16.
It was past three in the morning. The venue was almost empty. There were a drunk person or two, a woman who looked like a model playing with the microphone on stage, Jorge Celedón’s band packing up their instruments and Diazgranados tossing back the dregs of the drinks still on the table. Claire hadn’t set foot in the reception and Lucía had gone who knows where, with who knows whom.
That night, Eduardo was lonely. It seemed that every man around him was dancing with the love of his life, just when he was starting to accept that Lucía had stopped loving him. He didn’t want to go home alone, switch the TV to a porn channel and masturbate until he fell asleep. He decided to call Gloria, but she didn’t answer. He had to book her in advance, especially if it was a weekend. Then he remembered she’d given him the agency number. He searched his wallet for the card and called. He collected his suit jacket, and left in search of his SUV.
Karen slipped on black lace underwear, a satin sleeveless blouse and high heels.
She put on cherry lipstick and painted her eyes an intense black. Susana picked out her clothes, and gave her tips for her first date as an escort. Everything had happened so fast. Susana had answered her questions, and then suggested she go with a few of Susana’s clients first, to see how she felt about it. In exchange, Karen would give her a commission. If she felt comfortable, Susana would introduce her to the agency formally, so she could be put in the catalogue. If all went well, she could build up a pool of clients and, later, work independently. The numbers were tempting. Plus, her friend explained, doing it for just a few years would make her enough to buy a house. At the end of the day, she had nothing to lose by trying it out. The agency called Susana to tell her a client was looking for Gloria. Since she wasn’t available, could Susana go? The circumstances were perfect. With two, at most three, clients, Karen could recover the money she had saved in eight months.
The New Hope buildings are wider than they are tall. They rise in a half-moon around a false meadow, the centrepiece of which is a jet of water, as artificial as the grass, falling on grey pebbles. The effect of the building’s blue windows, and the sound of a waterfall in the middle of what looks like a golf green, means anyone used to buildings in Bogotá’s distinctive redbrick is dumbfounded when they come across this alien construction on the Avenida Circunvalar. Karen found it beautiful.
‘Remind me of your name?’ the doorman said.
‘Pocahontas.’
‘Pocahontas what?’
‘Just Pocahontas.’
The doorman shot her an incredulous look. He was wearing a headset and a royal-blue uniform that set him apart from any other doorman she had seen before.
‘I’m sorry, Señora, but I need to see your ID. Management rules.’
Karen went red. She felt like an idiot. Pocahontas, she said to herself as she opened her wallet and passed him her card. He looked at her, looked at the card, and jotted the information down, as well as the time of arrival.
Following the instructions, she went out to a Japanese garden lit by a soft, bluish light.
She took off her heels, to make as little noise as possible when crossing the wooden platform that stretched across the garden from one building to the other. At the entrance was an extensive lobby with oversized furniture and marble sculptures. This time a woman in a black uniform asked for her ID, and once more jotted down the time of arrival before requesting the lift through a digital monitor. She’d been so stupid saying Pocahontas, such a child. She kept kicking herself.
Feeling completely out of place, she got into the middle lift and closed her eyes. She opened them again and saw the Japanese garden, the city further below it. She was nervous, and tried to contain the tremor in her hands. The lift stopped, the doors opened and on the other side she found Eduardo Ramelli. He was wearing a white bathrobe. He was barefoot. He smiled warmly and, for a second, Karen was less afraid. In any case, she was surprised. On the one hand, she was disappointed to discover that the Teacher solicited these kinds of services; on the other, she was relieved he was her client because she supposed he wouldn’t harm her. She tried to smile as she went into the apartment, forcing herself to act naturally.
‘A drink?’ he asked, as he took her jacket.
‘Yes, please,’ she said, realising that he hadn’t recognised her.
Ramelli poured an amber liquid into a wide cup, and she drank it in long gulps.
‘You’re new to this?’
‘Yes, Señor,’ she said, putting the empty glass on the table.
‘Drop the “Señor”. Have we met?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Karen lied.
