Night Prayers

by Santiago Gamboa

  We got off and Andrés Felipe said, best if you don’t say too much while we’re here, gorgeous, you do understand?, and I said, yes, but who are these friends? and he said, don’t ask too many questions, precious, I’ll tell you later. We were received with hugs and taken to the guest room, which was like a suite in a five-star motel, with air-conditioning and a bathroom with a marble tub, porcelain containers, bars of Spanish Heno de Pravia soap, and mirrors with wooden frames. The only thing missing was Benetton condoms. We left our bags and were invited to sit on the terrace, next to the swimming pool, and someone said, would you like a nice cold aguardiente? I accepted, but Andrés Felipe asked for a Coca-Cola Light. He was nervous, kept looking around, and every now and again talked in a low voice with the people from the house. A very nice lady, who seemed to be the wife of the host, asked if I wanted to put on a bathing suit; I said yes and she took me to the changing room, and in the meantime I started talking to her, do you live here? and she replied, no, I just come here to relax, and so I said to her, what kind of work do you do? No, I don’t work, I live with my husband. I felt like asking her, if you don’t work why do you need to relax? but I preferred to keep quiet, you had to be blind and stupid not to realize that the house belonged to paramilitaries, or straight drug traffickers, so instead I said, it’s a lovely house, I congratulate you on your good taste, and she said, thank you, we hired a foreign interior decorator, my husband didn’t want to build the typical Antioquian ranch house, but something high-class, and it came out well, didn’t it? Oh yes, I said, really high-class!

  We went out on the terrace, and with the heat, I got straight into the pool. It was nice and cool. A waiter reached me my glass of aguardiente, but I noticed that the others weren’t drinking, so I said to myself, this party is a little strange. Better to act as if I’m stupid and not ask any questions; then I heard one of the men say that the gentleman wouldn’t be coming until the following day, we have to wait for him. After that Andrés Felipe relaxed and had a few whiskeys. The lady of the house started a conversation but I couldn’t say anything because they were talking about Colombian soccer. Our soccer that’s poor and ugly, like the country: poor and ugly, and that’s why I don’t like it. Like talking obsessively about a disease, the way most people only talk about accidents or madness. But nothing else seemed to matter to them, and they talked and talked, that if the Junior or the DIM, or something very strange called La Equidad, which sounded like a discount store for poor people, and the strange thing is that the one who most insisted on the subject was the lady of the house. I realized they were talking about all this because they didn’t have any other subject and because the reason for this meeting was a secret and could only be touched on with the husband, who would be arriving the next day. Her role was to distract us. When they served the food she showed us into a very swanky dining room, with silver cutlery and a beautiful blue and white dinner set with embossed hunting scenes, and of course wine, not Argentinian or Chilean wine but French wine, Pomerol, a delicious red wine, though it was a strange thing to drink in that tropical heat; I had about four glasses with the first course, which was an asparagus consommé; then they replaced it with a white, a Sancerre, also delicious and very cold, and the main dish arrived, which was fish, a roll of salmon with fines herbes with a salad of leeks and purée, a delicious thing, and since I love to ask awkward questions, pretending to be dumb, I wanted to know if the salmon was from some nearby river, and the lady of the house laughed and said, yes, from the river Orkla, not here in Antioquia but in Norway, and everybody laughed and I sat there like a silly young busybody but she looked at me affectionately, since I’d given her the opportunity to tell her joke and look good.

  When night fell it got cooler, and they lit the fire and served us brandy and offered cigars, Montecristo and Davidoff; now the talk was about Shakira, whether or not she represented Colombia well abroad. The hostess complained that she sang in English, she didn’t think that was right because in Colombia people don’t speak English, but I said, yes, they do, it’s the mother tongue in San Andrés and Providencia, then she said, all right, and also the yuppies of Parque de la 93 in Bogotá, wasn’t it? Again everybody laughed. Andrés Felipe looked at me gratefully, I was giving a perfect performance in my role as the pretty but dumb girlfriend.

