Cocaine

by Jack Hillgate

  ‘Stultifying, I imagine.’

  ‘I learned science, I liked the natural sciences. I was the only girl in my baccalaureate with science. Lycee Fenelon, in Grasse. A good school.’

  ‘Grasse is the perfume village?’

  ‘Yes, but is not very fragrant. Factories and lots of circulation. Traffic.’

  ‘Factories?’

  ‘Yes. I worked at one.’

  ‘After your studies?’

  ‘Yes. I went University of Nice, four years. Then no-one give me job so I get job working in perfume factory.’

  ‘And then it’s just a short step to working at a shop that sells perfume?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She took an amuse-bouche and held it to her lips.

  ‘Is better at Sephora. Is better money, good social contributions.’

  ‘Don’t think me rude, Stephanie, but what do they pay you?’

  ‘Is not sounding much, I know. I have one thousand eight hundred euro after the tax.’

  ‘Really?’

  I took a long sip of champagne. I thought of the young man sitting at Jack Wiseman’s desk. He had been there just for show, but Stephanie wouldn’t be. She leaned back and took the amuse-bouche in her mouth. Her lips were very full and I could feel my erection under the table.

  ‘Would you consider a different type of work, Stephanie?’

  ‘Perhaps. But I have job for life. They cannot fire me.’

  ‘Working in a cosmetics store? When you have a science degree? Isn’t it an awful waste?’

  ‘I don’t want chomage.’

  ‘Unemployment?’

  She nodded and swallowed.

  ‘Have you decided?’ she asked me.

  ‘Have I decided what?’

  She pointed to her large black menu which didn’t have the prices on it.

  ‘What you will eat?’

  An oriental waiter appeared by our table, electronic pad in hand and my erection subsided.

  ‘Cinq minutes’, I said to him. ‘But bring another bottle of champagne.’

  He bowed and walked smoothly back towards the sommelier.

  ‘You always take this long to decide?’ she said, crossing her legs and squeezing her toned brown calves together.

  ‘I don’t want to make a mistake’, I replied.

  ‘There is no right or wrong. You choose, is all good here.’

  ‘Yes’, I said softly, gazing unblinkingly at her.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve got anything to lose.’

  ***

  November 1990

  They took Franz or Heinz from the apartment block to the central jail in Cali. Franz or Heinz did not speak Spanish, but, if he had done, he would have listened carefully whilst a list of charges was read out to him and he was asked if he had a lawyer.

  ‘Abogado?’ said a diminutive guard, dressed in the regulation green.

  ‘Frankel.’

  ‘No tiene abogado?’

  ‘My name is Frankel. You will contact the German embassy, please.’

  The guard ticked ‘no’ in the box on the form that identified whether the individual charged had a lawyer – an abogado. Another guard pushed Franz or Heinz towards a small doorway with the butt of his rifle.

  ‘Vamos!!!’

  Franz or Heinz took one look through the doorway. Through it he could see a room tiled in turquoise and a nurse sitting patiently, staring at him. He decided for whatever reason that he didn’t like the look of where he was being guided, he panicked and then clumsily tried to grab the rifle. It was his second big mistake of the day because the weight of the butt when applied with great force against his jaw – which it then was, by another diminutive green-clad guard – had the dual effect of fracturing it and rendering him unconscious.

  When Franz or Heinz awoke he was lying in a hospital bed, or at least it looked to him like a hospital bed other than the fact that he realized, when he went to scratch his nose, that his hands were chained to the metal rails alongside him. There were three others in the room with him, only one of whom looked like a doctor. They looked down at him with what looked to him like curiosity.

  ‘You have only yourself to blame’, said Suares, the tallest of the three, in good English.

  ‘You speak English? It was a set-up, you know? I go to apartment. This man, he call, he say to bring money…’ Franz or Heinz’s voice trailed off. Even he could tell that it was difficult to deny he had attempted to buy two kilos of cocaine.

  ‘Twelve years. I hope you do not have a wife and children.’

  ‘I must speak to German embassy.’

