The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos (41 page)

The next day Irene wrote a letter to her best friend, Lily, who was in boarding school in Valencia. Lily, who had the parents
and family she coveted. She wrote the letter in such a way as to make her own life seem the better one, more fun, more chimerical,
more adventurous.

Caracas, February 1978

Hola, Lily. Prepare yourself. I have a lot to say.

I’m skinnier, I cut my hair chévere and I don’t like Carlos anymore. You know why? Well, I’m skinnier because I don’t have
your mother to cook for me. And besides, I don’t have time to eat. I work in Zulema’s boutique after school and I get fifty
bolívares every Thursday. I cut my hair because it bored me to look at the same face every day in the mirror, and also to
punish my father for grounding me last Saturday. My father hates short hair on women. But I think it looks fantastic. And
I don’t like Carlos anymore because he’s too clumsy and he suffers from a severe lack of coolness. See, I went to the airport
with him to pick up my sister and on the way back he crashed the car. I saw this car veering ahead of us on the autopista
and I said, “¡Frena, frena!” and instead of braking, he accelerates. And so we crashed. Then two hours for the police to come.
Then finally the whole thing got fixed because Zulema paid the cops off. So then we were all hot and sweaty and decided to
stop and have something to drink, and when he asked me what I wanted, HIS SALIVA CAME OUT. I couldn’t stand it and I started
laughing and he was embarrassed. Then, on the way back from the airport, he kept grabbing my hand because he wanted to tell
me something and his saliva came out again and I felt like diving out of the car. So I go, “¿Qué te pasa?” and he goes, “Nada.”
And this scene was repeated about ten times until we arrived in front of my building and finally he goes, “I like you and
I want to keep seeing you.” But that saliva thing was in my mind and so I smiled and said “bye” and scrammed. Then I was thinking
the whole night: that Carlos, so cute and such a good body and such a pendejo. And I never went out with him again.

Okay, now to Ricardo who is twenty-four years old. Bueno, he really is cool. We went out on a lot of double dates with Zulema
and her boyfriend. And I liked him so much. But...he went to Brazil, and do you know when he’s coming back? IN TWO YEARS.
I cried when we said goodbye at the airport. We got there real early and he embraced me in some corner of the airport and
French-kissed me for a long time. And he got out some keys and scraped R + I = AMOR in the cement floor. He kissed me some
more and I cried. And he took off his cross, put it around my neck and said, “Te quiero,” and I cried even harder. He said
he would write and always remember me and love me. And that when he came back, I would be a woman, etc, etc. Just before he
got on the plane, he gave me a big French kiss in front of my sister and everybody. Well, that was the end of that. Boo hoo.
That’s the way life is and you have to learn how to face it. Or else you’ll be jodida.

Now to Diego. Remember him? I was going out with him when you were with Elvis. He wrote to me from his college in the U.S.
saying he loved me forever. I wrote him back some bullshit that I’m waiting for him, etc. He hasn’t replied. Better. I hope
he forgets me.

Now to Alejandro. I’m back with him. He kept bugging me so much and swearing he loved me. And because I was depressed about
Ricardo, I decided to console myself with him. And that’s why my father grounded me—he says Alejandro is too old for me. Imagínate.

Well, now to myself again. On Friday I went to El Poliedro to see Gloria Gaynor, a gringa black singer. She sang this song
called “I Will Survive” that really resonar with me. Paco and I went down and danced near the stage. And I was so happy. Last
week I went to the movies with Alejandro, and his sister Dolores and her boyfriend Esau. And after the movies we went to two
parties. After the two parties, we went to the Reflexions discothèque. After the Reflexions, about 4:30 a.m., we went to our
houses to get our bathing suits and drove to the beach!

Now to my sister. There was a big fight in my house between my sister and my dad, because she defended me about Alejandro.
And my father threw Zulema out of the house, and now she lives with her boyfriend, Max.

Oh, and I forgot to tell you: Alejandro and I did coca and it was really fantastic. You have to try it. By the way, my mother
has a new boyfriend. He’s nineteen. Ha! He’s younger than
my
boyfriend! He could
be
my boyfriend! And guess what: he’s a Guajiro !!!

Love you always,

Irene

P.S. I guess there aren’t any boys where you are. You poor frustrated thing.

P.P.S I haven’t worn my tanga bathing suit because my culo is too white.

P.P.P.S I hope you come back soon.

P.P.P.P.S I love you and miss you. I mean it.

Reading the letter again so many years later makes her laugh so hard that tears stream down her face. Even though she knows
it isn’t funny. Zulema is the only one who really looked after her—or tried to, at any rate.

Benigno had been annoyed that Zulema and Max had taken her along with them for a weekend at Colonia Tovar. Zulema was teaching
her younger sister how to be a whore, he said at the top of his voice. The way it all started was this:

Max, in one of his benevolent avatars, offered to take Zulema to Colonia Tovar, and since Irene was standing around at the
boutique when he made the offer, he chivalrously invited her to come along. They drove up into the mountains on Good Friday,
arriving around nine p.m., and checked into the hotel they always stayed in called El Pequeño Aleman, where they gorged on
strudel and thick German sausages. The thinness of the mountain air had made them ravenous. Max and Zulema had gotten into
a minor argument over dinner about the exact pronunciation of Peugeot, which Max owned and was thinking of replacing with
a Saab. Max said it was pronounced “peyott” and Zulema, who had studied French in high school and spent a summer in Paris,
said Max was a barbarian. The issue was settled by a Swiss-born waiter who gave the word a different intonation from that
of either Zulema or Max. Both were thoughtful after that. Irene was grateful that Max had refrained from baiting Zulema further
with some of his usual sexist remarks. (Zulema liked to pretend she was something of a feminist, but since her teens she had
never been able to live a week outside of a relationship, and, now in her twenties, never had a relationship with a man who
could not support her in style; and she never worked except for fun.) Irene had been in a hurry to get to her room before
any untoward incident could ruin the evening. Pleasantly sated and somewhat stupefied by the heavy German meal, they left
the restaurant and walked to their cabañas, which were side by side. Just before they separated, Zulema had kissed her sister
and whispered that they would go for a walk around the shops in the morning before Max, a very late riser even on working
days (he owned his own box-making company) got up. She said they could meet for coffee around eight.

