Read Online Purgatory by Tomás Eloy Martínez - Free Book Online Page A

some alternative reality which moulded her imagination as it pleased?
    She woke again just as someone pushed a mug of steaming maté , a hunk of bread and some fried pork strips through the bars. The litany of lottery numbers continued, but the images on the wall had disappeared. If she wanted to survive, she thought, she had to stay calm, to clear her mind completely, to dissociate herself from what was happening to her body. Difficult as it seemed, she needed to sink into a trance. This would give her the strength to face the worst, if the worst should come. If she allowed herself to feel any emotion, she would be lost. Finally, when she could feel nothing she decided she was safe.
    On the third day, a warder ordered her to wash and brush her hair.
    ‘You’re free to go, kid,’ he said. ‘Round here, rich people always land on their feet. Your parents are waiting for you outside.’
    She was blindfolded and someone took her by the arm and led her across what felt like a damp courtyard to a room that smelled of sweaty clothes. Before closing the door he ordered her to count to twenty before taking off the blindfold. When her eyes adjusted to the dim light that flattened everything, she could make out a small sofa, a wooden desk, a few chairs. On the walls hung coats of arms, a photo of the Eel, a portrait of General San Martín. For no apparent reason, a memory buzzed in her brain like a maddening bluebottle, a phrase she had heard for the first time in primary school: the battle, the treaties, the obligatory hero . All across the country obligatory heroes were multiplying like saints in the Catholic Church. For every battle never waged, a new hero was created; for every miracle never performed a new saint was venerated. The battle, the saints, the obligatory hero .
    A door opened behind her letting in a sudden burst of light and her mother’s bird-like voice.
    ‘Emilia, hija ! Just look at the terrible mess Simón has got you mixed up in.’
    Reluctantly, she allowed herself to be hugged. She had always taken comfort in her mother’s warmth but she was shocked by this accusation against her husband.
    ‘It’s not Simón’s fault, he’s as much a victim of this mess as me. Where is he? I want to see him.’
    ‘You can’t see him like that,’ her mother said, ‘you look a fright. Go and get yourself cleaned up. We brought you some clean clothes.’
    In the bathroom, the shelves groaned under the weight of shaving equipment and imported perfumes. The blouse and the bra her parents had brought from Buenos Aires were her sister Chela’s and a little too big for her. Her mother had been right, she did look a sight – her face was haggard, she had deep bags under her eyes, her hair was greasy and dishevelled. She did her best to make herself presentable, but there was not much she could do. In the room next door, a voice she didn’t recognise was making abject apologies to her father.
    ‘Two days, Dr Dupuy, yes, I know, it’s unforgivable. Almost all our men were out on patrol and the officers here at headquarters are terribly ignorant. They work twenty hours straight. They’re so exhausted they don’t know good from bad when they see it. It was late at night when your daughter was brought in and there was no duty officer. If you want, we’ll look into the matter, get to the bottom of this, doesn’t matter whose head rolls.’
    ‘Tell General Bissio I want to see him,’ her father demanded.
    The general too apologised profusely, though only by telephone. He was in the mountains trailing a band of guerrillas, he explained, and did not want to keep Dr Dupuy and his family waiting in this inhospitable barracks with thieves and whores. He ordered that Señora Cardoso be shown the prison register proving that Simón had been released two hours earlier, at 8 a.m.
    The father patted his daughter’s waist then moved away. It had been this way since her adolescence. The vague gesture of affection made Emilia feel