The first Monday of 1970 — a dry, tough, hot day, a day of so much light that the heavens seemed white instead of blue — Elaine rode off on Truman in the direction of Guarinocito, where they were building a school and she was going to talk about a literacy programme the volunteers in the department had begun to coordinate, and when she came around a corner she thought she saw Carlos and Mike Barbieri in the distance. That evening, when she got home, Ricardo had news for her: they’d got him a job, he was going to be away for a couple of days. He was going to bring a couple of televisions from San Andrés, nothing easier, but he would have to sleep over at the destination. That’s how he put it, ‘at the destination’. Elaine was pleased that he was starting to get work: maybe, after all, it wasn’t going to be so hard to make a living as a pilot. ‘Everything’s going well,’ Elaine wrote at the beginning of February. ‘Of course, it’s a thousand times easier to fly a light aircraft once you know how to read the instruments than to make village politicians cooperate with each other.’ She added: ‘And harder still for a woman.’ And then:
One thing I have learned: since the people are used to being told what to do, I have begun to act like a patrón. I’m very sorry to have to report that it gets results. I got the women of Victoria (a nearby village) to demand the doctor organize a nutrition and dental-health campaign. Yes, it’s odd to see the two together, but feeding themselves on sugar-water would destroy anyone’s teeth. So, at least I’ve accomplished something. It’s not much, but it’s a start.
Ricardo is happy, that’s for sure. Like a kid in a candy store. He’s starting to get jobs, not a lot, but enough. He doesn’t have the flying hours to become a commercial pilot yet, but that’s better, because he charges less and they prefer him for that (in Colombia everything’s better if it’s done under the counter). Of course, I see less of him. He leaves very early, flying out of Bogotá and these jobs eat up his day. Sometimes he has to sleep over at his old house, at his parents’ house, on his way out or on his way back, or both. And me here by myself. Sometimes it’s infuriating but I have no right to complain.
Between workdays Ricardo had weeks of leisure time, so in the evenings, when Elaine got home from her frustrating attempts to change the world, Ricardo had had time to get bored and bored again and to start doing things around the house with his toolbox, and the house began to look like a construction site. In March Ricardo built Elaine a shower stall in the patio, which was now a little garden: a wooden cubicle attached to the outside wall of the house that allowed Elaine to take a hose and have a shower under the night sky. In May he built a tool cupboard, and put an impregnable lock the size of a deck of cards on it to discourage any thieves. In June he didn’t build anything, because he was away more than usuaclass="underline" after talking it over with Elaine, he decided to go back to the Flying Club to get his commercial pilot’s licence, which would allow him to transport cargo and, most importantly, passengers. ‘So we’re going to take a serious step,’ he said. Obtaining the licence meant getting almost a hundred more flying hours, as well as ten hours of flying instruction with dual controls, so he spent the weekdays in Bogotá (slept at his old house, got his parents’ news, gave them news of his newlywed life, they all drank a toast and were happy) and went back to La Dorada on Friday afternoons, by train or by bus and once in a chartered taxi. ‘That must have cost a fortune,’ said Elaine. ‘What does it matter,’ he said. ‘I wanted to see you. I wanted to see my wife.’ One of those days he arrived after midnight, not by bus or train or even by taxi, but in a white jeep that invaded the tranquillity of the street with the roar of its engine and the glare of its headlights. ‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ Elaine said. ‘It’s late, I was worried.’ She gestured towards the jeep. ‘Whose is that?’
‘You like it?’ said Ricardo.
‘It’s a jeep.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But do you like it?’
‘It’s big,’ Elaine said. ‘It’s white. It’s noisy.’
‘But it’s yours,’ said Ricardo. ‘Merry Christmas.’
‘It’s June.’
‘No, it’s December now. You don’t notice because the weather’s the same. You really should have known, you with your Colombian ways.’
‘But where did it come from?’ said Elaine, pronouncing every syllable. ‘And how can we, when. .’
‘Too many questions. This is a horse, Elena Fritts, it just goes faster and if it rains you don’t get wet. Come on, let’s go for a spin.’
It was a 1968 Nissan Patrol, as Elaine found out, and the official colour was not white, but ivory. But this information interested her less than the two back doors and the passenger compartment, which was so spacious that a mattress could fit on the floor. Except that wouldn’t be necessary since the jeep had two fold-down cushioned beige benches on which a child could comfortably lie down. The front seat was a sort of big sofa, and Elaine made herself comfortable there, and saw the long, thin gear lever coming up from the floor and its black knob with three speeds marked on it, and she saw the white dashboard and thought it wasn’t white, but ivory, and saw the black steering wheel that Ricardo now started to move, and she grabbed hold of the handrail she found above the glove compartment. The Nissan began to move along the streets of La Dorada and soon out onto the highway. Ricardo turned in the direction of Medellín. ‘Things are going well for me,’ he said then. The Nissan left behind the lights of the town and plunged into the black night. In the beams of the headlights leafy trees sprang up and disappeared, a dog with shining eyes was startled, a puddle of dirty water twinkled. The night was humid and Ricardo opened the vents and a gust of warm air blew into the cabin. ‘Things are going well,’ he repeated. Elaine looked at his profile, saw the intense expression on his face in the darkness: Ricardo was trying to look at her at the same time as keep control of the vehicle on a road full of surprises (there could be other distracted animals, potholes that were more like craters, the odd drunk on a bicycle). ‘Things are going well,’ Ricardo said for the third time. And just when Elaine was thinking: he’s trying to tell me something, just when she was starting to get frightened by this revelation that was coming down on top of her as if out of the black night, just when she was about to change the subject out of vertigo or fear, Ricardo spoke in a tone that left no room for doubt: ‘I want to have a baby.’
‘You’re crazy,’ said Elaine.
‘Why?’
Elaine’s hands started to wave around. ‘Because having a child costs money. Because I’m a Peace Corps volunteer and make barely enough money to survive on. Because first I have to finish my voluntariado.’ Voluntariado: the word gave her tongue a terribly tough time, like a racetrack full of curves, and for a moment she thought she’d got it wrong. ‘I like this,’ she said then, ‘I like what I’m doing.’