The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos (17 page)

With exhilaration tempered by trepidation, Amparo began offering her services through bold advertisements in the newspaper.
However, this move turned out disastrous. Threatened by even the smallest amount of competition, several leading obstetricians,
encouraged, and some said financed, by the insurance companies, filed a criminal suit citing fraud and negligence, asking
that the court intervene and obstruct Amparo from practice. It was a famous case, inflamed by thundering editorials in all
the newspapers, mostly in support of the doctors, since much of their advertising revenue came from the insurance companies.

“We must fight back,” said Alejandro, incensed over the ambush.

“But how?” Amparo asked, disheartened.

“With your own voice,” said Alejandro, who by then owned a regional radio station in addition to a number of shares in TVista.

And so Amparo went to war with the Asociación Obste-tra. On national radio, and then on television, to the charge that she
was medically unqualified to deliver babies, Amparo said, “Pregnancy is not a sickness.”

Over a period of two weeks, the tide turned in the court of public opinion; letters to the editor poured into the bureaus
of all newspapers, an overwhelming majority in favor of a woman’s right to choose a home delivery with a midwife over an expensive
stay at the hospital with an obstetrician, usually male, who only arrived in time for the birth, and frequently not even in
time for that. Hundreds of pregnant women demonstrated in front of the courthouse holding signs that said, “¡No somos enfermas!”

In the court of law, forty-eight women who had been assisted in childbirth by Lucrecia and Amparo testified on Amparo’s behalf,
and Alejandro’s lawyers threatened to call another hundred or so if necessary. On the other side, the doctors and their insurance
associates were unable to prove that pregnancy was a medical condition requiring medical intervention, except in special circumstances.
Finally, the judge dismissed the obstetricians’ case for lack of evidence, noting that as far as he was concerned, an oral
undertaking by Amparo to refer her clients to a hospital in the event of medical emergency would suffice.

Amparo hired trainees, whom she paid with competitive salaries underwritten by Alejandro, until she broke even. She began
earning a profit in spite of the numerous free deliveries she assisted for poor women. The trainees were predominantly social
workers or emerging feminists, or single, unwed mothers from the barrio who were grateful for any kind of job that would help
them to feed and clothe their children.

Long before the advertisements began to appear, long before the court hearing and verdict, long before the official inauguration
of the first Amparo Birth Center, local society women learned of Amparo’s foray into the business of birthing the usual way,
by word of mouth, the story first transmitted in a horrified whisper by Lupe Neri, the wife of an oil baron and a retired
opera singer. The news spread exponentially, and with each recounting the story took on ever more scandalous implications
in the minds of the tell-ers. “¡Imagínate!” the listeners would invariably exclaim, eyes widening. “Has she taken leave of
her senses?”

To the society women of Tamanaco, it was not clear what was more shocking, that any mother and woman of social standing would
choose to get involved with such a messy, unmentionable negocio, or the idea that a woman would choose to go into any negocio
at all, unless forced by desperately adverse circumstances.

Any scandal will automatically fade into oblivion, given enough time and incentive. In this case its demise was expedited
by the fact that Alejandro and Amparo Aguilar had been the trendsetters and incontestable stars of society in Tamanaco for
years. And the power wielded by Alejandro was such that no one could afford to ignore it. Besides, who would want to say no
to their lavish dinners and fancy dress balls at Lagunita, attended by the most attractive people—famous actors, poets, artists,
musicians, foreign dignitaries, ministers of state, and even presidents of the republic? Eventually society determined it
was best to ignore, if not embrace, Amparo’s chosen vocation.

