The Rhythm of Memory (29 page)

He had lost his own mother at the age of three and was raised by his father for ten years before entering the seminary. In his first years in the priesthood, he had always tried to balance his desire to help others and his aspirations to one day have a high-ranking position within the Church. Hearing this man pleading for his help and hearing his own initial callous and certainly cowardly response, he couldn’t help but feel ashamed. After all, he had grown up as a motherless son. If he had the opportunity to keep another child from avoiding a similar fate, shouldn’t he do everything in his power to do so?

That he had taken the easy way out with the other families now weighed heavily on his conscience. How could he ask something of his congregation that he was unwilling to do himself? Was his own life so valuable that he could not risk it to save hers? Had not Christ sacrificed his own life for those of his flock?

This time, he should gather all his spiritual strength and do the right thing. That which he had sworn to do when he first took his vows. So, he resolved to help this man, these children, regardless of the risks to himself.

After contemplating his decision, the priest lifted his chin from his chest, pushed himself forward in his chair, and gazed back at Octavio with an intensity that matched the young actor’s. “Although I am probably risking my own safety, jeopardizing my
own career, I promise you I will do all in my power to help. I myself know what it is like to grow up in a family where the mother is absent. My own mother died when I was three. So if I can help your children have their mother returned to them, I will do everything I can.”

“Thank you, Father,” Octavio said breathlessly. He had been clutching his chest, waiting for the priest to give him the news he so desperately wanted to hear. Finally Octavio had found someone to help him.

“Do you have any idea where they have taken your wife?” the priest asked.

“I suspect to the Villa Grimaldi.”

“You suspect?”

“Those were my wife’s last words before she was taken.”

“I see.”

“I have driven there and it is swarming with military police.”

The priest frowned and rubbed his brow with his forefinger. “I think you should come back tomorrow. The two of us will go to this Villa Grimaldi and see if it is a prison like you say.”

“But what about the police?”

“What about them?” The priest folded his hands on his desk. “I am a United Nations priest, a visiting cleric from Bogotá. I will wear my robes reserved for international meetings. Hopefully, if we are in any danger, this will remind the soldiers that I am protected by international law.”

“Yes,” Octavio agreed.

“You will dress up as my assistant. I’ll lend you a white collar and black shirt, but you must promise not to speak when we go there. Let me do all the talking.”

“Yes, of course. But, what do you intend to say?”

“I will ask these policemen if they have a woman, a wife and mother of three, within the premises. And, if so, in the name of God, I will demand her immediate release.”

The priest stood up and walked to the coatrack, retrieving his outer robe from the hook. “But we must do this tomorrow, I’m already late for my confessional duties.”

“Of course.”

“Meet me here tomorrow after midday mass.”

“Yes, I will be here!” Octavio was heaving from the rush of his body’s adrenaline. “Thank you, Father.”

Octavio exited the church that afternoon with his body trembling. His speech to the priest had been his most passionate performance ever. And as he passed the now empty pews, he felt more satisfaction than if he had performed for an adoring audience of ten thousand. For now, he finally had an ally, someone who believed in him and who had sworn to help Salomé. No cameras were rolling, but Octavio, prone to dramatic gestures, kissed his shaking fingers and blew a kiss to the Madonna as he pushed open the heavy door.

S
ANTIAGO
, C
HILE

F
EBRUARY
1974

The next day, Octavio returned to the church. After changing into the robes of a cleric, he ushered the priest to his car and the two of them drove off to Peñalolen, in search of the Villa Grimaldi and Salomé.

Octavio and the priest sped along the same roads that Octavio had driven over time and time again. The sun glowed ahead of them with great intensity, bathing the snow-covered tops of the Andes with a soft, pink light.

“We’re almost there,” Octavio relayed to the priest, who looked quietly outside his window at a field of migrant farmers working the land.

“Yes? So close to Santiago? We’ve only been driving for forty minutes!”

