At eight on the dot, Jutsiñamuy was at the house of the second identified corpse, Óscar Luis Pedraza. The family was waiting in the living room. As he sat down in the place of honor, an overstuffed black armchair, three children stared at him despondently. Though it was Monday, they were in their Sunday best, like the adults: dark suits, ties, long skirts.
“Is there a family gathering happening? Did I come at a bad time?” he asked.
“No, sir,” said an old man who might have been the father. “We were waiting for you. We’re in mourning.”
He scanned the group and tried to deduce who was who. Those were his kids, that was the father, and the mother. She must be the widow over there. The brothers and sisters. When he’d finished his assessment of the room, he said, “I believe you know why I’m here.”
They all nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“For the investigation, I’d like to ask what work Óscar Luis was doing and what you think might have happened to him.”
They exchanged glances to figure out who should respond, and their eyes turned to the father.
“All right, sir,” he said. “Let me tell you.”
The old man clasped the hand of the old woman who must be the mother, and began to talk, sometimes staring at his toes, sometimes studying the cracks in the ceiling. He talked for a long while, not just for Jutsiñamuy, but maybe also for his family and for himself.
Óscar was in the army, in the Fifth Brigade, up until about three years ago. You probably know this already, I imagine. He had some problems there—got involved with strange people, let himself be manipulated, and got into trouble. He was always a good guy, but he was easily influenced by others, you know how things are. We brought him up right, but in the army, instead of him learning to honor the nation and God, they changed him. This country, sir—you must know better than anyone . . . This country is being swallowed up by evil. And anything that’s happening to the country will happen to the people too.
Óscar was so trusting and naïve, and they got him mixed up in some bad stuff. I never knew how serious things were. No dead bodies or “false positive” murders, just money. He liked gambling, and that was his downfall. A man with debts is screwed; the mafia will bleed him dry drop by drop. He’d been into that crap since he was a young man. Games of chance, betting. If I told you how many times I punished him . . . I burned his hand on the stove once. Because the debts always ended up landing on me. A man will do anything for his kids. I thought the army was going to straighten him out, which is why I recommended him to an old family friend.
He started at the bottom, as a third corporal. He took the exams, and they approved his military service. He entered the Third Brigade, here in Cali, as part of the infantry battalion. He moved up fast. Within a few years he was already a first sergeant, then a sergeant major. He kept himself on the straight and narrow because he had to, plus the kids were born. But it didn’t cure him. Once he acquired a little bit of power and felt secure, that was it. He couldn’t resist anymore. Whenever he had a day off, he would spend the afternoon at this bingo parlor on Plaza Caicedo. I figure mobsters must hang out in those places, looking to reel people in who have a problem. And he was a soldier to boot! They opened up tabs for him at the casinos and took him to higher-stakes games, where he lost even more. Who knows what else they gave him—that world is a hellhole.
It was Angelita who called one day to say Óscar was in debt again, that he was drinking too much and neglecting the family. In the battalion he came across other guys who were even worse off. The mafia had them in a vise, forced them to do things. The gambling mafia is dangerous, sir. You’ll know more about that than I do. I talked to Óscar and asked him, All right, what kind of crap are you caught up in, and demanded details, how much he owed, who to, but he always said the same thing: Don’t worry about me, Dad, I’ll get out of this, don’t torture yourself, I’m going to win enough to give my old lady a house, have faith in me, and I’d tell him, Damn it, this isn’t about you, it’s about your family, your children—what kind of example are you setting for them?
The years went by, and I knew that the string he was holding on to was pulled so tight it was about to snap, and then it did snap, and all hell broke loose: turned out he’d been stealing ammunition from the brigade, supposedly to sell—he would hold his fire during gunfights so he could pocket the bullets afterward. It sounded weird to me—how much can a box of ammo possibly be worth? That much? I don’t know. That was what he told us, why he’d been kicked out. For stealing ammunition. I asked him, And did you steal it? And he told me, No, Dad, it wasn’t me! It’s the ones in charge who do the stealing, and then they blame us. So I asked, Why do they steal it? And he said, So they can sell it to the paramilitary or even the guerrilla groups. I couldn’t believe that. Why would you sell bullets that could then be used against you? And he laughed: No, Dad, the people selling them never take part in combat, get it?