They were in a living room with white furniture. Karen didn’t want to sit down in case she dirtied something. In any case, Eduardo didn’t ask her to sit. He did ask her to take a shower before going through to the bedroom, and handed her an unopened antibacterial soap. Then he showed her a robe and disposable slippers, for when she got out of the shower.
In the bedroom, everything was white. The king-sized bed looked onto a marble chimney recessed in the wall. To the west, a view of Bogotá could be seen through a large window that stretched from floor to ceiling.
The cognac had worked its effect on her. Her head was spinning and she felt mildly numbed. At first, he touched her, but then it was her turn. In the beginning, she felt a little disgust. The sensation in her mouth was unpleasant, especially when she had to swallow saliva and make sure not to gag. But her client was kind and in less than an hour she was in another taxi going back to Susana’s.
‘You have a rare beauty. I’d like to see you again,’ Ramelli had told her, counting out the money at the door.
‘Call me,’ said Karen. She could be informal now that she was more relaxed. She took the money and tucked it into her handbag.
‘Where to, Señorita?’ the taxi driver asked. According to the identity card on display, his name was Floriberto Calvo. Calle 60 and Carrera 10, said Karen, overcome by relief that she didn’t have to say San Mateo, Soacha, Santa Lucía, or Corintio.
The radio was tuned to La Cariñosa station, and the news programme Warning Bogotá was on. The unmistakable voice boomed into the Chevrolet Spark:
Warning, Bogotá! Unbelievable! Thinking he was being cheated on, a construction worker stabbed his wife twenty times in the Bosa area.
Extra, Extra! A drunk set a sergeant on fire in Kennedy after he tried to shut down a game of Tejo.
Unbelievable! A reveller in Bogotá’s south-west killed a bouncer for denying him entry.
Karen tried to sleep, but with those news items it was impossible.
‘Excuse me, could we listen to something else?’
‘Of course, sweetheart.’ Floriberto searched for another channel.
Karen liked the Warning voice. On the coast, she listened to the programme a lot, but tonight she didn’t feel like hearing about people killing each other. She had a headache.
Most of the babies that died at birth in health centres on the Atlantic Coast last year had active records at the healthcare provider Caprecom. Irregularities were found in close to twenty healthcare providers in several regions. The comptroller is making headway on a report that will be made public by the middle of next month. It is estimated that, to date, the health-sector fraud amounts to three billion pesos. The comptroller found inconsistencies in the management of health resources for the poorest in more than one hundred municipalities across the country. In Cartagena alone, more than ten deceased persons have active records, not to mention the more than 3,000 cloned patients’ records …
Karen fell asleep, so she didn’t hear Health Cross mentioned among the healthcare providers being investigated. In any case, she wouldn’t have made the connection with Ramelli, much less with the 600,000 pesos she had tucked into her handbag.
After leaving the Santa Lucía apartment, Karen had stayed at Maryuri’s in San Mateo for one night, sleeping on a mat. She had arrived at midnight, while Wílmer was working and the lit
tle girl sleeping. Maryuri was too tired to listen to her. They lived in an area covered in dust, where they could afford a 45-square-metre apartment in an enclosed complex with a pool, a communal area and a park for the little ones. Grilles covered all the windows and broken glass was cemented into the rooftops. Maryuri had been married two years. Her little girl would turn one soon, and Karen was invited to the party.
Maryuri gave her friend a sleeping mat to set up in the middle of the living area, where a fridge also stood. The kitchen was barely a bench with a stovetop and a miniature sink. Karen lay down on the floor, which smelled of rotten fruit. She had broken, jittery dreams. Twice she got up to vomit. She heard Wílmer arrive in the early hours of the morning. She sensed him come over to her and draw away the quilt to see who she was. She closed her eyes, faked relaxed breathing. She remembered his square jaw, broad shoulders, thick hair, olive skin and large, green eyes with long eyelashes and a skittish look.
When he was close, Karen smelled cigarettes, sweat, rain and gasoline. She wanted to hug him but contained herself. Of course, he thought she was sleeping.
