The Dark Bride

acknowledgments

This book would not exist without the interest that has been invested in it, day to day, by Thomas Colchie, my adviser and literary agent; his wife, Elaine; and María Candelaria Posada, my old university classmate and, through entire lives of closeness, my editor today. I thank them and also Jaime González, Samuel Jaramillo, and Bernardo Rengifo, dear friends who read, reread, commented on, and added their bits to the manuscript.

For their kindness and thorough, factual knowledge, I thank Juan María Rendón, Alberto Merlano, and Marco Tulio Restrepo, directors of Ecopetrol, the firm that financed a portion of the research for this novel.

I thank also Rafael Gómez and Carlos Eduardo Correa S.J., who will know how valuable their generous and intelligent advice was when they read these pages, and Antonio María Flórez, the Spanish doctor who told me of his conversations with prostitutes in the health clinic of a Colombian pueblo in tierra caliente. Álvaro Mutis, for a certain sentence among those that appear here and from whom I heard it. Leo Matiz for the rights to the evocative photograph that appears on the cover. Sofía Urrutia, who made me aware of “La maison Tellier,” the story by Maupassant that was key in finding the tone for this novel. Graciela Nieto, who will be surprised when she encounters, from the mouth of one of the characters of this fiction, an anecdote from real life that she related to me. María Rosalba Ojeda, my right hand for domestic matters and other urgencies. And as always and for so many reasons, my son, Pedro, my sister, Carmen, and my mother, Helena.

In Barrancabermeja, I thank don Marteliano, a former worker at the Tropical Oil Company, and the Pacheco family, with its three generations of oil workers. Hernando Martínez — Pitula — a former worker at Ecopetrol and today a taxi driver, who was my guide through the city. The many people that I had the opportunity to interview, among them Jorge Núñez and Hernando Hernández, current president of the oil workers union. Monseñor Jaime Prieto, bishop of Barrancabermeja. The legendary Negra Tomasa, William Sánchez Egea, Manuel Pérez, and don Aristedes. The Japonesa—who told me her entire life story. Amanda and her sister Lady, Gina, whose help was so valuable, Abel Robles Gómez, Dr. Orlando Pinilla of Bucaramanga, the civil leader Eloisa Piña, señora Candelaria, a resident of the barrio Nueve de Abril. Librarian Jairo Portillo. César Martínez, Luis Carlos Pérez, father Gabriel Ojeda, and Gustavo Pérez.

Wilfredo Pérez, a catechist and a good man, who was killed by the paramilitaries in May 1998.

In Bogotá, Gustavo Gaviria, whose conversations were so revealing, and Guillermo Angulo, for making me aware of the poetry of the Mexican Renato Leduc and the miracles of an old love of his and of the writer Manuel Mejía Vallejo, named Machuca. Dr. Eduardo Cuéllar Gnecco. Moisés Melo, director of Editorial Norma, for his comments. For their valuable texts on Barrancabermeja and Santander, Virginia Gutiérrez de Pineda and Jacques April-Gniset. Alejandro Santamaría for introducing me to Father Carlos Eduardo Correa. Dr. Ignacio Vergara, the analyst of the fictitious characters in this novel and the previous one. Marie Descourtieux, for the books and texts on prostitution she sent me from Paris, and the memorable Scottish poet Alastair Reid, who laughed with me as we created the conversation about snow that appears here from the mouths of the gringo Frank Brasco and Sayonara.

The Colombian Ministry of Culture, for giving me a grant that aided the writing of these pages.