Even Silence Has an End (18 page)

FIFTEEN

RESENTMENT AND REMISSION

One morning almost at dawn, Ferney came to see us. “Pack up all your things. We’re leaving. You have to be ready in twenty minutes.”

I felt my guts turn to liquid. The camp had already been half dismantled. All the tents had been folded up, and the first guerrillas were leaving with their backpacks, hiking in single file over by the river. They made us wait.

Right at noon Ferney came back, took our things, and ordered us to follow. Crossing the coca fields was like walking through a furnace, the sun was so strong. As we went by the lemon tree, I picked up a few lemons and filled my pockets. It was a luxury I could not pass up. Ferney looked at me impatiently, and then he decided to take some, too, while ordering me to go on walking. We went back into the
manigua
—the swamplike terrain covered with tropical bushes
.
The temperature changed immediately. We had moved from the stifling heat of the coca field into the damp coolness of the undergrowth. There was a smell of rot. I hated this world that was decomposing perpetually, inhabited by horrendous swarming insects. It was truly a living tomb—all it would take was a slight inadvertent gesture on our part and we would be doomed. The water was only twenty yards or so away; we were near the banks of the river. So we could expect to be transported by boat. But there were no boats waiting.

The guard flung himself on the ground, pulled off his boots, and made as if he were settling down for a while. I looked everywhere in the hope of finding a decent spot to sit. I turned in circles, undecided, like a dog trying to sit down on its tail. Ferney reacted with a laugh. “Wait a minute!” He pulled out his machete and vigorously cleared a space around a dead tree, then cut down some huge leaves from a wild banana tree and carefully spread them on the ground.

“Have a seat,
Doctora
!” he said mockingly.

We were made to wait all day long, by an old tree trunk on the riverbank. Through the thick foliage, the sky was turning a darker shade of blue by the minute, and it filled my soul with regret.
Lord, why? Why me?

The sound of an engine roused us from our drowsiness. We all got to our feet. In addition to the captain, who turned out to be Lorenzo, Andres and Jessica were already on the boat. I relaxed when I saw we were headed upstream. We came out on a river that was twice as wide as the previous one. In the pale gloom of twilight, I could see more and more little lights shining here and there, the lights of houses. I tried my best not to yield to the hypnotic effect of the engine’s vibrations. The others were snoring around me, curled in twisted, uncomfortable positions to avoid the wind that blew straight into our faces.

We disembarked two days later by a small house. There were horses waiting for us, and we were led by the bridle across an immense farm with enclosures filled with well-fed cattle. Once again I prayed,
My God, please make this be the path to freedom!
But we left the farm behind and followed a little dirt road that was very well maintained, with freshly painted fences scattered here and there. We were back in civilization. A feeling of lightness came over me. This had to be a good omen. We came to a crossroads and were told to dismount; the guerrillas gave us back our belongings to carry, and we were ordered to start walking. I looked up and saw a column of guerrillas ahead of us, marching into the forest again, making their way up a very steep slope. I didn’t know how I would manage to do the same. But with a rifle in my back, I succeeded, one foot in front of the other, like a mule. Andres had decided to set up his new camp at the top.

It seemed to be easier to get supplies at this new camp. There was a delivery of the shampoo and care products that I had been requesting for months. Yet when I saw the box full of supermarket bottles, I grew weary knowing that my release was not on the agenda. They expected me still to be there at Christmas. We also received a delivery of underwear. There must be a store not too far away. The road we’d taken had to lead somewhere. And what if there was a police station nearby, or perhaps even a military detachment?

I decided to start up a daily routine that would allay their suspicions, and I made it a regular habit to keep an eye on all their movements. Clara and I were living in a
caleta
they had put together for us beneath a huge black plastic sheet. We were also entitled to a little table with two facing chairs and a bed just big enough for our one mattress and our mosquito net. I had asked Andres for permission to have a
pasera
²³
built so that we would have somewhere to put our things. Jessica was just behind him, and she scoffed wryly, “They’re set up like queens, and still they complain!” Her resentment surprised me.

