News of a Kidnapping (12 page)

A month after the abduction of Maruja and Beatriz, the absurd rules of their captivity had been relaxed. They no longer had to ask permission to stand, and they could pour their own coffee or change television channels. Inside the room they still spoke
in whispers, but their movements had become more spontaneous. Maruja did not have to bury her face in the pillow when she coughed, though she did take minimal precautions not to be heard outside the room. Lunch and dinner were still the same, the same beans, the same lentils, the same bits of dry meat and ordinary packaged soup.

The guards talked a good deal among themselves, taking no precaution
except to speak in whispers. They exchanged blood-soaked news about how much they had earned hunting down the police at night in Medellín, about their sexual prowess and their melodramatic love affairs. Maruja had succeeded in convincing them that in the case of an armed rescue attempt, it would be more realistic to protect the captives so that they at least would be sure of receiving decent
treatment and a compassionate trial. At first they seemed indifferent, for they were absolute fatalists, but her
strategy of mollification meant they no longer pointed their guns at the prisoners while they slept, and their weapons, wrapped in cloths, were kept out of sight behind the television. Little by little, their mutual dependence and shared suffering brought a thin veneer of humanity to
their relations.

It was in Maruja’s nature not to keep bitter feelings to herself. She gave vent to her emotions with the guards, who were always ready for violence, and faced them down with a chilling determination: “Go on, kill me.” Sometimes she turned on Marina, whose eagerness to please the guards infuriated her, and whose apocalyptic fantasies drove her to distraction. Sometimes, for no
apparent reason, Marina would look up and make a disheartening remark or sinister prophecy.

“On the other side of that courtyard is a repair shop for the killers’ cars,” she once said. “They’re all there, day and night, armed with rifles, ready to come and shoot us.”

Their most serious quarrel, however, occurred one afternoon when Marina began her habitual cursing of journalists because her
name had not been mentioned on a television program about the hostages.

“They’re all sons of bitches,” she said.

Maruja confronted her.

“You’re out of line,” she replied in a rage. “You can show a little respect.”

Marina did not answer and later, in a calmer moment, apologized. In reality, she lived in a world apart. She was sixty-four years old and had been a famous beauty, with wonderful
large black eyes and silver hair that still gleamed even in misfortune. She had become nothing but skin and bones. When Beatriz and Maruja arrived, she had spent almost two months with no one to talk to but her guards, and time and effort were needed for her to assimilate their presence. Fear had wreaked havoc on her: She had lost forty-five pounds, and her morale was very low. She was a phantom.

When she was very young, she had married a chiropractor who
was well respected in the athletic world, a stout, good-hearted man who loved her without reservation and with whom she had four daughters and three sons. She managed everything, in her own house and in several others, for she felt obliged to solve the problems of her large family in Antioquia. Marina was like a second mother to them
all, as much for her authority as her solicitude, but she also concerned herself with any outsider who touched her heart.

Because of her indomitable independence rather than any financial need, she sold cars and life insurance, and seemed able to sell anything simply because she wanted to spend her own money. But those closest to her lamented the fact that a woman with so many natural talents
was also hounded by misfortune. For almost twenty years her husband had been incapacitated by mental illness, two brothers had been killed in a terrible car accident, one died of a heart attack, another was crushed by a traffic light in a freak mishap, and still another, who loved to wander, had disappeared forever.

Her situation as a hostage had no solution. Even she accepted the widespread
idea that she had been abducted only because her captors wanted a significant hostage whom they could kill without thwarting the negotiations for their surrender. But the fact that she had spent sixty days in prison may have allowed her to think that they saw a chance to obtain some advantage in exchange for her life.

It was noteworthy that even at her worst moments she spent long hours absorbed
in the meticulous care of her fingernails and toenails. She filed and buffed them, and brightened them with natural polish, so that they looked like the nails of a younger woman. She devoted the same attention to tweezing her eyebrows and shaving her legs. Once they were past their initial problems, Maruja and Beatriz helped her. They learned to deal with her. She held interminable conversations
with Beatriz about people she loved and people she hated, speaking in an endless whisper that irritated
even the guards. Maruja tried to comfort her. Both felt distress at being the only people, apart from her jailers, who knew she was alive, yet could not let anyone else know.

One of the few diversions during this time was the unexpected return of the masked boss who had visited them on the
first day. Cheerful and optimistic, he brought the news that they might be released before December 9, the date of the election for the Constituent Assembly. This had special significance for Maruja because December 9 was her birthday, and the thought of spending it with her family filled her with anticipatory joy. But it was an ephemeral hope: A week later, the same boss said that not only would
they not be released on December 9, but their captivity would be a long one and they would not be free by Christmas or the New Year. It was a harsh blow. Maruja suffered the onset of phlebitis that caused severe pains in her legs. Beatriz had an attack of asphyxia, and her gastric ulcer began to bleed. One night, maddened by pain, she pleaded with Spots to make an exception to the prison rules and
let her have an unscheduled visit to the bathroom. He agreed, after thinking it over for a long time, and told her he was taking a great risk. But it did not help. Beatriz continued to whimper in pain like a wounded dog, and thought she was dying until Spots took pity on her and got some Buscapina from the majordomo.

