Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar

by Virginia Vallejo

  I ask who else was in the know about his meetings with Ospina and Fayad, and he tells me only his most trusted men. I ask how many of them knew about my presence at the meeting in August 1985; he seems surprised, and he replies that, as always, only the two who had brought me and taken me back to the hotel. I tell him there’s a traitor among his people: almost surely he told one of his passing little girlfriends about our meeting, and she called the security organizations to denounce me, so as to wipe me from the map or force me out of the country. Now someone with the most twisted mind on earth wants to sell me the idea that he and the Mexican paid the army to murder both the magistrates and the rebels so he wouldn’t have to pay the M-19 what he’d agreed on if the siege was successful. He tells me that if he had really done that, he would have been at the beck and call of the army and the intelligence organizations for the rest of his days, and they would have been much more costly than the M-19.

  “Pablo: I’m not interested in knowing who talked about our meeting with Ospina, but you have to start taking precautions with your own men and with those expensive whores you buy all the time. You have an army that protects you, but I’m at the mercy of your enemies. I am one of the most famous women in this country, and when they tear me apart or make me disappear, the details of our relationship will be public knowledge. You’ll be accused of my death, and all your little beauty queens, models, and hookers will go running.”

  I fling the gold bracelet at him, saying it’s too big to belong to his daughter Manuela.

  “This is a little girl’s! You’re turning into a marijuana addict, and not only are you falling victim to your own invention, you’re well on your way to becoming a pervert! What are you trying to find in all those virgins? Your only feminine ideal, the copy and duplicate of the woman who was once the girl of your dreams? The one who was thirteen when you fell in love with her?”

  “I won’t allow anyone to talk to me like that! Who the hell do you think you are?” he cries, standing up and leaping on me like a beast. And while he shakes me like a rag doll, I shout at him, unable to control myself.

  “I think I’m your only real friend, Pablo! The only woman who never demanded anything from you, didn’t ask you to keep her, didn’t even think of you leaving your wife, didn’t want to get kids out of you. The only iconic woman who has loved you and the only one who ever will! The only one who lost everything she’d worked for all her life for love of you, and the only one whom the seventh-richest man in the world left empty-handed and with no way to earn a living! Aren’t you ashamed? And just when I thought that what we had was in the past and that I could live happily with a good man, I get a gift like this from a professional torturer. I brought you the photos so you would see what they did to all those innocent women because of your so-called cause, to talk to you about things that no one else would dare talk to you about, because I’m the only person who isn’t afraid of you and the only one in your life who has a conscience! You know I’m terrified of torture, Pablo. Just kill me once and for all, before I fall into those degenerates’ hands! Do it yourself, since you’ve ‘offed’ two hundred people and you’re a world-famous expert in strangling techniques. But this time do it quickly, I beg you!”

  “No, no, no! Don’t ask me for something so horrible; you’re an angel, and I only kill criminals. That was the last thing I needed to hear after all these months apart!” he says, now trying to soothe me, quiet me, take me in his arms, while I keep hitting him with my fists. Once I’m exhausted and, defeated, sobbing with my head on his shoulder, he kisses my hair and asks if I still care about him a little. I tell him I stopped loving him a while ago, but I’ll care about him until the day I die, because he was the only man who was ever good to me…and to the poorest of the poor. In the long silence that follows, only my sobs are heard. Then, as if he were talking to himself while I’m recovering in his arms, he starts to talk to me with immense tenderness:

  “Maybe it’s better that you live on the island for a while, my love. I feel better with you there than alone in Bogotá. God does things for a reason…but you’re going to get bored soon, because you need wings…and a real man. You’re a lot of woman for a kid like that. You…as Jane with the Tarzan of the aquarium! Who would have thought?”

  I tell him that after my Tarzan of the zoo, in my life anything is possible. We laugh with a certain resignation, and he starts to dry my tears. After thinking for a while, he says suddenly, “I’m going to propose a deal: Since now you have so much free time, why don’t you include in the movie script the whole truth about what really happened in the Palace of Justice? If the Italians don’t give you the $100,000, I will. And in advance.”

  I reply that the Italian journalist already said the producers wouldn’t pay that much, and I add, “Plus, I would have to leave the country and say good-bye to my life with Rafael. In any case, you have to understand that at this point I couldn’t write an apologetic version of what happened…nor of your existential reasons, Pablo.”

  He looks at me, offended, and with a deep sadness in his voice, he asks if now I see him as just a criminal, too, nothing but an outlaw with a ton of cash.

  “If the man I loved most in my life were just a successful criminal, what would that make me? I know that what happened at the palace got away from you, and from the M-19 and Belisario. But I also know you’re going to derail extradition with that massacre. Don’t expect me to congratulate you, Pablo, because everything that’s happening as a result of your business and your actions terrifies me. I can only tell you, now that you’ve brought the country to its knees, it doesn’t make sense for you to keep killing people. Don’t brag about that victory in front of anyone, and for the rest of your life, deny any involvement in that coup. See if you can finally rest from that hell you live in and let the rest of us live in peace. I’ll keep the secret, if you can call it that, but you’ll have to carry everything you’ve told me in your conscience. For their part, every one of those butchers will have to come clean with God sooner or later. And according to the Irish, it’s historically proven that the curse of ‘the crimes of the father’ never fails: the debt for the father’s unpunished sins will always pass on to his descendants.”

