Return to the Dark Valley

by Santiago Gamboa

  Jerónimo started to sweat buckets. And he said to her, look, señora, if you don’t talk, you’re killing people, look what’s going to happen if you say nothing. He made a sign to Freddy and Freddy grabbed a young man from the line and shot him in the forehead. The body jerked backwards, letting out a spurt of blood.

  The people on the square got down on their knees, imploring.

  No more, Doctor, you’ve already had your revenge and none of us are to blame, the woman’s husband said, but Jerónimo again put the barrel under his jaw and pulled the trigger. The head shattered and the body fell to the ground. The woman ran to him and Bombombún mowed her down.

  This was just the start.

  It was now that I discovered that Jerónimo was screwed up and that he and Freddy did cocaine. I saw them go to the car to cool off and when they were there they stuck some of that powder in their nostrils. I preferred not to look at them. Then they came back to the square.

  Well, my dear friends, Freddy said, we’re in no hurry and I’m already getting tired of the sound of lead.

  He made a sign to Bombombún and he took out a thick machete, cut in half, so that it looked like a butcher’s knife.

  He passed it to Freddy and Freddy walked behind the kneeling men, scraping their hair with the edge. Suddenly he stopped in front of one of them and cried, this one stinks of shit! He’d done it in his pants. Freddy made a gesture to Bombombún’s men and they took the man to the corner of the square and shot him. The spurt of blood left a flower on the wall. At this, Jerónimo lost his temper and yelled at Bombombún, dammit, I said no more noise!

  And so they all had their turn, one by one, all silent, pissing themselves, shitting themselves. Freddy struck one of them so hard with the machete that his head split right down the middle.

  They left twenty-four bodies in the square. They only left the village when they got bored and hungry. It was already around nine in the evening. They washed their hands and faces and wrote on a wall: “Village friendly to the terrorists.” On the way out of town they wrote another message that said: “This is how the country punishes murderers.”

  “Long live Colombia!”

  After that, I distanced myself from the group. It seemed to me that these methods, although they are forms of combat and war, were starting to be inhuman. Hate and injustice prevailed over idealism, and once Jerónimo Vélez and Freddy Otálora took command things really got messed up. Eventually, I decided to leave.

  Dr. Paredes White had turned vicious and no longer acknowledged anyone else. When news got out about the massacres, it created a scandal in the press and Lieutenant Urrelo requested a transfer. So did I. The archdiocese studied the case and agreed to transfer me to another parish. Finally they sent me to Guateque, in Boyacá. As far as I was concerned, it didn’t matter where I was as long as I was serving my country and the Church. Afterwards, things got even worse, because news of the torture got out, and I asked the archdiocese for urgent help to get to Spain and do a course. Or rather, I told them, get me out of here quickly, things are getting difficult, and there’s going to be a scandal, and they helped me: I enrolled on an introductory course on Faith last year. Then the whole thing blew up and photographs of me were published. The Communists started making accusations and they found out I was here. They tracked me down and beat me up badly. I managed to defend myself. The police got them off me.

  Don’t think I’m trying to put you off remembering such cruel things. I’m telling them to you so that at least you know that I didn’t kill anybody. I waged the fight I had to wage, that much is true, and I helped, just as others helped who now wash their hands, and nobody accuses them.

  I’m not a murderer. I have clean hands. If they send me back to Colombia they’re going to say I was a bloodthirsty bandit. But it’s not true. The only reason I left was because sadists like Freddy ended up taking over the movement.

  I know perfectly well what I did and what I didn’t do.

  It’s a relief, at least, that someone like you should know.

  That’s all I have to say.

  PART II

  HEADING FOR THE 5TH PARALLEL

  (OR THE REPUBLIC OF GOODNESS)

  1

  The second person to have his throat cut was a young man from Londonderry, barely twenty-two years old, named Timothy Kindelan. He was a student of political science at the University of Dublin and had been doing a six-month internship at the Irish embassy in Madrid as part of his course: in fact, he was only six days from finishing. He knew Spanish and liked Flamenco culture. He had produced a number of papers: one on the Irish in the Civil War and another, published as an article in the Irish Political Digest, on the legalization of the Communist Party of Spain after the death of Franco. He had been assisting the political adviser and had been doing research in the National Library in Madrid on the arrival of Islam in the Iberian Peninsula, with reference to patterns of community organization. His girlfriend, Elisabeth Hayes, had planned to arrive the day after the start of the siege to be with him in his last week and then leave for a vacation in Andalusia. Right now, she was still in Madrid.

  The Kindelan killing caused genuine shock, coming as it did after a week of relative calm and intense negotiation, which had led to a hardening of positions. The TV debates were being increasingly populated by radicals, such as the Catalan pundit and political scientist Luis Bessudo, whose main argument came from what specialists call “strategic communication.” In his opinion, every day the siege continued meant millions of dollars’ worth of free prime-time publicity for Islamic extremism. He believed it would work out cheaper either to give them a large sum of money to get out of there for good, or to launch a concerted attack according to one of the recognized methods of antiterrorist intervention, dislodging them by force or eliminating them with the smallest possible number of casualties among the hostages.

