The Fountains of Silence(63)

Daniel nods. “The brother-in-law, Antonio, already sent me on a fool’s errand. Probably hoped I’d get lost and never return.”

“Oh yeah?” Nick laughs.

“Yeah. He sent me to some huge old orphanage. He said I might find a story there to photograph.”

Nick’s eyebrows lift. “Even if you did, you wouldn’t be able to prove it.”

“Prove what?” Daniel asks.

Nick exhales a mouthful of smoke. “That some of the babies they’re selling aren’t orphans.”





We also had the Basque-Spanish orphans program. We sent a couple of orphans to the United States, alleged orphans. They were no orphans, no question about that. It wasn’t that they didn’t have family to take care of them. That was an interesting time.


—WILLIAM W. LEHFELDT, U.S. vice consul, Bilbao (1955–1957) Oral History Interview Excerpt, April 1994

Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection

Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Arlington, VA www.adst.org





77



Puri cannot eat. She cannot sleep. Why is a dead baby in the freezer at the clinic instead of the morgue? She sits on her bed, knees to her chin, arms spiraled around her legs. There are explanations: The corpse is being used for medical study.

The infant recently died. Burial is forthcoming.

She is mistaken about what she saw.

Could she be mistaken?

The doctor found Puri in the bathroom, a pale heap near the toilet.

“Bad eel. It will pass,” she assured him.

But the nausea hasn’t passed and neither have the questions. Instead, the words from the filed letters scroll through her brain.

My wife is certain there must be a mistake. She said the child she gave birth to was completely bald and had a red birthmark on his arm. The deceased infant shown to us was larger than our son, had a bit of hair, and did not have the marking on his arm.

And the letter that still haunts Puri:

You stole our child.

The question clings. Whom does the child in the freezer belong to?

For the first time, Puri eagerly seeks confession.



* * *





“Hail Mary the Purest.”

“Conceived without sin,” replies the priest.

“I am deeply troubled, Padre, by a question that plagues me. I ask for your wisdom and guidance to soothe my heart. In our beloved country of Spain, is it better for a child to have no parents than the wrong parents?”

“Are you with child?” asks the priest.

“No, Padre!” gasps Puri. “I ask only because I am committed to the preservation of our noble country.”

“We owe it to our children and our future to protect Catholic values and morals.”

“So that means,” leads Puri, “it is better to be raised by the right parents, even if they are not the birth parents?”

The priest gives a tired exhale. “You seem to have answered your own question.”

No, I haven’t, thinks Puri.

But I will.





78



The miniature, portable ring has been set up at the edge of the village. The maletilla amateurs stand in a stone shed. Rafa kneels on the earthen floor, securing the bottom of Fuga’s trousers. There will be no picadors or banderilleros today. Only half a dozen young men who have come to brave the bulls and prove themselves to anyone who may care to notice. Only one other participant wears a suit of lights. He is a boy of sixteen or seventeen with a husky frame. He dons an ill-fitting amber suit. But Rafa sees that the cloth is cursed. There’s a faint smear of blood across the thigh. The other boys throw worried glances at Fuga. His suit of lights, age, and demeanor raise expectation.

Although the suit is old, Julia has altered it so perfectly that it appears to be expressly for the torero wearing it. Fuga’s frame is tall and hungry. He is cut from the same strong wood of the olive tree he has slept beneath for so many years. The strength of his form is lean legs. His extended gait lends drama to his every step. His long arms, ungainly for a common man, are an asset for a torero. The muleta cape handles more easily and melodically with elongated arms.

Rafa looks at the beautiful silver embroidery that climbs and vines the outside of the trousers. He gives thanks for Julia and for her boss, Luis. No other tailor creates suits as special as his.

“Comb your hair,” instructs Rafa. “Do it the way Ana did for the photo.”

Fuga spits thick saliva on the small comb and rakes it through his hair.

Uncertain what to do, the cluster of other boys press and lunge into leg stretches because they have seen photographs of famous matadors doing the same.

Rafa removes the priest’s votive candles from his pocket. He positions them upon a shelf in the shed and strikes a match to light them. He pulls out a small faded portrait of the Virgin, salvaged from an outdated pocket calendar, and carefully sets it behind the glow of the candles. Another boy contributes a broken mirror and balances it on the shelf.

Reflected in the quivering candlelight is a motley assembly of young men before a makeshift altar. If they succeed today, they may pick up a peseta or a handful of grapes. If they do not succeed, they will be laughed at and dismissed. If they are gored, Rafa hopes someone will be generous enough to squirt alcohol in the wound.