Night Prayers

1

The urgent communication from Bangkok came as a shock. I was starting to get accustomed to the company of Juana and Manuelito Sayeq when one day, as often happens when you’re waiting for something, the telephone rang.

It was Angie, the secretary.

“There’s a call from Bangkok, Consul. It’s urgent.”

It was the lawyer, sounding very upset. He said that for some reason (something beyond his control), the legal authorities had suddenly brought the hearing forward to that very morning, abruptly, and that in court, when given the chance to speak, Manuel had refused to plead guilty, which made everything very difficult.

“Didn’t you tell me the young man had agreed?” the lawyer asked angrily, clearly blaming me. “That you’d explained to him what was at stake?”

I was stunned.

I told him I had, but that something had probably changed inside him. I assumed that on learning about Juana and the child his desire to be free had revived. Even though that freedom was utopian and unrealizable.

“And now what do we do?” the lawyer asked. “I remind you that your countryman can be tried under article 27, the old military law with an immediate death penalty, and they don’t even have to wait until the end of the trial. Actually they don’t need a trial at all, just an order from the prosecutor’s department. I told him: from now on they can finish this at any moment. It’s very serious, what can we do?”

I found it strange that he should ask me that question (which of the two of us was the lawyer with important contacts in Bangkok?) but I preferred not to get into an argument, so I said to him:

“For now, defend him, do everything you can to defend him and get him acquitted. It’s the only option.”

“I’ve already told you that isn’t realistic,” the lawyer insisted, still nervous, or rather annoyed, as if I had deceived him.

I hung up angrily and called Colombia, but… The damned time difference! I had to wait four hours. At last, at around six-thirty, I managed to talk with the Consular Department. I told them it was urgent that I travel to Bangkok, that the trial had begun that morning, without warning. I couldn’t tell them my principal idea, which was to ask Juana to persuade Manuel to plead guilty and gain time. I wasn’t sure that could still be done, but it was the only way out. The famous lawyer wasn’t going to be of much use.

When they saw the file in Bogotá, they told me that if the lawyer had the situation in hand, it wasn’t urgent for me to travel, but that they’d set the procedure for a new mission in motion anyway, in anticipation of the next hearing.

I preferred not to say anything to Juana until I had a specific date and a reply from the Ministry, so that night I gave her the excuse that I had a diplomatic engagement, which was actually true: a reception at the Bulgarian Embassy. And that’s where I went, in the district of Chanakyapuri, and was able to discreetly drown my nerves in vodka and rakia and eat Tarator soup and some splendid sausages.

I got home late and fortunately they were both asleep. I had a last gin sitting on the bed, inside the mosquito net, thinking and thinking. I would have to act fast. The next day I called Bangkok, but wasn’t able to reach the lawyer until the afternoon. He told me they’d heard the testimonies of the police officers who had made the arrest and that the next hearing would be in three days. I asked him to keep me informed of the slightest development.

Then I called Teresa at the Mexican embassy and told her everything. She was pleased to hear my voice, and offered to help:

“Don’t worry, I’ll try to go to the next hearing with the lawyer, do you think you’ll be able to come?”

“I’m working on it, but without a green light from the Ministry I can’t move. You know how it is.”

After three days the travel authorization from the Consular Department still hadn’t arrived, so I decided to ask for leave and pay for the tickets myself. When I told Juana what was happening she looked worried and a tear ran down her cheek. She gave Manuelito Sayeq a big hug, lifted him up, and sang something into his ear. The child didn’t cry much, he seemed very peaceful, unlike the two of us. That same night we got on the plane. The child was asleep.

I explained to her how vital it was that Manuel plead guilty and she understood that without having to think too much about it.

“It’s crazy not to have done it from the start,” she said, “but don’t worry, Consul, I’ll talk to him and persuade him.”

Teresa was waiting for us at the airport, at two in the morning. Oh, those night flights. She gave me a big hug, and I introduced her to Juana and little Manuel Sayeq.

