“I hid it,” said the girl. “That night Uncle Julia dropped it when he was struggling with my dad. Then, when everyone was screaming, I grabbed it and put it in my car because I thought it was important.”
Then I forgot, or I thought I had forgotten. Yesterday, when I heard her call, I remembered.
Méndez lifted the memory between two fingers.
—Do you know what this is?
Ramira hit her head.
The pineapple did respond.
—My dad recorded conversations when he trusted people.
The chorus lost a second.
He left the room with the memory in his hand, followed by a technician and two guards. In less than twenty minutes, the prison seemed like another place.
Telephones ringing. Doors opening and closing. Hurried footsteps. A prosecutor arriving with his jacket. A secretary waking up to draw up urgent documents.
Ramira remained in the visiting room, guarded, but already like a codified woman about to disappear, like the scepter of a tremor that was just beginning.
Salome followed her.
—Forgive me —Ramira whispered again and again—. Forgive me for leaving you with him.
The pineapple pressed with impossible seriousness for its eight years.
