CHAPTER TWO

facatativá

1992

It was at Colegio San José in Facatativá that Lucas met Ignacio Gutiérrez. Ignacio had arrived at the school just days before the beginning of classes. They spoke for the first time in the courtyard, during the free hour after classes had ended. Ignacio was standing by himself leaning against a wall, rhythmically moving a foot back and forth on the grassy ground. He stood out from the other seminarians because of his copper-colored skin. From the moment Lucas saw Ignacio’s shining black eyes, he was mesmerized. Lucas approached him.

“I’m Ignacio. I’m a Barí,” the young man blurted out. Then almost boastfully, he added, “I have no white blood in me.” Ignacio spoke with the peasant accent from a part of Colombia Lucas knew little about.

Lucas had heard of the Barí people before, but that was all—so he didn’t know how to reply. Ignacio had thick, gleaming obsidian hair and long, abundant eyelashes the same color. He looks like a panther, Lucas thought, wanting to touch the young man’s hair. He shook his head to break off Ignacio’s transfixing spell. “My name is Lucas,” he finally managed to say.

“I don’t like it here,” Ignacio muttered. “Do you?”

Lucas didn’t answer his question for fear of not saying the right thing and alienating this fascinating new student. He wanted to be his friend more than he had wanted anything in a long time.

Ignacio continued, “I’m here because my first two brothers were stillborn, so my parents pledged to the Virgin of Chiquinquirá that the firstborn son who survived childbirth would be offered to the church. Even before I was born, my parents referred to me as ‘the priest.’”

The angry tone in which Ignacio said these words made it sound as if he had been cursed. Lucas expected him to spit at the ground. The other students did not speak with such vehemence or honesty. Every word that came out of Ignacio’s mouth was like a blow aimed right at Lucas.

A part of Lucas was repelled, but another part was drawn to Ignacio’s magnetism. He represented temptation—everything that Lucas had been afraid of all his life. He sensed he had met someone who was going to be an important figure during his time in Colegio San José. Lucas felt pity for Ignacio because it was obvious he was unhappy. He didn’t seem interested in casual chat. The other students, with their mundane concerns, suddenly became uninteresting to Lucas.

“After I was born,” Ignacio told Lucas the second time they talked, “came five sisters. I was the only son. I wasn’t one of those boys who like going to church and hanging out around priests. But when my parents told me that I should prepare myself to come here, I didn’t argue with them.” He seemed greatly relieved to say these things to Lucas, as if for the first time he had someone he could talk to openly about his feelings for the priesthood. Lucas felt awkward hearing what he thought sounded like a secret. He wondered if this was what priests experienced when they heard confession.

Ignacio rebuffed other boys when they approached him. Lucas quickly realized that he would be Ignacio’s only friend during their years at Colegio San José. The prospect thrilled and disturbed him—he felt it was both an honor and a burden.

After they had chatted a few times, Lucas was gripped by an overpowering need to be with Ignacio. At mealtimes Lucas sat across from him. During recess, they walked by themselves in the yard. They never participated in team sports. Happiness for Lucas was being by Ignacio’s side, even when his friend was quiet, brooding. Lucas began to feel that it was the two of them against the world.

Their teachers discouraged this kind of intimacy; the other boys were wary of the stigma attached to two boys who were always seen together. It was as if Lucas wanted to fuse into one person with Ignacio and disappear into him. With Ignacio constantly in his thoughts, Lucas didn’t feel lonely anymore. For the first time in his life, he felt that he could face any situation—no matter how challenging—as long as Ignacio was by his side.

Lucas knew that their intimate friendship could get in the way of his being ordained, but the physical need to be near this angry boy was stronger than his fears. When he was talking with Ignacio he felt so happy that he told himself he didn’t care about the consequences. Had he perhaps found what he had heard people call a soul mate?

Ignacio always studied his lessons, did his homework, and got the highest marks in the quizzes and exams, yet the teachers didn’t hide their dislike of him because of his intellectual arrogance. In religion class, he constantly questioned the meaning of the Scriptures. One day they were talking about Judas’s betrayal of Jesus. Brother Mariano presented Judas as a despicable creature and the other boys nodded in agreement.

Ignacio raised his hand. “Brother Mariano, with all due respect,” he began, as the classroom became eerily quiet in anticipation of a heated argument, “why is Judas Iscariot considered such a vile creature, when it was written that one of the disciples would betray Jesus?”

“That’s right,” Father Mariano replied curtly. “But when Judas was tempted by Satan, he should have exercised his free will and resisted temptation—that’s what separates man from beasts.”

Instead of backing down, Ignacio became more intense: “But if it was written that one of the disciples was going to betray Jesus, how could any of them have exercised his free will? One apostle had to be sacrificed to agree with the Scriptures. Is that fair? Isn’t God supposed to be all wisdom?”

Murmurs and titters broke out in the classroom. Lucas became agitated when he sensed that Ignacio was getting too reckless. Brother Mariano slammed his open palm on the desk and raised his voice, his face red: “More illustrious and enlightened minds than yours, Gutiérrez, have argued this point for many centuries. If they haven’t come up with a more satisfactory answer, I doubt that you will.”

Ignacio was unwilling to let the subject go. Lucas knew that when Ignacio was defending his ideas, he was like a dog ready to kill for a fleshy bone. “But Brother Mariano, how can I believe in something that makes no sense to me?”

