Even Silence Has an End (10 page)

“You mean Sonia?”

“No, Commander Cesar!”

He had arrived at the camp earlier in the afternoon in his luxurious red pickup, which was far too luxurious for a rebel. I smiled when I thought of the story he’d told me. He had gotten a FARC militiaman to buy it for him in Bogotá and drive it to the demilitarized zone, where he’d handed it over. The militiaman then declared it stolen and received the insurance payment. That was the FARC way. More than insurgents, they acted like gangsters.

A large construction truck full of young guerrillas followed the pickup.

Cesar greeted me, looking pleased.

“There was fighting last night,” he informed me. “We killed half a dozen soldiers. They were coming to get you. They have come to realize they will never succeed! You have to leave at once. This place has already been spotted. It’s for your own safety. Get your things together.”

This time Cesar did not accompany us. The driver was the same fat man who had bought the mattress and other items. The fifteen guerrillas who had arrived with Cesar continued on with us, standing in the back of the truck, holding their rifles. Clara and I climbed into the cab with the driver.

After the previous night’s storm, the track had become a slimy mud chute. It was impossible to travel at more than twelve miles per hour. We continued southward, deeper and deeper into the Llanos. The landscape became thickly forested, with just a few open fields lying fallow and some terrain razed by controlled fires. The experts called it the “agricultural frontier.” The Amazon rain forest could not be far away.

The sky was ablaze as the sun set with great ceremony. We had gone many hours without stopping, and the farther we traveled, the more my heart constricted. It meant even more miles separating me from my home. I tried to stay calm by calculating that we could put aside enough provisions for our escape to last for one week’s walk. We would have to get away at night when the guards relaxed their vigilance. We would walk until dawn and hide during the day. We wouldn’t ask civilians for help. They might be working for the FARC. The driver’s attitude was revealing: Like many in the region, he was bound to the guerrillas in an almost feudal relationship that was based on dependency, submission, allegiance, interest, and fear.

I was deep in thought when the vehicle stopped. We were at the top of a butte, the full splendor of the sunset spread before us. On the left were hacienda-style gates. The property was enclosed not by a wall but by green oilcloth, which circled the perimeter and completely concealed from the road what lay inside.

The guerrillas jumped out of the truck and, in groups of two, dispersed to each corner of the property. A tall man with a thin mustache opened both entrance gates wide. He was very young, probably in his early twenties. The truck entered silently. The sky was turning green, and night fell swiftly.

The tall man walked over and held out his hand.

“I’m honored to meet you. I’m your new commander. If you need anything, you come to me. My name is Cesar. And this is Betty. She will look after you. She is your
receptionista.
” Betty was not her real name. The guerrillas all had aliases chosen by the commander who recruited them. Often it was a foreign name, or a biblical one, or a name from a national television show.
Ugly Betty
¹²
had been a favorite soap opera in Colombia for years. And here was another commander called Cesar.
Hardly surprising, all the commanders here are Cesar
, I mused.

Our Betty was not ugly, but she was so small she resembled a dwarf. She switched on her flashlight and asked us to follow her. The truck, empty, went away, and the gates closed. Betty led us toward an old shed with a rotten roof, half of which had fallen to the ground. Under the half that remained were two beds, similar to those we had used at the hospital, except that the boards were also rotten and crumbling.

Betty set down her backpack in a corner and with her Galil rifle over her shoulder began the task of recuperating the few planks still solid enough to make one bed. She held the flashlight between her teeth to keep both hands free and work more quickly. The beam of light followed her movement. She was about to put her hand on one of the planks when she jumped back, losing the flashlight, which rolled onto the floor. I saw it at the same time: an enormous furry red tarantula, puffed up on its fat legs, ready to pounce. I grabbed the flashlight to look for the beast, which had since bounced under the bed and was scuttling toward the rotten roof and a pile of straw. With her machete Betty chopped the creature in two.

“I can’t sleep here. I hate those beasts. What’s more, they live in pairs, so the other one can’t be far away!” My voice was shrill, betraying my anxiety. It was astonishing. I sounded just like my mother.
She
was the one who dreaded “those beasts,” not me. I found them fascinating because it seemed as if their massive size took them from the world of insects and bugs to that of vertebrates.

“We’ll give the place a thorough cleaning. I’ll have a good look under the bed and all around. And then I’ll sleep here with you, don’t worry.” Betty was trying her best not to laugh.

As soon as the mattress and mosquito net were in place, Clara lay down on the bed. Betty came back with an old broom she’d found lying around, and I borrowed it to help her. I put our belongings on a plank of wood that Betty had fashioned into a shelf, then got into bed, although it was dawn before I was able to sleep. My insomnia gave me the opportunity to locate the positions of the guards, and I soon formulated an escape plan for the following evening. I even spotted a knife in Betty’s backpack that could come in handy.

