

“Too sensitive?” Luz argues over the smelly pay phone at a corner store in San Felipe. “Why shouldn’t cross-border executions
of the poor be news?”

“Luz,” says Enrique Alonso, her boss, “when did you of all people turn into a champion of the so-called disenfranchised? Forget
it. Leave it to our illustrious leader to dole out bread and bricks to fuel the fires of social justice. Our job is to keep
the public entertained and happy. Right now people are hooked on this El Niño character. We get hundreds of calls every day
since the first story aired. That’s the story we want.”

“I can’t believe you!”

“Believe it. Listen, Luz, it is imperative that you stick to the original plan. Since the day before yesterday, El Presidente
is putting out the story that each morning he receives an important instruction from El Niño, who whispers it into his ear
while he attends morning Mass—the first was he should form an alliance with China, the second was that he should make a book
by a Jewish intellectual mandatory reading in schools, and the latest is that he should nationalize the airwaves. The public
is lapping it up, and my instructions from above are to demystify the rumors. Just get us the kid. If you don’t we’ll send
someone out there who will.”

Luz finds she doesn’t care that her opinion regarding what constitutes real news has been overruled by her superiors. Certainly
not enough to argue, which would be pointless, anyway. All she cares about is getting back to Efraín, who has been in what
appears to be a semicatatonic state ever since he saw the dead people by the river.

“They won’t air it,” she says to Carlos Alberto, who is waiting in the car.

“Well, I guess that’s the end of my big break,” he says, sounding almost relieved. But then he looks depressed.

“What is it?” Luz asked.

“Perhaps my father was right; what sort of man supports his family with soap opera scripts?”

“The best kind,” says Luz, smiling.

“What is the best kind?”

“The kind who knows how to tell the story of a woman.”

Of course the story of the executions of four people in the woods would have aired in the days of Alejandro Aguilar. And even
today, it would have aired if the senior producers and executives, all big businessmen who hated El Presidente and his protectionary
policies toward the masses, had known that one of the dead men was the infamous Negro Catire, whose real name was Diego Garcia;
yes, they would have fallen all over themselves to publicize such a victory over the most pernicious of thorns in the side
of capitalism. But they wouldn’t obtain that information from Luz or Carlos Alberto. Because, over the past twenty-four hours,
there has been an unspoken agreement between them that the true identity of El Niño will never be revealed for public consumption.

“We would make terrible journalists,” says Carlos Alberto, smiling.

“Yes, but we’d make excellent bank robbers,” says Luz. “Have you noticed you’ve started to drive as though you’re at the wheel
of a getaway vehicle?”

Early the previous morning, before she left with Carlos Alberto and Ismael for Yaracuy, Luz did something she knew was bad
and for which she now feels guilty. All the others in the Quintanilla house were asleep—even the nurse, Alegra, who was snoring
softly in the leather recliner in the living room. Luz drew another chair next to the daybed where Lily lay, placed her lips
near Lily’s stomach, and whispered the true story of the Macuto and the silver charm bracelet. It took over half an hour,
during which Lily, deep in slumber, did not stir even once. When Luz finished, she was so tired she could barely keep her
eyes open.

“How’s that for a story, baby?” she murmured.

As she dozed off, her head resting against the side of Lily’s daybed, she felt a repetitive pat on her shoulder and heard
a voice, softly crooning her to sleep. From the time she was a child, Lily had always patted her on the back and sung to her
when she was unhappy or upset or couldn’t sleep. When Lily started singing to her, Luz tried to open her eyes, but her eyelids
were too heavy.

“I’m so sorry Luz, please forgive me,” she thought she heard Lily say. Except it sounded like Irene.

As Luz drifted deeper into sleep, she felt the light feather touch of a kiss brush across her lips, like a summer breeze.
And then fingers, playfully pulling at her toes. And the thick, dark thing that had clouded her spirit for so many years began
to lift and dissipate in the predawn light.

She awoke to her mother’s touch upon her shoulder.

“You need to get up and get ready if you are going with los señores,” said Marta.

“It was so strange, Mamá,” said Luz. “I dreamt that someone was pulling my toes.”

“¿Ah, sí?” said Marta. “Pretty soon it will be me pulling your toes if you don’t get up and get going.” Luz regarded her mother
with sleep-filled eyes and a smile, thinking that the one thing she could be certain of was that her mother would never change.
But then Marta unexpectedly reached down and hugged her roughly. And for the first time in years, Luz did not pull away.

