Hippie

6

Paulo and his girlfriend were the only visitors there, and they marveled at the way nature manages to create floral calyxes, turtles, camels—or rather, the way we manage to give names to everything, even if the camel in question really looked like a pomegranate to the woman and an orange to him. At any rate, unlike everything they’d seen at Tiahuanaco, these sandstone sculptures were open to all sorts of interpretations.

From there, they grabbed a ride to the closest city. Paulo’s girlfriend, knowing it wouldn’t be long before they arrived home, decided—it was she, in fact, who decided everything—that they would, that night, for the first time in many weeks, sleep in a nice hotel and have meat for dinner! Meat, one of the things they did best in that region of Brazil, something they hadn’t tasted since they’d left La Paz—the price always seemed exorbitant.

They registered at a genuine hotel, took a bath, made love, and walked down to the lobby, thinking they would ask for a recommendation of a rodizio restaurant, where they could eat as much as they wanted, buffet-style.

While they waited for the concierge to appear, two men approached and, dispensing with pleasantries, ordered Paulo and his girlfriend to follow them outside. Both had their hands in their pockets, as though they held guns, and wished to make this quite clear.

“Don’t be crazy,” Paulo’s girlfriend said, convinced they were being held up. “I have a diamond ring up in the room.”

But the two men had already taken them by the arm and pushed them outside—immediately separating them from one another. On the deserted street were two cars without any sort of identification, and two other men—one of them pointing a gun at the couple.

“Don’t move, and don’t do anything suspicious. We’re going to search you.”

The brutes began to pat them down. Paulo’s girlfriend still tried to protest, but he had already entered a sort of trance, completely dazed. The only thing he managed to do was look around to see if some witness would end up calling the police.

“Shut your mouth, you stupid slut,” one of the men said. They took the couple’s belts containing their passports and money, and each of the two was forced into the backseat of one of the parked cars. Paulo didn’t so much as have time to see what was happening to his girlfriend—nor did she know what was happening to him.

Inside the car was another man.

“Put this on,” he said, handing Paulo a hood. “And lie down on the floor.”

Paulo did exactly as he was told. His brain was no longer processing anything. The car sped away. He would have liked to tell these men that his family had money, that he would pay any ransom, but the words would not leave his mouth.