Justice at War: Civil Liberties and Civil Rights During Times of Crisis

3. Rodrigo Returns

3 Rodrigo Returns I STARTED, as the telephone on my desk rang with unexpected loudness . Then I remembered why. I had gone next door to check a detail with a faculty colleague about our last faculty meeting a few days ago. For years, our dean had been in the habit of assigning the most junior member of the law faculty the onerous duty of recording and distributing the minutes of faculty meetings. This fall, in an excess of democratic spirit, she had decided to assign the task to the most senior faculty member: me. After our first faculty meeting in early October, I had procrastinated a few days until her secretary called me up to ask, not too diplomatically, when they might be seeing the minutes. So I had been spending precious morning time trying vainly to recall whether a certain motion—to increase the number of hours of extern credit a student could earn in pursuit of a degree—had passed or been tabled. I had gone next door, first switching my telephone ringer to the “high” volume position so I could hear if a call came through while I was talking with Professor Weinrib, whose memory was much better than mine. I should take one of those memory courses, I thought, as I reset the volume to normal and picked up the receiver. The older I get, the more I seem to be forgetting. “Hello.” “Is this the Professor?” The familiar voice in my receiver gave me a second, even greater start. “Rodrigo, is that you?” “It is. I just got back. My plane from Baja landed this morning. You’re the second person I called, after Giannina.” “Where on earth are you?” “In that little coffee shop around the corner from your law school. I couldn’t get into the parking lot. Your school must be having a conference of some sort.” 50 “It’s the annual water law conference. I skipped it in favor of the dullest task you can imagine. I’ll be right down. How much time do we have?” Rodrigo explained his immediate plans, I hand entered the last items on my minutes, marked them “draft,” and dashed to the elevator, dropping them off at the dean’s office on my way. Odd: in my excitement , I remembered clearly the outcome of the vote that had escaped me just minutes before, and that I had just asked Weinrib about. Maybe I don’t need that memory class after all, I thought. Minutes later, a familiar tall figure leaped to his feet, smiled broadly, and motioned me over to his table. When I got there, he clasped my arm warmly with both hands, then pulled a chair out slightly for me. “I bet you want me to explain myself,” he said, smiling, I thought, a little sheepishly. “It has been a while. How long—almost four months? I didn’t know if you were alive or dead.” “I did manage to get an ambiguous message to Giannina,” Rodrigo said. “I didn’t want to make her an accomplice, in case they went after her. I’m sure all of this doesn’t make any sense. Order your drink,” Rodrigo indicated the waiter who had approached and was waiting, note pad in hand, “and I’ll start from the beginning.” IN WHICH RODRIGO EXPLAINS HIS LONG ABSENCE After the waiter took our orders—his usual double cappuccino for my ebullient friend, a herbal tea for me (“doctor’s orders,” I reminded him)—Rodrigo looked up: “I’m sure Giannina told you about that offshore island,” he began. When I nodded, he went on: “Well, as you know, we had taken a short vacation in Baja. We both love Mexico and it gives us a chance to practice our Spanish. We had only been there a couple of days when I decided to take a short trip to some offshore islands. I wanted to see a certain Indian village that had stood there for centuries , virtually untouched. Giannina was feeling tired—she was pregnant, as you know—so I arranged for the owner of a fishing boat to take me out there in the morning and come back for me in the afternoon .” RODRIGO RETURNS 51 “What happened?” I asked. “Giannina told me you never returned, and that the fisherman was seen leaving hastily later that evening. He never came back.” “I never found...