“I wasn’t able to speak with the lawyer yesterday,” Teresa said. “I did go to the court, but they wouldn’t let me in. To be honest, I’m not really sure what’s going on.”

We got to the apartment in the middle of the night — Teresa had offered to put us up and I’d accepted — and we arranged the guest room for the boy. I would sleep on the couch. It was almost four but nobody seemed very sleepy, so Teresa suggested we have a drink.

“I thought you’d never ask,” I said.

She brought out a bottle of Herradura and we started drinking with a certain desperation, as if it were the antidote to a dangerous bite. Then I opted to withdraw and listen to Teresa and Juana asking each other questions, telling stories, getting to know each other.

A Colombian sociologist of thirty-one (how old was she, actually?) with a life of loss, flight, hate, an unconventional, tragic adventure, which hadn’t made her resentful but quite the contrary, someone full of life, a strong, hopeful woman, capable of withstanding any hurricane, and next to her Teresa, forty-something, divorced, the mother of two daughters, a comfortable life, and more conventional except for the slightly unconventional aspect of her liking for strong liquor, a diplomat, living a privileged existence in a Southeast Asian country, with a lot of nostalgia and at the same time the desire (perhaps) to meet someone (isn’t that what everyone wants? what we all want?), always thinking of the future.

I closed my eyes and fell asleep, not knowing what time it was, and when I woke I was lying on the couch, with clean sheets (smelling fresh, of lavender), and a nice pair of pajamas that weren’t mine! (Teresa explained that they hadn’t been able to open my case and hadn’t wanted to wake me, so she’d gotten out a pair belonging to her father, who had left them behind after a recent visit.)

Dawn was breaking.

2. INTER-NETA’S MONOLOGUES

Today, Death paid me a visit.

Before, my life was a feast at which all hearts opened, and all wines flowed from glass to glass, from mouth to mouth.

One of those nights, I felt Death on my knees and found him bitter. I cursed him.

“Oh, Death, come and take away the thought of Death,” I read in an old book.

“When me they fly I am the wings,” he replied, from another poem.

I summoned all my strength. I planted myself in front of him and rejected his terrifying fury. Then I escaped.

Death had a thousand faces. All the faces.

Sometimes it was a young poet gazing at the twilight, in the port of Aden.

Death is here, and oh so punctual.

Lord, your guest is waiting for you in the drawing room.

Entrust my most precious treasures to the witches, to the spirits of poverty, to hate. I have succeeded in banishing any human hope from my soul.

As I already said: today Death paid me a visit. Death, the Grim Reaper.

Death who never rests from his labors, from his sleeplessness. Who loves us and passes between us like a wind, a venticello, a slow, dense music, a dark cloud.

I called to my executioners to raise their rifles, I summoned all the plagues to drown me in their sand or their blood.

Unhappiness was my god. My one, beloved god.

Then I lay down on the dusty soil of Harar and saw the young poet again.

He was writing letters, looking southward. Every now and again he sank his hand into the red earth and let it run between his fingers.

We played with madness (were we fantasizing?) until the afternoon gave my mouth the terrifying smile of the idiot.

But I recovered my appetite, and went back to the parties, to the wine. Death was still there, I could not ignore him.

Everything is merely proof that I can still dream.

3

Dawn was breaking.

It was almost six in the morning, and Teresa and Juana were still asleep. I sat down in the living room to wait for them, thinking that a confession by Manuel would set things in the right direction. The waiting would be difficult, as would the procedure for the pardon (if the pardon came), but others had done it. They were both young, they would bear it.

I opened my e-mail and found a message from Gustavo:

What happened to Manuel Manrique? Did you find his sister? You never told me.

I answered, saying that I had found her.

She’s an incredible woman, I’ll tell you all about it. She’s here with me. She’s asleep now in the next room. We’re in Bangkok and in a few hours she and Manuel are going to meet. The trial has already started. I hope he’ll be able to serve his sentence in Colombia. It’ll have to be negotiated with the ministry. Thanks for everything, a hug.

E.

