My Father's Many Deaths

My father’s many deaths

During the first 48 years of his life, there were multiple times when José Enrique Mothe should have died.
The first was just a few months after he was born, in 1950. That year a polio epidemic swept through the city of Córdoba, in central Argentina, killing hundreds of children and leaving thousands more with devastating disabilities. José was also infected by the virus, and would have suffered the same fate had it not been by a dose of good fortune and the swift action of his parents, both of whom were healthcare workers. In the end, their efforts not only allowed him to survive, but helped him do so with only one small consequence: his left leg would forever be slightly shorter than his right.

Ten years later, in 1960, Death reared its ugly head once more, although this time it was not him it was after. The first to go was his youngest sister, Susana Helena, who was just three months old when she passed away unexpectedly on a cold June night. A few months later, when the family was just adjusting to the death of its youngest member, his mother, Orfilia Beatriz, succumbed to a mysterious bacterial infection. Her death was a devastating blow that forever impacted the family, sending it into a spiral of sorrow and despair.

By the time the 70s rolled around, Death had become a presence in the lives of all Argentines. Violent clashes between security forces loyal to the military regime and radical groups erupted periodically throughout the country. José, who had inherited a passion for social justice and political activism from his parents, got swept up in this violence. At 18 he had joined a Maoist student group, and in that capacity he participated in many social and political events, often standing in the frontlines of violent face-offs against the police. In March of 1971, during a social uprising known as the Viborazo, he was arrested while entering a known safehouse with a briefcase full of guns. A judge ordered his immediate release, claiming no laws had been broken, but the military regime that ruled Argentina had other plans: José would spend the next year as a political prisoner in the penitentiaries that were popping up throughout the country’s Patagonia region. Death could have found him in the torture rooms of any of those dark places, but José somehow managed to survive, buoyed perhaps by the resilience he had developed through his short, but intense life.

In February of 1972, José was released as part of a massive pardon of political prisoners made by the outgoing military regime and returned to Córdoba to finish his law degree. Despite the return of democracy, the situation in Argentina remained tense: right-wing paramilitary groups continued to roam the streets, carrying out the dirty work previously done by members of the armed forces. The response from leftist groups was just as violent, and the country quickly descended into chaos. During these years José remained politically active, but his time in prison had changed his approach: he now wielded the power of the law to create meaningful change. This new approach, as noble as it may have seemed to him, didn’t stop him from becoming a target for armed paramilitary groups, and in 1974, after receiving multiple threats on his life, José was forced into exile.

Uruguay had been ruled by its own military dictatorship since 1973, but the young lawyer was committed to starting a new life. He abandoned his activism and began working at a lemon farm in the interior of the country where he settled into a placid routine that included waking up early to inspect the crops, participating in endless rounds of mate with farmers and bathing in a cold lake every evening. In the summers he’d receive friends and go to the beach. This life lasted two years, at which point Death appeared once again, dressed, as it did for so many people, in a military uniform.

The circumstances under which José was arrested in Uruguay remain unclear. It is known that a friend was visiting him at the time, which has led family members to suspect of a betrayal. Other versions suggest that the Uruguayan military had been tipped off months earlier, when they saw that letters were coming in to a small citrus farm from around the world. Whatever the case may be, José was arrested in September of 1976 and brutally tortured for over a month. According to his one surviving sister, it was the closest he ever felt to death.
Eventually, the Uruguayan government decided to expel José from the country and send him back to Argentina, where a new military dictatorship was in power. Death undoubtedly awaited him back home, so, with the help of his father, José set up an intricate plan which involved bribing the police officers tasked with taking him to the airport. The plan miraculously worked, and instead of going to Argentina, José embarked on a flight towards Brazil, his spared life once again.

