He went into his tent and brought it out, feeling better as soon as he strummed the old strings. San Juan el Bautista sat beside him and began to sing. Manny smiled. The boy was untested as a fighter, but he sure could sing. Others soon joined in, singing the songs of the revolution they all knew so well. One by one, they went off to bed, comforted by food, wine, and song, trying not to think about the dangers of the next day.
Marissa was already on her cot when Manny entered their tent.
“Mañana,” she said. “Are you ready?”
“I suppose. I wish we didn’t have to be apart for the attack.”
“I can take care of myself. So can you. We both have a job to do, and we will do them well.”
Manny knelt down beside her cot and took her hand. “For some reason, I have a bad feeling about this mission.”
“There’s always danger. That is the cause we’ve chosen.”
“You’re not afraid?”
“If we die, we die. All my fears have already come to pass. Why should I be afraid of escaping this life of sorrow?”
Manny kissed her cheek and walked across the tent to his own cot. He had lost just as much as Marissa. But he didn’t feel ready to die. He still believed his life could be worth so much more.
“Are you afraid, Manuel?”
“Yes.” He sighed. “Yes, mi amor, I am afraid.”
17
“Well, don’t you look the part, San Juan el Bautista. No one would believe you are a violent revolutionary.”
The boy scowled and pulled his shirt up to show the pistol in his belt. Manny laughed.
“After today, I promise I’ll never make fun of you again. This is the day that will make you a man.”
Manny led his group across the square and up to the main entrance of the Colombian judicial headquarters. The comandante was right . . . it did look like a fortress. The building was long and square with heavy walls and few windows, an ideal spot for their mission.
The main entry was unguarded. Though the men had prepared background stories for why they were there, they were not asked. The place bustled with morning business. They waited in the cafeteria, avoiding any parts of the building that would require them to pass through metal detectors. It surprised Manny how many people were there. The crowd made their entry easier, but it would also make the building tougher to secure.
For a moment, the previous night’s uncertainty crept back. He pushed it out of his mind. There was no place for fear on a day made for action. The others looked excited. He was glad not to see fear in their eyes. He tried to make their excitement his own, but the knot of fear remained in his stomach.
He looked at his watch. “It’s just about time. Listen carefully.”
Almost as soon as he spoke the words, Manny heard a rumble beneath him—the trucks entering the basement. He glanced at Carlos and nodded. Carlos walked toward the entryway. Suddenly, rapid machine-gun fire sounded below. Someone in the cafeteria screamed.
“¡Mierda! Something’s gone wrong.” Manny knew that shots fired this early couldn’t be good news.
Pasqual had his gun out.
“Everyone on the floor!” he shouted. “Stay calm, and no one will get hurt. This is not the time for heroes.”
Pasqual and Carlos secured the cafeteria. They had to stick to their plan, even though the group in the basement had already strayed from theirs.
“Come on,” said Manny. With guns drawn, Manny and Juan ran to the security desk, which blocked the path to the judicial chambers. They leaped over the turnstiles as the bewildered guards weighed whether it would be worth it to reach for their guns. Another rat-a-tat from a machine gun sounded below.
The staircase door burst open, and their comrades rushed into the room from the basement. At least one of the guards had started shooting at the intruders. A man fell in the entryway. Others rushed through. Manny’s head swiveled, desperately looking for the guard who was fighting back. His gun was in his hand, but people flew around him everywhere—rebels entering the room, overmatched guards, frightened civilians running for cover or falling to the floor in the confusion, and somewhere in the chaos, a guard with a gun.
Manny looked back at the doorway just as Marissa came through. She reeled from a bullet.
“Marissa, no!” Manny tried to step toward her, but the crush of bodies pushed him back. “Oh God, no, no, no.”
San Juan el Bautista had found the guard who tried to be a hero. Manny saw him run up and shoot the guard at point-blank range, then follow the men as they rushed upstairs.
Manny grew dizzy. It was all a blur. He tried to stay calm as men pressed past him. Someone on the floor grabbed at his feet. He forced his way through toward the doorway. He couldn’t get to his wife, prostrate in the open doorway, until all the rebels had made it up the stairs.
By then, she was dead.
Manny took her head in his arms, letting his head fall onto her lifeless shoulder. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t even cry. How could he lose her this fast, without even a final moment to say goodbye?
When his breath returned, his tears also broke free. A voice within him whispered that he had to hurry upstairs. There was no time to grieve. It was dangerous to stay here. The military would arrive soon.
Marissa’s face was at peace. In a way, this was what she had wanted. There had been no fight in her today, no resistance in her body to the bullet. It killed her without a struggle.
It angered him. His anger was not at her but at the God who let her lose hope while forcing him to carry it still.
He was also angry at the comandante for devising such a reckless plan and at whoever it was that had started the shooting. This was not supposed to be a violent takeover. There were dead civilians too. Each minute now, it grew more likely that they would all die in here.
Manny eased Marissa’s head back to the floor, unwilling to leave her, even though her heart had long since flown away from him.
