Even Silence Has an End (37 page)

FORTY-NINE

GUILLERMO’S FRISK

My liver did not burst, but the next day things were not better. I had arrived at the campsite before the others, but I got my
equipo
only once it was dark. I had just knotted my hammock to one of the trees when the skies opened above us. A torrent of water formed in just a few minutes, and it came rushing down the hill, sweeping away everything in its path, Gloria’s and Jorge’s
caletas
included. My companions had to spend part of the night on their feet, with their belongings in their arms, beneath one of the nearby tents, while they waited for it to stop raining and for the flood to abate.

The next morning at dawn, I realized what Guillermo had done: He had searched my
equipo
at his leisure, which is why the previous day he hadn’t given it to me late in the evening. He’d taken my dictionary and Mela’s jeans. I was crushed. He’d managed to get his hands on the very things he’d always had his eye on. When I went and demanded he return them, he didn’t even take the time to explain himself. “Go and complain to Sombra,” he replied arrogantly, after he told me he’d tossed everything out in the jungle. I knew it wasn’t true. The belts I’d made for my family had been handed out among the troops. I’d seen Shirley wearing the one I’d made for Mom. Guillermo had fooled me, and I was angry with myself for not having taken precautions. But I also realized that in the state I was in, the battle was lost before it began. No one was prepared to drag a two-thousand-page dictionary around in the jungle, except for the two of us, who cared for it more than anything. This helped me to contain the hatred I nurtured against Guillermo. In a way, if he used the dictionary with as much passion as I did, then, fair enough. It was better for him to have it, because he could carry it and I couldn’t.

It was harder to let go of Mela’s jeans. That gave rise to a cruel sentiment of guilt, as if my agreeing to let someone carry them for me were tantamount to betraying my daughter’s love. Gradually, however, time did its work. This wound also closed. I decided that what was important was not managing to keep the pants with me, but rather understanding how much my daughter’s gesture (because I’d imagined her trying to decide what to give me that last Christmas we’d had together) had stayed with me during these years of misfortune and given me reason to smile.

The following morning the Indian did not come to get me. Sombra appointed Brian to carry me. He was considered the strongest guy of all the troops. I liked Brian; he’d always been pleasant with everyone. I figured that with him things could only get better.

He had me straddle his back, and off he went at a run, leaving the rest of my group behind. From the very first moment, I realized there was something wrong. After an hour had gone by, poor Brian was exhausted. He was as surprised as I was and couldn’t understand how the previous day the Indian had run for hours without getting tired, whereas Brian had only just started and already couldn’t take it anymore.

His pride had suffered a blow, his lack of stamina would prompt gibes from others. He disliked me from then on, complaining that I was failing to collaborate, and he did everything he could to humiliate me whenever we met another guerrilla on the path.

“Wait for me here,” Brian said as he set off at a run to get his backpack, leaving me in the middle of the forest, knowing that I wouldn’t move. My riding on his back had turned into a dreadful ordeal for both of us. He was making me pay for his effort by shaking me like a plum tree. I felt like I was dying. While I lay on the ground waiting for him to return, black bees, attracted by the smell, attacked my clothes and swarmed all around me. I was terrified; I must have lost consciousness. Unconscious or asleep, I heard the buzzing of thousands of insects around me, and I imagined it to be a truck moving as fast as it could to run me over. I woke up with a start and opened my eyes onto a cloud of insects. I got to my feet screaming, which only served to excite them further. They were everywhere—in my hair, in my underwear, clinging to my socks inside my boots, poking into my nostrils and my eyes. I went crazy trying to get away from them, windmilling my arms in the void, stamping my feet, slapping at them as hard as I could, but I didn’t manage to make them go away. I killed a lot of them and stunned others, and the ground was littered with them, but, amazingly, they hadn’t stung me. Exhausted, I eventually resigned myself to coexisting with them and collapsed onto the ground, defeated by my fever and the heat.

As the day went on, I got used to the company of the black bees. My smell must have been drawing them from miles around, and whenever Brian left me somewhere, they always found me again. They were transforming the horrible stench that impregnated me into a perfume. As they took the salt away, they left honey on my clothes. It was like stopping for a cleaning session. I also hoped that their massive presence would discourage other, less convivial bugs, and their company enabled me to doze off while I waited for Brian to come get me.