Brother Mariano got up from his desk and walked toward Ignacio, glaring at him. His fists were clenched and the veins in his neck pulsed. He looked like he might punch the student. “That’s where faith comes in, Gutiérrez. Faith! And nobody can be a priest without having faith.” He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and went back to stand behind his desk. “I warn you, Gutiérrez, if you persist in disrupting this class, I will send you to see Father Superior. He doesn’t look kindly on insolent boys.” In an ominous tone, he added, “It especially behooves certain boys here to behave well.” Lucas knew that meant that scholarship students—like Ignacio and himself—were expected to be meek.

The other students began to squirm, and just as Ignacio was about to respond, the bell rang and class was dismissed. That day Ignacio made many enemies, but he seemed not to care about it.

* * *

As Ignacio’s only friend, Lucas knew that he was in danger of being singled out as a troublemaker, or a homo. But he was more worried about his feelings for Ignacio. He tried to convince himself that what he felt for him was brotherly love, and that it was Jesus who had brought them together. He prayed to Jesus to intervene and to remove from his mind all overwhelming carnal desires.

Lucas was sure his religious fervor was genuine and his faith in God was unshakable. Unlike Ignacio, he didn’t feel the need to question God’s acts. He also understood that his deepest relationship should not be with Ignacio but with Jesus. He desperately wanted to embrace what it meant to be a good Catholic worthy of the priesthood. Besides, the students at Colegio San José had been warned about two boys in the class before theirs who had been expelled because of their unnaturally close friendship. Everyone knew what that meant.

Though he had been taught that masturbation would lead to blindness and then madness, Lucas could not stop himself. Despite the painful experience he’d had in Bogotá with Yadir, he still longed to be touched by a man. He could not stop himself from having fantasies about pleasuring Ignacio. As he played with himself, he imagined lying naked with Ignacio, kissing and stroking him, and then waking up from a nap in each other’s arms. Or he fantasized about sneaking over to Ignacio’s bed in the middle of the night and taking his penis in his mouth, while Ignacio pretended to sleep.

Going to confession became agony for Lucas: he knew that he could not mention any of these thoughts to his Father confessor. He had heard other boys say that it was better to deny having masturbated, even if it meant they were committing a mortal sin.

Lucas prayed that he would be strong enough to overcome his feelings for Ignacio, yet how could he when Ignacio sought his company to the exclusion of the other boys? Did that mean he reciprocated Lucas’s feelings? Or did he seek Lucas’s company because he could not trust the other students? Lucas was proud he had been chosen as the best friend of the most intelligent boy in the school, yet he lived in terror that he’d say something that betrayed his feelings for Ignacio and expose himself as homosexual. Lucas made sure he didn’t touch him in any way, just as he had avoided touching his father’s penis, even by accident. Still, he could not stop wondering how Ignacio would react if he made a sudden move and embraced him with lust, or kissed him on his lips. Would he hit him? Reject him? Denounce him to the teachers? Would he lose his friendship forever?

Lucas’s worst fear was that if his teachers had proof that he liked boys, he would be expelled. He could not bear the thought of disappointing his mother, who still grieved intensely that she had had to leave Adela and Lercy behind so she and Lucas could escape Gumersindo’s tyranny. Lucas believed that loving Ignacio was a betrayal of the love he owed Jesus Christ. He felt the shame of betraying God. Sex outside of marriage was a sin, they were told, over and over again. And sex between men was an abomination. Lucas was tortured by the real possibility that his shameful desires would lead to his ruin.

He could not concentrate during classes and became so distracted that he began to turn in his homework late. As a partial scholarship student, he was expected to excel academically. Scholarship students were constantly reminded that there were many other boys who were ready to take their places at Colegio San José if their academic performance was mediocre.

Lucas had also become increasingly aware of the special bond some priests had with the boys they fancied. There was intense competition among the students to become a “favorite.” No stigma was attached to being a priest’s favorite boy. Lucas was relieved that no priest had shown an interest in him, but because he and Ignacio spent so much time together, he was the focus of malicious gossip. Some teachers gave them disapproving looks when they saw them together; and the sneers of students followed them as they walked through the long chilly corridors of Colegio San José. The effeminate boys were often bullied, but no one dared to torment him or Ignacio because Ignacio, though smallish and lean, had the powerful shoulders of a bull calf; when he gave the students glances of displeasure, he looked menacing and ready to disembowel them.

Still, Lucas grew concerned when the sneers became accusatory looks. His concern turned into alarm when he found notes under his pillow, as well as inside his desk, that said Faggot! and Cocksucker! But to complain to one of the teachers would have been in itself a kind of admission. Even worse, he couldn’t mention the notes to Ignacio because the two had never discussed the subject of homosexuality. Ignacio seemed almost asexual to Lucas. Even when Lucas caught a gaze of tenderness toward him, Lucas did not dare to assume that it was anything but brotherly love.

He began to suffer from insomnia and lost his appetite. Dark shadows grew under his eyes. One day during confession his Father confessor asked him, “Do you touch yourself, Lucas?”

“No, no, Father. I don’t,” he replied; he didn’t like lying, but he had no choice if he wanted to go to the seminary.

The next question was, “Does Ignacio Gutiérrez touch you?”

“Of course not, Father,” Lucas said, breathing a sigh of relief. At least he did not have to lie about that.

