“Mom, open the door for me, I’m going to smoke.” She was restless. sleepless She needed to get air, get out. “Pepa, it’s cold, smoke on the balcony…”. It was late, already early in the morning, but Genoveva, after her daughter’s insistence, opened the door.
Pepa lit the cigarette. There was no one on the street, everything was quiet in the Gran Canaria municipality of Santa María de Guía. Genoveva, already awake too, did not go to bed. Pepa, at the request of her mother, promised to finish her cigarette and go inside. It was Christmas Eve, and to make time, to do something, Genoveva began to make her famous ‘truchas’, the quintessential Canarian Christmas sweets. She entered the kitchen. “Pepa… don’t be at the door, woman.” Genoveva came and went. With her gaze fixed on the mass, but her mind at the door, she called her again: “Pepa…”, her daughter did not enter. When she came out for her, minutes later, she was gone.
Maria Josefa German He disappeared on December 23, 2000. She was 35 years old and a 13-year-old son. They both lived at her mother’s house. She, separated, was going through a difficult stage, she had depression. The kid, with 88% disability, grew up happily. Nobody knows how, where, why or with whom. She disappeared, she left the door of her house. Genoveva, her mother, never finished the sweets. 23 years have passed. Pepa, as those who love her call her, stopped being there.
“I remember the chaos of those days,” her niece Ariadna backs down: “I remember, even though I was only 8 years old when my aunt disappeared.” Together with his family, he has spent more than two decades struggling to find answers. “I remember that tremendous chaos ensued. Since that day my family was broken, marked by pain“. The days were translated into searching, fighting, waiting. “My grandmother (Genoveva) cried because her daughter was not there. The house was full of photos…”. Demonstrations, calls, the media. At Genoveva’s, Pepa’s, Ariadna’s house, there was never full joy again. They never made ‘trouts’ again. It was never Christmas again.
tracking dogs
“My father left home at dawn,” recalls Ariadna, then a girl, now a woman. “My grandmother called, she woke us up: ‘I can’t find her, I can’t find her, she’s not there'”. Pepa had just disappeared. Vicente, Ariadna’s father -and the woman’s brother- took the car. In ten minutes the first beat started, the family one. “They went to the Civil Guard, but in those years you had to wait 72 hours to report.
“It was in a moment,” Genoveva repeated. “My grandmother had been with her at the street door, but she began to smell burning and went into the house.
The family raid was unsuccessful. The one for the police sold out as soon as it started. They tried to reconstruct their steps. “I remember that tracking dogs came. My grandmother lived like in the middle of a hill and when the dogs began to go down that hill, there came a point where the trail was lost, like she got into a car… or something So. From then on we never knew anything, not a clue, nothing more“.
Uncertainty settled in Genoveva’s house. Pepa gave no sign: “How is she going to leave the child, her son?” The investigation was closed by the police. “They told us that my aunt was 35 years old, that she was of legal age... they pointed out that he disappeared voluntarily. They never questioned if someone did something to her or if, even if she left freely, something happened to her afterwards. She just stopped looking.”
The family took up their search. “My father, my uncles, my grandmother… they looked all over the islands,” recalls Ariadna, who grew up watching everyone beat, wait. “That was normal. My father was away from home almost every day, my uncles… I remember the pain… everyone’s. My grandmother’s, a widow, older, looking for her.
“Someone cheated on her”
Cheerful, sociable, full of life. Strong, resilient. “A vitamin person, as I call him.” Life had not made it easy for him. “I always saw her as an example to follow. He was a person who, despite the battles, was tough,” says his niece. “Despite having a difficult life because my grandmother was widowed very young, she grew up without a father…”, she recalls, “then my cousin, Aduén, who has 88% disability, separated shortly after he was born. She always came out ahead.”
Funny, “I came and went, I had friends everywhere.” The breadth of her circle made it impossible to know where to look. “We don’t know what could have happened, the truth… But to this day we do believe that he could have planned itMaybe she met someone who convinced her, deceived her…”, she laments.
They shared their photo, made posters, and styled everything they could. The entire town, Santa María de Guía turned upside down. Despite the fight, without ceasing, They never found anything, not even a clue, that would provide any information about his disappearance. Calls came in, many, but all with the same information: “people called when a body appeared. They claimed it was my aunt.” They were real flashes of shock.
“They called us and said that they had found her dead. That it was her, that it was her… that they had seen her body. But it was never true”
“Imagine that they call you and tell you: look, I have your dead daughter. They said that, that they had found her dead what was she, what was she… that they had seen the body and…“, revives Ariadna. “Then my father, my uncle and my grandmother went to recognize the remains and thank God it was not true, it was never her.”
Then silence settled. There was no more. The televisions called on key dates, anniversaries, commemorative days, “but it was nothing, that minute, then they forgot and that’s it.” Audén grew up with his grandmother. Years passed, Genoveva died. She “she passed away a couple of years before the pandemic. My grandmother died looking at the door, as if to say, let’s see when my daughter comes back, let’s see…“.
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“On a personal level, I think Pepa is alive,” says Ariadna. “I think that if a person is dead, it’s easier to find them… She’s alive, I’ve always said so, and I’ve always thought that someone tricked her., he ate the coconut. At that time, she was somewhat depressed, mentally weak, and she took her away.
Almost 23 years later the cry is the same: “Pepa, where are you?” The search has not stopped, it does not stop: “If anyone recognizes her, please contact the authorities.“, asks Ariadna, who also speaks to her aunt: “aunt, if you are seeing this, come home, please.” No reproaches. No rancor. “Just to get everyone back together. Your son is waiting for you, he remembers you “. She visualizes the hug, the reunion. Hope is driving force, but the years have made her cautious: she visualizes it again,” … hopefully “.