The Case of Lisandra P. (8 page)

“The door to your office closes, and you can be heard murmuring, ‘Filthy bastard.'”

Eva Maria's voice is lifeless. She creases the pages. She can't turn them anymore. Her finger is dry. Eva Maria has no more saliva. She needs a drink. But in this visiting room, she can't drink. The sentences are echoing in her head. In her dry throat.

Have you ever tried to talk to a woman who's in the middle of screaming?

Haven't you?

You see, it's not very pleasant when someone has to worm it out of you.

Maybe she was waiting for precisely that. Maybe she wanted to prove to herself that you could be violent.

You managed to get other people to talk. Filthy bastard.

Eva Maria's gaze is unsteady. Vittorio's eyes are glued to the table. His head between his hands. She is afraid of understanding. She asks him a question. Vittorio doesn't answer. Lost in thought, he says repeatedly, “I was right. I was right.” So Eva Maria asks her question again. Louder, her voice even more toneless.

“That man belonged to the junta, didn't he?”

Vittorio raises his head. He nods. Eva Maria recoils.

“And you have been seeing him?”

“Yes.”

“But how could you agree to see a bastard like that?”

“Because he came to me.”

“Because he came to you? But you should have spat in his face, you should have kicked him out of your office, literally, smashed his face in, that's all he deserves. And then you saw me, after that? As if it were no big deal. And you tried to comfort me for Stella's disappearance, even though only a few minutes earlier, you might have been comforting her murderer.”

“Every patient is a unique human being, independent of my other patients. They come to me with their problems and I try to
help them; it's my job. He worked for the ESMA,
*
that's all I know. No sooner did we bring it up than the subject was closed.”

“The Navy School of Mechanics—they were the worst.”

Vittorio waves his hand in space.

“The worst was everywhere in those days, and you know that very well. In any case, Felipe didn't tell me any more about his work back then than he does now.”

Eva Maria seems even more upset.

“‘His work back then'—I don't understand. How long have you been seeing him?”

“There's no point counting the years, but yes, I was already seeing him . . . back then . . . if that's what you want to know.”

Eva Maria leaps to her feet. She shouts.

“You're just like them!”

The guard moves closer to her.

“If you don't calm down, señora, I will have to interrupt your visit.”

Eva Maria sits back down. The guard moves away. Eva Maria collapses.

“By helping that butcher, you were part of their murderous system! And how many others did you see?”

Vittorio leans closer.

“What did you think? That Felipe came to see me to ask me to help him kill? Don't be grotesque. His only problems were always his childhood, his brother, and his wife. Let me repeat, he never spoke to me about his work.”

“This man doesn't come to see you because he has a bad conscience about torturing and killing but because things are not going well with his wife—and that butcher, that piece of shit, has found someone he can talk to, and that someone is you! My daughter was killed by a guy like him—he may even be the one who killed her—and you want me to accept the fact that you are his shrink?”

“Who knows whether Felipe might not have done even more harm if I hadn't been seeing him? I've always hoped to change him, but not by attacking him head-on about the things that seem as unacceptable to me as they do to you. One time I did try to open his eyes, but the conversation quickly turned ugly. He went into an icy rage; his rationale was as solid as a rock; his convictions were unshakable; he said he was acting for ‘national security,' that the communists and all the
subversive elements
were dangerous—he had to prevent them from causing harm, he had to neutralize them. Felipe believes that it is thanks to these methods that he got the job done. He has no remorse. He gives orders and takes them, no qualms; all that matters is success. After all these years, I have figured out what makes him tick. I told myself that if I managed to help him deal with his childhood trauma, I would help the man he had become. I was under the impression that I had some sort of control over him, but I was wrong, completely wrong. I could never have imagined he would do such a thing. Why didn't I see the connection earlier? It seems so obvious to me now. But I didn't see a thing, I didn't suspect a thing. I had to be in prison to understand.”

Eva Maria sits up straight.

“Understand what?”

“I can't say for sure, but everything points in that direction. It's a known fact that they were reserved for officers.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The child. His little boy. He wasn't adopted. He's a stolen child.”

Eva Maria stifles a cry. Vittorio stares into space.

“And if what I have imagined is correct, it doesn't stop there.”