“I know. But this is where I suspect she’s been taken.”

In the distance, Octavio saw the burgeoning tip of a tower. “I think that’s it, straight ahead!” He pointed his finger to the horizon, showing the priest what he believed was the infamous Villa Grimaldi.

“Pull over and park here,” Father Cisneros said. “We’ll walk the rest of the way.”

Octavio complied. He parked the car on the side of the road and turned off the car’s engine.

“Since you’re supposed to be my assistant, you should probably walk behind me,” the priest suggested as he got out of the car. “And remember, I will be the one making the inquiry.”

“Yes, of course.”

Octavio had felt sick all day. He knew it was his nerves and the strain of worrying about his wife, but he tried to appear at ease.

They walked up the long gravel path that began the villa’s driveway. Small pebbles kicked under the soles of their feet as Father Cisneros’s robe billowed behind him like a large, black sail.

“Can we help you, Father?” one of the military asked as they approached the heavily guarded gate.

“Yes,” the priest answered. “Can you tell me what this place actually is?”

“Sure, Father,” the guard answered willingly. “It’s a recreation center for soldiers. We come here for our retreats.”

“I see. So it’s not open to the public, I assume.”

“No. Sorry, Father,” the guard said with a shrug, his rifle butting against his shoulder.

Large black vans and green army jeeps continued to pass through the gates as the two men spoke. Another guard waved them in.

“That’s quite all right,” the priest said, a tinge of relief in his voice. “Come, Brother Antonio,” he said, holding on to Octavio’s arm, “we should be returning to our duties.”

The two men turned away from the gate and began walking slowly to their car.

“You see, Don Octavio, this is not a prison or a torture center. It’s a recreation center!”

“No, it’s not! I’m sure of it.” Octavio was incredulous at the priest’s naïveté. “Father, how can you blindly believe what that
soldier just said to you! You haven’t been inside! Don’t you think it’s odd that all these black vans keep pulling past the gate if it’s just a recreation center?”

“No, not really.”

Octavio had to fight back his urge to hit the priest. He barely had enough strength to talk anymore, and yet his anger and frustration were rising within him.

“Father, how can I convince you? Something very evil is going on in there!”

The priest’s glance was firm, his eyes slightly narrow. “Let us go back to the church and speak about this there.”

“My wife is inside there!”

The priest shook his head. Behind the two men, a black van was parked on the side. The driver’s door was open, revealing that the owner had left the vehicle temporarily unwatched.

“I believe what the guard told us. Why would he lie?”

In a mad, last-ditch attempt to convince the reluctant priest, Octavio ran to the black van. He jumped onto the bumper, his sandals slipping over the waxy, rubber edge, his fingers lacing into the metal handles.

“Look!” he cried, even before he had seen what lay inside.

As the doors opened, both Octavio and the priest recoiled in horror. Inside, there were three bodies badly beaten, their appendages covered in blood.

Neither Octavio nor Father Cisneros spoke to each other for several seconds. They stood there transfixed, nauseated, and shocked by the sight before them. Each of the faces on the three corpses had been smashed, their skin burned and broken. One could see the terror they had endured during their final moments frozen in their bloodstained eyes.

“O Lord in heaven,” Father Cisneros whispered as he made the
sign of the cross and quickly whispered the last rites for the dead men.

“Jesus Christ!” gasped Octavio as he covered his nose and mouth to stifle both the stench and his own revulsion.

The priest stood there with wide eyes, the blood emptying from his cheeks.

“We must get out of here,” the priest urged. Within seconds, he was behind Octavio, who was walking briskly to the car.

As they sped back along the rough roads to Santiago, Octavio turned to the priest. “Now do you believe me?”

Father Cisneros did not answer him, for he could not speak. As they drove through the hills and into the heart of the city, the priest’s answer was clearly revealed.

One only had to look at his face.

S
ANTIAGO
, C
HILE

F
EBRUARY
1974

As Octavio drove down the dusty roads, his eyes focused on the horizon.