An hour later the alarm sounded. This was followed by Maryuri’s steps, cries, the smell of coffee, the little girl’s exclamations as her mamá fed her an egg. Karen felt as if everything was happening somewhere above her. Those morning smells and family sounds comforted her a moment, until she remembered. A huge melancholy swept over her again. Maryuri stroked her hair and gave her a kiss on the forehead after putting the dishes in the sink:
‘You’ve got rings under your eyes, sleep a bit longer. I’m taking the little one to kindergarten and then I’m off to work. I’ll tell Willy to give you a lift.’
17.
He only took her to House of Beauty because Maryuri asked him to. Karen peered out the window, thinking that the city looked uglier than ever. There were other taxis in the parking lot.
‘Call my phone,’ Wílmer said.
Karen obeyed. She got out her phone and dialled the number Wílmer dictated to her. She heard it ring.
‘Now save my number. And I’ll have yours, too,’ he said, his tone authoritarian.
‘What do you need my number for?’ Karen asked.
‘What do you think?’ he said. He looked her up and down and didn’t add anything. Karen hoped he would call. When they arrived she realised he’d put the taximeter on.
‘Now you know, you owe me 36,000 pesos,’ was the last thing he said.
Karen got out of the taxi thinking she would have to find somewhere else to stay so she could leave San Mateo that night. As soon as she arrived, she shut herself in the lavatory. She took out a razor blade and made a minuscule cut on her heel. She tried it out a few times on one foot, then on the other. Then she threw up, though she’d had barely half an arepa for breakfast. She put on her uniform and went into her cubicle.
That day, at around three, the cubicle phone sounded. It was Susana asking Karen if she was free:
‘I can come up and we could have lunch together? I’ve got ten minutes.’
And that’s how it went. She arrived with a pear and a mortadella sandwich; she gave half to Karen, who got some potato chips out of her bag and, right there in the cubicle, they improvised a picnic.
‘You look down, Karen.’
‘I’m between homes at the moment and was wondering, I don’t know if it’s too much to ask …’
‘Want to stay at mine for a few days?’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Positive. We can trial it a few days to see how we go. My place is small but it’s well located, it’s in the north.’
For Karen, ‘it’s in the north’ were the magic words. It didn’t matter that sometimes Susana seemed coarse to Karen, a bit vulgar; she spoke loudly, wore tight clothing and held her gaze in a way that was sometimes intimidating. For the time being, she had no better option.
When they finished work, Karen and Susana left together. Her new friend took a taxi, as if it was something you did every day. Karen kept quiet. For a while now she’d noticed that Susana had a lot more money than she could earn at House of Beauty.
Susana’s apartment was in an exclusive area. It was small and there were only a few pieces of furniture, all of them modern and good quality. As soon as they arrived, Susana took a bottle of white wine out of the fridge and poured Karen a glass. The surprises kept coming. It was like being on the set of a telenovela. The two shiny red chairs, the Andy Warhol poster, the sequined curtains: everything seemed sophisticated and at the same time strange.
Four nights later, Karen would go to New Hope for her first escort service. Later, during one of our talks, we concluded that in the early hours of the same morning, when she was getting into bed after spending the night with Ramelli, I was getting up in my Calle 93 apartment, fifty blocks distant, in the same russet dawn.
I find it curious that no one mentions the singular beauty of the light in this city. If I were an artist I would get up at dawn and try to capture that glazed terracotta coming down the mountain. I would have liked to be an artist. Maybe a photographer. I’d do a project taking photos of all different people at precisely the same time. For example, at 4.57 a.m. The lens would capture a mature woman sitting up in bed, wearing a silk nightgown, her face pale and wrinkled; on the bedside table a silver glass, the water still cold, and an Emma Reyes book; and, spread out behind her, a view of the city. In another image would be Karen, in a taxi counting her money, her make-up smudged and her expression tense.
