Return to the Dark Valley

by Santiago Gamboa

  The drizzle turned into a downpour, and there were some violent claps of thunder. The sky, at eleven in the morning, grew dark. Rafaela made a gesture of pride, but said nothing. She grabbed the telephone again, nervously.

  “I don’t think you’ve quite understood what my relationship with him is like,” she said. “We go out together, we have a great time, like all couples. But the fact that he’s older and married doesn’t change a thing, because I’m not going with him just to pass the time. I left my long-term boyfriend and I have an idea of my future.”

  She stood up and went to get more ice. Then a huge amount of rum and a little Coca-Cola. Things were getting complicated.

  “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” she said. “I’m going to send him a message telling him. I bet you he answers within half an hour! That way you’ll see our relationship isn’t just a fling.”

  She opened her messages and started to give rapid little taps on the screen. It seemed to me that she was demonstrating something to herself. Araceli and her husband were in Paris, and for a moment I imagined the bomb that was about to fall on them. Fortunately, Araceli had stopped asking about Rafaela.

  Rafaela gave a last tap with her thumb and said, that’s it, it’s sent. She showed it to me. The message said: “I have to talk to you urgently. I had the test and I’m pregnant.”

  Then she said:

  “Shall we synchronize watches? It’s eleven forty. I assure you he’ll answer before twelve noon. And I’m not going to look at my phone again.”

  “All right,” I said, “but let’s talk about something else because otherwise you’re going to go crazy.”

  We spent the time drinking and watching a news bulletin. I couldn’t stop thinking about Araceli and praying that the guy didn’t get the message. This strange drama, that I was the only one to know all the ins and outs of, even though it wasn’t mine, had finally gained the upper hand.

  My other life, the real one, was in a green notebook on the table. Every now and again I looked at it. My poetry was in there, and that was the only thing that mattered, the one thing that shielded me from all this nonsense.

  When twelve o’clock came, Rafaela said, “I’m going to give that idiot another ten minutes before I take a look.”

  She seemed uncertain. She stood up and walked a little dizzily over to pour herself another drink. I went to the kitchen and brought a plate with peanuts and potato chips. At last she made up her mind and grabbed her cell phone, but when she switched it on she turned pale. There were no messages, and what was worse, from what she said, he’d apparently already read hers. She lay back down on the couch, crying.

  “The bastard! He read it and he hasn’t replied?”

  I tried to calm her, telling her that maybe he was in a meeting, that there could be a thousand reasons.

  “If he really loves me, he should have called by now.”

  “Look at the calls, you did turn the volume down . . . ”

  She crucified me with her eyes.

  I suggested we go somewhere for lunch, because I didn’t have any food at home. We went down onto the street and walked as far as a hamburger joint, but she said, no, no way, let’s go somewhere nice. It’s on me. We took a taxi and went to a French restaurant. They gave us a table on the second floor and she asked for the wine list. To Rafaela, what was happening was inconceivable; whenever she looked at her phone her eyes filled with tears.

  The food we asked for was really delicious and, in my opinion, overpriced. She seemed to need it. Suddenly her phone rang. She gave a gesture of surprise, happy and expectant, but when she looked at the screen her eyes darkened again. It was her mother. She answered and said quickly: Mother, I’m sorry, I forgot to tell you I’m not going to lunch with you, all right, bye.

  By the time we finished lunch we were already very drunk, and we decided to split the check. Since I didn’t have any cash, I took out Araceli’s card. Rafaela took out another from Bancolombia and she confessed to me that he had given it to her in case she needed anything.

  Both of us getting drunk on their accounts!

  Rafaela wanted to continue the party in some bar, but I said no. I said I had to go to the library to consult some documents for an assignment, so she called another friend and left, very nervous and stressed, with the idea of continuing until nightfall. She was completely drunk. I made her promise she would call if he answered or there was any other news.

  I returned home, went to bed, and practically didn’t leave it again until Monday, to go to class. Rafaela didn’t call again and the days passed. I felt a profound disgust with everything that had happened, but I couldn’t see a way out. Why is my world so small? I asked myself, and just at that moment the TV screen showed a globe, and a voice said: “The world is in your hands, dare to enjoy it.”

  I started fantasizing about leaving the country. I had nothing to lose. I’d realized that I would always be alone. The one person who had looked into my heart was Araceli, but thinking about this thing with Rafaela and her fling with Araceli’s husband, an intuition told me that it was going to end soon. Something was about to break.

  I gave up being happy in return for a little peace and quiet. I spent hours looking at the map of the world on my computer screen, repeating the names of distant cities, considering borders and countries. Where could I be safe? Accepting that I wasn’t trying to be happy or to regain my innocence, a great weight fell from my shoulders.

  The day before Araceli came back, I had a call from Rafaela. She told me that the guy had finally replied, ten days later!

  “And what did he tell you?”

  “The bastard wants me to wait, and he’ll take care of everything. But then he really stabbed me in the back. You know what the son of a bitch asked me? If I’m sure it’s his! What the hell does he think I am? a call girl?”

