By daybreak the storm was still raging. I ventured to lift the corner of my black roof to take stock of the situation and saw Tom still asleep, swimming in a veritable pool. He had no plastic sheet, and his hammock had filled up with water to the brim. The storm gave way to a light rain; there was movement on the bongo. They all wanted to get out of these makeshift shelters to stretch their legs. That was when I discovered what had happened: Marc had thought to share his plastic sheet with me. He had covered my feet.
I stood there under my plastic with my hastily folded hammock. My throat was tight. Such compassion was so unusual between hostages.
He hadn’t done it on purpose. Perhaps he hadn’t realized that he had covered my feet, I thought in disbelief. When Marc finally came out of his hammock, I approached him.
“Yes, you would’ve been soaked otherwise,” he answered, almost apologetically. He smiled gently, in a way I had never seen before. It made me feel good.
When the morning meal arrived and we had to stand in line to get our hot drink, I slipped between the prisoners to share a few words with Lucho and reassure him. He, too, had managed to sleep and looked rested. To know that Pinchao had made it lifted a huge weight for him. Our companions were gathering around him to speak to him, trying to put behind them the unpleasant comments that had hurt him so deeply. Lucho held no grudges.
I went back to my spot in the bow and set about tidying my backpack. It was a nuisance, but it had to be done, because the storm had soaked everything. I took out my rolls of clothing one by one, dried the plastic bags that contained them, and rolled them up again, then finally resealing the bags with a rubber band at either end to make a waterproof package. This was the way the FARC did it, to stave off some of the disadvantages of life with 80 percent humidity. Marc decided to do the same.
Once I’d finished that chore, I conscientiously cleaned the board where I’d put my things and placed my toothbrush and bowl there for the next meal. Finally I took a rag to clean my boots and make them shine.
Marc watched me with a smile. Then, as if he were sharing a secret, he whispered, “You behave just like a woman.”
His comment surprised me. But in a curious way, it flattered me. It was not a compliment, among the FARC, to behave like a woman. In fact, I’d been dressing like a man for five years, and yet everything in me reminded me I was a woman: It was my essence, my nature, my identity. I turned my back on him, and on the pretext of brushing my teeth I took my brush and my bowl and moved away, to hide my confusion. When I came back, he hurried over, concerned, and said, “If I said anything that—”
“No, on the contrary, it was really nice of you!”
The guards were watching but let us talk, as if they’d been ordered not to interfere.
I hadn’t been allowed to speak to my companions for over two years. I did surreptitiously from time to time, driven by loneliness. Pinchao and I had managed to foil their surveillance, because our caletas had often been set up next to each other and we could pretend to be busy with our things while speaking in very low voices. I had felt doubly isolated since Pinchao left, given the reaction from the rest of the group regarding his escape and the restrictions imposed on my time with Lucho.
When Marc and I began to have real discussions, driven by restlessness and boredom, waiting aimlessly in the prow of that bongo, I realized how cruel the guerrillas’ punishment was and how heavily my enforced silence weighed upon me.
Oddly enough, we picked up old discussions left unfinished in Sombra’s prison, as if there had been no interlude between the two. Time spent in captivity is circular, I thought.
And yet clearly, for Marc and me, time really had counted. We resumed the same arguments that opposed us years before, regarding subjects as controversial as abortion or the legalization of drugs, and we managed to find links, points in common, where in the past we had merely been irritated and intolerant. We would end our hours of discussion exhausted and surprised. And when we parted, we were surprised to find we were no longer filled with bitterness and spite the way we used to be.
When we understood that the bongo was not about to move anytime soon, we set about trying to come up with a shared activity. Marc called it “our project.” We had to try to obtain permission to cover the bongo to protect ourselves from the evening storms. I watched as he formulated his request, in his Spanish that was getting better by the day, and to my surprise his idea was approved.
Enrique sent Oswald to oversee the project. He cut poles and prongs that were placed at regular intervals in order to hold the huge plastic sheets from the rancha and the economato that weren’t being used at the moment, to cover the entire bongo. My contribution had been minimal, but we celebrated the completion of the project as if it had been our shared work.
When the bongo headed off down the river again and we reached our destination, I felt a profound sadness. The new camp was deliberately set up on a very narrow terrain. Two rows of tents faced each other, squeezed together, separated by a path from a small cove by the river that would be used for washing, to the other end where they dug the chontos.
Enrique himself assigned our space, and to me he allotted twenty square feet of land to set up my tent, over a spot where a huge colony of congas88 had the entrance to their nest. They were perfectly visible, walking along one behind the other on their long, black, stiltlike legs. The smallest ones were at least an inch long, and I knew the pain their venomous sting could inflict. I had been stung by one before, and my arm had quadrupled in size and hurt for forty-eight hours. I begged to be allowed to set up my tent elsewhere, but Gafas would not budge.
The poles supporting my hammock were buried on either side of the entrance to the conga ants’ nest, and my hammock was hanging right above it. I went to get Massimo to help me, but since Pinchao’s escape he had changed completely; he had been very frightened, and now it was impossible to envisage any attempt to escape. He wanted to stay clear of any problems, and so he avoided me. Nevertheless, when he saw the unending ballet of insects underneath my hammock, he agreed to intercede on my behalf so that they would send me a pot of boiling water to kill them. He also cut me a sharp stick while he was on duty so that I could impale them one by one.
