Colombiano

by Rusty Young

‘They say five years, although I could be out within two for good behaviour. Then we’ll start back up.’

  He seemed resigned, even philosophical, about going to prison. Clearly unaware of the manoeuvring by the North Americans to extradite him, he was in for a rude shock.

  ‘Meanwhile, until the public furore dies down, I must maintain a low profile. Alfa 1 will take the helm. You will be his second in command and you’ll—’

  ‘Comando, I can’t accept. In fact, I came to ask for a discharge. I’d like to include Palillo, Piolín and Ñoño in my request.’

  ‘Impossible! Your friends can demobilise in the first parade, but I need you now more than ever.’

  ‘Please, I’ve done over two years’ service and helped you take Llorona as promised.’

  ‘Our work is not done. Caraquemada and Santiago are still out there.’

  ‘Please, comando. I’ve been loyal. I’ve been honest.’

  ‘And I helped trap your father’s killers. Does that count for nothing?’

  ‘It does. But I must return to my family.’

  ‘And you will. Only not yet.’ For a second time, he leaned in close. ‘There’s something I should have told you earlier. You were also correct about the Díaz brothers. You’re no doubt aware that Colonel Buitrago raided their laboratory. But what you don’t know is that they and Beta were working intimately with the Guerrilla.’ Trigeño spat noisily to emphasise his revulsion. ‘There is only one thing I despise more than a cocaine trafficker and that is a lying, deceitful traitor. The Díazes were doing business with the enemy behind our backs. That, I can never forgive.’

  This was too much for me. The flattery, the false modesty, the lying, the deceit and the shifting of blame, I could handle. But his double standard in moralising about unpardonable faults in others that were the very same faults he possessed himself sent me into a furious spin. With my next utterance, any possibility of a smooth farewell unravelled.

  ‘We both know that isn’t true. I saw a video of Beta and the Díazes at their laboratory talking to you about the yellow barrels.’

  Trigeño’s reaction was swift. He dropped his fishing rod and his left hand shot up to grip my throat while his right hand patted my chest and waist, presumably searching for a listening device. ‘And I suppose you have your beloved colonel out there, waiting to arrest me so you’ll both look like heroes.’

  ‘I came alone,’ I said calmly. ‘Buitrago advised against it. I’m not recording anything.’

  Trigeño released me and looked down at his boots, perhaps to conceal his embarrassment. It was out in the open now – I’d called him a liar to his face and he’d all but admitted it – so I continued.

  ‘I also know you ordered every aspect of the limpieza. I know Don Mauricio’s death wasn’t an accident and the Guerrilla did not carry out the assassination attempt on Don Felix. Beta wasn’t acting independently, just as the Díaz didn’t betray you. You blame them now because it suits you, but you’ve been behind them all along.’

  When Trigeño looked back at me, it was not anger I read in his face but genuine mortification, like that of a little boy finally caught with his hand in the cookie jar. But that didn’t mean he was sorry.

  ‘Although it left a foul taste in my mouth,’ he said, ‘those were deliberate strategies. We needed to get close to our enemy in the short term in order to defeat them in the long term—’

  ‘Short term?’ I said with disgust. ‘I saw you and Javier shake hands during that first meeting a year ago. And killing Mauricio and Delgado – was that also part of your secret long-term strategy?’

  ‘Everything I’ve ever done,’ he stammered, ‘was necessary for the good of Colombia. Everything our enemy did, we needed to do better, including financing our army. So when Javier—’

  ‘I don’t care who, or how, or why!’ I interrupted. ‘You lied to me. You manipulated me. And you used me.’

  ‘I am truly sad that I had to deceive you, Pedro. You were still too young and idealistic to understand. But I now beg you to look to the future. Together with Alfa 1, we will run south-east Colombia. You will have a promotion. Triple pay. Two hundred men under your command. And if you want, a share from the agricultural co-operative.’

  I could hardly believe it. He was attempting to bribe me with a share of cocaine profits.

  ‘Did you ever understand me? Did you ever even care?’

  ‘Of course I did. I saw a great deal of myself in you.’

  ‘And I’m grateful for our similarities. You’ve shown me yours is not the path I want for myself.’

