Return to the Dark Valley

by Santiago Gamboa

  Suddenly she gave me a hug and said:

  “I’ll never forget what you did for her, Manuelita. You’re a good girl and we’re going to help you. I owe you a debt.”

  I felt like telling her that I had done it for me, to wash away a little of my past life. But I said nothing.

  “Why don’t you choose a good major and enroll in a university in Bogotá? Wouldn’t you like to study there?”

  I told her I liked to read.

  “I know that, sweetheart, I emptied the library for you. Why don’t we go and see if it can be studied? I guess it can.”

  I searched on the Internet and found a literature course at the Javeriana in Bogotá. I told the woman, whose name by the way was Gloria Isabel and she was forty-eight. In her sad biography, as she put it, she had three times been Queen of the Cali Fair and had taken part in the Miss Cauca contest for the municipality of Candelaria, where her parents had a ranch.

  The next day, Gloria Isabel came to me early and we went to the airport to go to Bogotá. It was my first time on a plane and it made me so happy that I almost screamed. We spent the day filling out registration forms at the university, and getting an idea of the surroundings. Do you like it? she asked me, and I said, yes, everything’s very nice, I couldn’t believe this was really happening.

  I had to return to take the exam and with my grades, which incredibly enough were high, they gave me a place in the Javeriana. Gloria Isabel let out a cry of joy, and when the date grew near we again went together to Bogotá. We looked for a room to rent and found a very good one in a house in Chapinero Alto, opposite the Portugal Park, at the bottom of those dark mountains that had impressed me so much the first time. I could feel the cold, but what joy it was to be able at last to start a new life. Then we bought some good sets of clothes to go to class in, exercise books, and a satchel.

  “You’re going to look really beautiful, Manuelita,” Gloria Isabel, said, looking at me in one of those outfits in the fitting room on a department store on Thirteenth Street, “the boys will go crazy for you.”

  A few days later, with everything ready to begin classes, Gloria Isabel said she was going back to Cali. I thanked her for everything and went with her to the airport where she was going to catch a plane.

  “How proud you make me, my girl,” she said.

  When we said goodbye, she gave me a hug and I felt her anxious breathing. Then she kissed me on the forehead and walked off toward departures. I didn’t see her eyes, but I knew she was crying. After a while, she stopped and turned. We waved goodbye again and when I lost sight of her I went back out on the street and took the Transmilenio. It had started raining. The drops ran through my hair and down my cheeks, but there was something more. I, too, was crying. It was the first time I’d cried, but I didn’t hide my face. It isn’t the same crying in the rain in a city where nobody knows you. I felt strong. At that precise moment, my cell phone rang and I answered immediately, thinking it was Gloria Isabel calling me from the plane.

  It was Castillejo, the lawyer from Cali.

  “Manuela?” he said. “I know you’re in Bogotá, but I have some very bad news for you.”

  My muscles tensed, like an animal that senses danger or is about to be attacked.

  “It’s your mother. She’s been taken to hospital urgently. The best thing you can do is go to the airport and get on a flight.”

  “I’m already at the airport,” I said, “what happened?”

  Castillejo was silent for a few seconds.

  “She had acid thrown in her face.”

  7

  Waiting is something I’m very good at, wherever I am, so I spent the evening in the hotel, reading and making notes, in spite of the fact that my anxiety just kept growing. Why wasn’t the telephone ringing? Where was Juana?

  The explanations that occurred to me were these:

  Less than twenty-four hours had passed since her call, and she hadn’t imagined I would respond so quickly.

  She would come that night.

  She had no idea I was so close to Madrid. Maybe she had assumed I was still in India.

  The seizure of the Irish embassy had blocked the access routes to the city and she was trapped or delayed somewhere.

  But all these hypotheses came crashing down if I asked myself the most banal of questions: Why hadn’t she called the hotel and asked for me? Hadn’t she seen my message?

  There was a lot of hubbub around the hotel, as if a whole crowd was trying to cross the avenue and those on the other side were stopping them for some reason. I opened the window and again heard cries.

  “Move out of the way, for fuck’s sake!”

  “Go fuck yourself!”

  Tocotocococo!!!!!

  This time I saw the helicopter rise between the rooftops and hang for a few seconds above the Gran Vía. An open-sided Augusta Bell, with soldiers on the sides and mounted Gatling guns. Spain was at war. Then, like a noisy insect, it again took flight.

  I couldn’t do anything but stay there, observing the bustle of the street, so I sat down beside the window. It was a good place to contemplate what was happening in the city.

  Spain was caught in an incessant human movement that stretched to the fringes. A great collective mutation and a return journey. I had seen them in the airport, but they were also here, in the packed subway entrances or waiting for buses that were unlikely to come. Southern Europe had split into rich and poor, workers and unemployed. There was even another classification starting up: between useful people and marginals.