“Be careful, they can be deadly if several of them attack.”
There was no respite. I spent all my time killing any conga that came near me, in what seemed to me a losing battle. I looked enviously at my companions. They had all finished setting up camp, and were relaxing, resuming their usual routines: Arteaga and William were sewing, Armando was weaving, Marulanda was bored in his hammock, Lucho was listening to the radio, and Marc was busy at his latest project, repairing the straps to his backpack.
I wish I could talk to him, I thought, surrounded by a cemetery of conga ants; the fetid odor would not go away. Like Gulliver in the presence of the Lilliputians, I could not afford a moment’s inattention while I waited for the boiling water Enrique had promised.
Marc walked by my caleta on his way to the chontos and looked at me, astonished.
“I’ve got millions of congas in my caleta,” I explained.
He laughed, thinking I was exaggerating. On the way back, as he saw I was still absorbed by my conga combat, he stopped. “What are you doing?”
I came out of my tent and was about to explain, when I saw his eyes widening in horror.
“Whatever you do, don’t move,” he said, speaking very clearly, his frightened gaze focused on something on my shoulder.
He came toward me very slowly, his finger raised. Filled with dread, I followed his gaze and turned my head just enough to see an enormous conga, with a gleaming coat of armor and hairy legs and threatening pincers extended, only a few millimeters from my cheek. I was about to run off, but I stopped myself in time, when I realized it would be wiser to wait for Marc to flick the monster off. He went about it calmly, despite the fact that I was nervously stamping my feet and moaning. There was a hollow click as he made contact with the
insect, and then it soared like a missile to crash against a giant tree trunk.
I watched it all out of the corner of my eye, at the risk of giving myself a stiff neck, and then I jumped for joy. Marc was laughing so hard he was on the verge of tears, bent over double.
“You should have seen your face! I wish I could have taken your picture! You were just like a little girl.”
Then he gave me a hug, and said proudly, “It’s a good thing I was here!”
When at last Enrique sent the kettle of boiling water, the water washed out more floating corpses than survivors. As for Marc, our victory over the congas sealed our friendship.
SEVENTY-THREE
THE BAN
I climbed out of my hammock one blind-black night to answer a call of nature, delighted I could step outside and no longer fearing an attack from those infernal creatures. Suddenly I heard a whistling sound of something brushing past my hair. I stood paralyzed in the darkness, aware that something had fallen through my tent with a thud, just inches from my nose. The guard refused to come and shine his flashlight beam, and I preferred to go back to the safety of my mosquito net rather than wander anywhere near whatever it was that had shaken my dwelling.
At dawn I got up quickly to see that my tent was in shreds. A pod the size of a man’s head had fallen from a neighboring palm tree, wrapped in a thick leaf that tapered into a point as sharp as a spear. It had come loose from the trunk and had fallen more than sixty feet and had landed deep in the ground, right next to me, ripping my roof in two. If I’d gone one step farther . . . I thought, not that this was any consolation for my ruined tent. It would take hours to repair, I realized with resignation.
I had to borrow a needle and some thread, and when I was ready to start, it began to rain. Marc came up to me, wanting to give me a hand. I accepted, astonished. This wasn’t done among prisoners. Requests for help were met with moodiness and disdain. Each of us wanted to show that we were self-sufficient. But I always needed help, and Lucho—who would always give me a hand—was forbidden to approach me. If I didn’t ask for help, it was to avoid conflicts. I already owed people for their needles and thread. That was enough.
Marc’s help turned out to be very timely. His advice helped me to finish faster. We spent nearly two hours together, busy at our task, laughing over the slightest little thing. When he went away again, I watched with regret. Lucho was always reminding me that I mustn’t get attached to anything. The next morning Marc came back. He asked me for some waterproof canvas to patch his own tent and to help him glue patches over the holes that the arrieras had made in the canvas.
Asprilla, a big muscular black guy, had just become second in command. Together with Monster, he was responsible for the hostages’ camp, a task they shared in turn. He’d been kind enough to unchain me during the day, and now he brought a big pot of glue so that Marc could repair his tent. He came back in the afternoon and found us there, like children, our fingers all sticky. I could see the way he looked at us. I’m too happy, and he can see it, I thought, worried.
Marc went on laughing, putting glue on the square pieces of canvas that we had carefully cut out. This is ridiculous, I thought, trying to banish my apprehension. I’m getting paranoid.
The morning after that, I saw Marc sitting on the ground with his radio in pieces, spread out before him. I was hesitant to go up to him, then decided there was no harm in it, and I would see if I could help him. The connection of his antenna to the electronic circuits had been damaged. I’d watched my companions repairing their radios in similar situations, so I volunteered to fix his.
Very quickly I managed to repair the connection before Marc’s admiring gaze. I was glowing with satisfaction. This was probably the first time I’d ever managed to repair anything all by myself. The following day Marc came to get me to help him cut his plastic sheets. He wanted to roll them up in his boots, for the next march.