In Brazil, José reinvented himself. With help from the growing community of Argentine exiles, he opened a textile printing company, started his own international business consulting firm, and even became a diplomat. But his past continued to haunt him: Brazil was governed by a military regime, and his experience in Uruguay had taught him that the fear of cross-country persecution was a reality. This pushed him to devise an eccentric plan to regain control of his life: he would travel to Bolivia, obtain new documents and forge a new identity for himself.
It was during his flight to Bolivia, that José had another close encounter with death. According to an Argentine exile who was on that same plane, as the plane began its descent into Santa Cruz de la Sierra, a member of the crew rushed into the cabin, screaming that the landing gear had malfunctioned and urging passengers to pray for the eternal salvation of their souls. José didn’t pray, instead he pulled a bottle of whiskey from his carry-on luggage and shared it with those sitting around him. “At least we’ll die with a smile,” he said as he took a swig from the bottle and passed it around. A few minutes later, the plane skid onto a patch of grass next to the runway of a Bolivian airport without major consequences, and when José finally got back from that trip, he was no longer José Enrique Mothe from Córdoba; he was José Eduardo Montes, born in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia.

That is the name that appears on my original birth certificate.

José Enrique Mothe, my father, should have died on all those occasions, but he didn’t. Instead, he passed away on May 24th, 1998. His actual death was quite mundane: a cerebral aneurysm sent him into a coma on a cold Monday morning in Buenos Aires and by Sunday evening, when he normally would have been enjoying a glass of whiskey and watching soccer on TV, he was dead.
When Death finally caught up to him, he was 48 years old. He had a wife and two kids, and played soccer every weekend. After traveling the world with fake documents and trying his luck as an entrepreneur, a lawyer and a diplomat, he had returned to Argentina and settled down into a boring office job that was tedious but secure. Death must have seemed so distant to him at that time that his last words, written in his shaky handwriting and faxed to his office, ignore its proximity: “Sorry but I will not come in today,” he wrote. “I fainted while getting ready this morning and am feeling a bit dizzy. Going to the ER. See you tomorrow, José.”

When my dad died, my mom was 37 and living in a country that was not her own. Despite the pain and loneliness that she undoubtedly must have felt, she gave us a fantastic childhood. Her strength provided us with a path into the future, and her unwavering support gave us proof that when one parent dies, the love you receive isn’t cut in half – it’s actually doubled. Looking back, the only complaint I have is that as a family we never had the courage to face our pain: we just kept plowing forward, unwilling – or unable – to look back. In this stubborn march towards the future, the memory of our father faded slowly into oblivion.

Things would have stayed the same were it not for an email I received six years ago from Necho Grancelli, a family friend who looked after my father during his exile in Uruguay. I hadn’t heard from Necho since the funeral, but in his message he asked me to give him a call as soon as I could. When we finally spoke, he told me he was writing a novel based on my father’s life and said that he wanted to meet up to chat about my memories. We convened on a date and time to meet, but the meeting never took place: Necho passed away on the day I was meant to visit him.
Over the next few years, I spent more than my fair share of sleepless nights wondering what I would have told Necho. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that I wouldn’t have been able to help him. In the end, I barely knew my father—not only because I was nine years-old when he died, but because I had spent nearly twice as long as that ignoring his very existence.

That’s when I decided that I needed to change something. I started by looking through old photos, and eventually moved on to collecting documentation, interviewing friends and family members and submitting information requests to multiple government agencies in three different countries. The process hasn’t been easy, but it has allowed me to learn a great deal about my father, including everything I have written above.
These words are my first attempt to capture a small portion of my father’s life. They will not be the last. In writing them I took a cowardly approach: I focused on my father’s many deaths as a way to soften the emotional blow that would come from focusing solely on his real one, the one that took him away from us on May 24th, 1998. And while I admit that it may not have been the bravest way to deal with this 20-year-old grief, I can also say, as I wrap up this first draft, that a great thing has come from it: writing about my father’s death has, at least for a few fleeting moments, made me feel close to him again, which is something I hadn’t felt in over two decades.


Peter Mothe is a writer, journalist and illustrator from Argentina who lives and works in Vancouver. His work has been published in CBC Radio, VICE News, the Toronto Star, the Georgia Straight and the Globe and Mail, amongst others. He is currently working on a book about the life and death of his father.