“Only God knows what the truth is about you two. And I’ll let Him be the judge of that,” the Father confessor said in a stern tone. “However, I must warn you: if you continue your unseemly intimacy with that boy, you risk not being asked to return to school next year. You might as well forget about becoming a priest.”

From that day on, Lucas went to great lengths to avoid being alone with Ignacio. He told himself that as long as he didn’t do anything forbidden with Ignacio, they were not in imminent danger. At mealtimes he moved to another table. At first, Ignacio would give him puzzled looks, but Lucas could not bring himself to talk about what had transpired during confession. After Lucas acted coldly toward him a few times, Ignacio stopped trying to make eye contact with him. Though he now felt a painful loneliness, Lucas did not try to make new friends. Eventually, he admitted to himself that the pain this imposed separation caused him meant that he loved Ignacio, and that that kind of love was forbidden to him.

A week before summer vacation began, Lucas ran into Ignacio in the hallway on the way to class. There were no other boys around. Ignacio put the palms of his hands on Lucas’s shoulders and pinned him hard against the wall. “If you don’t want to be my friend anymore, at least tell me why. What did I do to you?” His face was distorted by a rage that frightened Lucas. “Don’t be a coward,” Ignacio said loudly. “Tell me why you’re doing this. You owe me an explanation.”

Lucas hoped Ignacio would hit him: it would give him an excuse to end their friendship. His tears began to flow. Ignacio took his hands off Lucas. “Spare me your crocodile tears,” he sneered, and walked away. Lucas wanted to run after Ignacio, grab him by an arm to try to explain why it was best for them not to be close anymore—at least not for the time being. But he stood frozen, silent.

The day before Lucas left for the summer, Father Superior called him to his office. Lucas’s agitation increased as the hour of the appointment neared. His biggest fear was that he was going to be told he would not be invited back to Colegio San José. Once he was in the office and was asked to take a seat, Father Superior wasted no time with preambles: “Your closeness with Ignacio Gutiérrez has come to my attention. I must warn you that Gutiérrez is not a good influence on you.” Lucas’s mind began to spin so fast he couldn’t understand a word Father Superior was saying. When the dizziness subsided, he heard, “That boy’s tormented by some demon. I doubt he’ll become a priest. The only reason we haven’t sent him back to his parents is because he has the best grades in his class.” Father Superior paused to stare at Lucas, who lowered his eyes and dared not look up for fear of what they might reveal about his true feelings for Ignacio.

“I don’t think I need to remind you,” Father Superior continued, “that there are many boys in Colombia who would give anything for a chance to study here on a scholarship. During the school vacation, I forbid you to write to Gutiérrez. Even if he gets in touch with you, you must ignore his letters—that is, if you want to return to our school after vacation. Is that clear?”

Lucas nodded.

“Look at me, look me in the eye, Lucas, and promise me you won’t have any contact with Gutiérrez during vacation.”

Lucas’s heart was beating so fast he felt his throat closing. “I promise I won’t, Father,” he managed to say.

“Very well then,” Father Superior replied, and dismissed him.

* * *

Sitting next to his mother on the bus ride home to Bogotá, Lucas tried to conceal his sadness. The day before he had overheard one of his classmates mentioning that Ignacio was going to spend the vacation at the school, working in exchange for room and board. Lucas assumed this was because Ignacio’s parents couldn’t afford to pay for his bus ticket back home. Lucas tried to answer Clemencia’s questions about his education with enthusiasm. He didn’t want her to think that he was having doubts about the path he had chosen—that would have been crushing for her. Lucas wished he could tell his mother cheerful anecdotes about school life, but all he wanted to say was, “Mami, I love Ignacio.” Lucas had never before felt so lonely. All his life he had been able to confide in Clemencia. No matter what he told her, his mother always took his side. It was painful to have a secret he couldn’t share with her, not because he was ashamed of the love he felt for Ignacio, but because he didn’t want to hurt her. How could he explain to her the reason for his despondency?

Sensing his reluctance to chat about his studies, Clemencia said, “I have a surprise for you, Lucas. I wanted to save it until this moment. My new job with the flower export business pays better than working for the Americans.” Her eyes shone with pride. “You’re not going back to Cousin Ema’s house. She has some health problems and has decided to return to the Llanos to live close to her family. I’ve rented a little house in Suba. It’s a town in the mountains just half an hour away from the city, and there’s good public transportation. From now on, you’ll have your own room always waiting for you in our house.”

Ignacio smiled, leaned over, and kissed her cheek. “Thank you, Mami.”

Clemencia went on, “Who knew that the experience I acquired on the farm taking care of the flowers we sold would come in handy one day!” But her words seemed to trigger a sad memory and she became quiet. Ignacio was sure Clemencia was thinking about his sisters and how she had had no contact with them after she’d left Güicán. His mother stared out the window until she eventually nodded off.

As the bus passed by farms, small towns, and food stands on the side of the road, Lucas kept hearing a voice in his head that repeated, Ignacio. Ignacio. Ignacio. The faster the bus traveled, the louder Ignacio’s name rang in his ears. The closer they got to Bogotá, the more violently he desired to escape his body to stop the guilt that racked him. He wished he could talk to Ignacio one more time to ask him for forgiveness for withdrawing his friendship. He had not only betrayed Ignacio but also himself. He became so emotional that he, too, closed his eyes, and pretended to sleep. The darkness was soothing; it muffled his anguish. When it’s so dark, he thought, nothing in the world can remind me of him.

