Return to the Dark Valley

by Santiago Gamboa

  I preferred not to drink anything, out of solidarity, and because after only a few drinks I would get even more paranoid, so it was better to stick with juice. I told Gloria Isabel that everything was going fine at the university and I’d brought her copies of my grades, so that she could see that I was using her money well. I told her I was writing poems and that some had been published in magazines. She asked to read them and I showed them to her. Her eyes watered and she said, they’re lovely!

  The poor woman didn’t know the slightest thing about poetry, but she was a kind person.

  The New Year came, and to be honest I couldn’t wait to get back to Bogotá, where I didn’t feel in danger. We took two excursions, one to the river and the other to a ranch near Lake Calima, and finally the day came to go back. Vanessa went back to her clinic and Gloria Isabel drove me to the airport. We cried when we said goodbye. She said to me: go with God, my sweet girl. Life is giving you another opportunity and what makes me happiest is that you’re taking advantage and proving worthy of it. Don’t change. I gave her a hug and got on the plane, again in tears.

  In Bogotá the other drama was waiting for me.

  Araceli was really low because, as was to be expected, the famous gold chain wasn’t for either of them, so she was hysterical. She came to see me the day I got back and when I opened the door I noticed that she was already very wired on booze and coke. She almost devoured me in bed, snorting one line of coke after another, with a desperation that took me by surprise, until I said to her, calm down, Araceli, you’re taking things too far, but she cried and cried, desperately.

  “This has been very hard on me, darling,” she said, “and you have to help me. I need you to make friends with that snotty-nosed bitch, so that you can tell me who the hell she is and what kind of fling she’s having with my husband.”

  I swore I’d help her. She showed me a lot of photographs and I saw that the girl was indeed in the Javeriana. According to Araceli, they must have met on a course her husband taught on alternative advertising, and that’s how the thing started. She was a sexy young thing, no doubt about it. At least judging by the photographs. The kind of girl who put photographs of herself in a bikini on Facebook, can you imagine, Doctor? I started looking for her at the university, and in less than two days I’d tracked her down. But Araceli kept bombarding me with messages. Did you find her? Have you spoken with her? I had to tell her I couldn’t answer her in class, and begged her to be patient. It wasn’t going to be easy to get close to this Rafaela. She was a real preppy and I had nothing to do with her, but I’d made a promise. Several times I found myself next to her, standing in line in the cafeteria, for example, but it was difficult because she was never alone and, as far as I could see, never studied. In a whole week, I didn’t see her go into the library even once. She went here and there with her little group, all absolute preppies, and all they ever did was show each other things on their cell phones, listen to music, and parade along the walkways of the university. They only ever went to class when they got bored! I didn’t think Araceli had anything to fear from an airhead like that; her husband must have been infatuated, and once the girl had gotten over the thrill of going with an older guy she admired, she’d leave him, you could see that a mile off.

  But that wasn’t going to be any relief to Araceli, of course, because for her the betrayal went much deeper. She’d been with him since she was young, when not only was she much prettier than Rafaela but a thousand times more interesting. The insecurity of the years and the contrast with youth turned all that into a terrible act of disloyalty. Basically, it was a question of self-esteem and beauty.

  And here I’ll take a little break to make a comment about myself: thanks to Araceli and her constant gifts I didn’t look like a cleaner anymore, which was how I’d looked when I arrived, and which was, of course, how I really was. Because I was short, she gave me a whole lot of her daughter’s clothes, which were practically new, because the girl was constantly changing her look and, like all rich teenage girls, believed that her personality and the clothes she wore were one and the same thing. So I now had a decent wardrobe of used but good clothes. I didn’t have a bad body. I’m from Cali. I have good legs and wide hips, a reasonable ass, a good waist, and, out front, prominent breasts; my copper complexion was much appreciated; although I wasn’t playing up any of that, I was aware that lots of guys gave me the eye, only I didn’t join in the game so nobody approached me. But I was no longer the poor immigrant with her cardboard box and colored bag. Especially when I took out my BlackBerry and looked as if I was texting, when what I was doing was taking photographs of poems that I liked and rereading them anytime I felt the want or the need.

