Evelio Rosero - The Armies

“Come in, Gloria. We’ll have a cup of coffee.”

“I don’t have time, profesor .”

“And your house? What is going to happen to your house?”

“I have entrusted it to Lucrecia, in case I come back. Although it could be that she will leave too, of course. But she can use the house, she has five children, and I have none, profesor . And I probably won’t have any.”

“You never know, Gloria. You are young and beautiful. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”

She smiles sadly.

“You’ve still got your sense of humor, profesor . I’m very fond of you both, and I know that Otilia will be back, I swear.”

“Everybody tells me so.”

I cannot keep the grief out of my voice; I wished Gloria had not come to say it again. She does not realize.

“I dreamt I saw you walking together, in the market. I felt happy and went to say hello. I said to you: ‘Didn’t I tell you Otilia would return safe and sound?’"

She smiles, she smiles at me, and I must confess her dream hurts me, are we going to cry? That’s all I need.

“God willing,” I say, the cage hanging from my hand: the troupial hops from one side to the other, sits on the tiny bamboo swing, and begins to sing: perhaps he has guessed my intention to set him free. “And how are you going, Gloria?” I ask, and can no longer look her in the eye. “There is no circulation allowed on the highway. They threaten to blow up any vehicle, private or not, and sometimes with the occupants inside. There is no secure transport.”

“A lieutenant has offered to take us, my sister and me, as far as El Palo, in his truck, with the soldiers. I’ll find transport from there to go inland.”

“Traveling in a truck like that will be just as dangerous, if not more so. You’ll be exposed, Gloria. Do not even think of disguising yourself as a soldier, how can this lieutenant take you that way, putting you at risk?”

“He told me in secret that the truck will be protected by warplanes. They’ll clear the way for us, profesor .”

“I hope so.”

“And I will be in more danger here,” Gloria says; her eyes mist up and she whispers: “when they find out that Marcos turned up dead. Hortensia will not forgive me, she’ll say that I’m guilty, she’ll say I killed him.”

Now she begins to cry, hugs me, and I hug her, wrapping my arms around her with the cage in one hand.

“He showed up in a ditch, half a kilometer from here. It took a while to recognize him. According to what the Lieutenant told me, he’s been dead for two years, at least, left out there, in that ditch.”

“Gloria. Another death, by force. To the shame of the living.”

“You see, profesor ? They didn’t want to help him. Nobody moved a finger to get him freed. That woman didn’t offer a single peso for her husband. I didn’t have money, just that little house he gave me. But what good is all that money to her? It won’t be long before they take her too.”

I do not want to tell her that Hortensia Galindo has already left San Jose, and in a helicopter.

“Oh, Gloria, this country, poor in its wealth. Good luck, start your life over again. What else can I say?”

“Like telling someone to be born again,” she smiles. “Is that what you’re advising?” And she pulls away.

I am pervaded by her fertile, torrid perfume, mixed with the smell of her tears.

“I’m off,” she says, “my sister is waiting.” And she leaves the house.

I close the door.

I go, cage in hand, to the garden. I am seized by a sort of annoyance: let beautiful women not come to this house, let my pain not be increased by seeing them, damn it. I put the cage down on the stone laundry sink, and open the tiny bamboo door.

“Fly away, troupial,” I shout at the bird. “Hurry up and fly, or the Survivors will come and take care of you.”

The bird stays still, before the open door.

“Aren’t you going to fly? You’ll see, there are cats here.”

The bird remains motionless. Have his wings been cut? I cover him with my hand and take him out of the cage. It is a lovely troupial, his feathers gleam, his wings are not cut.

“Are you frightened of the sky? fly, for God’s sake,” and I throw him up into the sky.

The troupial, taken by surprise, spreads his still numb wings, and, with great effort, manages to cushion the fall. Then he hops, a couple of times, and at last flies, as if jumping, up to the wall. There again he stays still: what is he waiting for? It is as if he was turning back to look at me, at the cage.

“What a lovely bird,” says a voice.

It is Geraldina, appearing through the breach in the wall. Geraldina dressed in black. I no longer remember her naked.

“A troupial,” I say.

And we both see him fly, disappear into the sky.

* * *

Once again sitting in the middle of the rubble, beside each other; her face at my side encloses me, without our taking our eyes off the sky. “Those were other times,” I tell her, and I can believe she knows what I’m referring to: her walking naked in her garden, me peering over the wall.

She gives a faint laugh and then the same pensive face reappears, her eyes on the sky as it fills with clouds, eyes on the skyless clouds; I see a hand on her knee, it is my hand on her knee, when did I put my hand on her knee? But she does not respond, it is the same as if a withered leaf had fallen from a tree and landed on her leg, a disgusting but innocuous insect, and she keeps talking (since when?) of her negotiations with those who are holding her husband prisoner, or an old man’s hand landing on her knee all of a sudden seems quite natural to her, old age has its liberties, or simply the only thing that interests her in this world is the payment of the ransom, the enterprise in which she is now involved, with the support of her brother from Buga; that is why, Ismael, no wonder she does not see my hand on her knee, she assures me she has given them all she has, she says she is at a crossroads, don’t you worry, profesor , it is my crossroads. Then she stares at me attentively, as if she guessed or thought she had guessed my thoughts; has she perhaps discovered my hand on her knee? Does she now know that I am only thinking of her knee? The contact, the flame?

“No, profesor ,” she tells me. “They do not have Otilia. I asked them.”

“Otilia,” I say.

Now she tells me that she was not even able to raise half the money they were demanding.

“Don’t bother even giving us half,” they told her. “You won’t be doing your husband any favors,” they said, she tells me, her mouth contracted into a rictus I have never seen before; is it joy? They even said to her: “It’s obvious you don’t love him.”

She tells me: “I felt their looks all over my body, profesor , as if they wanted to eat me alive.”

They gave her two weeks to pay the rest, “that means today, profesor , time’s up today, I told them I agreed, and I told them to bring him with them, as they promised before, a promise they broke.”

“And what if we had brought him?” they answered. “We would have had to take him back again. If we didn’t feel like it, his death would be your fault, for failing to comply, understand?”

I told them again to bring him, to let me see him, speak to him, and I said: “I already gave you all I had, now I have to find someone to lend me more, and if no one will lend me money, I’ll still be here with my son.”

“What do you mean, they won’t lend it to you?” they said. “You’ll see.”

Geraldina looks at me again with a shocked, terrified expression; I do not know what to say to her; I have never seen the faces of the kidnappers; who knows what kind of people they are?