The Shape of the Ruins

by Juan Gabriel Vasquez

  “Well, thank you,” I said, and I said it sincerely (which isn’t always the case when one receives a book). “Look, Francisco, the last time we saw each other . . .”

  “Eight years ago? Are we going to talk about what happened eight years ago? No, Vásquez, that’s a waste of time. Let’s talk about important things. For example, tell me how your daughters are doing.”

  I did so. While we stood in line to be served dinner, while we walked back to the table and began to eat, I talked to him without too much detail of the experience of paternity, which seemed more difficult every day, and how I sometimes felt nostalgia for the first days, when the only obstacles were medical ones. Now I had to confront the world, this fucked-up world so skilled at harming everyone, and already at my daughters’ age you could see so many of their friends damaged forever. I told him about the last two years in Barcelona and the decision to return to Colombia. I told him about my impressions of returning to live in my city after sixteen years: that sensation of partial foreignness, of not being completely from here like I used to be, in Barcelona, not totally from there; I told him how it was this strange foreignness that had allowed me to come back, for I had always fed off it. On the other hand, the city had turned angry, hostile, and intolerant on me, and in an unpredictable way: contrary to what was happening when I left, the violence was not coming from well-defined actors at war with the citizens, but was in the citizens themselves, who all seemed to have embarked on their own crusades, all seemed to walk around with their accusing fingers outstretched and ready to point and condemn. When did this happen? I asked Benavides. When did we get like this? Several times a day I arrived at the irritating conviction that the people of Bogotá, if they had the opportunity, would not hesitate to press the button that would forever erase the detestable others: atheists, workers, the rich, homosexuals, blacks, communists, businesspeople, supporters of the president, supporters of the ex-president, Millonarios fans, Santa Fe fans. The city was poisoned with the venom of small fundamentalisms, and the venom ran beneath us, like dirty water in the sewers; and yes, life seemed to go on normally and Bogotanos went on seeking refuge in the embraces of their friends and sex with lovers, and went on being parents and sons and brothers and husbands and wives without letting the venom affect them at all, or maybe believing that the venom didn’t exist. But there were marvelous people like Francisco Benavides, who invested whole hours of all his days to give a hand to the terminally ill and speak to them of the best possible death, without ever avoiding affection, without rationing empathy or sparing his feelings, leaping headfirst and without closing his eyes into a relationship the only outcome of which could be sadness.

  I spoke to him about Carballo. People came into the cafeteria and people left, there was a background noise of cutlery clashing against plates and heels clashing against tiles and voices clashing against tense voices, and I spoke to Benavides about Carballo. I told him about the encounter at R. H. Moreno-Durán’s funeral Mass, told him what Carballo had told me, told him about the Orson Welles novel and listened to him mock that novel in particular and novelists in general, who couldn’t leave history alone or respect things that really happened, as if they weren’t interesting enough. He told me that was why novelists had lost the truly important fight a long time ago, which was not to get people to stop thinking about their disagreeable or gray or incomplete reality, but rather to get them to grab reality by the lapels and look it in the eye and insult it unceremoniously and then slap it across the face. I told him anyway it had been more than eight years since R.H. had died and the novel still hadn’t been published, so he was surely right: people had enough and more than enough with knowing how things actually happened, and no longer had any interest in knowing how they might have happened. And nevertheless, that was the only thing that interested me as a reader of novels: the exploration of that other reality, not the reality of what really happened, not the novelized reproduction of true and provable events, but the realm of possibility, of speculations, or the meddling the novelist can do in places forbidden to the journalist or historian. I told all this to Benavides and Benavides, feigning patience or interest, listened to me.

  Soon I told him about the forged letter and the offer to write a book. “Are you sure it was fake?” Benavides asked. “Completely sure,” I told him. And then I looked at an elderly couple who had sat down at the back, in the section with the soft chairs. I didn’t stare at them because they’d caught my attention in any way, but as a way to avoid looking Benavides in the eye when I told him I had to confess something. Immediately, without giving him time to ask what it was about, I explained how I had revealed to Carballo the survival—and location—of Gaitán’s vertebra.

