What has no name

By Pamela Cerdeira

They are not as they were, not as I had seen them. Anyone would think they are lawyers, leaders, representatives of some organization. Under their arms they carry folders, quote articles, explain data, point out errors, propose unwritten laws. They denounce, contrast and are careful to say that they still trust the authorities, because they have no other choice. The history that brought them there weighs on their skin, as if they were being sucked by the earth at every step, but they are stronger, they resist, they keep on walking. They do not tell you about themselves unless you ask directly. They speak for everyone, for their companions -mostly women-, for the young people who have joined, for those who became lawyers out of necessity, experts through experience.

I am naive. I think none of them tell me who they are looking for because they prefer to speak in the name of the collective: if they mention one, they would have to mention everyone, because, heroes or survivors, ego and spotlights end up separating the most legitimate causes.

I ask him directly. It must be hard to be in a media outlet (because again, naively, we think that still serves a purpose) and not mention the name of the person you're looking for, tell their story, hope that maybe, this time, someone will listen and you can find them. You do it to put the group first. He's admirable. He's admirable, and I'm being silly. He doesn't come with the name of his missing person up front because his voice breaks, because he gets destroyed every time he mentions it, because he dies a little bit and then he can't say anything more, and he has a lot to say.

He tells me that he believes everything that his colleagues from Jalisco said, that what the government proposed was already in the law. He tells me that it is important to put at the head of the Victims and Search Commissions people with knowledge and empathy (if that is not too much to ask). He talks about the other extermination camps, the ones that did not make the news, the ones in Veracruz. He reiterates what I once saw: the experts who claim that those bones are those of animals. But they take out their phones, and Google tells them otherwise. And they insist, and take pictures, and ask again.

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