  ‘The embassy is in Bogota. You, Herr Frankel, are not in Bogota.’

  ‘I am entitled to a telephone call.’

  ‘This is not Hollywood, Herr Frankel, this is Colombia. You are entitled to nothing unless I say so. We found high traces of cocaine in your blood. We have photographic evidence of your attempt to buy two kilos. You handed over five thousand dollars. We have the money.’

  ‘Yes. But this is not legal. This is not legal. In Germany – ‘

  ‘You are unlikely to see Germany again, Herr Frankel.’

  Franz or Heinz watched as the doctor and the shorter man left by the door at the end. He was left with the taller man, in a military-style uniform, the one who could speak English. Suares pulled up a stool and sat down next to the head of the bed.

  ‘Let me explain to you’, said Suares softly, ‘what it is like for a German in a Colombian jail, for a man who does not speak Spanish.’

  Franz or Heinz gulped. He was suddenly very, very thirsty.

  ‘What is it like?’

  ‘First, you will be detained for six months awaiting trial. You will be sent to jail either here or in Cartagena. You will be detained in a cell with three others. These men will be Colombians and they will probably be extremely poor. They will also be poorly-educated and at least one, if not all of them, will have a tendency to physical violence. Are you visualizing this, Herr Frankel?’

  Franz or Heinz nodded, tightlipped. The water could wait. He felt deadened, somehow and he could feel his jaw starting to throb.

  ‘Then I will continue. If you survive the first six months you will stand trial and you will be convicted of intention to supply or deal cocaine. Any attempt to have you extradited to Germany will be refused. Two kilograms has a street-value of one hundred thousand dollars or more in Northern Europe. This is more money than anyone makes in Colombia. You will not be popular. You will have your picture in the paper. Some of the prisoners, the ones who can read, will await your arrival and they may even believe you are rich. This fact may lengthen your life-span a little, but it is a fact that it is unlikely you will survive a twelve year jail term or that you will want to.’

  Suares leant away from the bed and fished a small cigar out of the breast-pocket of his tunic. He lit it and blew the smoke out, not taking his eyes off Franz or Heinz, who was opening his mouth and hoping the words would come out.

  ‘Is…is there something…something, anything we can do to stop this?’ asked Franz or Heinz, suddenly feeling a shooting pain in his jaw. He moaned and Suares stood up.

  ‘The morphine is wearing off’, said Suares. ‘Your jaw is broken. It will be very painful. I have asked the doctors not to set it until I have everything I want.’

  Franz or Heinz moaned again, the pain similar to that experienced in tooth extraction but minus the anaesthetic.

  ‘What’, he gasped, ‘do you want?’

  ***

  Ours had been the second line, not the third. It was the third, the one from the university opthamology department, that nearly killed Kieran. He’d regained consciousness on the fifth shock to his chest and he was now sleeping soundly in his room, having been tucked in by Mrs Garcia and given a shot of aguardiente.

  ‘He sleep’, she said, as she drifted back into the kitchen, where Juan Andres and I were sitting exhausted, unable to speak. A tiny part of me wanted to celebrate Kieran’s reaction to the second l
ine, the one that we had successfully manufactured, the one that stoked him to full power and didn’t send him into a coma. Mrs Garcia put her hands on her hips and looked at us both.

  ‘You stupido muchachos’, she said. ‘You, Juan Andres, you know better.’

  ‘Si, mama.’

  Mrs Garcia shook her head. She must have been in her mid-fifties or early sixties, small and stout but strong. She pulled out a bottle which I hadn’t seen before and three long glasses.

  ‘Aguardiente’, she said. ‘Don’t look so sad. The Canadian he is alive. Juan Andres is alive. Ryyy-an is alive. I am alive. We must celebrate.’

  She poured out the clear liquid.

  ‘He could have died, Mrs Garcia. Thank you.’

  ‘The university is not good for cocaine.’

  ‘No, mama.’

  ‘Is like when you were boy, si?’

  ‘Yes, mama.’

  ‘You no tell Ryyy-an?’

  ‘No, mama.’

  ‘What you tell him?’