  Just as in the Protestant world, morality tended to favor those who could resist, the respectable, while the dispossessed met with silent disapproval. The old Hispanic vice of confusing genius with appearance was reaching new heights. The cult of the superficial, inherited from the end of the last century, was now triumphant. Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses, 450 euros plus VAT, I’ll take a pair! Abercrombie underpants, 45 euros plus VAT, I want half a dozen! What’s the latest tablet? I’ll take it! Are you sure it isn’t Chinese? Look at my long eyelashes, look at my decorated nails, look at the muscles of my abdomen, appreciate my vulva shaved with pink laser, like Darth Vader’s light saber; admire my body, tanned in the middle of winter, isn’t it all lovely? Life is beautiful, very beautiful. That’s why I want to show it, why I want the world to see me and know! I want lots of likes on my Facebook page.

  You, on the other hand, are poor, ugly, and unhappy.

  In the middle of the crisis, the fortunate minority practiced a combination of every form of luxury and frivolity, including laughter. Are these difficult days we’re living through? The best thing is to be laughing most of the time. Television was full of comedy shows, humorists, talk shows, stand-up comedians, impersonators, con men. They came out like ants! Everybody wanted to tell a joke because it was necessary to roar with laughter. What antidote against reality is better than laughter? None! You have to enjoy yourself. Movies and television, music and literature have to be entertaining. What else are they for if not that? Forget Kafka. He’s boring. Watch an American series instead, they’re very good! Have you seen Breaking Bad? But before that, take a photo of me on the beach, another on the balcony of my bungalow, and another at the gluten-free buffet in the Marriott. Then let’s quickly upload them on the Internet. We want to tell the universe that we’re happy and we’re in the Seychelles!

  Beautiful and happy, yes. Of course.

  They say we’re individualistic and superficial? That’s pure envy. The world is unfair and it’s not my fault, just imagine, even the OECD says that in thirty-four of its countries, the income of the richest ten percent is ten times greater than that of the poorest. How is that my fault? If it wasn’t so long, I’d read Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, though of course I have bought it. From what I hear, it points out that the real problem is inequality, or rather: when the dividend
s from the assets of a national economy are greater than the cash flow of the wage-earning masses. Do you understand that? I do, more or less.

  Come on, another selfie!

  On the other side, steeped in sadness, are those who observe that happy life but are unable to reach it. It’s the low-definition world of those who are outside the party, hearing the music from the street. They would like to be active and energetic, but they can’t. Their fashionable underpants are torn, their glasses scratched, their smartphones can’t take the latest apps. They’re already not very fast and they break down all the time. You have to buy something new to feel better!

  Don’t worry, reality says to them. The fact that you’re unemployed and pretty much screwed doesn’t mean you can’t be happy. There are discount stores for people like you, people affected by the new trends of the global economy, low-cost universal hypermarkets intended for you, the neo-poor of the West; plus, they’re very close to where you live, you just have to cross the street to buy sunglasses, very similar to the good ones, that only cost fifteen euros and some underpants for seven, try them. You’ll see it doesn’t even show. It’s not so bad. Look at these Korean tablets, they’re identical. You just have to get used to it and the truth is, there are some very nice things available. You’re screwed, nobody denies that, but don’t forget that there are whole areas of the world, like Bangladesh or the Philippines, where, fortunately, people are much more screwed than you and work for a pittance, they’re almost slaves and there are children working in the factories and they don’t have social security or welfare. Thanks to them, we can offer you something of good quality. And at unbeatable prices! Who’s going to notice?

  The world is cruel, although not as cruel as all that. Above all, it’s vast and multicolored and offers enormous variety.

  Let me give you another example.

  Many of those who still have a fixed income, social benefits, capital in the bank, and investment portfolios in shares or economically safe areas, take advantage of the inequality to go to Asia and indulge in a bit of sexual tourism, which when it comes down to it is the best therapy for the stresses of contemporary life.

  With what’s at stake and all the dangers that lie in wait!

  There, you can get young women and even children for peanuts and drink the evenings away with a delicious mai tai. The sunset in Phuket is beautiful, indescribable. What can’t be bought there, on those beaches, probably can’t be bought.

  European women executives, even more stressed because in addition to their obligations they have to fight the rough, exhausting battle for gender equality, prefer to relax in the Caribbean, where well-endowed black men dance salsa, smile, and don’t need to take Viagra. They have it built in. Others, whose budgets don’t quite stretch, go to Tunisia on low-cost flights. There are some really interesting packages! Young North African men aren’t as tall as the Cubans, but they have a lot of energy, and they’re cheaper. They allow you to offload a little of your postcolonial guilt and, above all, they don’t ask you to take them away with you!

  The risk, of course, is that a crazy Islamist will appear with an assault rifle in the exclusive area of the Hyatt Beach in Djerba and casually machine-gun two or three dozen white tourists on the beach. Fat Brits pass without logical transition from their piña coladas and their sun cream to the clouds of paradise, or perhaps to the hell of another, more arid beach. That damned Islamic State insists on ruining our vacations!

  And what about those who can’t travel, those who row against the current, fighting the burden of daily life? What do these souls do to find relief? How do they combat the terrible solitude, the frustration, the general feeling of malaise?

