News of a Kidnapping (20 page)

“We’re going to drop you off at a certain place. You get out fast and count to thirty, nice and slow. Then take off the tape, walk away and don’t turn around, and grab the first cab you see.”

She felt
a folded bill being placed in her hand. “For the taxi,” said the man. “It’s five thousand pesos.” Beatriz put it in her pants pocket, where she happened to find another tranquilizer, which she swallowed. After half an hour the car stopped. Then the same voice pronounced a final warning:

“If you tell the press that you were with doña Marina Montoya, we’ll kill doña Maruja.”

They had arrived.
The men were very clumsy as they tried to get Beatriz out of the car without taking off her blindfold, and so
nervous they got in one another’s way in a tangle of orders and curses. Beatriz felt solid ground under her feet.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m fine now.”

She stood motionless on the sidewalk until they climbed back in the car and immediately drove away. Only then did she hear another
car behind them, pulling away at the same time. Beatriz did not count as ordered but took two steps with arms outstretched and realized she must be in the middle of the street. She pulled off the blindfold and knew right away that she was in the Normandía district, because she used to visit a friend who lived there and sold jewelry from her house. Beatriz looked at the houses with lights in the windows,
trying to choose one where they would let her in, since she felt too shabby to take a cab and wanted to call home and have them pick her up. She had not made her decision yet when a yellow cab in very good condition stopped beside her. The driver, who was young and well dressed, asked:

“Taxi?”

Beatriz agreed, and realized only when she was inside that so opportune a cab could be no accident.
And yet, the very certainty that he was a final link in the chain of captors filled her with a strange sense of security. The driver asked the address, and she answered in a whisper. She could not understand why he did not hear her until he asked the address for the third time. Then she repeated it in her natural voice.

The night was cold and clear, with a few stars. The driver and Beatriz spoke
no more than necessary, but he kept looking at her in the rearview mirror. As they drove toward her house, Beatriz had the feeling that the traffic lights were longer and more frequent. When they were two blocks away, she asked the driver to slow down in case they had to get around the reporters her captors had warned about. There were none. She saw her building and was surprised that it did not
cause the intense emotion she had expected.

The meter read six hundred pesos. Since the driver did not
have change for five thousand, Beatriz went into the building for help, and the old porter gave a shout and threw his arms around her in a wild embrace. During the interminable days and fearful nights of her captivity, Beatriz had imagined that moment as a seismic upheaval that would expend
all the strength of her body and her soul. It was just the opposite: a kind of stillwater in which she could barely feel the slow, regular beat of her heart, calmed by tranquilizers. Then she let the porter pay her fare, and she rang the bell of her apartment.

Gabriel, her younger son, opened the door. His shout could be heard throughout the house: “Mamaaaaá!” Catalina, her fifteen-year-old daughter,
came running with a cry and threw her arms around her neck, then let go in consternation.

“But Mommy, why are you talking like that?”

It was the fortunate detail that broke through her state of shock. Beatriz would need several days, amid crowds of visitors, to lose the habit of talking in whispers.

They had been waiting for her since morning. Three anonymous phone calls—no doubt from the kidnappers—had
announced her release. Countless reporters had called to find out if they knew the precise time. A few minutes after noon, it was confirmed by Alberto Villamizar, who had received a call from Guido Parra. The press was left in the dark. A journalist who called three minutes before Beatriz arrived told Gabriel in a firm, reassuring voice: “Don’t worry, they’ll let her go today.” Gabriel
had just put down the receiver when the doorbell rang.

Dr. Guerrero had waited for her in the Villamizars’ apartment, assuming that Maruja would be released as well and both women would go there. He drank three whiskeys while he waited, until the seven o’clock news. Since they had not come, he thought it was just another of the false reports circulating at the time and went back to his house.
He put on his pajamas, poured another whiskey, got into bed, and turned on “Radio Recuerdo,” hoping the boleros would lull him to sleep. Since the beginning of his calvary, he had
not been able to read. He was half-asleep when he heard Gabriel’s shout.

