Usually, we got together in his room.
Time passed.
One day he was in the back garden of his house, kicking a ball at the wall, while I told him the story of the latest Salgari novel he had been given. Without our noticing, his mother arrived and heard everything from upstairs. When I’d finished the story, which if I remember correctly was Sandokan Fights Back, Víctor said, good, let me bring you the latest. I stayed out in the garden, waiting for him, and saw his mother come out.
Hello, Manuelito, I heard you telling Víctor the story of a novel, do you read his books?
I froze. We’d been discovered.
Goodbye, novels.
But his mother said: you can take whatever books you like. I’ll lend them to you. And it isn’t necessary for you to tell Víctor the stories. If he doesn’t want to read them, we’ll see about that.
A moment later Víctor arrived with a book in his hand, and when he saw her he hid it under his jacket, but she said, don’t hide it, give it to Manuel. Books are for those who read them.
That’s how I gained a library.
In my house it was the opposite, I had to hide them or pretend they came from school in order not to draw attention to them, because Father said with pride that he couldn’t just sit there doing nothing and that’s why he didn’t read novels or watch movies, why he only read biographies and newspapers and watched the TV news, that way he could spend time sitting in his chair, sometimes with a notebook in which he wrote things down that he later used in his speeches at the dinner table. Father despised the world of culture. He hated it because he felt excluded from it.
When Uribe won the elections, Father was so pleased that he went to the neighborhood store for a bottle of Molino Rojo champagne and that night, that Sunday night, he uncorked it at the table, and served all of us, including me, and raised his glass saying, this country has been saved, dammit, it’s been saved, long live life, there’s a future, now those terrorists are going to see. I gulped down that horrible drink and didn’t say a word. Juana did the same, not caring very much, but Father and Mother gave each other a big hug and when they separated I saw that they had tears in their eyes. The country has been saved, Bertha, he kept saying, emotionally, and Mother repeated, it’s been saved, Alberto, and they hugged each other again, and so on until the bottle was finished. Then they went out on the street to watch the parade of cars going along Seventh, celebrating with music and honking horns, the buses making a great din, that cloud of joy rising into the air and coming to rest on the hills.
The country had been saved.
Father bought bracelets with the flag of Colombia and decals that said I am a Colombian. He felt proud. My only concern was for him to stop making his speeches, so I distanced myself from all that, which deep down I didn’t care about, and devoted myself to my wall.
With my spray cans I painted another island surrounded by ocean, with protective cliffs and a little house near the shore, where I imagined Juana and I were living, and below the island, which floated like a cork, I painted dragons with huge jaws trying to swallow it, and a beautiful smoking volcano, and at the side I again put my signature, MAL, of which I was very proud, just like father with Uribe. It was the fourth time I had painted something big near the sewer, and I thought, when would I dare to paint on other walls, far from the neighborhood and my house? One way or another, going out into the city meant breaking through the protective shell of childhood.
The truth is, I was nervous.
I also started to experiment with the shapes of some letters. The S a viper of fire in the sky, biting the night. The M a mountain, the feet of a strange Martian. The U an old cabalistic sign, a horseshoe in reverse, the imminence of fire and pain. The J a seahorse because it was Juana’s letter, in other words, it meant my freedom, my hope. I foreshortened them, gave them depth and volume. Some shapes I made were kitsch, others classical. I imitated Garamond and Boldoni typefaces. I painted sunrises. I painted an image of the seabed that came to me in dreams, thick darkness with one open eye, the eye of some fish or other.
The history of the country was moving forward.
Not much time passed—a year, six months, do you remember, Consul?—before the joy of Uribe’s victory started to crack and sunlight to filter in through the cracks. As often happens, it was a few intellectuals who sounded the alarm. They criticized Uribe for behaving like a provincial Messiah, always talking about the Virgin Mary, and started alluding to his relationship with the death squads and the paramilitaries.