  We had reached our final impasse. I’d accused him of lying, betrayal and hypocrisy, while I’d been sincere, loyal and transparent about my desire to leave and reasons for wanting to do so. But still he would not yield. There was only one thing for it. One final risk.

  ‘Carlos, remember you once said I was like a son to you?’ I had his full attention; I’d never called him by his first name. ‘Would you shoot your own son?’

  I turned and walked towards Uncle Leo’s truck, waiting for the sharp, searing pain of a bullet between my shoulder blades. It didn’t come. Trigeño chased after me, trying to wrench my shoulder around.

  ‘Whether you believe it or not, you are like a son to me. I’d never touch a hair on your head. Pedro, I’ll be genuinely sad, but you’re free to leave.’

  ‘Good.’

  I continued walking, still half-expecting him to shoot. Behind me, I heard a sharp metallic clink. I turned, believing he was cocking his pistol. But instead he had pulled a pin from his waist belt – the pin belonging to the emergency grenade that he’d sworn to use on himself when cornered. He now flung the grenade into the lake.

  Following a muffled underwater explosion, a mushrooming water cloud burst the surface, sending waves back and forth across the lake. Vampire fish floated up, dead and sideways. There must have been a tonne of them. They were a beautiful, magnificent fish with semi-transparent fins and iridescent silver scales down their elongated bodies. All of them were over two foot long with razor-sharp teeth and a pair of seven-centimetre fangs. I had never seen so many fish. Seconds earlier, all of them were in their prime. Now, most were dead. Others, half-alive, swam in circles.

  ‘You see that!’ he cried. ‘You made me do that.’

  I remembered Papá telling me about God’s creatures being sacred, and I remembered how, a year earlier, on one of the afternoons we fished together, Trigeño had caught then released an armoured catfish. Back then, I had let myself be deceived. But with this final act of wanton destruction, he’d revealed the man within.

  Jaw set hard, I turned and kept walking. And I wouldn’t stop until I reached Camila’s doorstep.

  163

  I STILL HAD CAMILA’S new address from her if you love me text. When I arrived in Bogotá it was only mid-afternoon, but already the sky was as dark as dusk, with grey storm clouds engulfing the city.

  I drove north towards the centre. Apart from in the movies, I’d never seen such tall buildings. Beneath them I was a tiny, insignificant ant, ducking and weaving among ten million other ants.

  Camila lived in a security apartment block with a twenty-four-hour portero on duty behind a desk. As I buzzed, holding a dozen red roses behind my back, I felt like the earth might open up at any moment and swallow me whole.

  The portero trudged to the door and asked through the glass who I was.

  ‘Pedro. For Camila Muñoz, por favor.’

  It was 6 pm as I ascended the stairs and knocked on the door of apartment 202, hoping that Camila lived alone.

  I’d wanted to surprise her, but now I regretted not phoning in advance. Imagine my embarrassment if Andrea, the simpering newsreader, was visiting. With her looking at me down her surgically sculpted nose, I wouldn’t be able to say a single word. Or worse still, imagine if Camila had a new boyfriend who flung open the door wearing boxer shorts, only to find me concealing a bouquet.

  Fortunately, Camila opened the door he
rself. She was wearing no make-up and simply dressed – in blue jeans and a tight-fitting white woollen pullover – yet radiantly beautiful. Her hair was tied back in a loose ponytail and she was wearing her reading glasses, which always made her look more serious and grown up.

  We stood appraising each other awkwardly.

  ‘Camila,’ I began, ‘I know you probably don’t even want me here … but I just wanted to tell you …’ I whipped out the flowers. ‘I’m out! I quit.’

  Camila’s face brightened momentarily, but she suppressed her delight.

  ‘Truly out?’ Her hands went to her hips. ‘Not just half-way, sort-of-but-not-really, maybe-later out?’

  ‘No, truly out.’ I felt myself on firmer ground now. ‘I saw my boss and got my discharge. And I promise you I’ll never go back.’

  ‘What about the men who killed your father? Aren’t some of them still alive?’

