At dawn, when it was still dark and cold, we would put back on the heavy, soaking uniform we would wear for the march. This was a real torture. I had decided that if I had to choose between muddy, wet clothes and clean, wet clothes, I’d rather continue to wash my outfit every day, even though the effort to do so drained me.
There was no time for other people; it was every man for himself. Except for Lucho, who made a point of helping me with the tiniest things. My condition was getting worse. I begged Guillermo to give me some silymarin, but he said, “For you there’s no medication.”
FIFTY-TWO
SELLING HOPE
We were always woken before dawn. One morning our marching orders did not come. Speculation about our fate was rife. Some said that our group was going to be split up. Others claimed there would be some releases. We were moved into a clearing, where the trees were farther apart and a thick carpet of dead leaves was strewn across the ground. The sky was overcast. It was a sinister place. They ordered us to sit in a circle. The guards stood all around us, pointing their guns at us.
“They’re going to kill us,” said Lucho.
“Yes,” I agreed, “they’re going to slaughter us.”
My heart was beating wildly. I was sweating profusely, like all my companions, despite the fact that we weren’t moving, only sitting on our equipos, with our backs turned to the guards. I changed my position.
“Don’t move!” shouted one of the guards.
“If you’re going to kill us, I want to look death in the face!” I replied.
The guard shrugged and lit a cigarette. We went on waiting. We had no idea what was going on. It was almost noon. I imagined our bloody bodies on that bed of leaves. They say that before you die, your life flashes in front of your eyes. Nothing was flashing before mine. I had to go to the toilet. “Guard! The chontos.” Now I spoke the way they did, I smelled as bad as they did, and I was as insensitive as they were.
They gave me permission to go off to one side. When I came back, Sombra was there. He asked who among us could swim. I raised my hand. Lucho, too, but Orlando didn’t. Was he pretending? Maybe Orlando knew something. Maybe it was better to say that we didn’t know how to swim?
They had us line up, and we began marching again. Twenty minutes later we came to the banks of a huge river. They made us get undressed, down to our underwear and boots. A rope had been stretched between the two riverbanks. Ahead of me a young guerrilla woman was getting ready to go into the water with her equipo tightly wrapped in black plastic. I looked all around. There was a bend in the river just ahead, and after the bend it was three times as wide. Where we were now, the river must have been two hundred yards wide.
The guerrilla woman took the rope and entered the water, moving one hand after the other along the rope as she crossed. Soon it would be my turn. Going into the water was invigorating. It was just cool enough to refresh my body. Thirty feet out, the current was very strong. You had to be careful not to let it carry you away. I let my body float without putting up any resistance, and I made headway solely by moving my hands along the rope. The technique seemed to be working. Once I got to the other side, I had to wait for my clothes and my backpack, in a cloud of thirsty mosquitoes.
They used a small boat to bring across fat Sombra and the baby. It came back and forth but it almost sank under the weight of all the equipos. I spent the rest of the afternoon drying my things, and I tried to rescue the few remaining dry items for the night. I thanked heaven that Sombra had decided to set up camp right there and spare us more hours of marching.
We all set about repacking our backpacks and throwing out anything we could to make them lighter. Marc came to see me. He wanted to give me back my Bible; he was too loaded down. Clara too wanted to come into my caleta, but with the baby. She was allowed to have him for an hour. I laid out a plastic sheet on the ground and a towel to place him on. A fat female guerrilla with enormous breasts brought him over, nestled against her belly in the kangaroo pouch I’d made for Clara at his birth. The baby was smiling. He seemed quite alert as he followed our fingers with his eyes and listened attentively to the songs we sang him. He seemed to be in good condition, but his arm still hadn’t healed. Clara played with him for a while. After a moment the infant began to cry, and the guerrilla with the big breasts came over at once and took him away without saying a thing. That was the last time I saw Clara’s son in the jungle.
