“It’s a miracle,” I said.
“No. It’s me.”
I felt like running, like a foal finally standing up.
“You still have to take it easy, Ismael. You have to let it rest for three days, for the bones to set. Try to go down slowly, don’t be foolhardy.”
“How much do I owe you, Maestro,” and, again, I did not know if I was going to cry or laugh.
“Bring a hen, when you’re quite better. It’s been a long time since I’ve tasted a chicken stew, since I’ve talked to a friend.”
I took my time going down the bridle path. No pain. I turned around to look: Maestro Claudino and his dog were standing there watching me. I waved goodbye, and went on.
~ ~ ~
She was waiting for me, sitting in her chair by the front door. It was after midnight and there were no lights on.
“Sooner or later you were bound to come back,” she said.
“How was it, Otilia? What did I miss?”
“Everything.”
She did not even ask me where I had been. Nor did I wish to talk about Maestro Claudino and my knee. She turned on the light in the bedroom and we lay down on the bed, on top of the covers. She had given me a plate of stuffed pork and a cup of coffee.
“So you don’t fall asleep,” she said. And explained: “Hortensia Galindo sent you the pork. I had to make excuses for you, say you weren’t well, that your legs were hurting you.”
“My left knee.” And I began to eat hungrily.
“Father Albornoz didn’t go,” she told me. “He didn’t go to Hortensia’s. And nobody cared. The mayor arrived without his wife, without his children, Dr. Orduz, Captain Berrío, Mauricio Rey, drunk but calm.”
“And the youngsters? Did the young people have a party?”
“There was no party.”
“Really? The girls didn’t dance?”
“There wasn’t a single girl on the patio. They’ve all gone in this past year.”
“All of them?”
“All the girls and all the boys, Ismael.” She gave me a reproachful look. “The most sensible thing they could do.”
“It won’t be any better elsewhere.”
“They had to leave to find out.”
Otilia went to the kitchen and came back with another cup of coffee. This time she did not lie down beside me. She drank her coffee and stared blindly out of the window. What could she see? It was night time; we could hear only the cicadas.
“And she turned up,” she said.
“Who?”
“Gloria Dorado.”
I waited.
And eventually: “With a letter that she had received from Marcos Saldarriaga two years ago; she turned up to say that she thought perhaps that letter would help to get him freed. And she put it on a table.”
“On a table?”
“In front of Hortensia Galindo.
“‘I cannot possibly read this,’ said Hortensia as she picked it up. But she read out loud: My name is Marcos Saldarriaga. I am writing this in my own hand.”
“She read that?”
“‘I recognize his handwriting,’ Hortensia said.”
“And? No one said anything?”
“No one. She just kept reading. It was as if she was listening herself, unable to believe it, but with no choice but to believe it. In that letter Marcos Saldarriaga asked Gloria Dorado, of all people, to make sure Hortensia was never allowed to take charge of his liberation. Hortensia would like to see me dead, Hortensia Galindo read out loud, her voice steady. She was strong enough to read it.”
“Damn me.”
“She was reading the words of a madman, that’s what I thought, at first. Not even a madman would take it into his head to make so many enemies in such a way, starting with his wife. In that letter Marcos spoke ill of everyone, even Father Albornoz, whitewashed sepulchre, he called him, said that everyone wanted to see him dead, from that hypocrite Mauricio Rey right the way down to the Mayor, betrayer of his people, by way of General Palacios, that bird breeder, he called him, and Dr. Orduz: pigheaded quack. He begged Gloria Dorado not to let the people of his town negotiate his liberty, for the opposite would happen, they would do things backward, and so backward that sooner or later he would turn up dead at the side of a road.”
“Well, he hasn’t turned up yet, either dead or alive.”
“And still Hortensia read, without her voice breaking: Make this public, so the world will know the truth: they want to kill me, those who say they want to liberate me every bit as much as those who are holding me prisoner. This last bit etched itself in my memory because that was when I realized that Marcos had already given himself up for dead, that he wasn’t mad and that he was telling the truth, the truth that comes only from desperation, as told by one who knows his death is near, so why lie? The man who lies at the hour of his death is not a man.”
“And no one said anything? How could everybody keep quiet?”
“They all wanted to hear something worse.”
We heard the buzzing of an insect in the room; it flew around the light bulb, crossed between our gazes, landed on the crucifix above the bed, then on the head of the old wooden Saint Anthony, a sort of altar in the corner, and finally flew away.
“I too am somewhat pleased, I confess, that Marcos Saldarriaga has disappeared,” I dared to tell Otilia.
“There are things we should not say aloud, not even to those who love us most. They are the things that cause walls to listen, Ismael, understand?”
I laughed.
“Everyone knows those things, long before the walls do,” I told her.
“But it is unforgivable to say them. This is a man’s life.”
“I am only saying what I think, which is what everyone thinks, although nobody in the world deserves that fate, that’s cruel.”
“There is no word for it,” she said.
I began to undress, down to my underwear. She looked at me closely.
“What?” I said. “You like ruins?”
And I got under the covers and told her I wanted to sleep.
“That’s what you’re like,” she said, “sleep, watch, and sleep. Don’t you want to hear what Geraldina, your neighbor, did?”
I pretended to be unconcerned. But that shook me.
“What did she do?”
“She took her children and she left.”
Otilia examined me much more closely.
“Before she left she had time to speak, oh yes.”
“What did she say?”
“That it was a disgrace that Gloria Dorado, at this point, two years after receiving a letter, should turn up to hand it over, when it had nothing to do with anything anymore. Marcos Saldarriaga’s situation was very serious, she said, he was not in his right mind, who could be, held prisoner day and night, by people he doesn’t even know, not knowing for how long, perhaps till his death? The things Marcos said were just private affairs, misunderstandings, matrimonial quarrels, desperation, and it was not wise to bring such a letter to a woman as distressed as Hortensia.
“‘What he requested has been carried out,’ Gloria Dorado interrupted her. ‘It has been made public. For two years I didn’t show anyone because the things he wrote seemed harsh, even unjust. But I see that I should have done so sooner, because it’s very possible that what he says is true, that nobody here wants his freedom, not even Father Albornoz.’
“‘You wicked woman!’ shouted Hortensia Galindo. No one knew when she had leapt toward Gloria, her hands out in front of her, as if she wanted to grab her by the hair, but she had the bad luck to trip and fall and bounce, fat as she is, at the feet of the Dorado woman, who shouted: “I’m sure that I am the only one in this town who wants to see Marcos Saldarriaga free, you criminals.”