“You see, I was telling the truth!” he said with wild exasperation. “My wife is in there! Who knows what they’ve done to her!”

“We must keep calm, Octavio,” the priest said, his voice breaking midsentence. “You must allow me a few minutes to think. I must figure out how we should proceed with this.”

The air inside the car was stifling, and Octavio rolled down the window to let a warm breeze wash over them.

“How many days has your wife been gone now?”

“Twenty-four.”

“So it does not appear that they will be setting her free on their own.”

“No, it does not.” Octavio’s reply was curt.

“Let us not lose ourselves,” the priest said gently. “It’s essential that we maintain our composure.”

The priest readjusted himself in the cramped car seat. Underneath his clerical robes he was soaked with perspiration. He had wanted to hide his alarm from Octavio. He wanted to seem that he was in control of the situation and had a plan that could save this man’s wife. But his mind was spinning now, his stomach still
sickened by the sight of the three disfigured corpses. Never could he have imagined that such terror was happening in this country he was sent to only a few months before. He couldn’t believe he had allowed himself to be so blind, so complacent in his moral responsibilities to people who clearly needed his help.

Several minutes of silence passed between the two men as each chastised himself for his shortcomings. Octavio continued to drive while silently berating himself for choosing his beliefs over his wife’s safety, and the priest continued to criticize himself for his lack of moral conscience.

Finally, in an effort to initiate conversation and distract himself from his self-criticism, the priest turned to the young man beside him and tried to change the subject temporarily.

“You’re no longer acting, my son?”

“No. They don’t want me and I don’t want to be a part of their obsequious, self-serving faction. A group of mindless idiots, that’s what I think of my former colleagues.”

“I see.”

“Not one of them would help me when I asked. And, believe me, more than a handful of them know a general or two that could pull some strings.”

“A general? You think that might be the answer to getting your wife released?”

“Of course, everyone knows that the generals have the power. If they ask for someone to be released, that person will be found—if they’re not already dead —and let go the next day! That’s how this military state works, for God’s sakes!”

“I see.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, as a clerical representative of the U.N., I might be able to arrange a meeting with one of the generals.”

Octavio took his eyes off the road for a second and stared at the cleric beside him.

In profile, Father Cisneros reminded Octavio of one of the clerics in an El Greco painting. His angular features and long, attenuated fingers seemed unearthly. His pale white skin seemed to have rarely seen the light of day and was now reddening from exposure to the afternoon sun. It struck Octavio there, as he drove down the mountainside, that perhaps God had sent him a gift.

“Finally!” he bellowed, as if moved by the musings of his mind. He pounded his fist against the steering wheel, and a broad smile flashed over his bronzed face. “Finally I’ve received an answer to my prayers!”

S
ANTIAGO
, C
HILE

F
EBRUARY
1974

In the austere, white-walled government office building, only steps away from the nearly restored presidential palace, an anxious Octavio and a meditative priest waited for a General Martinez to arrive.

Father Cisneros had been petrified all morning. He had barely been able to perform his perfunctory duties at the church. He had mumbled his way through mass, nearly dropping the ceremonial wine over his vestments and tripping over the stairs that led to the pulpit. He realized that he was placing his own life in danger by getting involved, but the moral ramifications of doing nothing would be far more torturous than any ill fate he might endure at the hands of the regime.

So he now composed himself. He tried to clear his mind as he changed into the official robes of a designated cleric and ambassador of faith from the United Nations. The purple sash with gold wreath that symbolized his association with that organization had strengthened his faith and conviction, though he needed little reassurance now after seeing those battered men at the Villa Grimaldi. He only hoped that Octavio’s wife was alive, and that he could, in fact, gain her release. If he was successful, he would not only be saving a life, but also an entire family. Never could he
have anticipated being faced with such responsibility when he’d accepted his position as visiting cleric from Bogotá six months before. Now, he only hoped he could succeed.