Around eight I managed to speak with the lawyer. He was surprised I was already in Bangkok, and said he would make arrangements for Manuel’s sister and me to visit Bangkwang.

“I won’t be able to go with you,” he said, “I have a meeting with the prosecutor that’s key to the trial. It’s a big problem.”

I told him I would try to persuade Manuel to plead guilty, and asked him if he thought it would still have an effect.

“Well,” the lawyer said, “if he makes a confession the trial will end with a sentence that may be a long one, but at least it’ll get Article 27 off our backs. The important thing is that he do it in a solemn way, even a bit theatrically. It’d be very important to plan it for Monday’s hearing. I can ask to be heard first and announce it. That would go down well. It may even make them reduce the sentence by a few years. Do you think you can persuade him?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m sure. His sister will talk to him.”

“That’s excellent news,” he said. “In that case, go to Bangkwang around ten this morning, I myself will call the warden and tell him to expect you at that hour. And then come to my office in the afternoon. We have things to discuss.”

“All right,” I said.

When I hung up, Teresa came out of the bathroom, already dressed. She called her office and said that she would be busy until the afternoon, that they should transfer only urgent calls to her. She called the driver to come and pick her up. Juana was in the kitchen: anxious, hopeful. With a touch of fear for what she had to face.

We had a breakfast of bacon and eggs, orange juice, and coffee. The heat kept rising. Soon afterwards Manuelito Sayeq started crying. By 8:45 we were ready. The car from the Mexican embassy was waiting for us outside the door.

Again the bustle of the streets, the smog, the screeching sound of the tuk-tuks, the accelerating and braking. And on leaving the city, the other world: paddies, fields with palms and fruit trees, stooping women wearing triangular hats, with their children tied to their backs.

Juana was looking at everything in surprise.

“I suppose I’ll have to get used to this,” she said. “This is going to be the landscape of my life for a while.”

“The next fight will be to try and get his sentence transferred to Colombia,” I said.

She looked at me anxiously. “To Colombia? We’ll see about that later, Consul, what makes you think it’s going to be better there? Anything would be better than that hell!”

Her answer did not surprise me.

“Well, that depends on the two of you and nobody else,” I said.

“I could rent one of those huts,” Juana said, “grow rice, and visit him at weekends until he comes out. We have time, we’re young. Manuelito Sayeq will grow close to his uncle. Or rather, his father. Manuel will be his father.”

The walls of Bangkwang didn’t impress her. The warden had a visitor from the Australian embassy, so we had to wait, and at last, about eleven o’clock, he received us in his office. Teresa accredited herself as a diplomat, given the task by her Foreign Ministry of following the case of the neighboring country. I introduced Juana as the prisoner’s sister.

The man greeted her without looking her in the eyes, and said, yes, his lawyer called a while ago, you have an hour for the visit. He lifted the receiver and a moment later an orderly came to take us to the first cellblock.

I asked Juana to wait, and Teresa went with her to the visitors’ parlor. I kept going with the orderly and one of the guards. As this was a special situation they authorized me to go as far as his cell and talk with him for a few minutes, preparing him for the visit. We went through three doors of rusted bars, in the midst of the heat and the flies. The corridor was a damp little passageway.

“It’s that one,” the guard said, pointing.

There were plenty of stains on the ground, seeping through the cracks in the doors, but as I approached Manuel’s cell, I noticed something shiny. I felt a rush of fear and walked more quickly.

My God, it was blood! A bloodstain was spreading along the corridor, from under his door. We ran. The guard took an eternity to get the key in.

At last he opened it.

Manuel was lying in a fetal position. He had cut his wrists with a sharpened spoon.

The guard went back out into the corridor and pressed the alarm button, but I saw immediately that he was dead. His eyes were half open as if he were laughing. I embraced him, clasped him to my chest, cursing. He was still warm. The warmth of his skin told me: not long ago, not very long ago.

On the wall, just above the body, there was a drawing made with his own blood and traced with his finger. A heart-shaped island and a volcano. Two figures sitting on the hillside, a man and a woman, holding hands, looking at the approaching storm, unable to see the monstrous animals that lay in wait below the water. To one side, he had written: Us.

