Even Silence Has an End (52 page)

“Be careful, they can be deadly if several of them attack.”

There was no respite. I spent all my time killing any
conga
that came near me, in what seemed to me a losing battle. I looked enviously at my companions. They had all finished setting up camp, and were relaxing, resuming their usual routines: Arteaga and William were sewing, Armando was weaving, Marulanda was bored in his hammock, Lucho was listening to the radio, and Marc was busy at his latest project, repairing the straps to his backpack.

I wish I could talk to him,
I thought, surrounded by a cemetery of
conga
ants; the fetid odor would not go away. Like Gulliver in the presence of the Lilliputians, I could not afford a moment’s inattention while I waited for the boiling water Enrique had promised.

Marc walked by my
caleta
on his way to the
chontos
and looked at me, astonished.

“I’ve got millions of
congas
in my
caleta,
” I explained.

He laughed, thinking I was exaggerating. On the way back, as he saw I was still absorbed by my
conga
combat, he stopped. “What are you doing?”

I came out of my tent and was about to explain, when I saw his eyes widening in horror.

“Whatever you do, don’t move,” he said, speaking very clearly, his frightened gaze focused on something on my shoulder.

He came toward me very slowly, his finger raised. Filled with dread, I followed his gaze and turned my head just enough to see an enormous
conga,
with a gleaming coat of armor and hairy legs and threatening pincers extended, only a few millimeters from my cheek. I was about to run off, but I stopped myself in time, when I realized it would be wiser to wait for Marc to flick the monster off. He went about it calmly, despite the fact that I was nervously stamping my feet and moaning. There was a hollow click as he made contact with the insect, and then it soared like a missile to crash against a giant tree trunk.

I watched it all out of the corner of my eye, at the risk of giving myself a stiff neck, and then I jumped for joy. Marc was laughing so hard he was on the verge of tears, bent over double.

“You should have seen your face! I wish I could have taken your picture! You were just like a little girl.”

Then he gave me a hug, and said proudly, “It’s a good thing I was here!”

When at last Enrique sent the kettle of boiling water, the water washed out more floating corpses than survivors. As for Marc, our victory over the
congas
sealed our friendship.

SEVENTY-THREE

THE BAN

I climbed out of my hammock one blind-black night to answer a call of nature, delighted I could step outside and no longer fearing an attack from those infernal creatures. Suddenly I heard a whistling sound of something brushing past my hair. I stood paralyzed in the darkness, aware that something had fallen through my tent with a thud, just inches from my nose. The guard refused to come and shine his flashlight beam, and I preferred to go back to the safety of my mosquito net rather than wander anywhere near whatever it was that had shaken my dwelling.

At dawn I got up quickly to see that my tent was in shreds. A pod the size of a man’s head had fallen from a neighboring palm tree, wrapped in a thick leaf that tapered into a point as sharp as a spear. It had come loose from the trunk and had fallen more than sixty feet and had landed deep in the ground, right next to me, ripping my roof in two.
If I’d gone one step farther . . .
I thought, not that this was any consolation for my ruined tent. It would take hours to repair, I realized with resignation.

I had to borrow a needle and some thread, and when I was ready to start, it began to rain. Marc came up to me, wanting to give me a hand. I accepted, astonished. This wasn’t done among prisoners. Requests for help were met with moodiness and disdain. Each of us wanted to show that we were self-sufficient. But I always needed help, and Lucho—who would always give me a hand—was forbidden to approach me. If I didn’t ask for help, it was to avoid conflicts. I already owed people for their needles and thread. That was enough.

Marc’s help turned out to be very timely. His advice helped me to finish faster. We spent nearly two hours together, busy at our task, laughing over the slightest little thing. When he went away again, I watched with regret. Lucho was always reminding me that I mustn’t get attached to anything. The next morning Marc came back. He asked me for some waterproof canvas to patch his own tent and to help him glue patches over the holes that the
arrieras
had made in the canvas.

