The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos (38 page)

Ironically, it was his education at Don Bosco that equipped Ismael for a life far richer than his paternal relatives could
have imagined, since riches for them were appreciated exclusively in terms of acres and bank balances. While in his last year
at the lyceum, a young priest lent Ismael the novel
Cantaclaro,
by Rómulo Gallegos, about a singing cowboy with incurable wanderlust in his heart, which sparked in Ismael the irrepressible
urge to follow suit.

Upon passing out from the lyceum, his aunt Estrelina (though he was never allowed to address her as “Tía”) gave him one hundred
bolívares, a new suit of clothing that included shoes, and a letter of recommendation in which Ismael was portrayed as an
orphan and she his benefactress, all of which was delivered by way of her houseboy, for she had no wish to look into his eyes
as he went off alone into the world. But instead of looking for work in the town of Las Tres Marías as expected, Ismael had
other ideas. He gathered his belongings—a small valise containing his few articles of clothing, his school certificate and
letter of recommendation, a rosary, and his precious copy of
Cantaclaro,
which his teacher had bequeathed to him as a parting gift—and set off in search of his mother’s village. He arrived after
a day and a night of walking on dusty roads and through the forests. Dusty and parched, he was welcomed by a laughing group
of people who looked familiar, and they celebrated his arrival as if they had been waiting for him.

And so, albeit a bit late in the day, Ismael was finally taught the things a Que man needs to know: how to hollow a log and
make a canoe, to dig for roots, to build a hut, to hunt and fish, to craft and play the cuatro, to compose poem-stories with
featherpen and cocksblood. Most importantly, he learned to safely cross the smoke bridge between reality and dreams.

His last lesson would serve him well in difficult times, not the least of which was the six weeks he was under detention in
the Ministerio de Defensa, not so much for perniciously interfering with the oil companies in the Delta, an insurrection of
unarmed indios swiftly and brutally put down, but for writing a song that had incited even soldados to rebellion, a danger
far greater to the regime. In the end his incarceration and punishment had been an exercise in futility and meaningless cruelty,
for “Como crecen las frutas de la enredadera” was a song that could not be unsung.

At first his interrogators in the secret prison at the Ministerio de Defensa behaved in a faux-friendly manner, complimenting
him on his musical talent and legendary cocksmanship, and even humming a few bars of “Como crecen las frutas de la enredadera,”
before saying they just had three simple questions, and if he would oblige them with the answers, he would be home in time
to celebrate the birthday of his lovely wife.

The first question was: “What is the real name of El Negro Catire, and what is the name of his organization?” Followed by,
“Who are the organization’s other leaders and sympathizers?” And finally, “Where can we find them?” But, receiving no answers
to their unimaginative queries, they began the slow and inevitable tightening of the screws.

The tightening of screws was figurative at first; with each passing day, the interrogations became longer, the light on his
face brighter, the interrogators’ voices louder, the questions became statements of accusation alternated with threats, the
water glass now conspicuously absent. When these measures failed to produce the desired effect, they soon moved on to something
else. On several occasions his head was submerged in a metal bucket filled one day with icy water, one day with hot water,
one day with their own piss. From such immersions, they graduated to beatings, electric shock, sleep deprivation, isolation
in a space the size of a child’s crib. And finally to the use of a contraption simply known as El Vicio, in which the tightening
of the screws became real.

“White men go crazy because they attempt to discover the secrets of life without crossing the smoke bridge to ask the blessings
and guidance of the Great Maizcuba,” said Ismael’s grandfather nine days before his initiation.

“Who is the Great Maizcuba?” Ismael asked.

“The Great Maizcuba is Imawari, the creator bird of the dawn, and without his permission, you can neither cross the abyss
of nothingness, where a hungry caiman lives, nor escape the claws of the jaguar of knowledge that awaits you on the other
side.”

According to his grandfather, Imawari resided in the House of Tobacco Smoke, made out of solidified smoke in between the waking
world and the dream world. To prepare for his initiation, Ismael received many days of instruction from his grandfather. He
had memorized the steps:

1. Present his grandfather/teacher with a gift of tobacco.

2. Smoke a cigar with his grandfather/teacher filled with special leaves that were meant to “open the chest.”

3. Fast for five days, smoking at mealtime instead of eating, and lighting cigars from a virgin fire, communing only with
the insect spirits.