A slope that turned muddy overnight led to a dreamy brook that wound its way along the bottom of our hill. The water was absolutely transparent, flowing over a bed of aquarium pebbles that reflected the light in a multitude of colored beams.Going there was the best moment of the day. We would descend to the brook at the beginning of the afternoon in order not to disturb the cooks in their work; this was where they came to fetch water and wash the pots in the morning.

Two girls were our escorts for the time it took to wash our laundry and bathe. I had the unfortunate idea of mentioning how extraordinary the spot was and how much I liked diving into the crystal water. Worse than that, I had lounged in the water for just an instant too long when my eyes met the spiteful gaze of one of the guards. From that moment on, the girls who guarded us stared at their watches and made us hurry from the second we got there.

But I was determined not to let them spoil my pleasure. I spent the shortest time possible on my laundry in order to enjoy my bath. On one particular day, it was Jessica’s turn to escort us, along with Yiseth. As soon as we arrived, she went away annoyed, because I had jumped into the water playfully. I guessed she would go and complain, irritated, arguing that I took too long to bathe. But we had passed Ferney on the way down, and I was counting on him to clear things up. I was not at all prepared for what happened.

We were naked, rinsing out our hair, our eyes full of soap, when we heard male voices shouting insults as they came down the path to the river. I didn’t have time to cover myself before two guards ordered us to get out of the water, their rifles pointed at us. I wrapped myself up in my towel, protesting, demanding that they go so we could get dressed. One of the guards was Ferney, and he looked at me viciously as he ordered me to leave the place immediately. “You’re not on vacation here. You’ll get dressed back in your
caleta
!”

OCTOBER 2002

I shielded myself behind the Bible, turning to what was easiest, the Gospels. These texts, written as if there were a hidden camera following Jesus everywhere, stimulated my imagination. And thus a character came to life before my eyes, a man who had relations with people around him and whose behavior intrigued me all the more in that I felt I would never have reacted like him.

Yet my reading triggered something in my mind. For instance, the story about the wedding at Cana. There was a dialogue between Jesus and his mother that struck me, because I could have experienced something similar with my own son. Mary, realizing that there is no more wine for the feast, says, “They have no wine.” And Jesus, who understands perfectly that behind her simple remark there is a request for him to act, replies in a bad mood, almost annoyed at feeling manipulated. Mary, like all mothers, knows that despite his initial refusal her son will end up doing what she suggested. This is why she goes to speak to those who are serving, asking them to follow Jesus’s instructions. Just as Mary suggested, Jesus transforms water into wine, beginning his public life with this first miracle. There was something undeniably pleasing and almost pagan about his first miracle—to make sure the feast could continue. The scene stayed with me for days. Why had Jesus refused at first? Was he afraid? Intimidated? How could he be mistaken about the fittingness of the moment, when he was supposed to know everything? The story fascinated me. Thoughts spun around in my brain. I searched, I reflected. And then suddenly it dawned on me: He had the choice!

How silly—it was obvious. But this changed everything. This man was not some robot programmed to do good and suffer punishment in the name of humankind. Of course he had a destiny, but he’d made choices, he’d always had the choice! . . . As for me, what was my fate? In this state of total absence of freedom, did I have the possibility to make a choice? And if so, which one?

The book I held in my hands became my trusted companion. What was written there had so much power that it forced me to stop avoiding myself, to make my own choices as well. And through some sort of vital intuition, I understood that I had a long way to go, that it would bring about a profound transformation within me, even though I could not determine its essence, or its scope. In that book there was a voice, and behind that voice there was an intelligence that sought to establish contact with me. It was not merely the company of written words that distilled my boredom. It was a living voice, speaking. To me.

