Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle

by Ingrid Betancourt

  When they came upon me, practically tripping over me, their faces lit up.

  “Doctora Ingrid! Is it you? Hang in there—we’ll make it out of here!”

  They held out their hands, stroked my hair, blew me kisses, and made the signs for victory and courage. These men, who were infinitely more unfortunate than I was, with long years of captivity behind them, longer than mine, chains around their necks, sick, famished, forgotten by the world—these hostages, Colombian soldiers and policemen, were still capable of feeling compassion for someone else. That moment would stay with me forever. They had transformed my dusty green hell into a garden of smiles.

  We met the Indian on the path, and the Indian had smiled at me, as if he could read other people’s thoughts. Humbly, almost shyly, he offered to carry me part of the way. Brian hesitated. He did not want to admit defeat. But the offer was all the more tempting because we’d come to a region where the geography had gone wild. They called it a cansaperros, a “dog-tiring” place; this was a series of steep hills to climb up and down, a change in level of thirty yards or more each time. It was as if a giant hand had crumpled the cloth of the earth, producing a series of tight, close pleats. In my geography books, the Amazonian jungle appeared to be a vast plateau. Nothing could be further from the truth. The terrain in this world was like this world itself—unpredictable. Whenever we came down a slope, in the small gorge between two hills there was a stream. We crossed it in one stride to begin climbing up the other slope. When they got to the top, the guerrillas would hurry down the slope to drink from the next stream. But climate change had found this region: Half the streams were dried up, and there was nowhere to drink.

  Brian was suffering with me on his back. I did try to walk to relieve him now and again, but on one particular descent I fell and slid down on my butt. The troops that had gone ahead of us had turned the path into a toboggan run of mud. I landed hard in this stream, and for once it was filled with water, and I was covered with mud. Ahead of us was a steep climb that would require using our hands and feet to hold on. Brian took off his T-shirt, plunged it in the water while he washed his face, and removed it to wring out the water before he put it back on. He looked sideways at the Indian and said, “Take her. I’ll take your equipo.”

  The Indian wiggled his shoulders and removed a huge backpack. “Tengo todo el parque.”46

  “No interesa, camarada, páselo.”47

  Brian would rather carry a pack full of ammunition than carry me. He put on the straps and adjusted them, then began his climb without looking back, carrying the equipo effortlessly. Five minutes later he got to the top, looked down at us, delighted to be himself again, and vanished into the wilderness.

  “Our turn,” said the Indian.

  I jumped on his back, trying to be as light and motionless as possible. He clambered up the steep hill as quickly as Brian had done and headed off at full speed, scrambling downhill and up again, jumping from one drop in height to another so that I had the impression that I was bouncing in the air, while his feet hardly touched the ground.

  Brian was waiting for us, leaning against a tree, smoking a cigarette and looking proud. We had nearly reached the campsite.

  “None of the prisoners have arrived yet,” he said, offering his companion a cigarette.

  He didn’t even think to look at me. The Indian took the cigarette, lit it, inhaled deeply, and handed it to me without saying a word.

  I had no desire to smoke. But the Indian’s gesture touched me. It was nothing, but it was everything. It took so little to make a difference.

  Brian was in a good mood again. Then he turned to me, and said, “Cucha, tírese allá, detrás de los que están cortando varas. No se mueva hasta que le den la orden.”48

  His words were like a slap in the face. My eyes were moist when they met the Indian’s gaze. He smiled faintly, then quickly turned away; he was already busy readjusting the straps on his equipo. I felt idiotic reacting this way—it was surely my fatigue. I was used to being treated like that. It was standard practice. If I’d been alone with Brian, I would have swallowed his scorn without any qualms. But with the Indian there, I became a human being again; his compassion allowed me to feel hurt. I became weaker as a result, more fragile.

  We had overtaken the convoy of military prisoners. The clanking of their chains made me look around. The guerrillas were arrogantly barking orders at them. They settled in to wait, good-naturedly, fifty feet or so farther away, speaking animatedly in little groups, still chained to each other in pairs.

  One of them saw me. They conferred among themselves. Two came close and squatted down to speak to me behind a bush that acted as a screen.

  “Are you okay?” whispered one.

  “Yes, I’m okay.”

  “My name is Forero. This is Luis, Luis Beltrán.”

  Luis politely removed his hat in greeting.

  “Doctora, we have a little present for you. We’ve made you a ponche. But you have to come closer. Don’t worry! We’ve got the guard eating out of our hands.”

  The last time I’d heard about ponche, I must have been five years old. It was in the kitchen in my grandmother’s house. She’d told us she was going to make some, and all my cousins had jumped for joy. I didn’t know what it was. The kitchen gave onto an indoor patio. My oldest cousin was sitting on the ground with a bowl full of egg yolks that she was beating energetically. Mama Nina poured things into the mix with a knowing air while my cousin went on beating. The thought of it made my mouth water. But of course this ponche must be something else altogether. There were no eggs in this jungle!

  They handed me a bowl full of freshly beaten egg yolks.

