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Bolivar's Heart
By Margaret Donnelly AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2015 Margaret Donnelly
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5049-5863-9
CHAPTER 1
ISABEL CONDORCANQUI
Without water or food in the dark, windowless metal shed, Isabel settled into surviving the horrific, hot night, distracting herself with the sound of the flies crowding around the door for air. Nothing tempered the heat, only the heavy perspiration drops that ran down her scalp and thoughts of a fresh cupful of café con leche waiting for her in the morning. Thinking of something as simple as a café con leche distracted her from the dryness of her mouth, the hardness of the floor, and the heaviness of the metal brace around one of her ankles.
This was a good time to die, but she managed to defy those thoughts by removing her mind to the sacred mountains, the Apus, where, as a young girl, she had replenished herself in the festival of Qoyllur Rit'i. Her strength came from connecting with those mountains and the expectation that one day soon she would reunite with her brother, Antonio.
She fell asleep and dreamed with Antonio while they hiked together among the Apus to say a prayer to Pachamama, the mother. It was difficult to say a prayer. They were blinded by the light of Father Sun, so she grabbed Antonio's hand and followed his short, measured steps until he exploded into a run toward the edge of the mountain. She followed him.
Suddenly he turned around and, facing her, said, "They killed Pachamama!"
As soon as he stepped out of her dream, the door of the shed was yanked open, and two men grabbed her, one by the legs and the other by the arms. While one unlocked the ankle brace, the other slapped her. "Shut up, you whore! Shut up!" She was too stunned to resist.
They dragged her back to the main house and threw her on the floor of the kitchen.
Suddenly her captors reacted to someone who was kicking down the front door. She was left alone. It was then that she decided to die.
CHAPTER 2
THE RETURN OF PACHAMAMA
Gloria Dolii García's eyes impatiently scanned the interior of the elevator. At that very moment, she was thinking of a human trafficking victim, a fifty-seven-year-old Peruvian woman whose name was Isabel Condorcanqui.
Gloria stepped out when the elevator door opened on the psychiatric floor of the hospital. Wary of being delayed, she quickly mapped out her way to Isabel's room. It wasn't the first time that she had been confronted with a bizarre case, but it was her first visit to a psychiatric ward.
A growing anxiety swept through her. The anxiety came from reviewing pieces of the government's record, Form I-213, which detailed Isabel's screams while blood gushed from her wrists, images that were difficult to suppress.
Isabel had cut her wrists after she was dragged out of a metal shed by two men. The shed was located in the backyard of a house in south Dallas. She had attempted to kill herself as soon as a unit of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) surrounded the house where she and a group of men were held by Mexican smugglers. The arrest had occurred five days earlier. In the interim, her manic accusations against authorities far removed from the scene, both chronologically and geographically, landed her in the psychiatric ward of a Dallas hospital. Peruvian officials, she said, had kidnapped her.
Gloria held her breath but kept a cool composure with her briefcase gripped tightly and purse strapped around her shoulder as she came under the judgmental glare of the ICE officer who guarded the door of Isabel's room. Gloria's black hair was pulled back into braids that came together in a French tresse that cascaded to her waistline, held at the tip by turquoise beads. She was of short stature — borderline matronly as the mother of three grown children — with Navajo (Diné) features inherited from her full-blooded mother and gray eyes from her Anglo-American father. Hardworking and sharp yet soulful, she understood the trials of immigrants. She was handsome for her forty-five years, as her boss, David Levin, liked to say without realizing that honesty wasn't the best policy in the case of a woman's age. However, she never complained.
She pulled out a couple of plastic cards from her purse. The ICE officer inspected the passport ID card that identified her as a citizen of the United States and the other as a licensed attorney of the state of Texas.
He took another look at her, eyebrows close together, and dragged his glance back to the cards. As soon as he returned them to her, ready to inspect her briefcase and purse, metal crashing against glass vibrated the door. Within seconds, two nurses, a man and a woman, bolted around a corner of the hallway and moved swiftly by them through the door.
They had come from their monitoring station and tumbled into the room, where they confronted a small-boned woman clad in a light blue hospital gown with long, disheveled dark hair. Her eyes were fixed on the glass window that she had attempted to break. She continued to search for her reflection while the male nurse sidestepped the bed and grabbed the overturned metal stool from the floor.
From the doorway, Gloria noticed the white gauze around her wrists as the other nurse guided Isabel back to the bed.
Isabel refused the bed. "No. No. I need a mirror!" she screamed in Spanish, heaving with frustration.
"I promise that I'll bring you one," the female nurse said.
Isabel passed her hands over her hair, answering, "I must look at myself! Do you understand me? I need to see myself!" There were no mirrors in the room or in the private bathroom.
ICE Agent Gardner turned around. "The window is still holding.
It's double paned. No serious harm done."