  ‘Let them live. I need to move forward and start living again too.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ she said, mistrust still lurking in her eyes.

  ‘I also want to say that I’m sorry for all the hurt and anxiety I caused you. I lied to you. I told you I would leave my job, but I didn’t. And I know it made you scared. I was so obsessed, I probably seemed like a demented monster.’

  She suppressed a chuckle. I saw this was getting through to her. Her hands slid slowly from her hips. ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘But I still love you, Camila, and if you’re not with anyone else, then I’m begging you for another chance. I know I’ve been selfish, but now I’ll do anything you ask.’

  She held herself back a moment longer and then, finally, she relented. It was like a dam bursting. She hugged me and I began crying. Tears of happiness flooded forth, but also tears of relief that it was all finally and properly over.

  We stayed like that for a full minute, then Camila pulled back to look at me seriously, a finger on her chin. ‘There is one thing you could do.’

  ‘Anything!’

  ‘That tattoo. It has to go.’

  Her act broke, dissolving into a smile, and she threw her arms around me again.

  164

  I ARRIVED BACK AT Llorona having been absent less than a week, but the town was already abuzz with news of the Díazes’ arrest.

  Ultimately, both the Díaz properties were confiscated under anti-narcotics law. Eleonora’s property was put up for public auction. But there were no bidders – no sane person would buy land that had been cursed by the Díaz family and which had also been the site of a battle and the local headquarters of an illegal army.

  As for Eleonora herself, when she returned to visit her imprisoned sons, the townsfolk turned their backs on her, refusing her service in stores and ignoring her waves in the street. She was also shunned by la gente de bien – ‘good society’ – in Bogotá.

  Since Fabián Díaz was in prison on cocaine trafficking charges, he was never sworn into public office. Instead, the election’s runner-up was inaugurated: Don Felix Velasquez. Hearing this, I smiled, confident that Felix would run the region honestly. Under his leadership, the town of Llorona returned to relative tranquillity, as did Puerto Galán and Puerto Princesa. All three were now indisputably under army and police rule.

  After his series of military triumphs against the Guerrilla, Colonel Julius Orlando Buitrago was an unimpeachable national hero. Caraquemada’s 34th Frente abandoned the area completely.

  Following Caraquemada’s latest brush with death, I imagined him limping back to camp with his ego in tatters but his legend as an immortal escape artist grown even larger. The Guerrilla’s reputation had reached an all-time low with proof of their direct involvement in cocaine trafficking, which they’d always vociferously denied.

  For the time being, Buitrago remained in Garbanzos. But he’d made some powerful enemies and, like many senior army officers who had patriotically served two countries – Colombia and the United States – he and his family were offered resident visas by the North Americans. He told me he planned on retiring to Florida the following year.

  As for Trigeño, he was set to hand himself in to the authorities when, on the eve of his imprisonment, he got word of the North Americans’ extradition plan and reneged on the deal, becoming a fugitive. Over the coming years, some said he’d been killed by a US black-ops team, although rumours persisted that he’d undergone radical plastic surgery and was happily ensconced on his own Caribbean island.

  With the disappearance of Trigeño, the various Autodefensas groups he had united under the aegis of the AUC fragmented. Alfa 1 abandoned La 50. Rather than surrender to the ‘cowardly government’, he vigorously pursued Beta, who remained holed up on a farm near Casanare with dozens of soldiers.

  Hundreds of former Autodefensas, none of whom had spoken a word against Alfa 1, waited for the phone call that would return them to fight under their former commander and mentor. The unravelling process took many years to reach its conclusion, but that was the beginning of the end for the Autodefensas.

  That same year, General Itagüí would receive medals and a fourth star for his ‘heroic role in countering the communist insurgency’. His open sponsorship of the Autodefensas in Los Llanos was never made public, not even when the Fiscalía finally raided La 50 in response to my anonymous phone call to the bulldog fiscal.

  The first sets of remains discovered belonged to Tango and Murgas – with the 200-peso coins I’d inserted in their graves setting off a metal detector. Using yellow plastic tape, CTI officers marked off a crime scene and began digging. The taped-off area was pushed further and further outwards as corpses and bone fragments in black garbage bags began to pile up. Fortunately, DNA testing by forensic investigators allowed many families of those ‘disappeared’ to finally get closure and put their loved ones to rest.