  “It was unintentional,” I said stupidly. “It just slipped out.”

  Then I saw on his face something I’d never seen before, a new shape emerging out of his profound depths. A stretch of time passed that to me felt very long: four, five seconds, perhaps six. Then Benavides emerged from his silence, and he did so with one of the shortest monosyllables in existence.

  “Ah,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I see.”

  “I know you didn’t want that.”

  “I see,” Benavides repeated. And then: “I had my suspicions.” And then: “You’ve confirmed it, but I did suspect.” Then he looked at my plate, I saw him staring at the position of my cutlery. “Have you finished?” he asked. “Would you like dessert, a coffee?”

  “No, nothing, thanks.”

  “No. Me neither.”

  I saw him stand up and lift the tray with a slight bend of the knee, not the torso. He started to walk over to the place where used or dirty trays are left. I stood up and followed him.

  “Sorry, Francisco, forgive my carelessness,” I said. “I know you wanted to keep that secret. But I was arguing with Carballo, it got heated and I ended up letting that out, almost spitting it out at him. You have to understand, it was the only way to get him to stop annoying me. Yes, it was clumsy on my part. A stupid thing to do. But surely it’s not the end of the world.”

  He smoothed his white coat and looked at me.

  “I don’t know about the end of the world,” he said. “But it is the beginning of the night. To put it another way, our night just got longer, Vásquez, I hope you haven’t told them you’ll be home early. Come on, come with me on some rounds and I’ll tell you what happened to me. See what you think.”

  And he started to tell me.

  * * *

  —

  “A FEW YEARS AGO I organized a party at my house,” said Benavides. “For my wife’s birthday, the best-worn fifty years I’ve ever seen. Some friends of hers came, some friends of mine, some friends of both. One of the guests, as is probably obvious, was Carballo, who arrived first and was the last to leave. Carballo is like a piece of furniture in my house, Vásquez. We’ve grown used to him; he’s like the unmarried uncle who always shows up, who is as much part of the family as any of us and wanders around the house as if it were his. That day he made my wife a photograph album, a beautiful thing. He got hold of the paper, paper manufactured in the early 1960s, when Estela was born. He got this thread to sew the pages together. He got the photos. I never found out how: I didn’t worry about finding out how Carballo had gotten photos of my children when they were three and five and seven years old, photos of walks I’d taken with my wife when we were dating, photos of my father. A very special gift, in truth, made by hand, made with time and dedication. For my part, it came out well: Estela isn’t usually a fan of mariachis, but I risked it that day, and she liked the mariachis. After the serenade, people started leaving gradually, until we were left sitting on the railway sleeper on the patio, watching night fall slowly. My family and I: that’s who was there. That patio is the same one you saw, Vásquez, except for one little detail: the heater. An electrical appliance that heats like a bonfire and a
llows us to stay outside even after dark when it’s starting to get cold. That was my children’s gift, because Estela would never stay outside chatting on the patio at night, she feels the cold too much. My children gave her this heater, we tried it out for the first time that evening and it worked like a charm. Anyway, there we were, sipping aguardiente, because my children thought that was the best way to celebrate, talking nineteen to the dozen, laughing ourselves silly, when I chose that moment to give my family a piece of news. ‘It’s about the things my father left me,’ I told them, ‘the ones I have upstairs. I’m going to return them.’