He stood up but couldn’t bring himself to go upstairs. The mission felt odious. It went awry as soon as the first shots were fired. How could it succeed now?
“This way, hermano. Hurry.” A woman’s voice came from a nearby hallway.
Manny turned his head. He felt disoriented, his vision still clouded by tears. He managed to focus on the voice, expecting one of his comrades. But he didn’t recognize the woman who had spoken. She looked about fifty, a worker in the justice offices.
“There’s a room this way where we can hide. You must hurry.”
Confused, Manny glanced down at his own clothes: civvies—his disguise. In the confusion, he had dropped his gun. Nobody knew who he was. This woman never guessed that he had helped start this tragedy.
He looked at the stairway where his comrades had gone, then back at the woman in the hall. He was being offered a way out. Perhaps he would die either way. If Pasqual and Carlos found him hiding down here, they would surely kill him. But he now felt certain that death awaited those who had gone upstairs. Things had started too badly to end well. He looked at his dead wife one last time.
No, he would not embrace death as she had. He had so much life he still intended to live. He ran after the woman into the hallway.
Hiding for hours in a dark, windowless office, Manny tried to numb his emotions. Fear, shame, and sorrow swirled in his heart. Other people huddled close by him, but he was utterly alone. His wife was dead, and he had abandoned his comrades. If these people he hid with knew who he was, they would be outraged, even kill him if they could. If he survived this day, he would have no one in the world. He tried to pray, but even God seemed distant. What use had God for the prayers of a man like him, who in the same hour had brought death upon innocent people and deserted his brothers?
The people shifted restlessly, not daring even to whisper. Discomfort increased. How long could they hide before thirst and bodily needs became unbearable? If they knew it would only be hours, they could endure it. But what if they had to hide all night, or even fo
r days? Manny listened to the subtle sounds of distress, watching in the faint light.
Meanwhile, there were other sounds: shouting upstairs, a helicopter above, then the rumble of gathering tanks and troops in the square. Twice, he heard Pasqual shouting at the hostages in the nearby cafeteria. From what he could tell, the militants had secured the upper floors, presumably capturing the entire Supreme Court, while outside the army laid siege to the building.
The silence in the room was broken. “Líbranos del mal,” chanted a man as he rocked back and forth, sitting on the floor against the wall. Someone tried to hush him, but the man was delirious. “Líbranos del mal. Oh, señor, líbranos del mal,” he chanted quietly, over and over until Manny felt the rhythm of the prayer in his body.
He was this evil the people prayed against. He had joined the revolution to help the Colombian people, yet instead had inflicted death and despair. The fight wasn’t against these people here in this room—workers whose only fault was taking a government job, and who could blame them? Millions of the poor in this country would have given anything for a job like this, for the education that spawned the opportunity. He possessed such an education but had chosen violence instead. How wrong he had been.
He wanted to pray too, to connect to God. But he could not. He had never felt more distant from God than in that moment as he waited with the countrymen and women he had wronged. He was angry at God, fresh off the death of his beloved, whose body might even still lay in the hallway close by. He was still angry at God for taking his daughter three years ago and for never giving Marissa the peace to move past it. But God was angry at him too, surely, for this horror he had wrought. Who was he to expect fairness from a peaceful God?
He couldn’t talk to God, but he could make a promise to himself. He determined that if he escaped this day alive and free, he would finish his education and use any opportunity that came to him to fight for his people with love, not blood. This was the best he could do. The promise allowed him to hope for escape without being leveled by his guilt.
Manny had no sense of how many hours passed in that room. What noises could be heard above sounded unnatural and severe. He closed his eyes, wanting to bring Marissa’s image back. He tried to remember her as she had been when he first met her—as a feisty daughter of the revolution or smiling with love on their wedding day. But the only image his mind brought back was of her sad face in the years since they lost their child. He cried against the wall, glad that no one would notice his tears against their own emotions and the continued, solitary chant, “Líbranos del mal.”
A hideous crash sounded close by, followed immediately by gunfire. People gasped and huddled closer in the office.
The door burst open. Manny struggled to see through the blinding hallway lights. A soldier stood there in his rounded helmet and fatigues.
“¡Vengan, gente!” whispered the guard. “Hurry.”
The people rushed out. Others came from the office rooms down the hall. Manny rushed through the cafeteria with the crowd, looking for Pasqual and Carlos, who must have fled upstairs or been shot.
Out in the square stood about two hundred people rescued from the ground floor of the building. It was never their intention to take civilians as hostages. The comandante was always willing to let the ground floor go. Manny still couldn’t help rooting for their success, even though he had now staked his own survival against them.
Manny slipped out of the crowd and kept walking. His emotions were too raw to rest. He had lost more than his wife today. He had lost his own identity. Who was he without M-19? What would he do now that he had left them? Would he even be allowed to leave?
All day, he wandered the streets of Bogotá. When weariness overcame his emotions, he fell asleep under a bridge.
The next day, his curiosity brought him back to the Palace of Justice. He stood far off and watched as the army rolled a tank up the front steps and through the palace entrance. Soldiers followed it while militants shot down at them from the roof. This was no peaceful negotiation.