By some desperate association of ideas, a poem by Vallejo came into my mind, and I cried out, as I hugged him: “Do not die, I love you so much! But the corpse, alas, continued to die…” I cried out until I had no voice left, and my face turned red and filled with tears. At that moment, feeling that part of reality was opening up, leaving a hole for the elements, the irrational, I realized to what an extent this story had become my story.

A few seconds later (or maybe minutes, I couldn’t be precise), a gurney arrived and they took him out wrapped in a grey blanket. The guards were shouting nervously, giving each other orders. The other prisoners were also shouting; although they were unable to see what was happening, the momentary chaos seemed to excite them. What darkness, what sadness, I thought. “But the corpse, alas, continued to die.” Manuel’s face, his dignity, seemed to give an unreal light to those dirty, peeling walls.

Going through the second set of bars, the guard went out into the yard and pushed the gurney along a path, right past the visitors’ parlor where they were waiting. The noise made both of them run to the window.

Juana saw him and then looked at me.

I saw something collapse in her eyes. More than pain, I seemed to recognize an expression of profound weariness. She came out into the yard without screaming, raising her hands to her face. The gurney reached her and she was able to touch him. The men stopped and Juana swooned over him, kissing him: his blood and his eyes, his pallor. Kissing his skin and his wounded arms. Kissing everything that was kissable on that dislocated, absent face, in which Manuel was no longer there. She wept and I also wept. “Weeping together made us feel a strange happiness.”

Teresa also wept, but kept her distance, since she was holding Manuelito Sayeq. The guards said something to each other and continued with the gurney as far as the infirmary (I assumed). Juana hugged me again and for a second we were one and the same. I felt her grief, her guilt, perhaps her anger.

Soon afterwards the doctor came and shook his head, he was dead. I already knew that. We all knew. Then he handed over two folded sheets of paper.

“They were in his pocket,” he said.

One was for me, and said:

I told you, Consul, this wasn’t going to be a crime story, but a strange love story. Now I’m free, even happy, and with this freedom I abolish myself. At last.

The other was for Juana. She read it and read it, crying, and finally handed it to me.

“Please, Consul, read it.”

Dear sister. I wasn’t able to see you, I thought I could hold out, but I’ve been drowning more and more, and now there’s a way out and I don’t have any strength left. Forgive me for failing you. I asked the consul to look for you but I’m not sure he’ll succeed, time is up. Soon they’ll be coming for me. I seem to hear them, hear their steps, but they won’t find me. My life was always yours, but I have it on loan. I’ll give it back to you when you come to where I already am almost, where I will be forever. You don’t know the pleasure I feel seeing the liquid come out of my body, at last clean of that blood. This purity will suffice for both of us. With mine, I cleaned yours. I’m waiting for you where you know. If you read this it’s because they will have found you. A kiss.

Something bothered me, or rather made me indignant, didn’t they pass on the messages? didn’t he know that Juana was coming to see him? I went to one side (I didn’t want Juana, who was still crying in Teresa’s arms, to hear me) and asked the warden of Bangkwang: didn’t the lawyer send you my messages? weren’t you told the consul had found the prisoner’s sister? weren’t you told we were coming here? The warden looked surprised, which I didn’t understand, and when I repeated my question he said no, he didn’t know anything.

Then he called one of his men and asked him, but he just shook his head. Without asking permission I grabbed the phone and dialed the lawyer’s number. One ring, two, three. No reply. I couldn’t believe it, he hadn’t been given the message! They had killed him.

I insisted to the warden: it was important for us to clarify this, but he just looked up at the ceiling with a total lack of interest. I finally managed to speak with the lawyer:

“Of course I passed on the message, I dictated it by phone to the warden’s secretary and mentioned it was urgent!”

I told him what had happened and he said he would come immediately, that we should wait for him.