  When it finally happened it was quite natural. One day Rafaelita herself spoke to me in the cafeteria. Did you write the poems in last semester’s magazine? I said I did. I thought she’d realized I was stalking her, but no, quite the contrary. By some miracle, she was alone, so I said to her, do you like poetry, and she said, yes, it’s my true passion, so I took advantage to say to her, well if you like let’s get together one day and you can read me some, I’m studying literature, and she frowned and said, really? that’s what I wanted to study, but my parents insisted that it wasn’t necessary, that you could learn it by yourself, and I said to her, maybe they’re right, do you read literature? and she said, yes, of course, right now I’m reading a book by Susanna Tamaro, do you know her? I told her I’d seen the name but hadn’t read her, and she replied, oh, no, you have to read this, if you like I’ll lend it to you when I finish, it’s a bit like Ángela Becerra but Italian and more profound. As we were chatting I realized something terrible, which was that she had around her neck a big shiny gold chain, and I said to myself, that’s the one, if Araceli finds out it’ll kill her. Then Rafaelita said that she had to go to her class. Before leaving, she asked for my telephone number, can I call you? shall we get together another day?

  I said yes.

  In the evening, when Araceli came to the apartment I told her it was difficult to get close to her, because she was always surrounded by people, and I assured her I’d keep trying. I didn’t want to tell her I’d already talked to her, I don’t know why, or rather, I preferred to get a clearer idea of who she really was, because, to tell the truth, from that first chat, my impression wasn’t bad. I felt a touch of vanity, I don’t deny it: that a girl like that should talk to me was quite flattering. I decided to wait.

  Then Araceli said that her husband was leaving again the following weekend for a convention in Acapulco, and that she had been astonished, Acapulco? that place where dumb people go to spend their vacations and that’s full of drug traffickers and call girls? The husband said to her, yes, it’s awful, but the meeting is being called by a Mexican company and I can’t miss it, do you want to come? Araceli seriously considered it, but it might have set his alarm bells ringing and would also have been a flagrant contradiction. For years she’d been saying she didn’t want to be the wife of the great advertising man, the consort in those congresses where they were put on a pedestal; it was his life and she preferred not to get involved in it, so she said, no, thanks, if you’d said the Mayan Riviera or Mexico City, sure, like a shot, but I wouldn’t go to that place even if they paid me, thank you, and the husband said, you’re right, I wouldn’t go either, you see, even I have to make concessions, and Araceli thought: I’m sure he’s going to take his little whore, it’s the perfect plan for a sly fifty-year-old, and she said to me, help me to find out if it’s true, because, with these things, I’m putting together a dossier and I swear to you I’ll cause a scandal, I’ll ask for a divorce and make him spit blood.

  Rafaela called the next day and suggested we meet at Il Pomeriggio, a café in the Centro Andino, one of the elegant places in the north of the city. There she showed me some poems. I read them carefully and they were very bad, which was predictable; so bad that I had to make an effort not to laugh, but as
I’d already learned a few tricks I commented that they had a good rhythm, that they talked about beautiful things and made you see the world with an optimistic eye. Rafaela was delighted by that, the thing about the optimistic eye, and she said to me, your stuff is more mournful, isn’t it? I said yes. When we said goodbye she said something that stunned me.

  “We won’t be able to see each other until next week. I’m going to Mexico tomorrow and I’ll be back on Tuesday. When I’m here I’ll call you.”

