Even Silence Has an End Part 3

"Don't worry," I told them, to force myself to believe. "Everything will be all right."

The commander put his head through the driver's window and looked intently at each of us, one at a time. He stopped when he got to me and asked, "Are you Ingrid Betancourt?"

"Yes, I am."

It was hard to deny it with my name emblazoned all over the car.

"Good. Follow me. Park the car on the side of the road. You'll have to pa.s.s between the two buses."

He kept hold of the door, forcing us to drive slowly. It was then that I noticed a strong smell of gasoline. A man with a yellow drum in his hand was splas.h.i.+ng the contents over the two buses. I heard the sound of an engine and turned around. The young girl on the motorcycle had, like us, stumbled into the trap. One of the guerrillas made her get down from her bike and took it from her, signaling for her to leave. She stood there, arms dangling, not knowing what to do. Her motorcycle was also doused with gasoline. She understood and hurried away toward the bridge.

A heavyset man with copper-colored skin and a large black mustache, sweating profusely, was pacing up and down across the road, nervously fanning himself with a red handkerchief and wringing his hands until his knuckles were white. His features were distorted in anguish. He had to be the driver of the bus.

After pa.s.sing between the two buses, we momentarily lost sight of the Red Cross vehicle's pa.s.sengers, who were still held on the shoulder of the road, a gun trained on them. They did not take their eyes off us.

The commander stopped our truck after a few yards. On his order, the man who had doused the girl's motorcycle with gasoline left it at the base of the bus and ran toward us. Just as he was crossing the verge about ten yards away, an explosion made us all jump with fright. I saw the man hurled into the air and fall to the ground in a crumpled heap. He lay in a huge pool of blood, his shocked gaze locked on mine as he stared at me, bewildered, not understanding what had just happened to him.

The commander was shouting, yelling abuse and cursing at the top of his voice. At that moment the wounded man began screaming in horror as he reached behind him and picked up his boot-containing the b.l.o.o.d.y flesh and exposed bone of a piece of leg that no longer belonged to him.

"I'm going to die, I'm going to die!" he howled. The commander ordered his men to place him on the open bed of our pickup. The man was covered in blood that had spurted in every direction. Strips of dripping flesh had been blasted all over, splattering the body of our vehicle and the winds.h.i.+eld. Bits were stuck to people's clothes, their hair, their faces. The smell of burned flesh, combined with the smell of blood and gasoline, was nauseating.

I heard myself say, "We can drive him to the hospital. We can help you!"

I was talking to the group leader in the same way I might have addressed a road-accident victim.

"You will go where I tell you to go," he said.

Then, turning back, he ordered the wounded man to shut up, which he did at once, whimpering softly like a dog caught between pain and fear. The commander appeared satisfied.

"Go ahead," he ordered our driver. "Keep it steady, but make it quick!"

Without hesitating, Adair pulled away as the last members of the group were jumping onto the bed of the truck. One pushed my friends onto the rear bench with the enormous barrel of his rifle and sat inside the vehicle, placing the rifle upright between his legs. He apologized for the inconvenience and smiled as he looked straight ahead. They were all wedged against one another, elbow to elbow, trying to avoid contact with the latest arrival.

To the journalist accompanying us, I said in French, "Don't worry. I'm the one they want. Nothing is going to happen to you."

He nodded, not at all rea.s.sured. Beads of sweat were forming on his brow. As I looked through the rear window, I watched a terrifying scene unfolding on the bed of the truck. The wounded man was crying as he held the stump of his leg in both hands. His comrades had tried to make some semblance of a tourniquet with one of their s.h.i.+rts, but the blood kept flowing, seeping up through the already soaked fabric. The car was jerking every two seconds, making it virtually impossible to apply a new tourniquet. The commander tapped the side of the vehicle and shouted something incomprehensible, and the vehicle slowed down. The wounded man's head was lolling back; he had purple shadows under his eyes and was already half unconscious.

We drove along a small, b.u.mpy, dusty road for twenty minutes in the diabolical heat before the leader gave the order to halt, just ahead of a bend that curved around a promontory.