I asked to speak with the warden’s secretary, but I was told, which secretary? he didn’t have a secretary, there was a woman who took messages. I asked the warden and he said, no, I already told you, I didn’t get any message. They called the woman and somebody translated: nobody had left her a message like that, when do you say they called? The woman disappeared after a while and it was impossible to get her back.

At last the lawyer arrived and I said to him:

“Nobody received the messages and he never knew anything. It would have saved him.”

The old man chewed something, a leaf similar to a betel, and said, nobody kills themselves for something like that, at least in my country. He must have had his reasons.

“You killed him, you didn’t give him the message that would have saved his life, and you deceived us all.”

The old man spat through the window.

“I understand how upset you are, Consul, but didn’t you tell me the young man was going to plead guilty anyway?”

The blood rose to my head, and I had to make an effort not to hit him. Teresa noticed and came over. She said in my ear: calm down, there’s nothing you can do. He’s a son of a bitch, but you can’t touch him!

I was having difficulty breathing, but I managed to say to her:

“Manuel never knew I’d found Juana, or that she was in Bangkok! He cut his wrists only a short time ago, the blood on the floor was still liquid, do you realize? He killed him!”

“Yes,” Teresa said. “But don’t forget you’re representing your country. Later, you can make an official complaint, or piss in the Chao Phraya, but here you have to keep up appearances. If you touch him you’re going to give them the opportunity to kick up a fuss.”

We spent the rest of the day in Bangkwang, in a funeral chamber that was quite small but air-conditioned. When they brought in the body, in a coffin made of planks, Juana looked at her brother’s livid face for a time that to all of us seemed infinite. It started to get dark and the prosecutor (who had also arrived) said that we had to go, that they would be taking the body to the morgue, where it would be kept while they waited for his sister’s decision and the final legal procedures.

“Do you feel better?” I asked the prosecutor. “You must think your city is cleaner now.”

Teresa squeezed my arm.

“If only our problems were limited to lost and stupid young people,” he said, “although I know I mustn’t judge anyone who has taken his own life.”

“Doesn’t that seem to you sufficient demonstration of innocence?” I said.

He turned and lit a cigarette in a somewhat theatrical manner. “Not really,” he said. “To be honest, his death doesn’t demonstrate anything.”

“The pills weren’t his,” I insisted. “Someone put them in his case and you know it. Everybody knows it!”

Teresa glared at me again. The prosecutor seemed to lose patience.

“Eleven million tourists come here every year,” he said. “Many to have sex and take drugs, others to traffic, and some, simply, on vacation. There are bound to be victims.”

Saying this, he got in his car. But immediately he lowered the window and said:

“I forgot to give my condolences to his sister, please convey them to her from me. And please, let her decide quickly if she wants to repatriate him or bury him here. In this heat, bodies decompose.”

“I’ll tell her, don’t worry,” I said. “For now I trust in the quality of your cold chambers.”

4

When we got home, Teresa opened a bottle of gin and suggested we go out on the terrace and look at the river, the flow of the traffic, the clouds. Night had already fallen. Juana still couldn’t say anything. Around her eyes a purplish ring had settled, as if her eyelids were raw.

The Chao Phraya reflected the hallucinatory lights of the city, its iridescence. Teresa sat down next to me and we drank in silence, one glass after another. When Manuelito Sayeq fell asleep Juana came out again. I put a lot of ice in a glass and offered her a drink.

“I’d like a double, Consul, thank you.”

“It’s the only thing we can do,” I said. “My condolences.”

She thanked me for looking for her and bringing her here from Tehran, allowing her to get to him, even though it was too late.

“I can’t help thinking,” Juana said. “If only we’d come yesterday…”

That was nagging at me too: if only the Consular Department had given a rapid answer, if only I’d taken the decision to travel earlier, if only the Thai legal authorities hadn’t brought the trial forward. If only, if only…

“If only I’d written an e-mail or a Facebook message, or called him on his cell phone,” Juana said, “he’d be alive, it’s all so…”

She started crying again. Teresa hugged her.

“Don’t think anymore, Juana,” I said, “nothing’s going to bring him back. You will have him in your son.”