  Maybe to avoid thinking of his children, Pablo changes the subject and decides to talk to me about the pain he feels over the loss of Iván Marino Ospina. He tells me that the army killed him in Cali, in a house that belonged to Gilberto Rodríguez, and that the jailed head of the Cali Cartel mourned his death, too.

  “Your friend, your partner in the siege, died in a house of Gilberto’s? Imagine, the founder of MAS and the heads of both cartels, mourning a rebel commander! After that, the only thing left for me to see in this country is Julio Mario Santo Domingo and Carlos Ardila Lülle hugging and crying over Tirofijo after he dies ingesting a gallon of refajo!” (Refajo is a beverage made of half Bavaria beer and half Postobón soda.)

  Next Pablo asks me why I also lost my advertising contracts, and I explain that according to the journalist Fabio Castillo of El Espectador, “Pablo Escobar gave me Medias Di Lido and a TV studio so I didn’t have to leave the house to tape my programs.” The Kaplan family felt insulted and canceled my contracts. Arguing that a celebrity was very expensive, they replaced me with a model; women stopped buying their products, and the brand plummeted. I add that nearly all the country’s journalists know that I couldn’t fit a TV studio in my apartment, but not a single one of them has come out in defense of the truth, especially my female colleagues who have been scheming for years to get me off TV, especially Santofimio’s cousin and her daughter, the daughter-in-law of ex-president Alfonso López. They’re well aware that I have never been beaten and I have perfect skin, but they tell anyone who will listen that I suffered multiple facial disfigurations followed by an equal number of plastic surgeries, causing me to retire from the media to become only Pablo Escobar’s kept woman.

  “Those two women are like Cinderella’s stepsisters…and
El Espectador and Fabio Castillo orchestrated all those dirty tricks so you’d be left without work. I’ve heard that there’s a consensus among the media honchos to do to you now what they wouldn’t have dared do when you were with me. And the police colonel who brought the DEA to the Yarí labs was the same one who gave that miserable journalist a mountain of information for a book full of lies. But I’ll take care of all of them, my love: ‘sit in the doorway of your house and watch the dead body of your enemy go by,’ because your enemies are, above all, mine.”

  I get up from the chair and sit on the bed near his feet. I tell him that my favorite Chinese proverbs are “A blow that doesn’t break your back strengthens you,” and “What happens is for the best.” I tell him that if he topples extradition he has to promise me that he’s only going to think about building the half century of life he has left and stop his blessed obsession with what the media says. I insist that neither he nor I are judges, or executioners, or gods. I give him a hundred arguments to show him that now far from all those wicked people, I am almost so perfectly happy that I don’t even miss the fame or the social life or my career in front of the cameras.

  He listens to me in silence, scrutinizing my eyes, my lips, every millimeter of my expression, with that look of a connoisseur that he reserves for others and rarely uses with me. Then, with that authority conferred on him by the certainty he knows me like no one else, he tells me I’m fooling myself, that I ran away to that island to avoid thinking about all the pain people had caused me, and I took refuge in Rafael’s arms to forget him. Thoughtfully, he caresses my cheek and adds that it’s strange that I have such a clean soul, and that in all those years at his side I was never contaminated by his, which is blacker than coal. Suddenly, he stands up as if spring-loaded, kisses me on the forehead, and thanks me for going to Medellín to bring him the proof of something so serious. Before he says good-bye, he makes me promise I’ll give him my phone number every time I change it, that I’ll always be there when he needs me—as he’ll be there for me, on a private and very safe line—and that I won’t leave his life completely.

  “I promise, but only until the day I get married again. You have to understand that starting then, you and I won’t be able to talk anymore.”

  I leave Medellín a little calmer than when I arrived and convinced that if extradition falls, Pablo will be able to start rebuilding his life on the legacy of that generous spirit and extraordinary vision I had fallen in love with nearly four years before. On the flight to Cartagena I pray to the souls of the tortured women and ask them to understand my silence. After all, I don’t know where I can denounce all these crimes against humanity committed by state-hired assassins and thieves. I know that if I talked about the horrors Pablo has now confirmed, the media, so complicit with the powers that be, will demand I be thrown in jail for participating in God only knows what. And all for the entertainment of a country where cowards take their anger out on women because they aren’t brave enough to face men like Escobar.

  I want to wash my memory of those images of hair-raising torture and terrifying agony for which not even Pablo on the day of the Beretta could have prepared me, so I sink into the marine waters and start training to swim to the big island across from us. That one is still in its natural state because a foundation belonging to the Echavarría family bought it to keep it from being colonized. It’s six nautical miles there and six back to San Martín de Pajarales, which means six hours’ swimming if the sea is calm. I don’t mention my plans to Rafa, because I’m not a good freestyle swimmer. I decide that in order to become one, on my next trip to Bogotá I’ll have my eyes operated on so I can get rid of my contact lenses.

