by Rusty Young
But there was nothing.
Fucking coward journalists! I thought. Fucking big-city media companies!
Like many Colombians, I suspected this was part of an organised political conspiracy; they were deliberately suppressing the news. But it wasn’t.
I’ve since learned the truth about journalists in Colombia. We have the bravest reporters in the world. Many have given their lives to tell the truth about the war and cocaine trafficking. Some live in exile overseas. But those living closest to the conflict zones are warned to keep quiet or be killed. The armed groups know their phone numbers and where they work and live. Even those who publish articles anonymously in big-city magazines like La Semana and Cambio can be traced. Or their families can be. So they report selectively.
Nevertheless, right then and there, I resolved that one day I’d tell my life story to someone who would be willing to publish it. I know I’ve done terrible things – killed people and even worse. I know I’ve lied to those I love. But people need to know that this is not a lie. The things I’ve witnessed with these eyes – these stories I’m telling you – they’re too horrible for anyone to invent. This is the truth about Colombia and I want people to know it.
The following afternoon, when Camila came to my hotel, I could see she was still upset. She was quieter than usual, and after only an hour, she said she was going home.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked.
‘I’m fine, amor,’ she said. ‘I just need to be alone. I need time to think.’
I said nothing. We were still together, and that was what was important.
On Thursday night, there was still no news about the roadblock. I switched off the television, picked up my Galil and began cocking and uncocking it. I pulled the rounds from the chamber and then re-inserted them one by one into the empty magazine before reattaching it and starting again. I would not lie idle while Zorrillo, Buitre and their men committed atrocities. Something had to be done, and with the government’s continued inaction, Javier Diaz might be the only one who could help me do it.
86
ON FRIDAY, JAVIER’S driver collected Camila and me from my hotel for the five-kilometre drive into the hills. It was a hot, humid evening but the electric window wouldn’t go down.
‘It’s fixed in place. Bulletproof glass,’ said the driver, tapping the thick windscreen with his knuckle. ‘But I’ll turn up the air-conditioning. Perhaps you’d like some music or television?’
Twin screens flickered on in the seats in front of us. We looked at each other. That car must have cost more than most houses. Camila’s wide-eyed fascination increased when we reached a high stone wall overrun with creepers and two large wrought-iron gates parted as if by magic.
As the tyres crunched slowly up a winding gravel driveway, Camila pressed her forehead against the glass. Along both sides, a continuous box hedge was punctuated by palms planted at intervals and floodlit from below.
Finally, the car rounded a marble fountain and pulled up in front of a palatial two-storey mansion. Camila stepped out and turned in a full circle, her lips parted in amazement. On one side of the house was a spacious car park filled with late-model Mercedes and BMWs. Beyond it, three helicopters perched on the grass. On the other side was a fishpond and, in the distance, an artificial lake with a speedboat moored to a jetty.
I’d always thought of Humberto Díaz as a humble cattle rancher whose sole residence was the modest finca next to ours. This exotic hacienda hidden behind high walls told a different story.
I still had no idea of the nature or extent of Humberto Díaz’s involvement in the cocaine trade. There were many parts to the business that went on south of Santo Paraíso. As the intel file stated, Díaz may simply have imported, transported or sold chemical precursors, many of which were expensive and difficult to obtain in wholesale quantities. He may have owned fields where the coca plants grew or simply owned the crops themselves – paying campesino farmers to plant, tend and harvest them. He may have controlled the jungle processing laboratories where the leaves are stomped on and broken down into paste, or the refining laboratories where the crude coca paste is converted into crystal. He may have sold and exported the final crystallised product or he may simply have been a middleman. I had no way of knowing and it was not a question I could ask his wife and sons. In fact, with so many guests vying for their attention, it would be hard enough getting Fabián or Javier alone.
We ascended a sweeping staircase. The sounds of a bass guitar and snare drums reached my ears and the smell of roasting pork lechona filled my nostrils.