  In Bessudo’s opinion, Israeli-style operations were no longer as effective as they had once been, dependent as they were on an unequal fight in which the enemy’s casualties were not of the slightest importance, an impossible thing in a democratic state such as Spain, in which the rule of law prevailed. He also disdained cooperation with Russia—which had finally offered its help—because of the grim memory of its security forces’ reckless actions at the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow, in October 2002, where a Chechen terrorist group had taken 912 people hostage. The strategy was an interesting and even original one, theoretically speaking, but the result was far from being a success. What they did was to pump into the auditorium through the air vents several cisterns of 3-Methylfentanyl gas, one of the active components of the main chemical weapon of the Russian army, Kolokol-1, in order to make the kidnappers dizzy and then enter by force, but the final balance sheet still makes somber reading: 129 hostages dead, as well as 39 of the terrorists. Ten years later, many of the survivors still suffer from respiratory problems. That is why the specialists prefer SWAT-type actions. Even the Colombian police’s special anti-kidnapping group, the Gaula, trained to protect the lives of the hostages at all costs, was brought up in the discussion.

  Naturally, the Kindelan killing marked a pivotal point in the siege, but the police and the members of the emergency cabinet kept to a policy of absolute secrecy. Rumors circulated that there had been secret negotiations between the governments of Ireland and Great Britain to reduce the number of NATO bombardments of ISIS targets, but when those in charge were questioned they denied it. Another rumor was that the payment of a large sum to Boko Haram was being considered, which would have been an illegal solution, since public funds could not be given to a terrorist group, increasing its firepower.

  The TV in my new hospital room was set into the wall, between two windows. The other three beds were empty, so I was able to keep it on all the time without disturbing anybody.

  I was watching it when Pedro Ndongo arrived.

  “My Colombian friend! Pre
pare yourself, I come with news. Make an effort to relax your muscles.”

  “Thanks, Pedro, what happened?”

  “The legal issues have been resolved. Since you’re both foreigners and don’t have criminal records, either in Spain or in your respective countries, it’s been decided to settle the matter amicably. But I haven’t said a word. In a few minutes your lawyer will be here to tell you himself and make a proposal that you must accept. I think Señor Reading has already signed.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “Ha-ha, old Pedro Ndongo listens through walls.”

  At that moment, the door opened and the lawyer came in. In order not to have to leave, Pedro started diligently checking the serum in the drip bag, testing for static electricity in the stand, and monitoring the rate of drip.

  The legal explanation could be summed up in this way: the best and easiest solution to this case, which did not involve Spanish nationals, was pre-judicial conciliation, in which the parties reach an agreement and manifest their satisfaction, the authority in this case being the “third party who acts or intervenes.” There would only be a small sanction in the form of a fine for “disturbing the peace.” To reach this conciliation, I would have to make a concession to Francis Reading that consisted of dispensing with the argument of self-defense, which might well hold up in court thanks to the profusion of witnesses, but which would inevitably lead to a long wait and the rigors of an exhausting judicial process.

  “Would self-defense give me any advantages?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Pedro Ndongo cut in from behind the bed, “because a street fight can be avoided but not self-defense, and that works in your favor, given the circumstances.”

  The lawyer glared at Ndongo.

  “Thank you, nurse, do you have any other legal advice to give my client?”

  Pedro bowed his head. “I beg your pardon, counselor. I couldn’t help it. I have a certain esteem for this gentleman. I’m going now.”

  He grabbed his bag with the instruments, the pressure gauge, and the case for organs, and withdrew with a bow.

  I signed a few papers for the lawyer. He told me I could leave the hospital immediately, although I had to leave my passport. I could pick it up from police headquarters once I’d paid the fine at any post office.

  Soon afterwards, Pedro Ndongo returned with my belongings and I was able to get dressed. The swelling on my face had gone down and the corset around my chest held my ribs in place. I got through the administrative formalities using my Italian social security card. Then I called the Hotel de las Letras, explained what had happened to me, and asked if they could give me back Room 711. I was lucky, it was free.

  Then Ndongo called a taxi and, once again looking at me intensely, said: “Recover, think, and try to do something good with what you have in your mind, however murky it may seem from outside. Follow your instincts. So say I, Pedro Ndongo Ndeme.”

  “Subject of Teodoro Obiang,” I added.

  But he immediately retorted: “If I could, I’d remove Obiang’s vesicle without an anesthetic, and complete the checkup with an aluminum probe in his urethra.”

  Finally, almost by way of farewell, he said: “Even though I studied medicine, if I had to be anyone’s subject I’d choose Frantz Fanon; plus the Négritude poets like Aimé Césaire and Léopold Sédar Senghor, Léon-Gontran Damas, Guy Tirolien, Birago Diop, and René Depestre. And of course, the black Cuban Nicolás Guillén.”

  When I got to the Hotel de las Letras, a bellhop helped me out of the taxi and the manager came out to greet me, very pleased at my return.

  That struck me as an excellent sign, and it encouraged me to ask the fateful question.

  “Are there any messages for me?”

  “No, señor, we have nothing recorded.”

