“But what was she waiting for? What was it exactly that she was waiting for?”
“Ay, mi reina, the same thing she had always been waiting for, for the month to end and for the last Friday to arrive…”
“She went to the clinic every day to care for Fideo, who was improving little by little with the injections of penicillin mixed with benzoin that Dr. Antonio María gave her,” says Olga, “and the rest of the time, Sayonara waited. And she plucked daisy petals, which is classic in these cases, since the daisy is recognized as the most convenient flower, because it only knows how to say yes or no, he loves me or he loves me not, that’s all, so that if it is not to be, then let it be no for once and for all, so I can just die and get it over with, without further delay, because a person in love can’t bear anything in between.”
“And she constantly questioned me,” adds Machuca. “I had become her informant and adviser and she interrogated me as if her joy depended on the words that I would have the grace to speak. ‘He’s going to come,’ I assured her. ‘He’s going to come, you’ll see.’ ”
“How do you know, doña Machuca? Why are you so sure?”
“I’ve already told you, because he’s been seen looking for you lately. And since you are so eager to see him, why don’t you go and look for him? You know where to find him…”
“Don’t even think about it, doña Machuca. I could never do that. Why don’t you just tell me about Emilia again?”
“ ‘Ay, niña! Don’t you ever get tired of it?’ I asked her,” says Machuca, “and I would repeat the news of how they shut down Campo 26. How the old workers and the strikers were discriminated against with the argument that their experience wasn’t worth anything now because the company valued personnel who had studied in technical institutes, and as part of the modernization process they were getting rid of obsolete machinery. How they had sold skinny Emilia for junk and several people had heard Payanés say that anything they did to Emilia they were doing to him, that if Emilia was no longer there, then he didn’t have a commitment to the Tropical Oil Company anymore, or any reason to stay on at the Campo.”
They also heard him say that he was going to look for better oil regions in Catatumbo, or around Tibú, where they had begun to recruit, or if not there, then in Cusiana, where they were laying pipe, or in Yopal and Orocué, in the far reaches of the Llano, the western plain; that maybe he went to look for work in Saldaña, where they were drilling, or in Tauramena, in the Casanare jungle, where a contracting company was looking for welders and pipe fitters.
“They say that Payanés is going around saying that he is willing to go anywhere that the voice of the pipe calls him, and that if it’s necessary he’ll follow its trail all the way to Saudi Arabia. They say that before he leaves he will come looking for you.”
“Then I will go with him,” Sayonara swore to Machuca.
“And what are you going to do when hunger strikes you?” Todos los Santos wanted to know.
“I can mount a show of exotic dances and he can sell tickets at the entrance, or I can sell outside a movie theater the empanadas de pipián that you taught me how to make. I can do housework as I learned in Villa de la Virgen del Amparo, like ironing shirts and polishing parquet floors, or I could work as a hairdresser. Maybe I would become a puta again, you never know…”
“And you would go off again like that, with one hand in front of you and the other behind you, without knowing if you would find a roof to shelter you at night?”
“I would go like that, madrina, because you know that life in this pueblo is no bed of roses, and because I don’t need any more protection than his loving chest.”
“Ay, Virgen santa! An umbrella in a hurricane would protect you more than his loving chest. And the remaining matter of that wife of his in Popayán, have you solved that?”
“That will be dealt with, madrina, along the way.”
“Along the way, along the way! The way to sorrow is where you’ll be heading again…”
“What are you saying, Todos los Santos?!” says Olga indignantly. “As if there were any ways in this life that didn’t lead to sorrow. But it’s still worth the trouble of following them; no, child, don’t be discouraged.”
One by one the slowest hours of the century filtered past and Sayonara was barely surviving her own hopefulness, always besieged by the certainty that something — or everything — was in play; that something — or everything — could be won or lost. Until the last Friday of that last month of the year dawned, brushing lightly against first the smokestacks at the refinery, then the tops of the highest trees, next the roofs of the houses, and finally the naked backs of the sleeping women, to find Sayonara already bathed and dressed and finished with breakfast, kneeling before the Christ with the blond beard.
“Today is the day, Señor Jesús,” she prayed, “and I have come to ask you for something: Either you make that man love me, or you give me the courage to forget him. One of the two. All-powerful Señor, you who take everything and give everything, allow us to love one another until the end of our days, which isn’t much to ask, since the lives of humans are short. I won’t demand a commitment from him, or marriage or any other word, just true and clear proof. Send me a signaclass="underline" If Payanés can’t offer me great love, then don’t let him appear today at the river. If it is otherwise, then give him swift feet, Señor, so he will arrive quickly.”
“Careful, girl,” Todos los Santos told her, listening to Sayonara’s prayer from the doorway, “don’t ask for supernatural announcements, they are almost always deceiving. Understand this, girl, you were born to be a nun or a puta, because no man exists who can put out that fire of longing inside you, or calm such a jumble of hopes.”
“Don’t teach me to resign myself, madrina, because I don’t want to learn. It’s already too late in life for me to accept defeat. I want to die peacefully knowing that I loved and was loved, and I assure you that it is not going to be a lack of faith that interferes with my efforts. Señor Jesús,” she began to pray again, “help me to prove those wrong who believe that this is a valley of tears, amen.”
They took stools, umbrellas, and cold drinks and sat at the edge of the Magdalena to wait, in respectful silence, as befits great occurrences. Sayonara was wearing her tight skirt and silk blouse, but she had traded her spike heels for some sandals, in case things turned out well and she needed to walk a long distance.
“Do you think you can make it all the way to Saudi Arabia in this suffocating heat?” one of the women joked, and they all laughed nervously.
Toward ten that morning they saw a group of people walking toward them and Sayonara’s heart stopped, but they turned out to be pilgrims on their way to the sanctuary of Las Lajas.
“Have you come across anyone?” Todos los Santos asked them.
“Because of the stifling heat today, everything is very quiet,” they responded.
Between that hour and eleven-thirty, the women didn’t notice anything worthy of mention, and later they saw moving down river, at more or less regular intervals and for a period that stretched until noon, a pair of men fishing from a chalupa, a few fur merchants, and a champán rushing in an injured woman. Nothing more. Except for Sayonara, all of the women withdrew to eat lunch and came back down later with a plate of food that she wouldn’t even taste. The afternoon heat put them to sleep at their watch posts, all but Sayonara, who remained painfully alert. Five o’clock came without event and discouragement began to invade the women, except for Sayonara, who ran to brush her hair and rinse her face with cool water.