  Again I felt the same contradiction. Should I tell Araceli or keep deceiving her? I walked up Eleventh as far as Avenida Chile, then went up to Seventh and caught a bus going south. Rafaela was a lousy, amateurish poet, but that didn’t mean she was a bad person. She also deserved to live and to expect something from life. Was it her fault she was rich and pretty? Of course, when she was young Araceli would have done the same if she’d fallen in love with a married man. When Rafaela got bored she would leave him and Araceli could calm down. The best thing was to say nothing and keep dabbing her brow with damp cloths.

  I also asked myself if I felt jealous of Araceli’s jealousy, but just the idea of it, when I put it into words, made me laugh. I burst out laughing on the Avenue, surrounded by buses and Transmilenio shuttles, and people must have thought I was either crazy or on drugs. I was very fond of Araceli and I went to bed with her, but the truth is that I didn’t feel love. What I felt at first was nothing more than gratitude. In fact, I didn’t feel love for anyone. I didn’t even know what love was. I realized that I was justifying Rafaela, that was for sure. I liked the girl, for all her superficiality and nonsense. Deep down, she was the same as me. She was sleeping with someone older out of admiration, hoping to receive some kind of help; that tradition, which is so Colombian (or is it the same everywhere, Doctor?), that the woman who gives herself to a man has to receive something in return. Although she was rich and I was poor we were doing the same thing: giving it and charging for it. Me to Araceli and Rafaela to Araceli’s husband.

  I didn’t tell Araceli about my meeting with Rafaela. I told her I was following her and that she struck me as a frivolous, silly person. It was what Araceli wanted to hear. Since this had started she had forgotten about poetry, but I hadn’t. I kept writing and from time to time I read her things, although she didn’t pay any attention. Her mind was elsewhere.

  When her husband left for Acapulco, Araceli came to my apartment and said, let’s go, and I said, where? Anywhere. Pack a bag. I did as she said because she really didn’t look well, and when we went down to her car I saw that she was ready. There was a suitcase in the trunk. We left the car in the airport parking lot and went to look at the international departures board: Amsterdam, Paris, Buenos Aires, Lima, Panama City. I said nothing. Suddenly she cried: Let’s go to Buenos Aires!

  “Araceli,” I said, “I don’t have a passport.”

  She looked at me strangely and I thought: that’s the way she must look at her maid.

  “Oh, right,” she said. “Let’s go to national departures.”

  We looked at the schedule and stupidly, it occurred to me to say: there’s a flight to Cartagena in an hour.

  Araceli looked at me very strangely.

  “Don’t even think about it. Everyone knows me there.”

  Finally we flew to San Andrés, to the Hotel Decamerón. On arrival, she bought two bottles of whiskey and asked a taxi driver to get her some coke and pills. When she started drinking, she calmed down a little and that night, with both of us in the Jacuzzi, she was her old self again. We made love until she fell asleep from the drinking. I didn’t like what was happening, when we got back to Bogotá I would have to start distancing myself from her, but how? I was living in her apartment and depended on her.

  I decided to wait.

  The following week, Rafaela called to say that she had bought a whole lot of books and had brought me a gift. A beautiful silver ring. I thanked her but I had to hide it. If Araceli saw it, I would have problems, because she continued with her questions: had I seen her at the university lately? was she tanned? I told her I wasn’t sure, but something must have given me away because she said, are you sure you’ve seen her? I told her that I was nervous about Rafaela, that I wasn’t good at spying, that I didn’t like that role. Araceli gave me a hug and said: I know this isn’t your problem, my darling, this doesn’t hurt you.

  Then it occurred to me to give her some advice, the most stupid advice of all.

  “Why don’t you go away with him somewhere? Maybe that way you’ll be able to talk. This is doing you a lot of harm, it’s taking you away from your poetry.”

  She was silent for a while, then said:

  “Maybe, my darling, maybe. Let me think about it.”

  I thought he ought to pamper her, that’s what she was missing.

  “You can’t let something like that ruin your life, don’t forget you have a whole heap of readers who admire you and are waiting for your next book.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “But of course, in my class there are many people who follow your work, students go around with your books in their bags. You have to think about that and protect what’s important.”

