Julieta arrived at her office a little while later in an airport taxi. Johana was on her computer, working, and Franklin was surfing the internet on the tablet. They said hi. Immediately Julieta could tell that something was wrong. Johana looked like she was about to fall apart. Maybe she simply hadn’t gotten much sleep, but her appearance was alarming.
What was going on?
Johana started to speak but couldn’t as she struggled to hold back tears.
“What’s wrong?” Julieta asked, grasping her colleague’s shoulders.
“While you were away, boss, I got a call . . .” Again she contained herself. “My brother Carlos Duván—do you remember him? He was a social activist in Buenaventura, in the El Cristal neighborhood. He’d been there a year, working with displaced people . . .”
“What happened to him?” Julieta asked, feeling distressed.
“He was taken by these guys on motorcycles . . . It’s been four days. His wife called to tell me. They have a three-year-old son . . .”
She started crying again. Franklin, at the computer, seemed to sense it and looked at them, but immediately looked back at the screen.
“And nobody’s called to make any demands? It’s not a kidnapping?” Julieta asked.
“No, nothing. They’re taking people who used to be members of the FARC.”
“Oh, God. I’m so sorry. We’ll have to wait, Johanita. Did you tell Jutsiñamuy?”
“I didn’t want to—I’m afraid they’ll find out, and if he’s still alive, they’ll do something to him. Though there isn’t much hope. Four days . . . They’ll have killed him by now.”
Julieta hugged her. “Hold on. I’m going to call Jutsiñamuy and ask him to help. I just saw him at the airport.”
She dialed her phone and explained what had happened, giving all the facts: Carlos Duván Triviño, thirty-four years old, El Cristal in Buenaventura, four days ago, social activist.
“Social activist?” Jutsiñamuy exclaimed. “Oh, crap, those folks are getting chopped down like sugarcane. Sorry. In that region there’s not much hope, but don’t tell her that. I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Thanks. You can imagine how important this is.”
“Of course, you can count on me. Give Johanita my best. What a business.”
Julieta hung up and hugged Johana. “He’s going to help us. Hopefully he can do something.”
“Thanks, boss. It’s rough . . . He surrenders his weapons and ends up disappeared.”
Julieta said hi to Franklin, heated up some coffee, and offered Johana a cup. Reluctantly she accepted it.
The boy looked over at them from time to time, avoiding meeting their eyes.
“Does he know?” Julieta asked.
“No,” Johana said. “I’m trying not to make things even more complicated for him. Now we’re both waiting.”
They had another cup of coffee. Finally Johana seemed to feel a little better.
“So you’ve got news about the kid?”
“I followed several leads,” Johana said, “and I’m waiting for a reply from a former FARC fighter who went to live in the States, in Houston.”
Julieta started pulling things out of her briefcase and organizing them on her desk. The boy looked at her shyly, smiled, and focused again on his screen. What was he looking at?
“What are you looking at?”
“Photos,” the boy said.
“Photos of anyone in particular?”
“No, ma’am, of a city.”
“Which one, if I may ask?”
“Houston,” the boy said, flushing.
She turned to Johana. “All right, tell me how it all happened.”
“In the end, after a lot of digging,” Johana said, “I managed to track down the famous Berta Noriega, the comrade who now works in Congress, with the party. I went to talk to her, and when I told her about the kid and showed her that old photo from the La Macarena conference, she consulted her file of former combatants. She found a Clara who went to Houston two years ago, full name Clara Martínez Neira, but no other information. We don’t know if she’s from San Juan del Sumapaz. Since there are so many security protocols with this stuff, she asked me to leave the information and a couple of photos of the boy. She said she’d look into it and that I should just wait, since Clara has to respond first and authorize Berta to give us the information. You can imagine, boss, with everything that’s going on, everybody’s really paranoid. So we took some nice photos to see if she’ll reply, and we’re waiting—right, Franklin? If this isn’t her, we’ll try someone else. Until we find her.”
Julieta poured herself a massive cup of coffee and started telling Johana what she’d learned on her trip. The boy remained glued to the screen.
“How has he been doing?” Julieta asked in a low voice.
“Good. He’s a really cool kid, sensible and determined. We’ve been supporting each other through this.”
Franklin lifted his head and looked at them. His black eyes expressed an undefined something that could have been hope or resignation.
“We’re going to find her. We just have to give things time to develop,” Johana said.
Julieta finished organizing her things and glanced at the clock. To her surprise, it was almost nine at night and she hadn’t called her sons yet. She picked up her cell phone and dialed, punching the buttons hard.
“Hi, let me talk to Jerónimo, please. I just got back to Bogotá.”
“What’s up!” her ex said, surprised. “Thanks for the warm greeting. I’m thrilled your trip went so well.”