“I have to decide what to do with the body,” Juana said, “but to be honest it doesn’t really matter. He isn’t there.”

“Are you going to call your family?” I asked.

“I haven’t thought about it,” Juana said. “I suppose they’ll want to bury him in Bogotá. Manuel would prefer not to go back, but the truth is, none of that matters anymore.”

I filled the glasses again and again, until we had to go down to the 7-11 for another bottle. We drank until dawn.

Teresa and Juana went off to their rooms at six and I remained on the couch, near the window, watching the skyscrapers emerge from the darkness into the clear light of morning.

Before going to sleep I grabbed my toiletry bag, took out my toothbrush, and went to the bathroom. I opened the door slowly, so as not to make a noise, and noticed that there was someone inside. It was Juana. She was naked, and was looking at herself in the mirror. I froze. I had never seen a body like that, with strange, enormous tattoos: Japanese ideograms, suns, Buddhist eyes, yins and yangs, and on her belly a genuine painting, what was it? my God, I recognized it: The Great Wave of Kanagawa by Hokusai! I felt an irrational force pushing me towards her, but I restrained myself. Lower down on her right thigh, she had a version of The Raft of the Medusa by Géricault, and on the left a painting that I identified, not then but a few days later, as The Ninth Wave, by the Russian Ivan Aivazovsky, a painting about which the poet Fernando Denis wrote some revealing verses:

It is already almost night in a painting by Ivan Aivazovsky,

the ninth wave,

beneath the magnanimous sky of the world,

beneath the insane light that gives horror and beauty and tarnishes the dream

that cries out in its colors.

Three shipwrecks plus an incredible number of religious or mystic signs. Added to these were scars and circular burns that seemed to convey some message. I looked at her without moving a muscle, without breathing, to avoid her noticing my presence. She was very beautiful. She had the same expression of weariness that I had seen in the prison and was swaying her head from side to side, as if in time to a lullaby. Then she started to move to the sides and slowly caressed her hips, her stomach, her breasts. She raised her hand to her pubis, tracing circles, slowly at first, but then a little faster and finally frenetically. I felt my body collapse, but made an effort and supported myself. Suddenly she grabbed the tube of toothpaste and penetrated herself with it, moving her fingers very quickly. Seconds later she shuddered, but her weary expression did not fade, not even at that moment.

She struck me as the most beautiful woman in the world, and I knew I loved her. From a distant and impossible place, I loved her.

Then I withdrew without making a noise and went to sleep, feeling excited, guilty, and sad.

When I woke, there was news. The lawyer called to say that the Ministry would take charge of Juana’s stay until she decided what to do with the body, as a courtesy. They didn’t want a scandal.

He also said that the head of the Narcotics Squad had informed him of two cases similar to Manuel’s, with French and Indonesian people involved. Not at the Regency Inn, but at other hotels in the same area.

“It should help us get to the truth,” the lawyer said, “and allow us to file a lawsuit against the state in order to at least obtain some compensation.”

And he added:

“Tell Miss Manrique, and tell her also that I’m well-placed to handle that lawsuit. I know lots of people.”

I really wanted to insult him, but it was Juana who had to decide, so I passed on the lawyer’s words to her. She looked through the window for a moment and said:

“I’d be interested in hearing the conditions. I’d also like to speak with the prosecutor and accept the Ministry’s hospitality while I resolve the matter.”

Two days later Juana moved to a government apartment with Manuelito Sayeq. Teresa and I walked her to the door and I carried her suitcases. She had spoken with her family in Bogotá (she didn’t go into details, and I didn’t ask) and they had decided to bring Manuel back.

When we said goodbye she gave me a long hug, and said in my ear:

“I realized you were in the bathroom the other night, Consul. I felt the way you looked at me, how intensely you looked at me. I heard you breathing, standing there quietly, and I liked it.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Your tattoos… They’re beautiful.”

“Another day I’ll show them to you properly and tell you the reason for each one, although I suppose you can already imagine. Thank you for everything.”