A group of young people in uniform appeared from all sides. There were women, their hair braided and pulled into buns, smiling broadly, strangers to the drama, all teenagers. Several helped carry the wounded man from the truck toward a semisecluded area where we could just make out the roof of a house.

"It's our hospital," the youth sitting with us in the cab declared proudly. "He'll pull through. We're used to this."

We had been there less than a minute when the leader ordered us to leave. Other armed men jumped onto the bed in the back, standing up in spite of the jolts and speed of the vehicle.

After ten minutes the vehicle stopped again. One of the recent arrivals jumped out and opened the doors. "All of you, out! Quickly!" He pointed his gun at us and grabbed me by the arm. "Give me your cell phone. Show me what you've got in there!" He searched my bag and pushed me forward, pressing the barrel of his gun into my back.

From the beginning I had held on to the hope that they were taking us to a place where they would care for the wounded man and that we would then be permitted to turn around and leave.

Now I had to face what was happening to me. I had just been taken hostage.

FOUR.

"EL MOCHO" CESAR I had shaken the hands of Marulanda, Mono Jojoy, Raul Reyes, and Joaquin Gomez-the last time being just two weeks earlier-and this led me to believe we had established a dialogue, protecting me from their terrorist actions. We had discussed politics for hours, we had shared a meal. How could these affable individuals be the same men who had ordered our abduction?

And yet their subordinates were threatening to kill me as they forced me to follow them. I tried to retrieve my travel bag from the vehicle, but the person shoving me with his gun yelled at me not to touch it. He ordered hysterically that I be separated from the others, and I saw my companions in misfortune line up pitifully on the other side of the road, each held at close range by an armed man.

I prayed with all my strength that nothing would happen to them, already accepting the fate I believed to be mine. My mind was operating in a thick fog, and I registered sounds and movements only after they happened. It seemed to me this was a deja vu. Or maybe I had just imagined it. I remembered a photo in the newspaper. In it, a car was parked beside this very road, or perhaps a road just like it, the way ours had been. Corpses were lying facedown, scattered around the vehicle with its doors still open. The woman who had been shot along with her escorts was the mother of a member of Congress. When looking at the photo, I had imagined everything-her terror at the immediacy of death, her resignation to the inevitable, and then the end of life, the gunshot, the nothing-ness. Now I understood why it had obsessed me. It was a mirror of what awaited me, a reflection of my future. I thought of all the people I loved, and I thought it was so stupid to die like this.

I was in a bubble, curled up within myself. So I did not hear the engine, and when he pulled up beside me in his huge, latest-model Toyota pickup truck and lowered the automatic window to speak to me, I was unable to look at his face or understand his words.

"Doctora6 Ingrid. . . . Ingrid. . . . Doctora Doctora Ingrid. . . . Ingrid!" Ingrid. . . . Ingrid!"

I snapped out of my torpor.

"Get in!" he ordered. I landed in the front seat, next to this man who was smiling at me, taking my hand as he would a child's.

"Don't worry. You're safe with me."

"Yes, Commander," I answered without thinking.

It was Cesar, "El Mocho" Cesar, leader of the FARC's fifteenth front. There was no mistaking it. He was definitely the commander. He seemed delighted that I had guessed as much.

He looked around. "Who are these people?"

"That's my a.s.sistant."

"And are those your body guards?"

"Not at all. They're working with me on the campaign. One of them is in charge of logistics. He arranges our trips. The other is a cameraman we hired. The oldest one is a foreign journalist, a photographer from France."

"Nothing is going to happen to you. But them . . . I need to verify their ident.i.ty."

I blanched, only too aware of what he meant.

"Please, believe me, none of them are security agents. . . ."

He gave me a cold look, lasting no more than a second; then, imperceptibly, his att.i.tude softened. "Do you have everything you need?"

"No, they wouldn't let me take my bag."

He put his head out of the window and gave some orders. I understood what they meant more from the gestures that accompanied them than from the words themselves. I was trembling from head to toe. I saw that Clara had been separated from the group and ordered to get into the rear of the truck. A man ran to fetch my bag and quickly slid it between my legs before jumping onto the bed of the truck, just as Commander Cesar was putting it into reverse. I turned around. Clara was now sitting on one of the two benches that had been installed on the bed, wedged between a dozen armed men and women whom I had not noticed earlier. Our eyes met. She gave me a faint smile.