  Rafaela wasn’t crying anymore, now she was offended. Her eyes vomited hatred. I asked her what she planned to do.

  “He’ll be here tomorrow and I’m going to make him pay, the bastard. What do you think of that, huh? I mean, like I was fucking a dozen guys.”

  “Did you tell him you’d left your boyfriend?”

  “Of course, he knows that perfectly well!”

  She took a deep breath and said, shaking with anger:

  “You were right, I should have decided what I was going to do about the baby before I told him, but how was I to know he was going to be such a bastard? If you could see him when he asks me for it, he gets down on all fours and lifts his tail, like a little dog. The fucking bastard! I’m already making inquiries about terminating the pregnancy. When I do that, will you come with me?”

  I said I would, and that she should inform me if there were any changes.

  Araceli arrived the next day but we couldn’t see each other until the end of the week. She said she and her husband were still at it like a couple of teenagers, that’s why she hadn’t come earlier.

  “The only reason I was able to come today is that he had to go to a ranch in El Sisga for a meeting with one of the managers of a project.”

  She gave me lots of hugs, squeezing me as if I were a cuddly toy.

  “My darling! It’s such joy to see you when I’m so happy,” she said, “how have you been all this time?”

  I told her about my reading and how I’d been working frantically on a book of poems.

  “I’ve also been writing, sweetheart,” she said, “sit down, I’d like to read you some of my new poems.”

  She read a series of odes and jolly verses that, to be honest, made me want to throw up. Hearing her, I came to a simple conclusion: anyone who’s really happy had better keep away from poetry, or be very careful with it. Then she asked with great interest about what I’d done, so I went to fetch my green notebook and showed it to her. We had already served ourselves a couple of malt whiskeys that she had br
ought from England, plus, Doctor, I forgot to tell you that she also gave me a sweater, a summer dress, and some pairs of semitransparent panties, very erotic and elegant.

  Araceli started reading my notebook, at first skimming through, and then very engrossed. Every now and again she’d raise her eyes and look at me as if to say, very good, and continue reading.

  “This is wonderful,” she said, “do you have a project in mind?”

  I said no, it was just the result of some difficult days, things I’d written very roughly, by hand; the notebook was part of something that might be bigger, but I wasn’t yet clear what it might be. I’d thought to let it mature for a while, I said, I hadn’t even copied it onto the computer.

  She hugged and kissed me with great tenderness. She wanted me to put on the clothes she had brought me, especially the erotic panties, and we went to bed. We fucked, and it was great, but she struck me as strange. Her body wasn’t responding in the same old way.

  I got up to go to the bathroom and I saw that I had a message from Rafaela saying: “I’m with him in El Sisga, on a beautiful ranch. I’m making him eat dirt, because of the way he behaved. We’re talking a lot about our pregnancy. I’ll tell you about it.” In another message, she sent a photograph of the two of them naked on a wicker couch. Under the image, she wrote: “This one I took in secret, with the camera pointed at the mirror, while he was fucking me, you can see he really loves me, can’t you? He’s already told me so in every way possible.”

  I hid the telephone. I was scared that in a moment of carelessness Araceli might try to look at it, the way she did with her husband’s phone. Although she seemed very calm. She didn’t even ask me about Rafaela.

  We drank, made love a while longer, and even took a few pills. Around nine o’clock she got dressed and said she had to go. I saw her to the door. Before she went out, she asked me to lend her the notebook with the poems.

  “I want to read it again more carefully, darling, you’ve written some really beautiful things,” she said. “Maybe I can help you find a structure. I have a few ideas, I think it’s about time other people knew about you.”

  I handed it over to her and gave her a kiss.

  “Take it and let me know.”

  The final exams arrived and I finished the semester with good grades, Doctor, and then something happened that made me reconsider the ideas I had about life and what it had in store for me.

  One afternoon, the head of the department called me to his office to tell me that he had the possibility of recommending someone for a scholarship in Spain to study literature and linguistics. He had thought of me and wanted to know if I was interested.

  “Good,” Cristo Rafael said, “I’ll put your name down as a candidate and let’s keep our fingers crossed.”

  I left the office walking on air.

  I felt so happy that I wanted to share it with someone and I sent a message to Araceli, but she didn’t reply, so I continued walking along Seventh, alone, surrounded by traffic and people. I suddenly felt as if I was seeing all of this for the last time, and Bogotá, this inhospitable town that I was already starting to love, was transformed into something different. A city of prisoners.

  I looked at the telephone and there was no message from Araceli. I told myself I was worse than Rafaela, obsessed with text messages, and I thought to call her. She replied immediately.

  “Hi,” Rafaela said, “everything okay?”

  “I have to tell you something, where are you?” I said.

  After a while she appeared in a taxi. She picked me up and we went to a cafe on Avenida Chile.

  “They already did the scrape,” she said, “in a clinic in the north; it was really very easy, it was the best thing. It’s a kind of surgical abortion. It was hard, but it had to be done. You were right. Starting out in life with a child on your back is stupid. What man will want to get involved with you? We talked about it a few times and he said he’d never agree to keep it. He’s reconciled with his wife and sees things differently. I thanked him for his honesty and took off after the operation.”