  Back closer to home, things were much happier.

  Uncle was now the doting father of a healthy baby boy. Mamá was thrilled to become an aunt, and also at my reconciliation with her brother. She moved back to the finca and spent her days tending her vegetable garden and attending Sunday Mass. She visited her neighbours Gloria and Old Man Domino regularly, never forgetting to bring sweets for the little boy they’d adopted: Iván.

  In May, a month after my final conversation with Trigeño, my friends and I officially ‘demobilised’, handing in our weapons at a grand parade that included lots of reporters, television cameras and well-meaning handshakes. As part of our social reintegration process, we’d been debriefed by the army, received therapy from professional psychologists for the trauma we’d experienced and were now declared fit to be productive citizens.

  For the next year, we’d be paid the minimum wage by the government while attending vocational workshops. I moved into Camila’s tiny apartment. Meanwhile, Palillo, Piolín and Ñoño – who had a new puppy called Daffodil snapping at his heels – rented a small, shared apartment on the outskirts of Bogotá. On the night of the demobilisation parade, I invited my friends to Camila’s place for a celebration.

  We got drunk and relived our happy memories, making light of the horrific ones by teasing each other and satirising our commanders. Piolín had won a bet against the three boys, which meant she got to be Alfa 1.

  ‘You!’ She pointed at Palillo. ‘Anaconda, give me fifty push-ups … naked.’

  Coca-Cola spluttered as he took a sip of beer, spraying froth everywhere.

  ‘And you!’ she said to him. ‘You like beer, do you? Then we’ll change your name to Cerveza. Now, take this raincoat and give me ten pack runs up and down the fire stairs, drinking a beer each time.’

  Piolín had Alfa 1’s intonation and gestures down pat. Ñoño was beside himself until Piolín bellowed at him: ‘Silence! Did I say you could laugh, Harry Potter? Give me a three-minute plank and then tie yourself to the balcony. You need a suntan.’

  In the middle of all this play, Piolín stood, raised her beer can and clinked a fork against it repeatedly until the group fell silent.


  ‘To good friends we’ve made,’ she said, glancing at Camila so she’d feel included. ‘And good friends we’ve lost.’

  I looked around at the people who’d been my closest companions for the past two and a half years. We were brothers and sisters, bonded for life.

  ‘Wait!’ I stood. I had a toast of my own to propose. ‘My heart knows for a fact that Camila and I will be spending the rest of our lives together. However, as you all know, I’m a very impatient man so … I’d like the rest of my life to start right now.’ I bent down on one knee. ‘Camila, will you—’

  Before I could finish my question, she rushed forward and leaped on top of me, knocking me sprawling to the floor. ‘I will! I will! I will!’

  I didn’t even have time to take the ring from my pocket, which was probably for the best as it was only a plastic Corn Flakes ring like Ernesto’s. Our friends piled on top of us, hugging us, shaking our hands, patting our backs and kissing our cheeks.

  We phoned Mamá, Uncle and Camila’s parents with the news. Mamá was overjoyed, but then she sniffed. ‘Your father would be so proud.’

  ‘He is proud, Mamá.’

  I’d prayed and spoken to him the previous night. He’d wished me luck and hoped that Camila and I would have plenty of children, with at least one boy who would grow up to become his own true man, just as I had.

  EPILOGUE

  PALILLO WORKED ON me for three months about returning to dig up what he insisted was a buried guaca. He never lost faith that money lay buried near the jungle laboratory.

  ‘Not just thousands. Millions.’

  ‘Even if you’re right, it would be dirty money.’

  ‘Of course it’s dirty,’ he said. ‘But we’ll clean it.’

  ‘My answer is “no”.’

  It was July by then, eight weeks since our formal disarmament. Life after the Autodefensas was amazing. My friends were now making up for lost time, enjoying the freedoms that ordinary teenagers took for granted, like talking for hours on the phone, going to the cinema and not requiring permission to go to the toilet. They drank alcohol, played loud music, danced and stayed up late.