Even Silence Has an End (23 page)

TWENTY-THREE

AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER

AUGUST 2003

The motorboat left behind the labyrinth of narrow, winding water to emerge onto the great river Yari. We headed against the current toward the opposite bank and dropped anchor among trees that were disappearing beneath the rising waters. They told us to disembark. I thought we must be alone, in the middle of nowhere. To my great surprise, hidden between the trees a group of guerrillas were striking their tents and packing up their personal belongings. Our captain unfolded a large plastic sheet in the shadow of a tall ceiba, for us to settle down on. We were used to waiting without asking questions. A young girl came up to us and asked if we wanted some eggs. Eggs! They reinforced the idea that they were giving us special treatment to prepare us for our imminent release. I had not noticed that a bit farther along they had made a
rancha
with a bonfire and there were stewpots hanging over the flame.

On our right, a man was sitting like us against a tree, observing me from a distance; he got up and started pacing back and forth. Eventually he gathered momentum and came over.

He was an elderly man, with a beard more salt than pepper covering his cheeks, and his eyes were swollen with black shadows and moist as if he were about to shed tears. His emotion upset me. Who was this guerrilla? Had I already seen him somewhere?

“Soy Luis Eladio, Luis Eladio Pérez. Fuimos senadores al mismo tiempo—”
²⁹

Before he finished his sentence, I understood. The man I had taken for an old guerrilla was none other than my former colleague, Luis Eladio Pérez, captured by the guerrillas six months before I was. I’d been in Congress the day his abduction was announced. The senators used it as a pretext to interrupt the session in a sign of protest, and we all went home, glad to have the afternoon off. Everyone spoke highly of Luis Eladio, but I could not remember who he was. There were a hundred of us. I should have recognized his face on the photographs. But no, nothing. It was not as if I’d never seen him before. I asked around to refresh my memory. “Yes, of course you remember him, he sits just behind us, just there.” . . . “You’ve seen him a thousand times—he always says hello when you come in.”

I was very angry with myself. I was drawing a total blank! And what was worse, I had spoken to him!

When I understood that it was Luis Eladio, I flung my arms around him and embraced him, holding back my tears. Dear Lord, it pained me so much to see him in such bad shape. He looked a hundred years old. I took his head between my hands. Those eyes, that gaze—where had I buried what I was searching for in vain? It was frustrating: I still could not recognize him, nor superimpose an image from the past on his face. And yet I had just found a brother. There was no distance between this stranger and myself. I took his hand and caressed his hair as if we’d known each other all our lives. We were weeping together, not knowing if it was from the joy of being together or from pity at seeing on each other’s face the ravages of our time as hostages.

With similar emotion Luis Eladio hurried to embrace Clara.

“¿Tú eres Clarita?”
³⁰

She held out a hand and, not moving, replied, “Call me Clara, please.”

Luis Eladio sat down with us on the black plastic sheet, slightly disconcerted. His eyes questioned me. I answered with a smile. He began to speak to me for hours and hours, without stopping, hours that turned into days, then weeks, an unending monologue. He wanted to tell me everything: The horror of two years in mandatory solitary confinement. (The commander did not like him and had forbidden the troops to speak to him or answer him.) The man’s cruelty—with his machete he had killed a little dog that Luis Eladio had adopted. The fear that haunted him, that he would end his life here in the jungle, far from his daughter, Carope, whom he adored and whose birthday was that very day, August 22, the day we met on the banks of the Yari. His illness—he was diabetic and dependent on insulin injections, which since his abduction he had not been receiving—and the fear that at any moment he might fall into a hypoglycemic coma that would kill him in no time at all or, worse, leave him a vegetable for the rest of his days. His anxiety about his family, for with his disappearance they had lost all their financial support. His dismay at not being there to guide his young son, Sergio, in his studies and career choice. His sorrow that he could not be by his elderly mother’s bedside, for he feared more than anything that she would die in his absence. His regret that he had not spent more time at home with his wife, whom he loved deeply, but he had been too absorbed in his work and his political life. The feeling of weakness that haunted him, for having fallen into a trap and been captured by the FARC. He told me everything in one long go, with all the urgency of the solitude that he had so loathed.