  “And what happened with him? Aren’t you seeing him anymore?”

  “Obviously he’d like that because he wants to fuck me, but as far as I’m concerned it’s all dead and gone. I’d like to turn over a new leaf and go back to leading a normal life.”

  “So you’re not in love with him anymore?”

  “No, and it’s his fault. He really made me eat shit and you don’t do that to a girl like me. In the long run it was better, because I was really hooked on him. I had such withdrawal symptoms that I even considered getting back together with Jimmy! Except that . . . can I tell you something?”

  “Go on.”

  “The poor guy took it so badly when I left him that he went downhill and started taking amphetamines and drinking. The break hit him hard but it also helped him, because one day, God knows what he was on at the time, he ended up in bed with another guy and something went click in his head. And now Jimmy’s bisexual, although more gay than straight. He even has a boyfriend!”

  I found it incredible that so many things could have happened in her life in such a short time. Barely three weeks!

  Well, in mine, too.

  Life is an incredible series of ups and downs. Now Rafaela and I were the abandoned ones, and that was fine. The sensible thing was for Araceli to be with her man, at least until the next crisis, and it occurred to me that I wouldn’t be there when she experienced it. I hoped to be a long way away.

  In the end I didn’t tell Rafaela about the scholarship, seeing that she never even asked me why I’d called her. She took it for granted that our chats should always naturally be about her and her problems. She was young, pretty, and rich. I’d known for some time now that my life was going to be solitary. We each have our own destiny.

  July came and, with it, the longed-for call from Cristo Rafael.

  “Manuelita, are you holding onto something?” he said. “The papers have just arrived from Spain, they’ve awarded you the scholarship!”

  I was struck dumb, I couldn’t say a word.

  “Come to my office, we’ll sign and get everything ready.”

  I received the notification and signed that I accepted. I filled out a form with all the required information. In a few days they would e-mail me the scanned documents for requesting a visa. They gave me the tickets, the registration, a room in a university residence, and eight hundred euros a month, including the vacation months.

  I left Cristo’s office and started walking up Seventh. That seemed to be my therapy. The city was no longer far away, but transparent. A city of musty glass that I could see against the light. At last I was leaving.

  I called Araceli and left her a message. I wanted to tell her everything and give her back the bank card. She answered at around ten at night and said, darling, that’s wonderful news! You deserve it, you’ll be like a shooting star!

  I told her I wanted to give her back the bank card and arrange about the apartment.

  “Don’t worry about that, darling, that’s a minor matter. Continue using it until you leave, all right? Listen, I have to go because I’m at a dinner. A big hug, darling, and congratulations. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  Then I called Gloria Isabel in Cali. I told her the news and she gave a cry.

  “Oh, how proud and happy you’ve made me.”

  I promised to visit her before I left. I couldn’t wait to leave, because I didn’t actually have anything particular to do during the vacation.

  Three weeks later, more or less, I bought a ticket for Cali. I chose some trifles to take Gloria Isabel as gifts, and while I was waiting to board at the airport, going for a stroll and looking at the stores, I stopped in the bookstore. I passed my eyes over the spines of the books, opened a few, and read a couple of lines, until on the table of new releases I saw a new book b
y Araceli.

  Songs of the Equinox, Araceli Cielo.

  I felt quite excited. On the back cover was a quote from someone saying that with this collection, Araceli had “taken a new, forceful, and unerring step toward a poetic understanding of life.” How come she hadn’t told me anything? I assumed she’d been about to call me, occupied with everything that the publication of a book entailed. They must be the poems about her journey to Europe and I thought to myself, how corny they were! If she’s published them, I hope she’s done some work on them.

  They were just announcing boarding when I got to the gate and hurried onto the plane. Once I’d settled in my seat, I took the plastic wrapper off the book and read the first poem. Then the second and the third. I looked at the opening lines of the others and glanced through them . . .

  I started crying.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  They were my poems! My green notebook!

  She’d made a few small changes: changed a few names, removed a few verses. I remembered the day she’d taken my notebook away with her. Araceli had known it was my only copy and now it would be my word, the word of an unknown provincial, against the word of a famous poet, a member of high society.

  I felt as if I’d been raped for the second time. Brutally raped. But this time I was the one who’d opened the door and surrendered everything. This was the price I’d paid for all her kindness to me. What could I do now? Who was going to believe these poems were mine?

  When I got to Cali I went to the bathroom in the airport, threw water over my face, and recovered. I didn’t want Gloria Isabel to notice anything. Vanessa had been allowed out of the clinic, so we spent the three days together. We went and ate cholados in Perro Park, watched a soccer match on TV—América de Cali was playing, and although it never got out of second gear it was still the team we all loved; on Sunday, I was invited to a club called Los Farallones and stuffed myself with fried plantains washed down with lulo juice; I did what tourists do, because this was my farewell. When would I return to Cali? I thought, looking at the city.