  “Where did you get this?” I asked, ecstatic.

  “They’re hard to carry, but we managed. We don’t have many left—we ate most of them during the march. We had four hens in the prison, and they were generous. They laid lots of eggs. We carried them all day long. But we had to put them in the pot already the first evening, or they would never have survived the cansaperros!”

  I listened to them, flabbergasted. What? Hens in the prison?! Eggs?

  For a second the idea that the eggs might make me sicker crossed my mind. I immediately rejected it. If my body didn’t feel disgusted, then this couldn’t hurt it, I decided. I swallowed it all, my eyes closed.

  I was five years old again, sitting next to my cousin, and my grandmother was there. I opened my eyes with satisfaction. Forero was watching me with a big smile, nudging Luis Beltrán with his elbow.

  The soldier called Luis pulled a pouch of powdered milk from his T-shirt. “Hide it quickly,” he said. “If they see it, they’ll confiscate it. Mix it with sugar. It’s good for your hepatitis.”

  I took Forero’s and Luis’s hands and squeezed them in mine, and I kissed them. Then I made my way back, and squatted down, eager to tell Lucho everything that had happened.

  Guillermo was leading the march, my companions following behind. When I saw him, the smile that was still on my face vanished.

  “It’s forbidden to talk to the soldiers. If I catch anyone fooling around, I’ll put them in chains,” he threatened.

  I had to wait until that night’s camp was built before I could have a word with Lucho. We were hastily preparing for our wash. The soldiers had already done all their chores, and they called Sombra, who came over right away.

  One young man spoke up on behalf of all of them.

  “That’s Lieutenant Bermeo,” explained Gloria. We were all watching the scene, our eyes riveted on Sombra. The soldiers had made a pile of the supplies they had taken out of their packs.

  “We’re not carrying another thing,” declared Bermeo.

  We heard snatches of conversation. But Sombra’s attitude was unequivocal. He wanted to calm the rebellion.

  “We should do the same thing,” said Lucho. “We are poorly fed, they treat us like dogs, and on top of it they make us carry their food!”

  “Hey, I want to eat,” Keith
interjected. “I’ll carry whatever they ask me to carry.”

  He glared at the guard who was following our conversation with interest, then went to lean against the tree by his tent and crossed his arms.

  “We should show some solidarity toward the soldiers,” said Tom, and he began to remove the bags of rice he was carrying in his pack. The others followed suit. None of us spoke, so we could hear what was going on with the soldiers.

  Bermeo went on talking, and he said, “You have no right carrying her like that. You’re going to kill her. If it was one of your own bunch, you would carry him in a hammock.”

  I could not believe my ears. These men were standing up for me! My throat was tight, and I turned around, trying to find Lucho’s gaze.

  FIFTY-ONE

  THE HAMMOCK

  We didn’t find out what happened with the soldiers’ boycott. A snake had shown up in our area, and when Gloria cried out, everybody went looking for it. It had disappeared behind the equipos that were right on the ground and might resurface during the night, curled up inside one of them. I felt uncomfortable watching them search. With the exception of trapdoor spiders, for which I felt no pity, I always took the side of the creature we were persecuting. I hoped that the snake would escape and manage to save its skin, much as I myself would have liked to escape from them. My attitude toward snakes surprised even me. They didn’t disgust me, and I was far from feeling the aversion that I’d witnessed in others, the need to annihilate them, to kill them. I just found them very beautiful. In Andres’s camp I had come upon a red, white, and black collar on the ground against one of the poles of the hut. I was about to pick it up when Yiseth had shouted, “Don’t touch it! It’s a twenty-four hours.”

  “What’s a twenty-four hours?”

  “They kill you in twenty-four hours.”

  The FARC members carried antivenins on them, but those didn’t always work. They would make their own antidotes, drying the gallbladder of a rodent they called the lapa. They considered this homemade brew more effective than any laboratory serum. Maybe because I believed I felt safe knowing they had their antivenins, or maybe I thought some supernatural force was protecting me for whatever reason, but I could approach snakes without fear. Even the monster that the guards had killed in Andres’s camp, that they had caught while they were watching one of the female guerrillas at bath time, had fascinated me. After they killed it, they laid the skin out in the sun to dry, stretched with stakes along the shore in the open air—to the delight of thousands of greenbottle flies that swarmed around, attracted by the terrible smell it gave off. The skin stayed there exposed to the elements for weeks. Finally it rotted, and they threw it into the dump. I thought about all the luxury handbags that had been lost in their wasteful operation. I was then haunted by this thought, as the very fact that it had crossed my mind seemed obscene.

  The snake that Gloria had seen was a casadora, a “huntress.” It was long and fine, an attractive apple green color. It came straight at me, terrified. Without giving it too much thought, I tried to pick it up so that I could get it out of there, out of sight of my companions. I knew it wasn’t a poisonous snake. Surprised by my touch, it turned around to attack me, opening its mouth wide and making a fearfully dissuasive rattle. I didn’t want to frighten it. I stopped moving so that it would become trusting again, which it immediately did, turning around to confront my companions, who had all gathered around, as if it sensed it was safe with me. The guard was laughing as he watched the show. I left the snake on the lowest branch of a huge tree, and we watched it disappear, slithering from branch to branch to the treetops.

