He knew very well.
He knew very well, he who accompanied Ricardo in the Nissan to a ranch in Doradal with its property lines too far away to see, this side of Medellín, and there introduced him to the Colombian side of the business, two men with wavy black hair and moustaches who spoke softly and gave the impression of feeling very much at ease with their consciences and after greeting Ricardo they attended to and entertained him as he’d never been entertained or attended to in his life. He knew very well, he who’d been at Ricardo’s side while the bosses showed him around the property, the paso fino horses and the luxurious stables, the bullring and barns, the swimming pool like a cut emerald, the fields that stretched further than the eye could see. He knew very well, having helped load the Cessna 310-R with his own hands, having taken the rucksacks out of a black Land Rover with his own hands and put them into the plane, he who couldn’t contain himself and had given Ricardo a big hug, a hug of true comrades, feeling as he did so that he’d never loved any Colombian this much. He knew very well, having watched the Cessna take off and followed it with his gaze, its white shape against the grey background of the clouds that were now threatening rain, and having watched it get smaller and smaller until it disappeared in the distance, and then got back into the Land Rover and let them drive him out to the main road where he caught the first bus heading in the direction of La Dorada.
He knew very well.
He knew very well, having received the phone call twelve hours before arriving at Villa Elena that gave him the news, and in an urgent and then threatening tone demanded explanations. And he couldn’t give any, of course, because nobody could explain how DEA agents were waiting for Ricardo in the very spot he landed, or how the two dealers — one from Miami Beach, the other from the university zone of Massachusetts — waiting for Ricardo’s shipment in a covered Ford pick-up truck hadn’t noticed their presence. It was said that Ricardo was the first to notice that something was wrong. It was said that he tried to get back to the cockpit, but he must have realized his effort would be futile, for he’d never be able to get the Cessna in motion in time to escape. So he ran down the runway towards the woods that surrounded it, chased by two agents and three German shepherds who caught up with him 30 metres from the edge of the woods. He had already lost at the moment of running off, it was obvious that he’d lost, and that’s why no one could explain what happened next. It’s possible to think it was out of fear, a reaction to the moment’s vulnerability, to the agents’ shouts and to their own weapons pointing at him, or perhaps it was out of despair or rage or powerlessness. Of course, Ricardo couldn’t have thought that firing a random shot could help him in any way, but that’s what he did, using a.22-calibre Taurus he’d started carrying in January: it was a random shot and only one shot, over his shoulder without bothering to aim and with no desire to hurt anyone, with such bad luck that the bullet pierced the right hand of one of the agents, and that same hand in a plaster cast would be enough later, during the trial for drug trafficking, to increase the sentence, even though it was a first offence. Ricardo dropped the Taurus on the way into the woods and shouted something, they say he shouted something, but those who heard him didn’t understand what he said. When the dogs and the second agent found him, Ricardo was lying in a puddle with a broken ankle, his hands black with dirt, his clothes torn and covered in pine gum and his face disfigured by sadness.
6. Up, Up, Up
Adulthood brings with it the pernicious illusion of control, and perhaps even depends on it. I mean that mirage of dominion over our own life that allows us to feel like adults, for we associate maturity with autonomy, the sovereign right to determine what is going to happen to us next. Disillusion comes sooner or later, but it always comes, it doesn’t miss an appointment, it never has. When it arrives we receive it without too much surprise, for no one who lives long enough can be surprised to find their life has been moulded by distant events, by other people’s wills, with little or no participation from their own decisions. Those long processes that end up running into our life — sometimes to give it the shove it needed, sometimes to blow to smithereens our most splendid plans — tend to be hidden like subterranean currents, like tiny shifts of tectonic plates, and when the earthquake finally comes we invoke the words we’ve learned to calm ourselves, accident, fluke, and sometimes fate. Right now there is a chain of circumstances, of guilty mistakes or lucky decisions, whose consequences await me around the corner; and even though I know it, although I have the uncomfortable certainty that those things are happening and will affect me, there is no way I can anticipate them. Struggling against their effects is all I can do: repair the damage, take best advantage of the benefits. We know it, we know it very well; nevertheless it’s always somewhat dreadful when someone reveals to us the chain that has turned us into what we are, it’s always disconcerting to discover, when it’s another person who brings us the revelation, the slight or complete lack of control we have over our own experience.
That’s what happened to me over the course of that second afternoon at Las Acacias, the property formerly known as Villa Elena, whose name no longer suited it one fine day and had to be urgently replaced. That was what happened to me during that Saturday night when Maya and I were talking about the documents in the wicker chest, about every letter and every photo, about every telegram and every bill. The conversation taught me all that the documents hadn’t confessed, or rather organized the contents of the documents, gave an order and a meaning and filled in a few of its gaps, although not all of them, with the stories that Maya had inherited from her mother in the years they lived together. And also, of course, with the stories her mother had made up.
‘Made up?’ I said.
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Maya. ‘Starting with Dad. She invented him entirely, or rather, he was an invention of hers. A novel, understand? A flesh-and-blood novel, her novel. She did it because of me, of course, or for me.’
‘You mean you didn’t know the truth?’ I said. ‘Elaine didn’t tell you?’