On my way to the kitchen, I picked up the newspaper. I prepared an orange juice while the coffee machine did its thing. I went back to bed with a tray of toast, juice and coffee. I lay back with the newspaper and noticed a faint headache. Just two whiskies before the wedding. I shook my head. Ageing takes its toll. I took two sips of juice, adjusted my glasses and balanced the newspaper in one hand and the coffee in the other. Like many women my age, I have well-developed fine motor skills, thanks to the lessons taken for typewriting, embroidery, crochet and the like.
I scrutinised a special feature about the health-sector fraud. I almost spilt my coffee when I saw Health Cross and, following it, Ramelli named as legal representative. The report explained how healthcare providers invent patients and clone their records, and keep deceased patients active in the system, so they can pocket government reimbursements. I remember our conversation on the day of the wedding. I’d heard Diazgranados was a complete and utter scoundrel. His face is in the newspapers and on the evening news almost every other week, but nothing ever comes of it. The name Aníbal Diazgranados didn’t appear anywhere. As for Ramelli, I was intrigued to know how Lucía could have spent thirty years by his side.
In the social pages, I came across photos of the wedding. Accompanying them was a gossip piece written by a young woman fascinated by the excesses of what she termed ‘a wedding of old’. Fed up with reading, I turned to the opinion columns. Often, I don’t recognise the names of the writers. I’m not sure if they’re getting younger, if those I know are slowly filling the obituary pages, or if I’ve lost touch. Perhaps a little of all three.
The unhappiness I felt at the wedding reminded me of my fifteenth birthday party. Determined to do it Colombian style, Papá bought me a silk dress and let me have champagne, and we danced the waltz. I had to accept the bouquets different boys gave me. Now I think about it, maybe that was when I decided to leave the country and make a life for myself overseas. ‘It feels so constricting,’ I remember telling Teresa. ‘I don’t understand,’ she replied. ‘Never mind,’ I said. If I remember rightly, that was the last time we had anything resembling a meaningful conversation. Now I think about it, she knew as well as I did that we always end up playing our parts, as if this city of eight million were a medieval village.
Teresa and I were inseparable growing up but as we slowly made our way into adulthood, our differences gained momentum and ended up separating us. I looked at the clock and decided I would call Lucía as soon as it turned 9 p.m. First
though, I would doze a little longer. I padded barefoot to the small CD player on the other side of the room and put on Erik Satie.
‘Wait a sec and I’ll go get us a chocolate bar. Oh, and my bag, too, don’t want the minxes getting their hands on it,’ Susana said to Karen. It was a few hours before Karen went to her place for the first time.
Susana hurried out, leaving the treatment table sprinkled with bread crumbs. Her iPhone beeped with an incoming message. Karen took it between her hands. She didn’t mean to read it, but her curiosity won. If you want sex you can pay for it, but don’t treat me bad, said a message from Susana, then there was a man saying: Girl, don’t be so sensitive, we agreed 1 million and I’ll pay it.
At that moment, Susana came back in and Karen put the phone back where it was.
‘Want a Jet bar?’ she asked.
‘I like the little cards that come inside,’ said Karen.
‘Me too, I eat one every day to see what it says. Let’s see what we have for you today. Oooh, the bat,’ Susana laughed, before adopting a ceremonious posture to start reading:
‘The bat (Pipistrellus, pipistrellus.) Bats are the only flying mammals on the planet. Though they appear to have wings like birds, really these are extremely long fingers joined by a membrane that extends to its tail. Let me see your fingers,’ said Susana, taking her hand. ‘Yep, it’s true. Bat fingers. My mistake, I mean wings: Contrary to popular belief, bats for the most part don’t feed on blood. Some feed on fruit, insects and nectar, and a small percentage feed on animal blood. Right, from now on I’m calling you Solina.’
‘Why Solina?’ asked Karen.
‘Solina, the shy secretary who turns into a man-eating vampire in Dracula 2000.’
‘The film?’
‘Yes, Solina.’
‘I haven’t seen it. If you’re going to give me a nickname, I prefer Pocahontas.’
‘Pocahontas? But that’s an Indian name,’ Susana said cheerfully.
‘Well I’m part Indian, aren’t I?’ said Karen, taking the last bite of the chocolate bar.
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