No Place for Heroes

25

“YOUR FATHER USED to say that when he had a son he was going to name him César, in memory of el negro César Robles, a friend and classmate whom he cared for very much, and who had been murdered by the Triple A during the time of Isabel Perón. So César, and Cesárea if it was a girl, I used to tell him, but I thought it was nonsense, this wanting children in a life so full of danger.”

“Ma-te-o Cé-sar I-ri-ba-rren,” Mateo said. “What a name I got, César for el negro César, and Mateo for what?”

“I picked it.”

“I would have liked to have met César, tell him I have his name. Or at least have gone to his grave.”

“I don’t know where he’s buried, but we can find out. We can also look for his children. He was a tough man, a union director in Córdoba, he led the strike in—”

“I just want to know if he was really black,” Mateo interrupted.

“He was dark-skinned, dark-skinned people are affectionately called negro, like calling white people white, even though they’re rosy, or Asians yellow, though they’re really white.”

“All these years I thought that Father gave me the name of his best friend who was black and now he was just dark-skinned? Those kinds of things shake me up inside.”

“Shake you up inside?” Lorenza laughed.

“They confuse me. I don’t know anything about my father, and the little I do know is wrong. I’d like to visit the grave of el negro César, Lolé.”

“Let’s find out where it is. Although it’s possible that it’s nowhere.”

“It has to be somewhere.”

“No. It’s possible that they never returned his body.”

“And so the children of el negro César may still be looking for their father. Like I am with mine.”

“The difference being that yours is somewhere out there, alive and kicking.”

“Alive and kicking, and he’s completely forgotten me.”