Asked what he had liked about her, Villamizar answers with a growl. Perhaps because Maruja, apart from her visible charms, was not the best-qualified person to fall in love with. In the bloom of her early thirties, she had married in the Catholic Church at the age of nineteen, and had given her husband five children--three girls and two boys--born fifteen months apart. "I told Alberto everything right away," Maruja says, "so he'd know he was entering a mine field." He listened with another growl, and instead of asking her to lunch, he had a mutual friend ask them both. The next day he asked her to lunch, along with the same friend, on the third day he asked her alone, and on the fourth day they saw each other without having lunch. And so they continued to meet every day, with the best of intentions. When Villamizar is asked if he was in love or only wanted to take her to bed, he answers in pure Santanderese: "Don't screw around, it was serious." Perhaps not even he imagined just how serious it was.
Maruja had a marriage with no surprises, no arguments, a perfect marriage, but perhaps it was missing the gram of inspiration and risk she needed to feel alive. She made time for Villamizar by saying she was at the office. She invented more work than she had, even on Saturdays from noon until ten at night. On Sundays and holidays they improvised children's parties, lectures on art, midnight cinema clubs, anything, just so they could be together. He had no problems: He was single and available, came and went as he pleased, and had so many Saturday sweethearts it was as if he had none at all. He needed only to write his final thesis to be a surgeon like his father, but the times favored living one's life more than curing the sick. Love had escaped the confines of boleros, the perfumed love letters that had endured for four centuries were a thing of the past, as were tearful serenades, monogrammed handkerchiefs, the language of flowers, and empty movie theaters at three in the afternoon, and the whole world seemed protected from death by the inspired lunacy of the Beatles.
A year after they met they began to live together, with Maruja's children, in an apartment that measured a hundred square meters. "It was a disaster," says Maruja. And with reason: They lived amid free-for-all quarrels, the crash of breaking plates, jealousies and suspicions on the part of both children and adults. "Sometimes I hated him with all my heart," says Maruja. "I felt the same about her," says Villamizar. "But never for more than five minutes," Maruja laughs. In October 1971, they were married in Urena, Venezuela, and it was as if they had added one more sin to their life, because divorce did not exist and very few believed in the legality of civil ceremonies. After four years Andres was born, the only child they had together. The difficulties continued but caused them less grief: Life had taken on the task of teaching them that the joy of love was not meant to lull you to sleep, but to keep you struggling together.
Maruja was the daughter of Alvaro Pachon de la Tone, a star reporter of the 1940s who died with two well-known colleagues in a car crash of historic importance to the profession. Her mother was dead, and she and her sister Gloria had been on their own from the time they were very young. Maruja had been a draftsman and painter at the age of twenty, a precocious publicist, a director and scriptwriter for radio and television, the head of public relations or advertising for major companies, and always a journalist. Her artistic talent and impulsive nature attracted immediate attention, helped along by a gift for command that was concealed behind the quiet pools of her Gypsy eyes. Villamizar, for his part, forgot about medicine, cut his hair, threw out his one shirt, put on a tie, and became an expert in the mass marketing of anything they gave him to sell. But he did not change his nature. Maruja acknowledges that more than any of life's blows, it was he who cured her of the formalism and inhibitions of her social milieu.
They had separate, successful careers while the children were in school. Maruja came home every night at six to spend time with them. Smarting from her own strict, conventional upbringing, she wanted to be a different kind of mother who did not attend parents' meetings at school or help with homework. The girls complained: "We want a mommy like all the others." But Maruja pushed them in the opposite direction toward the independence and education to do whatever they wanted. The curious thing is that they all wanted to do precisely what she would have chosen for them. Monica studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, and is a painter and graphic designer. Alexandra is a journalist and a television producer and director. Juana is a scriptwriter and director for television and films. Nicolas composes music for movies and television. Patricio is a psychologist. Andres, a student of economics, was bitten by the scorpion of politics thanks to his father's bad example, and at the age of twenty-one was elected by popular vote to the alderman's seat on the town council of Chapinero, in northern Bogota.
The complicity of Luis Carlos Galan and Gloria Pachon, dating back to the days before their marriage, proved decisive in the political career that Alberto and Maruja never expected. Galan, at the age of thirty-seven, ran for the presidential candidacy of the New Liberalism Party. His wife, Gloria, who was also a journalist, and Maruja, experienced in promotion and publicity, conceived and directed advertising strategies for six electoral campaigns. Villamizar's experience in mass marketing had given him a logistical knowledge of Bogota that very few politicians possessed. As a team, the three of them created, in one frantic month, the first New Liberalism campaign in the capital, and swept away more seasoned candidates. In the 1982 elections, Villamizar was listed sixth in a slate that did not expect to elect more than five representatives to the Chamber, but in fact elected nine. Unfortunately, that victory was the prelude to a new life that would lead Alberto and Maruja--eight years later--to her abduction and its gruesome test of their love.
