THE ARMY’S XVIII Battalion in Garbanzos occupied an entire block opposite my high school, Colegio Santa Lucía. Each day, Palillo and I passed its three-metre brick wall topped with razor wire, gazing up at fierce, helmeted soldiers who peered grimly out of its eight observation towers. But now I found myself running up to the guard at the gates.
‘I need to speak to Colonel Buitrago. It’s an emergency.’
‘The colonel’s not available,’ the soldier responded.
‘Please! The Guerrilla just killed my father.’
He nodded that he already knew. ‘I shouldn’t say this to you, but the colonel and most of our men are away on a mission. They’ve been gone three days. It might be another three before they return. I’m sorry.’
‘They can’t all be on the mission. And they must have left a truck?’
The soldier looked like he really wanted to help. ‘We’re all doing double shifts to keep the barracks protected. I’d help you myself, but I can’t leave my post. Would you like to go inside and make a statement?’
Why bother making a statement in Colombia? So the authorities could frame it and hang it on the wall to remind themselves of the job they weren’t doing?
Storming off, I yelled back at the soldier, ‘What if it was your father?’
He signalled for me to return.
‘Here’s Colonel Buitrago’s personal cell phone number. If you can get through, maybe he can override the stay-on-base order.’
Sprinting to the Telecom cabins in Garbanzos plaza, I tried Buitrago. It went straight to voicemail.
‘Colonel, it’s me, Pedro González. The Guerrilla killed my father. I know which way they went. You have to get here immediately. Please!’
Realising the colonel would have no way of contacting me, I rang back and left the phone number of the Telecom cabin. No return call. Five minutes later, I left a third, much angrier message for Colonel Buitrago. I yelled into the phone, letting fly with words Papá didn’t approve of.
‘You’re supposed to be protecting our fucking town. You’re supposed to be Papá’s fucking friend. But you’re an hijo de puta and a fucking coward!’
After that, I sat on the sidewalk of Avenida Bolivar in Garbanzos plaza with my head in my hands, and I felt like crying. I did cry, in fact, and I didn’t care who saw me. By then, everyone must have known. But no one stopped to speak to me. No one did anything to help. Everyone went on with their food shopping, their lifting of boxes and their buying of lotería tickets as though nothing had happened.
Papá was dead and I was surrounded by the indifferent and cowardly. Papá would have done anything for any one of these people. For a friend, a fellow parishioner, a complete stranger, or even someone he disapproved of like Humberto Díaz. But no one was doing anything to help him. I cried until I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder.
Camila.