"I need a mirror!" Isabel screamed again as she was gently guided into one of the two metal chairs next to the bed.
The male nurse held the metal stool and said, "I'll take this away," meeting Gloria's eyes. "If you want to speak to her, go ahead. She has these episodes."
Gloria asked, "When can I speak to her physician?"
"Dr. Warner?"
"Here's my card," she offered. "Can you ask Dr. Warner to contact me as soon as possible?"
The man nodded, taking the card.
Gloria glanced at Agent Gardner, who smiled for the first time and said, "I'll be outside."
When everyone left the room, she pulled the other chair to her and sat down, facing Isabel. She extracted a writing pad from her briefcase and placed it on her lap. "Let's see ...," she said softly in Spanish, carefully absorbing Isabel's Mestizo face, round dark eyes, long nose, thin lips, and black hair that carried no hint of her age. She added, "My name is Gloria García. I've been informed that your name is Isabel Condorcanqui." However, Isabel made no eye contact, satisfying herself by keeping her hands folded in her lap while she stared down.
Gloria continued in Spanish. "I work for a law firm. The owner's name is David Levin. We agreed to represent you because the government of the United States wants to send you back to Perú."
A glint of movement seeped through Isabel's face although there was no hint of interest.
"Do you want to go back to Perú?" Gloria asked.
No answer.
She pressed on. "I need to know if there's any reason you shouldn't be returned to your homeland."
Isabel moved her head sideways but kept silent.
"There's a reasonable chance that we can get you asylum."
Her demeanor didn't change.
"I've been informed that you were held against your will in a house in south Dallas."
Her face remained frozen.
"And that you were taken to a shed in the backyard of the house where you were chained down overnight."
She shrank back in her chair but refused to react.
"A neighbor heard your screams and called the police. Is that what happened?"
According to the government's record, Isabel had been taken from the shed and returned by her captors to the main house every morning. Gloria added, "The authorities surrounded the house and were able to observe two men escort you out of that shed to the house early in the morning before ICE found you along with other undocumented aliens."
Isabel's breathing became labored.
"What kind of work did you do?" The possibilities included prostitute, cook, housekeeper, among many others. Isabel didn't have the air of a prostitute, like so many of them who showed up at local restaurants with male handlers closely watching over them. They were of varying ages but were mostly young, overly sexy with caked-on cheap makeup, like the puppets of a show. Isabel shared none of these traits. There was an aura of dignity about her in spite of her assumed status — enslaved domestic.
There was still no reaction.
Gloria tried the shock approach. "Why did you try to kill yourself?" It didn't work. She could sense Isabel's confused terror, so she reached into her purse and pulled out a pewter compact mirror. It had the head of a jaguar design on the cover. Isabel glanced at it. Gloria added, "It's a mirror. Open it."
Without taking it, Isabel stared at the design. "What animal is that?" she asked suddenly.
"It's a jaguar."
She glanced at Gloria with intense eyes. "You're a gringa. What's a jaguar to you?"
"The mirror was a gift. My husband gave the mirror to me."
"Puma is our symbol."
"A puma? Whose symbol?"
"The Quechua people," Isabel answered.
"I didn't know that."
"Why do you carry a jaguar with you?"
"It's a symbol of great power to many Mexicans."
"You aren't a Mexican. And where did you learn to speak Spanish so well?"
Gloria smiled. "My husband was Mexican. But I also learned Spanish from my clients."
"Mexican?"
"Yes," Gloria answered easily.
"The Mexicans treated me badly."
"I understand."
Isabel grabbed the compact and held it with both hands. "It's heavy," she said.
"It's pewter."
She managed a nod. She stroked the jaguar design with her fingertips. "And what happened to your husband?"
Gloria didn't like talking about it. However, she had to draw Isabel out. "He died."
"How?"
"He became very ill."
She nodded.
"Cancer," Gloria added.
"How long ago?"
"Six years ago."
* * *
Isabel opened the compact, and her heart began to pound in her ears. Images of stone-faced men in uniforms racing in from all directions littered her head. She disconnected from her past. "I'm an old woman," she said when she glanced at her image.
"You still look beautiful," Gloria said, ignoring the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. "Do you have any children?"
"I was beaten and raped so hard that my body couldn't carry another life."
Gloria gave her a nod of recognition. She continued. "So, tell me, who brought you to the United States?"
"They did."
"Who, exactly?"
Glancing around again, she shook her head. "I don't know their names. The same men who took me to Spain arranged things with some Mexicans."
"Where in Spain?"
"Ceuta."
"What were you doing in Ceuta?"
"Working."
"What kind of work?"
Isabel's mind tried to grab memories held back in her throat, so she swallowed and answered, "I worked as a maid and nanny."
"For how long?"
Her face was filled with sadness.
"Isabel, you need to help me," Gloria pleaded.