Night fell suddenly. I didn’t even have time to pick up the hammock Lucho had lent me for my transport, which normally I rolled up on top of my pack for the night, to avoid a termite attack. I fell asleep listening to the sound of a fine drizzle around me. My things would be soaked tomorrow, I thought. Never mind, I was too tired to move.
Around midnight the camp was awakened by the sound of Clara’s screams. A guard switched on his flashlight beam. Her caleta had been invaded by ants. The arrieras were devouring everything in their path—they were red and small and had protruding jaws that enabled them to chew through almost anything.
Clara’s hammock was in shreds, as were the marching clothes she’d hung up on a rope. A sea of ants covered her mosquito net. The guard did the best he could to get rid of them, but many had already gotten inside. Clara wanted to take down her hammock to shake them off, but the ground, too, was swarming with insects, and she didn’t have her boots. Then I realized, too late, that the sound of the drizzle was in fact the sound of the arrieras moving over the ground. They had invaded the camp and had already been through my caleta.
Daylight revealed that we all had been attacked. The hammock Lucho had lent me was like a sieve. The straps of my equipo no longer existed. There was nothing left of Orlando’s jacket but the collar, and every tent had holes in it. We had to patch things quickly. I put my equipo back together as best I could and quickly repaired the hammock. It was time to leave.
A unit of guerrillas had come with supplies from a neighboring FARC camp, so we saw some new faces. They’d provided the rowboat for Sombra and the baby. We were all hoping that the end of the march was in sight. Despite better food, we were walking slowly. The guerrillas were complaining. Everyone was finding it hard to go on.
That day we stopped after two hours. Sombra was furious. He came up to me, fuming. “Tell those Americans not to take me for a fool. I understand every word they say. If they want to fuck around, I’ll chain them up, all three of them!” I looked at him, alarmed. Half an hour later, I saw Orlando and Keith arrive, chained together at the neck. Jorge followed after them with Lucho. The others lagged behind. Guillermo went ahead of them the moment he saw me.
“Go sit farther away,” he barked at me, to keep me from speaking to my companions. Keith was extremely nervous, holding both hands around the chain hanging from his neck. Orlando sat down next to me, crowding into the space Guillermo had allotted us.
He pretended to be playing with his feet, and said, “That idiot began kicking his backpack. Guillermo thought he didn’t want to carry his things anymore. He told Sombra that we were trying to hold up the march. Now I’m the one who takes the rap.”
While he was talking to me, Keith had gotten up and was speaking to Sombra with his back to us. Sombra began to laugh, removed Keith’s length of chain, and threw it over at Orlando.
“As for you, you can keep yours for a few days! That’ll teach you to try to be clever with me.”
Keith walked away, rubbing his neck, not daring to look at Orlando. Guillermo came back with a big stewpot filled with water. He shared it out with everybody, let us all drink, then screamed, “Line up, in marching order! Now! Get a move on!”
My companions jumped to their feet like robots, slung their backpacks on their shoulders, and headed down the path back into the jungle in single file. I had to wait for my bearers to come back; I would be on my own until then. Sombra hesitated. Then, deciding to leave me, he said, “Don’t worry about the dictionary. Where you’re going now, it will be easy to get you another one.”
&nb
sp; “Sombra, you have to remove Orlando’s chains.”
“It’s none of your business. Think about what I just told you. The French are in the process of negotiating for you. You’ll be free much sooner than anyone can imagine.”
“I don’t know about any of that. What I do know is that Orlando has a chain around his neck, and that you have to remove it.”
“Come on, hang in there! It’ll all be over soon,” he said, scarcely hiding his irritation. He limped away and disappeared. My bearers arrived. There was a new one, because the man who’d been carrying me in the morning had dislocated his shoulder. He’d been replaced by the Indian, still smiling, still friendly.
The moment we were alone for a second, he said, “They’re going to release someone. We think it’s going to be you.”