He walked out of the bedroom with admirable self-control. Beatriz and he—married for twenty-five years—exchanged an unhurried embrace, not shedding
a tear, as if she were back from a short trip. Both had thought so much about this moment that when the time came to live it, their reunion was like a scene in a play, rehearsed a thousand times, capable of moving everyone but the actors.

As soon as Beatriz walked into her house she thought of Maruja, alone and deprived of news in that miserable room. She telephoned Alberto Villamizar, and he
answered at the first ring in a voice prepared for anything.

“Hello,” she said. “It’s Beatriz.”

She knew her brother had recognized her voice even before she said her name. She heard a deep, rough sigh, like the growl of a cat, and then a question asked without the slightest alteration in his voice:

“Where are you?”

“At my house.”

“Perfect,” said Villamizar. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.
In the meantime, don’t talk to anybody.”

He was punctual. Beatriz had called just as he was about to fall asleep. Beyond the joy of seeing his sister and having the first and only direct news about his captive wife, he was moved by the pressing need to prepare Beatriz before the reporters and the police arrived. His son Andrés, who has an irresistible calling to be a race-car driver, got him
there in record time.

Everyone was feeling calmer. Beatriz sat in the living room with her husband and children, her mother and two sisters, who listened with avid interest to her story. Alberto thought she looked pale after her long confinement, and younger than before, like a schoolgirl in her sweatsuit, ponytail, and flat shoes. She almost cried but he stopped her, eager to know about Maruja.
“Believe
me, she’s all right,” Beatriz told him. “Things there are difficult, but bearable, and Maruja is very brave.” And then she attempted to answer the question that had tormented her for two weeks.

“Do you know Marina’s telephone number?” she asked.

Villamizar thought the least brutal thing would be the truth.

“They killed her,” he said.

The pain of the bad news threw Beatriz off balance
with retroactive terror. If she had known two hours earlier, she might not have been able to endure the drive to her own freedom. She cried until she had no more tears. Meanwhile, Villamizar took precautions to make sure no one came in until they had decided on a public version of the abduction that would not put the other hostages at risk.

Details of her captivity could give an idea of the house
where they had been imprisoned. To protect Maruja, Beatriz had to tell the press that the trip home was a three-hour drive from somewhere in the temperate zone, though the truth was just the opposite: The real distance, the hilly roads, the music on the loudspeakers that blared all night on weekends, the noise of airplanes, the weather, everything indicated a neighborhood in the city. And questioning
four or five priests in the district would have been enough to find out which one exorcised the house.

Other even more careless oversights on the part of her captors provided enough clues for an armed rescue attempt with minimum risk. It ought to take place at six in the morning, after the change in shifts, because the guards who came on duty then did not sleep well at night and they sprawled
on the floor, exhausted, not concerned with their weapons. Another important piece of information was the layout of the house, in particular the courtyard gate, where they saw only an occasional armed guard, and the dog was easier to bribe than his barking would lead one to believe. It was impossible to know in advance if there was also a security cordon around the place, though the lax disorder
inside made it doubtful, and in any case that would be easy enough to find out
once the house had been located. After the tragedy of Diana Turbay, Villamizar had less confidence than ever in the success of armed rescues, but he kept it in mind in the event that became the only alternative. This was, perhaps, the only secret he did not share with Rafael Pardo.

These pieces of information created
a moral dilemma for Beatriz. She had promised Maruja not to reveal any clues that might lead to a raid on the house, but she made the grave decision to pass these facts on to her brother when she saw that he realized with as much clarity as Maruja and Beatriz herself how undesirable an armed solution would be, above all when her release proved that in spite of all the obstacles, the negotiation
route was still open. And so the next day, fresh and rested after a good night’s sleep, Beatriz held a press conference at her brother’s house, where a forest of flowers made it almost impossible to walk. She gave the journalists and the public an accurate picture of the horror of her captivity, but not a single fact of use to those who might want to act on their own, and endanger Maruja’s life.

