THE SEARCH
Please let me make this clear, I am not a brave person and not particularly clever. But something just didn’t sound right about Saskia’s story. Not that I doubted her. But I found it very difficult to believe that the American son of an American mother could be kidnapped in Mexico and the US Embassy do diddly-squat to help.
If I could get to a phone, perhaps I could call the US Embassy in Mexico City. I asked Saskia to hold tight while I made a phone call and headed to the Post Office to find out what was going on.
Maybe US Embassies have changed since then. God knows they needed to. After explaining my query to four or five disinterested pencil pushers, I was connected to a rather petulant and pretentious junior twit. “Of course,” he sneered smugly. “We certainly know of Mrs Martin … and of her son Stefan. And as far as we are concerned, the woman has either abandoned the boy or sold him to some rich Mexican. After all, what can you expect from a woman who looks like that?”
Briefly, I recounted Saskia’s story as I understood it, and asked how that could possibly be construed as having “abandoned” her child. My high-strung friend seemed to take this argument as a personal insult and advised me that I would have to take the matter up with his “superior.”
Frankly, it wouldn’t have taken much to be his superior … and it didn’t. After further delays, I was connected to an officious career diplomat named Lawrence Getz (I’ve changed his name just in case the worthless little worm is sill polluting the planet with his presence). Mr Getz stuck firmly to the official line. As far as he and the US Government were concerned, Saskia had abandoned her child and that was final.
Sometimes I actually pay attention to my ‘little voice’. And this was one of those times. Before word could get around that I was a troublemaker, I phoned back the Embassy and asked to speak with their Press Attaché. This time I spoke with a genuinely nice individual who couldn’t have been more helpful. By the time I hung up I had the names, telephone numbers and addresses of every major foreign correspondent in Mexico City.
On the way back to the zócalo a plan started to take shape. Just as I reached Saskia’s table, the strategy was formed. First, I told Saskia that she was officially considered by the Embassy as having deserted her child. She looked up at me as if she’d just been slapped. Up till then she’d been desperate. Now I hoped she was angry enough to put up a fight.
I went on to explain that I’d worked as a journalist and although I’d been a feature writer rather than a news reporter, I knew something about how the system worked. Then I told her my plan to help her force the Embassy into putting political pressure on the Mexican Government by threatening international media exposure.
To my absolute amazement, Saskia said she’d have to think about it. The kind of help she’d really been hoping for was someone who would drive her around Mexico while she looked for Stefan herself.
Before we arranged to meet the next morning, I gently suggested that United States of Mexico was nearly as big as the United States of America and that an unsystematic search like that could take years. “The Mexicans have everything it takes to find Stefan for you,” I said. “It’s only a matter of convincing them to get off their corrupt asses long enough to do it.”
She may have talked it over with someone else or she may have figured it was her last chance. In any event Saskia finally decided to go along with my plan, albeit halfheartedly.
The morning I came to pick her up from the villa where she was staying was a real eye-opener. Behind what looked like a very plain plastered wall was a magnificent villa that would have been called a mansion in the States. It was shortly after sunrise and we padded quietly through the beautiful garden, past a magnificent fountain and into a large but sparsely furnished room on the ground floor. As Saskia gathered her things, I looked around the cool dim space and noticed several naked youths still sleeping on the wide ledges above the floor. “Who are they?” I asked. “Oh … the rich guy who owns this place, he likes boys too,” was all she answered.
The drive up to Mexico City was extremely tense. Saskia was having second thoughts about the plan while I was trying to convince her to be more enthusiastic about our chances. Her stubborn streak was coming out in spades, and so was mine.
The day before, I’d called the president of the foreign press association in Mexico City. He listened without comment as I explained our predicament and he offered to schedule a press conference in ten day’s time. His name was Bernard Diederich and sensing I could be absolutely candid, I confessed what we were up to and warned him that if we were successful, there would probably be no press conference. Nevertheless he agreed, saying “Who knows my friend, with success, anything is possible.”
In addition I talked with John Platero of the Associated Press and again struck gold. I laid our cards on the table and asked for his advice. “Give them at least one chance to play it straight,” he suggested. “And if you get the feeling they’re jerking you around, then give them a little taste of what they’re in for. Hold on a minute … let me give you the number of a Mexican journalist friend of mine.”
As we approached Mexico City I got Saskia to talk about herself and she told me that although she was now an American citizen, she’d been born in the Netherlands. Her mother had married an American military officer when she was young and they’d all returned to the US to live. Now in her early twenties, Saskia was currently estranged from her parents, who apparently disapproved of her lifestyle and her decision to take Stefan to Mexico. That explained her slightly European accent, and, in a strange way, her ambivalent attitude. “And NO,” she added. “I do NOT want to call my parents.”
What happened next was something right out of the Twilight Zone.