“Stop screwing around, Joaquín. I’m tired. Let me talk to Jerónimo.”
“He’s not back yet. He went to the movies with some friends.”
“The movies? Goddamn it, he has school tomorrow.”
“As soon as he gets in, I’ll tell him you called to say hi.”
“Let me talk to Samuel.”
“Hang on, he might be asleep already . . . Sammy, your mom is on the phone!”
A long silence.
“He’s asleep, Juli, do you want me to wake him up?”
“No, let him sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
The rest of the week passed uneventfully: Julieta transcribing her notes, Johana waiting for news of her brother, and the boy stuck to the computer screen.
Soon after returning, she wrote to Zamarripa: “I’ve got everything, Daniel. I confirmed the story in French Guiana. There’s enough material for a longform article just like you wanted: evangelical churches, pastors, crimes, illegal mining, jealousy, gunfire. I’m writing. Give me a deadline.”
Zamarripa: “Sounds fantastic. Write at your own pace and send it to me at the end of the month. I’ll read it and we’ll schedule publication.”
While Julieta was away, Johana reached out to Francisco, the priest at the church in San Andrés de Pisimbalá, telling him that the boy had been found safe and sound and was with them in Bogotá. He’d return home soon. She asked Francisco to let Franklin’s grandparents know.
One afternoon, Johana called Jutsiñamuy to ask about Carlos Duván. He told her they’d opened a file for disappearance and kidnapping, and that it was pending.
“I’m terrified he’s been killed,” she said. “So many have died already.”
“You know it’s a dangerous region, honey,” he said, “with the Úsugas and other paramilitary groups all over the place. It’s awful to think that they’ve got your brother, but we can’t throw in the towel till we find out what happened. Maybe it was the guerrillas that came for him instead, right? Until we find a body, we can’t say he’s dead.”
“That’s the problem, sir. We’re not going to learn anything; we’ll just be left hanging. But thanks for your help.”
“You’ve got to have faith, Johanita.”
“I try, sir, but I don’t really believe in anything anymore.”
Downcast, they said goodbye.
Three days later, the women were still waiting. Until . . .
It must have been after ten at night. Suddenly Julieta felt her phone vibrate and saw a message come in from an unknown number: I need to talk to you. Please trust me.
Who was it? The question was a rhetorical one, since from the start she knew it was from Pastor Fritz, or Arturo Silva—what should she be calling him now? She thought about how a person has several different selves, sometimes contradictory ones, over the course of a lifetime. She’d experienced it herself. Looking at her phone’s screen, she felt her heart start pounding.
What’s going on, friend?
Please walk to the gas station at the corner of 67th Street and 7th Avenue.
Right now?
Yes.
Julieta grabbed her purse and told Johana, “I’m going out to meet up with the pastor. He just sent me a message.”
“Pastor Fritz?!” Johana stared at her, her expression a mix of curiosity and concern.
“Yes, but don’t worry.”
“Should I let Jutsiñamuy know?”
Julieta pondered a moment. “No,” she said. “No. Not for now. Not a word.”
“Be careful, boss.”
“I need the end of this story, and he has it. Don’t do anything.”
“But if you don’t come back or get in touch within an hour, I’m letting him know.”
“All right, deal,” Julieta said.
She went out.
The streets of Bogotá, always cold and lonely at that time of night.
The air was damp, and she had the sense that something very serious and irretrievable was about to happen. Julieta walked to 7th Avenue. The grass in the front gardens was wet from a recent shower. She felt dizzy, as if she were going to a secret tryst with an old lover. She was filled with a vague erotic tremble, and an intense fear. Reality so often takes us straight back to adolescence. The age of desires. Life’s engine room. She crossed 5th Avenue—why was everything so deserted?
Suddenly, a black Suburban stopped next to her. The door opened.
“Get in, Julieta, it’s me.”
There he was, Pastor Fritz, or Arturo Silva. The intelligent, charismatic man, the boy abandoned on a park bench, the enamored adventurer who betrayed his business partner, the murderer who had his enemies killed in cold blood. With which of those selves was she about to have a conversation? Which one had said “It’s me”? The pastor was in the back seat. An anonymous driver was at the wheel. She saw his deep, cavernous eyes. He was wearing black, like he did for his lectures. He smelled pleasantly of pine cologne.
“Where to, sir?” the driver asked.
“Head back down the ring road to 58th.”
Julieta didn’t dare ask questions. She just waited for him to talk, but Fritz kept quiet. Finally they parked in front of a house in the Chapinero neighborhood. A park was visible in the distance.
The pastor pointed out the window.
“That’s the house my father went into. That’s where he disappeared.” It was a dark brick building with a tile roof.
“Did you ever find out what happened?” Julieta asked.