I said goodbye and told her I’d call her when I got to Delhi, that I’d be in touch to help her. When they came for her, she gave me another nervous, rapid hug. I wanted to ask her what she was planning to do next, where she was hoping to go, but didn’t dare. It had become very clear that Juana wanted to handle her affairs alone and not rely on other people, even when those people claimed to help her. I was also aware of something unusual about her behavior, but was unable to decipher what it was. Then she put the child into the official car, a black Toyota Crown, and I watched them drive away. I waved goodbye, sadly, until the car was swallowed up by the traffic at the end of the avenue.

Had she spoken with her parents? What words had she used to tell (perhaps explain) that difficult story? She realized that the decision wasn’t only down to her. Maybe she had decided to go back to Colombia, at least for a time. After all, it was her country.

That same day I had to fly back to Delhi. Teresa drove me to the airport.

“Will you come back here, now that everything is resolved?” she asked.

“I’d like to see you again,” I said.

“We’ll talk over the phone, we’ll write,” she said. “I’m with you on this. In any case, I’ll keep an eye on Juana, I think we can be friends.”

“Thanks for everything,” I said. “Without you I wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere in this affair.”

Teresa looked at me sadly. “But it turned out badly.”

I gave her a hug and walked toward Immigration. When I turned to wave to her one last time, I saw that she was gone.

5

A week later, I spoke with Teresa again. I told her I hadn’t been able to get in touch with Juana, who wasn’t returning my calls, and was no longer living in the government apartment. When I didn’t get an answer, I went looking for her and the doorman told me she had left three days earlier. Trying to find out more, I spoke with the lawyer, who said he had not heard from her, but had news about the case. A lieutenant had been arrested and, in order to avoid beheading, had confessed various crimes, including the framing of Manuel. Not that it mattered anymore.

It seemed strange that Juana should have disappeared. I wrote her an e-mail but didn’t get any reply.

6

A month later, the government of Thailand wrote to the Foreign Ministry in Bogotá, expressing its condolences for the death of Manuel Manrique.

Because I had dealt with the matter, the Consular Department sent me a copy marked FYI.

The note emphasized how important it was to fight the international drug networks, “responsible for tragic situations that ruin the lives of good and innocent people.”

Bogotá answered, thanking them for the letter and promising to bring forward steps for the speedy opening of an embassy in Bangkok.

7

Sometime later, from my office in Delhi, I wrote Juana an e-mail, without much hope of a reply, asking her where she was and how she was feeling. To my surprise, she replied immediately. “I’m in Paris, Consul, call me at this number.” Surprised, my heart thumping, I dialed the number on my cell phone. Within a few seconds, I heard her voice at the end of the line. She told me Manuel’s body had been flown back to Bogotá and was now in the Jardines de Paz. It had hit her mother hard and she had needed medical attention, but her father had taken it well. The important news, she said, was that she had been in contact with the Thai prosecutor again, because she had decided to write a book about her brother’s case and file a lawsuit at the court in the Hague with a French lawyer who was a friend and associate of the lawyer in Bangkok.

“You won’t believe what’s going on, Consul,” she said. “The prosecutor told the Ministry of Justice and the Royal Palace what I was intending to do, and you know what? They’re offering me two million dollars in reparation provided I drop my suit.”

I was silent for a moment, then asked, and are you going to accept?

Of course not, she said. For Manuel and for my son Manuelito, for the memories and the pain and so that my child, who is the continuation of my brother, can live a different life, in a different world. No, Consul, I didn’t accept the two million.

“Really?”

“I asked for four,” she said. “And I assure you they’ll give it to me.”

At that moment the line went dead, and although I kept trying I couldn’t get through again.

8

A few days later I called Teresa and told her about Juana. She thought it strange that Juana had left Bangkok without saying goodbye. Then, my curiosity aroused, I called the prosecutor’s office (I’d had his card since our first encounter) and, much to my surprise, he himself answered. I asked him about the new bandits who must be sleeping in Bangkwang, but suddenly he cut me off and said, why are you calling me?

