The Dinner Guest Page 2

  It isn’t true that my grandfather asked the kidnappers to kill him on the spot. What my grandfather said was: ‘The worst you can do is shoot me.’

  It isn’t true that my father’s youngest sister escaped the kidnappers by hiding in a wardrobe. She was bound to the bed frame, like everyone else.

  Nor is it true that my father and his siblings began negotiations with the kidnappers that very Friday, 20 May.

  *

  On 31 May, 1977, a letter postmarked Bilbao appeared in the mailbox of a juvenile detention centre in Amurrio, in the province of Álava. The envelope had no return address and bulged strangely. Inside was a note written by my grandfather, which began: ‘My dear children, at last my kidnappers have permitted me to write to you.’ The text was handwritten in blue pen on a sheet of graph paper torn from a notebook. My grandfather’s handwriting was steady, like his faith. In the letter he wrote that he was in good health and that he felt closer to God in his adversity: ‘I fully accept whatever He has in store for me.’ The mysterious object accompanying the note was the key that opened the communion box in his chapel at home.

  Maybe my grandfather kept his savings in the box, or beneath a false bottom, so as not to mix money with God. Or maybe the key didn’t belong to the box, but to a common cupboard, or a safe hidden behind a painting. Or maybe what he kept in the box wasn’t money, but something of use to the kidnappers or their victim.

  ‘Communion wafers have to be replaced,’ said a sibling to the press. ‘It’s only natural for my father to worry about them and send us the key to the box. There really is no hidden message here. Receiving this letter has been a great comfort to us.’ ‘Also,’ he went on, waving one hand, ‘I get the sense that the kidnappers are treating him well, though of course I don’t have much evidence to go on.’

  *

  The negotiations advanced in secret, and only rumours appeared in the papers. According to one, the siblings had made an offer of one hundred million pesetas, but the kidnappers had rejected it as ridiculous. According to another, my grandfather’s captors would be satisfied with five hundred million. The family’s silence was absolute: ‘We can’t provide any statement confirming or denying anything,’ they said. A close relative told the press: ‘Two hundred million – I doubt they’ll be able to raise more than that.’

  IV

  The mud was up to the door handles. On 1 June, the police were notified that a SEAT 124D with the licence plate BI-6079-H had been abandoned in the middle of a boggy field high on Mount Artxanda. The forest road that climbed to the summit was full of puddles, branches, beech leaves and pine needles. The car was found at the bottom of a ditch, surrounded by trees and buried halfway up the wheels. In the glove compartment, the police found the registration papers and discovered that the vehicle was the property of the branch of a rental agency near Plaza de Campuzano, in the centre of Bilbao. The two officers knotted yellow plastic ties around tree trunks to cordon off the road. When they were done securing the area, one of the men put a roll of film in his camera and began to photograph the car and all the objects that he found inside it, including a special screwdriver that could be used to pick locks. As was later revealed, the vehicle had been rented on 17 May by a young man in his late twenties carrying a fake ID. The ID holder’s initials were A.M.C.

  The police hooked the car up to a tow truck and took it to a council parking garage in Bilbao. From the heights of Artxanda one could see Mount Pagasarri.

  In the following days, the motorway checkpoints and searches intensified. The key areas were Artxanda, Enekuri, Algorta and the road from Bilbao to San Sebastián. New checkpoints were erected in Erletxes, San Ignacio and Leioa, and new searches were carried out in Gernika and Amurrio.

  *

  On 10 June, the second letter arrived, appearing in the mailbox at my grandfather’s house on Avenida de los Chopos. The envelope was postmarked Bilbao, Monday, 6 June, and the text was dated Saturday, 4 June. The media published an abridged version; my father and his siblings decided to reserve any content that they deemed private. The published note read as follows:

  My Dear Children,

  Once again I’m able to write to you and I do so after receiving news of you and much else from the papers.

  I’m sorry to be the cause of such trouble and I appreciate the interest that people and organisations have shown in the difficult situation in which I find myself.

  In my solitude I have sought refuge in prayer, and the two books I brought with me have been of much assistance. Let us trust in the Holy Family, to which, as you well know, my devotion is great, in the belief that everything will surely be resolved for the good of our souls.