FIFTY

UNEXPECTED SUPPORT

During one of the breaks in our journey, I collapsed like a tramp beneath a bridge. I stank to high heaven. I was filthy, with clothes I’d worn for several days, always damp with the sweat from the day before and covered in mud. I was thirsty, and the fever was dehydrating me as much as were the heat and my efforts to cling to my porter’s back. It felt as if my brain were playing tricks on me. When I saw the column of chained men marching one behind the other, advancing toward me, I thought I was dreaming. I was lying on the ground, and I could feel the vibration of their steps in the earth. I imagined that a herd of wild beasts was coming at me and that I just had time to lift myself up on my elbows to see them emerge from the jungle behind me. They were moving closer, pushing aside the vegetation as they approached. I thought they hadn’t seen me and that they would step on me. Then I was ashamed for them to see me like that, my hair all over the place and permeated with a smell that even
I
found revolting. I stopped thinking about myself when I saw them closer up, with their ashen features, like men carrying death, marching in time like convicts, burdened with years of calamity on their shoulders. I wanted to cry.

When they came upon me, practically tripping over me, their faces lit up.

“
Doctora
Ingrid! Is it you? Hang in there—we’ll make it out of here!”

They held out their hands, stroked my hair, blew me kisses, and made the signs for victory and courage. These men, who were infinitely more unfortunate than I was, with long years of captivity behind them, longer than mine, chains around their necks, sick, famished, forgotten by the world—these hostages, Colombian soldiers and policemen, were still capable of feeling compassion for someone else. That moment would stay with me forever. They had transformed my dusty green hell into a garden of smiles.

We met the Indian on the path, and the Indian had smiled at me, as if he could read other people’s thoughts. Humbly, almost shyly, he offered to carry me part of the way. Brian hesitated. He did not want to admit defeat. But the offer was all the more tempting because we’d come to a region where the geography had gone wild. They called it a
cansaperros,
a “dog-tiring” place; this was a series of steep hills to climb up and down, a change in level of thirty yards or more each time. It was as if a giant hand had crumpled the cloth of the earth, producing a series of tight, close pleats. In my geography books, the Amazonian jungle appeared to be a vast plateau. Nothing could be further from the truth. The terrain in this world was like this world itself—unpredictable. Whenever we came down a slope, in the small gorge between two hills there was a stream. We crossed it in one stride to begin climbing up the other slope. When they got to the top, the guerrillas would hurry down the slope to drink from the next stream. But climate change had found this region: Half the streams were dried up, and there was nowhere to drink.

Brian was suffering with me on his back. I did try to walk to relieve him now and again, but on one particular descent I fell and slid down on my butt. The troops that had gone ahead of us had turned the path into a toboggan run of mud. I landed hard in this stream, and for once it was filled with water, and I was covered with mud. Ahead of us was a steep climb that would require using our hands and feet to hold on. Brian took off his T-shirt, plunged it in the water while he washed his face, and removed it to wring out the water before he put it back on. He looked sideways at the Indian and said, “Take her. I’ll take your
equipo.
”

The Indian wiggled his shoulders and removed a huge backpack.
“Tengo todo el parque.”
⁴⁶

“No interesa, camarada, páselo.”
⁴⁷

Brian would rather carry a pack full of ammunition than carry me. He put on the straps and adjusted them, then began his climb without looking back, carrying the
equipo
effortlessly. Five minutes later he got to the top, looked down at us, delighted to be himself again, and vanished into the wilderness.

“Our turn,” said the Indian.

I jumped on his back, trying to be as light and motionless as possible. He clambered up the steep hill as quickly as Brian had done and headed off at full speed, scrambling downhill and up again, jumping from one drop in height to another so that I had the impression that I was bouncing in the air, while his feet hardly touched the ground.

Brian was waiting for us, leaning against a tree, smoking a cigarette and looking proud. We had nearly reached the campsite.

“None of the prisoners have arrived yet,” he said, offering his companion a cigarette.

He didn’t even think to look at me. The Indian took the cigarette, lit it, inhaled deeply, and handed it to me without saying a word.

I had no desire to smoke. But the Indian’s gesture touched me. It was nothing, but it was everything. It took so little to make a difference.

