“I’m going to take the kittens,” she answered, lifting up her hat to show me where a second kitten was hiding.
“And the parents?”
“They’ll manage on their own. They’re hunters.”
I looked sadly at the kittens; they wouldn’t survive.
On my right was the pig pond and the place where we’d had our first caletas, on the hill. The river was ahead, swollen with the rains, the current rapid. They had also built a bridge; it wasn’t there before. Sombra was leaning on it and watching my progress.
“Your load is too heavy. We’re going to camp not far from here. You have to empty out your backpack. Don’t even think of taking that mattress!”
I had put the mattress under my arm, without thinking. I felt ridiculous. I was sweating profusely, overwhelmed with a sticky fever.
I staggered across the bridge. The guard asked me to stop, took off my backpack, and fitted it on top of his own, behind his neck, as if he had just lifted up a feather. “Come on, follow me. We’ve got to hurry. It’s going to be night soon.”
After a quarter of an hour, at a slow jog, I saw my companions. They were all sitting in a row on their equipos. A few yards to the right, the soldiers had already set up their camp, with tents, hammocks, and mosquito nets filling the space.
My guard dropped my equipo on the ground and left before I could thank him. Lucho was waiting for me. “What happened to you?”
“I’m sick, Lucho. I think something’s going on with my liver. I had the same symptoms after acute hepatitis a few years ago.”
“It’s not possible, not now, you can’t do that to me!”
“I think it’s the pork and the vodka. It was exactly the wrong thing to eat.”
News of my condition spread. Guillermo was worried. This was really not the time to get sick. He gave me a box of silymarin, and I took the pills right away.
“Tomorrow I’m going to inspect your equipo,” he said in a menacing tone of voice. “No one’s going to carry it for you!”
I almost passed out. Before leaving I had removed the machete hidden under the prison floorboards and buried it in my equipo.
FORTY-EIGHT
HEPATITIS
OCTOBER 2004
Guillermo informed us that during the march he would be in charge of our group. He used his new power to make our lives impossible. He began by piling us up one on top of the other, stingily assigning our space in this huge jungle. Then he did his best to separate me from Lucho. Our reaction was immediate, and when we protested, he backed down. One of Lucho’s arguments convinced him: “If she’s sick, I’ll look after her!” And it was indeed Lucho who set up my tent, my hammock, and my mosquito net. When they called to us to go and wash, I struggled to get up and get changed. Night was falling. The guard lit the way with a single flashlight beam for everyone. I was last in line and groped my way forward. We had to wash, the ten of us, in a tiny stream of water flowing in a deep and narrow gorge. The slope was steep, and you had to slide in there as best you could, clinging to branches so you wouldn’t slip. By the time I got down to the stream of water, I was already covered in mud. My comrades were all standing upstream from the current. Water that had seemed clear to begin with now was brown with mud. I wasn’t so much washing as getting dirty. In addition, this was the time of day when the mosquitoes were out in force.
Guillermo was barking at us to hurry up and finish when I hadn’t even started. What should have been a moment of relaxation turned into an ordeal. The walk back was even worse. I reached my caleta dirtier than when I left, scratching uncontrollably and shaking with fever. The night was coal black, and we were all hastily unpacking clothes to change into and hanging up the ones we’d taken off, which were soaked in sweat and heavy with mud. We wrung out the T-shirts and shorts that we had worn to go get washed, and in the chaos I slipped the machete beneath my towel, then went to see Lucho.
“Guillermo told me he was going to go through my pack tomorrow before we leave.”
“Yes, I know. How do you feel?”
“Terrible. Listen, before leaving, I put the machete in my things.”
“That’s crazy, you have to get rid of it right away! You can’t keep that in your equipo!”
“I can’t throw it out either—there are guards everywhere. And it might come in useful someday.”
“No, I won’t carry it!”
“Please. They’re not going to go through your things. You’ll give it back to me later.”
“No, no, no!”
“What am I supposed to do, then?”
“I don’t know. Throw it out somewhere.”
“Okay, I’ll see what I can do.”