  After the brandy they passed around trays with a delicious dark whiskey, served in cognac glasses, without ice, because they said it was too fine, and they talked vaguely about how well the country was doing; around midnight we retired to the bedroom and I commented to Andrés Felipe, pretending to be dumb, what elegant people, nobody snorted coke or smoked joints, and he said, no, gorgeous, it’s different here, that’s why I told you that the best thing is not to talk too much and go with the flow, although you’re doing it very well, precious, I’m really glad you came. I fell asleep after a good fuck, but before I did I thought: are they paramilitaries or just traffickers?

  The following day, the host arrived at last, riding a sorrel with a high-quality saddle, surrounded by bodyguards. He greeted Andrés Felipe and said, how nice to see you, are they looking after you as you deserve? and Andrés Felipe answered, of course, Don Fermín, I wasn’t treated this well even in my grandmother’s house, and then the man said, come on, Andrés Felipe, don’t exaggerate, I knew your grandmother’s house, maybe you don’t know this, but my mother was one of her maids. Andrés Felipe didn’t know what to say and we all stood there nonplussed, there was a silence that seemed to go on forever, you could hear the air passing, so I stuck my oar in, out of pure intuition, and said, that’s the good thing about this country, the opportunity it gives us to advance, I congratulate you on your house, Señor Fermín, we’ve been feeling as if we’re in the Palace of Versailles, and then the man started to laugh and gestured to Andrés Felipe and said, and who is this very polite young lady? and he said, a friend, I invited her because I know you like to see friendly young people, and he said, good for you, come, my dear, and he took me by the arm and walked me as far as the terrace and said to me, before you leave here I’m going to give you a gift, and I looked at him and said, the only gift I need is this invitation, but I’ll take it because it came from you, and he said, yes, I like intelligent sensitive people, but go get in the swimming pool because I have to work with Andrés Felipe until lunchtime, all right?

  They came out around two on the afternoon. There was a moment when Andrés Felipe tried to switch on his BlackBerry but one of Don Fermín’s security guys approached nervously and whipped the phone out of his hand. We had lunch and then another helicopter arrived. Before saying goodbye Don Fermín took me to his study, closed the door, and said: I’m going to give you your gift, just as I promised. He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a box wrapped in gold paper. Then he gave me a hug and said: take good care of that bastard and say hello to the chief for me. In the helicopter, on the way back, I opened the box and found a beautiful watch. It was perfect for me. When we landed in Bogotá, Andrés Felipe put me in a taxi and set off along the road. They were waiting for him at the Palace. I understood everything but said nothing.

  I see I haven’t told you anything about my friends at the faculty, Consul. One of them was Jaime, an Aesculapian priest who had special permission from the Curia not to study at the Xavierian but at the National: a strange-looking guy, who looked more Norwegian or Hungarian, or even Russian. Yellow beard and hair, and very white, sensitive skin. He lived with his community in an area near Usme, with a Dutch priest. Actually it was a home for street kids and he was studying sociology because he wanted to understand what he should do to change the world. He was from Santander. A good person, very committed. He said that if Christ were alive today, that was where he would be. He hated the little chapels in the north of the city where rich people had their weddings. He said he could happily shoot those who celebrated Mass in those neighborhoods, without his hand even shaking, although obviously not all rich people were the same, there were shades of gray, and e
ven some rich people who were good. The real sons of bitches, according to him, were the priests who ministered to the rich and were all opportunists and liars.

  Other friends of mine were Tamara, José, and Carlos Mario. All three from Cali, very together, or rather, good students. They liked having fun and sometimes I went with them to prepare work or exams, because in the end, when it was over, we always went dancing at Café y Libro or Son Salomé. They liked salsa, as did I, and also rock in Spanish. With them I went to concerts by ChocQuibTown and Aterciopelados and Side-stepper. They were all on the left but they hated FARC and ELN. We wanted a change, simply to aspire to something different. The guerrillas were corrupted by the money from drug trafficking and kidnappings, and because of their passive attitude of hunkering down in the regions and becoming like local chieftains. The university was an open space. Sometimes FARC or ELN people came and held parades in the Plaza del Che, but it was nothing, nobody paid any attention. Anyway, that was my group, we’d come out of class and throw ourselves on the lawn to talk, to have a nap in the sun, to talk about movies or books or our lives, or politics, of course, it was all completely ordinary, commonplace, we were young students at a public university.

