Night Prayers

by Santiago Gamboa

  When they saw the file in Bogotá, they told me that if the lawyer had the situation in hand, it wasn’t urgent for me to travel, but that they’d set the procedure for a new mission in motion anyway, in anticipation of the next hearing.

  I preferred not to say anything to Juana until I had a specific date and a reply from the Ministry, so that night I gave her the excuse that I had a diplomatic engagement, which was actually true: a reception at the Bulgarian Embassy. And that’s where I went, in the district of Chanakyapuri, and was able to discreetly drown my nerves in vodka and rakia and eat Tarator soup and some splendid sausages.

  I got home late and fortunately they were both asleep. I had a last gin sitting on the bed, inside the mosquito net, thinking and thinking. I would have to act fast. The next day I called Bangkok, but wasn’t able to reach the lawyer until the afternoon. He told me they’d heard the testimonies of the police officers who had made the arrest and that the next hearing would be in three days. I asked him to keep me informed of the slightest development.

  Then I called Teresa at the Mexican embassy and told her everything. She was pleased to hear my voice, and offered to help:

  “Don’t worry, I’ll try to go to the next hearing with the lawyer, do you think you’ll be able to come?”

  “I’m working on it, but without a green light from the Ministry I can’t move. You know how it is.”

  After three days the travel authorization from the Consular Department still hadn’t arrived, so I decided to ask for leave and pay for the tickets myself. When I told Juana what was happening she looked worried and a tear ran down her cheek. She gave Manuelito Sayeq a big hug, lifted him up, and sang something into his ear. The child didn’t cry much, he seemed very peaceful, unlike the two of us. That same night we got on the plane. The child was asleep.

  I explained to her how vital it was that Manuel plead guilty and she understood that without having to think too much about it.

  “It’s crazy not to have done it from the start,” she said, “but don’t worry, Consul, I’ll talk to him and persuade him.”

  Teresa was waiting for us at the airport, at two in the morning. Oh, those night flights. She gave me a big hug, and I introduced her to Juana and little Manuel Sayeq.

  “I wasn’t able to speak with the lawyer yesterday,” Teresa said. “I did go to the court, but they wouldn’t let me in. To be honest, I’m not really sure what’s going on.”

  We got to the apartment in the middle of the night—Teresa had offered to put us up and I’d accepted—and we arranged the guest room for the boy. I would sleep on the couch. It was almost four but nobody seemed very sleepy, so Teresa suggested we have a drink.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” I said.

  She brought out a bottle of Herradura and we started drinking with a certain desperation, as if it were the antidote to a dangerous bite. Then I opted to withdraw and listen to Teresa and Juana asking each other questions, telling stories, getting to know each other.

  A Colombian sociologist of thirty-one (how old was she, actually?) with a life of loss, flight, hate, an unconventional, tragic adventure, which hadn’t made her resentful but quite the contrary, someone full of life, a strong, hopeful woman, capable of withstanding any hurricane, and next to her Teresa, forty-something, divorced, the mother of two daughters, a comfortable life, and more conventional except for the slightly unconventional aspect of her liking for strong liquor, a diplomat, living a privileged existence in a Southeast Asian country, with a lot of nostalgia and at the same time the desire (perhaps) to meet someone (isn’t that what everyone wants? what we all want?), always thinking of the future.

  I closed my eyes and fell asleep, not knowing what time it was, and when I woke I was lying on the couch, with clean sheets (smelling fresh, of lavender), and a nice pair of pajamas that weren’t mine! (Teresa explained that they hadn’t been able to open my case and hadn’t wanted to wake me, so she’d gotten out a pair belonging to her father, who had left them behind after a recent visit.)

  Dawn was breaking.

  2

  INTER-NETA’S MONOLOGUES

  Today, Death paid me a visit.

  Before, my life was a feast at which all hearts opened, and all wines flowed from glass to glass, from mouth to mouth.

  One of those nights, I felt Death on my knees and found him bitter. I cursed him.

  “Oh, Death, come and take away the thought of Death,” I read in an old book.

