The Unseen Hand

Anniversary of the day on which I got married and on which, with one thrust which quite deprived me of breath, I lost my virginity.

Liane de Pougy
July 15, 1935
Diary entry

Noontime when I found preparations under way for another campaign to press for the resurfacing of the desaparecidos. I tell her I'm proud of her. Much more so because she presses against futility.

You know what they say about espousing the cause of the lost.

Of course, she's used to my tongue's resolutely worthless swagger. She loves bouncing her ideas off me exactly because I seem impervious to her cute idealism. So I shoot my mouth off while she's typing and texting away.

I tell her that the situation of desaparecidos hides one thing more than it does the victims. When somebody is caused to vanish, the hand that causes the disappearance itself disappears. Interesting how that happens too, the hands are prominent, in fact they hold the best seats in the national house, yet they disappear.

We aren't legally permitted to see what's obvious. In fact, the disavowals of the powerful hold more water. More than any of the signature campaigns, the rallies.

That's not new to me, she says. There are forces. Then there are market forces, she says. And we both know which discipline most invests itself in the idea of the unseen hand.

Are we talking theology? I ask.

We're talking economics, she says.

I offer my services, ask her what needs printing. No, I got it, she says, and waves me off to the night when I'll countenance some dark use.