Asprilla, a big muscular black guy, had just become second in command. Together with Monster, he was responsible for the hostages’ camp, a task they shared in turn. He’d been kind enough to unchain me during the day, and now he brought a big pot of glue so that Marc could repair his tent. He came back in the afternoon and found us there, like children, our fingers all sticky. I could see the way he looked at us.
I’m too happy, and he can see it,
I thought, worried.

Marc went on laughing, putting glue on the square pieces of canvas that we had carefully cut out.
This is ridiculous,
I thought, trying to banish my apprehension.
I’m getting paranoid.

The morning after that, I saw Marc sitting on the ground with his radio in pieces, spread out before him. I was hesitant to go up to him, then decided there was no harm in it, and I would see if I could help him. The connection of his antenna to the electronic circuits had been damaged. I’d watched my companions repairing their radios in similar situations, so I volunteered to fix his.

Very quickly I managed to repair the connection before Marc’s admiring gaze. I was glowing with satisfaction. This was probably the first time I’d ever managed to repair anything all by myself. The following day Marc came to get me to help him cut his plastic sheets. He wanted to roll them up in his boots, for the next march.

We sat silently, absorbed in our efforts to cut them neatly at right angles. It was hot, and the slightest movement made us sweat. Marc thrust his hand toward my ear and caught something in the air. His gesture surprised him as much as it did me. He apologized, confused, and explained shyly that he wanted to remove a mosquito that had been pestering me for a while already. His shyness was charming, and the thought of it confused me, too. I got up quickly to go back to my tent. I would have to find a pretext to come back and spend more time with him. This growing friendship surprised me. For years our paths had crossed, and it had never really occurred to us to spend time together. I’d always had the impression that we’d been doing whatever we could to avoid each other. And now I had to admit that I woke up in the morning with a smile, and I waited with childlike impatience for a chance to speak to him.
Maybe I’m becoming intrusive,
I thought. So I held back and for a few days kept myself from going up to him.

He came the following week and offered to help me set up my radio antenna. I had tried to do it myself, to no avail, because Oswald and Angel, who were considered the battery-throwing champions, had refused to lend me a hand.

My battery throwing reached no higher than fifteen feet at the most, which made everyone laugh. Marc spun the battery like a sling. Flying to the sky on the third spin, my antenna landed higher than anyone else’s.

“Just dumb luck,” he confessed.

My radio was rejuvenated. I could hear Mom perfectly. It was as if she were right next to me. She was planning a trip again to rally support.

“I don’t like leaving Colombia. I’m afraid you’ll be released and I won’t be here to welcome you,” she said.

I loved her for this.

In the morning, taking advantage of the fact that I was in the breakfast line, I laughed about it with Lucho.

“Did you hear your mother? She doesn’t want to go, as usual.”

“And, as usual, she will go,” I answered, delighted.

It was one of our favorite jokes. Mom always hesitated until the last minute. Then I would get her message from the other side of the planet, because she always managed to be there for our appointment on the radio, wherever she happened to be. Her trips were good for both of us. I figured if she met other people, it would help her to be patient, the way that hearing her voice, invigorated by her activity, helped me. I really appreciated Marc’s help.

One morning Marc came to borrow my Bible. When I handed it to him, he asked me, “Why didn’t you come back and talk to me?”

His question took me by surprise. I tried to keep my thoughts clear as I answered.

“First of all, because I don’t want to impose upon you. Secondly, because I’m afraid I might begin to enjoy it too much and that the guerrillas will find a way to pressure me.”

He gave me a sweet smile. “Don’t think about all that. If you have a moment, I’d like to have a talk this afternoon.”

He went away, and I realized in amusement that I had an appointment! Boredom was a poison with which the FARC injected us to weaken our resolve, something I dreaded more than anything. I smiled. I’d gone from a life filled with too many appointments, engagements, time slots to suddenly having none. Now, in this jungle miles from anywhere, the idea of an appointment pleased me.

I began to speak to Marc using
tú
quite naturally, another, more familiar, way to say “you” in Spanish.

