No Place for Heroes by Laura Restrepo Read Free Book Online Page A

let the position they had put her in drag her through that degree of depravity. Should she look for her son relying on criminals who had abducted hundreds of kids, children of female prisoners they had executed? Not even the loss of her son would force her to cross that line.
    “Very nice, Mother,” Mateo said disdainfully, and the resentment trembled in his voice. “Congratulations, very much like you, your political convictions always before anything else.”
    “Wait a second, Mateo, just wait a second, and listen to what I’m saying.”
    “I don’t want to know any more,” he said, leaving the room, walking quickly down the hallway and just reaching the elevator as his mother caught up to him.
    “You’re not going anywhere,” she said, blocking his way. “You’re staying right here and listening to me. You wanted to hear the story, right? Now you’re going to let me finish. Come on, let’s go back to the room. Would you like an ice-cold Coke, to cool off a bit?
    Mateo did not reply but followed her, and once inside the room, filled a glass to the rim with ice and poured himself a ginger ale from the minibar.
    “Good, now look me in the eyes,” his mother told him. “There was also something else to consider, Mateo, something of a very practical nature. Think, Mateo. What could it be?”
    Mateo drank his ginger ale sip by sip and then took his time chewing on the ice.
    “They would have never found him,” he said finally.
    “Exactly, that was the practical consideration, it would not have helped us. If the dictator’s henchmen had not been able to round up Forcás for all those years, they weren’t going to do it then. Asking them for help was not only a repulsive and grotesque thing to do, but in the end it would have been a colossal mistake. I risked everything if I played that hand. I was desperate, but not so blind that I didn’t see these things.”

L ORENZA WANTED TO take advantage of what was left of the beautiful sunny afternoon. Mateo had not even showered, so content in those pajamas, which almost had a life of their own by now, the same pair of socks that he had nearly worn out on the hotel carpet. He finally went to shower, taking forever, and when he reappeared in the bedroom, amid clouds of steam and cologne, he looked very handsome and dazzling, like new.
    He came out crooning the Who’s “Pinball Wizard,” with razor nicks on his face, minty breath, his hair washed with jojoba shampoo, conditioned and rinsed and slicked with adouble dose of gel, a clean shirt, black fitted Levi’s, a pair of custom-made Clarks shoes instead of his usual ratty Converses, a confident smile, and a sudden interest to go out and get to know Buenos Aires.
    He had been struck by relentless hunger pangs and he wanted to jump into the first diner they passed, but Lorenza convinced him to wait until they reached La Biela, a bar in the heart of the Recoleta neighborhood, next to a splendid park that she knew well from family outings in Buenos Aires when she was a teenager.
    They chose a table by the window to watch the passersby, and Mateo, who seemed to have decided to act according to the mores of a man of the world now, pulled the chair back for his mother. Then he put on his best adult voice and in a tone suitable for ordering a double whiskey at the bar, asked the waiter for two glasses of milk.
    “Do you want both of them at the same time?”
    “Yes, please, if it’s not a problem.”
    “Wow, kiddo, sleek!” Lorenza lauded him.
    On the sidewalk, a family passed by with a puppy, a Bernese mountain dog, on a leash, a spongy and irresistible ball of bouncing and nuzzling fur, with a pretty black head and white snout. Mateo, who was a dog lover, got up from the table, went out on the street, and asked the owners the name of such a handsome creature and if he could pet it, and he stayed with them for a while. He returned eager to tell his mother that the puppy was named Bear, but she jumped in first