In May 2018, thanks to Paola Klechman and Lorena Quiroga — who, like me, had their identities substituted and sold by Doctor Bartucca — I arrived at the doors of the Human Rights Office inside the Civil Registry of Buenos Aires. As I mentioned before, by that time Lorena and Paola had been searching for years, so it was thanks to their earlier efforts that I eventually met Mercedes Yañez.

The Human Rights Office, at least back then, was quite small. At one desk sat Mercedes; at another, Cecilia, who would later take her place after Mercedes retired.

That office was dedicated to the restoration of biological identity. In other words, a person could go there with their birth certificate, and from that — along with the story they had been told about their adoption — an investigation would begin to identify possible biological mothers, who would then need to be visited in person. Based on the doctor’s name and the address appearing on the certificate, they could usually deduce in which hospital one might have been born (if the certificate didn’t already specify it). From there, the search continued in the Civil Registry archives, examining birth records around the listed date — which was often false.

Among those records, the ones that drew attention were those belonging to young, single mothers, or to babies recorded as having died shortly after birth under suspicious circumstances. They also took note of the birth records of babies who later disappeared completely from the system — children who simply vanished from all official traces. It was like finding a needle in a haystack. But Mercedes, and later Cecilia, using their knowledge and intuition, searched through data that to the rest of us would be indecipherable, trying to locate mothers who, many years ago, had given birth in a municipal hospital in Buenos Aires.

In May 2018, Mercedes handed me a list of fifteen women I needed to visit, along with very specific instructions on how to approach each one — the result of years of experience knocking on the doors of possible biological mothers. She emphasized how crucial it was to follow the procedure to the letter, since the success of any encounter would depend on it.

The process went as follows: once you had the mother’s address, you had to go there in person, and alone. If someone other than the mother opened the door, you had to invent a pretext to ask to speak with her. It was essential not to tell anyone except the mother why you were there. You might say something like, “I have a personal message from my late mother, who was a schoolmate of Mrs. [so-and-so].”

You had to remember that the mother might never have told anyone about the existence of the child she had over forty years earlier. The daughter might be the result of a rape she never spoke about, or of an affair she still feels ashamed of. Most likely, the mother had rebuilt her life, and that baby belonged to a very distant past. One had to proceed with great sensitivity — hence the small, protective lie.

Once the mother appeared, you first looked for any physical resemblance. Then you would explain that you were searching for your biological identity, and that this was how you had come to her door. You could also describe how you’d reached her name (through Mercedes, Cecilia, the Human Rights Office, the Civil Registry, etc.), and reassure her that her information was strictly confidential. With luck, one might agree to a DNA test — though most would not.

And finally, one last rule: never call by phone. When people tried that, the mothers would deny everything and never answer again, losing any chance, even, to see whether there was a resemblance.

Fifteen women. Fifteen addresses. Fifteen doors. Fifteen stories. Fifteen encounters.

During that trip in 2018, we never managed to begin such a journey. With Simon and my partner at the time, we decided to return to Sweden, regroup, and plan to come back in September. But when September came, my partner and I had already begun our separation. Then February arrived, and I didn’t have a cent. By May 2019, I still hadn’t managed to get back on my feet. Later that year, Simon and I decided to launch a crowdfunding campaign to raise the money to return as soon as possible. We aimed for May 2020. By February, thanks to our friends’ generosity, we had gathered enough to pay for tickets and accommodation — we were ready.

Then, in March 2020, the world shut down — and remained closed until March 2022. We tried several times to make the trip, but the Covid restrictions in Argentina were so strict that we couldn’t risk a fifteen-day quarantine when we only had funds to stay for three weeks. So we waited — until finally, in June 2022, we were able to travel.

By then Mercedes had retired, so we reconnected with Cecilia. She reviewed our file and concluded that, of the fifteen cases, only five were truly plausible. Of those five, we managed to contact four, and I was able to visit three.

Whenever I tell this part of the story, the next question is always: “What was it like?”

Life, in all its richness — its light and shadow, love and rage, helplessness and longing, hope and emptiness; the irretrievable years and the timeless flow of the universe moving intuitively behind every gesture of reality — and, at the same time, the Argentine reality: fierce, relentless. An unbreakable will, an unyielding resilience, and yet a deep wish for everything to simply end. A silent scream caught in my throat, a heart refusing to harden, humility before fate and protest against what lay before me. A deep yearning for someone to hold me and offer comfort, and at the same time the understanding that this path was mine alone to walk. The doors — only I could knock on them. Everything was to be found within me. All of it, at once. In this soul, in this body.

I thought, at some point, that I would break — but I didn’t.