Father closed his ears, he couldn’t accept it. His rejection of the intellectual world became a matter of national security—as he put it—and when he saw what was happening he overflowed with justifications and reasons.
I told you! he would cry, what this country doesn’t need is that herd of pundits, and not just them, the whole mob of intellectuals who live from one cocktail to another, rich kids, idlers who spend their time criticizing the president without suggesting anything better and talking ill of the country, because let’s make no mistake about this, they’re the ones who really give Colombia bad press, what do they care? most of them come from foreign schools, they’re brought up to admire France or England or the United States, so what does it matter to them? That’s why they criticize the president and only talk about the bad things that happen here, talking about them in Europe and the United States, why do they never talk about the good things? why do they never mention the heroes of our history, or the martyrs? why don’t they say that Colombia is a power in biodiversity, in flora and fauna, that it has every possible climate and lots of greenery and clean water and blue skies? why don’t they talk about how good it is to live in Bogotá, in spite of the problems, and how great it is to have a temperate climate like the climate in Melgar or Girardot just forty minutes away? oh, no, they can’t say that because nobody’s interested, speaking well of Colombia doesn’t sell, don’t you see? that’s why they keep talking about the murderers in this country and the drug traffickers in this country and the hit men and the prostitutes and all the dead in this country, as if those things didn’t exist everywhere! that’s the truth, the sad truth, Father said whenever for some reason somebody, usually my sister, mentioned what some writer or intellectual had said against the government.
And as the years went by, he got worse and worse.
He just had to hear some name mentioned by Juana and he immediately came out with the same old story: on one side there’s us, standing shoulder to shoulder with the president, waging war on FARC and on Chávez and on all the Communists in Latin America, and on the other side there’s them, always criticizing, as if they didn’t know that what they’re saying helps our enemies, how many of those hippies are really Communists, Chavists, or even members of FARC? If they like it so much why don’t they go into the mountains or to Venezuela or Cuba! let’s see if they’re allowed to criticize things there, oh yes, I’d like to see that! If they said in Caracas or Havana half of what they say in Bogotá they’d be thrown in prison, and as most are columnists, worse still, that’s why decent people have to rally around the president, who’s an upright man and, what’s more, a believer. This country has always been Catholic, there’s nothing new about that, why does everyone criticize him when he mentions the Virgin Mary in his speeches? what’s wrong with him praying on television? It’s normal in a Catholic country, haven’t they seen how Bush goes to mass and talks about God and nobody says anything? Why keep saying that about the president? I mean, even Chávez quotes the Bible at every opportunity! It makes them angry and they criticize, but the truth is that we’ve never been better and we’ve never been respected so much in Washington.
Juana, who was already in tenth grade and had gotten used to answering back, would retort and say, what do you mean, Dad, respected? on the contrary, we’re a pure banana republic, I feel ashamed when I see Uribe going to Washington to show the figures for the Free Trade Agreement, which they’re never going to agree to while he’s
president, and you know why? because there they have reports about crimes, about the State’s responsibility for massacres, reports they compiled themselves, or do you think the gringos rely on our local columnists to judge Colombia?
Father would lose his temper and say, what crimes of the State, no way, since when is fighting terrorism a crime? If the gringos had allowed the same NGOs in Iraq or Afghanistan that they’ve set up here, they’d all be in prison, from the Secretary of Defense down, but that’s because the terrorists, how shall I put this? aren’t students throwing Molotov cocktails, that’s why the army has to act like any other army in the world and when that happens there are always victims, so what? Whatever those idiots you read say, nothing is happening here that hasn’t already happened in all the countries where there’s ever been a war, but because it’s us, we’re asked to do it with surgical gloves on.
Daddy, you’re a fascist and a paramilitary! Juana would yell, like most people in this damned country, what a dumb country! gross!