  ‘I tell him…you know…’

  ‘Stupido!’

  She cuffed him round the ear. He didn’t flinch.

  ‘My son’, she said, her eyes gleaming. ‘You not believe his stories?’

  ‘I believe him.’

  ‘Mierda.’

  She finished her glass of aguardiente and poured herself another.

  ‘Okay, is true. My son, he may be many things, but he not liar.’

  She held Juan Andres’s hand and the smiled at each other.

  ‘You are good scientist?’ she asked me.

  ‘Not as good as your son.’

  ‘He say you good. He say you want to make money.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘He say this Canadian is good man.’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘I sick of this life’, she said suddenly. ‘I want to be rich woman. I want to live in Canada. I want big house. Big car. Colour TV. I want cold in winter. I want to see snow. I say to Juan Andres, I say, ‘find me Canadian, English, not American’. I no say find me scientist. My son, he is always doing better than I ask him to. Always.’

  ‘I not doing this for me’, said Juan Andres, looking straight at me, unblinkingly. ‘I doing it for mama.’

  I raised my glass. ‘To mama Garcia!’

  ‘Mama Garcia!’

  ‘And snow.’

  We all drank quickly. It was time to get really drunk. It was time to relax.

  ‘You show him now, Juan Andres?’

  ‘Si, mama. I show him.’

  Juan Andres stood up. It was nearly ten at night and the moon was up, peeking through the kitchen window, trying to look in on us.

  ‘Vamos,’ he whispered softly to me, beckoning me towards the door. 'I have something to show you, Ryan.'

  I had never ridden a horse at night and it was rather frightening. The horse, thankfully, could see much better than I, but the noise of Juan Andres’s mount ahead of me was unnerving, my only point of reference. I just followed the sound of its hooves, drunk on aguardiente and intrigued as to what we were doing here, riding across the farm, through the coffee plantations, under the darkness of a moon obscured by clouds. My eyes slowly became accustomed to the low light, and I could now hear and see Juan Andres slowing too. The farm, he had told me, was close to a thousand acres. Quite a good size, but small by South American standards. We approached a section of land that nestled at the foot of a hill, partially hidden by the undulations of the terrain. I saw him stop, dismount and walk towards me.

  ‘Leave him’, he said, nodding towards my horse. ‘He is happy here.’

  I eased myself down and stood next to Juan Andres in the gloom, letting the fresh smell of the unspoilt countryside wash over me. The intake of oxygen into my lungs so soon after the aguardiente had made me slightly dizzy, and he put a steadying hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Come.’

  Juan Andres walked towards the base of the hill and I followed him. When he reached it he stopped and turned to me.

  ‘Turn around.’

  I did.

  ‘What do you see?’

  I looked out over the dark field now lit by the moon, its contours rougher than the fields in the distance which we had ridden through.

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Are you tired, Ryyy-an?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Good.’

  Juan Andres knelt down and pulled a handful of leaves off the plant next to his leg. He crunched them between his hands and put one into his mouth.

  ‘Try.’

  He handed me two leaves and I chewed them slowly, waiting for something to happen. The horses were silent, happy to wait for us to finish whatever it was we were doing. As I chewed I could feel my body re-energising, regaining some of the vigour I’d had before we nearly lost Kieran.

  ‘When were you going to tell me?’ I asked him.

  ‘I’m telling you now’, he said, looking out over his family’s private twenty-acre plot of gold, the twenty-four carat coca leaves glistening softly in the moonlight. Suddenly, the notion of Mama Garcia not only having a defibrillator but knowing how to use it seemed perfectly normal.

  15

  Mama Garcia

  Mama Garcia remembered her grandmother telling her about the Civil War of 1899 to 1902, the bloodbath that saw more than a hundred thousand men lose their lives, including members of her own family. Soon afterwards, Colombia lost the province of Panama, although only officially in 1921 when the US Government paid over twenty five million dollars in blood money for their precious canal and the sliver of land that came with it. The fact that one country could so easily buy another was a mystery to Mama Garcia. She had never been to Panama or the United States and she had no desire to change that state of affairs.