I told him that I had learned some details in the case of young Manrique and expressed my gratitude for the way in which the Ministry was handling it.

“What are you talking about?” he cut in again. “That file’s been closed since the repatriation of the body and the official note of condolence. The Ministry hasn’t reopened it, or heard from anybody, or had any contact with the lawyers or the family members. The case is closed. What details are you referring to?”

“Forget it,” I said. “I think I’ve been ill-informed.”

I immediately called the lawyer and asked him about the supposed lawsuit and the offer of two million dollars.

After a silence, he said:

“I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about, Consul. The last time I spoke with her you were present… Compensation? For heaven’s sake, don’t make me laugh. You Westerners will never understand anything.”

After a somewhat contemptuous guffaw he said:

“Excuse me, do you have any other questions?”

“No, thank you for your time.”

I called Juana’s Paris number, but there was no answer. I checked on the Internet what district it corresponded to, but didn’t learn much: it was the number of a public telephone in a shopping mall in La Défense.

I searched for her in vain through the Colombian Consulate in Paris, and wrote to her again but never got a reply.

My curiosity aroused, I dialed her parents’ number in Bogotá. It was the only other thing I could think of. The only thing I hadn’t yet done. As the phone started ringing at the other end, I felt my lip trembling slightly. I already feared what I was quite likely to hear. At last a woman’s voice answered. It turned out to be the mother. I introduced myself as the consul who had handled the administrative part of her son’s case. She thanked me and called her husband (“Come, it’s about Manuel, come on!”). The father’s voice sounded older than I had imagined: he said the family would be eternally grateful for everything that had been done, and that he had already written a letter to the Ministry. I said I wanted to personally express my condolences to him and to Manuel’s mother and sister, but he replied:

“We’re very grateful, Consul, although you ought to know that unfortunately his sister also abandoned us.”

“I didn’t know,” I said, “I’m very sorry.”

There was a silence. I could have sworn he was wiping away a tear.

“She disappeared four years ago, Consul, you know, this country is dangerous. There are families nothing ever happens to, and others like ours. Things have gone badly for us.”

I hung up after more condolences and sat there thinking about shipwrecks, about Géricault, Aivazovsky, and Hokusai.

About Juana.

Once again she had disappeared.

9. INTER-NETA’S FINAL MONOLOGUE

They are going around saying that I am the mistress of silence: that I am the prostitute, the fancy woman, the lover. The whore of silence. But what can I do if every time I think, I prefer to keep quiet, to imagine empty spaces, to smile at nothingness. I am about to do it one more time, like my Sleeping Beauty: to go to a place where the grim heartbeat of the world, the mechanism of this weary planet, can’t be heard, to escape to where the air and life are silent matter. I want to absent myself, to leave.

And how is the poem of silence, how can it be?

Oh, it will be a construction of words like zephyrs, a surface made of clouds, a volcano of signs. How do I know?

For a start I have to choose a poem in which to hide myself, a poem whose words will serve as a screen to block the light, its verses like cliffs protecting my little island from disaster and the sadness of the world. I have already lost almost everything. I’m not brave: just a fragile grain of sand.

One day passes, two days, three, and I have decided.

I will hide myself in a poem by Roque Dalton, murdered by his own comrades, his own friends! It’s one of the greatest demonstrations of idiocy in history. Oh, the dreams and the words, how they kill. Roque was free and ethereal, as I wish to be. As was somebody I loved very much and who is no longer with us. So now I leave them, perhaps forever.

I take my leave with my poem-home, my poem-world:

LATE AT NIGHT

When you learn that I have died do not utter my name

because death and repose would be delayed.

Your voice, which is the bell of the five senses,

would be the dim lighthouse sought by my fog.

When you learn that I have died utter strange syllables.

Say flower, be, tear, bread, storm.

Do not let your lips find my eleven letters.

I am tired, I have loved, I have earned silence.

Do not utter my name when you learn that I have died,

from the dark earth it would come through your voice.

Do not utter my name, do not utter my name.

When you learn that I have died do not utter my name.