Breakfast in Bogota

by Helen Young

  Felisa reached across and hit him. ‘They sacrificed sacred items, Milo. Gifts from the people to their deity.’

  ‘It sounds wonderful,’ Luke said as a whistle blew, drowning him out. The last of the passengers caught on the platform boarded. They hadn’t left yet but already Luke was imagining a lake of solid gold and Felisa at its centre. He closed his eyes and sat back. Beneath them the train came to life. He became aware of it edging slowly away from the station as a boat might, pushed away from the shore.

  Once the train pulled away from the platform at Usaquén on the outskirts of the city, he left all thoughts of Bogotá behind. The landscape unfolded before them, flat, wide and unending. The train travelled faster when it was outside of the city. Its tracks gripped the savannah like a bird in shackles, sometimes frenzied, sometimes rested. They never broke free of the Andes, whose peaks kept watch to their right as the train skated its way northwards across the flat. Felisa kept up his education. She told him of the crops that grew further north than Guatavita; onion, potato, wheat and barley, stretching far into the distance and blanketing the ranges. She had distant cousins who lived there and she had once seen whole fields ripe with them, pressing her face to the glass as though that time were now. What she imagined, the big wide world of it, seemed to awaken something in her, Luke thought. At these moments, she seemed at her most beautiful and free. Luke tried to listen politely but it was hard to not get carried away by her enthusiasm. Camilo, seated beside him, was trying his best to ignore her, or at least look like he was. He had tasked himself with copying something long and indecipherable from one notebook into another.

  It was three in the afternoon when they reached Gachancipá. Camilo sprang into life after they’d exited the train, finding them the bus that would take them the distance to Guatavita via Sesquilé. Everyone else who’d got off the train wanted to board the bus too and so Luke found himself giving up his seat and pushed to the back. Camilo was with him at the rear while Felisa was at the front chatting to the woman in the seat beside hers.

  ‘She makes friends with everybody,’ Camilo said.

  ‘Some people have that gift.’

  Camilo eyed the back of her head as though fixated on some dark thought. The bus hit a pothole and they were thrown sideways. Luke tightened his grip on the rail above his head.

  ‘I knew a woman who was much the same as her,’ he said.

  ‘The one who died?’

  ‘I’d forgotten I’d told you that.’

  ‘I hadn’t. Part of the job.’ Camilo tapped the side of his head and the bus rocked again. Luke reached out an arm to stop him falling. ‘Thanks,’ Camilo said. ‘Can I ask, how did she die?’

  Luke swallowed hard. In that small space, there was nowhere to hide. ‘She was a nurse; field work.’

  ‘On what you call the front?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you didn’t follow her? To protect her, I mean?’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that.’

  Camilo nodded. ‘How did it work, for you two?’

  Luke thought back. He tried to remember. ‘You get a commission and are placed in the department best suited to your experience. For me, I suppose that meant Whitehall. It must have been my knowledge of buildings, my experience in those cities, it all counted for something. It could be used. I could.’

  ‘And so she was placed far from you and you from her.’

  ‘It wasn’t as romantic as that.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘She could have stayed. Catherine chose to go.’

  They stopped at Sesquilé and there was a chance to get down and buy refreshments or smoke. Luke stepped off and stretched. His muscles ached. He was too long and the bus too short but he felt constricted by more than just that. He looked around him. They’d stopped on the town’s main square. For a small place, the cathedral was huge, rendered in a sandy-coloured stone that stood out from the other whitewashed dwellings. It was about as foreign as he was.

  ‘Luke, Luke!’ Felisa called to him from the steps of the bus. The engine was running and it looked as if it was about to leave. He ran back over to join her.

  The bus had emptied at Sesquilé and for the final run of the journey they had two seats apiece. It was late afternoon and they’d been travelling for hours. Luke stretched out luxuriously and felt sleep overtake him. It was cold, numbing and deep.

  He was woken by Camilo.

  ‘Guatavita?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, Luke, we’re here.’