  Don’t worry about me, I’m in God’s hands, I forgive those who have caused me offence and I ask forgiveness of anyone I may have caused offence, and I offer my life up for the conversion of sinners and for the reunion of souls with the Divine Redeemer.

  All my love, and may God bless and keep you,

  your father,

  Javier

  *

  The reporters questioned my father’s oldest brother and his answers were nearly all evasive: ‘Please understand, we can’t say anything, I’m sorry, I can neither confirm nor deny anything.’ Though I haven’t read the whole letter, I know that the content that was withheld from the media consisted of commissions for the older siblings and advice for the adolescents.

  The same evening that the siblings received the note, the kidnappers sent a message to Radio Popular’s Bilbao broadcasting station in which they pressed the siblings to pay the ransom: ‘The life of Javier de Ybarra rests in his family’s hands, it’s all up to them,’ they said. ‘The deadline for delivering the money is Saturday, 18 June, at 3 p.m.’

  *

  The older siblings paced in circles around the living room and called the go-between who was negotiating the ransom. My father reread the letter from my grandfather next to the window. ‘The newspapers,’ he said twice, loudly. At a nearby table, the siblings composed the following note:

  Neguri, 11 June, 1977

  Dear Father,

  Yesterday we received your second letter, dated 4 June. It filled us with great joy to see, by what you write, that you have found spiritual comfort and strength, and that your whole family, your friends, your colleagues, and all those who make their home with you or made their home with our dear mother are very much present in your thoughts.

  We want you to know that we have carried out the commissions with which you entrusted us, and that we are relying upon the solid Christian principles that you have always inculcated in us.

  With deepest affection, in hopes of having you back among us soon, your loving children.

  V

  The priest took off his collar and buttoned a khaki shirt with roomy pockets. He went out. He stopped at a bar in the district of Abando and had an espresso. On the bar top was a folded newspaper with the headline half-obscured: ‘Whereabouts Still Unknown,’ it read. From the street a horn sounded. The priest stepped out of the bar and approached a jeep with three Guardia Civil officers inside, greeted them, and got in the back seat. The morning was foggy. On the motorway from the city to the mountains, all that could be seen were the white lines of the road. A man with a moustache was at the wheel. The lines curved and the car followed their turns. Then the jeep went up and down a few hills, finally reaching an open-air restaurant. The men got out. The collarless priest led the expedition to a gravel road that ended at a rocky slope. The priest grabbed a tree branch to pull himself up. When he reached the top, he took a quartz pendulum out of his pocket and showed it to his companions. They walked on until they reached an empty field. The priest spread a map on a tree stump and took the pendulum out again. The quartz spun over a river. The four men followed the riverbed to its source, cut several branches, shouted my grandfather’s name, but found nothing.

  My father visited an old woman who worked with the collarless priest and read cards in a village near San Sebasti�
�n. The first time he came in, she was waiting for him with half a deck laid out on the table mat. When she saw him, she peered over her glasses: ‘I don’t know why I’m not seeing anything,’ she said, and she tapped three times on the wedge of remaining cards on the table. A fool, a magician, an empress and a hierophant were resting face up on the felt. The woman held out her arm and said: ‘Take my hand and maybe together we’ll see.’ The two of them closed their eyes and were silent for a while, but all they saw was the inside of their eye sockets.

  There was a knock at the door. The old woman got up from her chair and let in the priest, who was back from the mountain. The priest was out of breath and the soles of his boots were muddy; he spread the map on the floor and said: ‘The pendulum says he’s on the riverbank, but in the river there are nothing but toads.’ Then he took off his boots, combed his grey hair with his fingers and picked up a newspaper. My father and the old woman went back to studying the figures on the felt. Meanwhile, the priest pulled a stool up to the table and sat down to solve the crossword puzzle.

  *

  On the 16th, 17th and 18th of June 1977, a number of calls were made to the local paper. Most were from people with jobs affording them ample leisure time: concierges, night watchmen, salesgirls at fabric shops on side streets. All complained about the same thing: ‘I’ve been trying to do the crossword puzzle, but I don’t get it.’

