It was 6:03 p.m., on May 5, 2006, Friday when my cell ringed.
As the doors to the subway train opened and I stepped out of it
in Botafogo Station, Rio de Janeiro, I recognized my ex-wife number. “This can’t be good”, I thought, remembering all the
fights we’ve had, fights that led us to court and prevented me
from having any doubts when things like these happened.
I answered after it rang twice, and she asked, sounding nervous: “Can I keep Henrique tomorrow? I’m having lunch
with my mother, we’ve had it scheduled for sometime…”.
Even with a lot of practice, Roberta didn't know how to lie.
Aside from the nervous tone in her voice, I knew that the
emotional bounds connecting her to her parents weren’t strong.
And she would never call me on a Friday night to tell me about
a lunch the very next day. Even though it was obvious she
was lying, there was no reason to say no to her.
That was supposed to be my weekend with Henrique, our 5 year
old son, but I hadn’t had anything planned for Saturday. Besides,
a judge from the 4th Family Law Section, Antônio Iloízio Barros Bastos, had decided the week before, on April 27th, that
Henrique couldn’t leave the country, rejecting a preliminary
order she had placed, as she wanted to move to Australia
with her new husband, José Alves.
A quick thought, as it usually happens to me, came to my mind,
but it soon went away. “Ok”, I answered. And I left the platform trying to figure out what she was up to. After all, there was
so much going on recently...
I was never a fan of conspiracy theories, and my paranoid sense wasn’t really accurate after my victory in court. Then I naively envisioned this scenario: her husband, who would have gone to Australia two days before, was already back and she wanted to welcome him with Henrique, staging the “happy family” scene
she had been recording and photographing to use in court.
I didn’t know that this trip was another lie Roberta — with the help of some “assistants” — had spread throughout the newspaper office she worked in, knowing someone would tell me about it. This fake trip rumour, the couple thought, would impress me in two good ways: I would think the guy had gone to work on a job and would
only come back by the time Roberta was about to have their baby;
or, possibly, that he went to decline the offer or gain some time
due to their failure in court.
And, indeed, I fell for it. Although I had enough proof to think otherwise, I still hadn’t fully realized that people with, let’s say, their profile, would never give up simply because they have no guilt, sense of caring or responsability — unless they are thinking about their ambitions. As to myself, I learned the hard way, the joke
was true: just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re
not after you.
(You may ask: haven’t you wondered something serious was being set up? If I was able to figure out what was going to happen, it would mean I was just like them, and none of this would make any sense. There’s no place for me in this world gone mad of theirs, and I think there’s no place there for my son, either. That’s the problem).
On Sunday, at 10 a.m., the time scheduled for me
to pick Henrique up, I ringed her building buzzer, in Leme, where he lived with his mother and stepfather. That’s the
same neighborhood I have lived since 1994. I had my two sisters with me — after being verbally assaulted by Alves in June, 2005, I always asked at least one of them to go with me
to be a witness or even to
stop him while I was picking Henrique up.
After an argument that took place on October 3rd, the worst
of all we’ve had, I couldn’t (nor wouldn’t) get into that building.
The doorman would call the apartment and then someone would come down with Henrique. But, that Sunday, no one answered
and Henrique did not come down. Thinking straight and quick,
I realized it was a scam.
Let’s start the search: when I called the Justice Court asking
for anything under Roberta’s name, the answer was positive.
There was a provisional justice order signed by the appeal court
judge Vera Maria Soares von Hombeeck. The employee who
answered the phone wasn’t allowed to read it to me, but
I could go there and read it myself.
The court order, with a few lines on it, authorized, on Saturday,
that Henrique boarded 7:30 a.m. Sunday. While we read it,
he was already in Chile waiting for a flight connection to Australia. Explanation: when she watched the DVD sent by mother and stepfather, the judge realized the harmony expressed in those images couldn’t be threatened. She never consulted me or my lawyer. The appeal court judge hasn’t even consulted the judge
who decided against the trip.
Friday’s phone call, which was made three minutes after the court closed for the day, indicated they foresaw their victory on Saturday. Later I learned that most of their stuff had already been sent to Australia, even before their victory in court. I also learned that Roberta spent time out of her office on Thursday in order to attend a meeting with her lawyers; and that she didn’t even show up Friday. And, of course, the tickets were bought in advance.
There was no problem to them. No problem at all that Roberta
was pregnant and was going to spend more than 20 hours traveling. It only mattered that the job offered to Alves was there and that their baby would be born in Australia, not Brazil.
My son was abducted on May 7, 2006. I wish to clarify that I don’t mean abducted (raptado) in the sense that the Brazilian legal system understands the verb raptar, but rather in the dictionary sense. According to the dictionary, it means “removal of someone from where they were to somewhere else by the means of violence, threat, fraud or mistake”. Henrique was taken to Australia thanks to “fraud or mistake”. And I’m sure this was also an act of violence.
Henrique is autist. He can only say a few sentences, doesn’t engage in conversations and, although he understands most of what’s said (in Portuguese), it’s hard for him to comprehend abstract situations. Like moving to a completely different place, where a different language is spoken and having to stop seeing people he lived with, specially his father, with whom he slept ten nights a month, spent alternate weekends and had always had a very affectionate relationship. Henrique was treated like an object you move to
your new house and, as an object, does not have to say goodbye
to whatever he’s leaving behind.
He now lives in Perth, the capital of Western Australia. That’s
“the most isolated capital of the world”, the internet says, because the nearest metropolitan area, Adelaide, is located 2.780 km from there; and there’s no greater distance in the world. The region (an administrative center and suburbs) population is about 1.5 million and Perth encounters the Indian Ocean.
There are three oceans between me and my son now. But, if there’s any faith left in me,
I believe that there are feelings that neither distance, absence nor manipulation can kill. I’m alive because Henrique is alive and
I know I live inside
him because he lives
inside me.
