Return to the Dark Valley

by Santiago Gamboa

  BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS! EMBASSY DRAMA OVER!

  Juana came to my room and we watched as the operation unfolded. She was nervous. She moved from the bed to the armchair, then to a cushion on the floor. She went for a coffee and came back. She brought a bottle of water.

  According to the TV anchorman, the decision to launch the assault was taken because the police had found out through bugs placed in the walls that the terrorists planned to cut the throats of three more of the hostages that day, and that they were also considering bringing forward their own martyrdom by detonating the explosives.

  “We did what we had to do,” said the head of the Madrid police, “to save the greatest number of lives.”

  “And what do we know of the Spanish terrorists? Are they alive?” the interviewer asked.

  “Four are in custody, but we cannot reveal their identities. We shall be issuing an official press release with a detailed account of what happened.”

  BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS! EMBASSY DRAMA OVER!

  “What special forces were used to go into the embassy first?” another TV reporter asked.

  “In spite of the extreme risk, the troops who went in were special antiterrorist commandos of the Spanish police,” the man said proudly.

  “Did police from other countries take part?”

  “There was consultation, but most of the operation was ours. We have experience here.”

  The pundit Luis Bessudo, who had supported the idea of a police assault, was already expressing his opinion from the studio, where a panel of commentators had been assembled.

  “As we know, there are several different schools of opinion on how to deal with terrorism,” Bessudo said. “As far as I’m concerned they should have acted earlier, although I have to admit that by letting time pass they were able to study the terrorists’ movements and get a better idea of how to deploy the special teams. In spite of the casualties, the outcome is satisfactory. We can feel proud of our police.”

  Another of the panelists was the former president, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who said:

  “It’s hard to achieve peace and security when there is so much injustice in the world. Poverty, social exclusion, poor education, and failed states are all fertile ground for terrorism to gain a foothold.”

  He asserted that the most powerful weapon in combating terrorism was democracy and he recalled how, three days after the attacks of March 11, the Spanish came out to vote in great numbers—for him—sending a message of trust in the institutions of the State. He asserted that terrorism was the most barbaric of human reactions, and insisted on his project, formulated during a visit to the United States, to build an alliance of civilizations, in contrast to Samuel Huntington’s idea of the clash of civilizations.

  Another of the guests, the pro-Israeli pundit Alfonso García Ortegón, said that we should have seen it coming and that Spain, and Europe in general, had been far too lenient toward Islamist groups.

  “I’ve been saying it for years, dammit,” García Ortegón said, “we have to take the Arabs out of the European madrassas in London, Brussels, Paris, and even in Madrid, and put them into some kind of preventive custody, and at the slightest infraction, or if we find out they are spreading Jihadist ideology, they go to prison. Europe should build something like Guantánamo to keep them locked up, or bring back the death penalty for them.”

  He took a sip from a small bottle of water and continued:

  “Spain must put pressure on Europe and its air force should take part in the bombing, not only in Iraq and Syria, but also in Gaza and the West Bank, where Hamas operates, one of the terrorist groups that started this whole mess. Until it’s eliminated, there’ll continue to be conflict everywhere in the world.”

  These words emboldened the lawyer and international jurist Antonio Segura, who asked to speak and, even before saying anything, glared at García Ortegón and got ready to respond by reading out a text of his:

  “In 2004 the Spanish had more people killed and wounded by Jihadist attacks than the Israelis,” said Segura, “but that didn’t mean that we started dropping bombs on the homes of the suspected terrorists. The March 11 attacks were judged by a properly constituted court of law, applying a judicial process that treats all kinds of criminals equally, and in which all criminals have the right to a fair trial, as required by the basic norms of a state governed by the rule of law. The security forces of the state arrested the suspects, investigated, and presented evidence in court, by virtue of which it was demonstrated whether or not they had taken part in the attacks, and judgment was finally passed, some of the defendants being sentenced and others acquitted. This verdict went to appeal and the Supreme Court acquitted more of the defendants, on the basis that their participation in the events under consideration had not been proved.”

  And he added, pointing an accusing finger at García Ortegón, who was clearly someone with physical complexes and had sunk into his chair, somewhat frightened by the lawyer’s vehemence:

  “That’s the right way for a democracy to fight terrorism. Dropping bombs on the most densely populated area in the world or executing people without trial is another, of course, but it’s not what we do in Spain!”

  BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS! EMBASSY DRAMA OVER!

  There was a commercial break and the usual announcement, “We’ll be back with more news and comment on the police assault on the Irish embassy.”

  The first commercial was from a travel company: “Get away from the hustle and bustle, discover nature here, where the history of the world started,” and what I saw, much to my surprise, was an image of the Amazon River, advertising a cruise.

  Then a hair removal cream, with the following slogan: “Because only you know how far you want to go.”

  Then a make of SUVs, ideal for excursions to the mountains: “Take it to the top, where the only limit is your imagination.”

  The commercials seemed to be addressed to another world.