But our hopes for escape were short-lived. El Mocho turned up around noon, and we took to the road again, still traveling southward. I was once again gripped by anxiety; I figured that it would now take us more than a week to retrace our steps. The situation was becoming critical. The farther we traveled, the fewer our chances of success. We had to act as quickly as possible and equip ourselves to survive in a region that was becoming more hostile by the mile. We were no longer crossing flat country but starting on the climbs and descents of an increasingly rolling landscape. The peasants were now a population of lumberjacks, whose presence you could detect from the damage they left behind. Helpless spectators to an ecological disaster no one cared about, we crossed the ravaged space as if we were the sole survivors of a nuclear war.

El Mocho stopped the vehicle on a hill. Down below, half-naked children played on the floor of a small house built in the middle of a cemetery of trees. Smoke rose wearily from the chimney. El Mocho dispatched a group of guerrillas to fetch some cheese, fish, and fruit. Fish? I examined my surroundings. I couldn’t see any rivers. At our feet stretched a vast expanse of green: trees as far as the eye could see. I did a complete turn, 360 degrees—the horizon was a single, continuous green line.

El Mocho stood next to me, following my gaze. I was moved without knowing why. I felt that he was, too. He put his hands on his forehead to protect his eyes from the glare, looking far into the distance, and after a long silence he said, “This is the Amazon.”

He said it with great sadness, almost resignation. His words echoed in my mind. There was something about his voice and his tone that this time really set me on the edge of panic. I looked out before me, incapable of speaking, my heart pounding, searching the horizon for a response. Yes, I was very frightened. I sensed danger. I couldn’t see it. But it was there, before me, and I didn’t know how to avoid it.

Once again, as if reading my mind, El Mocho said, “That is where you are going.”

SIX

THE DEATH OF MY FATHER

MARCH 23, 2009

I am alone. I am here. No one is watching me. In these hours of silence that I cherish, I talk to myself and reflect. That past, entrenched in time, motionless and infinite, has vanished into thin air. None of it remains. Why, therefore, am I hurting so much? Why did I bring back with me this nameless pain? I followed the path I set for myself, and I have forgiven. I do not want to be chained to hatred or resentment. I want to have the right to live in peace.

I have become my own master. I get up at night and walk barefoot. There is no one to blind me with a flashlight. My noise does not bother anyone, my behavior intrigues no one. I do not have to ask for permission, and I do not have to explain myself. I am a survivor. The jungle remains in my mind, even if there is nothing around me to bear witness to it. Except for the thirst with which I drink life.

I stay a long time under the shower. The water is scalding, barely tolerable. Steam is everywhere. I can take water in my mouth and let it run slowly, warmly, down my face and neck. No one is disgusted by it; there are no sidelong glances. There is no longer anyone judging me. I am no longer accessible. I turn the faucet. I want the water to run cold now. My body doesn’t flinch. It has been trained by too many long years of freezing water.

Seven years ago today, Papa died. I am free, and I weep. From sorrow and happiness, from bitterness and gratitude, too. I have become a complex being. I can no longer feel just one emotion at a time. I am torn between opposite emotions that inhabit me and shake me.

I am my own master now, but I am small and fragile, humbled through force of circumstance, and all too aware of my vulnerability and inconsequence. My solitude relaxes me. I can accept my inconsistencies without worrying about other people. Without having to hide and without the burden of someone who mocks, barks, bites.

Seven years ago, on this very day, I saw the guerrillas gather together in a circle. They looked at me from a distance and talked among themselves. We had settled in a new camp. The group had grown in number. Betty was joined by other women: Patricia, the nurse, and Alexandra, a very pretty girl with whom all the boys seemed to be in love.

Ten days before that, there had been a warning that the
chulos
were on the river. We were on the run. We walked for days. I was sick the entire journey. Patricia and Betty stayed nearby to help. The road was wide enough for two-way traffic and linked the bank of one river to the mouth of another, miles away. In this labyrinth of rivers that make up the Amazon, the guerrillas had built a network of roads that they kept secret. They knew exactly how to use a GPS and computerized maps to find their way.

At one point we had to cross a new river. I couldn’t see how we were going to do it. It was less than a month since I’d been captured. I had a few small things the guerrillas were carrying in a bag of provisions that I saw change hands throughout the journey. It had been set down on the riverbank, as if the bearer had had enough. I was about to take it when the girls pushed me roughly into the scrub. I lost my balance and found myself on the ground.

“¡Cuidado, carajo! Es la marrana.”
¹³

“¿La marrana?”

I was expecting to be charged at any moment by a rabid pig, and I tried to get up as quickly as possible. But the girls held me down by the shoulders, increasing my panic.

“¡Arriba, mire arriba! ¡Allá está la marrana!”
¹⁴

I looked up to where one of the girls was pointing. Above our heads, through a large opening in the trees and high in the clear sky, was the miniature cross of a white aircraft.