Then she’d grab her jacket and go out, slamming the door, simultaneously with Mother crying, what a rude girl! but Father would intervene, leave her, Bertha, she’s always trying to pick a fight, these teenage years of Juanita’s will be the death of us, but we have to understand her, let her go for a walk and calm down, when you’re young you’re rebellious and you like to argue.
I’d sit there, glued to my chair, wishing I could take out my watch and freeze them, and as soon as I had the chance, I’d creep up to my room, grab a book, and start reading fervently, as if those signs were magic words that could take me out of that place and carry me far away, forever.
When I turned fifteen, Father and Mother decided to throw a party, and although I begged them not to, they insisted on inviting the family and a few friends. You wouldn’t believe they did it for me, Consul, obviously not; it was for them, to satisfy that ridiculous social fiction that obliges people to celebrate their children’s fifteenth birthdays. Juana had a study trip and couldn’t cancel it, so I was going to be on my own. As they wanted me to have friends of mine there, I asked Víctor, the guy from the block, because I refused to invite any of my classmates from school.
It was horrible, going with Mother to buy clothes for the party. In every shop she’d complain about the prices, tell off the assistants, and ask for discounts, or ask if they didn’t have the same thing but cheaper. The assistants all looked at her with a mixture of mockery and commiseration. Until the day of the party came. I don’t know how to describe it to you, Consul. I spent the afternoon praying that seven o’clock would never come, that was the time the guests started to arrive, uncles and aunts and cousins of Mother’s, and a couple of colleagues from the bank, all with their gifts, ridiculous things, a plastic photo frame, an Avianca Airlines toiletry bag, two pairs of socks, a spectacle case, a box of handkerchiefs with strange initials, a tie with the word Carvajal at the bottom, things they must have been given for Christmas or birthdays and that they were getting rid of, until Víctor arrived with his father and gave me two gifts. The first was a pair of goalkeeper’s gloves and some kneepads, and the second was a box of books. Inside there was a note that said:
For the young reader of the neighborhood on his fifteenth birthday. A dozen novels. With pride,
P and C
Mother looked at it scornfully and said, how stupid of me, it was such a big box, I thought it was something good, and Father, who thanked the neighbors, looked and said, hmm, funny, they must be clearing shelves! but anyway, you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, we can keep these for other birthdays, you always have to look on the bright side, isn’t that right, Manuelito? and I said, no, Dad, these books are mine, and he said, having already had a few drinks, all right, keep them if you want, son, but you’re not going to turn into one of those long-haired intellectuals, are you?
I still remember the titles.
Four of the twelve were a single novel, The Alexandria Quartet, by Lawrence Durrell; The Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa; All Fires the Fire by Julio Cortázar; and Aura by Carlos Fuentes; the rest was Colombian literature: Big Mama’s Funeral, Que viva la música!, La nieve del Almirante, Sin remedio, and El desbarrancadero.
Víctor helped me get through that horrible party, in which, for the first time, I drank soda laced with Cordillera rum, the cheapest there was in the supermarket. I had to make an effort to tolerate the tide of relatives and friends, who were all there out of obligation. It wasn’t hard to catch them exchanging mocking glances. Father’s colleagues from the bank made faces when they tasted the rum, looked scornfully at the glasses, and held back their laughter, as if saying, what is this concoction we’re being given by this nobody at his son’s birthday party? The worst of it was seeing Father go up to them and say, with a stupid smile, is everything all right? how about a toast, and the two guys would raise their glasses, hugging him and giving him the finger behind his back with the other hand. Mother’s female cousins, who only drank soda, fingered the cheap fabric of the curtains or passed their hands over the shiny covers of the furniture and looked at each other, trying hard to contain their laughter.
Everyone at the party was making fun of Father and Mother, but they didn’t realize, on the contrary, they kept proposing ridiculous toasts, requesting silence to make speeches in which they congratulated their son and thanked the guests, and Father even said, absurdly, that he “felt honored” by the presence of his work colleagues, who by now were laughing at him quite openly, to his face, but he didn’t get the message and continued with his pathetic farce, he and Mother, both thinking themselves great hosts, serving a horrible sweet wine with the food that made everybody laugh.