  “When me they fly I am the wings,” he replied, from another poem.

  I summoned all my strength. I planted myself in front of him and rejected his terrifying fury. Then I escaped.

  Death had a thousand faces. All the faces.

  Sometimes it was a young poet gazing at the twilight, in the port of Aden.

  Death is here, and oh so punctual.

  Lord, your guest is waiting for you in the drawing room.

  Entrust my most precious treasures to the witches, to the spirits of poverty, to hate. I have succeeded in banishing any human hope from my soul.

  As I already said: today Death paid me a visit. Death, the Grim Reaper.

  Death who never rests from his labors, from his sleeplessness. Who loves us and passes between us like a wind, a venticello, a slow, dense music, a dark cloud.

  I called to my executioners to raise their rifles, I summoned all the plagues to drown me in their sand or their blood.

  Unhappiness was my god. My one, beloved god.

  Then I lay down on the dusty soil of Harar and saw the young poet again.

  He was writing letters, looking southward. Every now and again he sank his hand into the red earth and let it run between his fingers.

  We played with madness (were we fantasizing?) until the afternoon gave my mouth the terrifying smile of the idiot.

  But I recovered my appetite, and went back to the parties, to the wine. Death was still there, I could not ignore him.

  Everything is merely proof that I can still dream.

  3

  Dawn was breaking.

  It was almost six in the morning, and Teresa and Juana were still asleep. I sat down in the living room to wait for them, thinking that a confession by Manuel would set things in the right direction. The waiting would be difficult, as would the procedure for the pardon (if the pardon came), but others had done it. They were both young, they would bear it.

  I opened my e-mail and found a message from Gustavo:

  What happened to Manuel Manrique? Did you find his sister? You never told me.

  I answered, saying that I had found her.

  She’s an incredible woman, I’ll tell you all about it. She’s here with me. She’s asleep now in the next room. We’re in Bangkok and in a few hours she and Manuel are going to meet. The trial has already started. I hope he’ll be able to serve his sentence in Colombia. It’ll have to be negotiated with the ministry. Thanks for everything, a hug.

  E.

  Around eight I managed to speak with the lawyer. He was surprised I was already in Bangkok, and said he would make arrangements for Manuel’s sister and me to visit Bangkwang.

  “I won’t be able to go with you,” he said, “I have a meeting with the prosecutor that’s key to the trial. It’s a big problem.”

  I told him I would try to persuade Manuel to plead guilty, and asked him if he thought it would still have an effect.

  “Well,” the lawyer said, “if he makes a confession the trial will end with a sentence that may be a long one, but at least it’ll get Article 27 off our backs. The important thing is that he do it in a solemn way, even a bit theatrically. It’d be very important to plan it for Monday’s hearing. I can ask to be heard first and announce it. That would go down well. It may even make them reduce the sentence by a few years. Do you think you can persuade him?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m sure. His sister will talk to him.”

  “That’s excellent news,” he said. “In that case, go to Bangkwang around ten th
is morning, I myself will call the warden and tell him to expect you at that hour. And then come to my office in the afternoon. We have things to discuss.”

  “All right,” I said.

  When I hung up, Teresa came out of the bathroom, already dressed. She called her office and said that she would be busy until the afternoon, that they should transfer only urgent calls to her. She called the driver to come and pick her up. Juana was in the kitchen: anxious, hopeful. With a touch of fear for what she had to face.

  We had a breakfast of bacon and eggs, orange juice, and coffee. The heat kept rising. Soon afterwards Manuelito Sayeq started crying. By 8:45 we were ready. The car from the Mexican embassy was waiting for us outside the door.

  Again the bustle of the streets, the smog, the screeching sound of the tuk-tuks, the accelerating and braking. And on leaving the city, the other world: paddies, fields with palms and fruit trees, stooping women wearing triangular hats, with their children tied to their backs.

  Juana was looking at everything in surprise.

  “I suppose I’ll have to get used to this,” she said. “This is going to be the landscape of my life for a while.”