I turned back in time to see the rest of my friends being pushed roughly inside the vehicle that until now had been ours, with a guerrilla behind the wheel.

"Does the A/C bother you?" Cesar asked, his tone courteous.

"No, thank you, it's fine like that." He was a small, dark man, his skin burned by the sun. He had to be in his fifties, with a prominent belly betraying what must once have been an athletic body. I noticed that he was missing a finger.

He followed my inspection of his person with amus.e.m.e.nt and said, "They call me 'El Mocho'7 for obvious reasons!" He displayed his stump, adding, "A small gift from the military." for obvious reasons!" He displayed his stump, adding, "A small gift from the military."

I said nothing.

"Do I scare you?"

"No, why would you scare me? You are actually very polite."

He smiled broadly, delighted by my response.

"The commanders asked me to say h.e.l.lo to you. You'll see, the FARC is going to treat you very well."

I looked away.

"Do you like music? What sort do you like? Vallenatos, Vallenatos,8 boleros boleros, salsa? Open the glove box. There's everything you want in there. Go on! Pick something!" salsa? Open the glove box. There's everything you want in there. Go on! Pick something!"

The conversation was completely surreal. But I acknowledged the effort he was making to put me at ease, so I played along. Dusty CDs had been tossed in haphazardly. I didn't know any of the artists and had difficulty reading what remained of their names on the labels of the obviously pirated discs. I rejected them one by one and noticed Cesar's impatience at my lack of enthusiasm.

"Take that blue one. Yes, that one. I'm going to let you listen to the music we make. This is a pure FARC product. The songwriter and the singer are guerrillas!" He wagged his index finger to emphasize the fact. "We recorded them in our own studios. Listen to this!"

It was grating, ear-shattering music. The car's sound system was ultramodern, with fluorescent lights shooting in all directions like the dashboard of a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p. Worthy of a drug trafficker! Worthy of a drug trafficker! I couldn't help thinking. A second later I felt bad when I saw the man's childlike pride. He fiddled with the dials with the dexterity of an airline pilot, while somehow controlling the wheel, along that h.e.l.lish road. I couldn't help thinking. A second later I felt bad when I saw the man's childlike pride. He fiddled with the dials with the dexterity of an airline pilot, while somehow controlling the wheel, along that h.e.l.lish road.

We pa.s.sed through a village. I was dumbfounded. How could he drive around so nonchalantly with me, his hostage, in front of everyone?

Once again Cesar read my thoughts.

"I'm the king here! This village belongs to me. It's Union-Penilla. Everyone loves me here." As if to prove the point, he rolled down the window and waved to pa.s.sersby. Along the village's main road, a shopping street by all appearances, people returned the gesture, as they might greet the mayor.

"Being the king of a village is not good for a revolutionary!" I remarked.

He looked at me in surprise. Then he burst out laughing. "I have been wanting to meet you. I saw you on TV. You're prettier on TV."

It was my turn to laugh. "Thank you, that's very kind. You make me feel a lot better."

"You're starting a new life with us. You must be prepared. I'll do my best to make things easier, but it's going to be hard for you."

He was no longer laughing. He was calculating, planning, making decisions. Inside that head, vital things were being formulated for me, things I could neither antic.i.p.ate nor a.s.sess.

"I have a favor to ask you," I said. "My father is ill. I don't want him to learn of my abduction on the news. I want to call him."

He looked at me long and hard. Then, as if carefully weighing his words, he replied, "I cannot allow you to call him. They could locate us, and that would place you in danger. But I will allow you to write to him. I'll fax it. He'll get your letter by the end of the day."

More than three hours had pa.s.sed since we'd driven through Union-Penilla. I desperately needed to relieve myself. Cesar a.s.sured me that we would be arriving in a few minutes, but minutes turned into an hour, and we were still surrounded only by empty fields.

Suddenly, after we'd come around a bend, I saw six small wooden huts lined up in threes on either side of the road. They all looked the same, like shoe boxes-no windows, rusted tin roofs, all covered in a veneer of dust that turned what must once have been brightly painted walls into a uniform shade of gray.

