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'The alarm,' Teresa said to Alfredo, who began looking around for the wire, and at her voice Ben sat up and howled, his face lifted towards her. 'Be quiet, Ben,' whispered Teresa. 'We're going to take you away.' His eyes — what was wrong with them? In the feeble light they seemed like dark holes, but they were blanked out with terror and misery. 'Ben, Ben, be quiet, you must be quiet.' He quietened but his breathing was like groaning. Alfredo had found the wire for the alarm and had cut it. Then he vomited: the smell, that smell — and it was so hot in here.
He began cutting a big hole in the wire of Ben's cage, which was for a strong animal — thick wire. Teresa was looking at a cage where a white cat was lying stretched out, a mother cat. Wires led into her head from an instrument fastened to the wire of the cage. Four kittens sucked at her: each had wires on its head. The cat looked at Teresa and the accusation in its eyes made her want to put her hands over her own eyes. There was a big hole in Ben's cage. 'Quiet, quiet, be quiet, Ben,' whispered Teresa, and put her arms around him to hold him. He was filthy and shivering, a poor helpless defeated creature who now — surprising them — made a leap out of her arms and out of the window and into the dark. He was ru
A silence. Little forest noises. Behind, in the building they had left, monkeys set up a howl, a terrible sound, from that hell which is multiplied all over the world, everywhere human beings make our civilisation.
'Ben, Ben, come here to me, Ben.'
It was the smell that told them he was coming.
'Will you take me to the people who are like me?' they heard.
'Yes, yes, Ben, we will,' said Teresa, desperate with his desperation.
He was there, by them, crouching, trembling.
'Now, come quietly, quietly, Ben. Don't make a sound, Ben.'
It was all right in the forest, they were well hidden, but they had to cross a bare space, taking the risk of being seen. Luckily most people were inside eating their evening meal. They could hear television sets, radios, voices. Alfredo said, 'Now, run.' And Teresa, 'Run fast, Ben.' The three ran, through the dark cut by lights failing from the houses, to Alfredo's room.
There Teresa pushed Ben into the shower, washed him, ran water until it was lapping clear around his feet, pulled him out, dried him, put on the clean clothes she had brought. Alfredo found orange juice for him, and fruit. He wanted to drink, but not to eat. His eyes were on Teresa, imploring her: like those monkeys' eyes, she thought, though she had not taken them in at the time.
'Why are they allowed to do that?' she asked Alfredo.
He was silent, and grim, and — she could see — ashamed, and said, 'It's science.'
Ben was not trembling now, but he found it hard to look at them, and sat crouching on his chair, fists dangling, head poked forward, eyes still painful with fear.
'We are going to drive you down to Rio,' said Teresa. 'Then tomorrow we are going on an aeroplane.' 'To my people?'
'Yes,' she said, helplessly, and did not dare even to look at Alfredo. What were they going to do?
About midnight, when the houses of the institute's workers were dark, and nothing seemed to be moving, they crept out, listening to a dog bark, and found Antonio waiting for them in his car. The four drove down to the city. It was late in the night when they reached the flat. The door had had slats nailed across it, presumably by the janitor.
They told Ben to go to bed and try to sleep. He was not to be afraid. Meanwhile Alfredo, Teresa and Antonio conferred. Antonio had worked in the mines too. He produced his identity card, laid it on the table and said to Alfredo, 'Is yours OK?'
Alfredo brought his out from an inside pocket, and put it down beside Antonio's. Teresa could see that there had been problems of some kind with these cards, but that now things were in order. They were looking at her, and now she took her card from her handbag and the three documents lay together on the table. She was thinking of Alex's passport, and found these three sheets of inferior paper, the identity cards, insulting.
'One day I want a real passport,' she said to Alfredo. Antonio laughed in surprise, but Alfredo, having begun to laugh, stopped, seeing from her face she was saying something of importance. 'I want a passport like a little book, like the foreigners have — like the Americans.' Alfredo nodded, and waited for her to go on. She dismissed her identity card with a gesture of contempt. 'It's not good enough,' she said.
Alfredo pondered this, then said, 'All right, I'll make you one now.' And he got up, found some paper in a drawer, folded it into a little book, brought it to the table, and sat down, looking sternly at Teresa, a biro poised. She was already laughing and Antonio was too.
'Both crazy,' said Antonio. 'Loco.'
'Name?' demanded Alfredo, like an official.
'Teresa Alves.'
'Dona Teresa Alves. Your hair is black?'
Later, through their lives, they would relive this scene, reminding each other, and telling their children, how Alfredo had found out first about Teresa, her life, about her — while Antonio sat smiling and nodding and Ben slept next door.
'Dark brown,' said Teresa, and held a lock forward for him to see.
'Black in the shade and brown in the sun,' said Alfredo. 'I've noticed. I'll put black.' He wrote it and then: 'Your eyes are black, I'd say, but they aren't going to look into them. Shall I put black?'
'That will do.'
'You are — how tall?'
She told him.
'Nearly as tall as me. A good height. Do you have any distinguishing marks? They always want to know that.' 'I have a small mole on my — lower back.' Antonio laughed. 'On your bum?'
'Yes, and another on my shoulder here,' and she held her collar away from her neck and he peered at it.
'I think we will keep these moles to ourselves,' he said. 'Anything else?'
'I've got this scar where I fell chopping pumpkins for the goats,
I fell on a sharp stone.' She held out her arm: a thin white line ran down her wrist to the top of her palm.
'They don't need to know,' said Alfredo. 'Right, then. Height, hair colour, eye colour — that's enough for them. What's the name of your village?'
'The same as yours. Dust village, dust province, dust country. But it was Aljeco.'
'We'll put that. Your birth date?'
She hesitated, uncertain whether she wanted him to know how much younger she was than she had said.
He saw her reluctance and said, 'I'll put the same as mine. Now we'll need a photograph.'
And now he handed the little package of folded paper to Teresa with a bow. 'Your passport, Dona Teresa.' And she got up from her chair, took the thing from him, and curtsied to him.
They passed the time, chatting, and Antonio said he would follow them to Jujuy, and to the mines. He would be happier out of Rio for a bit. When the light came they drank coffee and the two men went off to arrange flights.
Teresa went in to Ben, found him awake, and said he must be brave and patient. If anyone came to the flat, she would be sure they would not come near him. She was going to lock him in, and this must not frighten him. She said all this because she was pretty sure 'they' would come after Ben, and with the door broken there was no way to keep them out. She took him juice, said it would be best if he slept, and on no account to make a sound if anyone came.