  She said I was right, perhaps that was the best thing. Try to find some peace and quiet, not away from him but with him. Then she added:

  “Would you forgive me if I go away for a while? I’ll make sure you have everything.”

  “You don’t have to give me anything,” I said, “you’ve already been very generous and I can never pay you back.”

  “But you don’t have to pay me back, darling. You brought me the life I no longer have.”

  She left looking confident and the next day thanked me for our talk. She had talked with her husband. She’d told him she felt that he’d been absent, and that she needed to spend a few days with him far from Bogotá to get back her self-confidence. Her husband, according to her, gave her lots and lots of hugs and said yes, he felt the same, and invited her to Europe, taking advantage of a business trip to London. As if it was nothing out of the ordinary, he suggested they spend two more months over there, traveling to cities they hadn’t visited for a long time, and he told her she could write a collection of poetry about the most beautiful capitals in Europe.

  The day before she left, she came to my apartment in the morning. We made passionate love. She was radiant. Then she took me to her bank and asked for a new debit card. She gave me a code and said, my sweet darling, you can take whatever you need from here. I’ve put some money in so you shouldn’t be short. I refused, told her it wasn’t necessary, but she insisted.

  “Please accept, you dug me out of a pit. I couldn’t bear the thought of being far from you if I didn’t at least leave you well taken care of.”

  I put the card away in my purse and we said goodbye. Then she dropped me on Seventh, outside the university. Before I got out of the car she again pointed out that we were still connected, that she could keep texting me to tell me everything that happened and send me photographs, too. I was happy. At least I’d been able to give her something, I thought. A good idea.

  When Araceli left, calm returned to my life and I devoted myself to reading and writing. I went to the movies, rented movies and watched them on my computer. There was a world full of art I had to find out about, bring myself up-to-date about. Once again, I was alone, which was fantastic. Nothing could harm me. My time was my own.

  One day my cell phone rang. It was Rafaela. She told me she wanted to talk to me urgently, she seemed very upset. Without really knowing what I was doing I told her to come to my apartment and half an hour later she arrived, almost in tears, I offered her a coffee and she didn’t want it, don’t you have anything stronger? We served ourselves whiskey. I asked her about her poems and she said that she had been writing, but that now she was broken up inside. She wanted to read some and I listened to her, but
suddenly she put down her tablet and said, I can’t, I’m a mess.

  I imagined the worst.

  And the worst is what it was.

  She started by saying that her friends at the university and her cousins and her sisters would kill her if they found out what she was about to tell me. I looked at her, pretending surprise.

  “You’re the only person who doesn’t know me,” she said, “in fact, you don’t know anything about me and the cool thing about you is that you never ask questions. That’s why I can only tell this to you, I feel as if I’m going to explode!”

  I would have given my life not to have to hear what I assumed I was about to hear, but it was already happening, there was no way out.

  “I got involved with a married guy and the worst of it is that I’m fucking in love with him!” Rafaela said. “I’ve got it really bad. We’ve been together six months. I can’t tell you who he is because he’s very famous. At first I thought it was going to be just a fling, because I already had a boyfriend, but the thing has been getting deeper and deeper, I let myself go, lowered my defenses, you know what I mean? I broke up with my boyfriend. I started to sneak out and tell lies to see him. To everyone! My parents, my sisters, my cousins, my friends. It’s a really stupid thing that just kept on and now I can’t stop, dammit, because I don’t want to stop! We traveled together, he gave me a thousand gifts, we made plans. I know he’s old enough to be my father, but he isn’t my father, and it won’t be the first time that’s happened. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  I nodded in agreement, it was a rhetorical question. Rafaela continued talking as if she was alone.

  “I’m in too deep to get out. And you know what he’s just done? He’s gone off to Europe for two months with his wife!!! Can you imagine that? The son of a bitch. He’s a fifty-year-old son of a bitch! And I’m stuck here like an idiot.”