* * *

“You’re a little man now,” Clemencia told Lucas when he turned fourteen that summer. “You’re old enough to go downtown on your own to pay the utilities. It would be a big help to me.”

He was happy to be of help to his mother and also excited to go do something in the city for the first time by himself.

The second time he was in downtown Bogotá doing errands, Lucas noticed groups of boys his age walking on Carrera Séptima in flamboyant clothes, laughing and giggling loudly, throwing shameless looks at some of the men they passed. These boys frightened Lucas, but a part of him was also desperate to talk to them. However, he knew that if he associated with them he’d risk being labeled as one of them.

The next time Lucas was in the city, one of the street boys asked him as he went by, “Want to hang out with us?”

“No thanks,” he replied hastily, avoiding eye contact. “I have to get back home.”

“Don’t look so scared, sister,” the boy scoffed. “It’s not like I invited you to sniff glue with us.”

The brazen behavior of these boys fascinated and repelled Lucas. Once, he followed them at a distance all the way to Parque Nacional, where they sat on the lawn smoking a pipe in a spot sheltered by weeping willows. He had seen a TV program about hooligans who smoked crack and terrorized people. Lucas decided he wouldn’t have anything to do with them and walked as fast as he could to the bus stop.

In Suba there was a Casa de la Cultura, where neighborhood young people gathered for cultural activities. Their drama club was in the middle of rehearsing a play they were going to put on at Christmastime. Lucas attended performances of boys and girls who recited their own poems or the works of José Asunción Silva, Porfirio Barba Jacob, Federico García Lorca, and other Colombian poets.

Clemencia encouraged Lucas to take advantage of the classes offered at the cultural center for a small fee. She had heard that the young people who went there did not belong to gangs or do drugs. Lucas started spending his afternoons in the Casa de la Cultura, watching the young people dancing and rehearsing plays. He remembered fondly the time he had taken dance lessons before he went off to Colegio San José, so he ended up enrolling in a dance class. In Suba, Lucas learned the steps of pasillos and bambucos, peasant dances he had seen people in Güicán perform in the plaza during festivals. But his favorite was the mapalé, an Afro-Colombian dance that had originated on Colombia’s Atlantic coast. Lucas loved what happened to him when he danced the mapalé: when he leaped, he would try in his mind to stretch that moment into infinity, and for that nanosecond he’d feel he could leave the world and travel up and up, higher and higher, faster and faster, until planet earth became a small blue ball. Then, with his legs, torso, head, arms, hands, fingers, and toes, he would try to express what he felt at that moment. He dreamed of becoming a good dancer so that his mother could see him perform. When they finished rehearsing a dance, and he returned, panting, to the world, for an instant Lucas would believe he had created something beautiful and unique. It was as if another person had performed, not himself. Sometimes he wondered if what he experienced was something like the ecstasy of the saints when they were in God’s presence and inundated with His light.

A few days later, after he’d started taking dance classes, as Lucas was leaving the center to go back home to make dinner—he had learned simple recipes from watching Clemencia in the kitchen—he heard a voice call, “Hey, Lucas!”

He turned around and saw one of the other dancers from class; he was taller than the other boys, willowy, and black. Lucas had seen him dancing and practicing, and was impressed with his physical grace and beauty.

“My name’s Julio. I see you all the time watching us practice.”

They shook hands.

“My mother told me about you,” Julio said. “She said your mother told her you want to become a priest. But you’re a talented dancer. Maybe you’ll be like that singing nun—a dancing priest!” He laughed at his own joke.

Lucas made a face at Julio and began to move away from him.

“I’m sorry I said that. That was stupid. We should be friends. Our mothers work at the same place, and we’re neighbors.”

Lucas thought Julio was a bit fresh, but he wasn’t upset with him. Though his manner was gentle, Julio wasn’t effeminate, so there was no danger in hanging out with him. Besides, Lucas thought, I’m not physically attracted to him.

From that afternoon on, Lucas walked home with Julio at the end of the day. Often, he invited Julio in for a glass of juice. They discovered they enjoyed playing checkers and Parcheesi. Lucas often felt tension in the air, but he wasn’t interested in taking the first step.

After they had played Parcheesi on a few occasions, Julio said, “I’m bored playing these games. Let me show you something. Do you have any old newspapers?”

Lucas handed him some papers from the neatly stacked piles in the kitchen.

Julio said, “Follow me.” In the living room, he spread the newspapers on the floor. He sat on one of the chairs, unbuckled his pants, undid his zipper, and took out his erect cock.

Lucas suddenly felt as aroused as the first time he had masturbated while thinking about Ignacio.

“Get comfortable,” Julio told him. “I play this game with my cousins.”

Lucas unbuckled his belt and then stopped. Julio motioned with his hand for him to take out his penis. It was hard—Lucas’s tension was almost overpowering.

Julio said, “Think of any girl you like and then we’ll shoot and see whose cum lands farthest.”

This became a daily ritual. After they masturbated, they’d throw the newspapers in the trash. Though they didn’t touch, Lucas felt awful that he was engaging in such an activity with a man in his mother’s house, while she was at work.

As if to make up for what he thought was his betrayal, Lucas worked hard at preparing dinner for Clemencia. She had one cookbook, and Lucas found that if he followed a recipe, the food turned out fine. After they ate, he always insisted on washing the dishes. Doing things for her made him feel less guilty.

“You’re the best son any mother could wish for,” she would often say.

Her compliments were like a nail hammered into his heart.