“¡Ésos son los chulos! Así es cómo nos miran para después ‘borrbardiarnos.’”
¹⁵

She mispronounced the verb for “bombard” as
borrbardiar,
like a child who had not yet learned to talk properly. They also used “look” instead of “see.” I smiled. Would the plane be able to spot us from such a distance? It seemed unlikely. But I felt that it was not even worth worrying about. For me what mattered was the realization that the military was continuing its search and that this
marrana
was the enemy for them—and therefore hope for me.

We were moving deeper and deeper into the jungle, and each step was taking us farther from civilization. But the military was following our tracks. We had not been abandoned. After half an hour, the aircraft turned around and vanished from sight. Just as quickly the sky filled with large black clouds. Once again bad weather sided with the guerrillas. The plane’s engine faded. The girls handed me a black plastic sheet.

Heavy droplets of rain made circles on the calm surface of the river. I heard the cry of a rooster, not far away, on the opposite bank.

My God, there must be people around here!
I was overjoyed. If someone saw me, the alert would be given and the military would come to rescue us.

Young Cesar arrived looking proud. He had found a dugout to cross. On the opposite bank was a large
finca
.
¹⁶
The forest had been cleared to create a huge pasture, and in the middle stood a pretty wooden house, brightly painted in green and orange. I was able to make out chickens, pigs, and a tired-looking dog, which started barking as soon as we emerged from the heavy foliage to get into the dugout.

Cesar ordered us to cross the river well covered up, so that the “civilians” wouldn’t see us. The storm broke overhead, and I was soaked to the skin, walking under the rain for hours until it was pitch black. The guerrillas erected a tent in the middle of the road between two trees, just above the ground. We slumped into it, soaked.

The following day we continued on foot to a spot where other guerrillas had obviously slept before. It was a pretty place. Clusters of colored butterflies constantly twirled around us. We were again close to the road, and I told myself that escape was still possible.

But the next day, at dawn, we were told to pack everything up. During the night a large number of bags of provisions had been piled up beside the road; I had no idea where they came from. The guerrillas, already laden with their heavy backpacks, divvied up the extra provisions and, spines bent under the weight, carried them across the jungle on their backs.

After an hour of walking, we reached the trunk of a huge tree that had fallen across the road, so we branched off onto a side path covered with crawling plants. The path wound unpredictably through the trees. I had to concentrate so as not to lose sight of the markers left by those who had gone on ahead to clear our passage. It was very humid, and I was sweating profusely.

We crossed a small, half-rotten wooden bridge. Then a second, and a third. The deeper we went, the longer the bridges became. Some were more like roads built on stilts throughout the forest. I was distraught, because I could see how difficult it would be to grope our way along the path at night in the opposite direction.

By nightfall we’d arrived at a sort of clearing on a gentle slope. A tent had been put up at the top. In the middle of the wilderness, they had constructed a proper bed with a forked pole at each corner, some five inches from the ground to support the slats laid crosswise to hold the mattress. The mosquito net was fastened canopy-bed style to tall corner posts they called
las esquineras.
¹⁷

It was in this camp that I saw the guerrillas in hushed discussion in a circle near the
economato,
the name given to the shelter where they stored the provisions.

It was March 23, one month to the day since my capture. I knew that France had issued an ultimatum: I’d heard it on a guard’s radio. If I was not released, the FARC would be put on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations.

Since our arrival at the new camp ten days earlier, a routine had been established with the guard changes every two hours and the meal breaks. I had pinpointed the ideal moment to get away. Clara had agreed to follow me.

They were talking among themselves and giving me surly looks. I assumed they had heard the announcement, and I felt a certain relief at the thought of their being under pressure to release me. In any event, it didn’t matter. In a few days I would be home, in Papa’s arms. I had set myself this coming Sunday as a deadline for my escape. I was convinced I would succeed. It was the beginning of Holy Week. I wanted to flee on Easter Sunday.

I watched them talking; it was obvious they were worried. Young Cesar finally dismissed everyone, and Patricia, the nurse, came over to speak to us, acting as if she had been entrusted with a delicate task. She knelt in front of our
caleta.

“What have you been hearing lately in the way of news?”

“Nothing special,” I ventured after a silence, trying to understand the reason for her visit.

She was being particularly nice in order to gain our trust. She said she sympathized with our situation and made it seem as if she had come over to make us feel better. She explained we had to be just a little more patient, that we had already waited “a long time” and that now we could wait “a short time.” She said we would soon be released. I sensed she was lying.

I could think of only one thing, and that was to mask any hint of our planned escape. But in fact that was not what was troubling them. Her eyes were not searching every corner of our
caleta.
She was calm and measured, examining rather
my
eyes, as if she were trying to read my thoughts.

She went away again. I felt triumphant; she had no inkling of our plan! I thought she was annoyed at her inability to get anything out of us. But I was wrong. She was relieved. My father had just died. They were just making sure that I hadn’t found out. From then on, they prevented me from listening to the radio. They were concerned that grief might push me over the edge.