Just past the entrance a waiter appeared wearing white gloves and carrying a silver drinks tray. He indicated a short queue where arriving guests stood, waiting their turn to be welcomed by Eleonora Díaz and her son Javier.
‘Would the señores care for a beverage?’
Camila accepted a glass of champagne before whispering to me, ‘Where did all these people come from?’
Not from Llorona, that was for sure. The women were dripping with jewellery and the men wore tailored suits. Most of them were older; some had silver hair. The younger women looked like they’d stepped off a fashion shoot.
Most guests had driven to Garbanzos with bodyguards and police escorts. Others had flown down for the weekend. Not everyone could be accommodated in the guest bungalows, so Javier had booked out every room in the town’s best hotel.
Camila pointed out a pretty woman with blonde hair and unnaturally large breasts. ‘I’ve seen her on TV,’ she whispered. ‘I think she’s a newsreader.’ Camila adjusted her dress nervously and gulped her champagne. ‘Does my make-up look okay? Maybe I should fix it.’
Camila had applied extra-thick mascara and black eyeliner, and her hair was tied up in a chignon with two curled tendrils dangling playfully around her ears. She might have been only fifteen but already she looked like a woman.
‘Don’t worry,’ I reassured her. ‘You’re the most beautiful girl here.’
I hoped that we could have fun that night. It would help Camila forget the roadblock incident. I only had four more days of leave and after that I wouldn’t see her for another four months.
At the front of the queue, Eleonora Díaz, whom I barely knew, greeted me as though we were intimate acquaintances.
‘Pedro! How delightful to see you,’ she said regally. ‘And this must be your beautiful girlfriend.’
In the months since Humberto Díaz’s death, Eleonora’s face had hardened over, evidently as a result of plastic surgery. However, her new swimsuit-model breasts, bee-stung lips and designer eyes that stretched wide like those of a goldfish, rather than recreating the façade of youth, only emphasised that the rest of her had not fared so well. Consulting her hands for her true age – which must have been almost fifty – I noted diamonds and emeralds: the exotic knuckledusters of a wealthy widow who’d fought hard to get where she was and even harder to stay there. A thin white scarf was wrapped around her neck like a loose hospital bandage, completing the look. She was as sexy as a Peruvian mummy.
Nevertheless, it was common courtesy to pay the hostess a compliment.
‘Your dress is very beautiful, Señora Díaz,’ I said, lighting upon the only sincere praise available. I expressed my condolences for the loss of Humberto Díaz. ‘And I see you’re still wearing your wedding ring. My mother also swore never to take hers off.’
Eleonora exchanged glances with a meek man lingering beside her, whom I assumed to be another guest. He stepped forward and extended his hand.
‘I don’t believe you’ve met my new husband, César Lamprea, the former mayor of Popayán,’ she said. ‘We married in a small ceremony in Bogotá two months ago.’
I flushed from cheek to cheek, but Eleonora didn’t even look embarrassed. Only nine months had passed since her first husband’s execution and already she’d remarried. I mumbled my apologies and was glad when Camila tactfully shuffled us along to greet Javier.
Attired in a suit, he presented
a very different face than he had at Flora’s Cantina. Here, in his natural environment, he was polite and sophisticated. Thick, curly chest hair sprouted from beneath the unbuttoned collar of his silk shirt. He’d put on weight and looked tired and stressed.
‘Welcome, my friend.’ He shook my hand with curtness and efficiency, flashing a manufactured smile. ‘It’s been too long. Please, make yourself at home.’
I complimented him on his picturesque grounds and the party, and thanked him for inviting us. ‘Perhaps, when you have time, we could—’
‘Yes, later we’ll talk properly. Now if you’ll excuse me …’
Leaving Javier, we crossed the lushly appointed foyer – which boasted glass tables, ornamental vases and paintings displayed in specially designed alcoves – to the French doors on the other side. Stepping outside again, I noted that the mansion was U-shaped, designed around a stunning centrepiece: an enormous, kidney-shaped swimming pool. In Garbanzos and Llorona, such luxuries were unheard of. We lived on a river; we swam in that river.