  Some friends of Felisa’s were there to collect them. The three of them, along with the woman Felisa had been talking to on the bus, piled into a truck. The woman was related to the driver, he discovered. Her name was Sofía. The journey to their destination was waited out in laughter and conversation. These were old friends of Felisa’s that she hadn’t seen for a while. Eventually, the truck pulled up outside a farmhouse at the end of a secluded track. Luke got out. The air was fresh, smelling of wet leaves and dried bark. The quiet that surrounded the farm was something else. It was everywhere and inside of everything. He’d grown too used to the city. Much about this place reminded him of the past, actually. He’d spent a lot of time in similar, quiet circumstances. Luke listened for the silence to break. For one accustomed to the city, it was alarming when it didn’t.

  22

  Luke sat upright in the bed. He didn’t know what time it was or where he was. He’d slept the entire night. Felisa was leaning on the door frame. She was already dressed. It must have been early because it was still dark inside the room, although behind her in the hall, there was daylight. He’d woken to her telling him the story of their arrival – that on the road to Guatavita, they’d passed under the nose of the sacred lake. He had no idea how long she’d been standing there.

  ‘Did you sense the lake as we went by?’

  ‘Should I have?’ Luke heard himself croak.

  The room was dark because of a pair of heavy shutters drawn across the window on the far wall. It could be the middle of the day, he realised, and he wouldn’t know it.

  ‘You wouldn’t have seen it anyway,’ she whispered, looking past him to the second bed beside his. ‘We’ll need to trek upwards for that.’

  Luke looked over at Camilo, still sleeping. Last night, the pair had shared a room and it reminded him of those days later in the war, after the trial, when he’d been posted to the farm close to RAF Hemswell for field work. There were six of them in that room.

  ‘Will you have coffee?’ Felisa asked.

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ he said.

  When she had gone, Luke slipped out of bed and went across the room to the window. He put his face close to the wall and pulled open a corner of shutter. He squinted as a stick of light cut a path across his cheek and hit the wall behind him. He looked back at the bed but Camilo slept like granite. Luke peered out again and made out a rough dirt square. A pair of chickens were pecking and clawing at the loose earth in search of food. Behind them was a low building that looked like a stable block.

  He heard laughter coming from somewhere inside of the house. It’s Felisa, he thought, smiling at the newness of the tone, as though here, her voice had wrestled free from some powerful grip and was enjoying a newfound freedom of its own. Sofía sounded happy too. Somewhere in another room, somewhere he hadn’t been, they were happy together. Luke closed the shutter so as not to wake Camilo and went to see.

  The bedroom led out onto a sunlit corridor, along the width of which were closed oak doors, much like the one that opened up into the room he shared with Camilo. The laughter got louder the further he got. He still felt half asleep and didn’t hear the person coming in the opposite direction until he turned a corner and collided with Felisa. She was pushed backwards and both of the coffee cups she was holding fell to the floor. The liquid ended up on the wooden boards and his trousers.

  ‘Step back,’ she said, already down at his feet gathering up the shards from the hot puddle. Luke bent down to help too and as he
did so felt something slice his heel. He lifted his foot in time to see the wound open.

  ‘Ay Dios!’ Felisa said.

  ‘It’s fine,’ he said, although the pain was sharp.

  Sofía appeared. ‘With me,’ she ordered.

  Luke limped after her, trying not to leave a trail of blood behind him. Felisa followed, carrying fragments of broken clay. Sofía led him down a short stairway into a vaulted kitchen.

  ‘Put your foot up,’ she said, bringing over a low stool and telling him to sit.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said.

  She took a cloth and plunged it into a bucket of clean water.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Felisa said, taking the cloth from her.

  ‘I’ll make some more coffee then,’ Sofía grinned at him.

  How much did she know?

  Felisa knelt at his damaged heel. She started to peel back the leg of his pyjama trouser.

  ‘I can do it,’ he said.

  From the corner of the room, someone coughed. It was the man who had driven the truck last night. Luke hadn’t noticed him before. He was seated close to the door. In one hand he held a strip of leather and in the other, a machete.

  *

  Camilo appeared after breakfast. ‘What happened to you?’ he asked, when Luke limped out of the finca into the morning light.