4. After five days of fasting, observe a month of silence, and avoid strong odors.

5. Swallow the two sacred sticks presented by his grandfather/teacher.

Then it would be time to bathe in the river before undergoing nine days of fasting and chanting. After that he would enter
the smoke hut, where he would smoke incessantly from an enormous cigar and drink ayahuasca at prescribed intervals. He would
do this until he entered the world of dreams, where he would blow, with the help of the elders, a smoke bridge that led to
the edge of the world. He had been warned that to interrupt an initiation dream is to sever the soul from the body, and to
prevent this, his grandfather and several of the other elders would not only smoke with him, but they would anchor him to
the earth with their hands and with their spirits.

On the day of his initiation, Ismael’s grandfather offered his final advice: “Before blowing the smoke bridge you must first
ask the blessing of Imawari. While crossing the smoke bridge, walk carefully with one foot in front of the other and your
eyes straight ahead. Do not look down. When you arrive on the other side, you must blow smoke in the jaguar’s face, and pass
quickly to the edge of the world. Crouch and pound the earth three times to signal your arrival. Only then will Imawari assign
you a toll price that will allow you to roam the waking world through your dreams.”

Moments after the tibia bone of his left leg cracks, he goes to a different place. A land of verdant hills and sunny valleys.
He can see Consuelo running toward him and his heart rejoices. His tears, earlier of pain, now of elation, irrigate the rough
terrain of his soul, which during consciousness had been a desolate, barren wasteland. Joyfully he cries out, and flowers
of every hue and variety fall from his lips and to the fertile ground where they begin to bloom. And when he opens his hands,
which had been clenched tightly in fists, sunbirds fly out of his open palms and soar high into the air. There is thunder
in his heart. He longs unbearably for her lips, her eyes, the touch of her fingers on his skin. There is fire in his bowels,
his loins, his throat; a wave of emotion rushes over him with deafening speed. And when she is finally in his arms, he thinks
he must seek death to end a joy that cannot be borne. But then Imawari flies overhead, casting a golden shadow, and his spirit
is restored.

“Look to the north,” says Imawari. And Ismael obeys, even though taking his eyes off Consuelo means returning to the place
from whence he has come.

“Mierda, you’re not supposed to kill him, they want him alive,” said the stockier of the two interrogators, who Ismael thought
of as el Gordo y el Flaco.

“Shut up, marico, he’s still got a pulse,” said Flaco.

Ismael observed the scene from the dream world as a military doctor was summoned to examine the prisoner slumped in the iron
chair.

“You’re not going to get any more out of this one,” the doctor said. “He’ll have to be admitted to the infirmary if you want
him to stay alive.”

After he was released from the infirmary, Ismael was placed back in a cell with another prisoner, where he awaited further
interrogations that never came. “The reason,” whispered his cellmate, whose jaw hung crazily to one side from his last beating,
“is because they’ve decided to execute you for treason. Or it could be that you won’t even get a kangaroo court and will simply
disappear.” So Ismael began to wait for his execution or disappearance, which never came, either.

The fact of the matter is that no one had the stomach to order the execution of a figure as popular and respected as Ismael,
the beloved composer whose song “Como crecen las frutas de la enredadera” during the months of his incarceration, had come
to rival the national anthem—certainly not El Colonel, who had begun to face insubordination and outright insurgency in his
own ranks.

“Fool!” he had thundered when informed that the interrogators of Ismael Martinez had been unsuccessful in their endeavors
despite the use of all tactics at their disposal. “Have I not brought unprecedented wealth, progress, and stability to the
nation? On my watch, the welfare of the state always takes precedence over the whims of its people. Without me, this country
would just be another banana republic. This resistance, were it to succeed in its effort for regime change, would only come
to the fate of the one before, and the one before that, and the cycle would repeat itself. That cannot be allowed. Ismael
Martinez is a symbol of the resistance; a symbol that must be broken or destroyed.” This is what his interrogators told their
captive, for by then they had developed a fearful admiration, bordering on reverence, for the unbreakable Ismael Martinez,
and were unwilling to pursue further interrogation, lest any one of them be the ones accidentally responsible for his death.
And now, whenever they took him to the bloodwashed interrogation room, they locked the door and let him sit quietly in his
chair, while each of them took turns screaming, making it into a contest about who could make the most spine-chilling sounds.