Brian was in a good mood again. Then he turned to me, and said, “
Cucha, tírese allá, detrás de los que están cortando varas. No se mueva hasta que le den la orden.
”
⁴⁸

His words were like a slap in the face. My eyes were moist when they met the Indian’s gaze. He smiled faintly, then quickly turned away; he was already busy readjusting the straps on his
equipo.
I felt idiotic reacting this way—it was surely my fatigue. I was used to being treated like that. It was standard practice. If I’d been alone with Brian, I would have swallowed his scorn without any qualms. But with the Indian there, I became a human being again; his compassion allowed me to feel hurt. I became weaker as a result, more fragile.

We had overtaken the convoy of military prisoners. The clanking of their chains made me look around. The guerrillas were arrogantly barking orders at them. They settled in to wait, good-naturedly, fifty feet or so farther away, speaking animatedly in little groups, still chained to each other in pairs.

One of them saw me. They conferred among themselves. Two came close and squatted down to speak to me behind a bush that acted as a screen.

“Are you okay?” whispered one.

“Yes, I’m okay.”

“My name is Forero. This is Luis, Luis Beltrán.”

Luis politely removed his hat in greeting.

“
Doctora,
we have a little present for you. We’ve made you a
ponche.
But you have to come closer. Don’t worry! We’ve got the guard eating out of our hands.”

The last time I’d heard about
ponche,
I must have been five years old. It was in the kitchen in my grandmother’s house. She’d told us she was going to make some, and all my cousins had jumped for joy. I didn’t know what it was. The kitchen gave onto an indoor patio. My oldest cousin was sitting on the ground with a bowl full of egg yolks that she was beating energetically. Mama Nina poured things into the mix with a knowing air while my cousin went on beating. The thought of it made my mouth water. But of course this
ponche
must be something else altogether. There were no eggs in this jungle!

They handed me a bowl full of freshly beaten egg yolks.

“Where did you get this?” I asked, ecstatic.

“They’re hard to carry, but we managed. We don’t have many left—we ate most of them during the march. We had four hens in the prison, and they were generous. They laid lots of eggs. We carried them all day long. But we had to put them in the pot already the first evening, or they would never have survived the
cansaperros
!”

I listened to them, flabbergasted. What? Hens in the prison?! Eggs?

For a second the idea that the eggs might make me sicker crossed my mind. I immediately rejected it. If my body didn’t feel disgusted, then this couldn’t hurt it, I decided. I swallowed it all, my eyes closed.

I was five years old again, sitting next to my cousin, and my grandmother was there. I opened my eyes with satisfaction. Forero was watching me with a big smile, nudging Luis Beltrán with his elbow.

The soldier called Luis pulled a pouch of powdered milk from his T-shirt. “Hide it quickly,” he said. “If they see it, they’ll confiscate it. Mix it with sugar. It’s good for your hepatitis.”

I took Forero’s and Luis’s hands and squeezed them in mine, and I kissed them. Then I made my way back, and squatted down, eager to tell Lucho everything that had happened.

Guillermo was leading the march, my companions following behind. When I saw him, the smile that was still on my face vanished.

“It’s forbidden to talk to the soldiers. If I catch anyone fooling around, I’ll put them in chains,” he threatened.

I had to wait until that night’s camp was built before I could have a word with Lucho. We were hastily preparing for our wash. The soldiers had already done all their chores, and they called Sombra, who came over right away.

One young man spoke up on behalf of all of them.

“That’s Lieutenant Bermeo,” explained Gloria. We were all watching the scene, our eyes riveted on Sombra. The soldiers had made a pile of the supplies they had taken out of their packs.

“We’re not carrying another thing,” declared Bermeo.

We heard snatches of conversation. But Sombra’s attitude was unequivocal. He wanted to calm the rebellion.

“We should do the same thing,” said Lucho. “We are poorly fed, they treat us like dogs, and on top of it they make us carry their food!”

“Hey, I want to eat,” Keith interjected. “I’ll carry whatever they ask me to carry.”

He glared at the guard who was following our conversation with interest, then went to lean against the tree by his tent and crossed his arms.

“We should show some solidarity toward the soldiers,” said Tom, and he began to remove the bags of rice he was carrying in his pack. The others followed suit. None of us spoke, so we could hear what was going on with the soldiers.

Bermeo went on talking, and he said, “You have no right carrying her like that. You’re going to kill her. If it was one of your own bunch, you would carry him in a hammock.”

I could not believe my ears. These men were standing up for me! My throat was tight, and I turned around, trying to find Lucho’s gaze.