In any case public attention was soon diverted by the unsuccessful suicide attempt of Passion Radio’s most popular novela
reader, Alegra Montemar. It seemed the man with whom she’d been having an affair had threatened to return to his pregnant
wife, the daughter of Lupe Neri. The day the story hit the headlines, Lupe’s daughter went into labor early, in the middle
of the night. The frightened young woman had phoned her mother, and Lupe in turn had tried in vain to locate her doctor, who,
it eventually turned out, was vacationing on the island of Margarita. Finally, in sheer desperation, Lupe phoned her old friend
Amparo. Amparo, who was short of assistants that night, said Lupe would have to help. All night and part of the next day,
while the young mother-to-be struggled, Lupe and Amparo took turns wiping the perspiration from her brow, assisting her in
her ceaseless quest for a more comfortable position, until it was time to push. Then Amparo took over, coaxing her, guiding
her, encouraging her, and finally catching the plump baby boy in her arms.

From the moment she set eyes on the wrinkly wet bundle of new life, Lupe’s conversion to Amparo’s methods of child delivery
was complete. Not only did she begin recommending Amparo to all her friends with pregnant daughters, but she even asked whether
Amparo would consider training her as a midwife. Before long, many bored society women had begun to take an interest in the
business of birthing. They asked for and accepted jobs at the Amparo Birth Center, as secretaries, administrators, accountants,
and, of course, midwife trainees. It took a good many years of hard work and hard knocks, but Amparo turned out to be an astute
businesswoman as well as an excellent midwife and teacher. By the time she learned of Lily’s pregnancy, there were Amparo
Birth Centers in three major cities, which offered extended services, including day care for working mothers and shelter placement
for homeless ones.

No matter how busy she is, Amparo never fails to blow a kiss to Ismael in her mind for making her dream come true.

Amparo always says it could only have been written in the stars that her best friend Consuelo should fall in love with Alejandro’s
best friend, Ismael, binding the four of them together in a rare and intimate alliance.

Alejandro Aguilar and Ismael Martinez had met at a meeting of a group known only as P.E., an underground movement of allied
tribes whose objective was to oppose the dictatorship of El Colonel and its usurping of tribal lands and rights. Alejandro,
an ambitious junior television executive for the government broadcast station at the time, had been trying to obtain an interview
with any of the movement’s leaders for months. But he had been unable to ascertain who they were, so closely was this secret
guarded.

And then just like that, out of the blue, one of the leaders, Diego Garcia, turned up in his office (though Alejandro hadn’t
realized who he was at the time). By the end of the meeting, Diego Garcia had invited Alejandro Aguilar to an underground
gathering of political dissidents.

Later, when Amparo asked him why, Diego Garcia could not explain what gave him the courage to take such a risk. After all,
Alejandro worked as a reporter for a station controlled by the government. Perhaps it was because he perceived that this was
a straightforward man, a man with certain sensibilities, a man who could imagine a world outside his own. A man, in fact,
not unlike himself. Whatever the reason, Diego Garcia sought out the very man who was seeking
him
and said, “Hombre, I will give you an exclusive interview with the leader of P.E. if you will come with me to a meeting.
But the condition is that you will have to come blindfolded.”

The clandestine meetings of the P.E. movement were held with increasing irregularity in different locations around the city
or on the outskirts, so as not to attract the attention of the government, which had banned public meetings. Alejandro could
easily have given Garcia and his entire organization away, and taken out all the leaders of the impending strike in one devastating
blow. And, to be sure, the thought that this may indeed be his patriotic duty did cross his mind. At the same time, Garcia,
his concentrated essence of individuality and purpose, was a like a breath of fresh air and adventure, reminding Alejandro
of his idealistic university days, before he settled for the uninspiring government-paid job at the only station available
to aspiring television journalists.

Alejandro told Amparo that he didn’t know why he agreed to Garcia’s invitation any more than he knew why Garcia had invited
him. And Amparo had known that this was something with which she could not help her husband. She simply held her breath as
events unfolded.

Alejandro told his wife that Garcia was clearly a man of considerable intelligence and talent, besides being charismatic and
persuasive, and that he wanted to understand what would induce such a man to choose such a life—always on the run from the
authorities. Whatever the forces that finally compelled him to choose one course of action over another, Alejandro’s decision
to accept Garcia’s proposal was one that would irrevocably change his (and by association, Amparo’s) life.

