19
…and so he ended up with all this land. I’m not criticizing him, I love the guy as much as anyone, but frankly I think he had delusions of grandeur. When he died, he owned over a thousand hectares — can you imagine? He had a lumber business — at least that’s what I’ve heard — and the lumbermen were allowed to cut down what they wanted whenever they felt like it. There was no system to what he was doing out there on the finca. Actually, the last time I saw him in Bogotá, he was blind drunk, ranting and raving about everyone and everything like a moron. He insulted my mother, me, you, Elena — the whole human race in general. “The human being is a piece of shit, the human being is a piece of shit, the human being is a piece of shit…” He must have said that a thousand times before he finally fell asleep. The next morning, he didn’t remember a thing. Can you imagine a guy like that running a sawmill with fifteen lumbermen in Turbo? I mean, the balls of the guy! I think Jorge was right — what with the whole highbrow-anarcho-lefty businessman bullshit, that mixture of colonial, bohemian and hippie could never have survived. It’s astonishing he reached the age of thirty-four.
I’m worried this letter will leave you even more confused than you were, but the thing is I’m not exactly the best person to try and explain this whole mess. The reason I’m writing is not because I think I understand what happened, but because I know you must be feeling shocked and terribly alone after his death. I was more surprised than anyone when I found out what he was doing at the finca. As I understood it, the original plan was just to move out to the sea and enjoy life, buy a little boat for fishing, a few cows, a few chickens. When he asked my advice on the first farm, I told him I thought it sounded too big, but then again he didn’t need to use all the land or walk the fields every day. Obviously he didn’t listen to me. Maybe he had some bourgeois dream of being a landowner… I don’t know, I still don’t get it. But buying the second finca was sheer madness — not that he asked my opinion. Though, as you know, by then our friendship was a bit strained. But, since I’ve raised the subject, there’s something I’d like to say — as much for my own peace of mind as for yours. Even with everything that happened, we were still fond of each other. Right to the end we still loved each other. But he started to attack me — especially when he was shitfaced — for what he called my intellectual snobbery. Basically, he accused me of becoming pretentious after I moved to Bogotá, of being pretentious. What hurt me most was that he would come out with all this shit with a kind of primitive — and in his case completely phoney — machismo of a guy who feared neither God nor man, it was like some pathetic attempt to portray himself as some kind of outlaw, a mixture of Jimi Hendrix and a character out of Rivera’s The Vortex. I visited him in Envigado once and I didn’t like what I saw. By that time, he’d been living on the fincafor a while, and this was the first time he and Elena had come back to town together. They’d been there for a week, boozing every night, and when I got to their apartment they were in the middle of a serious session — booze, dope, pounding music — and the place was crawling with freeloaders and hangers-on. He and Elena were playing up the role of beatnik rebels, people who don’t believe in anyone or anything, hardened by the sea and the salt air — you get the idea.
As usual, J. was the one paying for the booze, the weed, the music, even the food.
The two of them were unbearable. They were horribly aggressive, all glib contemptuous humour and equally glib anarchism. Obviously the next morning, when they were hungover, they were back to being their friendly, normal selves. Elena was kind and gentle, nothing like the proud courtesan she’d been posing as the night before. I said to J. — and maybe this was a little tactless — I said he should be a little more wary of these provincial parasites from Envigado who were only out for what they could scrounge. J. reminded me — and I suppose he had a point — that I was from Envigado just like them, even if I had studied literature and philosophy in Bogotá, and he accused me of wasting my life in mental masturbation because I was afraid of facing up to real life, of being too quick to judge and too smug about it… I said exactly what I’ve said in this letter, that he was turning into [words crossed out] and Elena was turning into some punk version of María Félix. Obviously we made up again, in fact J. even spent the whole afternoon referring to Elena as “María”. But after that we were always a little wary of each other, we treated each other with kid gloves, we never talked about anything in detail and both of us just assumed that we were right…
20
THE SOMMELIER uncorked the bottle and poured a little into the glass. Fernando, the bank manager, sniffed the bouquet — he had already sniffed the cork — and said it was lovely. After the waiter left, Fernando muttered that he had had better, but that it was acceptable. J. had called to say he wanted to talk and asked if they could meet somewhere other than the bank. Fernando invited him to lunch at Club Medellín, where he was a member. “He’s going to want to talk about Europe,” thought J. “Jesus, the guy’s a pain in the arse…” He asked Elena to go with him. “I’ve no desire to see that little prick again,” she said.
Fernando had lived in France for four years, J. had spent two years in England. And since J. desperately needed an extension on his loan, he had no choice but to go, alone, and talk about Europe. The four years Fernando had spent in France had been the most important in his life; back then he had been wild and crazy, he stole tins of food from supermarkets, novels from bookshops, he even found a way of calling Colombia from a callbox without paying. They had been the most creative years of his life; he had visited cathedrals, met artists, he had even managed to become a personal friend of Paco de Lucía. This is what they talked about while Fernando delicately sipped his wine, savouring the bouquet like a connoisseur.
When the food arrived, J. made the most of the interruption to solemnly solicit some professional advice. He told Fernando about his idea for the lumber business and asked his opinion. Flattered, the banker lucidly laid out the pros and cons. Broadly, he was in favour of the venture but was careful to warn that he would have to see a detailed business plan before he could offer a decisive opinion. “I’ll come down for a few days’ holiday soon,” he said when J. invited him to visit the finca. The plates were cleared away and Fernando ordered a liqueur. “A pousse-café after a meal is a great aid to digestion, I learnt that living in France,” he said as J. shot him a sardonic look devoid of even a flicker of warmth.
J. drank his liqueur, thinking it “sickeningly fucking sweet”, then casually mentioned the fact that he needed to renew his loan. Fernando first sang the praises of his pousse-café and then began to speak slowly, very slowly about the loan. It was clearly a prepared speech, since he had been rambling for some time before J. managed to work out where it was headed. He talked about the statement of income J. had provided — which was clearly not good — he mentioned their long-standing friendship, talked about his position at the bank and how important it was that he be seen to be scrupulous, especially when it came to lending. Finally he said that, yes, he would extend the loan, but that this was the last time. He flushed slightly and lit a cigarette. J. thanked him and also lit a cigarette. Exhaling smoke from his mouth and nose, he asked about some trivial detail of Fernando’s time in France.