In the end he got off easy. I told him, Figure out what you’re going to do to support your family, you hear me? And he says, All right, I’ll look around, I know how to handle weapons, so I said, Be careful not to get involved in anything dirty, and right away he answered, No, Dad, don’t worry about that, I’m going to work security. One day he invited us over for lunch. He had the place all fixed up, two bottles of wine, roast chicken, arepas—the works. And his mom asked, Son, what is it we’re celebrating? And he answered, I got a good job, it’s a firm that provides security to private individuals, with a great reputation, it’s called SecuNorte; and I thought to myself, As long as he’s fooling around with weapons, I’m always going to be nervous about this idiot—and I was right to be.
Later I found out he was working with a Christian church, protecting a priest, something like that, and Angelita told us he’d become really religious; and that basically cured his gambling addiction, and he started coming home after work to spend time with the kids. It was a Grace Communion International church; sometimes they transported VIPs or money, and they had to be really smart. I asked him if he’d gone back to the casinos, and he said he hadn’t, that it was a sin and offended Jesus.
After about a year he started traveling, or so he said: I’m going to Barranquilla, I’m going to Armenia, I’m going to Calarcá. He would head off, and even he didn’t know how long he’d be gone. That’s why when this happened, we weren’t worried at first. Angelita thought it was strange he hadn’t called again, but he was with the church, and they’d go to these villages in the middle of nowhere with no cell service. When he stopped calling, Angelita came to me. How long since we’ve heard from him? About three weeks, give or take. Then you all showed up, sir.
Jutsiñamuy listened attentively. Laiseca scribbled notes in his notebook, and when the old man finished speaking, nobody dared say anything.
“Did you all realize he wasn’t working for SecuNorte anymore?” the prosecutor asked, looking at the widow.
“No, sir. I didn’t dare ask him. I never understood why everything had to be such a huge secret if it wasn’t anything bad, you know? I even suggested one day that we take the kids to his church, but he refused. No way. If we wanted to go to church, we should pick another one—there were plenty to choose from. It made him nervous to have the family around. But he always came through with the grocery money and the rent.”
“Did you hear him mention anybody? Do you remember any names?” Jutsiñamuy asked.
“No, sir. Like I said, he didn’t talk about work here at home,” the widow replied.
“Or did you overhear anything when he was on the phone?” Jutsiñamuy kept pushing. “Did he ever mention a Carlitos?”
The woman scratched her head, looked first at the ceiling and then at her two younger children, who were fidgeting restlessly.
“He always went into the utility room to talk, but once, not too long ago, I overheard a bit of conversation when I was in the bathroom. I didn’t pay much attention, but he said something about a man who’d be flying in from Quito and I remember he said, We need to call Carlitos, you call and give him the itinerary. That’s what I heard. Why?”
Laiseca pulled out the photo of the John Doe and handed it to the woman.
“Look closely at this person,” the prosecutor said. “We found him next to your husband. Do you recognize him?”
The woman sank once more into a tense silence.
“I don’t think so, sir, but it’s harder to recognize someone when they’re dead, don’t you think?”
“That’s why I encourage you to take your time.”
The older boy tried to sidle next to his mother to look, but she pulled the photo away.
“No, son! This is adult business. Go sit down.”
She studied the photo again. Her face expressionless, she handed it back to the prosecutor. “No, sir. I don’t know him.”
Jutsiñamuy looked at Laiseca, giving him an order with a glance that his officer understood immediately. Laiseca took a couple of steps forward into the middle of the room and said, “Are you familiar with a restaurant in Jamundí called the Jamundí Inn?”
This time the woman looked surprised. “Of course. We’ve taken the kids there for the day, maybe three times. They’ve got a pool.”
The questioning clearly made her uncomfortable.
“Did it seem like somewhere expensive?” Jutsiñamuy asked.