  The first time I achieve my goal, with the help of flippers, mask, and snorkel—which let you swim without much effort and without taking your head from the water—I congratulate myself, radiant with pride and waving my hands in the air in victory. Because activity starts a little after dawn on our island, I’d left the house at 7:00 a.m. to reach my destination by ten. I didn’t see sharks or large animals on my solitary swim, and I blame the dynamite fishing and the engines of the tourist boats, which destroy the coral reefs and are the only real danger in the small archipelago. I rest a few minutes on that deserted beach that fills up only with tourists on Sundays, and then I set off on my way back, now much more confident. I reach San Martín at 1:00 p.m., in time for lunch. When Rafa asks me why I’m so happy, I don’t tell him the truth, because I know it would give him a heart attack. Instead, I tell him that I’m going to stop swimming and start writing in the abandoned shed on an island a few feet from us. I explain that in my double condition as vision impaired and banned from the media, I have always dreamed that my colleagues in the announcers’ association could record audio books when they don’t have work, so the sightless could listen to their marvelous voices. He tells me that people who are too lazy to read would also like that a lot, but that he would want to hear my stories narrated by me.

  “And what are you going to write about, Pussycat?”

  I tell him I’m going to write stories about the Mafia, like The Godfather, and about hunters and fishermen, like Hemingway’s.

  “Wow! The one about the shark and the ones about animals are fantastic. But don’t even think about writing about those degenerate mafiosos who are ruining this country! I can recognize one of those traffickers the moment I see him, even if he’s only wearing a bathing suit: that arrogant attitude…the way they walk, or look at women…or eat…or talk…everything. They’re disgusting, filthy. They’d be capable of having you killed, and I’d be left without my pretty Pussycat!”

  The next Sunday, I descend the rope stairs from the second floor where our bedroom and the terrace are, wanting to find out whose huge yacht is parked in front of the house. I come face-to-face with Fabito Ochoa—brother of Jorge, Pablo’s partner—and his wife, who are admiring the little aquarium in the dining room while Rafa talks to their children about the pregnant sea horses, which are the males, and the “Little Monster,” my pet of an unidentified species. I assume that when it came to the royal family of narco-trafficking in Antioquia, Rafa decided to make an exception only because the Ochoas’ true calling is in their love of animals: raising the most beautiful specimens of horses and bulls. Their other activity is only…a very profitable hobby.

  Nearly everyone who passes through the islands visits the aquarium. The few who don’t know Rafa Vieira know me, which means that our social life is much more active than one might think. One Sunday, while we are having lunch with Ornella Muti and Pasqualino De Santis—who are in Cartagena filming Chronicle of a Death Foretold based on García Márquez’s novel—the cinematographer sits looking at me. He comments that I am “veramente, una donna cinematografica” and that he can’t believe I’ve retired from the cameras. I know that many other people have asked about my absence from the screen and the microphones, and I’m also aware that only Pablo and I know the true reasons. In any case, the words of that legend of Italian cinema keep me happy for days, and even more so when I manage to repeat my twelve-nautical-mile feat the following week.

  Rafa and I often attend parties on neighboring islands, especially those thrown by Germán Leongómez, whose sister is married to Admiral Juan Antonio Pizarro. Their son, Carlos Pizarro Leongómez, has become the new leader of the M-19 after the deaths of Iván Marino Ospina and Álvaro Fayad. Pizarro is popularly known as “Commander Papito,” because he’s the only guerrilla leader in history who looks the way Che Guevara does in photos, and not like an escaped inmate from Bogotá’s Modelo prison. And, through the twists and turns of life, his rich uncle Germán, whom I had met as a suitor for the hand of the much richer Rasmussen widow, would soon become the boyfriend of the only Colombian congressperson who could aspire to a political career in France: Íngrid Betancourt.

  A couple of weeks later I return to Bogotá, because in order to find out if I can operate on my eyes, I have to go without my contact lenses f
or two weeks. I decide to spend those days in my apartment in the capital, instead of on the island where I could have an accident, slip and fall, and end up in Pancho Villa’s fins. In spite of the fact that only twenty people now know my telephone number, and all of them know I live in Cartagena, I find hundreds of calls on my answering machine. They range from the inevitable calls from David Metcalfe and Armando de Armas to the dozens who hang up without identifying themselves or leave messages threatening rape and torture. A few days after my arrival, Pablo calls.

  “Finally, you’re back! Did you get tired of living with Tarzan?”

  “No, I’m not tired of Rafael. I came to see if I can have my eyes operated on before I go blind. And you, have you gotten tired of what you’ve always done?”

  “No, no, my love: I enjoy making mischief more every day! But what do you do all day on that island, aside from swim and sunbathe? Have you worked on my script or on the book?”

  “The novel won’t come….Every time I finish a chapter, I’m horrified at the thought that someone could read it, and I tear it up. I think you were the only person in the world I wasn’t ashamed to show what I wrote.”

  “I love to hear that! Now that’s truly an honor, my dear. I’m going to talk to you on a different phone every three minutes, okay? Change.”