“The theory is that he was going to a secret meeting,” he said, “because he was a member of the Communist Party. The police had sniffed them out, so as soon as he walked in, he was arrested and then disappeared. They probably tortured and executed him while he was thinking about how he’d left his young son all alone. Such suffering. His bones must be somewhere. I always imagine that his body was foully abused, chopped into several pieces, tossed to the dogs.”
“And the snakes,” Julieta said.
Fritz looked at her quizzically.
“You sketched those ghosts to describe your own death—by which I mean Arturo Silva Amador’s.”
The pastor’s expression turned to surprise. “I see you’re a good investigator; you know me somewhat better than other people.”
“I have certain resources,” Julieta said.
“I haven’t stopped searching for my father my whole life,” Fritz said. “Even today, forty years later, I’m still that little boy waiting on a park bench. Waiting tirelessly for his father—it’s known as the ‘Telemachus complex.’ A few years back I bought the house across the street, and whenever I come to Bogotá I spend hours at the window, imagining that the door is going to open and I’ll see him come out. You know? He left me a sandwich and an apple. I think about that every day. A simple chicken sandwich and an apple. The search for Christ is an attempt to alleviate sorrows, but especially to find the missing father. It’s because this country is full of orphans that so many people fall to their knees at altars, in sacristies, and in churches. All of them longing for a father. If you aren’t able to understand that, Julieta, you know nothing about the country you’re living in.”
“Everybody has their own grief scale,” she said. “Mine is different. What about your mother? Did she die too?”
“She died when I was born,” he said, “in childbirth.”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“And what are you going to do now?” Julieta asked.
“Egiswanda is waiting for me somewhere safe. It’s not the first time we’ve had to run.”
The pastor instructed the driver to start moving.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
“Head north on the ring road.”
Julieta looked at him, uncertain what to do. She wanted to keep being there, to stay with the mysterious man a little while longer. She remembered Johana—had it been an hour yet?
“Sorry, Fritz, I need to send a message to my colleague. Trust me.”
She pulled out a cell phone and texted Johana. “Don’t do anything, everything’s fine.” Fritz didn’t stop her.
The Suburban moved through the dark night to 94th Street, then took 7th Avenue to Usaquén, in northern Bogotá. It paused for a moment, but the pastor said, “Keep going, don’t stop. Head toward the highway.”
The SUV drove down 127th, leaving the Bella Suiza neighborhood behind. The streets seemed lonelier even than the sleepwalking Suburban splashing through puddles and speeding past streets and avenues. On the northern highway, near the eighteenth-century Common Bridge, the driver stopped again.
“Don’t stop. Turn around and head back into the city center,” the voice said.
Seen from the dark Bogotá sky, the SUV’s movements were tracing strange signs, but nobody was up there to decipher them.
They went back to the Monument of Heroes and drove up Chile Avenue to 7th Avenue; when they reached 26th Street, they turned off onto the road toward the airport.
“Don’t stop, keep going,” the voice said.
The SUV turned back north on 30th Avenue and drove down 94th Street to 7th Avenue. Then it kept going to 5th. Finally the voice spoke again.
“Can I take you home?” Fritz asked. “It’s late.”
“Of course you can, nothing’s going to happen.”
They pulled up in front of her building.
“What should I do to see you again?” Julieta asked.
“Don’t do anything, friend. Just wait. When I’m sure of who I truly am, I’ll call and let you know.”
She felt sorry for him, longed to help him. He noticed.
“Don’t worry about me,” Fritz said. “I belong to another world where these things no longer cause pain. You stay in your world. One day I’ll come look for you. I’m the running-away type, maybe so I can be alone, so I can scream. At the heavens, at the universe, hoping to one day receive an answer. I have to go now.”
Julieta got out of the Suburban. Before walking to her front steps, she moved close to his window and said, “I was with Fabio in French Guiana. He told me his story.”
Pastor Fritz didn’t look surprised. Maybe he’d sensed it, or thought the meeting was inevitable.
“What happened to Clarice’s son?” Julieta asked.
“He was stillborn,” the pastor said. “We buried him on the banks of the Putumayo River.” Then he added, “How’s Fabio?”
“Good,” Julieta said. “He’s a wealthy businessman, but he’s very lonely.”
“He’s tried to kill me three times now,” Fritz said, “but I still miss him. He’s the only real friend I ever had.”
“Maybe the two of you are the same person,” Julieta said. “That’s why Clarice . . .” She decided not to finish the sentence, saying instead, “Go on. You’ve got a long trip ahead of you, and the sun’s about to come up.”
The pastor looked up at the sky, which was dense and dark.
“I don’t think the sun will be coming up yet. Today the night will be long.”
They hugged.
Then the Suburban disappeared into the misty, dismal nothingness that swaths the mountains.