  “I can still see their shocked faces. ‘What do you mean, return them?’ they asked. I said yes. That I wanted to start making decisions about certain things. I’m getting close to sixty, I told them, and at this age one starts to think and sometimes one gets strange ideas. These things, the things I took from the museum, have been with me a long time. And I’ve never deceived myself, I never believed they were mine. I know I was justified in taking them from there. I know it was correct and necessary, but I also know they don’t belong to me. These things have been with me for decades, moving around with me, being part of my life . . . And the proof that I did the right thing is that nobody’s missed them. The rest of the things that were there, the ones I didn’t take, have been lost. But these haven’t. These were saved and nobody has asked about them. And I won’t deny it, Vásquez, as I didn’t deny it to them that evening or night: the happiness they give me is immense. Coming home at night and pouring myself a drink and touching these things, and reading about them and their moments, all that is for me what stamps are for a collector. Or butterflies. Or coins. Over these last years, these things have given me moments of great satisfaction. I told them all this. I looked at Estela, at my son, at my daughter, and I told them to relax, that I wasn’t going to philosophize about it, not to worry: but that that was just the way it was. And then I explained the heart of the matter: that in spite of that happiness, in spite of those moments of mad obsession I’ve spent in the company of my old things, never, never have I forgotten they don’t belong to me. They’re not mine, they’ve never been mine. They’re not my family’s, either, although I sometimes like to think they are, that I had a right to inherit them and my children could inherit them as well. But it’s not true: I have no right. They’re not mine, they’re not my family’s: they belong to the country. Or the state, yes, patrimony of the state. That’s what I told them, that’s the long-winded speech I inflicted on them, and then I asked: ‘You all agree with me so far?’

  “It was my son who answered: ‘Yes, Papá, all right,’ he said. ‘But you saved those things. Nobody cares about them, only the one who saved them. They belong to the man who saved them, it seems to me.’

  “I told him no. That they didn’t belong to me, and that was the end of it. They belonged to a public institution and now they were in private hands. ‘I mean,’ I told them, ‘that no one knows I have them. Someone could say I stole them. And what could I say to refute that? I couldn’t, no, I have no arguments to refute it. Well, this is what I wanted to talk to you about, to my family. I don’t want to leave this problem for you when I die. I know there’s a whole lifetime to go before that happens, but we have to think the matter through carefully so as not to make a mistake. Well, I’ve thought about it now.’ I told them I knew they weren’t interested in the things. Not my wife, who had tolerated them rather than accompanied me in my interest. Not my children, who had more relevant things on their minds. I’m telling you what I told them, Vásquez: Can you imagine the terrible predicament I’d be leaving them in if I died? ‘In short,’ I told them, ‘I’ve been thinking, I’ve been thinking for a long time, and I’ve arrived at the conclusion that now is the time, that the hour has come. That’s it. The time has come to give them back.’

  “Estela asked me the obvious question: ‘But to whom? You know very well that place no longer exists. Who are you going to give these things back to after so many years? And besides, what might happen afterward? I don’t know what the law says about situations like this, but I can assure you you’re going to get yourself in trouble. Colombia is a place where no good action goes unpunished. Who knows what might befall us. And I don’t know if it’s worth the risk to change the location of some things from other times that nobody has been missing, that nobody’s going to look after the way you have. No, it seems stupid to me. The things from your father’s museum are your treasures. They’ve survived thanks to you. If you hadn’t kept them years ago, they would have been lost. And mark my words: they’ll be lost if you return them. Apart from the fact that I don’t know who you would return them to.’

  “I told her to the National Museum, for example. They have uniforms from the civil wars there, swords, the pen of some founding father. Would it not be natural for my father’s things to be displayed there, so people can go and see them? ‘And what if nobody goes?’ said my daughter. ‘What if they’re not interested in displaying them?’ ‘They will be interested,’ I said. ‘They will display them. And if they’re not interested and don’t display them, it doesn’t matter. This is the right thing to do, the decent thing, even if no one knows what those things mean to the world anymore.’ ‘And if they take them from you and bring charges against you? Or levy a fine against you, the kind that bankrupts people? Have you thought of that? Or do you think they’re going to be grateful for the care you’ve taken in secret of the country’s historical treasures? Do you think things like this happen in Colombia, Papá? Tell me the truth: Do you think they’re going to give you a medal for having spent twenty years playing with a few bones?’