“I don’t know how to use
tú,
” he said.

He seemed to be fascinated by the nuances of this usage, totally nonexistent in English. But he had grasped the meaning—and the familiarity it conveyed.
“Quiero tutearte,”
⁸⁹
he said.

“Ya lo estás haciendo,”
⁹⁰
I replied with a laugh.

We opened the Bible. He wanted me to read one of my favorite passages to him. Finally I decided on a passage where Jesus insistently asks Peter whether he loves him. I knew the Greek version of the text. Again, it was all about nuance. Jesus used the term “agape” when addressing Peter, to refer to the quality of superior love, a love that demanded nothing in return, that sufficed unto itself through the action of loving. Peter replied using the word “philia,” to mean a love that expected something back, that sought reciprocity. The third time that Jesus asked the question, Peter seemed to have understood the subtlety and replied using the word “agape,” which bound him to unconditional love.

Peter was the man who had betrayed Jesus on three occasions. The Jesus who was asking these questions was the resurrected Jesus. Peter had been a weak man and a coward, but through the strength of that unconditional love he had been transformed into his opposite, a strong, courageous man who would be crucified for defending Jesus’s legacy.

I had been living in captivity for five years, and despite the extreme conditions I’d endured, changing my character proved immensely difficult.

We were deep in discussion, sitting side by side on Marc’s old black plastic sheet. I had no idea what language we were using—probably both. Absorbed in our discussion, at one point I paused, intrigued by the silence in the camp. To my great embarrassment, I realized that our companions were following our conversation with interest.

“Everybody’s listening,” I said in English, lowering my voice.

“We are too happy. It’s attracting their attention,” he replied without looking at me. It made me worried. In an effort to recover peace, I continued:

“See what we’ve become in this camp, how hard it is for us to unite against these guerrillas when they intimidate us and threaten us. . . . The apostles were afraid and only John came to the foot of the cross. But after the Resurrection, they no longer behaved in the same way. They went to the four corners of the earth and were massacred for bearing witness to what they had seen. They were decapitated, crucified, skinned alive, stoned to death. Each one was able to overcome his fear of dying. Each one chose who he wanted to be.”

We gradually opened our hearts to speak of things we did not dare admit to ourselves. Marc had had no news from anyone except his mother in years. In her messages there was not much information about his family or the life of the people he loved. “It’s as if I were looking at my world through a keyhole,” he said, trying to express his frustration. “I don’t even know if my wife is still waiting for me.”

I understood him only too well. My husband’s voice had disappeared from the waves, long ago. When he did occasionally show up again, my companions were sarcastic. Nobody commented when a journalist from
La Luciérnaga,
⁹¹
one of the programs we listened to in the evening, made a comment about him, adding, “I’m referring to Ingrid’s husband, or rather her ex-husband, since we’ve been seeing him with someone else for some time now.” I had wanted to move on, but the words I’d heard tore at me.

One morning when I was waiting, stretched out in my hammock to be freed from my chains, I felt someone shaking my feet. I jumped. It was Marc, on his way to the
chontos.
“Hi, Princess!” he whispered, leaning toward my mosquito net.

It will be a happy day,
I thought.

We settled down as on previous days, side by side on Marc’s plastic sheet. Pipiolo was on duty, and he looked at me the way an eagle stares at its prey. I shuddered, knowing he was up to something nasty. We had just started talking when Monster’s voice boomed like a cannon: “Ingrid!”

I immediately jumped to my feet and went out into the central path, trying to see him through the tents that blocked my view. Finally he appeared, his hands on his hips, his legs spread wide, and his eyes full of venom.

“Ingrid!” he shouted again, even though I was standing in front of him.

“Yes?”

“I told you, you are not allowed to speak to the Americans. If I catch you communicating with them, I’ll chain you to the tree!”

There was no room for tears, for words, for gazes. I closed in on myself, my contact with the outside world having shrunk to nothing. I could hear, as if from a world far in the distance, Marc’s voice. But I could no longer see him.