Eva Maria looks at Vittorio. Vittorio looks at Eva Maria. He no longer sees her. He is using her. As a visual support for his thoughts. His reasoning is not in place. He needs to speak in order to reason. To voice his thoughts. Vittorio is not speaking to Eva Maria. He is thinking out loud.

“Felipe had always despised his brother, a latent jealousy that went back to childhood. It happens a lot, the older child toward the younger, finding it hard to accept the new birth. According to Felipe, his parents preferred his brother—whether it was an imagined or a real preference, I have no idea. Felipe and his wife had already been trying to have a child for some time, without success. I remember it very well; he spoke about it a lot. One day, he came to my office very perturbed: he had just found out that his brother's wife was pregnant, yet again—his brother succeeding where all he did was fail. He probably couldn't stand it. A few months later, I can't remember exactly how much time had gone by, he told me they had died, his brother and sister-in-law. It was brutal. A car crash. ‘Natural selection,' was how he put it, coldly, for sure, but given the lack of love he showed for his brother, it didn't surprise me. I could never have imagined he was involved. When shortly after the accident he informed me that his wife was pregnant, I didn't think there was anything amiss. How could I know? It was his brother's imminent fatherhood that must have blinded him and driven him to act. For the sake of his competition with him he was prepared to do anything. It's so sordid, and yet it makes sense. That's why he made the slip. ‘But of course I look after my brother.' The child, the child he says he adopted. It's his brother's child. He took him. After killing
the parents, or arranging for them to die, I have no idea. And his sister-in-law, like most of those so-called subversive elements, must have given birth in one of their special cells, the cells they set aside for pregnant women, and after that they got rid of her, too, like the other mothers of stolen babies. After he had helped himself to the child. It was too easy, too tempting to use the system that was already in place, the existing organization, to deal with his personal problems. Felipe was surely not the only one who had done something like that. Violence had become the answer to all his problems. He slapped his wife, and it wasn't a matter of ideological conviction, either, simply anger. He didn't want his brother to have a baby if he couldn't himself. Childhood jealousy with an adult's weapons.”

Eva Maria is speechless. Her analytical mind is paralyzed. Vittorio's is going full steam.

“So this is what might have happened that night. When Felipe left my office, he was already sorry he had revealed his secret and, above all, he believed I had figured out what really lay behind this so-called adoption: the fact that his son is a stolen child—he may even have thought that I figured out it was his brother's child. When a person is afraid of being found out, they are afraid of being completely exposed; they don't realize that the whole truth rarely comes to light all at once. Maybe he also heard me calling him a ‘filthy bastard' through the door—a torturer's ears are used to listening out for the slightest murmur—and the insult touched a sensitive nerve. And then there were all my insinuations—I couldn't help it, some thoughts just slipped out. He knew very well what I thought of him deep down.”

Vittorio closes his eyes.

“So. Let's just suppose. Felipe now thinks I have become dangerous. His enemy; in any case the enemy of his secret. So he decides to get rid of me. But that evening, I'm not at home.”

Vittorio opens his eyes.

“Here's what happened. Felipe came upon Lisandra. Maybe it was an accident? A botched attempt. No, Felipe is no amateur. Maybe he sent someone to do the dirty work for him? So he wouldn't get his hands dirty. Maybe things went wrong with that someone. No, Felipe wouldn't have involved anyone else in his crime, no accomplices; that would be taking the risk of being betrayed one day, and that's not a risk Felipe would have taken—he knows only too well how impulsive betrayal can be. He used to say, ‘In every friend there sleeps half a traitor.'”

Vittorio formulates his questions and his answers. Like during a session. But today, it's not a patient's life that is at stake, but his own. His life. His freedom. Vittorio knows this. But he's never experienced it the way he does right now. All the difficulty of reasoning for himself. For the self that is in danger.

“And what if Felipe had it all set up so I would be accused? In prison, accused of the murder of my wife, I could no longer harm him.

“No. There's no proof that in prison I can no longer harm him. And besides, that's too complicated; yet again, it would be simpler just to kill me.”

Vittorio has only one lead to find his way out of here. He cannot let it go. He crushes it. Pounds it. Vittorio is losing all lucidity. He is eager to find another culprit. His reasoning is leading him astray. He is no longer driven by a thirst for truth but by the fear of remaining in prison. His thoughts are getting carried away.

