Beyond What Separates Us, page 14
There were many people moving across the bridge. They were dirty, each with their heads down. At each end of the bridge were small huts with armed men inspecting the goods and pushcarts of the people. I didn’t know how I was going to cross it. I needed some rest and would have to wait until it was fully dark to see if I could cross without someone finding me. I found a small ditch with tall grass and got some rest.
I woke up a few hours later. The moon was covered in clouds and the only lights came from some small fires across the river and the guard posts at each end of the bridge. There were gates across the bridge and guards walked back and forth across its ends. The riverbank on this side was steep with lots of bushes and small trees. I walked along it. My heart was racing, waiting to see a beam of light or hear a gunshot. I’d reached the bridge.
There were at least four armed men that I could see on this side of the bridge. There was no way I could get across without being seen. I thought about following the river. Perhaps farther down it would be easier to cross. I only had enough food for a few days. I was sure I could steal food from the farms if I could get across. I didn’t know how to swim or if the river would be easier to cross somewhere else.
Under the bridge were metal beams that formed Xs. It looked like I could crawl across them if I could get to them. I crept slowly down to the spot where the bridge joined the riverbank. There was sharp wire covering the ends of all the beams. I had to find a way to get through it.
I emptied the smaller canvas bag into the larger one to the point that I could barely close it, then used the empty bag to spread some of the wire apart. Under the main beam there was a thin cable that ran the length of the bridge. Using the rope I had, I tied my bag to the cable and pushed it through the gap in the wire. My stuff was now hanging safely on the other side. But the cable wasn’t strong enough for my weight. My small canvas bag had separated the sharp wire, but I didn’t think it would stop me from getting cuts. I had no choice. I found some wood on the ground and used it to protect my hands and to pry the wire farther apart. I made it halfway through with only some rips in my clothes, but the wire was bunching up as I crawled through. There was a metal beam about a metre in front of me with no sharp wire. I needed to jump to it to be clear of the sharp wire. If I missed, I would fall into the river or get all cut up.
I took some deep breaths and jumped. I hit the beam hard but held on. I heard voices on the bridge. I climbed up the beam to get as close to the bottom of the bridge as I could and began to crawl upside down along the beam, dragging my supply bag by the rope. At the end of the bridge I saw a small light and two shadows. They were searching the area. I froze, hoping their light wasn’t strong enough to reach me. After a few minutes, they went back up to their post.
At the other end of the bridge, there was a place where the sharp wire had sunk down toward the river and there was a wide opening. I crossed over a little too quickly, cutting my left arm badly. It wasn’t until I felt and saw that blood that I realized my head was bleeding too. I hit it hard when I jumped. I climbed down to the riverbank and tied a shirt around my arm. There was nothing I could do about my head right now.
I walked slowly along the riverbank. This side of the river wasn’t as steep as the other, but it also had no trees or bushes. The houses were close together. The riverbank was muddy and covered in garbage. It was hard to move fast, but I was too out in the open. I reached a gap in the houses and ran through it toward the fields. No one was following me.
There was a wide dirt path that headed toward the mountains in the distance. The map said to follow it. The path was very uneven. There were many dark huts along it. There were fields on both sides. I needed to get to where the hills started again before the sun rose. I hadn’t slept enough and was moving very slowly. The bandage on my arm was soaked and red. My head wasn’t bleeding as much, but I felt dizzy. I had to keep going.
I reached a hill that still had some trees. As the sun began to rise, I saw another large town and a place where the dirt path crossed a wider road. There were more gates at that point blocking the road. All around were fields and huts. I hoped the small grouping of trees on the hill would provide enough cover.
I found the largest tree and started to climb it. When I was little, I would climb all over the buildings and roofs in the slum. I made it to a branch big enough to lie down on. I used the rope to hold me and my bag. It wasn’t long before I fell asleep.
I woke up with the sun still up but far to the west. My head was hurting. I drank the rest of my water and ate a lot of my food, hoping it would help. I climbed down. I was running out of food and had no water left. There was a tree on the hill with round yellow fruits. I didn’t know what they were, but I ate several. They were sour but juicy. I filled my bag with more of them and rested again on the ground.
A loud horn woke me up. The sun was setting. I went to the edge of the hill and could see people leaving the fields, heading to huts and moving along the dirt path. A vehicle filled with guards was heading up the road toward the gate. The guards got out and replaced the ones that had been there during the day.
I needed to stay away from that road so decided to follow a small creek that came down out of the hills and into the fields. I filled my water several times.
My feet were like bricks and I fell a lot just trying to keep moving. As it got dark, the only lights or fires were far away. I kept heading to the mountains, but my legs didn’t want to move, and my head was so sore. There was a rough footpath ahead of me that climbed up.
I reached the top and could see all around me. The hills got higher and higher near the mountains. Some were covered in trees, others in fields. Some had small villages. Others had huge holes carved out of them. Smoke rose from the camps near these holes. The mountains were still far away. It would take days to reach them and I was losing strength.