“Kind of,” the woman said, “but I didn’t know anything about Óscar’s money situation, how much he had. After all the trouble he got into in the army, I tried not to think about that. If there was money, great, and if not, same difference. He was an extravagant guy, and sometimes even when he was broke he’d give us presents, buy expensive things. A real spendthrift.”
“But when you went to the Jamundí Inn, did you feel comfortable there?” Jutsiñamuy asked.
“No, sir. But I never felt comfortable anywhere.”
He felt bad for keeping up the pressure, but sometimes people under pressure remembered things they thought they didn’t know. “Never?” he asked. “What was that like? Talk to me about that.”
The woman looked around, visibly uneasy. Realizing what was going on, the prosecutor apologized to the rest of the family, offered the widow his hand, and said, “Is there somewhere we can talk in private?”
The father stood up immediately. “No need, sir. You all stay here and we’ll leave.” He herded the family out a side door.
Jutsiñamuy continued. “All right, now tell me, ma’am . . . Ángela?”
“Yes, Ángela Suárez Medina.”
“Nice to meet you.”
She stroked her cheeks with her fingertips and said, “What I wanted to say, sir, is Óscar had another woman. That’s why I didn’t want to talk in front of the kids. All that secrecy on the phone was partly because he didn’t like us knowing about his work, sure, but it was mostly because of this woman. They’d been together about two years. When we’d go to the Jamundí Inn, he’d hide from the waiters so they wouldn’t say hello to him—I noticed it. He’d make faces and shake his finger no at them. But they all knew him because he used to go there with that tramp. Her name is Luz Dary Patiño. She works at Almacenes Sí, in the school uniform department. Can you guess how they met?”
“I assume he was buying uniforms for the kids,” Jutsiñamuy said, gesturing to Laiseca to take note: name and place.
“Exactly,” the widow said. “Can you imagine? A young girl, and not even that pretty, actually. I don’t know what she gets out of taking up with a married man who’s got kids. Not even money, because what money? He was broke.”
She was silent a moment.
“When Óscar disappeared I thought he was with his hussy, so I didn’t worry about it. Just between the two of us, sir, I’ll tell you Óscar and I hadn’t done anything for at least two years. I was even sleeping in the kids’ room. Lots of times when he was away for a while it wasn’t because he was working—he was away with her on a trip. I knew. I’d call to ask for her at the department store, and they’d tell me she was on vacation or out sick. Always. Sometimes he’d come back with a tan, and I’d ask, Oh, did you go to the beach? And he’d say, Yes, we had to provide security for somebody in Coveñas. A couple days later I’d be at Almacenes Sí and see that tramp across the floor, her brown as a nut too.”
A phone rang in a nearby house. Instinctively, Laiseca touched his jacket pocket.
“This time, since he’d been gone more than two weeks,” the woman continued, “I went to Almacenes Sí, but there she was, standing all snooty behind the register. I wanted to go up and ask, but in the end I didn’t. I thought it must be true that he was working, and look. Turns out he was dead. Go talk to her, sir. She’ll know more about the bastard than I do.”
With that, the prosecutor saw that the visit was over. He got up, and they went to the door. “Give my thanks to your family,” Jutsiñamuy said. “And if you remember anything important, please call.” He handed her his card.
He was almost out the door when he suddenly turned back. “Sorry, ma’am, one last thing. Does the phrase ‘We are healed’ mean anything to you? Written on an open hand?”
She thought a moment and said no, no. “Doesn’t sound familiar. Why?”
“One of your husband’s tattoos, on his left side, under his nipple.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. He liked covering himself in those tattoos—things for soldiers and losers. I don’t remember that one in particular.”
Jutsiñamuy met her gaze. “You told me you two hadn’t had anything for at least two years,” he said quietly.
“Yes, but I saw him shower and dry himself off by the window every day.”
“I see.”
“Go ask that other woman,” the widow said. “Maybe she saw it.”
Jutsiñamuy tapped his lips with his index finger. “Another thing, Doña Ángela—what about the name Mr. F? Did you ever hear it?”
“No, sir, what’s that? It sounds like the name of a gym.”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out, ma’am, to figure out what happened to your husband. What about the name Fabinho Henriquez?”