We sat silently, absorbed in our efforts to cut them neatly at right angles. It was hot, and the slightest movement made us sweat. Marc thrust his hand toward my ear and caught something in the air. His gesture surprised him as much as it did me. He apologized, confused, and explained shyly that he wanted to remove a mosquito that had been pestering me for a while already. His shyness was charming, and the thought of it confused me, too. I got up quickly to go back to my tent. I would have to find a pretext to come back and spend more time with him. This growing friendship surprised me. For years our paths had crossed, and it had never really occurred to us to spend time together. I’d always had the impression that we’d been doing whatever we could to avoid each other. And now I had to admit that I woke up in the morning with a smile, and I waited with childlike impatience for a chance to speak to him. Maybe I’m becoming intrusive, I thought. So I held back and for a few days kept myself from going up to him.
He came the following week and offered to help me set up my radio antenna. I had tried to do it myself, to no avail, because Oswald and Angel, who were considered the battery-throwing champions, had refused to lend me a hand.
My battery throwing reached no higher than fifteen feet at the most, which made everyone laugh. Marc spun the battery like a sling. Flying to the sky on the third spin, my antenna landed higher than anyone else’s.
“Just dumb luck,” he confessed.
My radio was rejuvenated. I could hear Mom perfectly. It was as if she were right next to me. She was planning a trip again to rally support.
“I don’t like leaving Colombia. I’m afraid you’ll be released and I won’t be here to welcome you,” she said.
I loved her for this.
In the morning, taking advantage of the fact that I was in the breakfast line, I laughed about it with Lucho.
“Did you hear your mother? She doesn’t want to go, as usual.”
“And, as usual, she will go,” I answered, delighted.
It was one of our favorite jokes. Mom always hesitated until the last minute. Then I would get her message from the other side of the planet, because she always managed to be there for our appointment on the radio, wherever she happened to be. Her trips were good for both of us. I figured if she met other people, it would help her to be patient, the way that hearing her voice, invigorated by her activity, helped me. I really appreciated Marc’s help.
One morning Marc came to borrow my Bible. When I handed it to him, he asked me, “Why didn’t you come back and talk to me?”
His question took me by surprise. I tried to keep my thoughts clear as I answered.
“First of all, because I don’t want to impose upon you. Secondly, because I’m afraid I might begin to enjoy it too much and that the guerrillas will find a way to pressure me.”
He gave me a sweet smile. “Don’t think about all that. If you have a moment, I’d like to have a talk this afternoon.”
He went away, and I realized in amusement that I had an appointment! Boredom was a poison with which the FARC injected us to weaken our resolve, something I dreaded more than anything. I smiled. I’d gone from a life filled with too many appointments, engagements, time slots to suddenly having none. Now, in this jungle miles from anywhere, the idea of an appointment pleased me.
I began to speak to Marc using tú quite naturally, another, more familiar, way to say “you” in Spanish.
“I don’t know how to use tú,” he said.
He seemed to be fascinated by the nuances of this usage, totally nonexistent in English. But he had grasped the meaning—and the familiarity it conveyed. “Quiero tutearte,” 89 he said.
“Ya lo estás haciendo,” 90 I replied with a laugh.
We opened the Bible. He wanted me to read one of my favorite passages to him. Finally I decided on a passage where Jesus insistently asks Peter whether he loves him. I knew the Greek version of the text. Again, it was all about nuance. Jesus used the term “agape” when addressing Peter, to refer to the quality of superior love, a love that demanded nothing in return, that sufficed unto itself through th
e action of loving. Peter replied using the word “philia,” to mean a love that expected something back, that sought reciprocity. The third time that Jesus asked the question, Peter seemed to have understood the subtlety and replied using the word “agape,” which bound him to unconditional love.
Peter was the man who had betrayed Jesus on three occasions. The Jesus who was asking these questions was the resurrected Jesus. Peter had been a weak man and a coward, but through the strength of that unconditional love he had been transformed into his opposite, a strong, courageous man who would be crucified for defending Jesus’s legacy.
I had been living in captivity for five years, and despite the extreme conditions I’d endured, changing my character proved immensely difficult.
We were deep in discussion, sitting side by side on Marc’s old black plastic sheet. I had no idea what language we were using—probably both. Absorbed in our discussion, at one point I paused, intrigued by the silence in the camp. To my great embarrassment, I realized that our companions were following our conversation with interest.
“Everybody’s listening,” I said in English, lowering my voice.
“We are too happy. It’s attracting their attention,” he replied without looking at me. It made me worried. In an effort to recover peace, I continued:
“See what we’ve become in this camp, how hard it is for us to unite against these guerrillas when they intimidate us and threaten us. . . . The apostles were afraid and only John came to the foot of the cross. But after the Resurrection, they no longer behaved in the same way. They went to the four corners of the earth and were massacred for bearing witness to what they had seen. They were decapitated, crucified, skinned alive, stoned to death. Each one was able to overcome his fear of dying. Each one chose who he wanted to be.”
Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle Page 54