Aware of my ignorance, I read the Bible from the first line to the last, like a child, asking all the questions that might come to mind. For I noticed that often, when some detail in the narrative seemed incongruous to me, I would put it to one side in a mental basket that I had created to store things I did not understand, stamping it consciously with the word “errors”—and this led me to go on reading without asking any questions and to be receptive to the voice as the words progressed.

My initial interest lay in the Virgin Mary, quite simply because the woman I had discovered at the wedding at Cana was very different from the ingenuous and somewhat simple-minded adolescent I thought I’d known up to now. I went over the New Testament painstakingly, but there was very little about her. She never spoke, except in the Magnificat, which took on a new dimension, and I decided to learn it by heart.

I had found something to do with my days, and my anxiety receded. I opened my eyes in the morning impatient to start my reading and my weaving. Lorenzo’s birthday was coming soon, too, and I intended to make it as joyful as Melanie’s. I had made it a life precept. It was also a spiritual exercise, that of forcing oneself to find happiness in the midst of the greatest distress.

I had set about making Lorenzo a special belt, weaving little boats that stood out on either side of his name. Because I was getting rather skilled at it, I managed to finish it well before the date. My innovative design had promoted me to the rank of a “pro.” I exchanged technical conversations with the top weavers in the camp. Having a creative outlet made me feel I was capable of something new in a world that had rejected me, and it freed me from the burden of failure that my life had become.

I also continued to exercise. Or at least that’s how I thought about it, because what I really needed was a pretext to do the physical exercise that would enable me, in the future, to escape.

The Bible reading had helped to smooth my relationship with Clara. One afternoon, during a torrential storm, when we were confined together under our mosquito net, I ventured to share with her the results of my nocturnal ruminations. I explained to her in detail how to get out of the
caleta,
how to avoid the guard, how to erase our tracks, how to find the road that would lead us to freedom. The rain made such a din on the plastic roof that we had trouble hearing each other. She asked me to speak more loudly, so I raised my voice to go on with my explanation. It was only when I’d finished outlining my detailed plan to her that I noticed a movement behind our
caleta.
Ferney was hidden inside, behind the shelf that Andres had finally agreed to build for us. He’d heard everything.

I collapsed. What would they do? Would they chain us up again? Would they search us again? I could have killed myself for being so careless. Why had I not taken all the necessary precautions before speaking?

I kept a close watch on the guards’ attitude in order to try to detect any change. I fully expected to see Andres arrive with the chains in his hand. Then it was Lorenzo’s birthday. I asked for permission to bake a cake, sure that they would refuse to let me anywhere near the
rancha.
However, they did grant me permission, and this time Andres asked us to make enough cake for everybody.

As I had sworn it would be, it was a day of remission. I was able to let go of all my thoughts of sadness, regret, and uncertainty, and I immersed myself in a task that would bring pleasure to everyone, as a way of giving back, in return for having received so much with the birth of my child.

That evening for the first time in months, sleep overcame me. Dreams of happiness, where I was holding three-year-old Lorenzo in my arms and running through a field scattered with yellow flowers, invaded these few hours of respite.

SIXTEEN

THE RAID

At two o’clock in the morning, I was violently awoken by one of the guards shaking me and shouting, the beam of his flashlight shining in my face. “Get up, bitch! Do you want to get killed?”

I opened my eyes, not understanding, panicking at the fear I could hear in his voice.

Military planes were flying very low over the camp. The guerrillas were grabbing their backpacks and running away, leaving everything behind them. The night was pitch black, you couldn’t see a thing except the silhouettes of the airplanes you could sense above the trees. Instinctively I grabbed everything within reach: my handbag, a bath towel, the mosquito net.

This only made the guard bleat all the louder. “Leave everything! They’re going to bomb us, don’t you get it?”

He was trying to wrench my things out of my hands, and I was clutching onto them and grabbing more things on the way. Clara had already fled. I rolled everything into a ball and began to run in the same direction as the others, pursued by the guard’s cries of rage.