Watching that unbearable spectacle, I felt as if a monster had gotten into my stomach and was tearing it to shreds; I was tempted to side with the guests and make jokes, but how could I? An hour later, Father was completely drunk, demanding friendly hugs from his colleagues, who continued making ever more unpleasant jokes at which he laughed uproariously, anyway, Consul, I’m sorry to go into such detail about that night, I don’t know why I remember it so clearly now.
Juana wasn’t there, as I already said.
Around that time she started spending more and more time away.
Sometimes she’d get back very late, in the early hours of the morning, and come to my room. She’d take off her clothes, which smelled of cigarettes, alcohol, and sweet things, put on one of my T-shirts, grab me, and whisper in my ear: embrace me with all your might, you’re the only person I love in this damned world, and I’d embrace her and she’d keep saying, you’re the only person I’d protect, the only one I’d give my life for, you don’t know what a pigsty it is out there, don’t go thinking it’s better than this; there too there are sharks and stagnant waters, frozen skies and clouds, but we’re going to fight and we’re going to take off for a country where nobody knows us and we can be happy, and then she’d start crying, because she was a little drunk.
I’d embrace her and say, I’m ready, when you say the word I’ll go blindly, holding your hand. Suddenly I’d realize that she was asleep, that I’d been whispering into her deaf ear for some time, and I wondered what worlds she had returned from, so fragile and yet so brave, so full of things she preferred not to talk about and I preferred not to know.
After a while I too would fall asleep, listening to her heart.
6
It was a call from the Foreign Ministry, specifically from the Department for Consular Affairs. I don’t remember the name of the assistant director or deputy director who told me about the case, but he did so in a tone that seemed a tad sardonic. I was to fly to Bangkok that same evening. The Thai police had reported to the Ministry the arrest of a Colombian national with a small consignment of opiate pills in a hotel in the city; since Thai law was somewhat draconian, he would need legal and logistical help, even though there wasn’t much hope for him. For this type of felony, thirty years was common, although the public prosecutor would ask for
the death penalty, which made it a delicate matter.
“In other words,” the man said, “another fellow countryman who’s going to rot in a foreign cell, nothing to write home about, except that in this case it’s a bit more dramatic, what with snakes and huge mosquitoes and unconventional languages. We don’t have an embassy in Thailand, and normally it’d fall within the jurisdiction of Malaysia, but the post of consul is vacant there. Nobody in Kuala Lumpur can deal with it, so you see, that’s why we thought of you. We’ve already arranged travel expenses and tickets. I think they have a reservation for you for today, what time is it there?”
Almost all flights from Delhi leave after midnight. That’s why the Thai Airways one to Bangkok was a night flight.
I boarded at two in the morning and, three and a half hours later, the screeching of the plane’s wheels woke me. A policeman stamped my passport and welcomed me. I underwent the formalities for diplomats. Then I walked through the huge glass doors and was hit by the first wave of heat.
Thailand is the tropics of Asia.
A taxi. Crossing the city at dawn to the Hotel Oriental. A pretty postmodern roof deck over the river, a room on an upper floor with a view of the skyscrapers. Just time for a shower before I dashed to the Thai Foreign Ministry, where they were expecting me.
The head of protocol greeted me at the door of the building with a copy of the case file, we walked up a flight of stairs, and he showed me into the prosecutor’s office.
“Don’t go thinking this is Midnight Express, right?” the prosecutor said in fairly refined English.
He was a short man. His face seemed to occupy half his bodily mass, and had no doubt seen better days (the marks of his acne were even more pronounced than mine). An employee in a white uniform brought in a tray with tea and biscuits. Everyone was smiling. It was the land of smiles, even if, in his case, the smile concealed a certain nervousness.
Night Prayers Page 4