We motored downstream under a pitiless noonday sun, until nightfall. During all the hours we traveled, I had not said a word. We sat side by side, and I listened, aware of his vital need to unburden himself to me. We grasped each other’s hands, instinctively, for he wanted to convey the intensity of his emotion, and I wanted to give him the courage to continue. I wept when he wept, I fumed with indignation when he described the cruelty he had been subjected to, and I laughed with him to tears, because Luis Eladio could make a joke out of even the most tragic events. We instantaneously became inseparable. That first evening we shared together, we went on talking until the guards told us to shut up. The next morning we were delighted we could embrace again, and we went off hand in hand to sit in the motorboat. It mattered little where we were going. Quickly he became “Lucho” for me, then “my Lucho,” and finally “my Luchini.” I had adopted him for good, because his presence soothed me and gave me a powerful reason for living; better still, it gave a goal in my unchosen destiny.

After several days of traveling on the river, we came to a beach, where a well-maintained gravel road began. A truck that was closed at the back with a canvas sheet was waiting for us. To get us to climb on board, they did not need to insist. We were happy to be together so we could go on talking.

“Look,” he said, “I know you’re going to say no, because you must think I’m the kind of politician you don’t like, but if someday we get out of here, I would really like to be able to work with you.”

This touched me more than anything. I felt dirty, smelly. Dressed in my filthy rags, I was ashamed to be seen like this; I felt I’d aged and grown ugly. Yet Lucho still thought of me as the woman I’d been before. I tried to smile in order to give myself the time to respond.

To help me out of my confusion, he added, “But I warn you, we will have to change the name of your party—Green Oxygen, that’s asking too much of me! After this I don’t want to see any more green in my life!”

Everyone burst out laughing. The guerrillas, who had heard, applauded. Clara, too, was laughing wholeheartedly. I was bent over double. It felt so good to laugh. I looked at him. And for the first time, behind his white beard, behind his little shining eyes, I recognized him. I saw him sitting behind me in the semicircle of the Senate, greeting me with a mischievous air after throwing bits of paper at the neck of a colleague who sat opposite him and who turned around, exasperated. He had always made me laugh, even if invariably I strove to remain serious out of respect for our office. Behind his prisoner’s mask, I had just placed him.

TWENTY-FOUR

GIOVANNI’S CAMP

END OF AUGUST 2003

The truck stopped hours later, in the middle of the road that went through the rain forest. On our left, among the trees, we could just make out another FARC camp. They ordered us to get down. Clara and I carried potato sacks filled with our personal belongings. Lucho sported a FARC backpack made of waterproof green canvas, a rectangular shape, with straps on all sides from which he could hang everything, including his black plastic bowl, his tent rolled up like a sausage, and all the rest. He was fitted out like a guerrilla.

A surly-looking man was waiting by the side of the road, his legs spread, tapping impatiently against the top of his muscular thigh with a knife blade. He had very black shining hair, beady eyes, a little mustache, and three-day stubble. He was perspiring all over, probably having just finished some intense physical task.

He spoke to us in a gruff voice. “Hey, you! Come over here! I’m your new commander. You are now under the responsibility of the Eastern Bloc. Go in there and wait.”

A barrier of trees partially concealed the camp. It was a beehive of activity. There must have been a lot of people, because wherever I looked, I could see
caletas
and men and women busy setting up their tents, no doubt hurrying so they would be ready before nightfall.

Lucho and I instinctively joined hands. “Our commander looks like a nasty piece of work.”

“A regular murdering highwayman,” whispered Lucho in reply.

“Yes. Our very own Norman Bates with his special knife,” I added. “Don’t worry. Around here it’s the ones who look nice that you have to beware of! Not the others.”

The commander came back for us, and we followed him cautiously. Ten yards farther, three
caletas
in a row had just been built. The wood, carefully stripped of its bark, was still oozing. Some of the men were busy finishing a big table with a bench on each side.

“Here, you’re going to settle in here. The
chontos
are just behind you. It’s too late now to take a bath, but tomorrow morning I’ll send the receptionist to escort you to the bathhouse. I’ll have some food brought to you. If you need anything, just call me. My name is Giovanni. Good night.”

He disappeared, leaving two guards on either side of the imaginary rectangle within which we could move.

“Guard? To go to the
chontos
?” I asked.

“That way, follow the path, behind the screen of palm leaves. Be careful, there are tigers.”

“Yes, tigers, and tyrannosauruses, too!”

The guard looked as if he were stifling a laugh, and Lucho glanced at me, delighted. Why did they always want to frighten us?

We settled in for the night hoping that this was the meeting point for the emissaries sent to secure our release. I looked at what Lucho was unwrapping, and he looked over my way, too. He had a plaid woolen blanket that I had my eye on; I had a little mattress covered with waterproof canvas that you could fold in three: Lucho seemed to covet it. We smiled at each other. “Would you like to borrow my mattress?” I whispered.