Some ten days after the letter, the important boss they called the "Doctor"--acknowledged by now as the man in charge of her abduction and captivity--paid Maruja an unannounced visit. After seeing him in the house where she had been taken on the night of the kidnapping, he had come back about three times prior to Marina's death. He and Marina would have long whispered conversations together, as if they were old friends. His relationship to Maruja had always been strained. For any remark of hers, no matter how simple, he had a haughty, brutal reply: "You have nothing to say here." When the three hostages were still together, she tried to register a complaint with him about the wretched conditions in the room, to which she attributed her persistent cough and erratic pains.
"I've spent worse nights in places a thousand times worse than this," he answered in an angry tone. "Who do you people think you are?"
His visits were preludes to great events, good or bad, but always decisive. This time, however, encouraged by Escobar's letter, Maruja had the heart to confront him.
Their communication was immediate and surprisingly untroubled. She began by asking, with no resentment, what Escobar wanted, how the negotiations were going, what the chances were of his surrendering soon. He told her in a frank manner that nothing would be easy unless there were sufficient guarantees of safety for Pablo Escobar, his family, and his people. Maruja asked about Guido Parra, whose efforts had brought her hope and whose sudden disappearance intrigued her.
"Well, he didn't behave very well," he said in an unemotional way. "He's out of it now."
That could be interpreted in three ways: either he had lost his power, or he had really left the country--which was the public story--or he had been killed. The "Doctor" evaded the issue, saying that in fact he did not know.
In part to satisfy her irresistible curiosity, and in part to gain his confidence, Maruja also asked who had written a recent letter from the Extraditables to the ambassador of the United States regarding extradition and the drug trade. She had found it striking not only because of the strength of its arguments but because it was so well written. The "Doctor" was not certain, but he assured her that Escobar wrote his letters himself, rethinking and revising drafts until he said what he wanted to say without equivocations or contradictions. At the end of their conversation, which lasted almost two hours, the "Doctor" again ra
ised the subject of surrender. Maruja realized he was more interested than he had first appeared to be, thinking not only about Escobar's future but about his own. She had a well-reasoned opinion about the controversies surrounding the decrees, knew the details of the capitulation policy, and was familiar with the tendencies of the Constituent Assembly regarding extradition and amnesty.
"If Escobar isn't willing to spend at least fourteen years in jail," she said, "I don't believe the government will accept his surrender."
He thought so much of her opinion that he had a startling idea: "Why don't you write a letter to the Chief?" And he repeated it when he saw how disconcerted Maruja became.
"I mean it, write to him," he said. "It could be very helpful."
And she did. He brought her paper and pencil, and waited without impatience, walking from one end of the room to the other. Maruja smoked half a pack of cigarettes from the start of the letter to the finish, sitting on the bed and writing on a board she held on her lap. In simple terms she thanked Escobar for the sense of security his words had given her. She said she had no desire for revenge against him or the people managing her captivity, and she thanked all of them for the respect with which she had been treated. She hoped Escobar could accept the government's decrees and provide a good future for himself and his children in their own country. She concluded with the formula that Villamizar had suggested in his letter, offering up her sacrifice for peace in Colombia.
The "Doctor" was hoping for something more concrete regarding the terms of the surrender, but Maruja convinced him that the effect would be the same without going into details that might seem impertinent or be misinterpreted. She was right: The letter was given to the press by Pablo Escobar, who had their ear just then because of the interest in his surrender.
Maruja also gave the "Doctor" a letter for Villamizar, one very different from the letter she had written under the effects of her rage, and as a result he appeared on television again after many weeks of silence. That night she took the powerful sedative and dreamed, in a futuristic version of a western movie, that Escobar was getting out of a helicopter and using her as a shield against a barrage of bullets.
At the end of his visit, the "Doctor" had instructed the people in the house to take greater pains in their treatment of Maruja. The majordomo and Damaris were so pleased with the new orders that they sometimes went overboard in complying with them. Before leaving, the "Doctor" had wanted to change the guards. Maruja asked him not to. The young high-school graduates on duty in April had been a relief after the excesses of March, and they continued to maintain peaceful relations with her. Maruja had gained their confidence. They told her what they heard from the majordomo and his wife, and kept her informed about the internal conflicts that had once been state secrets. They even promised--and Maruja believed them--that if anyone tried to do anything to her, they would be the first to stop him. They showed their affection with treats they stole from the kitchen, and they gave her a can of olive oil to help disguise the abominable taste of the lentils.
The only difficulty was the religious anxiety that troubled them and which she could not resolve because of her innate lack of belief and her ignorance in matters of faith. She often risked shattering the harmony in the room. "Let's see what this is all about," she would ask them. "If killing is a sin, why do you kill?" She would challenge them: "All those six o'clock rosaries, all those candles, all that business with the Holy Infant, and if I tried to escape you wouldn't think twice about shooting me." The debates became so virulent that one of them shouted in horror:
"You're an atheist!"
She shouted back that she was. She never thought it would cause such stupefaction. Knowing she might have to pay dearly for her idle iconoclasm, she invented a cosmic theory of life and the world that allowed them to talk without quarreling. And so the idea of replacing them with guards she did not know was not something she favored. But the "Doctor" explained:
"It'll take care of the machine guns."