Cesar braked sharply in front of one of them. The door was wide open, and you could see through to the end of the back garden. It was a small house, modest but clean, dark and no doubt cool.

He pushed me inside, but I refused to take another step until I knew that Clara was right behind me. She got out of the vehicle and took my hand to make sure we would not be separated.

"Don't worry. You'll stay together." Cesar indicated the toilets at the end of the garden. "Go ahead. A girl will show you the way."

The garden was full of flowers of every color. I thought then that if our place of imprisonment was to be this little house, I could resign myself to my misfortune.

A small shed with a wooden door appeared to be the toilet. I didn't see the young girl until a few seconds later. She could not have been more than about fifteen, and I was struck by her beauty. Dressed in camouflage, gun held firmly across her chest, she stood astride, swaying her hips coquettishly. Her pretty face, her flaxen hair coiled on her head, like a little bird's nest, and the femininity of her earrings contrasted with the severity of her uniform. Almost shyly she greeted me with a beautiful smile.

Inside the shed the smell was revolting. There was no toilet paper. The drone of large green flies hovering over the putrid hole made the experience all the more vile. Once outside, I nearly fainted.

Cesar was waiting in the house with a cold drink for us and two sheets of paper that he laid on a small table in the living room. He explained that we could use the paper to write a message to our families.

I spent a long time thinking about the words I would choose in writing to Papa. I told him that I had just been taken hostage but that I was being treated well and that I was not alone because Clara was with me. I described the conditions under which we had been captured, how distressed I was to see one of the guerrillas lose his leg by stepping on an antipersonnel mine they had planted, and finally I said I hated the war.

I wanted him to sense through my words that I was not afraid. And I wanted to prolong our last conversation, to ask him to wait for me.

Cesar returned, telling us we could take as long as we needed but that we were not to give any indication of our location or of the time, nor should we mention any names, because if we did, he would not be able to send our letters.

Of course he was going to read my letter. He could even censor it! He had left again, but I still felt his breath on my neck as if he were peering over my shoulder. Never mind. I wrote what I had planned to write, taking care not to let my tears fall onto the paper. All I could see was darkness. My lucky star had just vanished.

Cesar left but soon returned; a small, barrel-shaped man with a large, bushy mustache and greasy hair was with him. When he saw us, he looked panic-stricken, as if he had set eyes on the devil. He interlaced his fingers nervously and was clearly waiting for instructions from his leader.

"This is Doctora Ingrid," said Cesar.

The newcomer extended an enormous hand covered in soot, which he quickly tried to wipe on his jeans and holey T-s.h.i.+rt.

Cesar continued in a measured voice, articulating every word, as if to make sure he would be properly understood and not have to repeat himself.

"Go and buy some clothes: pants, jeans, something chic, and short-sleeved s.h.i.+rts, pretty ones, for women, do you understand?"

The man nodded quickly, his eyes rooted to the floor in extreme concentration.

"Get some underwear, too. Make sure it's feminine. The best quality."

The man's head moved up and down, as if on a spring, and he held his breath.

"And rubber boots. Get the good ones. The Venus. Not the Colombian-made ones. And also get me a good mattress, double thickness, and a mosquito net. But make sure they're decent. I don't want the useless stuff you dug up last time! Send everything straight to Sonia's. I'm counting on you. I want quality, do you understand?"

The little man took his leave, backing out of the room before pivoting on the step and disappearing.

"If you're ready, we'll get going right away."

It was the end of the day. The heat became tolerable as we b.u.mped along a wretched, dusty track pitted with craters full of stagnant mud. Large, centuries-old trees blocked the horizon, and the sky winding above the road was bloodred. Now Clara and I were in the front cabin. The sound system had finally been switched off, and our silence was invaded by the cheeping of millions of invisible birds that burst into the sky in small black clouds as we pa.s.sed by, only to turn back almost immediately and resume their positions in the cover of the foliage. I tried to lean my head out the window to watch the silhouettes of these magical, free birds above the treetops. If I had been with Papa, he would have wanted to gaze at them just as I was doing. This marvelous spectacle was painful-the happiness of these birds was hurting me, and so was their freedom.

"You'll have to get used to eating everything," Cesar remarked. "The only meat here is monkey!"