“Ah, what the heck! Give it to me. I’ll take care of it. Go get some sleep. You have to be in shape for tomorrow.”
I opened my eyes to see Guillermo’s face peering into my mosquito net. It was already daytime, and I jumped up. I knew we had to strike camp at dawn.
“Is it time to leave?” I asked anxiously.
“No, the departure has been postponed until tomorrow. I’m going to set you up with a drip. Sit down.”
He was carrying a kit with needles, tubes, and compresses. He asked me to hold a pouch containing fluid above my head, while he jabbed me inside my elbow in the other arm, looking for a vein. I clenched my teeth, looking in disgust at Guillermo’s hands, his long and black fingernails. He made numerous attempts before he found a vein that satisfied him, leaving my arm covered in bruises from the wrist up.
“Show me that backpack. We’re going to make it a hell of a lot lighter!”
Guillermo laid out a black plastic sheet on the ground, emptied the contents of my pack onto it, and stopped short upon seeing the dictionary. His eyes shone with malice. He turned to me and said in an authoritarian tone, “The dictionary stays!”
“No, I’d rather leave everything else—not the dictionary.”
I had answered straight back. My tone was so final I surprised even myself. He began, conscientiously, to go through the heap of objects spread on the ground. None of the books made it, except my Bible, Tom’s García Márquez that he refused to part with, and my dictionary.
Orlando handed me Mela’s jeans. “I’m really sorry. I have too much stuff. You’ve got room in your backpack now.”
I was afraid that Marc might do the same. But he reorganized his equipo and kept my Bible in his things. Lucho, however, was very worried.
“If ever they search me, they’ll kill me. It’s too dangerous to go walking around with this thing.”
But he went on carrying the machete in his backpack.
Mine was still too heavy. Or perhaps I was too weak. As I was about to put on my backpack to leave, my legs collapsed under the weight. I fell on my knees and didn’t have the strength to stand up again.
Guillermo appeared, looking triumphant. He stood in the middle of the group and shouted, “Follow me, in silence, one by one, each of you with your guard behind you! You’re in luck, there are no chains for you. The first one who does something stupid gets shot! Ingrid, you go last. Leave your pack—we’ll carry it for you.”
I was relieved that they were carrying my pack, but something told me it wasn’t a good sign. I fell in following the person in front of me, praying mechanically on my rosary.
The hour of walking through the jungle was very trying. My feet got caught in all the roots and lianas. Every other step I stumbled, and it required an incredible effort just to make my way through the vegetation. I fell behind the rest of the group, and there was no one left in front of me, so I couldn’t find my way and had to guess by looking for the line of shrubs cut here and there, on either side of an imaginary track.
My guard, irritated, decided to go ahead of me, violating the instructions. I had no intention of running away. I had enough trouble as it was, putting one foot ahead of the other to follow him. I tried to stay close to him to avoid having to catch up. All it took was for him to get two strides ahead of m
e, and the vegetation made him invisible. If I stuck too close, the branches he shoved aside would come snapping back in my face like a whip. “Learn to keep your distance!” he brayed. I really did feel incredibly stupid. I was constantly losing my balance, and I couldn’t think straight. The little bit of self-confidence that remained to me crumbled. I was at their mercy.
After half an hour, I caught up with the rest of my companions, sitting in a circle in a little clearing. We could hear the sound of a chain saw not far away. But the foliage around us was very thick, so it was impossible to see anything.
The rest stop was brief, and I was drained. Gloria came over to see me. She put her arm around my shoulders and gave me a kiss. “You look dreadful,” she said.
Then she leaned over to whisper, “The others are absolutely furious. They say you’re faking it. They’re upset because the guards are carrying your equipo. Watch out, they’re going to make your life impossible.”
I didn’t answer.
No one was surprised when the order came to leave. Everyone got up and tamely fell back in line in the same order. We marched slowly until we came to a bend and the river suddenly appeared, roaring, pouring through a deep gorge at full speed. They had felled a huge tree that when it landed on the other shore, became a majestic bridge. I saw some guerrillas crossing, and I felt dizzy just looking at them. Lucho was right ahead of me, and he turned around and took my hand, squeezing it, whispering, “I’ll never be able to do that.”
