No, Dad. It isn’t for that. I swear.
That’s good, son. Take care.
I took a bus to the Church of Lourdes, because I’d seen a few call shops in the vicinity. I found one on Eleventh and asked how much it cost to call Tokyo. Seven hundred pesos for a minute. Hell, that’s expensive, I thought. I could only talk for about fifteen minutes. I went to one of the booths, dialed the number of the Colombian embassy, and waited. When the ringing started, my heart began pounding, and a drop of sweat ran down my back. Six rings, seven. They finally answered, and I explained that I was calling from Bogotá, that I had a sister who was lost in Japan, and gave the name and her identity card number. I was about to repeat it when a voice said, please hang on, I’ll put you through to the consulate; there was an internal switchboard noise, followed by some music by Vivaldi. I looked at the digital counter, three minutes and forty-six seconds, and then they answered at last, and I quickly explained that I was calling from Bogotá and that my sister was lost in Tokyo, and the name, and then the official said, can you repeat that, please? one moment, and left me waiting, and I looked at the counter, seven minutes and fifty seconds, my heart was stopping me from breathing, and then the man came back and said, no, there’s no record of anyone with that name, so I asked, what if she’s in prison? and they said, oh, one moment, and again Vivaldi, ten minutes and five seconds, more Vivaldi, twelve minutes and fifty seconds; the voice returned and said, no, there’s nobody registered under that name, all right, thanks, I said, and hung up, fourteen minutes and forty-eight seconds. I paid the ten thousand pesos and went out with my head about to burst.
I went up to Seventh and started walking back, looking at the expanse of the hills, the darker areas between the lights of the buildings and the lampposts, and I was filled with reproaches, questions, guilt: why didn’t you tell me? did you think I was going to judge you? do you think I’d have tried to stop you? It’s possible, it’s possible, where are you at this precise moment, while I’m walking along a horrible avenue filled with buses and vulgar people rushing along the sidewalks?
I got home at eleven. I didn’t want to meet Father in the living room, let alone Mother, so I made a few detours. I was grateful that he hadn’t asked me what the money was for. Ever since Juana had disappeared, he had become more generous toward me. Mother, on the other hand, continued with her suspicions and her silences, and those horrible ironic remarks of hers, a way of dealing with problems that consisted of not discussing them at the time, pretending they didn’t exist, and then bringing them out in front of other people and ridiculing Father. What most bothered me about her was her apparent insensitivity toward what had happened to Juana. I say apparent, Consul, because I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt, after all it was her eldest child, but the truth is, she didn’t give a damn, I’d even say she was pleased. That’s how she was, resentful and evil.
In my room, I went on the Internet and started to look at images of Tokyo: it seemed to me a strange, unreal city. Then I looked out at the night from my window. In Japan it was already the following day, which meant that Juana was in the future. She ran away to the future, I thought. She’s intelligent.
That was the moment, Consul, when I decided to go to Japan and look for her.
The next question, obviously, was, how to get there? Of course the decision was connected to another one, the decision to leave home forever. I couldn’t turn to Father, because if I did I’d have to tell him everything and hurt him even more. I felt that now was the moment, that, as they say in romantic stories, fate was knocking at my door. Knock, knock. The hour had come for me to go. Deciding to do so made me euphoric and I started with the most complicated thing. I took out Juana’s plane ticket, went on a website offering cheap flights, eDreams, and checked the fares. The journey from Bogotá—Juana’s was from Quito — would cost seven thousand dollars. In other words, to find her, I would need at least twice that. About fifteen thousand dollars, thirty million pesos, which was in the realm of fantasy, even for Father.
Where could I get hold of that kind of money? I fell asleep making calculations. Working and saving, it would take at least two years. Out of the question. Sell something? I had nothing of value. Rob? I couldn’t think whom. A sliver of an idea crossed my mind: Father worked in a bank, couldn’t I rob it? After all, Brecht taught us that it’s a worse crime to create a bank than to rob it. But these were idle thoughts, it would be like planting a dagger in Father’s heart, and he’d already been hurt enough.
What to do, then?
I spent a week thinking and nothing occurred to me. Everything that came to mind was impossible or ridiculous. I actually imagined I was robbing a supermarket like the Pomona on Seventh, not far from my house, but I calculated that I would have to rob it at least three times to get the full amount together. It was impossible for someone like me to get hold of that much money.
After a while I hit on an idea that was also fairly desperate, but was the only one that didn’t seem impossible.
The former Miss Colombia.
Maybe she could think of a way for me to make that journey. Without asking for an appointment I went to the modeling agency. The secretary said, oh, you’re back! Obviously you like it, and winked. I wasn’t too sure what she was referring to, but she announced me and the former Miss Colombia received me in the same office, looking rather more of a mess than the first time, maybe due to the fact that there were a half-empty bottle of aguardiente and a plastic cup on the desk. When she saw me, she smiled and said:
How did it go with Juana? did you find her?
I said no, I’d barely started. I told her I’d called the Colombian embassy in Tokyo and that they had no record of her. Nor had she been arrested. I don’t know why I felt the need to tell her all that.
The former Miss Colombia looked at me with interest and offered me a drop of aguardiente. I accepted. Then she went to the bathroom and came back ten seconds later, rubbing her gums with one finger.
So what are you planning to do, darling? she said.
I’m convinced Juana is there and I want to go and find her, I said. I’ve already made up my mind, but I have a problem: the money. The journey costs fifteen thousand dollars and I don’t have it. That’s why I came here. Maybe you can think of a way to finance me, make me a loan, something like that.
The former Miss Colombia didn’t say no immediately, but moved her head up and down.
Okay, okay, she said. It’s difficult, and it is a lot of money, but let me see. Write your cell phone number on this piece of paper, and if I think of something I’ll make sure they call you, and you’ll come, all right?
I thanked her and went out on the street. That she hadn’t said no, or laughed in my face, seemed to me already a success. She was the only person who could help me. Now I just had to wait.
And that was what I did: I waited and waited, nervously watching the display screen of my cell phone. Five or six days went by, I can’t remember exactly, until at last it rang.