“What about you? How are you going to sleep?”

“Oh, I’ll be all right. They put some palm leaves over the
caleta.
It will be enough.”

“You want me to lend you a blanket?”

“No, I have my jacket. It keeps me warm,” I answered unconvincingly.

“But I have two blankets. Besides, I would rather you took it. I’d have fewer things to carry.”

We were both so pleased with our trade! I asked for permission to go and sit with Lucho at the table, and the guard agreed. It was already dark, and this was a special moment to share secrets.

“What do you think?” Lucho asked in a hushed voice.

“I think they’re going to release us.”

“I don’t think so. I was told they’re taking us to another camp with all the other prisoners.”

The guards let us talk and didn’t try to interfere. The air felt good, with a warm breeze coming through the trees. I found real pleasure in listening to this man. Everything he said interested me, everything seemed structured and thoughtful. I knew that his presence was doing me a world of good. It was a sort of therapy, to be able to share with someone else everything that was boiling in my head. I hadn’t realized the extent to which I’d missed having someone to confide in.

At daybreak we were cheered unexpectedly by the arrival of a pretty blond
guerrillera
who introduced herself as our receptionist. Lucho had woken up in very good spirits, and he began to bombard her with compliments. The girl teased him in return. We were all laughing. Lucho had no way of knowing that this charming girl was the commander’s girlfriend. When Giovanni came to see us at the end of the day, he was a changed man. He held out his hand to greet us and invited us to join him at the table. His
socia
must have put in a good word for us, I thought. Giovanni proved to be an excellent conversationalist and stayed until late in the night, telling us his life story.

“We were in the thick of the battle. The paramilitaries were thirty yards across from us, and they were firing in all directions. There were a lot of casualties on both sides. At one point, when I was crawling along the ground to get near the enemy lines, one of my men called out to me over the radio. He was shit scared. There I was, bullets whistling right by my ears. I tried to talk to him as best I could, as if I were talking to my own son, to get him to keep going and give him courage.

“Can you picture the scene? As I am speaking into the radio, I see the enemy. He doesn’t see me—he’s right there in front of me, talking on the radio. I approach very quietly, like a snake—he doesn’t see me coming—and what do you know! I realize
he
is the one speaking to me over the radio. It was awful. I thought I was talking to one of my guys, and he thought he was speaking to his chief. But the jerk was speaking to me! And now I’ve got him right there in front of me, and I have to kill him. I was going crazy! I couldn’t kill him—he was just a kid, you understand? He wasn’t an enemy anymore.

“So I pushed him, took his gun, and ordered him to get the hell out of there. He had a close call, the idiot. If he’s alive, I’m sure he still remembers.”

Giovanni was pretty young himself, not yet thirty. He was a very sharp guy, with a great sense of humor and an innate talent for command. All his troops adored him. I observed his behavior with interest. He was very different from Andres. He trusted his men, but he also demanded a lot from them, and he controlled them. It was easier for him to delegate than it was for Andres, and his men felt more worthy. With this group I no longer felt I was being spied on. There was surveillance, of course, but the guards’ attitude was different. Among themselves, too, the atmosphere was completely different. I saw no trace of the mistrust between FARCs that I’d seen before, with the others. They knew their comrades were not spying on them. Everyone seemed to breathe more easily under this commander.

Giovanni got into the habit of coming every afternoon to play with us a game that Lucho had devised, which consisted of moving pieces along a board—using beans, lentils, and peas—while eliminating the other players’ pieces along the way. I never managed to win. The real duel began when only Lucho and Giovanni were left face-to-face. It was a sight not to be missed. They would goad each other mercilessly, with every political and social prejudice they could think of. It was hilarious. The troops came to watch the match the way you’d go to a show.

Very quickly we got used to Giovanni’s familiar, pleasant company. We asked him outright if he believed we were going to be released. He thought we were. It would take a few more weeks, because they had to put together the “final details,” and that still exclusively depended on the Secretariado. But we should get ready for our release, he said. That soon became the dominant topic of our conversations.

In very little time, we learned the names of all the guerrillas in the group. There were thirty or so. Giovanni had done his best to integrate us, going so far as to invite us to the “salon” for their evening activities. That had greatly surprised me, because in the camp we’d just left, Andres had been very strict, making sure that we could never hear what he said, even from a distance. This was an hour to relax, when the younger guerrillas enjoyed playing team games. They had to sing or invent revolutionary slogans, unravel riddles, and so on. It all took place in a very good-natured atmosphere. One evening as I was leaving the salon, one of the guerrillas came up to me.