Now, as Efraín mourns the execution of his family in his dreams, while she rocks him in her arms, she thinks she may have
discovered something about a mother’s love. She wishes she could tell him it is only a dream.

Passion fruit mousse is easy to prepare. Cut in half lengthwise and scoop out the seedy pulp with a spoon. Boil down to obtain
syrup. Serve cold, like revenge.

W
hen Marta dreams, she is back in Cuba. In some of the dreams she is a young child, sitting at the table with her parents,
eating a steaming plate of yuca, rice, black beans, and fried plátano. In other dreams she is a grown woman sitting in a cafetería
called La Esmeralda with Humberto. Always, when she visits Cuba in her dreams, she is happy. It is only when she is awake
that Cuba becomes the enemy.

Marta’s understanding of, and interest in, politics is limited. As far as she is concerned, a good leader is one whose enemy
is her enemy. And though she loves Ismael like a brother and savior, she still thinks he was crazy to have fought against
El Colonel, who not only opposed the Communist leader of Cuba but gave Maria Lionza the recognition she deserved, raising
her status to that of a national symbol. Wasn’t it true that his government was blessed by the goddess, that people were safe
in their own houses and on the streets? These days no one can walk in a public place without fear of atracos, or park a car
in front of a restaurant without wondering whether it will still be there by the time the meal is over. El Colonel had been
a real Presidente, not like this one, who behaves like the primogénito of the island tyrant, constantly running there like
a propio payaso to seek his advice, and importing his vile ideas to the mainland. No wonder the statue of Maria Lionza has
broken in two.

Marta was one of the first of an estimated seventy thousand Cubans who migrated to Venezuela during the revolution. Why she
left her home and her dashing revolutionary husband of only two years, Humberto Galano, never to return is a question she
has been asked by employers, friends, acquaintances, and even total strangers. Over the years her answer has evolved. At first
it was because Humberto was involved so deeply with the revolution that it put their lives in danger. He insisted that it
was best and safest for her to remain in exile until Cuba was free—which, he said confidently, was only a matter of a couple
of years at most. Then it was because once every two years, when Humberto came to visit her in her adopted country, he left
her preñada, and she was either pregnant or nursing whenever the opportunity to return arose. Then it was because of the children,
because of financial security, for in the early years, one thing was clear: she and Humberto could not support their growing
family in Cuba under the crushing economic conditions that prevailed. Then it was because of democracy; it was better, Humberto
said, to wait until elections were held and a democratic government was in place. Finally, it was because her husband was
dead.

Most recently Marta has taken to saying that it is not a question of why she left Cuba, but why she will never return. Then,
relishing the expectancy in the eyes of her interrogators, especially if they are prorevolution, as so many are these days,
she says, “Because He [she can never bring herself to say the name] finds it more expedient to sacrifice others for the revolution
than to die for it himself.” She says the last word as if it should be accompanied by spit. No. She cannot return, she says,
because the only way to return is with a sharpened machete for cutting a smile in His thick neck. And then her children would
lose a mother, as well as a father, before it was time.

Although she is seething with rage over the present, Marta often remembers her childhood with longing.

“Do you suffer from terminal nostalgia? You were dirt-poor, it couldn’t have been that great,” Luz snapped at her once, as
though she were jealous of it, this period in her mother’s life when she did not exist. It is true that Marta prefers the
past to the present. Her family had been poor, but they had been happy. It had been another time, another place. But when
you have perfection, the gods remind you what it is like not to have it. Now she is rich, or at least her daughter is, which
amounts to the same, but neither is happy.

For generations, Marta’s Andalusian ancestors had endured the cruelest forces of history in conditions of unrelenting scarcity.
Their only escape was through making love and the telling of stories, stories about themselves embellished by their hopes
and wishes, stories in which they had the power to create a miraculously happy ending, even if happy endings were rarely a
part of real life. Marta’s mother, Maria Inocenta Usoa, was especially gifted in the art of invention, and it is from her
that Marta developed her taste for exotic cuentos. When Marta was a child Maria Inocenta had held her daughter spellbound
with accounts of the long winters she spent growing up as a poor peasant in Andalusia, an experience made beautiful by the
embellishments she added to her tales.