On the appointed day, while Amparo watched from the doorway, Alejandro was collected from his home at nine p.m. in a black
sedan with darkened windows. He was driven, blindfolded, through the busy streets of Tamanaco for what seemed like a day,
though in reality, he said, it was about an hour. When the car stopped, Garcia took Alejandro, still blindfolded, by the arm
and led him up a rough and rocky path for about fifteen minutes, and it occurred to Alejandro that he might be walking to
his own death. But the gentle pressure of Garcia’s fingers on his elbow, whenever he stumbled, took the edge off his apprehension.

When Garcia finally removed the blindfold, Alejandro found that he was in a large clearing somewhere in the hills surrounding
the city. The area was lit by kerosene lamps and candles, and he was standing amidst at least five thousand working men and
women, a majority of whom represented the various tribes of the nation with banners—Guajiro, Wayuu, Warao, Pemon, Quechua,
Puinave, Yanomamo, Que. He turned to his host, but Diego Garcia had disappeared. While Alejandro was still trying to get his
bearings, a man at the far end of the clearing took up a microphone before a podium made of two wooden crates stacked on top
of each other. Next to the podium were speakers and a small battery-operated generator. In front of the podium was a banner
strung between two sticks that had been embedded in the earth. The banner had no words, only a painting of a vine with flowers
that looked, to his untrained eye, like orchids.

A roar went up in the crowd, and Alejandro made his way toward the front of the crowd, observing with surprise that the man
at the podium was Diego Garcia, who now held up his hands for silence.

“Save your applause and enthusiasm for our guest of honor, a musician and poet who has given voice and vision to the resistance.
I present to you Ismael Martinez!”

A mestizo man with strikingly handsome features, of spare and wiry build, came to the side of Diego Garcia to thunderous applause
that seemed to go on and on, reverberating against the trees surrounding the clearing.

“Quiet, please!” said Diego Garcia, and Alejandro realized that Diego Garcia himself was the man in charge, for his words
crackled like a whip and were like a command to the people packed into the clearing; almost instantly there was pin-drop silence.
And, stepping smoothly into that expectant quiet, Ismael Martinez began to sing. His voice was melodic, mesmerizing, a sound
even more captivating than the actual words of the song, and indeed it was the sound and feeling of the words that Alejandro
would remember later—the roar of a river, the wind on his face, the smell of moist and fertile earth—and not the precise words
themselves. Alejandro watched with rapt attention as Ismael invoked a simpler time when people sustained the land and took
their sustenance from it. When he was finished, there was no applause. Instead, a collective sigh of longing filled the clearing.

Then it was again the turn of Diego Garcia to speak. He gave an abrazo to the singer before taking the microphone. In the
commanding voice Alejandro found so seductive, he began. He spoke of his feeling of responsibility, for hadn’t he fought alongside
the incumbent president to overthrow the previous corrupt regime in the hope of creating a better future for the country?
Only to find that the president had turned into his predecessor and betrayed the people. “And now, like his predecessor, he
must be resisted.”

“We have our battle cut out for us against the voracious eaters of our lands and of our souls,” he said. “But already there
are other organizations that share our concerns about a common enemy. And together we can prevail. Together we will flood
the streets, reclaim our rightful lands and our souls. Our resistance is like the wild passion fruit vine of the forest, beginning
with a semilla watered by hope and strength, now growing exponentially, sometimes unruly, with tentacles that have taken unexpected
detours, but all connected at the root. Soon our vine will bear fruit, and its fruit will be abundant.” At this point, as
cries of “Viva la resistencia!” began to fill the air, Ismael rejoined Diego Garcia on the stage with his cuatro and began
singing in an exquisite soprano that made the hair on Alejandro’s forearms stand on end. It was a ballad filled with yearning
and pride, one he had never heard before, but felt as if he had known all his life. Within seconds everyone had joined in
the chorus, “Como crecen las frutas de la enredadera.” How they grow, the fruits of the vine. Some had tears streaming down
their faces, and Alejandro was one of them.