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TWO The Filártigas met me at Asunción’s Aeropuerto Presidente Stroessner. The vibrant Nidia of my memory appeared drawn and shaky in her anklelength black dress. Joel was disheveled and hyper. His mischievous brown eyes, which had so captivated his admirers in California only a few months before, now seemed more like open wounds. We had barely exchanged abrazos in the terminal when Dr. Filártiga began blurting out an all but incoherent explanation of what had happened. ‘‘They say it was a crime of passion! That is what the government and the press are calling the Caso Filártiga. A crime of passion! That Duarte came home and caught his wife Charo in bed with Joelito and killed him in a fight. But it is all a lie! ‘‘Duarte is in jail, but they let Charo go without even making her give a deposition. And now she has disappeared. Now she will never get to tell the truth. ‘‘We filed our own lawsuit against Police Inspector Peña and the others who murdered Joelito. Our lawyers said Nidia should file because I was not clean. Because I am a known dissident, they said it would be better that way. ‘‘Then the police arrested Nidia and Dolly. But all that is a lie, too. It was just a way to try and make us abandon the case against them.’’ Confused by this startling news, I turned to Nidia. ‘‘You and Dolly were arrested? What for? When did this happen?’’ ‘‘You do not know, Richard?’’ she said, a questioning expression overlaying the fatigue on her face. ‘‘Dolly wrote you a letter when we were in the prison. She told you everything.’’ ‘‘I didn’t receive it. It never arrived,’’ I replied. ‘‘The only letter I got was the one Joel sent through the diplomatic pouch saying Joelito had been killed.’’ A flash of disappointment crossed Nidia’s face, and a film of resignation dulled her green eyes as she accepted that the news of their imprisonment had not made it to the world outside Paraguay. ‘‘Well,’’ Nidia explained, ‘‘it was about a month after Joelito’s death, after we filed the suit against Inspector Peña and the others. They said that Dolly and I broke into Peña’s house and attacked them, that we tried to beat them up. They accused us of trespassing and assault, and the court ordered us arrested. ‘‘But we hid out with friends and Papi took out a public notice in ABC denouncing why we were going to be arrested. It was so ridiculous. Nobody believed it. 20 兩 B R E A K I N G S I L E N C E ‘‘Finally, our lawyer took us to the court and we surrendered.’’ Nidia stopped talking and seemed to drift away for a few moments. ‘‘It was April 28. I remember because it was Analy’s fifteenth birthday. Poor Analy. You know how special it is to every girl, because that is when she becomes a woman. But we could not celebrate her fifteenth birthday because Dolly and I were in the Buen Pastor prison.’’ As we stood in the dingy reception area outside the custom’s exit, friends and families meeting other arriving passengers swarmed around us. A number of people recognized Dr. Filártiga and Nidia, whose pictures had been regularly appearing in the press. Oblivious to their stares, Joel paid them no attention. ‘‘Arresting Nidia and Dolly was too much! Everybody knew it was just another machination to persecute us. ‘‘They murdered Joelito,’’ he insisted. ‘‘And then because we seek justice in the courts, they arrest his mother and sister! Because we wouldn’t stay silent, like we were supposed to. Because we want the truth known, they throw Nidia and Dolly in prison like common criminals. ‘‘Even here in Paraguay that’s too much,’’ Joel railed, his voice growing louder. ‘‘Public opinion became outraged. For the first time people started to talk openly against the police. Some came to me and said that they would arrange to kill Peña. But I told them no. Because it’s not just Peña. It’s the whole system that is to blame for Joelito’s death. ‘‘The Caso Filártiga is a great public scandal. There’s never been anything like it. The police saw that arresting Nidia and Dolly was only making things worse for them, so they had to let them go. ‘‘But Nidia and Dolly...

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