The Dark Bride (47 page)

In Barrancabermeja, I thank don Marteliano, a former worker at the Tropical Oil Company, and the Pacheco family, with its three generations of oil workers. Hernando Martínez—Pitula—a former worker at Ecopetrol and today a taxi driver, who was my guide through the city. The many people that I had the opportunity to interview, among them Jorge Núñez and Hernando Hernández, current president of the oil workers union. Monseñor Jaime Prieto, bishop of Barrancabermeja. The legendary Negra Tomasa, William Sánchez Egea, Manuel Pérez, and don Aristedes. The
Japonesa
—who told me her entire life story. Amanda and her sister Lady, Gina, whose help was so valuable, Abel Robles Gómez, Dr. Orlando Pinilla of Bucaramanga, the civil leader Eloisa Piña, señora Candelaria, a resident of the barrio Nueve de Abril. Librarian Jairo Portillo. César Martínez, Luis Carlos Pérez, father Gabriel Ojeda, and Gustavo Pérez.

Wilfredo Pérez, a catechist and a good man, who was killed by the paramilitaries in May 1998.

In Bogotá, Gustavo Gaviria, whose conversations were so revealing, and Guillermo Angulo, for making me aware of the poetry of the Mexican Renato Leduc and the miracles of an old love of his and of the writer Manuel Mejía Vallejo, named Machuca. Dr. Eduardo Cuéllar Gnecco. Moisés Melo, director of Editorial Norma, for his comments. For their valuable texts on Barrancabermeja and Santander, Virginia Gutiérrez de Pineda and Jacques April-Gniset. Alejandro Santamaría for introducing me to Father Carlos Eduardo Correa. Dr. Ignacio Vergara, the analyst of the fictitious characters in this novel and the previous one. Marie Descourtieux, for the books and texts on prostitution she sent me from Paris, and the memorable Scottish poet Alastair Reid, who laughed with me as we created the conversation about snow that appears here from the mouths of the gringo Frank Brasco and Sayonara.

The Colombian Ministry of Culture, for giving me a grant that aided the writing of these pages.

Photograph by Nina Subin

LAURA RESTREPO
is a bestselling author and political activist, whose novels include
Leopard in the Sun
and
The Angel of Galilea
, which was awarded Mexico's Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Prize and the Prix France Cultural Award. She has been a professor of literature at the National University of Colombia as well as publisher of the weekly magazine
Semana
. In 1984 she was a member of the peace commission that brought the Colombian government and guerrillas to the negotiating table. As she does with all of her novels, Restrepo did thorough research for
The Dark Bride
, transforming her investigations as a journalist into the foundation for a fictional creation. She lives in Bogotá, Colombia.

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PRAISE FOR

THE DARK BRIDE

“The story of Sayonara, a beautiful young prostitute serving oil workers in the jungle, is haunting, as is the cast of eccentric characters who are drawn to her. The closed universe of the red light district in the miserable town where Sayonara works could well be considered a metaphor for Colombia and most of Latin America. Restrepo is a fine writer and this is her best book yet.”

—I
SABEL
A
LLENDE

“Laura Restrepo breathes life into a singular amalgam of journalistic investigation and literary creation. Her fascination with popular culture and the play of her impeccable humor, of that biting but at the same time tender irony . . . save her novels from any temptation toward pathos or melodrama, and infuse them with unmistakable reading pleasures.”

—G
ABRIEL
G
ARCÍA
M
ÁRQUEZ

“A cacophony of voices gives the story a fine, sexy momentum, a variety of narrative vectors resolving into vigorous, propulsive suspense. The prose is sylvanly lush and slyly funny . . . [A] rippingly readable story.”

—
San Francisco Chronicle

“The Dark Bride
is a reporter's novel, full of tantalizing repartee and details too piquant and quirky to have been invented . . . The story unfolds slowly, deep in the jungle, by the banks of the Magdalena . . . [and] every character and scene in the Maupassant tale gets its tropical equivalent.”

—New York Times

“A tragic and vivid love story.”

—
Library Journal

“
The Dark Bride
brilliantly captures a slice of Colombian life relatively unknown to the outside world . . . A novel overflowing with fecund description, raw humanity, and humor.”

—Criticas

“An illuminating book born out of a chain of tiny revealed secrets,
The Dark Bride
captures with tough humor and intelligence stories clearly fed by the real voices of doctors and oil workers, prostitutes and their clients. As the novel affirms, they have the gift of telling their tragedies without pathos or vanity.”

—
The Guardian
(London)

“A powerful love story . . . Restrepo's voluptuous, lyrical prose makes this book hard to put down. And the sheer beauty of the language makes one wish it would never end . . . Only a master like Restrepo could have made so palatable the gritty reality of a life in what we call the Third World.”

—
Dallas Morning News

“It's hard not to get caught up in Restrepo's sexy, whirlwind narrative, which also reveals much about the effects of the global economy and Latin American politics on one small corner of Colombia.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Take the style of fellow Colombian Gabriel García Márquez and kick it up a notch with the manic pace of contemporary news reporting, and you have the imaginative chaotic tone of the latest novel by former journalist Laura Restrepo . . . This compendium of anecdotes and fables adds up to a vision that is both idealistic and cynical, humorous and tragic.”

—Richmond Times-Dispatch

“Restrepo weaves an intriguing story . . . A bestselling novelist in her homeland,
The Dark Bride
is a fine introduction to U.S. readers who will undoubtedly compare her to Chile's Isabel Allende and her own country's master journalist-turned novelist, Gabriel García Márquez.”

—
Miami Herald

“
The Dark Bride
is worth reading for what it tells us about the struggle for survival on the dark margins of society.”

—Washington Post

The Angel of Galilea

Leopard in the Sun

T
HE DARK BRIDE
. Copyright © 1999 by Laura Restrepo. Translation © 2001 by Laura Restrepo. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

ISBN 0-06-008894-X

EPub Edition June 2013 ISBN 9780062309266

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^*
Ladrón
is used here both as a family name and, below, as it is more commonly used, to mean “thief.”