“No, like I said, I never knew anything about his work.”
Johana and Julieta ate breakfast early, at about seven, beside a large picture window that looked out on the abandoned mansion that had once belonged to the illustrious nineteenth-century writer Jorge Isaacs, with a rusty sign announcing a shopping center that was never built.
The menu was a huge buffet with fresh orange and mango juice, sliced fruit, cheese, cereals, and scrambled eggs with onion and tomato. Plus a selection of arepas, cassava cheese bread, and croissants. Julieta was tempted to spend the whole morning there, but she was feeling restless. She glanced at her watch every two minutes, picked up her coffee cup, turned it in her hands, and put it back down without drinking.
Her appointment with the pastor was at nine thirty at the InterContinental Hotel.
“Do you want me to go with you, boss?” Johana offered.
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Julieta said. “Let’s go together, and we’ll see once we get there. I’m a little nervous.”
“I can tell. Don’t worry. The InterContinental is really close by.”
Julieta pulled out her notebook.
“All right, Johana, let’s go over it again. Why the hell did I ask for an appointment?” She answered her own question. “To see his reaction when I ask him about two things: one, the gunfight in San Andrés de Pisimbalá, and two, the kid. Other things will come up from there. Oh, and the guy on the motorcycle who’s been following us.”
Johana watched her write it down and said, “Ask him about his life too: how he started, that sort of thing. He probably likes talking about himself, and it’ll earn his trust.”
“Don’t worry about the how—I’ve got a handle on that,” Julieta said. “Men are so vain, you always ask them how they got where they are. They love that.”
“So why are you so nervous?” Johana asked.
“The way he looks at me, I don’t know. It’s unnerving,” Julieta said, irritated.
“Maybe it’s best if you’re not alone.”
“We’ll see when we get there. If he’s alone, I’ll go in on my own.”
“When you ask about the gunfight,” Johana said, “he’s obviously going to deny it.”
“I want to see his reaction and let him know that we know,” Julieta said.
They drank a third round of coffee, then a fourth. What time was it? Almost nine. They went up to brush their teeth. At 9:27 they were in the InterContinental’s vast lobby. A young man was behind the reception desk.
“We have an appointment with the pastor from New Jerusalem Church,” Julieta said.
“Yes, of course.” The receptionist studied a schedule. “Ms. Julieta . . . Lezama?”
“That’s me,” Julieta said, and gestured to Johana. “This is my assistant.”
“Follow me,” the receptionist said. “He’s in the Belalcázar Suite, but you’ll need to go through a brief security check first.”
“Of course.”
They went up to the second floor, where they proceeded down a corridor to an X-ray machine similar to the ones you see in airports.
“Could I have your bag? Do you have a laptop? Cell phone?”
They put everything in the trays. Julieta walked through the metal detector, which beeped. A young, muscular, good-looking guard came over with a hand-held wand. Julieta met his eyes.
“Raise your arms, miss,” he said. “Great. Now turn around.”
“You want me to turn around?” she said jokingly. “Without offering me a drink first?”
The guard flushed. The other officers laughed.
“Go on.”
They walked down another corridor, this one lined with sets of double doors with the names of conference rooms. Finally they turned onto the last hallway and saw it in front of them: Belalcázar Suite. Three guards were standing by the door. Their bags were searched again. They walked into a room where there were three more people.
A secretary.
“Ms. Julieta Lezama?”
She stepped forward. “That’s me. This is my assistant.”
“Pastor Almayer would like to see you alone, miss.”
“No problem,” Julieta said. “Johana can wait for me here.”
The young woman escorted her to the rear of the room and, with a somewhat theatrical gesture, opened a set of double doors.
When Julieta walked in, the pastor had his back to her.
She was bothered by the room’s dim light and stark atmosphere. He was wearing the same black outfit he’d had on for the service. Outside of that context, it didn’t look like a priest’s clothing. Before she could say anything, she heard the door close.
“Good morning, Julieta,” the pastor said, his back still to her. “Please, come closer.” He spun in his chair. He was holding a book of classical religious paintings, opened to a page in the middle. Rather than getting up or looking at her, he kept studying the images. “It’s incredible what man is capable of when he seeks transcendence, don’t you think?”