  To me it seemed incredible that anybody could think the National belonged to the guerrillas, when from inside the truth was quite different. Most of the students were middle-class or working-class, that’s what everybody thought was strange. That the poor should have somewhere to study, that the best university in the country should be for them. That’s why they want to see it closed down and the land used for something profitable, like a shopping mall, with a theme park and a hotel attached, that’s what some people want, and that’s why they dream of seeing it closed down and its students in mass graves. It makes them angry that poor people should have opportunities, that there are good teachers and a high budget, their mouths water thinking of those millions that could be used on contracts or on buying guns and helicopters to defend the Fatherland, but which are actually spent on books and on equipping laboratories, no, the rich don’t like that because, to them, sending their children to university, at Los Andes or abroad, costs them a lot, and that’s why they feel defrauded, what’s this about giving the best to the poor? what’s the big deal, then, in being rich? They say their taxes keep the country going, but you know that isn’t true. Those who keep the country going are the poor and the middle class, who really do pay taxes. That’s why Colombia is a poor and middle-class country. Anyway, Consul, why should I tell you what you already know?

  I went around with my group of friends, and in addition there were Brigitte and Lady, who had helped me get involved in that life. Once I met them in one of the open areas in Fine Arts and they asked me about the friends I’d made in the bar, and I told them, very good, excellent contact, thanks, I didn’t want to tell them that I was already flying higher, and why, and at that point I got another call from the former Miss Colombia, asking me to her office.

  I have something very good for you, she said, not for now, but I’d like you to think it over and let me know, and I said, why all the mystery? I told her I’d really liked Señor Alfredo, that I’d go back whenever he called me, but the former Miss Colombia said, what I’m offering you is much better, it means getting on a plane and going to Japan to work for six months, a year maximum; you’ll be in a beautiful residence, with everything thrown in: lodging, food, light and heating, everything. You’ll be working with Japanese people, who are timid, clean, and very polite, and in a year you’ll be able to earn several hundred thousand dollars, clear, they pay high-class women like you very well there, it’s a great opportunity that I don’t offer everyone, anyway, think it over for a few days and call me, as soon as you decide you can go, we have a free place.

  I walked out, lost in thought. Japan? a hundred thousand dollars? That’s what I’d been hoping to get to take Manuel away, but it wasn’t going to be easy to justify such a long time to my parents; I’d have to tell them I’d won a scholarship or something like that, it was complicated, too many lies and false papers. The thing sounded good but scared me a little. It had its pros and cons. I thought I’d be able to see how life was in Japan and later fetch Manuel so that he could study Japanese and learn to make films, like Kitano and Kurosawa and Ozu, there are bound to be good universities there, I told myself, but the problem was always the same, how to explain to him what I was doing? Just thinking about it made me dizzy, as if I was having to strip off and open my legs in the middle of a square, while everyone looked at me coldly and menacingly, no, to him I was virtue, I couldn’t show him my other side, even though the goal was to save him, or to save the two of us. That was why when he started studying philosophy at the National I stopped him from meeting my friends, it made me nervous to think that for any reason he could meet Lady or Brigitte and find out, it made me panic. How could I be with him in Japan without telling him? It was difficult, but a good opportunity. I would keep it in mind and see if anything happened that would help me decide, or if anything better came along. And there was also the other thing: the promise I made myself and which, in a way, I made to Monsieur Echenoz. His memory was still very much alive inside me.