At night, Clemencia watched the Colombian soap operas for hours. Lucas found them ridiculous, but he enjoyed them nonetheless, following the story line along with her and paying attention when she explained a character’s background. Keeping her company at night made him feel better because she seemed so happy spending time with him. She liked it when he stood behind her rocking chair and gently scratched her head.

Lucas could tell that she was often sad; she would sometimes look at pictures of Lercy and Adela and make dresses for one of their dolls, which she had taken with her when she left the farm. He knew Clemencia tried to get news about them from her acquaintances in Güicán. He understood that she never contacted his sisters directly because she feared Gumersindo could show up one day at their home in Suba and take him away, just to punish her.

Lucas would have done anything to see his mother smile more often. But he got the impression she had given up on ever finding any happiness on earth. It was a heavy burden for him to be her only source of joy.

Before going to bed, Clemencia always took a hot shower. Afterward, she chatted on the phone with her cousin Ema, or with a friend from work, before she turned off the light on her night table.

Lucas often wondered if this was the way most people lived.

* * *

There was one movie house in Suba: El Rex. At school in Facatativá, the TV set was kept locked in a closet and brought out only on Saturday nights so the students and teachers could watch movies on the VCR and on Sunday afternoons for soccer games. Lucas looked forward to the weekly movies, which were a break from the monotony of their studies. Most of the movies they saw were about the Christians martyred in Roman times, though now and then an American comedy would be slipped in. When the movies were more contemporary, the stories usually included nuns and priests. Lucas became obsessed with A Nun’s Story: he fantasized that, after he was ordained, he would be sent to the jungle (like Audrey Hepburn in the movie) and there he would meet a doctor as handsome as Peter Finch, and they would fall in love with each other and live together forever in the jungle, taking care of the lepers.

In Suba, El Rex showed new movies. As Lucas passed by the movie house on his way to the Casa de la Cultura, he’d often stop to gaze at the posters advertising the current releases and forthcoming attractions. He also noticed that mostly men bought tickets for the three o’clock show and that they entered the theater in a hurry, as if they didn’t want to be seen going in. A movie called Philadelphia was announced and was advertised as a story about AIDS. Lucas had read a few sketchy articles in the press about AIDS, a terrifying disease in the United States that targeted homosexuals.

Before Clemencia went to sleep one night, Lucas asked her if he could go to the movies.

She gave him the money for the ticket and added, “But you come straight home after the movie is over. Is that understood?”

Lucas cried through most of Philadelphia. He took the story as a warning of what could happen to him if he had sex with men—he would become infected and die a horrible death like the character played by Tom Hanks, whose comedies Lucas loved.

In the movie theater men performed oral sex on each other while pretending to watch the movie; in the smelly and filthy restroom he saw men engaging in sex. A couple of them exposed themselves and tried to touch Lucas, but he bolted out of the bathroom. After that experience, he waited until he got home to use the bathroom.

During that school vacation in Suba, more horrific stories began appearing on television and in the newspapers about men dying of AIDS. Clemencia had told him about the son of one of her coworkers who had recently died of the disease. “The worst thing that can happen to a mother is to lose one of her children,” she said. “But to die of that disease is the absolute worst, Lucas. It’s horrible how the other people at work shun her, as if she had the disease. It breaks my heart to see that.”

Lucas prayed fervently to God to remove his overpowering desires for men. He went to Mass first thing in the morning and to confession every week. But he was careful about what he confessed to the priest.

All this time, Lucas never stopped thinking about Ignacio. He wondered how he was doing living with the brothers. He longed to hear Ignacio’s voice and couldn’t forgive himself for pulling back when he knew that Ignacio had no other friends in school. When Lucas least expected it—at Mass, in dance classes, or even when he masturbated with Julio—Ignacio’s face would pop into his mind; he frequently dreamed about him as well. The dreams where Ignacio appeared were always sexual, and Lucas would wake up in the morning with an erection. Or worse, he’d wake to find he’d ejaculated during the night.

In his confusion, Lucas wondered whether the best thing for him might be to kill himself. At least this would spare Clemencia the shame of a homosexual son who died from AIDS. Lucas was sure that if he continued seeing Julio and going to the movies, it was inevitable he would end up having sex with men and die of the disease.

In the remaining weeks of his vacation, he started taking kung fu lessons, hoping they would make him act more masculine. He was aware that in the coming year at Colegio San José it would be hard to practice the vow of chastity. Yet he was desperate to go back to school, because life outside had no rules he was compelled to obey.

As the day of his departure grew closer, Lucas accepted that going back to Colegio San José meant having to resolve his feelings for Ignacio. But he didn’t care, because more than anything else he longed to see his friend, even from afar. I just want to hear his voice, he’d say to himself. And to smell him.

The day he arrived back in Facatativá, Lucas didn’t see Ignacio around. Had he been sent home to his parents? he wondered. Ignacio would not have chosen to leave the school of his own accord.

Lucas waited to see if Ignacio would appear, and when he did not, Lucas figured it might be safe to ask another student where Ignacio had disappeared to. The student didn’t know what had happened; but the next day, when they sat next to each other for the evening meal, he said under his breath, “Gutiérrez was sent to a seminary in the Putumayo jungle. Father Superior didn’t want him here anymore. He’ll be there for the rest of his novitiate.” Then, with a mischievous grin, he added, “Are you prepared to remain a virgin until you see him again, princess?”