  “The next fight will be to try and get his sentence transferred to Colombia,” I said.

  She looked at me anxiously. “To Colombia? We’ll see about that later, Consul, what makes you think it’s going to be better there? Anything would be better than that hell!”

  Her answer did not surprise me.

  “Well, that depends on the two of you and nobody else,” I said.

  “I could rent one of those huts,” Juana said, “grow rice, and visit him at weekends until he comes out. We have time, we’re young. Manuelito Sayeq will grow close to his uncle. Or rather, his father. Manuel will be his father.”

  The walls of Bangkwang didn’t impress her. The warden had a visitor from the Australian embassy, so we had to wait, and at last, about eleven o’clock, he received us in his office. Teresa accredited herself as a diplomat, given the task by her Foreign Ministry of following the case of the neighboring country. I introduced Juana as the prisoner’s sister.

  The man greeted her without looking her in the eyes, and said, yes, his lawyer called a while ago, you have an hour for the visit. He lifted the receiver and a moment later an orderly came to take us to the first cellblock.

  I asked Juana to wait, and Teresa went with her to the visitors’ parlor. I kept going with the orderly and one of the guards. As this was a special situation they authorized me to go as far as his cell and talk with him for a few minutes, preparing him for the visit. We went through three doors of rusted bars, in the midst of the heat and the flies. The corridor was a damp little passageway.

  “It’s that one,” the guard said, pointing.

  There were plenty of stains on the ground, seeping through the cracks in the doors, but as I approached Manuel’s cell, I noticed something shiny. I felt a rush of fear and walked more quickly.

  My God, it was blood! A bloodstain was spreading along the corridor, from under his door. We ran. The guard took an eternity to get the key in.

  At last he opened it.

  Manuel was lying in a fetal position. He had cut his wrists with a sharpened spoon.

  The guard went back out into the corridor and pressed the alarm button, but I saw immediately that he was dead. His eyes were half open as if he were laughing. I embraced him, clasped him to my chest, cursing. He was still warm. The warmth of his skin told me: not long ago, not very long ago.

  On the wall, just above the body, there was a drawing made with his own blood and traced with his finger. A heart-shaped island and a volcano. Two figures sitting on the hillside, a man and a woman, holding hands, looking at the approaching storm, unable to see the monstrous animals that lay in wait below the water. To one side, he had written: Us.

  By some desperate association of ideas, a poem by Vallejo came into my mind, and I cried out, as I hugged him: “Do not die, I love you so much! But the corpse, alas, continued to die …” I cried out until I had no voice left, and my face turned red and filled with tears. At that moment, feeling that part of reality was opening up, leaving a hole for the elements, the irrational, I realized to what an extent this story had become my story.

  A few seconds later (or maybe minutes, I couldn’t be precise), a gurney arrived and they took him out wrapped in a grey blanket. The guards were shouting nervously, giving each other orders. The other prisoners were also shouting; although they were unable to see what was happening, the momentary chaos seemed to excite them. What darkness, what sadness, I thought. “But the corpse, alas, continued to die.” Manuel’s face, his dignity, seemed to give an unreal light to those dirty, peeling walls.

  Going through the second set of bars, the guard went out into the yard and pushed the gurney along a path, right past the visitors’ parlor where they were waiting. The noise made both of them run to the window.

  Juana saw him and then looked at me.

  I saw something collapse in her eyes. More than pain, I seemed to recognize an expression of profound weariness. She came out into the yard without screaming, raising her hands to her face. The gurney reached her and she was able to touch him. The men stopped and Juana swooned over him, kissing him: his blood and his eyes, his pallor. Kissing his skin and his wounded arms. Kissing everything that was kissable on that dislocated, absent face, in which Manuel was no longer there. She wept and I also wept. “Weeping together made us feel a strange happiness.”

  Teresa also wept, but kept her distance, since she was holding Manuelito Sayeq. The guards said something to each other and continued with the gurney as far as the infirmary (I assumed). Juana hugged me again and for a second we were one and the same. I felt her grief, her guilt, perhaps her anger.

