It’s been like this for years.
We began the routine when my son was little. In those days we didn’t have a car, and each morning I said goodbye to him as he walked out the door to nursery school, holding his father’s hand. I kissed him and hugged him tight because secretly I was panicked that I might never see him again. Terrifying thoughts assailed me each time we parted. I imagined a bus barreling into him, a live wire dropping from electric poles onto his head, a mad dog coming out of a house and lunging for his neck, some pervert picking him up from nursery school, the man with the sack kidnapping him and never bringing him back. The possibilities were dramatic and infinite. My fearful new-mother’s brain fabricated horrors, and in that unhinged exercise, each time he came home was a gift.
With time, the madness came to an end. I no longer dream up calamities, but during that morning departure ritual I always focus on the image of my son and his father as they’re leaving. It’s a snapshot suspended in my mind until I see them again. An uncontrollable impulse that I inherited from those days as a frightened new mother, the distillation of an archaic fear that I suppose we all have and try to keep under control, the fear of unexpectedly losing the people we love.
I don’t know what the morning routine must have been like at the Weibel Barahona household in 1976. I was just four years old and I can’t even remember what my own mornings were like back then, but with a little imagination I can see that house in La Florida and the family beginning their day. I doubt their routine was much different from the one I follow daily with my family, or the one that all families with children in this country have been following daily for years. I imagine the Weibels’ clock marking the launch time, maybe 6:30, the same as ours here. I imagine José and María Teresa, the parents, jumping out of bed and delegating the morning tasks. One makes breakfast, the other gets the children out of bed; one helps them get dressed, the other ushers them into the bathroom; one heats up the lunches, the other prepares the snacks; one is in charge of calling hurry up, it’s late, let’s go. A perfect, well-oiled machine, probably better oiled than ours, because there were two children in the Weibel Barahona household in 1976, not one, like in ours, so their morning maneuvers must sometimes have acquired heroic proportions.
On March 29, 1976, at 7:30 a.m., the same time my son and his father leave the house each day, José and María Teresa left to take their children to school. They waited at the bus stop nearby with one of their neighbors, who in my mind’s eye has the face of the man who walks his dog each morning in my neighborhood. In all likelihood they greeted each other, as they probably did each morning, just as the man with the dog and I nod at each other when he passes by each day, the two of us planting the flag of everyday normality, tracing the fine line of our protective routine. At 7:40, as part of their own daily ritual, the Weibel Barahonas got on a bus on the Circunvalación Américo Vespucio line, which would take them to their destination. The bus was probably full. I can’t know that with certainty, but I assume it was, because at that time of day buses all across the country are full, no matter the decade. María Teresa sat in the front seat with one of her children on her lap. Maybe José sat next to her holding their other child. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe he remained standing, moving as close to his family as possible so as not to be separated from them, not to break the threads that keep them safe within rescue distance.
José and María Teresa don’t talk about it in front of the children, but this apparently normal morning isn’t exactly that. José’s brother disappeared a few months ago and he himself, a high-ranking member of the Communist Party, knows he is being watched. Yesterday a young man they didn’t recognize rang the doorbell to ask about a washing machine that was supposedly for sale. José and María Teresa know the significance of this strange and disturbing visit, so they’ve decided to leave their beloved house on Calle Teniente Merino in La Florida this very day. The children don’t know it, but they’re about to be dropped off at school and at the end of the day home may be somewhere else.
I imagine José and María Teresa ride in silence. They are both tense, and probably don’t feel like talking. I imagine they answer their children’s questions, stay engaged in the conversation, but inside they’re wondering what the future holds for them. They’re probably watching the faces of the people around them. Surreptitiously they look out for suspicious glances, threatening gestures. They’re on the alert, but it’s hard to keep track of everything going on. There are lots of people on the bus at this hour, lots of people getting on and paying the fare. Lots of people walking past and sitting down and falling asleep. Lots of people standing. Lots of people looking out the window. So even though they do their best, they don’t spot him in the crowd. Even when their gazes meet, they don’t see him.
It’s him, the man who tortured people.
Armed forces intelligence agent Andrés Antonio Valenzuela Morales, registration number 66650, Soldier First Class, ID #39432 of the district of La Ligua. Tall, thin, black-haired, with a dark, bushy mustache.
He sits at the back of the
