My mother was kidnapped in Guatemala City on June 28, 1981, and released on December 23 of that same year. We never got to know who held her during those six months, and, in fact, no one in the family wanted to carry out any kind of investigation. In the beginning we speculated that her kidnappers were criminal members of the government or of the National Police. (Back in those years it was not uncommon for parties or political factions to kidnap in order to finance their electoral campaigns or war strategies, or just to get rich.) One of the signs that supported this hypothesis was something that happened during the delivery of the ransom. My uncle, the doctor Eduardo García-Salas, and I were designated to deliver the money. We had to go the typical route in the style of “a treasure hunt” through Guatemala City, a journey that started at about four in the morning, in complete darkness. At a given moment, we were instructed to leave the car that we were driving in a public parking lot and to get in another vehicle that was already there, a blue Datsun pickup, that year’s model. There was an envelope in the glove compartment with further instructions: “Remove all of your clothing outside the pickup, under the streetlight next to you, and put on the gym clothes that are under the seat . . .” In addition to the instructions, we found the car registration and deed in the glove compartment. To our surprise, they were made out in my name, and carried the seal of the National Police and the signature of the deputy director.

The delivery took place without any setbacks and that very afternoon my mother was safely at home, although weak. She had lost about fifty pounds in captivity. A priest who was a friend of the family drove her. It was near his parish that the kidnappers set my mother free, and it was through him that my father had first received communication about the kidnapping, six months earlier.

A few days after her liberation, my mother ordered a mass of thanksgiving, where she made public her desire for her kidnappers to be forgiven by the powers of this world “and the world beyond.” Within the family circle, the criminal aspect of the case was forgotten. Other than the financial fallout resulting from the ransom payment, my father’s premature gray hair, and the breakdown suffered by my youngest sister, Mónica, (no doubt the greatest damage), the family was practically unscathed. And I daresay this experience was in a certain way enriching for my mother, then sixty-four, putting her in touch with unexpected reserves of inner strength. She gained a broader social conscience, and, after the kidnapping, she became a kinder woman.