I looked at him, incredulous. I hadn’t believed a word of what Sombra had said before. ”What? What are you saying?”
“Yes, some of them are going to the Sierra de la Macarena,49 and others are going to leave with the First Front. But you’re going to the leaders.”
“What leaders? What on earth are you talking about?”
“If you want more information, give me your gold chain.”
I burst out laughing. “My gold chain?”
“Yes, as a pledge.”
“A pledge of what?”
“That you won’t inform on me. If ever anyone finds out that I spoke to you, I’d be court-martialed and shot.”
“I don’t have a gold chain.”
“Yes you do! It’s in your equipo.”
I was startled. “It’s broken.”
“Give it to me and I’ll tell you everything.”
His teammate arrived. I slid into my hammock again, lost in thought. The chain had belonged to my grandmother. I had broken it, lost it, found it again miraculously, and hidden it carefully between the pages of my Bible. They’d made a very thorough search.
When we reached the site, while we were setting up the tents for the night, I mentioned it to Lucho.
“They’re searching through everything,” I told him. “You can’t go on carrying the machete.”
“What should we do?” he answered, nervous.
“Wait, I have an idea.”
The soldiers’ camp was once again right next to ours. I sought out my friends. They were chained two by two and had to coordinate their moves. They were happy to see me and served me some milk and sugar.
“I’ve come on a delicate mission. I need your help.”
They crouched down to listen attentively.
“I’ve been keeping a machete on me, because I’m going to try to escape. There’s going to be a search, probably tomorrow. I don’t want to just toss it out somewhere. Can you hide it in your things for a few days, only long enough until they’ve done their search?”
The men looked at each other in silence.
“It’s dangerous,” said one.
“Very dangerous,” said the other.
A guard was shouting. I had to go back. I looked at them anxiously. We had only a few seconds.
“What the hell, we can’t leave you in a fix. You can count on us,” said one of them.
“Take this towel. After your bath, wrap the machete up in it. You’ll give it back to us when it’s dark. You can say I lent you my towel and that you had to give it back,” said the other.
My eyes were full of tears. I hardly knew them, and yet I trusted them, totally.
I went back to tell Lucho.
“I’ll go and give it back to them. I want to thank them in person,” he said, deeply touched. We knew all too well the risk they were taking for us.
At dawn the next morning, there was a search. Our friends were starting their march, and they waved to us before leaving. We could rest easy. When it was my turn, Guillermo opened my Bible. He took the chain and toyed with it for a moment. Then he put it back between the pages and carefully closed the zipper of the leather case protecting the Bible. He won’t dare! I thought.
Once again the Indian was assigned the chore of carrying me. He clearly wanted to speak to me but was waiting for the right moment. As for me, I was more and more intrigued by his story. I was eager for good news. Even if it wasn’t true, I wanted more than anything to be able to cling to a beautiful dream. I said to myself that in any case, if Guillermo had his eye on my grandmother’s chain, sooner or later he would find a way to get it. So when the Indian approached me, I was ready to buy his lies.
The Indian sat with me, on the pretext that I mustn’t stay alone, because we were getting close to an area patrolled by the military. His teammate was only too happy to go off and haul his equipo.
“I’m going to tell you everything. I’ll leave the rest to your conscience,” he declared by way of introduction. He explained I was going to be handed over to another commander, whose mission was to take me to Marulanda and that I was going to be released. “Mono Jojoy wants to have a big ceremony with all the ambassadors and a lot of journalists. He’s going to deliver you into the hands of the European envoys. Your companion will be sent to the First Front of the Eastern Bloc. Her child will go and live with a family of militia, who will take care of him until he grows up.” He declared that when Emmanuel was old enough, he would become a guerrilla. He would be sent to a hospital to have his arm operated on. Then the Indian added, “The Americans will leave for the Macarena. The others will be divided in groups and sent to the Amazon.
“There,” he finished, “you know everything. I hope you’ll keep your word.”