“They’re going to let you go in a few days,” he told me. “What are you going to say about us?”

I looked at him with surprise. Then, trying to smile, I replied, “I’ll say what I saw.”

His question left me with a bitter taste. I was not sure my answer was the best one.

We were eating our morning meal when I heard the sound of engines. I gestured to Lucho. Before we could even react, the place was filled with excitement. Jorge Briceño, alias “Mono Jojoy,” perhaps the best known of the FARC leaders after Marulanda, made his entrance. I almost choked on my drink. He came forward slowly, with his eagle’s gaze, and took Lucho in his arms, embarrassing him with a huge hug. Mono Jojoy was a formidable man, probably the most bloodthirsty of all the FARC leaders. He had earned his reputation, rightfully, as a hard and intransigent man. He was the great warrior, the military man, the steely combatant, and he aroused the admiration of all the young people that the FARC had recruited, mainly from the poor regions of Colombia.

Mono Jojoy must have been in his fifties. He was a man of medium height, stocky, with a big head and practically no neck. He was blond, his face was bloated and red, and he had a prominent belly that made him walk like a bull.

I knew he had seen me, but he did not come over immediately. He took his time to speak with Lucho, although he must have been aware that Clara and I were waiting for him, standing outside our
caletas,
practically saluting. What had I become? Prison psychology distorted our simplest behavior.

The last time I’d seen him, he was next to Marulanda. It was the day I went with Piedad Córdoba to Los Pozos, in the demilitarized zone. He hadn’t wanted to say hello to me, and I had hardly noticed him. I wouldn’t have noticed him at all had it not been for the unpleasant remark that he’d made to his comrades: “Oh, you’re with the
politicos
? You’re wasting your time! The best thing we can do with them is take them as hostages. At least that would keep them out of harm’s way. And I’ll bet that if we kidnap some
politicos
, this government will have to release our comrades from jail!”

I had turned to Marulanda and confronted him with a laugh. “Well! Really? You’d contemplate kidnapping me just like that, in the middle of the road?”

The old man had made a gesture with his hand, as if to wave away the bad idea Mono Jojoy had just given him.

But now, barely four years later, I was forced to concede that Mono Jojoy had carried out his threat. He finally walked over to me and hugged me tightly, as if he wanted to crush me.

“I saw your proof of life. I like it. It’s going to be released soon.”

“At least it’s clear I’m not suffering from Stockholm syndrome,” I retorted.

He gave me a nasty look that chilled me. In the second that followed, I understood that I had just sealed my own fate. What was it that he resented? Probably the fact that I didn’t need or want his approval. I should have kept quiet. That man hated me; I was his prey, and he would never let me go.

“How are you treated?”He looked at Giovanni, who came over.

“Very well. Giovanni is very good to us.”

There, too, I felt I had given the wrong answer.

“Make your list of all the things you need and give it to Pedro; I’ll make sure everything is sent to you quickly. I’m going to leave you in the company of my nurses. They’ll do a report on your health. Tell them if there is anything wrong.”

He went away, leaving me immersed in an inexplicable anxiety. Everyone agreed that Commander Jorge was courteous and generous. I could see that much myself, but I knew instinctively that his visit was a very bad omen. I sat next to Pedro, while Lucho went for his medical checkup, and I dictated my list of needs to him, according to Mono Jojoy’s precise instructions. The poor man was sweating hard, unable to spell the names of the products I needed. Lucho, who was listening, was writhing with laughter under the nurse’s stethoscope. He could scarcely believe I dared to add beauty and care items to my list. “Ask for the moon while you’re at it!” he teased. I added a Bible and a dictionary.

The next morning one of the nurses came back. She was massaging Lucho’s back; he had been suffering terribly. Now he was in seventh heaven and let her have her way with him.

I lifted my head when I heard a squeal of brakes on the road. It all happened very quickly. Someone barked orders.

Giovanni came running over, looking pale. “You have to pack everything. You’re leaving.”

“Where are we going? And you?”

“No, I’m staying. I’ve just been relieved of my mission.”

“Giovanni . . . ?”

“No, don’t be afraid. Everything will be fine.”

A guy came in at a run and whispered something in Giovanni’s ear.

Giovanni struck his thighs with his fists. Then he took hold of himself and said, “I have to blindfold you. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Oh, shit!”

The world collapsed. Shouts, guards running all around. Shoving me, pulling me. They bound my eyes with a thick blindfold, I couldn’t see a thing. Except the image of Mono Jojoy’s venomous gaze that stayed etched in my memory, pursuing me, unfolding before my closed eyes like a curse.