  Soon afterwards the doctor came and shook his head, he was dead. I already knew that. We all knew. Then he handed over two folded sheets of paper.

  “They were in his pocket,” he said.

  One was for me, and said:

  I told you, Consul, this wasn’t going to be a crime story, but a strange love story. Now I’m free, even happy, and with this freedom I abolish myself. At last.

  The other was for Juana. She read it and read it, crying, and finally handed it to me.

  “Please, Consul, read it.”

  Dear sister. I wasn’t able to see you, I thought I could hold out, but I’ve been drowning more and more, and now there’s a way out and I don’t have any strength left. Forgive me for failing you. I asked the consul to look for you but I’m not sure he’ll succeed, time is up. Soon they’ll be coming for me. I seem to hear them, hear their steps, but they won’t find me. My life was always yours, but I have it on loan. I’ll give it back to you when you come to where I already am almost, where I will be forever. You don’t know the pleasure I feel seeing the liquid come out of my body, at last clean of that blood. This purity will suffice for both of us. With mine, I cleaned yours. I’m waiting for you where you know. If you read this it’s because they will have found you. A kiss.

  Something bothered me, or rather made me indignant, didn’t they pass on the messages? didn’t he know that Juana was coming to see him? I went to one side (I didn’t want Juana, who was still crying in Teresa’s arms, to hear me) and asked the warden of Bangkwang: didn’t the lawyer send you my messages? weren’t you told the consul had found the prisoner’s sister? weren’t you told we were coming here? The warden looked surprised, which I didn’t understand, and when I repeated my question he said no, he didn’t know anything.

  Then he called one of his men and asked him, but he just shook his head. Without asking permission I grabbed the phone and dialed the lawyer’s number. One ring, two, three. No reply. I couldn’t believe it, he hadn’t been given the message! They had killed him.

  I insisted to the warden: it was important for us to clarify this, but he just looked up at the ceiling with a total lack of interest. I finally managed to speak with the lawyer:

&nb
sp; “Of course I passed on the message, I dictated it by phone to the warden’s secretary and mentioned it was urgent!”

  I told him what had happened and he said he would come immediately, that we should wait for him.

  I asked to speak with the warden’s secretary, but I was told, which secretary? he didn’t have a secretary, there was a woman who took messages. I asked the warden and he said, no, I already told you, I didn’t get any message. They called the woman and somebody translated: nobody had left her a message like that, when do you say they called? The woman disappeared after a while and it was impossible to get her back.

  At last the lawyer arrived and I said to him:

  “Nobody received the messages and he never knew anything. It would have saved him.”

  The old man chewed something, a leaf similar to a betel, and said, nobody kills themselves for something like that, at least in my country. He must have had his reasons.

  “You killed him, you didn’t give him the message that would have saved his life, and you deceived us all.”

  The old man spat through the window.

  “I understand how upset you are, Consul, but didn’t you tell me the young man was going to plead guilty anyway?”

  The blood rose to my head, and I had to make an effort not to hit him. Teresa noticed and came over. She said in my ear: calm down, there’s nothing you can do. He’s a son of a bitch, but you can’t touch him!

  I was having difficulty breathing, but I managed to say to her:

  “Manuel never knew I’d found Juana, or that she was in Bangkok! He cut his wrists only a short time ago, the blood on the floor was still liquid, do you realize? He killed him!”

  “Yes,” Teresa said. “But don’t forget you’re representing your country. Later, you can make an official complaint, or piss in the Chao Phraya, but here you have to keep up appearances. If you touch him you’re going to give them the opportunity to kick up a fuss.”

  We spent the rest of the day in Bangkwang, in a funeral chamber that was quite small but air-conditioned. When they brought in the body, in a coffin made of planks, Juana looked at her brother’s livid face for a time that to all of us seemed infinite. It started to get dark and the prosecutor (who had also arrived) said that we had to go, that they would be taking the body to the morgue, where it would be kept while they waited for his sister’s decision and the final legal procedures.