Beyond the Ties of Blood by Florencia Mallon Page A

about his safety, even though the more conservative upper-class students at the Catholic University, the supposedly apolitical ones who had never joined a political party or student organization before, now began arming themselves to fight the Revolutionary Left. Rumor had it that they were collaborating with the new fascist group known as New Fatherland, the one that had been started by angry landowners from the south of the country. She knew that students like Sergio, who had been in the Socialist Party, were not willing to join in, but there were still a lot of these conservative hotheads at the Catholic University.
    Her fears became all too real the night his jaw was broken in the fight with the right-wing thugs. She’d waited up for hours, and when he finally made it home, his friend Hernán almost carrying him up the stairs, she foolishly expected him to say he would give up politics. But he just stayed in bed, groggy on pain medication, and she fed him soup and mashed potatoes.
    He was all right by the time of winter vacation. He took to sitting around the apartment, looking thinner and more haggard, and sometimes he opened a bottle of wine at lunch and kept drinking it through the day. The government had taken over her family’s farm in the agrarian reform, so her mother had insisted they spend the break together in the north and she couldn’t think of a convincing excuse. Besides, after all the time she spent helping him get back on his feet, she felt as if she owed her mama at least this one holiday. And maybe, just maybe, she needed to remind him that she wouldn’t always be waiting around, her hands clenching a cold mug of tea, no matter what he did.
    She returned at the beginning of August, a little more than a month before the military overthrew the government for good. A week or so after her return, they were evicted once again. The only room they could find was a ragged little dump behind a gas station. Three weeks later, right after the military coup, the Revolutionary Left put out a statement calling for armed resistance. Even she knew what a joke that was, a few cornered guys with pistols facing the tanks and planes of the armed forces. She’d heard the planes bombing the Presidential Palace the day of the coup, and rumor had it that they’d bombed some of the working-class neighborhoods, too. But the statement meant that the military would target all members of his organization, and that made him a marked man.
    She was the only one who could walk to the corner store two blocks away to buy bread, coffee, and the two horrible newspapers whose publication the junta still allowed. Every morning, when she returned, she put the coffee and sandwiches on the table and they ate in silence. Then he turned to the last page in each newspaper to check for names he knew on the lists of those arrested. As she sat there, looking at him run his finger down the list, stopping every now and then, closing his eyes or shaking his head, she wanted to ask him what they were going to do, but she found she couldn’t ask the question out loud. She hoped she’d be able to at some point, but they ran out of time.
    They were still finishing up their sandwiches late on a Sunday morning when the crash of the front door startled her so badly that she spilled her coffee. The thought that she must get up had not even formed completely in her head before she felt a fist hit her face and she was down on the floor. Looking up through the red haze of pain, all she could see was an olive-colored form. Then the sharp stab along her side when he kicked her. She closed her eyes, wetness spreading across her cheeks.
    They left her alone after that, focusing on Manuel. She was afraid to open her eyes. She heard, again and again, the hard thud of military boots hitting human flesh, his grunts and moans mixing with the curses of his attackers, all of it punctuated by the sound of glass shattering against the floor.