Feeling awkward, she looked at the illustrations. She had no idea what to say. At last the pastor looked up at her.
“Would you like some tea?”
“I just had breakfast, thanks.”
The pastor silently turned the page, looked at one more illustration, and closed the book.
“My assistant told me you’re a journalist and showed me some of your articles. I appreciate your interest in me. What did you think of my talk yesterday?”
Julieta met his eyes. He had thick, very black brows.
“Effective and direct,” she said. “Devoid of anything your audience might understand, but very moving.”
The man rested his chin on his hand. “Moving? Effective? Explain what you mean.”
“You moved people, you made them believe in your words,” Julieta said.
“What about you, Julieta? Were you moved?”
“I’m not a believer.”
“You don’t need to believe in something to be moved,” the pastor said.
“In a way you do,” she said. “I can say I was struck by the staging and the way people idolize you. They really believe in you.”
The pastor scratched his chin. “Staging . . . You use tough words. Theater, drama? A performance, fundamentally, is an artifice. All I do is take the words people carry inside them and put them in contact with other words, those of the Bible and those of Jesus. There’s no artifice in that.”
“The Bible, Jesus, his story, his words,” Julieta said. “I get it. But for a nonbeliever like me, it’s all unrealistic.”
“Unrealistic?” the pastor repeated, more surprised than angry. “In what way?”
“It’s an exciting story, full of wisdom and lovely metaphors,” Julieta said, “but as far as believing it’s true . . .”
Pastor Fritz’s eyes widened. There was a strange gleam in them, and Julieta lowered her own.
“Interesting,” he said. “And do you think that what the people feel is an artifice too?”
“Just because they believe it doesn’t make it true . . .”
“Truth is merely our perception of the truth,” the pastor said. “How do you know all of this is real? This room, this hotel?”
“The same way you do,” Julieta said. “But let’s drop the rhetoric and metaphors, pastor. I’m here for another reason that you may be able to . . . intuit.”
Pastor Fritz rubbed his chin. It was clear he was ready for a frontal assault. “I’m listening.”
“There was a shoot-out on a road in Tierradentro, near San Andrés de Pisimbalá,” Julieta said. “Ten days ago. Two SUVs and a black Hummer were attacked with assault weapons, and in the end a helicopter intervened. A man dressed in black and two women got out of the Hummer.”
Not a muscle moved in the pastor’s face.
“Exciting tale,” he said. “What happened next?”
“That’s what I’d like you to tell me,” Julieta said.
“I’m not familiar with the story, sadly.”
Julieta forced herself to meet his eyes again. “You were there.”
“There? You mean . . . ? I don’t understand.”
“You’re the man in black who got out of the Hummer,” she said. “I know that much. What I haven’t been able to find out is who attacked you and why. That’s what I want you to tell me.”
Fritz smiled faintly. Their faces weren’t all that close, but if she’d wanted to touch his, she could have simply reached out her hand.
“I’m touched by your faith, Julieta. Do you really think it was me? Tell me what makes you so certain.”
Julieta thought longingly of a cigarette. She was dying to smoke. She glanced around but didn’t see any ashtrays. It must be prohibited in the entire hotel.
“Is something wrong?” Pastor Fritz asked.
“I’d like to smoke,” she said. “I quit a while back, but I started up again a week ago.”
“Don’t worry,” Pastor Fritz said. “Sigmund Freud quit for thirty years, and then one day he lit one and started smoking again. Know what he said? ‘I couldn’t concentrate.’”
Julieta smiled briefly.
“Let’s go over to the window,” Fritz said. “You can smoke there. I’m a former smoker myself. They won’t give us any trouble.”
With the first drag, she felt her soul being restored. She blew the smoke out into the sweltering air of the city.
“But don’t forget your story,” Fritz said. “You were about to tell me how I’m related to this gunfight.”
“You must be a powerful man, pastor. The police made everything go away and covered it up with a story of an intoxicated driver firing shots into the air.”
Pastor Fritz moved away from the window, paced around the small room, and returned to her.