* * *

Only after the other students had left Colegio San José for summer vacation had Ignacio begun to acknowledge how hurt he was by the cold and abrupt way in which Lucas had ended their friendship. He suspected that Lucas had been pressured to sever their bond, but it was hard to forgive him nonetheless. He missed Lucas with an ache that was almost physical, yet he couldn’t hate him. He was the only close friend Ignacio had ever had, and his presence in the seminary had made life bearable for him.

He experienced a harsh new loneliness—finding someone to love and then losing him. He could no longer deny his romantic feelings for Lucas. From the moment they’d met, Ignacio had been aware of the way Lucas looked at him, his brown eyes shining with longing. This had frightened him so much that he’d constantly reminded himself to conceal what he felt for Lucas.

Ignacio knew that his sharp tongue rubbed his teachers the wrong way and that if they started to gossip about his sexuality, he would end up getting expelled from school, putting an end to his aspirations to go as far away as possible from the remote mountains where he’d been born.

Ignacio’s chores included cleaning the bathrooms, sweeping and mopping the floors, chopping vegetables for the meals, washing dishes, helping with the laundry and ironing, attending five a.m. Mass every day, and dusting the books in the library. He loved handling the books, reading random pages, looking for a subject to capture his interest. Sometimes he would get so engrossed reading he’d forget that he was supposed to be working. His ignorance overwhelmed him. There had been no books in his parents’ home, but in school he discovered that reading expanded his mind, and the more he read, the more clearly he could think and express himself, not only in writing but also in his speech—and this gave him an advantage over the other boys his age. Each book he touched held, he thought, a key to satiate his hunger for knowledge and answers to all the questions he had about life.

Ignacio loved the silence of the library. One afternoon he was reading at the long table when Father Daniel came in. Of all his teachers, this man was the friendliest, and Ignacio was drawn to his affable manner—a quality he knew he himself lacked. Ignacio was also held rapt by the teacher’s quick intelligence; in his world history classes, Father Daniel talked about many books and subjects that Ignacio knew nothing about. While the other teachers did not deviate from the textbooks they taught, Father Daniel would draw connections among different historical periods and often went off on a tangent about the literature, painting, and architecture of that time. When he talked about major historical figures, he didn’t just tell you the names of the battles they had won, or how long they were in power—he would discuss their psychology, their existential struggles. Ignacio longed to one day know as much as his teacher.

Father Daniel greeted him and asked, “Do you come to the library often?”

“Yes, Father,” Ignacio replied, nodding. “It’s part of my duties,” he added in a defensive tone.

“What kinds of books do you like to read?”

Ignacio’s face grew warm; he was mortified that he was blushing. “I love reading books about history. My favorite historical figure is Joan of Arc.” When Father Daniel remained quiet, Ignacio hastened to say, “I like that she sacrificed herself for the French people.”

Father Daniel smiled. “Yes, she was a great patriot.”

Ignacio thought it was strange that Father Daniel had praised Joan of Arc for her patriotism, not for her saintliness. Could it mean that to Father Daniel politics and the war against the English invaders were more important than Joan’s connection to God?

Ignacio was in the habit of going to the library around four in the afternoon. After that first encounter with Father Daniel, the two kept running into each other: they would exchange courteous greetings and retreat to opposite ends of the room. Father Daniel wore glasses and would sit on a cushioned chair near a window to read, occasionally looking up from the book at the cuckoo clock on the wall. Now and then he would pause to make a remark about the afternoon drizzle that was a daily occurrence in Facatativá during that time of the year. Ignacio found himself stealing glances. Father Daniel was a beanpole, the youngest of the teachers in Colegio San José. His manners were refined; his long hands looked as if they were made of the smoothest porcelain; his thick brown hair was parted in the middle and cut short at the back of his neck. As he read, he’d brush his hair back with the three middle fingers of his right hand.

Weeks went by in this manner and Ignacio began to think they might never become better acquainted, until one day Father Daniel stopped at Ignacio’s place at the table as he was leaving. After they had exchanged pleasantries, he asked, “Do you like poetry?”

Ignacio wanted to say something that would please his teacher, but instead the truth came out of his lips: “I haven’t read many poems other than the ones we’ve studied in literature classes, Father. I can’t say I much like the poems we’ve read.”

“Maybe you need to read contemporary poetry.”

Ignacio was puzzled. He thought all poetry was old.

The following day, Father Daniel handed him a copy of Marilyn Monroe, and Other Poems. “The author, Ernesto Cardenal, is a priest and a poet,” Father Daniel said.

Ignacio had seen photos of the famous actress.

“You might like these poems; you won’t be bored, I promise. Anyway, it won’t hurt you to read Father Cardenal’s poetry.”

Ignacio was surprised to discover that there were priests who wrote about movie stars—especially one he had seen naked in a photograph on an old calendar in a grocery store in El Carmen, the town near to where his parents lived. Before he arrived at Colegio San José, he hadn’t seen very many movies. In El Carmen movies were shown only on Saturday nights. The town was about two kilometers from home and he and his sisters had to make the long walk in the dark, which was dangerous. Movies cost money, so they were only allowed to go once a year, after the school year was over, and only if they got good grades.

On the back of the volume of poems Ignacio read that Father Cardenal lived in Nicaragua, in Solentiname, an island in Lake Nicaragua where there was a community of monks. He read all the poems in a couple of days, some of them several times. He especially liked the long poem about Marilyn Monroe, which made him sad for her. When Ignacio returned the book, he said that he had liked the poems, and then asked Father Daniel if he’d ever been to Solentiname.