  We switched off the TV and Juana went to fetch Manuelito from school. I went out to take the pulse of the street. I had assumed that tension must still be high, but the amazing thing was that people, already sitting on the café terraces, preparing for the evening with their first gin and tonics, were far from nervous. On the contrary, they seemed euphoric.

  Only a group that passed me on Calle Atocha said something that seemed to correspond to the gravity of the situation.

  “The four who are still alive are black, man! The three Spaniards kicked the bucket.”

  A young woman walked past, talking to another young woman:

  “Fuck, I never thought I’d have a day like this in my life.”

  I pricked up my ears to catch her opinion, and what I heard was this:

  “First the network was down in the office for more than two hours, then my cell phone went off and wouldn’t come on again, right in the middle of a conversation with Mario! And when I got out on the street . . . my period had started! I mean, that was the last straw.”

  The other girl said:

  “At least you’re not pregnant.”

  The noise level on the news bulletins and the current affairs shows decreased and life resumed its normal course. The embassy siege was a thing of the past, and very soon there were new and urgent matters for the pundits to debate: the injuries of the best-loved soccer players in the West or the romance of the decade between a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and a woman from the jet set, when they needed something frivolous to talk about; or the boats that kept coming at night from Africa and capsizing on the high seas with hundreds of people drowned, when they opted for something more tragic. And of course financial scandals were always good for a comment, or the desires of various regions of Europe to be independent and separate from their poorer brothers: from Northern Italy to Corsica, by way, of course, of Catalonia and the Basque country.


  So time passed, and all of us in the apartment on Calle San Cosme y San Damián were kept dangling, until what we were waiting for happened. Tertullian called and said he had to speak with us urgently.

  “Look at these photographs, do you recognize him?”

  A man in camouflage gear, getting out of a Ranger van.

  Manuela tensed like a cat, swallowed, and tapped her finger on the screen.

  “It’s him!”

  The words acted like an enzyme that unites various substances. I asked where he was.

  “On a ranch near the Llorona canyon in Dabeiba, but he often goes to Cali and Medellín on drug business. It’s time to go over there and launch the operation.”

  Manuela mentioned the savings she had. She was ready to do it. Juana looked at me and said:

  “We have to go with her, Consul. It might be a good excuse to go back to the country after so many years. I’ve been thinking about going back and wondering if it was really possible. Is it ever possible to return? And return where? Where do we really return?”

  Tertullian told Manuela to forget about the money.

  “This is part of our struggle, plus there’s what I owe Juana. Don’t worry, we have people there who finance these things. Just stay calm.”

  That’s what Tertullian said, “Just stay calm.” And now here we all were, traveling to the 5th parallel.

  The plane had already plunged into the night. There was no difference between above and below. The cabin lights were off, and the passengers sleeping peacefully.

  Tertullian had his head against the window, snoring to the point of apnea. Whenever he woke, he would put his hand in his pocket, take out a chocolate bar, and gobble it down. Then he would go to the bathroom to clean his teeth and come back to sleep.

  I was trying to forget that, when it came down to it, the reason we were going to Colombia was to kill someone; Manuela stood up and went to the back, where the flight attendants were. I decided to stretch my legs a little.

  “You can change your mind anytime,” I said to her. “Nobody should feel obliged to do something like that.”

  “I have to do it, Consul. Nothing I’ve done in my life means anything while that man is still at large. I tried to build a house on top of a volcano, but the volcano is still active. When you told me about him, it made me realize that I have to resolve this if I ever want to have a real life, a clean life. Where I came from was hell, Consul. You have to understand me.”

  “I do understand you.”

  “I’d like you to read something of mine,” she said suddenly.

  “Of course.”

  “When we get out of this, I’ll show you some poems.”

  I went back to my seat and she remained standing beside the bathroom door, eating potato chips and candies provided by the cabin staff.

  I was curious to see Bogotá. It was seven years since I’d last been there, ten since I’d stayed there for any length of time. I assumed that a number of old ghosts from my adolescence might reemerge.

  4

  As I’ve said before, I’ve devoted a substantial amount of time to reading and rereading the poetry of Rimbaud and fantasizing about his strange life, asking myself the questions that all those who approach his poetry ask themselves, namely: how can someone with so much talent, a true genius, give up writing? Is it really possible to abandon it? Could he have continued writing for himself in a kind of poetic hermaphroditism? Is it possible to be a poet in such a radical and even violent way and then, one fine day, just stop? What, then, does it mean to be a poet? Was young Arthur aware at any time of how powerfully he had changed the history, not only of poetry but of all Western literature? Could there be a suitcase in some attic in Charleville, Harar, or Aden, containing manuscripts from his Ethiopian period, and will anyone ever find it?

  Rimbaud embodied a movement that began in the Stone Age, when man, alone, crossed the mountains and peaks and lakes, wondering what was beyond them. He was the embodiment of the fugitive, obliged to go a long way to fulfil his destiny, to meet it and embrace it. Even to interrogate it, to place himself in front of it and look it in the eyes. To go a long way, farther and farther, because any journey, deep down, is a search for meaning. I remember Lezama Lima’s words: “The idea of destiny is a phrase that says they are coming to get us, but it is completed by another: go out to meet them.”