In a marquee beside the pool, the party was in full swing. Waiters wearing tuxedos and serving canapés circulated among the elegantly dressed guests.
Mamá spotted us and hurried over. She looked happy and excited for the first time in months.
‘Oh, Pedro,’ she said, hugging me, ‘you look so handsome dressed up. You remind me of your father.’
But I didn’t feel handsome. Among this rich and glamorous crowd, I felt young and stupid and out of place.
For the next hour, I danced with Camila – salsa, merengue and vallenato – but I didn’t feel comfortable for a single moment.
Outside the hacienda’s high stone walls a war was going on. Yet the other guests seemed completely oblivious to it. A kid like Ñoño was proud when he could afford to buy his mother a bag of groceries. The men here wore expensive cologne and had their nails manicured. I doubted any of them had fired a rifle. National military service was compulsory for every male aged over eighteen, but they’d probably bribed their way out.
The night took a turn for the worse when I returned from the bathroom to find Camila standing by the pool chatting to the younger Díaz brother, Fabián. He was stylishly dressed in tailored pants and a tight-fitting shirt that displayed his chest muscles. His straight black hair was tied back in a ponytail, and he wore a diamond earring that I thought made him look like a girl but which was probably all the rage in the city. I had to admit he was good-looking. He had clear olive skin, an athletic build and large, confident eyes that gave him the look of a man to whom women came easily.
‘Mi amor,’ Camila said, turning to me with a smile, ‘you already know Fabián?’
I nodded and held out my hand, which he shook.
‘Of course!’ he said. ‘We’ve known each other for years.’ In fact, Fabián had spent most of the last ten years in Bogotá – first at an exclusive high school, then at university. He laughed and added, ‘I remember when you were only this high and running around naked on the grass.’
‘Have a whisky, amor,’ Camila said, signalling to the waiter. ‘Go on! Just one!’
‘It’s Blue Label,’ prompted Fabián.
‘I don’t drink,’ I said pointedly, taking a soda water from the tray.
Fabián picked up a whisky and drained it in a couple of gulps. I hoped to bring the conversation around to the political situation and the Guerrilla, but soon realised Fabián wasn’t interested. He was drunk and trying to impress Camila.
With his tongue loosened, he became critical of his own family. According to him, Javier was controlling, bull-headed and deaf to reason. ‘But we’re stuck with each other,’ he said, ‘since Papá left us equal shares of the business. Javier would love to buy me out, but he can’t. Mamá holds the controlling stake.’
‘Your mother lives in Bogotá now, doesn’t she?’ asked Camila, politely turning the conversation. ‘Did she fly down specially for the party?’
‘Yes. I’m trying to persuade Javier to put in a runway. It’s time I got my pilot’s licence. What about you, Pedro?’ He turned for a moment and smiled condescendingly. ‘You’ll be old enough to drive soon?’
The hairs on my neck bristled. I drove your father’s remains to the cemetery, you son of a bitch were the words that sprang to mind. Instead, I shrugged and said, ‘I’ve been driving for years.’
From Fabián we learned the names of several guests from the Colombian farándula – politicians, models, actresses and artists – all personal friends of the family. Camila asked about the gorgeous blonde newsreader she’d seen earlier.
‘You mean Andrea? I’ll introduce you. But right now, perhaps you’d like to …?’ He indicated the dance floor, and then looked to me for permission. ‘Mind if I borrow your girlfriend? I promise to return her when you get jealous.’
I could see that Camila was torn. She wanted to dance but didn’t want me to feel left out. ‘It’s your party too, amor,’ I said to her. ‘Dance all you like.’
