“What are they protesting?” one of the Americans asks me. It seems unfathomable that the atrocities that happened here so recently aren’t more well known. And yet, I didn’t know either until I came here. A regime that killed thirty thousand of its own, and yet the story lacks the grandeur of World War II, so it doesn’t register with us. The United States was not the hero, so we don’t care.

I give my tourists the rundown but see by their faces that even the little I tell them is too much to absorb in this moment. Here? I can feel them thinking, in this civilized friendly city?

At last one of the men says, “Sad,” and it’s as though it gives everyone permission to move past this uncomfortable digression. They are on vacation, and it’s not as if they’ve come to Berlin; they were not expecting to have heavy hearts, and I don’t imagine they’ll think about any of this again. We circumnavigate the plaza and I pause to look at the map. I can’t imagine why they’d take any notice of me, but I feel that if one of the Madres looks directly at me, I might burst into flames.

“So,” I say, stopping in front of the Casa Rosada. We’re back in safer territory now, beneath the iconic balcony that’s the one part of Argentina’s history Americans do know, the chapter in which Evita asked the country not to cry for her. “As we reach the edge of the Plaza de Mayo, you’ll see one of the most famous buildings in Argentina. Does anyone know this one?” People become like schoolchildren when they’re on a tour: anxious to share the right answer.

“That’s the Evita building!” the woman from California exclaims.

“Correct!” I say, and it is, sort of. “Many of you will recognize the Casa Rosada from the famous film scene where Madonna sings ‘Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina’ from the balcony.” I go into my speech about the building’s historical significance, and, all the while, I see from the corner of my eye that the male half of the couple from Vancouver has a strange look on his face. I wonder if the Madres have unsettled him and feel a sudden flash of kinship for him. When we walk away from the site, back across the Plaza de Mayo, he falls in next to me.

“Hi, Steve.” Thankfully, I’ve always been good at remembering names; a small thing that leads to happier tourists.

“Hi, Liz, listen,” he says. “I don’t suppose you follow ski racing?”

I feel the blood drain from my face. I glance down at my map to hide my expression. “Oh, not really. Why?” I hear my own voice as though from the bottom of a well.