The next morning, when Zulema joined her at the restaurant at eight-forty, Irene thought her sister looked tired.

“Didn’t you sleep?” she asked.

“Sure. After I ate all the chocolate Easter eggs out of the guest basket,” Zulema smiled.

“So, what’s the matter, then?”

“Bueno. I’m pregnant. And I haven’t told Max yet because he doesn’t like children.” Zulema’s face began to crumple, but then
she regained her poise and put on her happy voice. “It is nothing for you to worry about, mi amor. Everything will work out
for the best.”

They wandered through the cobblestone streets of the town and bought a handmade cuckoo clock and six jars of honey.

When they returned to the Pequeño Alemán, Max had already paid the bill and was standing outside the lobby with their suitcases.
He said his sister in Caracas had phoned to say his apartment had been burgled. They got into the Peugeot, which Max drove
down the mountain like a stuntman, squealing around curves, honking and overtaking anything in his path, as though getting
back to Caracas more quickly would counteract the fait accompli of the burglary. Irene had clenched her hands tightly in her
lap the whole way down, while Zulema stared out the window, humming tensely and out of tune.

When they arrived at Max’s residence in Cumbres de Curumo, the place was crawling with cops. Zulema announced immediately
that she was going to lie down. Irene stood in the spacious living room, shamelessly making eyes at one of the youngest cops,
while Max charged about, trying to assess his losses.

It turned out that, besides the usual—TV, stereo, computer—most of the silver had been taken. Max paced up and down, ticking
off items on a sheet of paper on a fancy clipboard and pursing his lips in a way that made Irene think his mouth resembled
nothing so much as a dog’s asshole. How could Zulema bear to kiss that wrinkled asshole mouth, she wondered. The cops said
they’d try their best, but in all likelihood the silver would have already been melted down by now. At which point Zulema
emerged from Max’s bedroom to say that all her jewelry had been taken, and Max said, so what, since most of it was junk. “Who
cares about those peroles?” he said.

Strangely, the only item removed from the ultramodern, heavily mechanized kitchen was an antique earthenware pot, which Max
had purchased for a bomb from an archaeologist’s assistant at Hato Viejo. Could the thief be an indio? Who else would attribute
value to such an item? Irene mentioned the possibility to Max, who ignored her, because, after all, she was just a girl. She
repeated her theory to one of the cops, who listened politely, looked at her intently, and said, “To me, it looks like a job
by a Guajiro called El Malandro. He always takes the cars.”

Max’s second car, a fully loaded, custom-accessorized Jeep with huge wheels, was gone. But, although the keys were still in
the ignition, this Malandro character hadn’t wanted her sister’s beat-up, but beloved, Corvair. Too bad, she thought. If he
had, it would have given Max an excuse to buy her sister a better car.

In the middle of everything Zulema had blurted out right in front of the cops and neighbors that she was pregnant, then promptly
burst into tears. And Max had told everyone except Irene to leave, had shut the door, had taken Zulema in his arms, and said,
“Let’s get married.” For all his assholish ways, the fact was Max loved Zulema and would always take care of her. And Irene
felt glad about that. But her gladness had been short-lived, because, as soon as they got home, Benigno threw Zulema out of
the house for taking Irene to Colonia Tovar with Max. Irene was forbidden to see her sister.

“Yes,” said Zulema, as she walked out the door with her last suitcase, “take it out on the minor child, the only person in
this family you can forbid anything. But just remember, she is not your blood, she is ours, mine and Mami’s.”

“That’s the pity,” Benigno shot back, “the poor thing is related to two of the biggest putas in all of Caracas.”

Two months after her sister had been banished, Irene was admitted to a mental health facility for the first time (but not
the last) with what they had said was a cocaine-induced “fugue.” She was subjected to a straitjacket, tranquilizers, and seemingly
endless sessions of hide-and-seek with a ferret-faced psychiatrist known as Dr. Estrelina Uzoátegui. Terrified and terrorized
by the paradigm shift—the sudden and never-before-experienced policing of her thoughts and restriction of her movements—she
took some solace in making fun of her doctor’s faint but discernible mustache and hair set in wings that pointed upward. “Dr.
Beethoven, I presume,” she would greet her, which did not win her any favors.

But for Lily, for Lily alone, for even the
thought
of Lily, Irene had cloaked her fears in high-spirited abandon and mirth. Lily’s name did not feature on Benigno’s list of
“real people” in her life, which was required by the hospital as part of the data on patients suspected of suffering from
too much imagination. Which was why her handlers had tried their best to convince her that Lily was only a figment of her
imagination. She wrote many drafts of many letters to Lily, which she asked her jailors to post. Whether or not they posted
the final editions to the address she gave them, she has no idea. The point is, at fifteen, she was already an adept storyteller
long before she ever considered taking it on as a métier. She kept the drafts but only two remain.