I had managed to save my children’s belts, my jacket, and some clothes. But I’d forgotten my Bible.

We crossed the entire camp and took a footpath I did not know existed until then. I stumbled every other step, grabbing onto whatever was within reach, and my skin was lacerated by the vegetation. The guard was annoyed, insulting me, all the more spiteful because he had no witnesses. We were the last, and we had to catch up with the rest of the group. The engines of the military planes droned above us, flying off, then coming back, with the result that we were often plunged into terrible darkness, because the guard would not switch on his flashlight until the planes were well away. I managed as I ran to put the few belongings I’d rescued into a satchel, but I was out of breath and my burden slowed me down.

The guard poked the end of his rifle into my ribs, trotting behind me all the while, but the more he mistreated me, the more I lost my balance, and I often found myself on my knees in fear of an immediate bombardment. He was beside himself with rage, accusing me of doing it deliberately, dragging me by the hair or my jacket to pull me to my feet. During the twenty-plus minutes that we ran over flat terrain, I more or less managed to make headway, like a hounded beast, not really knowing how. But then the terrain changed, with steep downward slopes and difficult climbs. I couldn’t stand it anymore. The guard tried to take my bag, but I was afraid his aim was not to help me but rather to get rid of it along the way, as he had threatened to do. I clung to my little bag of belongings as if it were my life. Then suddenly, without any transition, I began to walk slowly, indifferent to his shouts and threats. Run? Why? Flee? Why? No, I wasn’t going to run anymore. Never mind about the bombs, never mind about the planes, never mind about me, I was not going to obey, nor was I going to submit to the whims of an overexcited, panicky young man.

“Stupid bitch, I’m going to stick a bullet in your head to teach you how to walk!”

I turned around like a wild animal to face him. “If you say one more word, I won’t take another step.”

He was surprised, and regretted having lost face. He went to shove me with the butt of his rifle, but I reacted more quickly than he did. “I forbid you to touch me.”

He restrained himself, suddenly made of stone. I then realized that it was not I who had intimidated him in this way. Andres was taking great strides toward us along the footpath.

“Quickly, quickly, hide in the
manigua.
Total silence, no lights, no movement.”

I found myself sprawled in a ditch, crouched over my bag, certain I would see soldiers at any moment. My mouth was painfully dry, prey to a mortal thirst, and I wondered where Clara was. Andres had stayed there for a while, crouched next to me, and then he went away again. But before he left, he said to me, “If you don’t strictly obey orders, the guards have very precise instructions, and you run the risk of not being here tomorrow.”

We stayed there until dawn, when Andres ordered us to walk toward the valley, cutting through the forest.

“Those
chulos
are so stupid that they flew over our heads all night long and didn’t even locate the camp! They’re not going to bomb. I’ll send a team to pick up everything that stayed behind.”

We did as he said. We were on a hill. Through the thick foliage, I could see spread below us an immense wooded savanna, crisscrossed with emerald green pastures, as if the English countryside had appeared by magic in the middle of the Colombian jungle. It must be wonderful to live down there! Such a world existed outside, and it was forbidden to me—it seemed unreal. And yet it was just beyond the trees, beyond their rifles.

Right then we were shaken by an enormous explosion. We were already quite far away, but it must have come from our camp.

As soon as we ran into other guerrilla troops, they talked of nothing else.

“Did you hear?”

“Yes, they bombed the camp.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve no idea. But Andres sent a team back to reconnoiter. It’s almost sure.”

“They only bombed once.”

“What do you mean? We heard several explosions. There was a series of attacks.”

“At least all the planes are gone now. That’s something.”

“We have to watch it. They made a landing. They’ve got troops on the ground. We’ll have helicopters over us all day long.”

“Those sons of bitches, I can’t wait to see them face-to-face. They’re chickens, every one of them.”

I watched in silence. The most cowardly ones were the most aggressive.