  The 16 June crossword puzzle, once solved, read across as follows: ‘Dear pris of this. See key to letters. Third letter first words.’ The one on the 17th read: ‘Lame of leg, write family secret message. Third letter each line to the break. Ladylike mushrooms.’ And the one on the 18th, the last day of the period given by the kidnappers for the delivery of the ransom: ‘Waiting for letter. Key. The third letter each line. Luck. Tiny hope.’

  Along with the crosswords, the rest of the puzzles had hidden messages too. The word games of 16 and 17 June are the most obvious:

  QUESTION:

  Will there be a reward?

  PUZZLE:

  EYE (I)

  SHKSPR (Will)

  AGAIN (Re)

  –DROBE (Ward)

  +SONG (Hymn)

  ANSWER:

  I will reward him

  QUESTION:

  Will you turn in your tormentor?

  PUZZLE:

  EYE-F (If)

  EYE (I)

  ULLMAN (Liv)

  MA-S (Mum’s)

  EL OR LA (The)

  -SMITH (Word)

  ANSWER:

  If I live, mum’s the word.

  To attract my grandfather’s attention, it was decided to swap out the Spot the Difference comics. These drawings were usually by the Belgian cartoonist Jean Laplace, but on the 16th, 17th and 18th of June 1977, some anonymous sketches appeared, depicting two buildings owned by my family as well as the juvenile detention centre in Amurrio, of which my grandfather was trustee. Across from the three buildings, a man with a big round nose asks a dog for help in solving a crossword puzzle. In the 16 June cartoon, the man and the dog are sitting. On the 17th and 18th, they’re standing.

  ‘We don’t know anything about the puzzles. We’ve never used them as a way to contact our father,’ said the siblings to the press. ‘We’re taking all the usual steps through our lawyers,’ commented my father’s oldest brother. According to some news reports, my grandfather gave no indication in his letters of having received coded messages. Others, meanwhile, were less certain: according to them, the key to the communion box was part of some conversation.

  The month of June was passing, and with it the period for delivering the ransom. The older siblings spoke to the lawyers and the younger ones whiled away the hours in the chapel at home. They hadn’t been able to raise much money. Though the kidnappers demanded a ransom from the whole family, only the siblings were willing to shoulder the responsibility. The banks weren’t helpful, either. Bankers from the two institutions consulted said that it wasn’t possible to lend money to a kidnapping victim and that fifty million was the most they could offer. To raise that amount, the siblings had to sign a policy in which they pledged to be jointly responsible for the loan. They tried to mortgage their father’s properties in exchange for more, but the response was always the same: ‘We can’t lend money to a man who’s been kidnapped.’

  Night fell. The youngest brother ranted brokenly and shouted ‘sons of bitches’. The circles under his eyes were darker than ever. The other siblings slept fitfully, clutching each other in pairs, regardless of sex. No one went into the back bedroom. Only Marcelina, the maid, approached the door with a vacuum cleaner, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn the knob. In the living room, the oldest brother composed a letter to send to the press:

  In my own name and that of my siblings, I wish to convey our grave concern for the fate of our dear father, kidnapped this past 20 May.

  Additionally, we would like to make very clear that the requests for a billion pesetas in exchange for his life are completely out of our reach. Faced with the impossibility of satisfying these demands, we have tried and will continue to try by all means possible to reach an agreement that will lead to his release.

  Regarding the announcement that our father will be executed if the required sum is not delivered, and that the very great responsibility for his life lies in our hands, we would like to state that those who hold our father captive are the sole arbiters of his fate.

  *

  The collarless priest was almost sure that my grandfather was being held somewhere on Mount Gorbea. The morning of 18 June, 1977, the last day of the period for delivering the ransom, the priest returned to the mountains with a convoy of thirty Guardia Civil officers. When he reached Alto de Barazar, he took out a map of the search area and spun his quartz. When the pendulum stopped, he got out a larger-scale map and repeated the operation to narrow the hunt. Behind him were fifteen jeeps parked in rows, and some Guardia Civil officers clearing people from a restaurant. The terrace was deserted, occupied only by plastic tables with umbrella poles sticking up from the middle. It began to rain hard, but the expedition didn’t come to a halt. The men put on their cloaks and scattered to cover the areas marked on the map.