  “I never imagined they’d react like that. ‘What matters to me now is knowing that these things are going to be left in good hands when I die,’ I explained. ‘And that they’re not going to cause trouble for anyone. And that people won’t think badly of me. I understand that you don’t agree,’ I said, ‘and I understand your objections. That’s why I need to do this properly, aboveboard. I’ve thought a lot about it and I’ve made the decision. But I agree that it must be done properly, to avoid disagreeable situations. So then: How do we do it? Help me to think it through. It occurs to me that I should speak to someone about it first, someone from some museum, someone from the Ministry of Culture. That would be essential.’

  “There was a silence of the kind you only get at family gatherings. Family silences are different, Vásquez, don’t you think? When you’re with friends uncomfortable silences get filled any way they can, everybody feels the need or the advisability to fill silences before it’s too late. But families are places you can be silent and nothing happens. When those silences are good, when they are the silences of trust and comfort, it’s the best thing there is. But when they’re the other kind it’s different. Among families the silences of disagreement or conflict are painful, or at least I’ve always thought so. The first to break it was my wife: ‘Why don’t you do something with the media first? A radio interview, for example. All this would be easier and you’d run fewer risks if there were an intermediary, a messenger, if people found out first through an interview. That would allow you to explain the situation, to say that you actually saved national artifacts and history and have been protecting and looking after them for twenty years, that the country is in your debt. It would allow you to control the message, as politicians say. And it would even put pressure on the museum or wherever to treat the objects with appropriate respect. So you won’t be going asking for favors, because the one doing them a favor is you. You’ve saved from disappearing some things that in another country would each have its own museum. Imagine what they’d do in the United States if someone said they had one of Lincoln’s bones. Imagine what they’d do in France if someone showed up saying they had, I don’t know, one of Jean Jaurès’s ribs. That they had protected and cared for it and maintained it all this time and now they want to make a donation to the Republic, a donation to the people. They�
��d erect a statue to him. I don’t want a statue, they’re never flattering. But I do think you’ve earned the right to a thank-you.’

  “As usual, she was right. I’ve grown accustomed to Estela being right, however it always surprises me. She’s like Occam’s razor in the guise of a woman: an injection of common sense, a total incapacity for foolishness. So everyone immediately agreed that this was the most intelligent, most sensible and beneficial course of action. My children, each on their own, were going to speak to people they knew in the media. To sound out some contacts. Estela, as well. She knew someone who knew someone who worked at Caracol or RCN, I can’t remember. And I thought of you, Vásquez. You came to mind right there, I didn’t even have to think about it. The only person to have seen these things, not all of them, but some of the most important . . . Of course, that day, when you were at my house breaking my guests’ noses, you didn’t have a column in El Espectador yet. But now you do and my children read it, and Estela reads it. They almost always agree. I mean, they almost always agree with you. Less when you get aggressive, Estela detests that. She says you undermine your argument. That you might be right, but when you’re right with sarcasm, mocking others between the lines with that arrogant tone that slips out sometimes, then you’re not right anymore. And if she were here now, she’d tell you as she told me once. ‘Your friend doesn’t care about convincing anyone, he cares about going for the jugular. And that’s no way to do it. No dialogue can be built on that. It’s a shame.’ Anyway, I’m going off on a tangent: the thing is that I thought of phoning you, asking you to help me with this matter. With your column, with an interview in your newspaper, in whatever way. I thought: Vásquez will help me, for sure. I thought, I won’t contact him right now because it’s the Friday night before a long weekend. The next morning, very early, we were going to Villa de Leyva, to stay at a friend’s house. So I thought: On Tuesday I’ll write to him. And I said, I think I said: ‘Okay then, that’s what we’ll do. Everybody look where they can. I’ll write to Vásquez first thing on Tuesday.’