  ‘We patched him up,’ Sofía said, so that both she and Felisa laughed.

  It was decided that the trip up to the sacred lake could wait; he shouldn’t go when the cut was so fresh. It hadn’t run as deep as he’d thought, but for a surface wound it throbbed each time he put pressure on it. The man with the machete turned out to be Sofía’s brother, José. He agreed to run them into town so they might look around instead. José spoke English with a German accent he’d picked up from a non-native barley farmer who struggled with Spanish. English had quickly become their common language.

  ‘We might find something to throw into the laguna,’ Felisa said.

  She was helped up into the truck by Camilo. Luke climbed into the front beside José, who put the vehicle into gear and revved the engine, so that in no time at all they’d left Sofía and the farm far behind.

  23

  They weren’t the first tourists to pass through Guatavita. It was a pretty town, similar to Sesquilé. There was a pattern, of course. Here, like there, they thought he was one of the German migrants. These newcomers weren’t usually alone with the locals, though. People stared at the three of them. At their familiarity. They didn’t trust it.

  ‘They think you’re going to carry their women off,’ Camilo teased.

  ‘That’s funny,’ Luke replied.

  Camilo had been in a strange mood since they’d arrived. Felisa had disappeared into a store some twenty minutes ago. They were waiting on a low stone wall for her to return. He was waiting.

  ‘It’s quaint here,’ Luke said. ‘But you’re right, something about it is unnerving.’

  ‘If you have money here, people will do anything for you. You can get them to do anything. And if you don’t have any money, well, you’re like clay. Easy to mould.’

  A group of young men in rough-hewn ponchos and cowboy hats passed close by, their faces hard and weathered. Yes, he’d feel better once they were back at the farm.

  ‘And what group do they belong to?’ he asked Camilo, once they had passed.

  ‘Not the same one as you.’

  ‘Look,’ Felisa said, coming across the square towards them. She was holding something wrapped in brown paper. She pulled the wrapping away to reveal a wide-mouthed figurine carved out of wood that had, at some point in its wretched life, been smeared in yellow paint.

  ‘You realise that’s hideous,’ Luke said.

  ‘It’s for the goddess.’

  ‘She thinks it’s solid gold,’ Camilo said, laughing.

  ‘Excuse him,’ Felisa said. ‘He’s ignorant. His family are Spanish through and through, aren’t they, Camilo?’

  ‘And yours?’ Luke asked.

  ‘Felisa is an Indian,’ Camilo provided.

  ‘I’m not ashamed,’ she said. ‘My mother had native blood.’

  ‘And look how proud she is of it.’

  Felisa went quiet. If Camilo had caused her pain, he seemed not to notice.

  ‘This town is boring,’ Camilo said, yawning. ‘Just look at it. Poverty at every turn.’ He singled out a man and boy pushing a loaded wagon of refuse across the cobbles. ‘Where can they be going with that!’

  ‘Why should you mind?’

  Camilo looked at her. ‘I don’t.’ He laughed. ‘Thank goodness for your party tomorrow night, Luke.’

  ‘It’s meant to be a surprise, Milo!’

  ‘As you keep telling me. He doesn’t want a fuss, do you, Luke?’

  He didn’t, but Camilo didn’t have to say as much. Surprises always carried an element of pretence. Everybody knew that. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he said, looking at her.

  Felisa brightened. They heard a car horn and all looked up to see José driving towards them. They’d spent a friendly couple of hours in Guatavita until now. If Camilo wasn’t teasing Felisa, she was goading him. Luke couldn’t stand it when they carried on like that. It felt like she’d forgotten the time they’d spent together. He was at their mercy here. There was nothing to do but sit back and watch their childish flirtation, if that’s what you could call it, twist and knot itself around the day. José pulled up beside them, and Luke couldn’t have been happier to see him. José had been to run a few errands and so they shared the return trip with a couple of large bags of grain and containers of fuel for the truck. Camilo and Felisa were squeezed into the rear with the grain. They were very quiet and, in the front, Luke felt a million miles away from both of them. From her. He forced himself to focus on the road ahead and not check the mirror as he’d started doing when they’d first left the town.