  A Guardia Civil officer with his feet sinking into the mud spotted a light deep in a beech grove. The glow came from a hut built from scrap: rough half-painted planks, rusty nails and broken tiles. From the chimney – a length of sawed-off pipe – a narrow column of grey smoke rose. The shack was home to El Escobero, an old maker of straw brooms, who now occupied himself twisting rope for horse hobbles. The officer knocked. He heard uncertain footsteps and thumps on the floor, then keys turning and clattering against the doorframe. The door opened and there stood a man with a long beard the same shape and colour as the column of smoke rising from the chimney. He was naked from the waist up and his nipples were tiny. People called him Robinson the Broom Man. ‘Haven’t seen or heard anything,’ he said. ‘There was just one car all weekend, Madrid licence plate, lost and driving in circles.’

  The Guardia Civil officer took down El Escobero’s statement. Then he showed him a piece of plastic and a wet blanket. When he saw the objects, the shack’s inhabitant shrugged and slowly closed the door.

  *

  At 5 p.m. on 18 June, 1977, an announcer on Radio Popular interrupted the broadcast to report that Javier Ybarra had been killed and that his body was somewhere off a forest trail in the vicinity of Alto de Barazar, in the same area on the map indicated by the priest’s quartz pendulum. The Guardia Civil was asking for more troops to comb the stands of beech and pine, but the rain was so heavy that it was hard to see anything. A few hours later, several anonymous calls to the same radio station claimed that my grandfather was still alive and that the afternoon report was false. At one in the morning, it was still unconfirmed.

  The search operation went on for three and a half days longer, though no one knew whether the man they were looking for was alive or dead. On 22 June, 1977, at 4 p.m., more loose sheets
of paper turned up in a San Sebastián mailbox. They were signed by the kidnappers and they said that my grandfather’s body was in the place described in their first message, and that if the police hadn’t found the body, it was because they didn’t know how to look. The text made constant reference to two other documents that were nowhere to be found. At 6 p.m., two balled-up sheets of notebook paper were discovered in a waste-paper basket at the central post office. Upon smoothing them out, the postman read the following message:

  Javier Ybarra was killed a few hours after 3 p.m. on 18 June, 1977.

  Cenauri-Vitoria highway. From Alto de Barazar, take the path that leads from the right side of the bar-restaurant to a kind of workshop with a corrugated roof, next to a private lodge. A few metres before the lodge is a forest trail. Follow this trail for about three hundred metres, and among some pines to the left is the body. It is covered by a dark grey plastic sheet and some branches.

  1. LODGE: white walls with two orange windows can be seen from Number 2 there’s a door in the middle looks new not to be confused with the private lodge

  2. AREA WITH NO PINE TREES: surrounded by pine trees towards the centre is a tree with big branches horses grazing

  3. AREA WITH PINE TREES: deep shade, the sun hardly shines trees grow very close together small hill from the path you can’t SEE THE BODY it is about 30 (thirty) metres from the trail (RIP) [written in pen] RIP here he lies in the PEACE OF THE LORD (according to him) and thanks to his family

  At the end of the text there is a map with the letters RIP-J.I. marking the location of the body.

  *

  The search was begun again with more men. At a quarter to seven on the evening of Wednesday, 22 June, my grandfather’s body was found under a heavy sheet of grey plastic. When the body was uncovered, a small quantity of blood ran out.

  The body, with a gunshot wound to the head, was inside a plastic bag hooked on a nail, the victim blindfolded, his arms tied behind his back. During his captivity he had lost 22 kilos and his clothes smelled of urine and excrement. Upon performing the autopsy, Doctor Toledo, medical examiner at Basurto Hospital, determined that his intestinal walls were atrophied, evidence that […] he had been given almost nothing to eat during his confinement. His body was also covered in sores, a clear sign that he had spent the duration in a prone position or inside a sack that prevented movement.fn1