I watched one of the female guerrillas crossing with an enormous equipo on her back, her arms extended on either side, seeking her balance like a tightrope walker.
“Yes, we’ll manage. We’ll do it together, very slowly, one step at a time. We’ll make it.”
Everyone crossed over. The guerrillas took the equipos from one bank to the other for those who were having difficulty crossing. Brian, one of the guerrillas, came back over to our side when it was our turn. He took me by the hand and told me not to look down. I crossed over blinded by a fog of nausea. I looked behind me and saw Lucho trembling all over, frozen at the middle of the trunk, carrying the backpack he’d refused to give to the guerrillas for fear they might decide to go through it. At one point he placed his foot awkwardly on an indentation on the trunk and tipped backward with the weight of his equipo, as if in slow motion. My throat filled with bile, I murmured to myself, “He’s going to break his neck.”
Our eyes met at that very moment, and he thrust himself forward, precariously keeping his balance. Brian leaped onto the tree like a cat and ran to grab him by the arm to help him cross.
My muscles seemed to have seized up and become twisted in a cramp. I felt a lump surging below my rib cage. My liver, if that’s what it was, had doubled in volume. The least little gesture triggered unbearable pain. I could hear Mom’s voice. Was it one of the messages she’d read on the radio, coming back to me like a recording? Or had I invented these words myself in my rambling? Don’t do anything that will endanger you. We want you alive.
For more than ten minutes, I went on trying to walk. Most of the troops were just waiting for us to keep going. I caught up with them, bent double, one hand on my chest to hold the ball inside my ribs.
One of my companions glared at me. “Stop pretending. You’re not sick, you’re not even yellow!”
I heard Lucho behind me say, “She’s not yellow, she’s green. Leave her alone!”
Sombra was at the very head of the group. He’d been watching everything and came limping up to me now. I’d never noticed his limp before.
“What’s the matter?” he barked, incredulous.
“Nothing.”
“Come on, be brave. We have to go now.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Look at me,” he ordered.
I looked away from him.
Sombra shouted to one of the guerrillas standing toward the front. “The Indian! Come here.”
The man came trotting up to us with his enormous backpack.
“Leave your equipo here.”
He was a young guy, smaller than I was, thickset, with a chesty torso and brawny arms. He was built like a buffalo.
“You’ll carry her on your back. I’ll send someone to get your equipo.”
The Indian gave a big smile, revealing his fine white teeth, and said, “It won’t be very comfortable, but let’s get going.”
I set off on the back of this man who ran through the forest, jumping like a goat at full speed. I clung to his neck while his sweat seeped into my clothes, and I tried to hold on and not slide off. With each jerk I said to myself, My liver is not going to burst. Tomorrow things will be better.
FORTY-NINE
GUILLERMO’S FRISK
My liver did not burst, but the next day things were not better. I had arrived at the campsite before the others, but I got my equipo only once it was dark. I had just knotted my hammock to one of the trees when the skies opened above us. A torrent of water formed in just a few minutes, and it came rushing down the hill, sweeping away everything in its path, Gloria’s and Jorge’s caletas included. My companions had to spend part of the night on their feet, with their belongings in their arms, beneath one of the nearby tents, while they waited for it to stop raining and for the flood to abate.
The next morning at dawn, I realized what Guillermo had done: He had searched my equipo at his leisure, which is why the previous day he hadn’t given it to me late in the evening. He’d taken my dictionary and Mela’s jeans. I was crushed. He’d managed to get his hands on the very things he’d always had his eye on. When I went and demanded he return them, he didn’t even take the time to explain himself. “Go and complain to Sombra,” he replied arrogantly, after he told me he’d tossed everything out in the jungle. I knew it wasn’t true. The belts I’d made for my family had been handed out among the troops. I’d seen Shirley wearing the one I’d made for Mom. Guillermo had fooled me, and I was angry with myself for not having taken precautions. But I also realized that in the state I was in, the battle was lost before it began. No one was prepared to drag a two-thousand-page dictionary around in the jungle, except for the two of us, who cared for it more than anything. This helped me to contain the hatred I nurtured against Guillermo. In a way, if he used the dictionary with as much passion as I did, then, fair enough. It was better for him to have it, because he could carry it and I couldn’t.
