The Dictator's Slut
Chapter II
I was taken to a quiet room with a soft carpet that hushed every sound, and thick drapes that softened the harsh light into a gentle glow.
I was laid on a bed and soon a bald man with spectacles and a doctor's long, delicate fingers was examining me, touching my head, asking embarrassing, intimate questions.
I mumbled "NO!" and tugged the skirt down, trying to cover my exposed thighs. I hated that skirt, and how vulnerable it made me feel.
The man nodded, smiled, and gave me a pill and a glass of water. He went away and I was left in blessed silence. I tugged a cover over myself and slept. When I woke up, a smiling woman came into the room.
"Are you alright, my dear?" she asked kindly. "I hear you had quite a fright."
A fright? She called being battered and nearly raped a 'fright'? I didn't answer, I didn't know what to say, and that didn't seem to bother her.
"The Generalissimo has asked me to escort you home," she said gently. "What is your name?"
"Dita," I whispered. "Dita Hernandez." Was this woman really going to take me home? Was I free? I was and she did.
I was taken home in a long black car with fluttering flags. As we rolled slowly through the narrow streets of my barrio, people came to the windows and peeked from behind their curtains.
Curiosity was not something that was encouraged. It could be deadly. The car stopped in front of my door, and the woman helped me out and knocked on the door.
My mother was pale, and her eyes were swollen and red, her cheeks puffy and blotched. In that first moment, all she saw was me.
"Dita!" she gasped, then she grabbed me and held me so tight it hurt. She started pouting an incomprehensible stream of words in my ear, her old language, something she only did when she was very upset.
Then she saw the woman over my shoulder in her elegant grey suit and her leather pumps and she stopped. "Señora," she said. "Forgive me, a mother's fears..."
"It's quite alright, Mrs. Hernandez," she smiled. "I quite understand." She stepped forward and offered my mother her hand. "I'm the Generalissimo's secretary."
My mother gaped, then glanced at me bewildered. "But how? Why..." she asked.
"Dita was accidentally caught up in a riot," the woman lied smoothly. "Dissidents. She was rescued by the Generalissimo himself! She is a lucky child."
My mother was nodding dumbly, disbelieving. "So lucky!" she gasped. "My precious baby..."
The woman smiled, and threw me a peculiar look, equal parts disdain and scorching envy. "Yes, indeed, a lucky child," she repeated. "We trust you will be more careful next time."
She smiled at my mother again, nodded at me, and left. We watched as the long sleek car drove away through the empty, dusty street.
It wasn't long before my mother's fear and relief turned to anger. She demanded to know what had happened, how it had happened.~
I told her nothing about the grey room or the man with the meaty hands. I repeated the woman's vague story about the riot, and my mother became very quiet. She knew it was a lie, she just didn't know why I was lying.
When my father came home, she told him the lie with a bright smile. "Imagine, mi amor," she exclaimed. "Our baby met the Generalissimo!"
Twenty years before, my father had been one of the men who'd come out of the jungle, following a charismatic young colonel to preach staccato revolution with a gun.
There were photos of my father in fatigues, with a cap perched far back on his head, cradling a machine gun. He had an insolent look in the pictures, an air of casual, arrogant violence about him.
That man didn't look like my father. My father was a stocky man with oak-brown, thick forearms, and surprisingly elegant hands.
There was no arrogance in my father, not since my brother Carlos had left. He was quiet, so quiet, except that sometimes late at night I'd hear his voice, talking, talking to my mother.
Sometimes he'd sob, and I'd feel a flush of embarrassment at his weakness. My father the freedom fighter, the hero of the revolution was long gone.
That night there was an uneasy silence at dinner. None of us wanted to break it. Breaking the silence might drag in the truth and the grey room and the man with the meaty hands.
No, we liked the silence, and most of all, we loved the lie.~
The next day I went back to university and everything seemed the same. No one seemed to be missing. I didn't see Pedro, but his roommate told me he had a broken nose.
I remember stifling a giggle, because, like all poets, Pedro was enormously vain. I giggled then, but now I know that by then, Pedro and a handful of the ring leaders were probably already dead.
Things went back to normal, isn't that so strange? No one talked about the silent march, it was as if it had never happened, then one day I went home and the black car with the flags was there.
There were also two men in parade uniform, one on either side of my door. I was so afraid. Were they here to arrest me? The door opened and my mother stood there.
She was smiling, and there was bright color in her sallow cheeks, but her eyes had a febrile gleam. "Dita," she cried. "You are honored, child!"
I stepped in and there he was, the Generalissimo. He stood there smiling, his head held high, his hands behind his back. "Hello, Dita," he said. "I wanted to know if you are well, after your fright."
I looked into his shallow, black eyes and glanced away again, quickly. I nodded. "Yes, sir, Generalissimo," I whispered. "I'm well. Thank you."
He placed a hand under my chin, tilting my head, and making me look at him. That frightened me more than the man with meaty hand's blows.
"What a pretty child, Mrs. Hernandez," he said smiling. "An angel..." It was then that I saw that the strange shine in my mother's eyes was fear.
MC