“I haven’t promised you a thing.”
“I told you everything. Now you’re alone with your conscience.”
I knew that the Indian was lying. I knew that among the guerrillas, lying was considered the sign of a good warrior. It was part of their apprenticeship, an instrument of war that they were encouraged to master. They knew how to go about it. They had acquired the wisdom of the shadows that is used to do evil.
But the Indian had started me dreaming. By pronouncing the word “freedom,” he’d opened a box that I’d kept double locked. I could no longer stop the flood of raving visions that submerged me. I could see my children, my bedroom, my dog, my breakfast tray, my ironed clothes. I could smell Mom’s perfume. I opened the fridge, I closed the door to the bathroom, I lit my bedside lamp, I wore high-heeled shoes. How could I shove all that back into oblivion? I wanted so badly to become myself again.
But even doubt was a source of hope. Without it, all I had was an eternity of captivity ahead of me. So yes. Doubt was a reprieve, a moment of rest. I was grateful to him for that.
I decided to give him the chain. I adored my grandmother. She was an angel who somehow had wandered onto the earth. I’d never heard her say a nasty thing about anyone. I suppose that is why we all went to her with our family quarrels. She would listen and laugh and say, “Don’t pay that any attention, forget about it!” She had the gift of healing a wounded ego, because each of us always got the impression she was taking our side. But she made it easier to forgive because she put things into perspective, and she knew how to make our resentment seem unimportant. She and I were very close—she knew all my secrets. She had always played an important role in my life, and her love had been constructive. It was not a demanding love, and that’s probably one of the most beautiful lessons of life she taught us. There was no bargaining with her; she gave everything without expecting anything in return. She didn’t manipulate or make you feel guilty. She forgave everything. My grandmother had a host of grandchildren, and each one of us was convinced he or she was the favorite. Mom had given me her chain as my inheritance. My grandmother had always worn it, right up to her death, and I wore it after that, until it broke.
Giving it now to a man who had shown compassion, I felt I was honoring my grandmother’s goodness. I knew that she would be nodding to me from on high. I also reasoned that others had already noticed my chain, and there was a good chance it would disappear before the march was over. B
ut I was no fool. The Indian had sold me hope in a box. For days I was floating in bliss, the expectation of happiness being more enjoyable than happiness itself.
After a particularly difficult day where the “dog-tiring” terrain was unusually steep and high, the Indian strolled over to our section. He had come for his reward. I took it out of its hiding place and placed it furtively in his big, callused hand. He hastily closed his fist around it and disappeared like a thief.
In the days that followed, he gave me a wide berth. One evening I encountered him all the same; he had come to help Gloria set up her caleta. I called out to him. He lowered his eyes, incapable of meeting my gaze.
I hadn’t told Lucho any of the story. What hurt the most wasn’t that my release was a pipe dream. It was that the Indian no longer smiled or sought to help me. He had become just like the others.
FIFTY-THREE
THE GROUP OF TEN
NOVEMBER 2004
One afternoon Milton50 ordered me to walk and sent the bearers back to the end of the line. I dragged myself along through the jungle like a zombie, with Milton by my side. He tried to be firm and raised his voice in the hope it would encourage me to walk faster. But it had nothing to do with my will. My body obstinately refused to cooperate. When night began to fall, I was still hours away from the campsite.
A group of girls caught up with us. They’d left the earlier campsite much later than we had, charged with cleaning up any trace of our passage. They had to bury any evidence and camouflage all the different clues we prisoners had left in the hope of being located by the Colombian army.
They arrived in a good mood. They had just done five hours at a jog with their equipos on their backs, whereas our group had taken nine hours to go the same distance. The girls saw me sitting on the ground, head between my knees, trying to gather my strength. Without waiting for an order, they decided to carry me. The girl who took the initiative crouched behind me, put her head between my legs, and in one go she lifted me up astride her shoulders.
Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle Page 39