We stopped in a tiny clearing where a small stream ran alongside. Clara was already there, sitting against a tree with dense foliage and generous shade. I needed no coaxing—I was exhausted. From where I sat, I could see the roof of the little house and a column of blue-gray smoke rising from the chimney. In the distance I could hear the voices of children playing, like an echo of happy days lost in my past. Who were those people? Could they know that just behind their garden there were guerrillas, hiding captive women?

One of the girls, in her camouflage uniform, her boots shining as if for an important military parade, her hair perfectly styled in a large braid rolled into a chignon, came over to us, smiling from ear to ear, with two enormous plates in her hands. How did she manage to look so impeccable after running the whole night?

We were given the order to start marching once more. We set off in single file along a footpath that began to climb, again following the crest of the hill. I was surprised, by the stamina of the girls who carried burdens as heavy as those the men carried and who walked as quickly as they did. Little Betty was astonishing. She looked like a tortoise with the enormous pack twice as big as she was, which she carried hunched over as if she had a piano on her back. Her little legs scurried along not to be left behind, and she still found a way to smile.

The helicopters were after us. I could feel the throbbing of their engines on the nape of my neck. William, the guard who had been assigned to me for the march, ordered me to walk faster. Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t.

A sharp blow to my spine took my breath away. I turned around, outraged. William was poised to hit me again with a rifle butt in my stomach.

“Shit, you want to get us killed? Can’t you see they’re almost on top of us?”

Indeed, above our heads, sixty yards from the ground, the undersides of the helicopters in formation seemed to be brushing the tops of the trees. I could see the feet of the soldier manning the artillery, hanging in the void on either side of the gun. They were there. They must have seen us! If I had to die, I would rather die like this, in a confrontation where I might at least have the chance to get free. To die for nothing, swallowed up by that damned jungle, thrown in a hole and condemned to vanish without my family’s even being able to retrieve my remains—that was what filled me with horror. I wanted my children to know that at least I’d tried, fought, done everything I could to get back to them.

The guard must have read my thoughts. He loaded his rifle. But in his eyes I saw a primal, visceral, most basic fear. I couldn’t stop myself from looking at him with scorn. He was not so proud now, this guy who liked to swagger around the camp all day.

“Run like a rabbit if you want to. I’m not going any faster!”

His girlfriend spit on the ground and said, “I’m not about to get myself killed for the sake of this old bitch!” She headed off at a trot and disappeared around the first bend.

After a few minutes, the helicopters disappeared. I could still hear two of them, but even then they peeled away before reaching us and left for good. I was furious. How could they have failed to see us? With an entire column of guerrillas right under their nose!

Unconsciously I had begun to walk more quickly, frustrated and disappointed, sensing that we’d come so close to a chance at being set free. When we arrived at the bottom of the hill, Andres had had a mixture of water and sugar made up, with a little bit of an orange-flavored, powder-based beverage mixed in.

“Drink! It will help you avoid dehydration.”

He didn’t need to tell me again—I was soaked in sweat.

He then explained that we would cross the cornfield in front of us in groups of four. He pointed toward the sky. Far in the distance, I could see a tiny white airplane against the blue sky. “We have to wait until it’s gone. It’s the phantom airplane.”

His orders were followed to perfection. I crossed the open field looking at the airplane directly overhead. I was sorry I didn’t have a mirror to try to make signals. Once again my captors had managed to slip through the net of the army. On the far side, in the undergrowth, a toothless, sun-baked peasant was waiting for us.

“This is our guide,” whispered someone ahead of me.

Without warning, a cold wind began to blow, filling the forest with a shiver. The sky turned gray in an instant, and the temperature immediately dropped by several degrees. As if they had received a peremptory order, the guerrillas all dropped their packs onto the ground, pulled out their huge black plastic sheets, and covered themselves.