The following Wednesday, positive that by now Maruja knew about the new decree, Alexandra decided to produce a program to celebrate it. In recent weeks, as negotiations progressed, Villamizar had made significant changes in his apartment, hoping his wife would find them to her liking when she was released. He had put in a library where she had wanted one, replaced some furniture, hung some new
pictures, and found a prominent place for Maruja’s prized possession, the Tang Dynasty horse she had brought home from Jakarta. At the last minute he remembered that she had complained about not having a decent rug in the bathroom, and one was bought without delay. The bright, transformed house was the backdrop for an unusual television program that allowed Maruja to know about the new decoration
before she returned. It turned out very well, though they did not even know if Maruja saw it.

Beatriz soon took up her life again. In her captive’s bag she
kept the clothes she had worn when she was released, and it held the room’s depressing odor that still woke her with a start in the middle of the night. She recovered her spiritual balance with her husband’s help. The only ghost that still
came to her from the past was the voice of the majordomo, who telephoned her twice. The first time it was the shout of a desperate man:

“The medicine! The medicine!”

Beatriz recognized his voice and her blood turned to ice in her veins, but she found enough breath to ask in the same tone:

“What medicine? What medicine?”

“The medicine for the señora!” shouted the majordomo.

Then it became
clear that he wanted the name of the medicine Maruja took for her circulation.

“Vasotón,” said Beatriz. And, having regained her composure, she asked: “How are things?”

“I’m fine, thanks,” said the majordomo.

“Not you,” Beatriz corrected him. “Her.”

“Ah, don’t worry,” said the owner. “The señora is fine.”

Beatriz hung up and burst into tears, overcome by the nausea of hideous memories: the
wretched food, the dungheap of a bathroom, the days that were always the same, the horrific solitude of Maruja in the fetid room. In any case, a mysterious announcement appeared at the bottom of the screen during the sports segment of a television newscast: “Take Basotón.” The spelling was changed to keep an uninformed laboratory from protesting the use of its product for mysterious purposes.

The second call from the majordomo, several weeks later, was very different. It took Beatriz a moment to identify the voice, distorted by some device. But the style was somewhat paternal.

“Remember what we talked about,” he said. “You weren’t with doña Marina. Or anybody.”

“Don’t worry,” said Beatriz, and hung up.

Guido Parra, intoxicated by the first success after all his efforts,
told Villamizar
that Maruja’s release was a matter of three days. Villamizar relayed this to Maruja in a press conference on radio and television. Moreover, Beatriz’s accounts of the conditions of their captivity persuaded Alexandra that her messages were reaching their destination. And so she held a half-hour interview with Beatriz, who talked about everything Maruja wanted to know: how she had been freed,
how the children were, and the house, and friends, and the hopes she should have for her release.

From that time on, Alexandra’s program was based on trivia: the clothes they were wearing, the things they were buying, the people they were seeing. Someone would say, “Manuel cooked the pork roast,” just so Maruja would know that the order she had left behind in her house was still intact. All of
this, no matter how frivolous it might have seemed, had a reassuring significance for Maruja: Life was continuing.

The days passed, however, and no signs of her liberation could be seen. Guido Parra became entangled in vague explanations and puerile excuses; he stopped answering the phone; he dropped out of sight. Villamizar demanded an explanation. Parra wandered through long preambles. He said
things had been complicated by an increase in the number of killings by the police in the Medellín slums. He asserted that until the government put an end to those barbaric methods, it would be very difficult for anybody to be released. Villamizar did not let him finish.

“This wasn’t part of the agreement,” he said. “Everything was based on the decree being explicit, and it is. This is a debt
of honor, and nobody can play games with me.”

“You don’t know how fucked up it is being a lawyer for these guys,” Parra said. “My problem isn’t whether or not to charge them, my problem is that if things don’t turn out right they’ll kill me. What do you want me to do?”