“The problem with this conversation, Julieta, is that you already knew I’d say it wasn’t me. And yet you came to ask anyway.”
“Of course,” she said. “It’s no surprise that you’d deny it.”
“So why come, then?” Fritz asked.
Julieta realized she wasn’t going to get very far. “I wanted to know who you were. The bit about the orphans at the end of your talk struck me.”
“You want to know who I am?”
Julieta again looked at him steadily. “Yes, that’s what I’m most interested in. Knowing who you are and what kind of person does the things you do. I don’t represent the law or anything. I’m interested in stories, in telling a story that is good, convincing, and true.”
“If you want to know who I am and why I do this, I’ll have to tell you my story,” Pastor Fritz said, smiling. “I don’t know if you’re interested. It’s called ‘The Boy on the Park Bench.’”
“Let’s hear it,” Julieta said, lighting another cigarette.
The pastor went to sit in one of the armchairs in the corner, where it was darker. Maybe to avoid her gaze so he could choose his words better.
“The Boy on the Park Bench,” that was my nickname for a while. It’s a short, simple story. Listen.
The father took the boy to a bench and told him, “Wait for me here, son. I’m going to take care of some business nearby, and I’ll be right back.” The boy sat and watched him walk away, head down some stairs, and go down a side street until he disappeared from view. The boy didn’t dare stand up, so he couldn’t see which building he went into. What is he doing? the boy wondered, swinging his feet. Beside him was the bag his father had left. Curious, he opened it and found a sandwich and an apple.
By noon, he was feeling hungry, so he took out the apple and ate half, leaving the rest for later. At about five, people started coming to the park and the boy got impatient. Every time he saw someone in the distance, he’d think, He’s coming, he’s coming, but he never was.
Soon night fell.
Before dinnertime, the park again filled up with people from the neighborhood. He saw other children playing, but he didn’t dare move from his spot, afraid that his father would come back and fail to find him. A little while later everybody returned to their homes, and the boy was left alone. He took a couple of bites of the sandwich and kept waiting. A breeze picked up, and he felt cold. He put his legs up on the bench and lay down to sleep. He was sure that while he was sleeping his father’s hand would shake him awake, his voice saying, “All right, son, we can go now.”
But he opened his eyes, very early in the morning, and he was still there, alone.
On the second day, a woman who lived nearby came to talk to him: “Boy, what are you doing on this bench?” and he replied, “I’m waiting for my father, he went to take care of something on the next street over.” On the third night the woman invited him to sleep at her house, but he refused. “If he comes back and doesn’t see me, he won’t know where I am,” the boy said. On the sixth day the woman managed to persuade him and they left a note:
“Dad, I’m at the house across the street, the blue one. Come back soon.”
The note stayed pinned to the back of the bench for several days until the rain washed away first the writing and then the paper.
The woman opened her door to the boy every night and made him sandwiches for while he was waiting. She didn’t interfere, but clearly something weird was going on. She did ask the boy his name and where he was from. “My name is Rafael, Rafico. I’m from Florencia.” What about his last name? The boy’s eyes darted around, tense. He looked at her and said, “Bolívar.” It wasn’t his real name, but the boy figured it didn’t matter since nobody knew him anyway. After a month the woman talked with a school in the neighborhood and persuaded the boy to go in the mornings. She bought him a uniform and school supplies and told him, “I’ll stay by the window watching the bench, and if your dad comes, I’ll tell him.” The boy was reassured, and every day, coming back from school, he fantasized that his father would fling the door open and give him a hug.
And so the year came to an end.
He got good grades. The woman was named Carmen, and she had a daughter who lived in Barranquilla, married with kids. They came for Christmas, and the woman told them his story. The grandchildren eyed him with curiosity. “Do you really not have a mom or dad?” they asked. “I do, but they’re not here,” he said.
The boy got older. One day he decided to sit down in front of the house that he’d figured out must have been the house his father went into, to see who came out. But no one did. It seemed unoccupied. There were no lights at night. Maybe the people who lived there had gone somewhere else and taken his father with them. But sooner or later they’d come back. All houses have mysteries, especially empty ones.
