A King's ransom

23

Two things struck me about television in Colombia. Well, one thing, really. I suppose I’d expected the daily toll of violence on the evening news-murders, kidnappings, muggings. You could get that in Miami. But the nudity was the real shocker, not in the programs but the commercials. To be sure, American TV had its share of scantily clad models selling beer, cars, cologne. But American ads were puritanical by Colombian standards. With the amount of flesh flashing here, who needed the Spice Channel?

Television was about all I saw during my first eight hours in Bogota. Alex had me holed up in our flat all day. It wasn’t a bad place actually. But by eight o’clock I was feeling claustrophobic.

“Want to get some dinner?” said Alex.

“You mean go out?”

“Yeah.”

“Really?” I said, teasing. “I thought you’d have me disguise my voice and order pizza under an alias.”

“Very funny.”

I smiled, but in truth I needed to get out. Watching television in my distant-second language was tiresome, and I found myself slipping into nonproductive worries about my father. “Let’s go,” I said.

We drove north of downtown to a trendy area called Zona Rosa, a maze of music clubs, bars, restaurants, and cafes that seemed to compress into a small nucleus of vibrant Bogota nightlife somewhere around Calle 84. We ducked into a tiny, relatively quiet bistro, where doting waiters wore traditional white shirts and black vests. Several teams of them hovered over a dozen small tables for two. A canopy of twinkling white lights hung in strands from the ceiling, reminding me of Christmas. Our table was in front by the window, with a view of the steady parade of cars outside. The rich were chauffeured in bulletproof Mercedes-Benzes and Renaults. Smartly dressed couples entered in the company of bodyguards. The women wore no jewelry, but once safely inside the restaurant, they opened their purses and applied their diamond earrings or emerald rings as a matter of course, the way American women might check their makeup. It was one of the safer areas, according to Alex, but people never let their guard down completely in Bogota.

The restaurant specialized in food from Antioquia, one of Colombia’s largest and richest departments, which included the city of Medellin. It was a region fond of parties and prayer, Alex told me, known for orchids, gold, coffee, and the distinctive architecture of rural towns that had stood for centuries. Most renowned of all were its native people, the paisas, famous for their hospitality and interesting customs. Alex ordered a glass of wine to start. I took only mineral water, as I was still having a little trouble with the trip from sea level in Miami to over eighty-six hundred feet in Bogota, and alcohol wouldn’t help the adjustment.

“Nice place,” I said.

“After scaring you to death all day, I thought you should see another side of Bogota. People haven’t stopped living.”

I tried a breadstick. “Do you think I was foolish to come here?”

“I understand why you did it.”

“Do you think I made the right decision?”

“Can’t really say. If the only thing to consider was the risk to you personally, that would be one thing. But every time you take a risk, you have to factor in the added anxiety it causes your mother and whoever else cares about you.”

“It’s really just my mother.”

“What about your sister?”

“She still doesn’t even know about Dad.”

“Surely your girlfriend worries.”

She tried to slip that in casually. Maybe I was flattering myself, but I sensed more than just passing curiosity on her part. “I’m unattached right now. I was engaged, but that ended a few weeks ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Wasn’t meant to be, I guess.”

“Yeah, right.” She almost scoffed.

“You don’t believe in fate?” I asked.

“Do you?”

“Sure. We all have our destiny.”

“We make our own destiny.”

“So you would deny me the comfort of thinking that Jenna’s breaking up with me was all for the best?”

“It might be for the best, but it wasn’t fate that got you there. When a relationship dies, it’s usually because somebody finally came to their senses or somebody screwed up.”

She had a way of cutting through the nonsense, which I rather liked. “You’re right. I screwed up.”

“What happened?”

“She told me it was because my job was too consuming. But that wasn’t the real reason.”

“What do you think it was?”

“She built up a lot of resentment over the years.”

“Toward you?”

I nodded. “She never believed that I loved her enough.”

A waiter came by and lit the candle on our table. Alex waited for him to leave, then asked, “Did you love her enough?”

“My, this is getting personal.”

“I thought it was just getting interesting.”

I took another sip of water and said, “Yes, I loved her very much. I just never. .”

She waited for me to finish, then finished for me. “You never told her?”

“It took me a long time.”

“How long?”

“Almost two years.”

She made a face. “Why do guys do that?”

“I wasn’t trying to be cruel. We met when I was on the rebound. I’d had two serious relationships in less than a year and was burned both times. I was starting to think ‘love’ was one of those words that got tossed around a lot without much behind it. So I decided the next time I told a woman that I loved her, it was going to be forever. I didn’t realize it, but that little pact I’d made with myself had dug me into a hole. In my mind, telling Jenna I loved her would have been tantamount to asking her to marry me. So I couldn’t say it until I was ready to pop the question. Does that make sense?”

She looked at me with utter disbelief, then finally let out a short burst of laughter. It was little more than a hiccup, completely involuntary, but I was crushed nonetheless. It was as if Jenna and her seagull had dumped all over my head again.

“What’s so funny?”

She sipped her wine. “Don’t tell me you actually believe what you just said.”

“Yes. It’s true.”

“You may think it’s true, but here’s a news flash, my friend. You didn’t love this Jenna.”

“How can you say that?”

She was smiling with her eyes, but I could tell she wasn’t completely kidding. “When it comes to matters of love, don’t argue with the girl from Bogota. She’ll eat you alive.”

The waiter brought menus, but Alex didn’t need them. She ordered a traditional Antioquian dish for us to share, something that wasn’t on the menu but that she and our overly attentive waiter concocted together. Finally he left us alone.

I was still mystified and a little miffed by her reaction to my Jenna story, but I decided to turn the tables rather than push it. “You still have family here in Bogota?”

“I think so.”

“You don’t know?”

“My family’s pretty screwed up.”

“Isn’t every family?”

She smiled weakly but didn’t elaborate. “Come on,” I said. “I just laid my heart on the line and got laughed at. You can open up a little.”

She looked right at me, almost through me, as if deciding whether I was trustworthy. Then she just started talking, her dark eyes fixed on the candle’s flickering yellow flame. “I never knew my father. He was an Italian businessman who traveled back and forth from Rome to Bogota. My mother would see him one weekend a month till I was about ten. I always knew when he was coming, because I had to go stay with my aunt. For years my mother deluded herself into thinking he was going to marry her someday. Deep down she must have known he already had a wife back in Italy.”

“So your mother raised you alone?”

“Yes, my older brother and me.”

“You don’t keep in touch with them?”

“No.”

It was a flat “no,” the kind that didn’t invite inquiry.

She sipped her wine and asked, “Don’t you want to know why?”

“Only if you want to tell me.”

“My brother is dead. He was killed.”

“I’m sorry.”

“My mother thinks it was my fault, so she doesn’t speak to me.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. Almost reflexively, I asked, “Was it your fault?”

She looked away briefly. Then her eyes met mine and she answered in a soft, troubled voice. “I don’t know. After all these years, I still don’t know.”

The waiter interrupted with the first plate. It smelled delicious, and he refused to leave until Alex had tasted it and told him how wonderful it was. Her somber mood was suddenly gone.

“Enjoy,” she said. “With a meal this authentic, we must follow Antioquian custom.”

“Which is what?”

“While we eat, we can speak of nothing but the food. It’s an unbreakable rule.”

I wasn’t sure if that was truly an Antioquian custom, but one thing was plain: I wouldn’t hear another word about her estranged mother and dead brother. At least not tonight.

“Salud,” she said as she raised her wineglass, and I raised my glass of mineral water in return.