  I went back to my caleta to prepare a mix of sugar and powdered milk with a bit of water, just enough for two spoonfuls, one for Lucho and one for me. The march had been very hard on him. He was all skin and bones. I was afraid it might trigger a diabetic coma.

  Two new guerrillas arrived with a long pole the next morning. I understood that the young lieutenant’s protest had worked. I was about to hand them my hammock so that they could set it up when Lucho stopped me.

  “Take mine. It’s sturdier than yours, and yours will only get filthy and dusty,” Lucho said. “You won’t be able to sleep in it.”

  “And you?”

  “I can sleep on the ground. It will be good for me. I’m beginning to get a backache.”

  This was a lie.

  The guards set up his hammock, right against the pole. They put it on the ground so that I could slip into it. In no time the pole was on their shoulders and they set off at a run, as if they had the devil at their heels.

  My bearers’ initial enthusiasm was put to a rude test crossing a succession of deep swamps with water that arrived thigh high. Miraculously, I emerged still dry, which only served to irritate everybody, the bearers to start with, who were angered by my comfort and forgot that I was sick; they felt humiliated, lugging a princess around. My companions—soaked to the bone, with blisters on their feet because our days spent marching were getting longer and longer—were also angry. Jealousy had returned to poison our relations. I heard one of them talking with the guards, asserting that this was all a strategy on my part to slow up the entire group. He claimed that I had confessed as much to Orlando, who allegedly had then told him.

  My companions’ gossip worked like a meticulously distilled venom. Every day a new pair of men was assigned to carry me, and every day they would show up ever more inflamed against me. Finally along came Rogelio and a young guerrilla we all made fun of, because he seemed to think he was Zorro, with his flat-shaped hat with a string chin tie and pants that were too tight.

  “We’ll be dancing today!” they said, winking at each other.

  I could sense they did not wish me well, and before we left, I made the sign of the cross, expecting the worst.

  The forest had become even denser, and the vegetation had changed. Instead of ferns and shrubs in the shade of gigantic ceiba trees, we were now going through a dark, humid region thick with palms and banana trees. The trees were so close together that it was difficult to weave our way between them; the pole was too long, which made it impossible to get around the bends in the terrain. The bearers often had to back up and try a different angle. Every step was a negotiation between the man in front and the man behind, and they argued, each one wanting to impose his opinion on the other. They got angry, sweaty, and tired. The trunks of the banana trees were swarming with ants of all kinds, big and little, red, yellow, and black. The appearance of human beings on their territory drove them crazy. As we were obliged to brush against the banana trees to push our way through, the ants would hurry onto the leaves to attack us, cling to us, bite us, or piss on us. Their urine was by no means the worst thing. They secreted a powerful acid that burned our skin and raised oozing blisters. Stuck in my hammock as if it were a capsule, I couldn’t move. I had to lie there with my arms along my body, and I suffered stoically the offensives of these creatures as they invaded the most intimate parts of my body. I couldn’t say a thing: The guys were suffering more than I was, with their naked torsos and their burden pressing into their shoulders.

  After the banana trees came the brambles. We were going through a dense forest of bushy palm trees that protected themselves against the outside world by means of barbed spines wrapped all around their trunks. Once again the trunks were so close together that it was hard to not to bump into the sharp spikes that covered them. Rogelio was beside himself. He took his revenge by swinging the hammock more than was necessary, so that with each sideways motion I was projected against the spines that dug deep, first through the layer of protective cloth and then into my flesh. I came out of that palm forest looking like a hedge-hog covered with spines.

  But that wasn’t all. Once again there were swamps to wade through, even deeper than the earlier ones, in which a particular vegetation covered in thorns was growing. My bearers waded through this lukewarm water, with the altered mood that any human being will feel after hours of being soake
d against his will, feeling their way forward with their feet, not knowing what they would find at the bottom of this blackish water. Often they lost their balance and I would be half submerged in the swamp, thus becoming even heavier. Every time one of them stumbled, his reflex was to reach out for the nearest tree trunk. By the end of the day, their hands were gashed and bleeding.

  We didn’t go quickly that day, or in the days that followed, or in the weeks that came one after the other. In the end we all lost track of the hours we wandered through that endless jungle, crushed by the mere effort of moving on, no matter what. There was nothing left to eat, or hardly anything. Guillermo came each morning with a pot of rice, less and less of it every day. The ration had to last until evening, and once the camp was set up, the rancheros had to dream up a new soup of water boiled with whatever they’d found along the way. The march stopped at around five o’clock in the evening. We had only one thought in mind: to build our shelter for the night and dress our wounds. We had barely an hour to put up the tents, fix the hammocks, take a bath, hang the clothes we would put on again the next morning, still dripping—and come back to collapse under the mosquito net before nightfall.