“And what if he spoke to his wife the way I advised him to? What if he told her he had confessed to me that the child was not theirs? Besides, how much did she know, exactly, about the child? Surely Felipe would not have told her anything. Surely she would have figured it out for herself a few weeks or a few months after the
arrival of this
prodigal child
; she suspected the terrible truth. Because she must know, that alone would explain why she behaved the way she did toward Felipe, her permanent anger. She knows that her son is one of the five hundred children stolen under the junta, the five hundred children the state is looking for, to give them back to their biological families. So she asked him to eliminate me, out of a fear of losing her child. When you have learned to kill for ideology, you can kill for love. He is used to obeying orders. He goes home. He talks to his wife. Except that she asks him to kill both of us. Lisandra and me. I can hear her from here, using her female psychology, sharpened by the maternal paranoia of losing her child—so her thoughts were definitely criminal—to suggest that it wouldn't be enough to get rid of only me. I was bound to have spoken to my wife, for sure; this story was far too interesting for a husband who wanted to entertain his wife over the course of a meal, a meal which as a rule was too silent, to relieve her of boredom, a terrible story about a child—no one could resist telling such a story, whether they were a shrink or not, whether there was doctor-patient privilege or not. It wouldn't be enough to get rid of me; he would have to get rid of my wife as well. They couldn't let anyone else find out. So, let's just suppose. Felipe comes to our house, he rings the bell, he doesn't give up; Lisandra eventually opens the door; Felipe makes all those gestures he is specialized in, until he pushes Lisandra out the window; he thinks he'll find me in my study or somewhere in the house—I should have been there, as a rule Tuesday evening I am there, it's Thursday evening that I go out—and he is getting ready to deal with me as well, according to who knows what sort of gruesome scenario: the famous lovers' quarrel that has turned ugly, everyone seems to like that one, there's no reason for them not to have thought of it as well—‘a man commits suicide after pushing his wife out the window.' Perfect. The perfect crime. As screenplays
go, you can't beat it. Except that I'm not there. And we know what happened after that.”

Eva Maria looks at his thick black hair as he shakes his head left to right. She stares at it so hard that it seems to her it is his hair that is speaking. Where else could such a dark voice come from?

“I don't know anymore . . . I don't know what I'm saying . . . just because Felipe deserves to end his life in prison doesn't mean that he killed Lisandra.”

Vittorio falls silent. Not because he's finished, but to gather his thoughts. Then he continues.

“You're right: I have to show those bastard cops that I must be innocent. I can't give them the cassette, no—for sure that would backfire against me. But my memories can be very precise. I can imply that I have my doubts regarding Felipe; they'll conduct their investigation, and even if they don't go about it altogether wholeheartedly, at least they will check his alibi for that evening, the night of the murder—they will have to, my lawyer will make sure they do. After that, we'll see.”

This time Vittorio falls silent for good. As if he had been making an intense physical effort. A thin layer of sweat is pearling on his forehead. Eva Maria says nothing. She, too, is drained. Without having said anything. Drained from having discovered such an unthinkable truth.
Vittorio, shrink to torturers.
Vittorio looks at her. He knows. Something has broken between them today. In her. He hears the guard coming up behind him. The visit is over. Vittorio stands up. He gives Eva Maria a small wave. To say good-bye. Eva Maria doesn't respond. She sits with her fists clenched on the table. Her body is as stiff as a robot. Her right hand opens then closes. She doesn't realize. Vittorio thinks about sign language. He remembers the day Lisandra cried out, unhappily, “Deaf people
cannot dance. How sad for them. Why don't you learn sign language, my love? Deaf people, too, have the right to see a psychologist, and besides, it would be a change for you from always having to listen or speak, if you could look, simply look; it's so good sometimes, my love.” Lisandra was like a child; when she thought she had a good idea, she always went on and on about it. “Tell me, will you do it, my love?” And just as he would have done with a child, he let her believe the dream was possible. “I'll think about it.” “You promise?” “Promise.” Vittorio thought of all the times he had promised; promises he made to Lisandra that he never kept. But Lisandra expected too much from human beings; it was her shortcoming to always want them to be better than they could ever be. Because human beings are bad, that's the way it is, and he should never have let her believe the contrary. Perhaps none of this would ever have happened. Behind Vittorio the door to the visiting room slams. Vittorio is wrong. Wanting human beings to be better than they are does not mean one does not know they are bad. If only Vittorio could have imagined just how profoundly Lisandra knew how evil human beings are.