Someone gave me one, and I wrapped myself up in it the way I had seen them do. A moment later a torrential storm broke over us. Despite all my efforts, I was very quickly soaked through to the bone. It would go on raining like this all day long and all the night that followed. We walked one behind the other until the next day, passing through the forest for hours in silence, hunched over to avoid the water that the wind blew into our faces. Then at twilight we took a path that went along a hillside, and it became a veritable quagmire as the whole column marched over it. With each step I had to reach for my boot that had become mired in eighteen inches of thick, stinking mud, losing my balance. I was exhausted. I was shivering, worn out from the effort.

Then we left the cover of the undergrowth, with its steep ups and downs, and came out on flat, warm land, cultivated and inhabited. We went past farms with dogs that barked and chimneys that smoked. They seemed to be looking at us with scorn as we went by. How desperately I wanted to go home. Just before twilight we reached a magnificent
finca.
The landlord’s house was built in the finest drug-trafficker style. The stable alone would have fulfilled all my dreams of a place to sleep. It was late, I was thirsty and hungry, I was cold. My feet were ravaged by enormous blisters that had burst and stuck to my soaked socks. I’d been bitten from head to toe by tiny fleas I couldn’t see but I could feel, swarming all over my body. The mud had stuck to my fingers and beneath my nails, swelling them, infecting the skin, which cracked. I was bleeding, and yet I couldn’t identify my multiple sores. I collapsed on the ground, determined to move no more.

Half an hour later, Andres gave the order to leave again. We were back on our feet, dragging our misery, marching like convicts in the darkest night. It wasn’t fear that made me walk, and it wasn’t their threats that made me put one foot in front of the other. None of that mattered to me. It was fatigue that made me carry on. My brain had disconnected; my body was moving without me.

Before dawn we reached the top of a small hill that overlooked the valley. A fine drizzle continued to persecute us. There was a sort of shelter in beaten earth, with a thatched roof. Ferney hooked up a hammock between two beams, stretched a black plastic sheet on the ground, and handed me my bag.

“Get changed. We’re going to sleep here.”

I woke up at seven o’clock in the morning in the cocaine laboratory that had served as our shelter. Everyone was already up, including Clara, who was smiling: She was happy that I had dry clothes to give her. The new day promised to be equally long and difficult, and we decided to put back on our dirty, wet clothes from the day before and to keep the dry clothes for sleeping. I really wanted to take a bath, and I’d gotten up determined to find a place to have a wash. There was a spring ten yards away. They allowed me to go there. They had given me a piece of potassium soap, and I rubbed my body and scalp furiously with it to try to get rid of the lice and ticks I’d picked up during the march. The girl escorting me was urging me to finish, annoyed that I was washing my hair when the order had been to have a quick wash. However, there was nothing pressing: Once we got back up to the shelter, we found the guerrillas sitting idly, waiting for new instructions.

The toothless, emaciated peasant from the day before reappeared. He had a
mochila
slung over his shoulder, one of those bags that Indians weave so nicely, and inside the
mochila
there were two hens tied up, their legs in the air, wriggling with convulsive spasms. He was relieved of his burden with cries of victory: Breakfast was turning into a feast. Once the euphoria had subsided, I went up to the peasant and asked him, with a boldness that was unusual for me, if he would let me have his
mochila.
It was grimy, stinking, and full of holes. But for me it was a treasure. I could fill it with the things I needed for the walk and keep my hands free, and once it was washed and stitched, it would be useful for hanging supplies to keep them out of reach of rodents. The man looked at me, astonished, failing to understand the value I placed upon his bag. He handed it to me without protesting, as if he had received not a request but an order. I thanked him with such an effusion of joy that he burst out laughing like a child. He tried to start up a conversation with me, and I was about to reply only too gladly when we heard Andres’s voice curtly calling us to order. I went back to sit down in my corner and glanced over at Andres, astonished by the violence in his gaze as he stared at the gift I had just received.
It won’t be mine for long,
I said to myself.