  Postmodernity has thought of them, too. Among the immigrants who survived and have stayed in Europe, there is of course one job that’s always available: providing sexual services. It’s an activity that ignores crises and is always there, when the sun goes down, on the access roads and squares of the city. The need to relieve yourself is not governed by spread or the Euribor indices or the share prices in Milan! You feel heat between your legs whatever the share price is; all social classes feel irrepressible desires, that’s modern promiscuity for you, and everyone wants a piece of the action. Viagra and Cialis are the most widely sold pills in a world filled with anxious men. We are sick, but the greatest sin is feeling discouraged. There’s always masturbation for when it’s too expensive or you’re really screwed.

  That’s why the roads out of many cities continue to be populated, from sunset to sunrise, with half-naked young girls from the former Second and Third Worlds who are there, however unwillingly, to give hand jobs and blow jobs to the men of the extinct First.

  Offering the fleeting relief of fornication.

  The man tortured by stress invites the girl to get in and heads for a nearby alley, which at that hour is already covered in used condoms and dirty Kleenex. He parks, switches off the engine, and pulls his pants down to his knees. Depending on what he’s after, he reclines the seat or simply lies back. She starts sucking and tries to persuade him to broaden the service. She offers him greater consumption. She would like to obtain more income from an already agreed transaction by offering little extras at low cost, just like the display racks beside the checkouts in supermarkets. Pure capitalism.

  “Don’t you like my body?” she cries, moving her hips. Then she continues her work, moving her head up and down between the client’s legs. Finally, the man makes up his mind and takes out another twenty euros. She climbs on top of him and his erection doesn’t last even though he took Cialis three hours ago. Fucking generic medicines! It’s late. Now the man is a bit scared and looks in the rearview mirror. The truth is that this dark spot would be ideal for a robbery. He imagines the girl’s partner already approaching, crouching with something in his hand, and that idea makes his Cialis-induced erection disappear completely. He keeps his eye on the rearview mirror. He thinks about the questions the police will ask, the explanation he will have to give his wife.

  “What’s going on?” the nymphet asks, pleased because she knows she’s already earned her money and the man won’t be able to do anything. “Let’s go,” he says anxiously. She pulls up her panties, smooths her skirt, and gets out, very close to where the man picked her up. No sooner is she out on the street than she takes a bottle of antibacterial liquid soap from her bag and rubs between her legs. She washes her hands and mouth. She swallows a Halls mint, touches up her makeup, and goes back to the freeway and the position she’s worked so hard to defend.

  Transvestites, too, are all the rage in periods of deflation. Although they are a greater risk, since their services are more complex and are addressed to psyches that not only are tormented by modern times but also ask themselves questions and cannot resolve their ambiguity. In this profession, Brazilians lead the way, but there are Colombians and Dominicans, too. Some have had their front teeth taken out in order to do a special kind of blow job known as a “tiger cub’s bite” or a “baby’s bite,” one of the most expensive products in their catalog. They all carry Viagra pills in their wallets, since what the majority of their clients are looking for is an engorged penis in a woman’s body: once again the extinct Third World embedding itself in the extinct First, although not by force and in this case with a lot of Vaseline. Innovative and unconventional forms of the old North-South dialogue.

  I switched the TV on again to the news channel. Now the siege had entered a different phase. The secretary-general of NATO had arrived in Madrid and right now was meeting behind closed doors with the emergency committee at the Moncloa.

  What was happening out there?

  After the first throat cutting, the terrorists had decided to postpone further executions for twenty-four hours, giving the negotiators time to prepare their proposal. When it came down to it, Boko Haram must have known that Ireland and Spain were neither strong nor decisive—they didn’t tilt the balance—in
international coalitions, so that it wouldn’t be easy for them to stop or even reduce the tactical bombardment of Islamic State’s military infrastructure and their leaders’ “safe” houses, which was the biggest impediment to Al-Baghdadi’s plans right now.

  I imagined Juana desperately trying to get to Madrid from some provincial Spanish airport or from some city in the south of France. Flights must have been delayed, trains at a standstill. There were police checkpoints everywhere. Why arrange to meet me in Madrid if she didn’t live here?

  Darkness had long since fallen, and I again thought to go out on the street. Take a walk, maybe go as far as Plaza de Santa Ana. I hadn’t heard the helicopter for a while and opened the window. The noise of the Gran Vía entered like a hurricane. The car horns, the din of people yelling into their phones, the squeal of brakes.

  I looked toward Calle Clavel and saw a drug addict urinating behind a trash can.

  “I can’t fuck, but look how I can piss!” he cried.

  8

  I, TERTULLIAN, AND MY UNIVERSAL REPUBLIC

  I approach the microphone, take it off its base, and stick it to my mouth. I look up and take a deep breath through my nose. From here, the lights of the hall are like stars in a modest private firmament. Then I trace an arc with my hand and cry:

  “Are you with me or against me?”

  The roar of the response makes the walls and floors shake. It’s like a strong wind that whips my face.