In spite of their efforts, the hostages had no reliable clues as to where they
were. The guards’ fear that neighbors might hear them, and the sounds and voices coming from outside, led them to think they were in the city. A confirmation seemed to be the deranged rooster that crowed at any hour of the day or night, since roosters kept on high floors tend to lose their sense of time. Nearby they often heard different voices calling the same name: Rafael. Small, low-flying planes
passed overhead, and when the helicopter arrived it sounded as if it were right on top of the house. Marina insisted on the unproven theory that a high-ranking army officer was supervising their imprisonment. For Maruja and Beatriz
it was just another fantasy, but whenever they heard the helicopter, strict military rules were reimposed: the house as orderly as a barracks, the door latched on the
inside and padlocked on the outside, conversation in whispers, weapons always at the ready, and a slight improvement in the vile food.

The four guards who had been with them since the first day were replaced by another four early in December. One was distinctive and strange and looked like a character in a horror movie. They called him Gorilla, and in fact he resembled one: enormous and strong
as a gladiator, with dark black skin covered in thick, curly hair. His voice was so loud he had difficulty whispering, and no one dared to ask him to lower his voice. The sense of inferiority felt by the other guards was obvious. Instead of the cutoffs worn by everyone else, he wore gymnast’s shorts, a ski mask, and a tight undershirt that displayed his perfect torso. He had a Holy Infant medal
around his neck, handsome arms, and a Brazilian wristband that he wore for good luck. His hands were enormous, and the fate lines seemed etched into his pale palms. He barely fit into the room, and every time he moved he left chaos in his wake. For the hostages, who had learned how to deal with the previous guards, this was a disturbing turn of events—above all for Beatriz, whom he hated on sight.

The condition shared by both guards and hostages was absolute boredom. As a prelude to their celebration of Christmas, the owners of the house held a novena with a priest of their acquaintance, perhaps innocent, perhaps not. They prayed, sang carols, gave candy to the children, and toasted one another with the apple wine that was the family’s official drink. At the end the house was exorcised
with sprinklings of holy water. They needed so much that it was brought in gallon oil cans. When the priest left, Damaris came into the room and sprinkled the television, the mattresses, the walls. The three captives, taken by surprise, did not know what to do. “It’s holy water,” she said as she sprinkled everything with her hand. “It’ll help to make sure nothing happens to
us.” The guards crossed
themselves, fell to their knees, and received the purifying shower with angelic devotion.

That love of parties and prayer, so typical of Antioquians, did not let up for a moment during the month of December. Maruja, in fact, had been careful not to let her captors know that December 9 was her fifty-third birthday. Beatriz agreed to keep the secret, but the guards found out while they were watching
a special television program that Maruja’s children dedicated to her on the evening of December 8.

The guards could not hide their emotion at feeling themselves somehow involved in the intimacy of the program. “Doña Maruja,” said one, “how young Dr. Villamizar looks, how nice he looks, how he loves you.” They hoped Maruja would introduce them to her daughters so they could take them out. In any
case, watching that program in captivity was like being dead and watching life from the next world without taking part, and without the living knowing you were there. At eleven the next morning, the majordomo and his wife burst into the room with a bottle of local champagne, enough glasses for everyone, and a cake that looked as if it were covered in toothpaste. They congratulated Maruja with great
displays of affection, and they and the guards sang “Happy Birthday.” They all ate and drank, and left Maruja struggling with contrary emotions.

Juan Vitta woke on November 26 to learn that he was being released because of ill health. He froze in terror, for in recent days he had been feeling better than ever, and he thought the announcement was simply a subterfuge that would give the public
its first corpse. As a consequence, when the guard told him a few hours later to get ready for his release, he had an attack of panic. “I would have preferred to die on my own,” he has said, “but if this was my fate, I had to accept it.” He was told to shave and put on clean clothes, and he did, certain he was dressing for his own funeral.
He was given instructions on what he must do once he was
free, and above all, on what he must say during press interviews to avoid giving clues the police might use in a rescue operation. A little after twelve, they drove him through some labyrinthine districts in Medellín and then, without ceremony, dropped him off on a street corner.

After Vitta’s release they moved Hero Buss again, this time to a good neighborhood, across the street from an aerobics
school for women. The owner of the house was a free-spending, high-living mulatto. His wife, about thirty-five years old and in her seventh month of pregnancy, spent the day from breakfast on covering herself in expensive jewelry that was far too noticeable. They had a young son who was staying in another house with his grandmother, and it was his room, filled with every kind of mechanical toy,
that was occupied by Hero Buss. And he, considering how they made him part of the family, prepared himself for a long captivity.

The owners must have enjoyed this German like the ones in Marlene Dietrich’s movies: more than six feet tall and a yard wide, a fifty-year-old adolescent with a sense of humor that protected him from creditors, and who spoke a Spanish spiced with the Caribbean slang
of his wife, Carmen Santiago. He had faced real dangers as a correspondent for German newspapers and radio in Latin America, including the night he had spent, under the military regime in Chile, expecting to be shot at dawn. So he already had a tough hide, and could enjoy the folkloric aspects of his captivity.

And it was just as well in a house where a courier made regular visits bringing bags
full of money for expenses, and still there was never enough. The owners would spend it as soon as they could on parties and trinkets, and in a few days they had nothing left for food. On weekends they gave parties and huge dinners for their brothers and sisters, cousins and close friends. Children took over the house. On the first day they were overwhelmed with
emotion when they recognized the
German giant, whom they treated as if he were a soap opera star because they had seen him so often on television. No fewer than thirty people who had nothing to do with the abduction asked to take his picture, requested autographs, ate with him, and even danced with him, all without masks in that madhouse where he lived until his captivity ended.