Colombiano

  She unclipped her bright-blue bra. Then she shook her shoulders so the straps slipped down her arms.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘What does it look like I’m doing?’ Holding the bra in place, she turned and came back towards me. ‘I believe somebody is owed a birthday present.’ She smiled, letting the bra slip down her body. ‘Or have you forgotten our promise?’

  The first time Camila and I made love, I was nervous. I kept thinking someone might see us. Her overprotective brothers might come sprinting down the road. Or school kids might be spying from the bushes.

  I was quick the first time. I tried to stop it but my body let me down. Camila said it didn’t matter; she’d heard it happened to all guys. Besides, there was no rush. We could do it again, that day or the next day, or whenever I wanted. When she said that, all disappeared.

  The second time was everything I had imagined and more. We removed the rear seat cushions from the Blazer and laid them on the ground. Halfway through we swapped so she was on top, controlling the rhythm. Afterwards, I had never felt so contented in my life. The sun was descending and I lay there looking at her, caressing her face, smiling and laughing, and relieved because we’d finally done it. There was no need to ask about other guys. I knew there weren’t any. And there was no need to ask about her feelings or intentions for the future. We both knew we were back together. In fact, in our hearts, we’d never really been apart.

  When Mamá told me I looked exhausted, I blushed. For three afternoons in a row, Camila and I had made love by the rope-swing tree. I couldn’t get enough of her. She couldn’t get enough of me. I was always vigilant about not exposing my tattoo and Camila had noticed nothing.

  If I dropped Camila home late, Señor Munoz no longer complained. There were no more curfews. Provided I had a respectable job and honoured his daughter, there would always be a chair at his table for me and an after-dinner whisky.

  Every moment I couldn’t spend with Camila, I spent with Mamá. My anger at Uncle Leo dissipated. On Tuesday, I ate lunch with him. On Wednesday, I minded his hardware store while he made deliveries. As long as he and Mamá didn’t interrogate me about my comings and goings, I made sure I was on time for meals. Palillo was happy, showering his mother and siblings with gifts, drinking, smoking and luring schoolgirls to Francisco’s Pool Hall. If I hadn’t missed Papá so much, I would have been happy too. For the first time since his death, however, I did feel peaceful. I had money of my own, I’d reconciled with Mamá, and I was more in love than ever.

  The potential Guerrilla threat against me receded in my mind. Strangely, the temptation to phone Ratón and tell him his chickens were ready also receded. I began to reconsider whether Palillo and I should make our second attempt against him the following Saturday. Palillo had yet to come up with a new plan. Even if he did, the idea of abducting and killing Ratón now seemed naïve and unrealistic. A blindfold, gag and twenty minutes of pistol training didn’t qualify me as a kidnapper.

  Besides, after making my witness statement I was satisfied that Colonel Buitrago would keep his promise to bring Papá’s killers to justice. I’d done all I could – burying my father and assisting with detailed descriptions of the murderers. I was sixteen years old. My obligation was to my mother and my own future.

  By Thursday afternoon I was dreading Monday – our return to La 50. Camila and I drove to the rope-swing tree and made love. In that hour afterwards, the world seemed new again. Camila was where she belonged: in my arms. When she whispered in my ear that she loved me, a million new possibilities flooded my mind.

  I could leave the Autodefensas and return to the finca. The house had enough rooms for Camila and me not to disturb Mamá. Of course, for Señor Muñoz to accept us living together, we’d need to get married. It mightn’t be safe to move back immediately, but even if we had to wait a year or two until Buitrago drove the Guerrilla out of Llorona, we could do it. Collecting Camila from school earlier that afternoon, I’d waved to Rector Prada and requested my exam papers. One day, I might return to school or enrol in university like Papá had wanted. Meanwhile, I’d take a job in Garbanzos, even a shitty job with miserable pay. If Alfa 1 wouldn’t discharge me right away, I’d work hard until he did. If he refused, I’d write to Trigeño. Colonel Buitrago’s offer might be a last resort; I could join the army when I turned eighteen. Anyway, a year or two more with the Autodefensas would mean more money to invest in the farm. And at some point in the future, Camila and I could start a family of our own.