She relented. "I worked for the same family for more than thirty-five years."
"That's a long time." Gloria made a note on her pad. Would Spain take her, if not Perú?
"What could I expect?" Her breathing was slow. "I was a slave. I was kidnapped in Cuzco when I was seventeen years old."
"Tell me about it."
"I was born in Tungasuca, Perú."
Gloria pulled a legal-size document out of her briefcase and showed it to her. "This birth certificate says that you were born in Cuzco."
She shook her head. "My parents registered me in Cuzco, but I was born in Tungasuca."
"If you were a slave, how did you get possession of your birth certificate?"
Isabel didn't flinch, answering, "They gave it to me when I arrived in Mexico."
"Who had it before that happened?"
She shrugged. "The man I worked for in Spain."
"Who was the man?"
"A powerful man in Ceuta."
"In politics?" Gloria asked.
Isabel nodded. "Yes, a judge."
"Do you have any idea how he got your birth certificate?"
"No."
"How did your kidnappers know that you were Isabel Condorcanqui?"
"I had my school identification card in my pocket."
Gloria focused her eyes on Isabel's face. "So, how were you kidnapped?"
"I was pulled into a car in centro Cuzco."
"What were you doing there?"
"I was walking to a bus stop from a private school for girls. The school let us out at two-thirty in the afternoon, so it was soon after that."
"You belonged to a good family, then."
"My father was a merchant in Tungasuca. I was finishing my secondary education."
"What happened next?"
"They held a gun to my head, so I stopped screaming. Then they used something that smelled sweet that made me drowsy ..."
"Chloroform?"
"I don't know what it was."
"Where were you taken?"
"To an old jail."
"Where?"
"In Cuzco."
"How do you know it was in Cuzco?"
"It was like I was drunk, but I could tell where I was."
"How long did you stay there?"
"Two days, I think."
"What happened after that?"
"They took me to Pomacanchi."
"How did you know it was Pomacanchi?"
"I'm familiar with that area. I had a lot of relatives living there." She hesitated for a few seconds before she added, "My ancestral grandfather's house next to the laguna of Pomacanchi was burnt to the ground by the Spanish."
"Why?"
She arched her shoulders. "He was considered an enemy of the Spanish Crown."
"Was he?"
"Yes," she said with defiance.
"Where was your family?"
"My parents and my sister were in Tungasuca. Antonio, my brother, was also kidnapped. I never saw him again."
"Was he with you?"
She shook her head. "He was in another school in Cuzco."
"So how do you know he was kidnapped?"
"They told me."
"Were you kidnapped with others?"
"No. I was the only one they kidnapped. I was the only person in that jail." She shut her eyes, tormented by the memories, even though she realized that she was strangely desensitized. "From that jail," she added, "they took me to Pomacanchi and then to a nearby place where they forced me into a truck. There were more than one hundred of us herded into trucks and taken to Lima across the mountains."
"How old was Antonio?"
"He was fourteen years old."
"Was he part of that group?"
"No. I told you that he went to a different school and that I never saw him again."
"What else do you remember?"
"They put women and children together. There were many children and women, maybe sixty, and the rest were men, about fifty of them."
"Were they Indians?"
She nodded. "Mostly Quechua — a few were Aymara."
"Weren't you stopped by anyone on the way to Lima?"
"Yes, we were, but no one inspected the trucks. Our captors had official papers. We went through many towns."
"How did you know these towns?"
"They would unload us and give us water. The guards would say, 'We're in Huaytará,' or 'We're in San Vicente.'"
"Why were they taking you to Lima?"
"To load us on a ship."
"Once in Lima, what happened?"
"The ship went to Rio de Janeiro."
Gloria stopped writing, impressed by Isabel's remarkable memory, and glanced at her. "No one tried to escape?"
"How can anyone escape when he's starving?" she answered in a flat tone. "That's what they did. They also beat us."
"Did you spend any time in Rio de Janeiro?"
"Yes. I worked for a family for a year. They handed me over to my captors once their agreement was over."
"What agreement?" Gloria asked.
She bristled. "I was a slave. I only obeyed orders. That's when they shipped me to Spain, where the same thing happened again, because I was taken to Ceuta. That's how I got to Ceuta where I worked for that judge."
"That was a very long contract."
She nodded. "They needed me. I raised their children. But then the family had no use for me."
Gloria added a note in her pad: Check into Stockholm Syndrome. Traumatic bonding. She glanced up and said, "So, tell me — why didn't you walk away?"
She didn't answer.
"Your handlers were Peruvian, so did they stay in contact with you during all those years?"
"Yes."
"Did your employer know them?"
"Yes."
"Did they come to your house?"
"I lived with the family, so they visited that house."
"How often?"
She shrugged. "Every three months or so."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Bolivar's Heart by Margaret Donnelly. Copyright © 2015 Margaret Donnelly. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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