My Best Man by Andy Schell (unputdownable books .txt) 📗

about losing him. I don’t know how Gianni would change. What he would think today. How he would look. My last memories of him are so sad. It was an awful time. The government was taking everyone. Teachers, students, priests, union leaders, journalists. Everyone knew what was happening, but no one would talk about it. People went on with their business as if all is well.” She takes another quiet sip of wine and lowers her glass. “When Gianni was taken, I went to our friend, who is a lawyer. But he would not help me. No one would. The lawyers are afraid they would be disappeared if they help. Gianni’s friend at the newspaper helped me with the habeas corpus document. I took it to the judge myself. He read it. He stared at me and said nothing.”

“This sounds like the McCarthy stuff that happened in America,” I tell her.

“Joseph McCarthy,” she says with contempt. “Yes. And Hitler. But we had lots of McCarthys and Hitlers.” She rises from the table and goes to the counter, where she takes two ripe peaches and cuts them into chunks. She transfers them into a bowl and pushes the bowl toward the back of the counter. She then slices the kernels off two ears of corn and cuts some potatoes, including a sweet potato, and adds them all to the pan. “They don’t know what they do to the family,” she says, slicing a piece of squash into chunks. “My dear Graciela was an artist,” she says through slightest tears while putting the squash in with the rest of the ingredients. “What do they want with an artist? A sweet girl who sells her little paintings down on the Caminito? What possible threat is she? After her father disappeared, she paints what she feels in her heart. She paints these people, los desaparecidos, as angels that sacrifice their lives for the rest of us. She paints them leaving their homes, their cars, their jobs, their families, to fly to heaven. For this they kill her.” She stands in the kitchen, shaking her head.

“If they killed these people,” I ask, “why are they called the disappeareds?”

She sits at the table with me. “I have no answer. I only know that Gianni and Graciela were killed because my brother told me so.” She takes the bottle of wine and refills our little glasses. “My brother was an officer in the navy. He had enough connection to know. He would not tell me how it was done. Only that it was. Nicolo will not forgive his uncle. He believes his uncle is guilty of their murders, even though it was not at his hands and he learned of it after. Guilty, because he does not speak. Does not speak to tell the truth and make a stop to what was happening to so many people.”

The garlic, onion, meat, and vegetables are creating a delicious scent of steam that mixes well with the taste of the wine. I want to take off my shoes, stay, and eat. “And you, Mrs. Feragamo? What do you think?”

“I think that my family has seen enough pain,” she says, stalwart. “I cannot allow you to hurt my son. I will continue to protect him.”

“How? He’s a grown man, senora.”

She stiffens, changes expression. “I do what I must. I think that you should leave,” she says, rising from the table.

Her word choice hits me. “How will you continue to protect him?” I ask, staying put.

“I will make sure he does not receive your calls . or your letters.”

‘

I spring from my chair. “Is that what you’ve been doing?” I ask incredulously.

“Yes, it is,” she answers, her head held high in a righteous pose.

“Those times I came to the house you didn’t tell him?”

“No.”

“And when I called?”

“No,” she answers, still in her pose.

“The letter did you send it back unopened?”

“Yes.”

“Nicolo never saw it?”

“No.”

“God, I can’t believe this!” I shout. “You sabotaged me. You haven’t even heard my story, and you sabotaged me!”

“I did what is right for my son,” she answers, resolute. “Now leave this house.”

I’m enraged. “What the hell are you trying to do? Disappear me?”

She looks horrified. “Leave now!”

“How dare you. What makes you any different than the Argentinean government?” She gasps, but I furiously charge on. “You think you know what’s best for Nicolo, for me? You think you can your own clandestine outcome?”

“Largo de aquf!” she hisses, running to the door. “Largo!” “No!” I yell, my legs shaking with anger. My face is white hot and my brow is twitching in spasms, but I refuse her order to leave. “I’ve heard your story. Now you’ll hear mine!”

“One minute then I will call the police!”

I spew it out fast and furious. “I’m from a very wealthy family. And when my father died, he put a provision in the will that I had to be married by my next birthday if I wanted to collect. It’s a lot of money. A lot. And I’ve decided I want it. Is there anything wrong with that?”

“Honest money or dirty money?”

“My family is honest. And the girl I’m marrying knows about Nicolo. And she’s willing to marry me in order to help me get the money. Is that bad?”

“You are marrying for love or money?” she demands. “Both. I’ll use the money to pay off Nicolo’s school loans. Help him perhaps even youmget back to Argentina. Give him whatever he desires in life.”

She brushes back her hair with her hand and answers indignantly,

“You hardly know my son. He needs love, not money.”

“I’m offering him both.”

“By marrying someone else? You are playing Nicolo and this girl for being fools! I do not believe that you truly love either of them as much as you love your money, or you would have been honest with my son from the beginning. You are selfish. Your thinking is twisted.”

“And what about yours? Have you learned nothing from your government, Mrs. Feragamo? How awful has