It is horrible on my part that I do not remember their names. But they were clearly brother and sister. The boy answered almost immediately that he knew Antonio, his sister shaking her head, telling him to be quiet. I think the silver pesos from my pocket helped.
They wouldn’t get into the car, so it meant we had to walk. Even with my limited Spanish, I could understand the girl was chastising her brother. He ignored her, as all brothers do their older sisters. I asked him if he ever saw people show up on the beach. White people, like us. The boy nodded, saying two words over and over, pulling at his shirt.
Traje negro, traje negro. Over and over. I pulled out the Spanish dictionary.
Black suit.
I suppose it was the money, in the end, that got the children to take us to the house of the journalist. Bud didn’t like the idea of leaving the car parked at the beach, but he eagerly followed. For him, it was the first proof he’d seen for himself that at least something Dr. Martin had told us was true, that this Antonio Borges existed. I know Bud believed me that I’d spoken to Lynn. But it’s different, I know, when you see a grain of truth for yourself.
I wanted to run. I kept walking as close to the children as possible, hoping my urgency would propel them faster. But they walked slowly as all children do in the heat, even those who had known nothing all their lives other than the oppressive humidity.
When they finally took us to the house off a dirt road, I learned there are no limitations on how many ways your heart can break. All that was left was charred beams and a collapsed roof.
The boy had just pointed.
Dr. Martin had knelt down to him, shaking his head, saying no, not the house where Antonio lived before. I need his new house, where he lives now.
The boy continued to point and speak in Spanish.
The little girl then quietly responded, surprising us by speaking in broken English, telling us that this is where Antonio stayed. Like his first house, this one burned down too.
Dr. Martin asked her how she knew all this.
She’d said because it was her family’s home.
They’re closing my window now. They say it’s too hot in the room. Maybe they’re right. I don’t feel like writing any more.
I know the mention of black suits didn’t mean anything to you and Freda, but it sent a chill down my spine. I know what their arrival means.
I knew when we arrived that the house would be burned. It crushed us. I knew that it was more than just an erasing of proof, it was a clear message to any of the people in the area not to snoop around.
The sister of the boy turned out to have better English. I think seeing her burned home made her angrier, a bit freer to speak. The home had been her father’s, who was friends with Antonio and allowed him to stay with them while he did his research. After the home burned down a few days ago, their father had disappeared too. She and her brother had been at the beach when it happened, or otherwise they certainly wouldn’t have survived.
The poor things. Homeless and without a parent. I remember pointing at you and Freda and saying that their daughter was taken to the house by Antonio, and we were looking for her.
I asked if they had any idea what had happened here. They spoke so frantically in Spanish, remember? It was so hard to understand them.
Please tell me you do remember, Bud. Your memories are just as valuable as mine.
November 1, 1951
Yucatan
I will not survive this, I know this now. The doctors keep telling me that the antibiotics should treat the infections, but my fevers keep spiking. I also know that’s why they keep urging me to write. They want it down on paper before I die. Keep writing, Freda, the nurse tells me. I try not to get angry about it. If I were in their shoes, I might ask the same of someone like me, to help determine what’s happening.
I understand why the houses had burned down. I understand, because I know what happened to us.
Those two poor children. I don’t even know if they survived. I doubt they did. So many people died in that storm. It wasn’t only my family who got wiped out.
I wasn’t interested in finding shelter when the storm started blowing in—a storm that just came out of nowhere. The children had agreed to take us to where Lynn and their father may have been taken. I didn’t care at that point about anything but finding my daughter.
The building wasn’t far away. I was surprised; the trees ended and suddenly there was this concrete building in the middle of nowhere. And there were men in camouflage scurrying everywhere, trying to cover up the windows with large boards.
I remember feeling such relief—the military! Men in army fatigues! They have to be American. They’ll help us. But Dr. Martin had held me back as I went to leave the woods and call out for them. I could see Bud was wary too, especially seeing how the children were hesitant to go forward.
How to describe the storm at that point. It just dumped on us. I mean, the skies went from gray to black. And the rain. It fell like the ocean had overturned, and the wind nearly knocked us off our feet.
What I did was reckless. But I just knew Lynn was inside.
I ran. Even in the chaos from the storm, the soldiers saw me coming, with Dr. Martin and Bud behind. One of them rushed up to me, and I just cried out that my daughter was in there. That I was an American citizen and my daughter was in there.
The soldier took me, and called out for the other soldiers. They’d come for Bud and Dr. Martin too, and rushed us inside. I heard them lock the doors. I remember hearing the hollow sound of multiple dead bolts sliding.
Then they pulled their guns on us. Bud had stepped in front of me and held up his hands, repeating that we are Americans. That there were children outside that needed to be brought in too.
I can’t explain the strange sensation of how it feels to step inside a building to escape a storm, only to realize it was inside as well. That’s the best way for me to say it. It’s like running from a tornado into a cellar, only to find that the wind was coming from beneath the earth.
The winds hit the soldiers, and then us, so hard that we all fell down. Someone had failed to block a door, I thought at first. Somebody go shut that door.
But the winds weren’t coming from one direction, but instead from the hallways around us. And then, it started to rain. Inside.
The soldiers were terrified too, and kept yelling at each other, asking what to do.
Bud grabbed one of them, shouting: Where is my daughter? Where is my daughter?
I could see the soldier’s face. He was young. And he was scared. I’d begged him, yelling too now above the winds. Where is she?
He pointed down the hall to the only door on the right.
The winds knocked us all down again, but Bud caught me. Dr. Martin was being held back by one of the soldiers. Bud and I just ran.
We’d reached the door and rushed in, finding the winds and rain were inside there too. There were beds everywhere, with people lying on them, all hooked up to tubes. They looked like they were sleeping. They were all drenched in their slumber, their white bed sheets soaked, sticking to their unmoving bodies.
In the corner was Lynn.