“No, I haven’t. Did you know the priests who live there are involved in liberation theology?”

Ignacio shuffled his feet. He wasn’t sure what that term meant and was too ashamed to admit his ignorance.

“They are priests who wanted to help create a new Catholic church that serves the poor,” Father Daniel explained. “That’s not what we teach at Colegio San José. Our brothers here are old-school.”

Ignacio began to daydream about Solentiname. He tried to imagine what the place looked like and how the monks dressed. The next time they chatted, Ignacio asked Father Daniel if he wanted to go live in Solentiname.

“I think I’ve been called to do my work here in this school, teaching you boys. I’m happiest when I’m in the classroom.” He paused. “Why do you ask? Would you like to visit Solentiname someday?”

“It sounds like a nice place,” Ignacio said. “I’ve never been on an island.”

He sensed there was something Father Daniel was withholding from him, but he didn’t dare pry. It was not, after all, as if they were friends. But Ignacio couldn’t help wonder if Father Daniel was involved in some way with liberation theology. Ignacio had heard about revolutionary priests who had joined the communist guerrilla group ELN to fight against the government. Despite his political naïveté, he understood that the priests in Facatativá were not interested in revolution, much less Communist revolutionaries, which was how he had heard the members of the ELN described by his teachers, who seemed to be only focused on strictly adhering to Catholic doctrine. Ignacio wanted to know more about the Solentiname priests, but he told himself he should be patient. Perhaps then Father Daniel might eventually consider him a friend and answer his questions.

Growing up on a farm, Ignacio had heard his father routinely curse the rich landowners, who were in cahoots with the government to keep the poor hungry and ignorant. In the world outside the farm, Ignacio had seen Indians like himself (descendants of the Motilones, who had scalped Spaniards in an earlier time) treated as incapable of becoming “civilized.” Indians always had to defer to the white people in town, on the roads, on the sidewalks, even in church—where whites sat up front and Indians in the back. A few times in town, as he walked down the street, children had come to the windows of their homes and yelled, “Indian, take your syphilis back to the jungle!”

Ignacio didn’t dare ask his father why strangers accused him of having syphilis. The textbooks he studied at school didn’t address the topic, and due to his father’s limited understanding, Ignacio knew he could not discuss these subjects with him. Before long, he too began to hate the government, the rich landowners, and white people.

Ignacio had never discussed his vocation honestly with a priest, and wished he could air his doubts about the path his parents had chosen for him. He realized that for someone of humble origins like himself, the priesthood was one of the few means of getting an education. He was also painfully aware that religion did not assuage his anxiety about his ignorance. Sometimes he wished that he had the peasant mind-set that if you suffered in this life, if you sacrificed and accepted God’s will for you, you would get your reward in heaven—and nothing else mattered. But his bouts of religiosity, his periods of blind faith, would last only a day or two—and then he’d again be filled with doubts and dissatisfaction.

Other than Lucas—who had listened to him sympathetically but was not intellectually curious by nature—Ignacio didn’t know anyone who cared about his future. Also, he was aware that no matter how much he and Lucas liked each other, nothing could change the fact that he was an Indian and Lucas was a white-looking mestizo.

As the weeks passed, and he continued to see Father Daniel in the library, Ignacio considered being truthful with his teacher. He was desperate to be shown a way out of his ignorance and confusion. It troubled him that at the mere sight of Father Daniel, he became increasingly agitated. Should he have a talk with his teacher about his predicament or keep his doubts to himself as he always had, he wondered. The next time they ran into each other in the library, he told himself, he would try to engage Father Daniel in this conversation.

That very afternoon Father Daniel came into the library as Ignacio was reshelving books. He waved and smiled, as he always did, then sat by the window. As he was putting on his reading glasses, Ignacio hurried to his side and said, “Father, I need your advice.” His hands were trembling, so he locked his fingers behind his back.

“Yes, of course. How can I help you, Ignacio?”

He began to sputter words that were so thick in his throat they were choking him. “I have doubts about . . . my vocation, Father. I like studying and learning new things, but I’m on this religious path to please my parents.” He stopped there—afraid to reveal too much.

Father Daniel stared at him, silent, yet from his expression Ignacio could tell he didn’t judge him harshly. It was almost as if his teacher saw something Ignacio couldn’t see about himself. A force stronger than his instinct for self-protection made him add, “Father, I’m not sure I believe in God, either. What I like about becoming a priest is the idea of helping people.”

His teacher became thoughtful. “I wonder, Ignacio,” he began, “if it’s a requisite to believe in God to help people get close to Him. If you have the vocation to help those who suffer, it means you’ve been blessed with that gift. I’d like to think that God has no vanity. Maybe God cares more about that than about us believing in Him. To become a priest it might be enough simply to follow the example of Jesus Christ.”

Though Father Daniel’s words did not quiet the turmoil in Ignacio’s mind, they gave him something new to think about. He was still full of doubts, but his future no longer looked like it had to be a shameful lie—pretending to be someone he was not. For the first time in his life, he had a small bit of hope.

