Louisa Reynolds /

Pz

P

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Alonso decided to keep the boy and take him home to his 
wife, whom he had told that there was a bunch of kids at 
the Kaibil School that had been found wandering in the 
mountains and were being “given away” to anyone who 
would claim them, as if they were stray puppies rather than 
children.

Ramiro still remembers his seemingly endless journey from 
Petén to the southern department of Retalhuleu, where 
López Alonso lived with his family, and how the chicken that 
he had been given in the Kaibil School had suffocated in its 
box along the way.

López Alonso’s wife never believed her husband’s story. 
Whereas the couple were dark skinned, Ramiro was white 
and had green eyes and chestnut brown hair, and this, 
she believed, was irrefutable proof of the fact that her 
husband had been unfaithful and was now trying to foist his 
illegitimate child on her. To make matters worse, the soldier 
had registered the child as his own son and had given him 
the name Ramiro Fernando López Alonso.

As she could not scream and swear at her husband, the 
scorned woman vented her anger and spite on the boy, making 
it clear from the beginning what his place was. Ramiro was 
forced to get up at dawn in order to feed the farm animals 
and had to work until ten o’clock at night. Some days, López 
Alonso’s wife would throw him a plate with a few leftovers, 
and on other occasions he received nothing.

López Alonso’s only daughter was a year older than Ramiro 
and was taught to despise him. As they grew up together he 
could feel her gaze, filled with hatred, boring into his skin.