It was harder to let go of Mela’s jeans. That gave rise to a cruel sentiment of guilt, as if my agreeing to let someone carry them for me were tantamount to betraying my daughter’s love. Gradually, however, time did its work. This wound also closed. I decided that what was important was not managing to keep the pants with me, but rather understanding how much my daughter’s gesture (because I’d imagined her trying to decide what to give me that last Christmas we’d had together) had stayed with me during these years of misfortune and given me reason to smile.
The following morning the Indian did not come to get me. Sombra appointed Brian to carry me. He was considered the strongest guy of all the troops. I liked Brian; he’d always been pleasant with everyone. I figured that with him things could only get better.
He had me straddle his back, and off he went at a run, leaving the rest of my group behind. From the very first moment, I realized there was something wrong. After an hour had gone by, poor Brian was exhausted. He was as surprised as I was and couldn’t understand how the previous day the Indian had run for hours without getting tired, whereas Brian had only just started and already couldn’t take it anymore.
His pride had suffered a blow, his lack of stamina would prompt gibes from others. He disliked me from then on, complaining that I was failing to collaborate, and he did everything he could to humiliate me whenever we met another guerrilla on the path.
“Wait for me here,” Brian said as he set off at a run to get his backpack, leaving me in the middle of the forest, knowing that I wouldn’t move. My riding on his back had turned into a dreadful ordeal for
both of us. He was making me pay for his effort by shaking me like a plum tree. I felt like I was dying. While I lay on the ground waiting for him to return, black bees, attracted by the smell, attacked my clothes and swarmed all around me. I was terrified; I must have lost consciousness. Unconscious or asleep, I heard the buzzing of thousands of insects around me, and I imagined it to be a truck moving as fast as it could to run me over. I woke up with a start and opened my eyes onto a cloud of insects. I got to my feet screaming, which only served to excite them further. They were everywhere—in my hair, in my underwear, clinging to my socks inside my boots, poking into my nostrils and my eyes. I went crazy trying to get away from them, windmilling my arms in the void, stamping my feet, slapping at them as hard as I could, but I didn’t manage to make them go away. I killed a lot of them and stunned others, and the ground was littered with them, but, amazingly, they hadn’t stung me. Exhausted, I eventually resigned myself to coexisting with them and collapsed onto the ground, defeated by my fever and the heat.
As the day went on, I got used to the company of the black bees. My smell must have been drawing them from miles around, and whenever Brian left me somewhere, they always found me again. They were transforming the horrible stench that impregnated me into a perfume. As they took the salt away, they left honey on my clothes. It was like stopping for a cleaning session. I also hoped that their massive presence would discourage other, less convivial bugs, and their company enabled me to doze off while I waited for Brian to come get me.
FIFTY
UNEXPECTED SUPPORT
During one of the breaks in our journey, I collapsed like a tramp beneath a bridge. I stank to high heaven. I was filthy, with clothes I’d worn for several days, always damp with the sweat from the day before and covered in mud. I was thirsty, and the fever was dehydrating me as much as were the heat and my efforts to cling to my porter’s back. It felt as if my brain were playing tricks on me. When I saw the column of chained men marching one behind the other, advancing toward me, I thought I was dreaming. I was lying on the ground, and I could feel the vibration of their steps in the earth. I imagined that a herd of wild beasts was coming at me and that I just had time to lift myself up on my elbows to see them emerge from the jungle behind me. They were moving closer, pushing aside the vegetation as they approached. I thought they hadn’t seen me and that they would step on me. Then I was ashamed for them to see me like that, my hair all over the place and permeated with a smell that even I found revolting. I stopped thinking about myself when I saw them closer up, with their ashen features, like men carrying death, marching in time like convicts, burdened with years of calamity on their shoulders. I wanted to cry.
Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle Page 37