  Felisa leaned between the two seats. She was holding the object she’d bought in the market. ‘If your injury has healed tomorrow, we can take this up to the sacred lake.’

  ‘All right,’ Luke said.

  She brushed the side of his arm with her finger. So, she hadn’t forgotten him.

  Over a late meal back at the finca they discussed the trip. Luke caught some of the conversation thrown across the long table. They spoke fast in a regional accent he didn’t understand and Camilo, although a stranger like Luke, was quickly brought into their pack while Luke remained detached and unconsumed by it. He was able to lose the thread if he chose, realising nothing much was expected of him speech-wise. His birthday was mentioned but he lost the rest.

  ‘How do you know each other, Sofía?’ he asked, when there was a break in conversation.

  His hostess looked at Felisa and smiled.

  ‘Our mothers,’ she said. ‘Mine and Felisa’s were friends back in Armenia.’

  ‘And are they still?’

  ‘They died,’ Felisa said. ‘Mine giving birth to me and Sofía’s not long after.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Why would you?’ Camilo asked.

  ‘We’re used to death here,’ Sofía said. ‘Felisa tells me that tomorrow you’ll go up to the laguna?’

  ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘José will have the mules ready early, then.’

  ‘Apparently, they never break down,’ Camilo whispered in Luke’s ear, ‘although I’ve never been on one.’

  ‘That’s why you’ll take the one the children practise on,’ Felisa told him.

  ‘How kind.’

  She turned to face Luke. ‘It’s uphill the entire way. We’ll take the low road from the town but then pick up the old track that’ll take us straight there.’

  ‘Less chance the mules will startle,’ José said.

  They talked on late into the night, José passing a bottle of aguardiente between them. It was thick and sweet, made mostly of aniseed fermented with alcohol. When Luke stood, the pain in his he
el had abated. Felisa and Sofía had their heads together and were talking of events in Bogotá, of Gaitán and the rallies.

  ‘The people will have their voice,’ Felisa said, passionately.

  ‘It isn’t the same here. We can’t afford to.’

  ‘Forgive me, but why?’ he asked, interrupting them.

  The two women looked up at him.

  ‘You shouldn’t ask questions,’ Sofía said.

  ‘It’s OK, Sofía. He’s been to the rallies. He saw Gaitán.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Luke said, ‘and I’ll never forget it.’

  Felisa blushed.

  José joined them at the table. ‘It’s better to be cautious,’ he said. ‘Suspicion is everywhere. Your friends can quickly become your enemies. We’re safe here but at any point, if word got around that we were for land reform, well, there are powerful men with deep pockets here too.’ He looked at Camilo.

  ‘But you have so much land,’ Camilo said. ‘Why would you complain?’

  Everyone looked at him.

  ‘I mean, surely you’ll lose out if change comes?’

  ‘Why?’ Sofía said. ‘We work all the land we have, which is more than can be said for those who keep hectares clipped short for… for tennis games.’

  ‘You are right,’ Camilo said. ‘There are some excellent tennis players in this country.’

  ‘Milo,’ Felisa said, cautiously. She looked at Sofía. ‘He’s teasing you.’

  ‘Felisa knows me too well,’ he said, smiling at them.

  It was the same winning grin he’d thrown Luke all those months back. It had gained him access to his life for the article, to his friendship too. These people were cautious, though. The night wore on. Camilo managed to get José alone and was trying to get him to explain how he kept the farm running, asking questions about the livestock and the land, and all the while casting glances in Felisa’s direction. He looked sorry for earlier, Luke thought, as though he might have overplayed his hand and made things difficult for her. It was fine for him to tease Felisa, but not these people who didn’t know him. These people could see through his shabby clothing. He held himself too well. Luke was tired and he still hadn’t really been alone with Felisa, only when he’d cut his heel. It had not been his finest moment. Perhaps tomorrow on the mountain there’d be time. He said goodnight to her and to all of them but they were too immersed in their conversation to hear him. He left them like that and slipped away, back down the moonlit corridor to bed.