"The ink you sold me was the wrong color. I was hoping I could exchange the shipment. My order was for Royal Blue, but I was sent black. Please advise how to resolve this matter."
The tone of the voice on the other end didn't match with the content of what was being said. The woman was frantic, her voice shaky. She sounded robotic, like she was reciting from memory a painstakingly memorized line only half there.
My mind went blank with fear for a moment, before I realized she was waiting my turn.
"Please accept my sincerest apologies, Señora Duarte. There must have been a mix up with our Uruguayan supplier. I will refund your money and send you a shipment of black ink free of charge," I fumbled out, my hand holding the receiver shaking.
"Thank you for your offer, sir. I need the shipment sent to two separate apartments in Montevideo, the addresses I will provide to you in a later correspondence. Have a good day." The line went silent abruptly.
Soledad, sitting at her desk beside mine in our apartment-cum-makeshift office looked at me, her eyes wide with terror.
"We need to go," I told her calmly, trying to keep my voice from shaking. She stood up and retrieved two packed suitcases from the closet and I crouched beneath my writing desk. I pried up the loose floorboard, underneath which was hidden a leather document pouch. Inside the pouch were four bundles of currency -- Argentinian pesos, Spanish pesetas, francs and US dollars. Tucked beside the cash were four passports: two Uruguayan, each with our photos, but instead of our names, the names Juan Pablo Pellegrini Schultz and Estela Goldberg Nuñez. Our birthdates were altered and in the parallel universe created by these documents sent to us by a sympathizer at the consulate we had been born in Montevideo instead of our native Buenos Aires. The other two passports were French and Italian. I was Dario Picco from Siracusa and she was Mercè Puig, a Catalan refugee from Tarragona naturalized in France. She could never manage to hide her accent, so we deemed it best to create this story of a childhood in Catalonia to disguise the inconsistency.
Soledad retrieved a wooden box from a shelf. She took out the Argentinian passports and ID documents with our real names, along with a small stack of code booklets, and tossed all of the papers into the furnace. She then took out the small radio inside the box's false bottom, took it to the kitchen, and smashed it with a hammer, dumping the pieces into the waste bin.
We put on our coats, slipping the Uruguayan passports into our coat pockets. After peeling back the lining of our suitcases and stashing the European passports and the extra currency inside, we resealed them and headed for the port.
We still had a few hours, possibly, but the caller's tone of voice had really rattled me and I didn't want to waste any time. The ink colors she named were an indication of how much time she estimated we had until the secret police identified us. Although the apartment on Avenida Corrientes we had converted into our printing office was not in either of our names, it would take only moments to track us down once they knew who they were looking for.
We waited at immigration control at the port, waiting to board a ferry to Montevideo, having made sure to let 5 or 6 people join the line between us. It was the moment of truth, but these documents were ace. The benefit to sourcing fake documents direct from the consulate is that they were real passports, with all the proper features, and somewhere in an office in Montevideo, were real birth certificates with these names and dates on them. The accompanying death certificates -- presumably with childhood illnesses on them - had already been dutifully destroyed. We had practiced late at night being Estela, Juan Pablo, Dario and Mercè, quizzing each other on our four identities. More than just knowing the details printed in the booklets in our pockets, we had given depth to the characters so as to really inhabit them.
Psychologically, the effect was fascinating. I most enjoyed being Juan Pablo. Dario was a bit uptight, but Juan Pablo was casual and easy going. Soledad had taken a real liking to Mercè. I think she enjoyed the tragic drama of her imagined youth. She had even started talking about Catalan nationalism more and more as Soledad, at parties and dinners.
I made it through the control without a second look. I walked over to the waiting area for our ship, and glanced over to see if Soledad had made it through. They seemed to be asking a lot of questions, but there was nothing I could do. We couldn't know each other again until we were safely on Uruguayan territory.
She eventually made it through and we got on the same ferry, but kept our distance. It's not a long trip to Montevideo -- an hour and a half maybe -- but this was to be but the beginning.
After docking, we passed by one another going through Uruguayan immigration, and stood a few feet apart at arrivals.
The second part of the caller's message indicated that we'd be shuttled to two separate safe houses in the city, and we could make our next move from there.
An old woman approached Soledad, and I tensed, trying to overhear what she said.
"Estela! How was your trip? My oh my, you're all skin and bones! We need to get you home and get some food in you before you waste away."
Soledad let out the tiniest of sighs in relief, "You didn't need to come all this way just to get me, auntie! I could have taken a taxi."
"Nonsense! Come now. We want to beat the rush." The fake auntie surveyed their surroundings briefly and took Soledad's elbow. Soledad glanced at me as they left, as if wishing me luck.
A few more minutes passed and a young man approached me, "Excuse me, do you have the time?"
I told him what my watch said. "Oh, it appears my watch is 15 minutes behind. Maybe I should have it looked at. Thank you!" and he strode off, not looking back.
Fifteen minutes passed as predicted and an impressively tall man, around my age, so 26 or 27, approached me. A beaming grin on his bearded face, he took me into his arms, kissing each of my cheeks.
"Juanpa! I'm so sorry to make you wait! Traffic was terrible. You look like you could use a rest and a shower."
He took my suitcase and led me to a car parked down the road. The trip to his flat was certainly walkable, but I appreciated the time to let my guard down a moment in the privacy of his little coupe.
"Ignacio, by the way," he said, taking a meandering path through the Palermo district. "First time in Montevideo?"
"Yes, actually. It's a beautiful city."
"It truly is. I guess you're from here now. You're my cousin, just so you know. Coming to stay with me after your divorce. Obviously, no one is going to ask about the divorce -- Uruguayans are too polite. But try to look morose if you run into any of my neighbors. That shouldn't be too hard, though, you know, considering the circumstances..." he trailed off, realizing it was maybe too soon to joke about the situation at hand.
"I'm sorry, man. I didn't think." He removed his hand from the gear shaft and squeezed my knee. I really looked at him for the first time. With all the adrenaline, my vision had felt tunneled but now that I was calming down, I was more aware of things around me.
He had a gentle, sweet face, framed in a trimmed black beard that matched the thick black hair on his scalp. His eyes were nearly black, but twinkled in the same mischievous gleam as his almost childish grin. He was long and lean, almost lanky but filled out. Not burly, but toned, ropey muscles meandered up his arms under tan skin and a dusting of dark hair. His hands were large, his nails broad and clean, and his fingers seemed delicate, like a pianist's or a violinist's.
