Santiago Gamboa - Night Prayers

Víctor was married with three children. He wasn’t a bad person, but I hated him. He told me he could share the stresses of his work with me, but he never talked to his wife about the atrocities he committed, out of respect for her. Son of a bitch. One night he arrived covered in blood. They had nabbed some dealers in a house in Modelia, young guys, on a tip-off from a former paramilitary who’d turned himself in. They found twenty kilos, three submachine guns, ten pistols, and a bag with two hundred thousand dollars. Piedrahita was high on coke and started slapping one of the guys around, asking him about the stash with the big money, where was it? He’d been told there was a lot more. Víctor tried to calm him down. That’s enough, boss, let’s hand some of it in and we’re done, but Piedrahita went crazy and shot the dealer in the head, and then there was nothing else they could do, he had to shoot the others. There were five of them. Five young guys. Three Secret Service officers took them down to a garage. Víctor was shaking and Piedrahita said to him: let’s load them in the van. He went to speak on the telephone and came back saying, nothing happened here, I’m going to send them to a buddy in the Lanceros battalion, they need them more than we do, and he turned and said to Yesid, the youngest officer, son, take these guys to Commander Suárez, I already talked to him and he’s waiting for them, but be quick about it, and then call me, son, this is just between ourselves, okay?

That night Víctor arrived with rolls of dollars in his pockets, and when I told him he was lucky to have such well-paid work he replied, the hell I am, I can barely enjoy the money, just give it away or waste it on drink, not even buy a house because I’ll be grabbed by the tax people, or put it in the bank, just buy gifts for my wife and kids, but only little things, and send it to my mother, but not too much, and that was really bad, one of the unfair things about life, according to him, after so much sacrifice. That day he was very drunk, and I asked him, what do the soldiers do with the dead bodies? do they bury them? and he said, no, sweetheart, they make money with them, but don’t ask too much, it might put you at risk. You don’t know the really ugly things that have to be done to protect this fucking country.

I played dumb, but I was thinking: I already know what you people do, you asshole, I don’t need you to tell me, what comes out in the newspapers is true, you’re killing people, it’ll be your turn next.

I went out with him two or three times a month, whenever he celebrated a good arrest. The rest of the time I studied, read, went to the movies. Things happened and I sensed others about to happen. Life was passing like a wind that set my teeth on edge, gave me the shivers, soaked me. Everything was happening very quickly. One day a friend from the faculty invited me to a bar in the north of the city. Politicians go there, she said, really cool people, guys with money. I was afraid I might meet someone from the Secret Service, but it was an exclusive place, only people with style went there. By the time I’d had three glasses of rum, I already had a friendly man fluttering around me, smiling and winking at me. At last he made up his mind to speak to me. He invited me to do coke and I accepted, a long line. Shall we dance? He was an adviser to a senator, I can’t remember which one. From there we went to an apartment on the beltway to continue the evening. A swanky place, belonging to a girl who had come with them. The strange thing was that I didn’t go as an escort, since nobody had offered me money, but I had the feeling it was the same thing. The bozo’s name was Juan Mario and when he asked me, what do you do, where do you study and that kind of thing, I told him at the National, and he laughed, seriously? oh, wow, really? he said, and I said, yes, I study sociology, and he said, wow, sociology at the National! you’re not with FARC, are you? That’s what my father thinks, I said, but I regretted having told him that because after a while a friend came, they hugged drunkenly, and Juan Mario said to him, hey, man, let me introduce you to this girl, let’s see if you can guess where she studies? and the guy said, no idea, I don’t know, I mean, where could it be, at Los Andes? and Juan Mario laughed and said, no, man, not even warm, it’s incredible, at the National! and the other guy said, and what’s so funny about that, it’s cool, the National’s a cool university, what’s so funny? I liked that and I said, and what’s your name? and he said, Daniel, wait, I’ll give you my card, he took it out and I read, “adviser, Congress,” so I said to him, what do all you people advise about? He laughed and said to the other guy, you see, man, the people at the National are cool, well, we study projects, we suggest the subjects to be proposed, we study the constitutionality of it, I’m a lawyer, of course, when you come down to it, those guys are really a pain, you do all the work and then the congressman comes along and finishes it off, and sometimes he fucks it up, or rather, he usually fucks it up, that’s the way it is, and how is the National? Wow, it’s amazing, I’m a big fan of Mockus, seriously, my dog’s name is Antanas, a very intelligent Labrador, I swear to you, then he asked me for my cell phone number and I gave it to him, and a sixth sense told me that if I wanted to hook him I had to leave the party; I called a taxi and went home, but the next day, sure enough, the guy called me, hi, we met last night, do you remember? you left very early, didn’t you like the party? well, to be honest, it was boring, a real drag, right? listen, do you remember me? I’m the adviser, no, the other one, the second one you met, Daniel, are you in class? will you call me when you finish? and so I started going out with him, kind of on the sly, because he had an official girlfriend but he told me I was a lot better, that he could be natural with me, say what he thought, so I asked him, and what kind of things do you think? and he said, I don’t know, the kind of things I tell you, I like you a lot, babe, with you I can talk about movies and books, and I said to him, doesn’t your girlfriend like movies or what? and he said, no, I mean yes, but only romantic movies or comedies, she spends her time watching YouTube videos and chatting, can you imagine? the other day we were talking about something and you know what she said to me? look, I can’t stand talking with you, let’s chat instead, can we do that? or else, how are you doing, darling? oh, shall we chat? and the worst of it is that she is right, we get on better when we’re chatting, do you want to see her? and he showed me photographs of the girl on his BlackBerry, a pretty girl, he even had a photograph showing her backside in a nice little thong, and how’s the sex? I asked him, good? and he said, yes but she’s a hysteric, if I give her a hug she says no, it has to happen naturally, she doesn’t like me to go close to her, wanting her, she says she feels dirty, and so I say to her, but, babe, if we don’t get close how’s it going to happen? and she says, it’ll happen naturally! it should come from the two of us, not just you, as if we have to fuck, as if it’s an obligation, no, we should just let things happen, and I said, okay, but I don’t understand how they’re going to happen if we keep miles apart, but anyway, that’s how it is, and a second later she’s already fallen asleep, she’s always tired because she’s always busy, and when we fuck, I don’t know, I tell her, or rather, I think, that it’s a new form of anal sex, you know, she looks such an asshole when we fuck, with the faces she pulls, for it to be okay you have to give her a whole bottle of wine, she’s such a bore, that’s why I like you, you don’t make such a fuss about it, and I can talk to you and say the things I think seriously, that’s what I like about people from the National, I love Mockus, did I tell you that?