Then I got to know Jaburi, who was also a bodyguard. Whenever I went out I went with him, and one night, coming back to the apartment, I asked him to come with me into the shower. We fucked under the water, which was the start of my making him fall in love with me. The fucking was great. We maintained our relationship until one morning I felt something, a dizziness, my period was late, I was pregnant. It could only have been his, because we fucked without a condom. I think I must have wanted it subconsciously, so that he would get me out of there, to remind me that my life wasn’t just that, and it worked. Jaburi paid my debt and went to talk with the local bosses. We got married and they gave me an Iranian passport, because I’d left my Colombian one in the pocket of a pair of jeans and it had faded in the washing machine, maybe because it was false. Soon afterwards we got permission and were able to travel to Tehran, where Manuelito was born. But they don’t know that in Tokyo: the organization told the other girls I’d run away; I think they even said I’d been captured and tortured, I’m not sure.
In Tehran I kept putting off getting in touch with Manuel, every day I said to myself: tomorrow, next week… I had to gather my strength. I was dying to tell him that he had a nephew, actually a son. Manuelito was our son. I applied for the passports without Jaburi knowing. I hoped to run away somewhere before writing to Manuel, but without my realizing it time passed. I never imagined he’d come looking for me. It’s hard to explain what I did, but that’s what happened. In Japan I was high on pills most of the time; that’s what I chose to escape. I have lots of gaps. Sometimes I looked at a calendar and said, are we already in September? and then, ten minutes later, we were in another month, and suddenly someone said in my ear, happy New Year, and I’d smile and take another pill. Jaburi saved me but I gave him my body and made him happy for a time. I didn’t give him a son because Manuelito is mine alone. He hit me once, although you could say I asked for it. I prefer not to talk about that, but the truth is that I didn’t hate him, I felt sorry for him. He seemed to me a loser, an inferior animal. I’ll tell you what happened, Consuclass="underline" one night I refused to have sex with him and he said, I’m your husband, you’re obliged. I told him that nobody obliged me to do what I didn’t want to do and I got up and locked myself in the bathroom. Then I started shouting through the window. The neighbors woke up, and his parents and brothers, who lived on the floors below, came up to our apartment. I started saying that Jaburi was a coward, that he beat me because he was incapable of having an erection and satisfying me, and I said that he wasn’t a man because he forced me to put my finger up his ass and rub him, and that, as a wife, I did it even though I was dying from disgust, and I cried that Jaburi was a lousy faggot who couldn’t get enjoyment with women and only had erections when he painted mustaches on me with a burned cork. The neighbors started laughing and saying, “Virtuous woman,” and at that moment Jaburi knocked down the door and grabbed me and hit me while I screamed and laughed. You shouldn’t hit a woman, but I enjoyed it. It was a way of telling him: you may have force and religion on your side, but I’m the one who has what you want between her legs, and I can destroy you. Again I raised my arms and prayed for Monsieur Echenoz.
The rest of the time, Jaburi was fine with me. The payment he’d obtained to save me was more than sufficient. He’ll find it hard for a while and then he’ll recover and later he’ll be happy. That’s how it always is in life. The more quickly you suffer, the better it is in the long run.
And that’s all, Consul. The rest you already know.
PART III
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.