Maruja understood what he meant when the new crew arrived. They were unarmed housekeepers who cleaned and mopped all day until they became more of a nuisance than the trash and dirt had been before. But Maruja's cough began to disappear, and the new order allowed her to watch television with a serenity and concentration that were beneficial to her health and stability.
Maruja the unbeliever did not pay the slightest attention to "God's Minute," a strange sixty-second program in which the eighty-two-year-old Eudist priest, Rafael Garcia Herreros, would offer a reflection that was more social than religious, and often tended to be cryptic. Pacho Santos, however, who is a devout practicing Catholic, was very interested in his messages, so unlike those of professional politicians. Father Garcia Herreros had been one of the best-known faces in the country since January 1955, when he began to air his program on Televisora Nacional's channel 7. Before that he had been a familiar voice on a Cartagena radio station since 1950, on a Cali station since January of 1952, in Medellin since September of 1954, and in Bogota since December of the same year. He started on television at almost the same time that the system began operating. He was distinguished by his direct, sometimes brutal style, and as he spoke he fixed his falcon eyes on the viewer. Every year since 1961 he had organized the Banquet for a Million, attended by famous people--and those who aspired to fame--who paid a million pesos for a cup of consomme and a roll served by a beauty queen. The proceeds were used for the charity that had the same name as the program. The most controversial invitation was the one he sent in 1968 in a personal letter to Brigitte Bardot. Her immediate acceptance scandalized the local prudes, who threatened to sabotage the banquet. The priest stood firm. An opportune fire at the Boulogne studios in Paris, and the fantastic explanation that no seats were available on the planes, were the two excuses that saved the nation from utter embarrassment.
Pancho Santos's guards were faithful viewers of "God's Minute," but they were more interested in its religious content than in its social message. Like most families from the shantytowns of Antioquia, they had blind faith in the priest's saintliness. His tone was always abrupt, the content sometimes incomprehensible. But the April 18 program--directed beyond a doubt to Pablo Escobar, though his name was not mentioned--was indecipherable.
Looking straight into the camera, Father Garcia Herreros said:
They have told me you want to surrender. They have told me you would like to talk to me. Oh sea! Oh sea of Covenas at five in the evening when the sun is setting! What should I do? They tell me he is weary of his life and its turmoil, and I can tell no one my secret. But it suffocates me internally. Tell me, oh sea: Can I do it? Should I do it? You who know the history of Colombia, you who saw the Indians worshipping on this shore, you who heard the sound of history: Should I do it? Will I be rejected if I do it? Will I be rejected in Colombia? If I do it: Will there be shooting when I go with them? Will I fall with them in this adventure?
Maruja heard the program too, but it seemed less strange to her than to many Colombians because she always thought that the priest liked to wander until he lost his way among the galaxies. She viewed him as an inescapable prelude to the seven o'clock news. That night she paid attention because everything that concerned Pablo Escobar concerned her too. She was perplexed, intrigued, and very troubled by doubts about what lay behind that divine rigmarole. Pacho, however, was sure the priest would get him out of that purgatory, and he embraced his guard with joy.
10
Father Garcia Herreros's message created an opening in the impasse. It seemed a miracle to Alberto Villamizar, for at the time he had been going over the names of possible mediators whose image and background might inspire more trust in Escobar. Rafael Pardo heard about the program and was disturbed by the idea that there could be a leak in his office. In any case, both he and Villamizar thought Father Garcia Herreros might be the right person to mediate Escobar's surrender.
By the end of March, in fact, the letters going back and forth had not
hing left to say. Worse yet: It was evident that Escobar was using Villamizar as a means of sending messages to the government and not giving anything in return. His last letter was nothing more than a list of interminable complaints--that the truce had not been broken but he had given his people permission to defend themselves against the security forces, that these forces were on the list of people to be killed, that if solutions were not forthcoming then indiscriminate attacks against police and the civilian population would increase. He complained that the prosecutor had discharged only two officers, when twenty had been accused by the Extraditables.
When Villamizar reached a dead end he discussed it with Jorge Luis Ochoa, but for more delicate matters Jorge Luis would send him to his father's house for advice. The old man would pour him half a glass of his sacred whiskey. "Drink it all up," he would say. "I don't know how you stand so much tragedy." This was the situation at the beginning of April when Villamizar returned to La Loma and gave don Fabio a detailed accounting of his failures with Escobar. Don Fabio shared his disillusionment.
"We won't screw around anymore with letters," he decided. "At this rate it will take a hundred years. The best thing is for you to meet with Escobar and for the two of you to agree on whatever conditions you like."
Don Fabio himself sent the proposal. He let Escobar know that Villamizar was prepared to be taken to him, with all the risks this entailed, in the trunk of a car. But Escobar did not accept. "Maybe I'll talk to Villamizar, but not now," was his reply. Perhaps he was still wary of the electronic tracking device that could be hidden anywhere, even under the gold crown of a tooth.