  I felt a mixture of frustration and anger. How was it possible that in all this time Juana hadn’t called? I decided to wait a few days, settle the matter of the fine, and go back to Rome. The end result of the trip would be frustration.

  Back in my room, I went to the armchair, from which, clearly, I should never have stood up, and called room service. It was almost three and I hadn’t eaten. I ordered a chicken sandwich and a bottle of sparkling mineral water, and again switched on the TV. Two seconds later, the telephone rang. It was room service: they wanted to know if Solán de Cabras water would be okay. I said it was perfect. I hung up and they immediately rang again, which rather riled me. Now they wanted to know if I preferred a liter or half-liter bottle.

  “A liter, can you bring it now?”

  I hung up again, but the ringing restarted as soon as I’d put the receiver down.

  “I already told you a liter bottle is fine, what more do you need to know?”

  There was a silence on the line.

  “It’s me, Consul.”

  “Who . . . ?

  “Me . . . Juana. It’s Juana.”

  I was speechless.

  “I’m in the lobby, can I come up?”

  “Of course.”

  I looked around for the mirror, nervously. The bruises had gone down. With some effort, I managed to pull up my pants, which were practically around my legs, because I had lost quite a bit of weight. I felt an emptiness in my stomach.

  Knock, knock.

  I opened the door, but the image I’d built up of that greeting immediately shattered. On seeing me, Juana gave a cry.

  “What happened to you?”

  She had put on weight and there were a few gray hairs at the roots, but she still looked like a young student. I wanted to embrace her, but she was the one who leapt on me.

  “What happened to you, Consul? Who did this to you?”

  “It was an accident, I just left the hospital.”

  “But . . . who? Why?”

  I told her what had happened since my arrival in Madrid the previous week. She listened attentively and in the end said:

  “You can’t stay in a hotel in that state. I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning and take you to my place. I’m going to look after you until you recover.”

  “It’s not necessary for me to come to your place,” I said, “I don’t want to be any bother. You can still help me even if I’m here.”

  “Don’t even think about it, Consul, and besides it’d work out expensive for you. I was the one who told you to come. Let me see your diagnosis and prescriptions. Remember, I worked as a nurse in Bogotá.”

  I gave her the folder and she read it carefully. She wanted to know if I already had all the medicines. When she saw that some were missing, she stood up like a shot.

  “I’ll fetch them, I know a pharmacy around here. In the meantime, rest.”

  I didn’t have the strength to tell her to stay and tell me about her life, and about the child, where was Manuelito Sayeq? Why had she asked me to come to Madrid? I had a thousand questions, but Juana left in a rush. There would be time for all that.

  When she came back, she spent a while organizing the medicines that she had brought, and at about ten she said she had to go.

  “Why did you want to see me, Juana?” I asked her.

  “It’s complicated, Consul. Rest for now, and tomorrow I’ll come and fetch you. Let’s talk about it when you’re better and we can have a drink together.”

  She left. I felt more anxious than before she’d arrived, and full of questions. Would she really come back? What was going on? Soon the anti-inflammatories and other pills knocked me onto the bed.

  I woke at eleven in the morning, to the sound of the telephone ringing. It was Juana.

  “I’m downstairs, Consul. If you aren’t ready I can read the newspaper while I’m waiting for you. It’s after breakfast time, but they can make an exception, would you like me to bring it up to you?”

  By noon, we had arrived at her home, which was on Calle de San Cosm
e y San Damián. Juana asked the taxi driver to look for a parking space and help us with my suitcase, since we had to go up two tall flights of stairs before getting to the elevator. She lived on the top floor, in a three-bedroom apartment with a sloping ceiling and wooden beams.

  “This is your room, Consul.”

  A large, welcoming room. The window looked out on an ocean of Madrid rooftops and the bright sky.

  “Would you like to rest now? Are you hungry? Manuelito will be here at two.”

  She had on a knee-length skirt and a loose blouse. Tennis shoes and white stockings. The apartment was full of books, Persian rugs, antique statuettes, discs, and pictures. Even a small collection of bronzes of mythological figures.

  “How long have you been living here?”

  “Two years, more or less.”

  “And what do you do? Are you studying? Do you have a job?”

  “Relax a little, Consul, I’ll make you some coffee and then go out to do a bit of shopping. Make yourself at home.”

  The guest room was clearly a study, but I didn’t get the impression it was Juana’s. In a corner there was a bamboo basket filled with antique canes—I’ve never known a single woman to collect canes—and the shelves were decorated with objects that gave the impression of having been amassed in a lifetime of world travel: jade statuettes of Buddha, small wooden carvings of African animals, two porcelain images of Mao, leather cigar cases, metal cigarette cases of different textures and sizes; on the bookshelves, many books in English and French, works of political analysis, biographies of great military figures, histories of revolutions; a sizeable bar on a table with wheels and drawers full of coasters and utensils for making cocktails. I looked in vain for a photograph. There were frames, perfectly suited to the surroundings, but the pictures seemed to have been carefully removed. Whose apartment was this? My first thought was that Juana had remarried, but if so it was strange, given that most of this stuff didn’t seem to be hers, that there was no clear or specific sign of a man’s presence either.