Laura Restrepo: The Dark Bride

“That is how we watched them depart in the scent of a legend and along the edge of the river, while we cried bittersweet tears and wished them ‘God be with you’ with waves of our handkerchiefs,” reports Olga, letting out a round, translucent sigh.

“Mirages,” replies Todos Los Santos. “You were just seeing mirages, nothing more than reflections of desire. But me — blind as I am, I have my ways — I saw my girl leave by herself, her only company her solitude, searching for whatever it was that was plaguing her.”

“As an old, experienced woman, I know these things,” continues Olga, “and I assure you that Sayonara left with Payanés and that she has been happy with him. And unhappy too, of course, but you can’t take that away from her, the troubles of love aren’t troubles. She has been happy for all of us because we deserve it, after so much activity and struggle.”

“Me? I still write postcards to her, because I had confirmation that she appreciated receiving them,” Sacramento tells me. “With everything else, including the marriage, I wasn’t able to do anything except bother her, but my postcards cheered her up, as she told me herself. Since I don’t know where to send them, I keep them here, in this shoe box, so I can give them to her the day she returns.”

“Because she is going to return,” Todos los Santos assures me, wrapped in her silver fox, as she caresses a Felipe with soft fur sleeping in a ball in her lap. “My girl will come back sooner or later, because the turns in her road always pass by my house.”

This book would not exist without the interest that has been invested in it, day to day, by Thomas Colchie, my adviser and literary agent; his wife, Elaine; and María Candelaria Posada, my old university classmate and, through entire lives of closeness, my editor today. I thank them and also Jaime González, Samuel Jaramillo, and Bernardo Rengifo, dear friends who read, reread, commented on, and added their bits to the manuscript.

For their kindness and thorough, factual knowledge, I thank Juan María Rendón, Alberto Merlano, and Marco Tulio Restrepo, directors of Ecopetrol, the firm that financed a portion of the research for this novel.

I thank also Rafael Gómez and Carlos Eduardo Correa S.J., who will know how valuable their generous and intelligent advice was when they read these pages, and Antonio María Flórez, the Spanish doctor who told me of his conversations with prostitutes in the health clinic of a Colombian pueblo in tierra caliente . Álvaro Mutis, for a certain sentence among those that appear here and from whom I heard it. Leo Matiz for the rights to the evocative photograph that appears on the cover. Sofía Urrutia, who made me aware of “La maison Tellier,” the story by Maupassant that was key in finding the tone for this novel. Graciela Nieto, who will be surprised when she encounters, from the mouth of one of the characters of this fiction, an anecdote from real life that she related to me. María Rosalba Ojeda, my right hand for domestic matters and other urgencies. And as always and for so many reasons, my son, Pedro, my sister, Carmen, and my mother, Helena.

In Barrancabermeja, I thank don Marteliano, a former worker at the Tropical Oil Company, and the Pacheco family, with its three generations of oil workers. Hernando Martínez — Pitula — a former worker at Ecopetrol and today a taxi driver, who was my guide through the city. The many people that I had the opportunity to interview, among them Jorge Núñez and Hernando Hernández, current president of the oil workers union. Monseñor Jaime Prieto, bishop of Barrancabermeja. The legendary Negra Tomasa, William Sánchez Egea, Manuel Pérez, and don Aristedes. The Japonesa —who told me her entire life story. Amanda and her sister Lady, Gina, whose help was so valuable, Abel Robles Gómez, Dr. Orlando Pinilla of Bucaramanga, the civil leader Eloisa Piña, señora Candelaria, a resident of the barrio Nueve de Abril. Librarian Jairo Portillo. César Martínez, Luis Carlos Pérez, father Gabriel Ojeda, and Gustavo Pérez.

Wilfredo Pérez, a catechist and a good man, who was killed by the paramilitaries in May 1998.

In Bogotá, Gustavo Gaviria, whose conversations were so revealing, and Guillermo Angulo, for making me aware of the poetry of the Mexican Renato Leduc and the miracles of an old love of his and of the writer Manuel Mejía Vallejo, named Machuca. Dr. Eduardo Cuéllar Gnecco. Moisés Melo, director of Editorial Norma, for his comments. For their valuable texts on Barrancabermeja and Santander, Virginia Gutiérrez de Pineda and Jacques April-Gniset. Alejandro Santamaría for introducing me to Father Carlos Eduardo Correa. Dr. Ignacio Vergara, the analyst of the fictitious characters in this novel and the previous one. Marie Descourtieux, for the books and texts on prostitution she sent me from Paris, and the memorable Scottish poet Alastair Reid, who laughed with me as we created the conversation about snow that appears here from the mouths of the gringo Frank Brasco and Sayonara.

The Colombian Ministry of Culture, for giving me a grant that aided the writing of these pages.

Photograph by Nina Subin

LAURA RESTREPOis a bestselling author and political activist, whose novels include Leopard in the Sun and The Angel of Galilea , which was awarded Mexico’s Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Prize and the Prix France Cultural Award. She has been a professor of literature at the National University of Colombia as well as publisher of the weekly magazine Semana . In 1984 she was a member of the peace commission that brought the Colombian government and guerrillas to the negotiating table. As she does with all of her novels, Restrepo did thorough research for The Dark Bride , transforming her investigations as a journalist into the foundation for a fictional creation. She lives in Bogotá, Colombia.

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* Ladrón is used here both as a family name and, below, as it is more commonly used, to mean “thief.”