  This is where the story starts moving faster, Consul, because the next thing that happened, sometime later, was that Andrés Felipe called me one afternoon, sounding very nervous, and said, I have to see you, precious, all right? go to room 507 of the Hotel Charleston, I’m registered under the name Boris Salcedo, can you come now? When I got there, he was a bundle of nerves: they were accusing him of having links with the paramilitaries, because in a joint operation of the police and the Secret Service one of Don Fermín’s people had been arrested with a computer on which his name appeared, as a contact, and the press already had hold of it, you remember Don Fermín, the one with the ranch in Antioquia? He said that going to that fucking house had been a mistake, that he’d been following orders, that not only the press was on to it but also the prosecutor’s department, that in addition Don Fermín had given them three days to solve the problem or he’d start to talk, and the president was nervous; the advisers had told him that the best thing to do was burn him, me! Andrés Felipe cried, doing a line of coke, can you imagine? what my colleagues are suggesting is to throw me to the wolves, the sons of bitches, saying that I met with Don Fermín of my own accord to get money, they tell me the government will stand by me to protect me, and my family, but I have to declare that I went of my own accord, can you imagine? it could mean ten or more years in prison and the end of my career, what am I going to do afterwards? what’s going to happen to my wife and children? that’s why I wanted to talk to you, precious, I’m going to refuse to make a statement, I’m going to defend myself, but since you came with me it’s likely they’re going to look for you, they’re going to ask you to inform on me, they’re going to offer you things or maybe even threaten you, I don’t know, that’s why I want you to leave the country for a while, if you need money I’ll give it to you, and I said to him, well, of course, Andrés Felipe, of course I need it, and he said, look, in that case I have ten thousand dollars, take it but go somewhere else, now, today, and then I asked him, and what did I do wrong? and he said, nothing, but you were there, precious, nothing’s going to happen to you, it’s just in case they look for you and question you, but if anything bad happens to me, then I want you to remember that when we got back in the helicopter that night, I went directly to the Palace to report on the meeting, do you remember that? and I said, yes, of course, you left me in a taxi, and he said, perfect, the best thing is not to have to say anything at all, but if you do you can’t forget how it was, right? go somewhere, wait for the heat to die down.

  He gave me a hug, did two lines of coke, and I asked him, have you already gone into hiding or what? and he said, no, what’s happening is that I can’t make appointments anywhere, I don’t know what to do, I thought to make a statement to the press from here, my lawyer is coming to talk with me later and then we’l
l decide, but I wanted to sort things out with you first, did you tell anyone on Don Fermín’s ranch your name? and I said, no, not as far as I remember, and he said, thank God for that, that means it’ll be harder for them to locate you, well, precious, good luck and don’t contact me by cell phone, delete my number and all my calls, okay?

  I left feeling nervous and making calculations, what might happen to me? I assumed that Víctor might help, after all he was in the Secret Service, so I sent him a letter, which was the only way, and wrote to him, what’s up, stranger? It worked, and the next day he called me, hi, princess, shall I send someone to pick you up? I said yes, I’ll be at the Metro Riviera, and when he saw me he said, the thing is, the heat’s on right now, I think Piedrahita is going to be out on the street all week, they’re really nervous upstairs, I stole a little moment to see you, princess, but I’m going to have to work later, I’m on a stakeout, and I licked his neck and said, don’t scare me, Víctor, who are you following that’s so dangerous? and he said, no, he isn’t dangerous, he’s a white-collar son of a bitch the chief wants to turn, that’s what they told me, we have to keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid, and of course, that got me worried, a white-collar son of a bitch? it had to be Andrés Felipe, and if they’re following him they must surely have seen me going in to the Charleston and even heard what we were talking about, but it struck me as strange that Víctor should be so calm with me, so I didn’t say anything more and concentrated on what I was doing, a classic fuck, and when we’d finished and he was taking a shower I saw his cell phone vibrate several times, so I stretched over to see the screen and two capital C’s flickered on it, CC, just that, once and once again. He dressed quickly, gave me a roll of dollars, and we did a couple of lines of coke; then he saw his phone and said, hey, wait, princess, this is urgent, and dialed and I heard him say, yes, yes, oh, fuck, seriously? okay, wait for me there, have you got everything recorded? no? good, I don’t give a damn about them, and he said to me, I have to rush, princess, we need to look for a girl who talked with the man, oh, God, this is starting to smell fishy, how many times have I told you, this country is full of bad people.