Free Beyond the Ties of Blood by Florencia Mallon

that I don’t have air conditioning. Sit down, and let me get you a glass of cold water. Or would you prefer iced tea, or mineral water?”
    Eugenia busied herself in the kitchen preparing two glasses of mineral water with ice and lemon. She brought them out to the living room, opened a small drawer on the bottom of her coffee table, and took out two coasters. She placed everything on the table and looked up. Suddenly she did not feel ready to proceed.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said, “but are you hungry?” Her voice sounded as if she’d had to force it around several jagged roadblocks in her throat. “I have some grapes in the kitchen, I …”
    She let her sentence trail off, and went back into the kitchen. She took the grapes out of the refrigerator and washed them under running water in the sink, then put them in a large yellow bowl. She brought it out to the living room and placed it on a small mat next to the glasses. She took a seat in the armchair facing the sofa. She felt short of breath. The heat was becoming oppressive. Ignacio cleared his throat.
    â€œWell. Eugenia. We have a protocol we follow in all our interviews. I hope you don’t mind, but I must summarize what I already said to you over the phone several months ago, as well as some of the material in the documents I sent you in the mail.” Ignacio cleared his throat again before proceeding. Then his voice took on an official, routine, almost sing-song quality.
    â€œWe need your help in the case of Manuel Bronstein Weisz, whose disappearance we believe to have been politically motivated. His mother, Sara Weisz, who now lives in Santiago, was the first person to come before the Commission when we began our interviews. She had been contacted by an ex-member of the secret police who said that you had arrived in Villa Gardenia with her son. As a founding member of the Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared, she used her contacts and tracked you to Boston. I am here in her name to request your help in confirming the abduction of Manuel Bronstein Weisz.
    â€œAnd one more thing, if you’ll permit me. The Commission has defined its work essentially as establishing and confirming, through reliable data and testimony, the human-rights abuses suffered by the executed and disappeared and their families. It is not our mission at this time to document the experiences of people like yourself, survivors of prison and torture. Personally, however, I feel you must have the opportunity to give testimony in as detailed a fashion as you wish, and will not stop you if you include your own experiences.”
    When Ignacio finally stopped talking, a deep silence settled between them and their eyes locked. Eugenia realized that, ironically enough, his official, vaguely formulaic intonation had calmed her down. It suggested a larger, almost paternal authority, a newly empathetic government hovering over his shoulder that now wished to listen to its citizens. And she knew then that this was the way she could make a difference, not only for Manuel and his parents, but for herself and Laura. No matter how limited her understanding of his politics, she was the only one who’d been there and survived, the only one who could tell this story.
    Ignacio took a small portable cassette recorder out of his pocket. When he pointed to it, Eugenia nodded. She began talking as soon as he pressed the RECORD button, raggedly at first, then slowly gaining resonance and power until her words were like a wave that, after spending many years on the high seas, suddenly rushed toward the shore.
    â€œThey caught us in our last apartment in Santiago, the tiny one we’d moved to after Manuel’s last eviction. It was October 7, 1973. It was a clear and luminous morning, a bit chilly, a typical spring morning in Santiago. Like every day since the coup, I’d gone out as soon as the curfew lifted to buy food, coffee, and