  Mama Garcia was born Alicia Montero in Manizales in 1933. She had a happy childhood and left school on her fifteenth birthday in 1948 only for her country to plunge into yet another civil war, one that was to last for nearly ten years. During the fighting, which was aptly named 'La Violencia', Alicia’s family did not leave the confines of their house. Food was scarce and school was not regular, so the young Alicia scraped by with her mother and grandmother and spent her days dressing the wounds of the campesinos.

  ‘Los Americanos’, her grandmother used to say to her, ‘son los Diablos del mundo' - Americans are the devil on Earth.

  Neither the devils of the world nor La Violencia prevented Alicia Montero from marrying Enrique Garcia in the small church on the square at Villamaria in 1953 and from giving birth, to twins, early in 1954. Four more children came and then Juan Andres, christened Ricardo, in 1961, was the last, her youngest. The farm had been supported by the family and the uncles, but then Enrique Garcia was killed in the eruption of a family feud in 1966, when Juan Andres was only five. His father’s death affected him deeply, but his mother was strong and she was proud. She was close to many of the uncles, and they helped not only with their labour on the farm, collecting crop and driving tractors, but also financially, with Juan Andres’s education.

  But with six children and a desire to see each of them set up in life with a trade or vocation, Alicia Montero Garcia needed more money. She needed an idea. There was a small corner of her farm that was no more than twenty or twenty-five acres. It was a fertile piece of land, hidden from view and set near a steep hill which was almost barren. On the other side of the hill was wasteland belonging to a wealthy lawyer from Bogota who was never there. She had seen him once in twenty years. He maintained the house and its three thousand acres as a holiday home for his children, and they stayed near the house with its pool and shady terraces, never venturing into the barren wasteland at the edge of their property, demarcated only by a rickety fence.

  The first planting had been a disaster. One of the uncles had run off with most of the seedlings that she had invested in, leaving her with even less money and another financial hill to climb. But Mama Garcia was strong and determined. By 1978, when Juan Andres was seve
nteen, he was out in the twenty-acre plot sowing, planting, cutting, harvesting, watering, testing and chewing. Using the coca leaf sparingly enhanced stamina and enabled him and his three brothers and two sisters to work the land efficiently, harder and with more care than many a larger operation.

  The first harvest had proven problematic. Distribution was risky, always risky, and volume raised eyebrows and prompted questions. How to maximize income without drawing attention to oneself was very difficult. There was no other option. Mama Garcia went to see the Mayor and cut him in on the deal. She made sure she got him to sign a paper with their agreement, as insurance. The Mayor trusted Mama Garcia, in fact, he viewed her as very enterprising, for a woman. Mama Garcia on the other hand, didn’t trust the Mayor at all.

  Twelve thousand dollars was the first payment, in cash, and she kept it in a fireproof metal box which she hid in the foundations of the house. She did not change her lifestyle an iota. Frijoles – refried beans - and rum, the cheap stuff, rather than fish and Rioja. The clothes were threadbare, the farmhouse now dilapidated, but the crop was coming in. She could hire no external workers, only family, as she could not trust external workers to keep their mouths shut. But one by one her children left the nest, most of them with apartments in good locations paid for in cash ‘by a rich uncle’. Juan Andres was the bright one. She had always known he was the brightest, the one who would be able to become a jefe one day, to earn sufficient money to enable her to lay fallow her memory and the twenty acre plot.

  Morning arrived and with it the rain. In the half-light of my shuttered room I lay awake, thinking. It would be better for me, and probably for Kieran too, if we parted company with Juan Andres and Mama Garcia, but I knew that it was unlikely that that was going to happen now. Not after I told Kieran what Juan Andres had shown me the night before, not after I told Kieran that the white powder that nearly killed him had not been the one that we had manufactured ourselves. I felt another presence in the room, and I looked over to see the shadow of Mama Garcia, standing in the doorway, silently, watching me as I lay on my bed in my boxer shorts, hands clasped behind my head.

  ‘You want go, Ryyy-an?’ she said softly. ‘You thinking this. I can tell.’