  Distracted by dreamy thoughts, I dropped my guard. I stood lazily, stretched and then sauntered towards the river. That single error split my fantasy like a machete blade through bone.

  ‘Swim, mi amor?’ I called to Camila.

  She didn’t answer. I turned to find a look of horror on her face. She’d seen the tattoo.

  56

  ‘I KNEW IT. I fucking knew it. How could I be so stupid? They told me what you were doing. That’s why I asked you about your work. But you lied to me, Pedro, and the worst thing is I believed you!’

  ‘I’m sorry. I should have told the truth. I wanted to. But I didn’t want to hurt you.’

  I tried to put my arms around her; however, with confirmation I worked for the Autodefensas, she recoiled from me as though the viper on my shoulder were real.

  ‘Have you killed people? Tell me the truth.’

  ‘No. I promise on my father’s grave that I haven’t.’

  ‘That’s something, at least. But …’ She shook her head. ‘This isn’t you. You hate tattoos. You said—’

  ‘I know. Look, Camila. I’ve made a mess of things. But give me another chance. I’ll ask to quit and I’ll make things right with you.’

  ‘And what if they don’t let you? I heard the minimum was four years.’ She dressed quickly as tears welled in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Pedro. I don’t think I can do this.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘What if you die? I can’t wait four years wondering every day whether I’ll see you again. Wanting the phone to ring, but when it does, not wanting to answer for fear it will be bad news. Besides, how can I trust you after you lied to me and to everyone?’

  ‘You’re right,’ I said, pulling on my pants. ‘This was a stupid idea.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘Coming down to the rope-swing.’ I said this deliberately to hurt her like she’d just hurt me. Grabbing the seat cushions, I got in the truck, slammed the door and flung open the passenger side. ‘Get in! I’ll drop you back home.’

  When she refused, I started the engine and accelerated rapidly so the door jerked shut.

  ‘Pedro! Wait! Where are you going?’

  I opened the passenger door again, gently this time.

  ‘I’ll drop you back home. Then I’m going to the finca.’

  ‘Don’t!’ she said sadly, looking down. ‘It’s too dangerous.’

  Her warning only made me more determined. ‘Are you coming or not?’

  I counted aloud to three then sped away, tyres churning up a cloud of dirt behind me.

  It was the rudest I’d ever been to Camila. She’d waited four months for me, not knowing if I’d return. When I did, she gave me her virginity. She told me she loved me and I left her behind in a cloud of dust, hands covering her eyes, and she had to walk four kilometres home, ashamed and distraught, with dust-blackened tears streaking down her face.

  57

  DUSK WAS FALLING as I skidded the Blazer to a halt in front of our farm. At first I noticed nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, I paused to admire the sparkling lights of our little town. From that distance, it looked majestic. Below, I could see the church with its tall steeple, the well-trodden football field, the criss-crossing streets and the plaza, and I felt the tension seep out of me. Then I caught glints of smashed glass. Turning the truck to face our house, I switched to high beams. The words POR SAPO were graffitied five times across the white boards in blue paint. The phrase meant FOR BEING A SNITCH. r />
  I pounded my fist furiously against the steering wheel and exited the Blazer, slamming the door behind me. Caraquemada had accused Papá of supplying the army with water, not of being an informant. So this message could only be for me. This was further retribution; they were reminding me that this was my fault.

  I was angry not only at the Guerrilla for defiling our family home and slandering my father’s good name, but also at everyone who had kept this news from me – Camila, Mamá, Uncle Leo and Colonel Buitrago. I was even angry at Papá’s friends who’d expressed their condolences. Their strange, pitying looks and vague warnings about it being too dangerous to visit the finca now made sense. Everyone had known, but no one had told me the truth.

  The fact that no one had been brave enough to clean off the graffiti reminded me of how cowardly people were and how little they’d helped on the day of Papá’s execution. And I was insulted at everyone getting together behind my back and agreeing to treat me like a reckless child who needed protecting from himself. I felt thoroughly betrayed.