Shortly afterward, soldiers stormed the front entrance while tanks fired directly at the building, bombarding the upper area. Heavy gunfire rained down from above. Soldiers lay dead in the square.
Manny wanted to turn away but couldn’t. It was going to be a massacre. Did the lives of the hostages mean nothing? Suddenly, tall flames burst from the top of the building. Gunfire and screams could be heard from within.
Was this what he had been fighting for all these years: death and destruction? He was a fool to have believed peace could be won through violence. No wonder it came to an end like this.
Manny’s heart ached for his wife and for his friends whom he had abandoned and would likely soon be dead. Most of all, his heart ached for Colombia. It was out of love for his homeland that he had joined M-19, yet he had done his people more harm than good.
Finally, Manny was able to pray. He begged God for the chance at redemption—to fulfill the promise he had made to himself—even though it was not a chance he deserved.
18
“WAIT FOR ME,” shouted a young girl as she ran after three boys. At first they tried to shake her, but at twelve she was in the middle of the growth spurt that the boys hadn’t had yet. She caught up with them at the next corner.
“Why did you try to go without me?”
“It might be too hard for a girl.”
“¡Qué ridículo! I’m faster and stronger than any of you.”
“Fine, Alta. You can come.”
“No, chicos. You come with me.” She set off on the dirty street between low homes built of plywood and aluminum as the boys followed. She knew they were getting tired of being led by a girl. But they would be glad to have her. They always had more fun when she was there. She came up with ideas they wouldn’t dare without her.
She had grown up with these boys—orphans just like her. It had been a rough childhood in the barrio. She never knew where her next meal was coming from. But people here looked out for each other. Even the prostitutes and pimps treated the orphans like their own.
Sometimes, she would venture toward the harbor and gaze up at the old colonial walls, or she would go to the beach and look across the bay at the row of hotels that lined the Bocagrande peninsula. One day, she would feel welcome in such places—this was something she had determined since she was old enough to understand it. But for now, she and her friends had to survive however they could. They were not above stealing food or working small jobs for the thugs who ran their barrio.
Something would have to change soon. She felt it in her body as acutely as in her heart.
La Alta—the tall girl. That was what her friends called her. It was a fitting nickname, because she had shot up faster than the other children. But she was starting to look different. She wanted to welcome the changes, but she feared them too. There was a place for a child in the streets. People gave her odd jobs in exchange for a room to sleep in for a week or two at a time. But once she was a woman—and she was beginning to look like one—everything would change. Men would begin to lust after her, and women would distrust her. Those neighborhood bosses who looked out for her as a child would soon try to groom her for a new career. Her mother had been a prostitute, but the girl believed there was a better life for her. If only she could get a chance to work for it.
She led the way toward the center of the city. Cartagena bustled on this hot Saturday afternoon. If the boys had gone without her, they would have limited their adventures to their own streets. She smiled to herself. She always had more ambitious adventures in mind.
“Look.” She pointed at a gathering crowd. “There’s a fútbol match today. Let’s sneak in.”
After several attempts, stadium security proved equal to the children’s resourcefulness. When a security guard threatened to arrest them, they gave up. But they found an abandoned ball in the parking lot and played their own game between the cars, listening with delight to the roar of the crowd when Real Cartage
na scored the only goal of the game.
They took the ball and started back toward home. It was a treasure to have a ball in such good condition. She knew they would play with it every day until it got run over by a truck or stolen by other children.
“Let’s see if Manny’s home.”
Manny’s house was on a nicer block in their neighborhood, right on the main bus line into downtown. It was part of a row of concrete houses with a market and bar at the end of the block. The children of the barrio were always welcomed at Manny’s house. His refrigerator—a luxury in itself—was always full of lemonade or Coca-Cola.
“Hey, muchachos,” called Manny from his doorway as the children approached. “You found a fútbol!”
The girl smiled. Manny was the only adult who was consistently kind to her without an ulterior motive. He was the only person in the world she trusted. Even these boys—her best friends—would betray her for a slice of beef if they were hungry enough. They usually were.
Manny met them on the street, below the web of electrical and phone wires that passed overhead. He intercepted the ball with skill that surprised the young boys. He passed it to the girl, and without words, teams were established—the three boys versus the man and the girl. Despite the odds against them, the girl was delighted that she and Manny could successfully keep the ball away from the boys. They played until the traffic in the street grew too heavy and the honks became indignant, then ran sweating into Manny’s house for cold drinks by the fan.
Manny laughed. “How will you become the next El Pibe if you can’t dribble past an old man, eh?”
After greedily swallowing from bottles of Coke, the boys were back out in the street with their ball, mastering their skills while annoying a new set of motorists. The girl stayed inside, savoring her beverage.
“How are you, niña? Have you been able to go to school?”
“I go one or two days a week.”
“I know it can be tough, but keep with it as much as you can. If you get an education, you might get a job when you’re a little older. I’ll help you if I can, but I can only get you so far.”
The Exile Page 10