I set down my pencil and closed the journal. I would have to finish the rest later.
I lay on my mat in Senora Vasquez’s home, thinking about the first person who helped me on my way. I had found a small hut with a caved-in roof, where I’d drunk the last of my water and eaten my final piece of fruit before falling into a deep hunger-filled sleep. Sometime later, I was woken up to someone shaking me. I leaped up, banging my head against a collapsed beam. It was an old man. “Who are you?” he asked. I didn’t speak. “What are you doing here?”
I looked around for something I could hit him with. I was bigger than him, but he had an axe in one of his hands and I was so weak and tired.
Our eyes met. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “You aren’t from around here, are you?” He looked at me with sympathy. “Come on, you can help me carry some wood back to my farm.” I had no choice but to follow him. If he wanted to hurt me, he would have already.
“I’m Pablo. We aren’t allowed to take wood from these forests, but my family needs something to cook with.”
“Is it the gangs that run things around here?” I asked him.
He laughed. “Who knows? Whoever they are, they aren’t kind people.” Pablo had thin, dark hair with patches of grey. He bent forward slightly, with a noticeable hunch to his back. His skin was dark from too much sun. “Where are you from? What’s your name?” he asked again.
I didn’t know whether I could trust him, but he could have killed me if he’d wanted to. “I’m Miguel. I’m from Bogotá.”
“You aren’t the first person to show up around here from the city. You’re lucky I found you and not someone else. Otherwise, you’d be put to work on one of the farms or the mines.”
Pablo was pushing a cart loaded with blocks of wood. I helped him steady it on the rough path by holding one of its sides. “Don’t worry. My place is isolated enough that no one really comes around. It’s just me, my wife, three children and two grandchildren. We give away most of what we produce to be sure we’re left alone, so we don’t have much, but we’re comfortable.”
He stopped and took a drink from a bottle strapped to his side. “That’s a bad cut on your head and arm. Come. Let’s go get you cleaned up.”
We arrived at a cozy, single-level, well-kept dwelling made of stone, with glass windows, wood floors and a real roof. Inside was a wood stove, large table and a couple of sofas. There were three small bedrooms off the main living area. Pablo had brought a few pieces of the wood from the cart inside and laid them in a pile by the wood stove. “Out back is the outhouse. We get water from a nearby well. Come, I’ll introduce you to my family.”
He led me to the table, which several people were setting for dinner. “Miguel, this is my wife, Sofia.” Pablo’s wife shook my hand. She was a very thin woman with curly grey hair and was missing a few teeth. “This is my oldest son, Carlos, and his wife, Tania,” Pablo said. Carlos nodded at me while Tania chased around two young girls. Carlos was a younger version of his father with less hair.
“The two little gigglers over there are my granddaughters, Grace and Isabel. Don’t worry, I can’t tell them apart either.” Pablo whispered that last part to me as we watched the twins play. Even their clothing and hairstyle were the same.
Then Pablo turned toward a young woman. “This is my daughter, Andrea.” She was a younger version of her mother and looked a few years older than me. “And finally, my youngest son, Christian.”
Christian came over to shake my hand before returning to the kitchen to help his mother. He looked to be around my age. Andrea set an extra place at the table for me.
“Miguel, please follow me and we’ll get you cleaned up.” Sofia grabbed my hand and led me to one of the rooms, which had a large tub. Tania brought in some buckets with warm water. Sofia was pulling some items from a cupboard and went to another room. She came back with some clothes. “Please, Miguel, wash up. Here is some soap and a brush. Christian’s clothes should fit you. Your clothes are all torn up.”
It was true, my shirt was ripped and full of holes and my pant legs had frayed at the bottom.
“When you’re done washing, let me know and I’ll tend to your cuts,” Sofia told me, leaving the room and closing the door.
I sank into the warm tub and scrubbed the dirt from my body. It had been a long time since I’d had a warm bath. We rarely had real soap or enough clean water to fill an entire tub in the slum. I must have been taking a while, because Sofia knocked at the door.
“Is everything all right, Miguel?”
“Yes, thank you. I’m nearly finished.”
I finished scrubbing and got out, drying myself off. I put on the pants Sofia provided and called to her. She came in and washed the cut on my head and arm again before putting a soothing paste on them both.
“There, that should prevent any infection and help the cuts heal. Come. Dinner is ready.”
I put on the shirt she gave me and followed her into the main living area. The table had many different types of food and the room smelled very good. At the end of the meal, I began to cry. Everyone just looked at me. Sofia grabbed my arm, whispered, “It’s okay,” and offered me more food. After the meal, I offered to help clean up, but Sofia and Pablo told me to sit. I watched from one of the sofas as the family cleaned up. I felt better already. The bath, the paste on my cuts, and the meal had given me energy.
When everyone was done cleaning up, they all sat around the wood stove in the living room as Carlos got a fire going with the wood Pablo had brought. Pablo asked, “So, Miguel, tell us your story.”
