Some Thing Called Myself (Complete)

LVIII: Something Forgotten (Part Three)

Ch. 58: Something Forgotten (Part Three)

This time, Mara didn't need pomegranate arils to dive into the memories she'd been trying to avoid. Sitting on the back of her cell, she leaned her head back, and the blur of her sight drew silhouettes around her. One. Two. Thirty. The cell in the SA Sents HQ was just as small, tight, and oppressive as the one she had spent a week in, back when she was nineteen. It wasn't difficult to pretend she was back there, in her personal hell.

São Paulo, 1981 — nine years ago

Mara expected cold cement and the type of Brazilian weather that sneaked into her flesh and managed to brittle her trembling bones. Instead, the place was so hot and stuffy that pearls of sweat ran down her back, chest, and arms, sliding down all the way to her folded elbows and falling to their death on the dark wooden floor.

The place felt like a dim cubicle with tall cement walls and a two-meter-long, barred window far above anyone's reach. At the back of the room, two walls created narrow, somewhat-private bathrooms with one sink in the middle, visible from the entrance. Directly opposed to it, a heavy wooden door worked as warden and barrier.

Mara would never forget that place; she'd wish she could, but the images ingrained in her brain wouldn't let her.. The dark dampness of the DOPS building at General Osório Square had become some sort of very real urban legend by then. People who managed to leave it—never unscathed—preferred not to talk openly about it; it was those who had disappeared, died, or killed inside its walls that were responsible for some of its darkest tales.

In Mara's case, arrested on a hot day in November, the stories about the violence in the DOPS building were only half of the reason why she was so afraid. The other half was a mix of what would happen to her and her friends if they were released and the fear of losing her leg.

Too many people had been arrested that day, and a broken bone in the shin of a nineteen-year-old USP student didn't seem as much of an emergency as the concussion and the three shots that sent the march organizer to surgery. Mara had spent six nights and seven days sleeping on a damp wooden bench beside twenty-nine other people, being offered nothing but analgesics for treatment and stale bread for food. She hadn't showered in days, and the only privacy she had during that time was having Lipe and Amanda standing in front of the entrance to the shared toilet.

"Mara?" Uncle Ade called, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Are you okay?"

She looked at Uncle Ade. Minutes ago, when the warden called her name and threatened the prisoners with a gun to find her, Mara thought she was done for. Carla, their leader, had been taken to questioning almost two hours ago, and she still hadn't returned. In fact, if the military discovered her ties with the anti-dictatorship guerrilla in São Paulo, Carla wouldn't return at all. Mara knew about that connection, which didn't make her feel any safer either.

"Mara?" Uncle Ade called again, worry staining his otherwise cold voice. "Are. You. Okay?"

She was lucky. The only reason why she'd been called was because Uncle Ade had been looking for her. He had finally found her.

He had saved her.

Now, standing outside the brick building in the heart of São Paulo, she looked around, seeing the early morning sky for the first time in the week. She was free, finally...but she was alone in that freedom. Her girlfriend and best friend were still inside, waiting to be questioned. When she shivered, Uncle Ade shrugged his suit off and placed it around her shoulders.

Now that Mara knew she was safe, she wasn't scared anymore; she felt guilty.

Felipe scoffed. "It's good to be a rich kid, huh, Mara?"