  I sprinted up the steps. All the windows were broken. The front door was smashed. I ran inside. Even though the electricity must have been cut off long ago, I tried the light switch. It wouldn’t have made a difference; the light fittings were shattered. Taking a flashlight from the Blazer, I flicked its beam over the devastation inside. Everything was toppled, broken or destroyed – the sofa upended; the kitchen table and chairs thrown against walls; cutlery, utensils and Mamá’s crockery strewn across the floor. I wrinkled my nose at the strong odour of urine. This was not the work of thieves; the television was still there, and I could see nothing missing. Neither was it spontaneous vandalism; the destruction was too systematic. Everything had been damaged, including objects whose value hardly warranted the effort, like clothes that had been shredded and forks that must have been bent by hand. This was my punishment for burying Papá.

  As I entered my room, a floorboard creaked underfoot. The bedsheets smelled of sweat. Someone had slept in my bed. When another floorboard creaked on the way out, I bent down and peeled away several boards. In the floor cavity lay a wooden crate filled with military supplies – AK47s, AK45s, RPGs, camouflage uniforms, rubber boots and binoculars. The Guerrilla trashing our house was not only a punishment and warning; it was to disguise what they were really doing. They were using our finca as a storage and supply point and also, owing to its isolation and strategic view over the town, as a lookout post.

  By some miracle, Mamá’s glassware from the sideboard had survived. Taking it with me, I stormed from the house and lined it up on the front porch. I went to the shed where we stored the five-gallon gasoline cans. I poured fuel over the wooden crate, doused my bed then splashed some over the floorboards for good measure. Twisting some old newspaper into a crude fuse, I wedged it between the slats of the crate. The only thing I lacked was a match.

  I went outside to the Blazer and depressed the cigarette lighter. Only then, as I waited for the coil to heat, did I notice something was indeed missing: the cross at the head of my father’s grave. I searched the ground wildly in the semi-darkness and finally found it flung far from the oak tree, broken in two and bullet-riddled. The Guerrilla had used it for target practice.

  As I nailed the cross together I found myself back there on the day of my father’s death. Flailing on the dirt with the blond boy’s knee on my head, I watched Caraquemada circle Papá. The gunshot popped in my ear and Caraquemada walked away. Papá’s skull cracked on the dry ground. Wave after wave of hatred surged through me as I drove Papá’s cross into the ground. I wanted the Guerrilla dead. All of them. I wanted to burn everything down. Not only our house but the whole town.

  The ejected lighter had gone cold. I depressed it again. As it heated a second time, my breathing calmed enough for me to think clearly. What was happening to me? I loved that house. I had grown up in that house. It meant everything to me and to Papá; he had spent every spare minute of the last eleven years maintaining and improving it. And I’d never doubted that it would some day be mine. Only an hour before, lying naked and peaceful by the rope-swing tree, I’d dreamed of restoring the farm and living there with my mother and Camila. But now I was planning on torching it. And why? Because I was like a child, acting out of spite. If I couldn’t have it, then no one else could.

  I needed to get a hold of myself. I went to the bathroom. The mirror was cracked and the face that stared back at me was that of a stranger. I bent down and splashed water on my face, willing myself to regain control. When I was calm enough, I filled buckets with water, tipped them on the fuel and mopped my bedroom floor. I heaved the heavy wooden crate out of the floor cavity and, in short bursts, dragged it to the Blazer. Using paint from the shed, I whitewashed the Guerrilla graffiti and wrote a new message by its side:

  ¡AUC PRESENTE!

  THE AUTODEFENSAS ARE HERE!

  I returned to the Blazer and took one last look out over Llorona. It was no longer majestic. It was a wretched town with dirty streets, a church with a bent spire, a dusty football field and a decrepit plaza.

  Stopping only to deposit my mother’s glassware on Leo’s doorstep, I drove furiously out of town, taking curves at speed and not deviating for potholes. I knew it was wrong to have considered burning down our family home. But I also knew that the world would never be right while men who committed acts of barbarity were alive and roaming free. I was heading back to Villavicencio. And I would make the Guerrilla pay.