I was left holding their empty glasses while Fabián led Camila onto the dance floor. When they’d finished the first song, Camila looked at me and shrugged – did I mind if they danced again? She seemed to be enjoying it.
I nodded, but Fabián’s behaviour began to irk me. He had a dark-eyed defiance, like a spoiled child who always got what he wanted and then rubbed it in. I didn’t like the way he held Camila tightly while dancing. I didn’t like him whispering familiarly in her ear, nor the way his hands lingered on her waist for several seconds after a song finished. But his blatant flirtatiousness annoyed me less than the fact that Camila played up to it, laughing and smiling and playfully touching his arm.
I suppose she felt flattered. At twenty-five, he was ten years her elder and there were plenty of pretty women his own age to choose from. But it left me with the feeling of being too poor, too young and simply not good enough.
Some of the younger guests – city types with easy manners and confident smiles – tried to include me in their conversation. But all of them referred to bars, clubs and restaurants in suburbs of Cali and Medellín as though everyone knew them. I found myself fidgeting, at a loss for what to do. Camila, however, fitted in graciously, laughing and dancing with Fabián’s friends, and drinking too much.
‘Slow down, baby,’ I warned her between songs.
‘I’m fine.’
‘I just don’t want you to get drunk.’
Camila was happy. She was meeting people: older people, glamorous people, educated people. Fabián was her guide into this world that was so far from everything we’d ever known. Neither of us had ever flown in a plane; these people owned helicopters. Fabián even inveigled himself into meeting Camila’s parents, who were also on the dance floor.
Finally, I tired of watching Camila dance with Fabián and approached the only other person who looked out of place: Colonel Buitrago.
Buitrago was sitting alone at a table wearing a blue shirt. He had loosened his tie and was nursing a crystal tumbler of whisky.
‘Mind if I sit?’ I asked politely.
‘Please do. I hoped to bump into you tonight.’
After exchanging pleasantries, the colonel updated me on my father’s case.
Of course, I already knew about the capture order issued for Zorrillo and Caraquemada from the files, but I feigned surprise and thanked him for his hard work. I longed to ask him about the follow up to Humberto Díaz’s case and whether he suspected the sons of involvement in narcotráfico. Why else would Buitrago continue tracking their phone calls long after their father’s death?
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t meet you this time in an official capacity,’ he said. ‘The current political situation is delicate, as I’m sure you know.’
‘I understand. But you found the crate?’
Buitrago hesitated. ‘I did, thank you. Although it might have been wiser to skip the graffiti, leave the crate where it was and just make the phone call.’
‘There were people I thought
might want the weapons. People who could put them to good use.’
‘The Colombian Armed Forces is the only organisation legally empowered to fight the Guerrilla.’
‘So you still think I’m on the wrong path?’
‘I think this whole country’s on the wrong path. This peace process is a mistake. The army needs money. The government should be raising taxes to fund the war, not appeasing the communists.’
I’d heard similar sentiments from General Itagüí, but at least he’d done something about it, delivering to us the intelligence files and his guerrillero prisoner. As a result of his long collaboration with the Autodefensas, General Itagüí presided over a province cleansed of insurgents, whereas Buitrago had the Guerrilla running rampant on his doorstep.
‘What will you do next time Buitre advances his roadblock, Colonel? What will you do when Caraquemada is close enough to launch mortars into your main plaza?’
‘My duty.’ He sat upright in his chair, puffed out his chest and adjusted his tie. ‘I’ll defend this town to my very last man. Sacrifice my own life, if necessary.’
‘What if that’s not enough? Wouldn’t outside help be better?’
‘I’ve seen what happens to other regions once outside help arrives.’
‘And so have I.’
I don’t know what Buitrago had seen, but Trigeño’s success in Los Llanos spoke for itself.
‘Be careful, Pedro. Sometimes the cure is harder to remove than the cancer.’
There was an uncomfortable silence. I looked up and noticed that Camila had vanished, as had Fabián.