Ignacio had noticed that whenever he ran into Father Superior, the man would glare at him disapprovingly. He was particularly aware of this dislike one afternoon when Father Superior wandered into the library and found Ignacio and Father Daniel chatting. Father Superior immediately came up with an errand for Ignacio—as if he couldn’t stand the thought of the two of them being together. After that encounter, Ignacio sensed that Father Superior was always watching him. With no other students around, the tension escalated rapidly. Ignacio decided that unless Father Superior forbade him to talk to Father Daniel, he would seize any chance he had to speak with him. Their brief exchanges made his loneliness less raw; he was thrilled that an adult he admired took an interest in him. But Ignacio was distressed that in his dreams, he and his teacher kissed and made love. Those dreams saturated the hours of the day too. He’s only interested in teaching me about poetry and Colombian politics, Ignacio would repeat to himself. That’s all. But what if it was love—that feeling that was often expressed in the poems and a few of the novels they’d studied in the seminary? Whatever it was, it was the most powerful feeling he had ever experienced before, because it was not just sexual—as it was with Lucas, whom he now admitted to himself he’d wanted to touch and possess.

* * *

Shortly before the new semester began, Father Superior called Ignacio to his office. Because he had been asked to visit the office on only a couple of occasions, Ignacio knew that something of consequence was about to happen. Father Superior invited him to sit down and immediately got to the point.

“Ignacio, after consulting with the other brothers here, we’ve decided that you should continue your religious education in the seminary in the town of Palos de la Quebrada, in the Putumayo. You can finish your high school there and then begin your novitiate. If everything goes well, you’ll go to university before you get ordained. Good luck to you, Ignacio. You’ll be provided with everything you need for your trip.” With a wave of his hand, he indicated that their meeting was over.

Palos de la Quebrada. Ignacio recognized the name as soon as Father Superior had said it. He must have been about ten years old when he saw a newspaper photo of a massacre that had taken place there. Without knowing it, Father Superior was exiling Ignacio to live inside an image that had haunted him.

He kept busy all day so he didn’t have time to think, but when he took his walk in the courtyard at the end of the day, the news began to sink in. It was common knowledge that aspiring seminarians whose vocation was suspect, or about whom it was thought the strict discipline of priestly life might be too much, were sent to inhospitable places where they would be physically, psychologically, and spiritually tested. No matter what happened to him, Ignacio told himself, there was no going back to his parents’ farm—no fate could be more depressing than that. He thought it was unfair he was being punished for being argumentative about Catholic precepts, but he would do the best he could with the path that had been laid out for him. From that moment on, Ignacio decided he would wrap himself in an invisible cloak that concealed his true feelings.

The photo that had haunted him since childhood had been published under the headline, “FARC Massacres Boys.” The photo showed a mass of rotten, bloated corpses of adolescent boys floating on the surface of a small lagoon in the Putumayo jungle, near Palos de la Quebrada. The article reported in stark language that forty-eight boys, between the ages of twelve and sixteen, had been killed by the FARC guerrillas because they had refused to march off with them into the jungle.

Each boy had been shot in the forehead. In the photo it looked as if they all had a third eye staring lifelessly at the unconcerned sky. There were no vultures in the picture. Had they been shot at to keep them away from the carrion until after the pictures were taken for the press? Who had taken the photos—the army? The guerrillas?

Ignacio didn’t cut the picture out of the newspaper: the image was instantly etched in his brain. He started having nightmares about the dead boys with their distended bellies trapped in a lake of coagulated blood. He never mentioned the photo to anyone; its gruesome power forced him into silence. He feared that if he talked about it he would lessen the horror of what had happened and that would somehow make him complicit. In his nightmares, the dead children parted their stiff purple lips and chanted a mournful tune Ignacio had sung in childhood games: “Mambrú went off to war—oh what pain, what pain, what sorrow.” Over and over, the dead children uttered these lyrics. In the background, he heard a macabre buzz of frenzied flesh-eating flies.

On his last day in Facatativá, while walking with Father Daniel during the hour of recess before dinner, Ignacio informed him of his imminent departure.

“I didn’t know you were being sent to the Putumayo,” Father Daniel said, looking surprised. He stopped walking and put a hand on Ignacio’s shoulder. “I will miss you.”

Ignacio took those four words as a terse admission of Father Daniel’s affection for him. They made him happier than he had been since first meeting Lucas.

“In some fundamental way the community where you’re going may not be very different from this school,” Father Daniel said. “But in the Putumayo there’s no way to ignore that Colombia is at war. Here in Facatativá we’re so close to Bogotá that it’s almost as if the war is happening in a foreign country. I want you to keep your eyes open—which I know you will do—and think about what you see. But be careful what you say to anyone, and whom you trust, until you understand the world you’ll be living in. In particular, mind what you say to the people outside the seminary. Until you understand the situation, promise me you’ll keep your opinions to yourself.”

The seriousness of these words alarmed Ignacio. “I will, Father.”

“Maybe the doubts that you have about your vocation will be answered in the Putumayo. Listen carefully to your conscience and your true calling will be revealed.”

Later, as they were heading in the direction of the main building, Father Daniel put his hand on Ignacio’s wrist. “I’d like to stay in touch with you. If you like, we can correspond. I promise to tell you things that right now we don’t have the time to go into. I will pray for you, Ignacio.” As they entered the dining hall, Father Daniel blessed him before they went off in separate directions.

Ignacio remained awake that night, deeply fearful of this drastic change in his life. The next day, when he boarded the bus bound for the jungle, Father Daniel’s promise to write to him was still ringing in his ears, and it was enough to make him feel he was not alone in the world.