The boy became a teenager, and then a man.
The father never came back.
I am that boy, Julieta.
One day I decided I couldn’t stay with Carmen any longer. A strange voice murmured these words to me: “Go back, go back.” I returned to Caquetá. Maybe my father was there. But when I got to Florencia, I didn’t recognize anything. Or anybody. I walked through the town many times and finally decided to leave.
What would I do with my life?
I went to the jungle in search of solace, and there I grew up, alone, like Mowgli, like Greystoke, or even like Jesus, when he went to the Orient and northern India; I grew up the same way as certain special people in the history of the world: alone, utterly alone. Those of us who have been abandoned believe we have a mission on Earth—and do you know why? When you look up at the sky, you see stars and think they’re beautiful, but when I look up I see only wounds that swarm and sparkle, burns on its face, blemishes, scars—mine and others’. Behind those wounds I hear voices, cries of pain or rage; those words plead with me, they’re on their knees, they’re a sigh, a sob; only those who have experienced abandonment can hear those voices, those sighs in the dark; it’s the sound that rings out across the world when happy people are sleeping, an echo of lament, the pleas that nobody hears except yourself. All of that is present in the terrifying night, Julieta, while you are sleeping, dreaming about soft sounds and caresses, because the darkness of the world, to us, is a hostile territory full of pain and memories. Other people, happy people, see twinkling stars, a romantic, loving moon, a night full of fragrances, of murmurs . . .
Congratulations.
You will be happy, and you will die happy. I won’t. I was abandoned and will die alone. Life is a slow process of loss, a space in time that only confuses my ideas. I don’t want to be loved, just to be understood by others. I look for the right words—can you imagine such a task? I am too far away. I seek them in books, in ideas.
I’m talking about things that exist only in memory, or in the imagination of memory. Because the most lasting thing in this world, Julieta, cannot be touched with the soiled fingers with which we touch bread or the earth, with which we touch one another. No way. Only with words, and that’s why I’m here, telling you all this. That’s why I talk about Christ, about myself. But we’re not the same person, even though Christ is born and dies over and over.
I talk about him because I can cause him to be born in the people who hear me.
As a boy I left in order to return, because I had to learn on my own and come of age in a vast, unpopulated realm known as Solitude, and the best way to do it was to go live in the jungle, surrounded by sinister trees and wild animals, cannibal fish and terrifying noises that made me tremble with fear. Until I put myself back together.
That’s where I get my strength.
Wise men say: “When you gaze long at the jungle, the jungle also gazes at you.” You don’t get what I’m saying, I can tell. That’s OK. My word isn’t a disease that’s transmitted through the air, like Ebola, or through the gaze, like faith. It is just the word of someone who’s lived. That’s enough for me. I am here to save others. That’s what I do every day. Tend the wounds that others have on their bodies and make them my own, kiss them, suck them, heal them. I seek to be infused with the strength that is born of the pain of those mutilations, of lacerated, broken, tattered bodies.
Wounded bodies that wander around, lost—do you understand that? Tell me what you understand; or no, best not tell me anything. Just contemplate it. Bodies that suffer and cannot understand why they must experience such pain. A pain that selected only a few and set so many others aside, because those who talk about Christ in this country, and even those who are oblivious to him—their hearts remain unscathed. Christ, too, was abandoned by his father. “Why have you forsaken me?” he says, looking up at the heavens, already on the cross. And what reply does he get? Silence. The same reply I’ve gotten for fifty years.
Silence, and the vast emptiness of the night.
The pastor took a long pause, and Julieta realized he was finished.
She was surprisingly moved, so she lit up another cigarette.
“That’s a very sad story, pastor,” Julieta said. “And very beautiful. Now I get why you talk about orphans.”
“Why did you join the line?” he asked.
“You found me out,” Julieta said. “How did you know?”
“There are some things I can’t explain,” Fritz said, “because they can’t be put into words. If somebody asks me for those words, I have no idea what they might be. If nobody asks, they’re right there.”
“Don’t tell me you can read minds.”