  58

  ON THE ROAD to Villavicencio, I called Ratón’s number and left a message: it was Pacho calling and his chickens were ready for pick-up. It was after midnight when I arrived and parked the Blazer one block south of the electrical store, leaving the crate of weapons and explosives concealed beneath a blanket in the trunk.

  When I asked the sleepy residencia manager for my key back, she wasn’t surprised to see me. In fact, since we were paid up until Sunday, she probably hadn’t even noticed our absence.

  ‘Where’s your friend?’ was her only question.

  I shrugged and smiled. ‘Out with a chica.’

  I found Room 8 exactly as we’d left it – curtains drawn, Palillo’s half-filled ashtray on the floor and our beds unmade. It was as though the entire week in Llorona with Camila and Mamá had never occurred.

  The next day I resumed my stake-out, with one important difference: after my phone message, I was now certain Ratón would come. My plan remained unchanged: watch from the window, wait for him to appear and then sprint downstairs. Before Ratón reached the electrical store, I’d cross the street diagonally, carrying my Styrofoam-filled box, intercept him from behind, disarm him and then march him to the Blazer.

  For most of Friday, I watched the comings and goings at the electrical store. I’d filled the Taurus magazine with 9mm rounds from the stolen cache, figuring it would be a fitting end for Ratón to be killed by a Guerrilla bullet. The Paramilitary bullets I’d stolen from the armoury were lined up on the windowsill. I tapped and spun them as I waited, scanning the street. Palillo called my cell phone several times. Each time I let the call ring out.

  Finally, in the early afternoon, I saw a man of Ratón’s stature at the northern end of Third Avenue, walking coolly but resolutely in the direction of Sandoval’s store. I snatched up the binoculars, knocking over several bullets in my excitement. They were zoomed in too far to locate him within the dense crowd of lunchtime shoppers, and I cursed aloud as I struggled with the focus dial, trying to get a visual on him. I thought I’d lost him, or perhaps that I’d been mistaken, but no, there he was, dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, with the same skinny face and pointy nose I’d seen last Saturday.

  Immediately, I tensed. My fist clenched and I had to drop my binoculars and place my palms flat on the desk to regain control.

  ‘Son of a bitch!’

  Cocking the pistol, I switched it off safety. I swiped the extra bullets from the windowsill into my pocket, bounded down the stairs two at
a time and grabbed my box from under the stairwell. I supported it with one hand; with the other I gripped the pistol.

  As I stepped from the pavement to cross the street a policeman on a motorbike cruised slowly past. From the other side of the avenida Ratón noticed him too – he slowed, lit a cigarette and leaned casually against a wall. Five metres behind him, a man dressed in a collared shirt and pleated trousers stopped also and took out his phone. He nodded discreetly to Ratón.

  My heart raced. I hadn’t factored in a bodyguard. It would be impossible to disarm two men and control both while forcing them into the Blazer. I still had the element of surprise, but I had to quickly recalibrate my plan.

  The police patrol departed. Ratón stomped out his cigarette and signalled to his bodyguard; they were on the move again. A parking space had opened up close to the store entrance, and Ratón waved to the driver of a small yellow taxi double-parked at the north-eastern corner of the block. I realised that, rather than arriving on foot, the two men had arrived by car. The driver flashed his headlights and started the engine.

  I drew a deep breath and crossed the street as the taxi pulled in. The driver honked and slammed on his brakes.

  ‘Watch where you’re going!’ he yelled, bringing me to the attention of Ratón and his bodyguard.

  The bodyguard held up his hand. ‘I’m sorry but this taxi’s reserved. I’ll flag you another.’

  His right hand remained by his hip, and I detected the slight bulge of a weapon at both his and Ratón’s waistlines. Adrenalin flooded my body. I looked up and down the street. With scores of potential witnesses in both directions, shooting the bodyguard in broad daylight and then trying to abduct Ratón was not an option.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘but I’m going into this store.’

  ‘That looks heavy,’ said Ratón, glancing at my box and addressing me with a crooked-toothed smile. I had a moment of panic as he squinted, as though trying to place me, but then he continued, ‘Do you need a hand? Open the door for the muchacho,’ he ordered his bodyguard.