“The poor girl grabbed her head and asked me, ‘What’s this on my head, Auntie?’ I told her, ‘That’s your scar, darling.’ And she asked me, ‘What scar?’ I put down the comb and looked her in the eyes to make sure she wasn’t trying to fool me. And I told her, very seriously, ‘That’s the scar from when you got hit on the head.’ Amaia smiled as if it were nothing, and she said, ‘I was probably really little, ’cause I don’t remember.’ I talked to her for a long time, careful not to prompt her, hoping she would work it out for herself. Finally, I said, ‘It was in the bakery kitchen, don’t you remember?’ She just smiled and said, ‘I was probably being naughty, ’cause I know I was a real bitxito when I was little.’ She doesn’t remember a thing, Juan. It’s completely gone from her memory.”
“Well, what should I say, sis? Maybe that’s for the best. I wish it hadn’t happened. I pray about it all the time.”
The pause that followed meant Engrasi must have been glowering at him. When she spoke, her tone was hard. “You’re an ostrich, burying your head in the sand. God won’t erase what happened, no matter how hard you pray. And no, it is not better this way. I don’t think you understand the seriousness of what I just said. Amaia suffered a life-threatening head injury. You have no idea how serious, because you didn’t take her to the hospital.”
Juan didn’t reply. That was always his reaction when he was overwhelmed. Amaia could almost see him staring at the floor with his hands jammed in his pockets.
“A head trauma that serious can cause hidden nerve damage. The symptoms can take years to manifest.”
“But since she’s so clever . . .”
“Neurological damage has nothing to do with intelligence. It’s silent, and it can remain hidden for years before coming to light. When it does, the effects can be catastrophic.”
Amaia heard nothing at first. Then she made out low sounds. She held her breath, overcome by her father’s weeping.
“We have to take her to the doctor,” he said through his sobs.
“I already did. Dr. Munguía is one of Spain’s best neurologists, and he takes patients at University Clinic in Pamplona. He was my classmate in college. A good man.”
Amaia had liked the doctor. They’d had a long conversation.
“He didn’t detect any signs of neurological damage, and in fact he told me Amaia’s IQ is far above average. But I didn’t need a specialist to tell me that.”
“That’s good news,” her father said cautiously. “Isn’t it?”
“Sometimes people who’ve suffered serious trauma develop defenses to block out their suffering. I believe that’s what’s happening with Amaia. She is suffering.”
Her father’s next words were stifled, almost inaudible, as if he’d covered his face with his hands. “We’ve all suffered.”
Engrasi’s voice took on new force. “Don’t you give me that crap!”
That was the first time Amaia had heard Aunt Engrasi use such coarse language.
“Amaia is the one who’s suffering, and you are responsible. That’s why I called you. You have to put an end to this, once and for all.”
“An end to what?”
“Amaia has always been quiet and obedient. She loves to read and stay here with me. She’s always doing schoolwork, even if it’s not assigned. But she hasn’t gone out to play or visit friends for months. No matter how much I try, I can’t get her to go out. She simply refuses. Last week I sent her to the pharmacy on an errand. That night at bedtime she asked me if she had to live here because she was being punished. Can you imagine how appalled I was? ‘Of course not, darling, wherever did you get that idea?’ She told me some women recognized her and asked if she was feeling better now. She, poor thing, told them she was. Within her hearing, one of the women told the other that Amaia was living with me because she was ill behaved. She stole, she talked back, she hit her sisters, and she even attacked her own mother. They’d had to punish her. The story was that you’d planned to send her away to boarding school, but Rosario took pity on her, so you sent her to live with me.”
A pained silence followed.
“My canasta friends didn’t tell me, because they didn’t want me to be upset, but they’d all been hearing the same ttuku-ttuku for quite a while. I suspect those rumors are the reason Amaia never goes out. It probably wasn’t the first time somebody scolded the child. Juan, tell me you didn’t know about this!”
Her father’s first words were inaudible, then, “I was leaving the kitchens, and I heard Rosario saying something like that to the customers.”
“When was that?”
“It’s been a while. Maybe a few months ago—”
Engrasi shrieked in anger. “And you dare claim that you’re suffering! How can you let your wife go around telling people the child is evil?” She lowered her voice and her tone became gentle. “Do you know what she asked me yesterday? ‘Auntie, if I’m a very good girl, do you think they’ll let me go back home?’”
Her father was sobbing.
“The poor child has blocked off her pain, walled it off with a barrier so tall and strong that she can’t remember what you two did to her. All she wants is to be a normal child. To be loved.” Engrasi didn’t bother to hide her contempt. “And this extraordinary little girl has to deal with the shame of being pointed out in the street! Amnesia spares her from her painful memories. But it’s an abyss, an open hole beneath her feet that one day will gobble her up.”
“Don’t say that, Engrasi! You know what it’s like in a small town: nobody says a word, but they all know everything. I did scold Rosario when I heard her say those things, I really did. What more can I do? She’s very sick, Engrasi. She’s a model mother to Flora and Rosaura. The doctor says she’s not aware of how she’s hurting Amaia.”
“But you are. You have to put a stop to it.”
“But how?” he cried in desperation.
“By telling her it’s not true! Forbidding her to say such things!” Engrasi was disgusted. “How could you permit it?”
Juan got up. “And what do you want me to tell them?” He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “That I had to get my daughter out of the house because otherwise she’d be dead by now?”
Sitting in the phone booth at Quantico, Amaia realized she’d been distractedly tracing that heart in the wooden shelf. Her index finger stopped again at the point of that heart, so similar to the one that an eleven-year-old was able to imagine in the grain of a wooden banister.
Her aunt’s voice came to her from very far away. “Amaia . . .”
“I’m not leaving here, Auntie.”
10
THERMAL CONDITIONS
New Orleans, Louisiana
Early morning, Saturday, August 27, 2005
The FBI regional office in New Orleans was located at the edge of Pontchartrain Park, adjacent to the New Orleans Lakefront Airport. Their initial plan had been to land at the small airport, but that proved impossible because it was being evacuated. They’d been put in a holding pattern over Lake Pontchartrain and later directed to Louis Armstrong International Airport in Kenner, exactly what they’d been trying to avoid. As their jet was on approach, they got a radio message that two FBI agents were standing by with vehicles to take them to the regional office.