  Humanity, by and large, can be divided into these two complementary categories: those who go out to conquer something, usually alone, and those who stay behind and found nations.

  Both have been fundamental.

  The African Homo sapiens of the plains, relatives of Lucy, fled north twenty thousand years ago and encountered the Neanderthal. That encounter was to provoke a major clash, and the one thing we know is who the winners were: the Africans, the fathers of today’s humans. Apparently, the extensive European plains were not sufficiently large for both groups to live together, one on each side of the river, perhaps. This may have been a clash between two ways of conceiving life: the nomad versus the settler. The former is more skillful, has cold blood, and can be cynical and murderous. The settler is good and happy. He is in harmony with his surroundings. He loves the plants and the mountains and the clouds. That’s why he is weaker. He has warm blood. He feels homesickness and understands other people.

  The history of humanity was spurred on by nomads. Like Odysseus, who roamed the Mediterranean for twenty years before returning home, or Aeneas, who would never return and, with his exile, ended up founding a country that centuries later built the first great Empire of the West. The will to leave is governed by many demons and ghosts, not only that of necessity. That is why on occasion the nomad returns, but it’s obvious to everyone, including himself, that what he is doing is studying new routes, mental maps, further escapes.

  A high percentage of poets and artists were great nomads, as were the philosophers. Jesus, the son of Mary, spent a third of his life away from his land: where did he go? In Kashmir, in the north of India, they say that he was there, in a Buddhist monastery. That has its logic. It was from the monks that he learned piety and forgiveness, impossible ideas in the pitiless Judea of his time. Returning to his brutal land, he ordered his people to love their enemies and turn the other cheek, and before long was crucified. On rising from the tomb where they left him for dead, he set off again and apparently retraced his steps to Kashmir. And there they show you his tomb.

  The tomb of Jesus.

  Joyce escaped. Van Gogh was a fugitive, as was Gauguin; Nietzsche and Cioran left their homes to confront the coldness of the world. The desire to look into themselves from the opposite shore has driven travel writers increasingly far: Conrad, Bowles, Greene, Neruda, Henry Miller, Octavio Paz, Lawrence Durrell. To go looking for stories or, as Bowles says, to see oneself changed by other landscapes and worlds, in such a way that the book that is written is the result of that change. But they all seem to follow a command of Rimbaud’s, the one he gives in that powerful line from “Farewell,” at the end of A Season in Hell, pointing the direction that literature after him should take.

  À l’aurore, armés d’une ardente patience, nous entrerons aux splendides Villes.

  In his Nobel Prize lecture in 1973, Pablo Neruda read a text entitled Toward the Splendid City, based on that line. Loyal to his militant past, he gave it a political content:

  Today it is exactly one hundred years since an unhappy and brilliant poet, the most awesome of all despairing souls, wrote down this prophecy: “À l’aurore, armés d’une ardente patience, nous entrerons aux splendides Villes.” “In the dawn, armed with a burning patience, we shall enter the splendid Cities.”

  I wish to say to the people of goodwill, to the workers, to the poets, that the whole future has been expressed in this line by Rimbaud: only with a burning patience can we conquer the splendid City that will give light, justice, and dignity to
all mankind.

  In this way the song will not have been sung in vain.

  Arthur Rimbaud is ready to leave after writing and publishing his great work, the only one he saw with his own eyes in the form of a book: A Season in Hell. It is August 1873, in Roche. But let us go back a little: the young man had just emerged from the barn with the manuscript in his hand. His mother had paid for the cost of publication in Brussels, and when the copies were ready, in October, he went to pick them up to send to his friends.

  Then he traveled to Paris to await the reactions, but things did not go well. Oh, young Arthur, what did you expect? Every poet dreams of being acclaimed, which is why the first book is a terrifying moment: to give it over, not to patient and charitable friends, but to the eyes of strangers; a specific and very fragile order of words that has to give way, alone, to . . . To what? The young man wants his voice to be heard, wants someone to understand him. That is the sublime ambition of anyone who publishes a book and huddles in fear to await a reaction. The anonymous reader is cruel and unfair because that is how literature is; only he who is prepared to take the blows can enter it.

  Arthur hoped for that attentive reading, but received a pail of cold water. The atmosphere was not propitious for a book from him, since everyone remembered him as the little Lucifer who had brought misfortune on Paul Verlaine. One evening, at the beginning of November, Rimbaud went to one of the Parisian cafés most frequented by poets and intellectuals, but nobody said a word to him. He waited in vain until closing hour and then, despondent, went straight back to Charleville. When he arrived, he threw his remaining copies of A Season in Hell on the fire.

  Poetic revenge on those who had ignored him!

  Having done this, he returned to London, accompanied by a new friend, the poet and bohemian Germain Nouveau, a contributor to the review La Renaissance Littéraire et Artistique, with whom he shared lodgings at 178 Stanford Street.