In those days there were no super highways between Oaxaca and Mexico City, and Saskia didn’t drive. It took the entire day to get there. On top of the sheer exhaustion, we arrived in the city during the first government approved demonstration against the “Yankee war in Viet Nam.” Every street, every boulevard and park was jammed with chanting, dancing, placard waving students. And here we where, two blond, blue-eyed Americanos attempting to drive through hundreds of thousands of anti-US demonstrators in a Volkswagen with California license plates and three surfboards on top.
Fortunately, the tightly packed crowds we inched our way through were in a festive mood. Except for the car getting rocked a few times, we had little trouble following their directions to, of all things, the Hotel Texas (pronounced Teh-hass).
The Hotel Texas was a substantial but definitely down-market establishment with small rooms, narrow corridors, and unpleasant smells. On behalf of appearances rather than finances, I arranged for separate rooms and threw myself on top of the bed, dropping into a deep sleep despite the noise of loud chanting on the streets below.
Next morning I ran into some serious difficulties when we ventured out to buy Saskia some new clothes. Giving it my best shot, I attempted to suggest that this was not tolerant San Francisco, but the largest, most densely populated and sometimes most hypocritical Roman Catholic city in the entire world. Women were either Madonnas or whores. Surely Saskia could see that it would be a great deal easier to generate public sympathy and support for her situation if she dressed a tad more conventionally? Nothing over the top of course, just a dress you couldn’t see through, a bra that kept her breasts from flopping out, and some shoes or sandals. But although Saskia wasn’t as naive and unsophisticated as she sometimes appeared, she was, under the circumstances, frustratingly self-indulgent.
We bought a dress, panties, bra and sandals and returned to my room. “You can’t get me to wear those ugly, UGLY things”, she wailed. I took a different tack. Up till now, Saskia had only seen me in levis and t-shirts. Opening the closet, I took some of the clothes I’d packed for working at the hotel in El Salvador and disappeared into the bathroom.
A few minutes later I emerged wearing a dark single-breasted navy blazer, dark gray trousers, a classic blue Oxford business shirt, a blue and gray silk tie and polished black loafers.
Saskia was stunned. “Think of what you wear as a costume,” I implored. “And think of our visits to the embassy and the media interviews as a play we’re in.”
“Oh yeah?” she hissed, looking bored.
“And now,” I snarled, suddenly losing my patience. “Ask yourself this fucking question! Do you fucking want Stefan fucking back or do you fucking NOT want him fucking back?!?”
“OK ….OK. I’ll wear this horrible fucking stuff – but only when I’m talking to those horrible fucking people.”
Over the next few of days Saskia became more moody and unreasonable. She had no money, so I was paying for everything and my cash reserves were getting dangerously low. It took every ounce of self-control I could muster not to turn around and aim my car back towards El Salvador or Texas – it didn’t matter.
The only thing we shared was our common anger with the Embassy of the United States of America and the contemptible little parasites we had to deal with. But, hopefully, we also shared an unshakable commitment to getting Stefan back.
The date for the press conference had been set for the following week and we’d been asked more than once by Mr Getz to cancel it. “I’m sure we can work something out amongst ourselves, can’t we?” he reasoned. “After all, we are Americans.” But when it came to any specifics he was transparently vague.
Finally, it was time to give the Embassy that ‘little taste’ John Platero suggested. I called his friend at one of Mexico’s leading dailies and he quickly agreed to an interview the next morning at eleven.
That night I went to Saskia’s room down the hall to go over tomorrow’s meeting. There’s no doubt that she was a very good looking woman and I must admit that I was tempted. But a sexual relationship in these circumstances would not only complicate things, I’d been warned that we were being closely watched and didn’t want to give the authorities any more ammunition than they already had.
She wasn’t there. I left a note on her door and with the dozy attendant in the lobby. Nothing.
Finally, at ten o’clock the next morning she appeared at my door looking like something the cat wouldn’t bother to drag in. It seems she’d spent the night in a nearby room with two grubby Texans we’d met, smoking hash. Somehow I convinced her to shower and put on the hated costume.
This time it was me who was stunned as she emerged from the bathroom. Her long blond hair was pinned up and the dress fit perfectly. Smiling radiantly at herself in the mirror and making some minor adjustments, Saskia looked just like a wholesome, but vulnerable young mother of a kidnapped child. A distraught and decent mother – deserving of a devoutly Catholic country’s unconditional sympathy and support.
The interview went better than we had any right to expect. An hour into our meeting, the journalist paused to take a phone call. And Saskia – who had decided not to wear a bra after all – lent over to loosen a strap on her sandal. As her right breast flopped out of her dress, I was tempted to reach over to help her stuff it back in. Thankfully, the journalist had swiveled around in his leather chair and was looking at the wall. Less that an hour after the paper hit the streets, we received an uncharacteristically cordial invitation to attend Mr Getz and his colleagues at our “very earliest convenience.”
| Kidnap in Oaxaca © Robert R. Feigel 2022 – All rights reserved |
Pieces from a Puzzling Life 