“Ha, that would be torture. I just have intuitions. I’d have to call it something like clouds of electricity or hollow zones in the air. It’s no use trying to verbalize it—I just come up with random metaphors. But that’s what it feels like to me.”
Julieta blew out a long line of smoke. “Ask your intuition what else I want to know and why.”
He met her eyes again, his gaze fierce. “You’re different from when you arrived,” he said. “I’d almost say that now, right this moment, you feel closer to me than you have to many of the people you’ve met in your life.”
Julieta blushed. “You don’t need superpowers to know that, pastor,” she said. “You know you’re charismatic. What else do I want to know about you? Because there’s another important thing.”
Fritz kept watching her, not saying anything. There was an uncomfortable silence. Julieta closed the window and put away her cigarettes.
“Do I need to leave now?”
The pastor moved as if to get up, then settled back in his chair. “No, of course not,” he said. “You leave when you want to leave.”
“There’s something we haven’t talked about. I imagine you’ll deny this too, but I should just show you my cards. For some strange reason, I don’t mistrust you.”
“Go on, you’ll find the words you have inside and want to bring into the light,” the pastor said.
Julieta went back to her seat, looked at him coolly, and said, “But I want to ask for something first, a simple request: don’t talk to me like I’m one of those people who kneel in your church and idolize you. I respect your story, and I think it’s interesting, but treat me like the person I am.”
“Do you consider yourself superior to them?”
“I have an education and convictions, that’s all,” Julieta said.
“You are strong and fragile at the same time, that’s what I see. What else do you want to know?”
“Franklin Vanegas, the kid from Tierradentro. Why is he with you? Did you bring him against his will? That’s a serious crime. Kidnapping a minor.”
Pastor Fritz closed his eyes. He looked at the floor, then at the ceiling. Two, three seconds passed in silence, and Julieta sensed that she’d finally managed to break through his armor. She was aware that the man had a military force protecting him from his enemies and a shiver fluttered in her stomach, but she stood firm.
The pastor spoke at last. “Can you say the boy’s name again?”
“Franklin Vanegas.”
“You said he’s from Tierradentro? How old is he?”
“He’s a Nasa boy, fourteen years old max,” Julieta said. “Maybe twelve, I don’t know.”
Pastor Fritz got up and went to the door. “Excuse me a moment, I need to consult with somebody.”
He went out into the hallway. Julieta couldn’t see anything, but she heard low conversation. A moment later, the pastor came back in. He remained standing in the middle of the room.
“Tell you what, Julieta,” Fritz said. “Let’s exchange numbers, and I’ll look into the boy. As soon as I learn anything, I swear in the name of Christ I’ll call you.”
“So he is with you,” Julieta said.
“A lot of people work around me,” the pastor said, “and sometimes there are new people, people brought in temporarily, people I don’t know. I can’t know all of my employees’ names, but I promise I’ll look into it. Why are you so sure he’s with me?”
“He was at your church yesterday,” Julieta said. “I saw him from a distance when I was in the line. I tried to look for him, but it was impossible with all those people.”
The pastor came over and placed his hand on her arm to guide her to the door. “I know you can believe me,” he said in her ear, “even though you’re wearing a sort of protective helmet to shield against my words. Have faith in what I’m saying. What’s your number?”
Julieta recited it, and the pastor dialed and hung up once her phone had rung.
“I’ll be in touch as soon as I hear anything, I promise,” he said. “And if you need to talk to me about anything, text me, and I’ll call you as soon as I can.”
He accompanied her to the door. They said goodbye.
As she was leaving, the pastor called to her. “Thanks for this talk, Julieta. You’re an exceptional person.”
She looked at him again. Feline eyes, but she realized that despite everything they were full of fear. She walked into the other room, where Johana was waiting for her. She was flattered by his parting words: “An exceptional person.”
Two bodyguards led them down to reception. When they reached the street, Johana looked at her eagerly.
“Tell me, boss, how did it go?”
Julieta took a deep breath. “What time is it?”
The clock on her phone said eleven.
“It’s early, but I need a drink,” Julieta said. “Let’s go to the hotel bar, and I’ll fill you in.”