A Reader on Reading

My school had always been known for its political activities, and throughout history many notable Argentinean politicians had come from the same classrooms in which I had sat. Now it seemed as if the government had specifically targeted not only the school but my schoolmates. News about them began to trickle out, month after month. Two friends (one had taught himself to play the oboe and gave impromptu performances in his room; the other had observed that those performances were “more boring than dancing with your own sister”) were shot dead at a petrol station just outside Buenos Aires. Another friend, whose name now seems to have vanished with her, so small she seemed to be about twelve when I last saw her, aged sixteen, was gunned down in a military prison. Estela’s brother, barely fifteen, disappeared one afternoon on his way to the movies. His corpse was delivered, inside a mailbag, to his parents’ doorstep, so badly mangled it was hardly recognizable. Enrique left for Spain. Ricky escaped to Brazil. Marta Lynch committed suicide. She shot herself in the kitchen while outside a taxi was waiting to take her to an interview at a radio station. The note she left read simply, “I can bear all this no longer.”

A few years ago I found myself in Brazil on a stopover. Back in Buenos Aires, one of my brothers had run into Ricky’s mother, and she had given him Ricky’s address in Rio, which my brother then forwarded to me. I called him. He was now married, with kids, teaching economics at the university. I kept trying to understand what had changed in him because he didn’t look older, merely different. I realized that everything he did now seemed slowed down — his speech, his gestures, the way he moved. A certain flabbiness had overtaken him; little seemed to excite him.

He had made a home in Brazil now—his wife, his children were Brazilian—but it was still a foreign country. He told me that in exile, as he called it, a number of refugees had set up “memory groups.” Memory groups, he explained, were in charge of recording political crimes so that nothing might be forgotten. They had lists of names of torturers, spies, informants. The Commission on the Desaparecidos in Argentina, set up by President Alfonsin in 1983 to investigate the fate of the thousands who disappeared during the military dictatorship, later recorded the testimony of the surviving victims. The memory groups kept records of the victimizers, in the hope that one day they would be brought to justice. I suspect that some of Ricky’s despondency came from the fact that he foresaw the outcome of the trials Alfonsin had promised: a few sentences, a few reprimands, and then the general amnesty proclaimed in 1991 by the new president, Carlos Menem.

I mentioned how extraordinary it seemed that our friends, our school, had been a target of the government. Ricky said that the military had depended on informants. That inside the school there were those who provided the torturers with details about our activities, with names, addresses, character descriptions. I agreed that there were those who had always publicly supported the military, but that there was a fair distance between waving a pro-military banner and actually collaborating with torturers.

Ricky laughed and said that I obviously had no idea of how those things worked. The military hadn’t depended on a group of reactionary kids chanting things like “Homeland, Family, Church.” They needed intelligent, resourceful people. Such as Rivadavia. Ricky said his group had solid proof that for several years Professor Rivadavia had passed on to the military government detailed information about us—his students. Not simply the names, but careful notes on our likes and dislikes, on our family backgrounds and school activities. He knew us all so well.

Ricky told me this a few years ago, and I have never stopped thinking about it. I know Ricky wasn’t mistaken. In my mind, I have three options:

I can decide that the person who was of the uttermost importance in my life, who in a way allowed me to be who I am now, who was the very essence of the illuminating and inspiring teacher, was in fact a monster and that everything he taught me, everything he had encouraged me to love, was corrupt.

I can try to justify his unjustifiable actions and ignore the fact that they led to the torture and death of my friends.

I can accept that Rivadavia was both the good teacher and the collaborator of torturers, and allow that description to stand, like water and fire.

I don’t know which of these readings is the right one.

Before saying good-bye, I asked Ricky if he knew what had become of Rivadavia. Ricky nodded and said that Rivadavia had left the school and entered a small publishing company in Buenos Aires, and that he wrote book reviews for one of the major Argentinean newspapers.

As far as I know, he’s still there.

God’s Spies

“They’re putting down their names,” the Gryphon whispered