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She knew that Luiz at least would know about Alex from Inez; was very much afraid he would also know by now that Alex did not intend to use Ben. It was one thing for Ben to be on the payroll of a film company, even if only in prospect, another if he were some poor derelict, with nowhere to go.
She said aloud, 'Ben must decide for himself
Now the two men were looking at each other: they were making silent decisions, she knew.
Suddenly inspired, she said, 'Ben has his own passport.'
She was amazed at herself for not thinking of this before.
The men were brought up short by this a
She said, 'He is a person of Britain.' She did not know the word citizen. 'You can't make him do anything.'
A short silence: this was because the men's silent colloquy, the decisions agreed to, had not been overthrown by hearing of Ben's legal status. Luiz got up, and so did the American. They said goodbye to her, formally, 'Dona Teresa' from Luiz, 'Miss Alves' from Professor Gaumlach. And they left, not looking at Ben.
Later Alfredo rang to say that things were not good. He had been ordered to drive down to Rio, talk to Ben, and if he refused to go with him back to the institute, he must use force if necessary.
'They can't do that,' said Teresa. 'How can they do that?'
'I said no,' said Alfredo. 'I told them, no. And now I have no job.'
'Then come here if you have nowhere to go,' she said. She was trying to find out if Alfredo was married, or had a woman, had a place to go, and Alfredo said, 'It is lucky I am not in the institute's accommodation. I am living with a friend in his house,' — telling her what he knew she was asking. 'But I will come and see you tomorrow, Teresa.'
When he arrived next morning the door of the flat was open and broken and neither Teresa nor Ben was inside.
What had happened was this. When she and Ben had finished breakfast, both nervy, jumpy, expecting something to happen but not knowing what, Teresa said she had to go out to the shops. She told Ben to stay inside, and not answer the doorbell, unless it was Alfredo. Ben obediently sat himself at the table, and when the doorbell rang shouted, 'Is it Alfredo?' But then there were knocks, many of them, increasingly peremptory and noisy. Ben was silent, knowing that he should not have said anything at all. There was an assault on the door, and two men rushed in, put their arms into his on either side, gagged him while he struggled, and ran him to the lift, and then out of the lift to a car. There they wound up the windows, tied Ben's wrists, his knees, his ankles, and let him thrash about in the back of the car while they drove fast up into the hills. Once they had to stop because Ben had been sick and the gag was choking him with vomit. They took out the gag, poured some cheap wine — the only liquid they had — to clean his mouth, gagged him again, with the same piece of cloth, and at the institute drove at once not to the place he had been in yesterday, but to the 'other' place, which Alfredo had been told not to let him see. It is not difficult to hire people for this kind of work anywhere in the world and in Rio it is certainly not more difficult than in other places.
When Teresa returned with her shopping she found the door open and smashed and Ben gone. This slammed into her diaphragm and she could hardly breathe. She collapsed on to the table, her arms spread out, her head on an arm. Her first thought was, Alfredo is coming, he will help. She did not know he had been and had left and was driving as fast as he could back to the institute to find out what was happening. Then she thought, Perhaps Alex will come. But he had telephoned two days ago to say he was off on another trip to visit the tribe. 'My Indians', he had called them.
It never occurred to her that she might telephone the British Embassy and say that a British citizen had been kidnapped. She did not know a citizen of a country had such rights, knew only that a passport gave you an identity which officials respected. She had often leafed through Alex's passport, with its many visas, thinking: Perhaps one day I'll have one like this. I'll travel to these countries too.
She could not think clearly for a while, and then remembered that Alfredo had not come, so he would telephone her to say why. She was too restless to wait calmly and moved about the room in a blind way, even bumping into a chair. She opened the window wider to let in more of the heavy warm air. Slowly Inez came forward and filled her thoughts. Yes, Inez: she telephoned Inez and when she heard her voice said, 'Listen, it's Teresa And then, fast and decisive, 'Don't go away from the telephone, Inez, don't do that.' She heard Inez breathing, and knew she was afraid. 'Where is Ben?' she demanded. 'They took him away. So where is he?'
She heard a feeble, 'I don't know,' and said in a cold voice that surprised her, 'You know. You know. Is he where we were before?'
'No,' said Inez. There was a silence, during which both could hear the other's breathing. And then Teresa said, 'I will kill you. If you don't help me I will kill you.' And now Inez understood what it was that had attracted her about this representative of the hard wild life of the poor, why she had courted Teresa. The thrill of fear she felt at those words ran through her body and even hurt her eyes. She trembled, listening to Teresa. 'You were my friend, my friend, Inez. And you did this.'
'I didn't know,' Inez managed to get out. 'I didn't know they pla
'But you know now, Inez. You know where he is.'
Inez did know because she had seen the car that had Ben in it driving past. Everyone in the institute had known. People crowded at windows and heard stifled roars and bellows from the car. Some claimed they had seen Ben heaving and struggling. Inez knew — they all did — where they were taking Ben and she felt sick. She was not the only one. The laboratory assistant who had tested Ben was shocked. What she told the others had percolated through the institute. This yeti, this freak, was a polite sort of creature, almost like ordinary people: he should not be treated like this. What was happening was that the unease, the shame, most felt about what went on in the 'other' buildings, was being crystallised around this Ben, who — they soon all knew — had been kidnapped.
Now Inez heard Teresa say, 'You must come and fetch me. I must find Ben. I must come to where he is.'
'I can't,' said Inez. 'I can't just leave my work.' But she knew what she would hear next: 'Inez, I mean what I am telling you. I will kill you. I will know that you are a bad person.' And Teresa went on to order her to come into Rio, pick her up, and do it now. 'Ben has a passport, Inez. They can't do this. You tell them.'
Inez was in the laboratory during this conversation. The assistant from yesterday listened, and said angrily to Inez, 'Why are they doing this? He is not an animal.'
Inez went out to her car, unobserved, so she believed, by the senior staff — by Luiz — and drove down to Rio, thinking that she might lose her job. She did not really believe she would. What was happening — it was illegal. She was pretty sure that the plan was to get this Ben — she had no feeling for him, did not even think of him as a person — away from the institute at some point, and then he would disappear. People disappeared. Luiz — no, not Luiz, that American — was counting on something, and she believed he was right: everyone in the institute would be so frightened of losing their job, their precious hard-to-come-by jobs, that they would keep quiet. As for herself, what crime was she committing? She was leaving her office in the institute for a couple of hours. She drove fast and found Teresa waiting. She had a holdall with some clothes for Ben and his dark glasses.