Free Beyond the Ties of Blood by Florencia Mallon Page A

newspapers. It was amazing how soon after the coup the shops were full to bursting with exactly the items that had been impossible to find before. I remember thinking, over and over, how right people had been to accuse shopkeepers of hoarding. To this day I don’t know whether I was followed that morning or not. I probably was, because they couldn’t have arrived more than twenty minutes after I got back from the store.
    â€œI imagine you must already know, more or less, what happened next. They burst in while we were having coffee. You know what that was like, don’t you? They broke everything, threw us to the ground. They beat us for the mere pleasure of it, because once we realized what was happening we didn’t put up any resistance. They put a blindfold over my eyes and tied my hands behind me. Then they shoved me into a car and threw me in the back, on the floor. I don’t know for sure what they did with Manuel, but I imagine it was pretty much the same. They must have put each of us in a different vehicle.
    â€œThey kept me blindfolded for a long while. Perhaps they didn’t want me to know where they were taking me, but for someone who’d grown up in Santiago it wasn’t too hard to guess. There was a small uncovered place near the corner of my left eye, and every now and then I managed to make out something familiar. I could tell that we reached the outskirts of town, what I later understood was Villa Gardenia. But maybe the reason they blindfolded me was so I couldn’t identify those who tortured me. Especially those who gave me the shocks. Because in the following weeks, torture—and the fear of torture—became my new world …”
    Eugenia took the glass of mineral water in her hands, trying not to spill any even though she was shaking violently. After several large swallows she took a deep breath, put the glass back down on the coffee table, and continued.
    â€œThe last time I saw him, they brought him into the room where they’d been torturing me. At first all I noticed was that the electricity stopped. I felt tired, thirsty, relieved. I don’t know. Truth is, I was so tired, so run down, everything hurt. At least now I don’t remember exactly what I felt. It’s even possible I didn’t know it at the time.
    â€œThere came a moment when I realized that there were more people in the room than before, and they had removed my hood. I looked up. There he was. I think they’d broken his right arm, because it was sort of hanging at this weird angle. His face was so swollen, Ignacio, that the only way I recognized him was by his long, curly red hair. The left side of his face was more than double its normal size. His beard was caked with blood, and the pieces of his face you could see, you can’t imagine the color, between red, purple, green, blue …
    â€œWhen I first noticed him, he was sitting with his head hanging down, as if his neck didn’t have the strength to hold it up. At the precise moment I looked up at him, his guard hit him with his rifle butt. ‘There’s your whore,’ he growled. Manuel looked up then and saw me. That’s when I saw the blood caked all over his face. One of his eyes was swollen shut.
    â€œI think I actually felt, more than saw, him look at me. Something passed between us, as if he were trying to talk to me. I tried to talk to him the same way, without words, to tell him not to worry about me, that I was hurting too, but that I could stand it, and that I loved him. To this day I’m convinced he understood me. His head went back down, almost with relief, it seemed. And I’m glad. I’m happy that I saw him then, that we could look at each other and speak without words. Because what happened afterward … of course I couldn’t know for sure until later, until I got out. When I reached Mexico, in fact, that’s when they told me he’d disappeared. That he’d