Juan Vásquez - The Informers

"When we arrived at the hotel it was still raining, and the sky was so dark that all the lights were on though it was midafternoon. It was that typical gray sky of Boyaca, you feel like you could touch it if you stood on tiptoes, and the water kept falling as if something had given way up above. Your dad refused to share my umbrella. He let me walk ahead while he got soaked walking behind. I'm sure it had been raining all day there in Duitama, too, because the fountain was full to the brim; at any moment the water was going to spill over the edges. But it was pretty to see the rain hitting the water in the fountain. And even prettier if we were watching it from the dining room, nice and dry and drinking hot chocolate. Papa was there with a guest. He introduced us to him, saying he was Jose Maria Villarreal and that he was just leaving. I immediately knew who he was because Papa had spoken of him several times. "He's a godo to watch out for," he told me once, showing more respect than usual. They'd been seeing a lot of each other because they shared a sort of passion for Simon Bolivar, and Villarreal didn't seem to mind coming from Tunja once in a while to talk about the subject, believe it or not. We exchanged greetings with the godo to watch out for and sat down, Gabriel and I, to warm up our hands with a cup of hot chocolate by the glass door to the dining room. There was a fire in the grate, outside it was still pouring rain, and in the dining room it felt wonderful. Even my father seemed content seeing his friend to the door and probably talking about the Pantano de Vargas or one of those things. He was like a child with a new toy. Incredible, no? Incredible that we were such a short time away from disaster, Gabriel. I think about it and wonder why the world didn't stop at that moment. Who did we have to bribe to get the world to stay still just there, when we were all fine, when each of us seemed to have survived the things that life had thrown at us? Who should we have asked to pull those strings? Or were those strings worn out, too?

"According to what Gabriel told me the next day, in the afternoon, when we were able to be alone for the first time since he woke up from the anesthesia, it happened more or less like this:

"After the hot chocolate he'd gone up to his room with the idea of resting from the train journey and reading a little. In a week or so he had to take his first preparatory exam: all the subjects from civil law in one exam, a sort of continuous firing squad, like being shot and then shot again another ten times. So he opened his books on the desk and began to study the ways to acquire dominion over property, which were at least well-written articles, full of rhetorical devices that on a good day made him laugh out loud. Gabriel's classmates thought he was odd. Those poor guys couldn't understand the humor he found in the stipulations on the gradual and imperceptible subsidence of the waters defined in pure poetry, or the dove that flew from one dovecote to another without any reprehensible guile on the part of the new owner. 'But I couldn't concentrate, ' he told me later. 'I tried to read about the dove and I'd see old Konrad lying on the street vomiting, I'd move on to the gem set in the ring and I'd see Josefina in her sandals, with fresh semen trickling down her leg, and I'd start retching, too. So I stood up, closed my codes and notes, and went out for a walk.' I didn't hear him leave because I was in my parents' room listening to a strange piece of news. Before the beginning of the war, a Hungarian architect had disappeared along with his wife, and someone had just found them in the mountains. There were some tourists walking up in the mountains and a guy came out from somewhere and asked them how the war was going. It seemed he'd fixed up a cave and had spent all that time hidden there. He fished for food and got water from the river. When they told him the war had ended a year and a half ago, he went down to Budapest, went to see his family and returned to his house, but as soon as he arrived he realized he wasn't going to be able to do it. His wife agreed. So they packed up some clothes and utensils and went back to their cave. Papa liked the story. 'I'll bet you anything you like they were Jews,' he said. And while we listened to the rest of the program, Gabriel went downstairs and out for a walk. But before leaving he went to the kitchen and asked for a big pandeyuca to take with him. He told Maria Rosa, the cook, that he'd be back in an hour.

"It was dark by then. Gabriel walked under the balconies and the eaves, dashing from beneath one balcony to the next, from the eaves of one house to the next, trying to stay as dry as possible. But it wasn't raining so hard anymore, and it was pleasant to breathe in the fresh, clean air, it was pleasant to walk through empty streets. 'I turned up my collar,' he said. 'I thought about eating my pandeyuca in two bites so I could put my hands in my pockets, but then I thought it could keep my hands warm since it was fresh from the oven. I was determined to have a good long walk, even if I gave myself pneumonia. It was just so quiet, Sara, I wasn't going to miss it.' It was simply a matter of walking cautiously, taking care not to slip on the paving stones, which were terrible when it rained, and he was focusing all his attention on that. And so, looking down at the ground and walking steadily forward like a horse with blinkers on, with a warm pandeyuca in the pocket of his jacket, he ended up at the plaza, among other reasons because all the streets in a small town like ours lead to the plaza, to such an extent one wonders why they bother giving it a name. Plaza de los Libertadores, the Duitama one's called, but no one in the history of the town has ever had to say the full name. The plaza is the plaza. That day it was all decorated for the recent holidays, images of the baby Jesus hanging on doors and balconies and leaning in the windows of the cafes. And Gabriel walked around the plaza looking in the shop windows and the cafe windows, and inside the cafes a few people were sheltering, most of them farm laborers freezing to death and smelling of wet ponchos. From one of those cafes, where there weren't any peasants but people in ties who worked in the town hall, someone called him, firmly but without raising his voice. It was Villarreal, Papa's friend.

"He asked him what he was doing out there in the rain, if he needed anything. He had his car around the corner, he said, he could give him a lift somewhere. 'He spoke to me so courteously that I immediately forgot the most incredible thing: that he'd called me by name, by my full name, having only heard it once, and only in passing.' But Villarreal was like that with everybody. When Gabriel explained that he was just out for a walk, that he liked strolling at night because there were never any people in the streets in Duitama, Villarreal seemed to understand completely, and he even began to recommend routes to him, not just in Duitama, but also in Tunja and in Soata and in the center of Bogota. He was an extremely cultured man who knew, or seemed to know, the history of every corner. They talked about the church that was still under construction, right there, on the other side of the plaza. 'A few days ago, on a Sunday, I went into the building site to see it from inside,' said Villarreal. 'If it works out as planned, it's going to be bellisima .' Gabriel liked the way he pronounced his double l s, that liquid sound that has been lost; no one pronounces their double l s like that anymore. And maybe it was because of those double l s, or maybe it was Villarreal's manners, but afterward, after they'd said good-bye, Gabriel carried on walking around the edge of the plaza under the eaves and the balconies and the colonial street lamps, which were lit though they didn't cast any light, and he crossed the road and looked around to make sure no one could see him. It was absurd, because going into a building site shouldn't be illegal. 'But when I thought that, it was already too late, I was already inside. And I don't regret it, Sara, I'm not sorry. The nave of a cathedral under construction is a staggering thing to see.'