These people were kind and caring, the likes of which, other than my abuela and the others in our small apartment building, I’d never met. “I had to flee before they made me become one of the soldados. Any boy my age becomes a gang member. My abuela made me leave so I wouldn’t have to do terrible things.” I didn’t tell them about Alejandra or the terrible things I’d done already. “I was told there are villages in the mountains that are free from the gangs and violence. Is that true?”
Pablo responded, “There are small villages up in the mountains that keep to themselves. The people around here that control everything don’t go there. Their vehicles can’t reach them.”
“And they don’t bother you?” Pablo had already told me they gave away most of what they had, but I didn’t understand why he didn’t take his family into the mountains.
“My family has farmed this land for generations. I grew up with one of the people in charge around here. We have an arrangement. We trade most of our goods in town and they don’t come on our land.”
“Why not go farther into the mountains?” I asked.
“This is good farmland and home.”
I nodded. “Thank you for everything. I don’t know what to say.”
“You’re very welcome. In the morning, Christian will take you to a small village east of here. A friend of mine collects wood and goes into the mountains for days at a time. He’ll take you where you need to go.”
I didn’t know what to say and had nothing to offer in return. I thanked them again. Sofia prepared one of the sofas for me to sleep on and I slept better than I had in a long time.
In the morning, the family prepared a large breakfast with bread, eggs and fruit. After breakfast, Christian said it was time to go. The rest of the family was already doing various chores around the farm. The two grandchildren were playing in a flower garden. Sofia filled my bag with more food and water. I hugged each of them, thanking them again.
Christian was waiting by a large cart filled with goods. “You’re an orphan from Choachí that my father brought to help on the farm if anyone asks.” I nodded.
The cart was so heavy, it needed both of us to move it. We pushed it across rough tracks and fields for most of the morning. Soon we had a small river on our right. Christian said this led to the village that we were heading to, and if Pablo’s woodcutting friend, Daniel, wasn’t in the town, I was to continue to follow this river up into the mountains.
We arrived in the village in the early afternoon. Daniel was home. He was outside his shop getting his horse cart ready. Christian greeted him warmly and explained the situation.
“Today is your lucky day, Miguel. I know the perfect place and I happen to be headed that way,” Daniel said.
I said goodbye to Christian and sat at the front with Daniel. He had two horses to pull his large cart.
“It’s a four-day journey to the village. It’s deep in the mountains and very isolated.”
The journey was easy and uneventful. I slept most of the time in the cart as we followed the river into the mountains. On the third day, we left the cart behind and rode the horses.
“I’ve never ridden a horse,” I told Daniel.
“Well, the cart won’t fit on the paths from here and it’ll take too long on foot. It’s not hard. The horse will do the work.”
Daniel was right. The horse knew where it was going, and I just needed to hold on. We hadn’t really spoken much on the journey. Daniel didn’t ask me any questions and I didn’t ask him any. Midway through the fourth day, we arrived at the mountain village, Paraiso, and it truly was a paradise, set in a lush and narrow valley, framed by soaring mountain peaks, with fresh mountain streams and ponds and towering trees. When we arrived, Daniel was greeted excitedly by many. The first person he introduced me to was Senora Vasquez.
Eighteen
Budapest
I was thrown roughly into a dark and damp room, with my hands tied behind my back. There was no bed and only a small drain in the corner. It was a concrete box that reeked of human misery. They questioned me with a black bag over my head for hours. When I didn’t provide answers, I was punched in the stomach. Eventually they worked up to my face. Finally, they punished me with jolts of electricity. I couldn’t see my face, but I could feel the swelling and bruising. I’d lost at least a couple of teeth and could still taste the blood in my mouth. I collapsed to the floor, still convulsing from the electric currents that had passed through me.
What was I thinking? I was more likely to die than be sent east. I knew they could sense my weakness and that I would break.
Eventually I passed out from pain and grief, dreaming of Anna. Her image slowly drifted from my mind. My last glimpse was of her looking at me with displeasure. I called to her, apologizing. She turned her back to me and was gone. Anna, who was so strong and inspiring. What had she seen in me? I had failed her.
Tomas had arranged for me to meet with his guard friend after I convinced them that I was going through with this foolish plan. We’d met the day before my incarceration — at least I think it was the day before. Tomas explained to the young guard what I was hoping to accomplish. He looked to me with pity in his eyes, shaking his head. He tried to dissuade me, the same as Tomas and the tattooed woman had. There was no guarantee I would end up anywhere near Anna or my father. No guarantee I would even be transferred to the same place as them. But I couldn’t be dissuaded. The young guard arrested me, taking me to a central police station. He explained to his superiors, from what I could understand, that I was a member of the movement who had been in hiding and trying to rally supporters. He had caught me after hours banging on doors, trying to solicit sympathy to our cause. His commander didn’t even look up from his desk, simply telling the guard to take me to processing. I was strip-searched. They cut off my hair and forced me to wear an itchy, grey jumpsuit. From there I was transported to the core of the city, in the old parliament district. When the truck came to a stop, that was the end of seeing anything. My last look was of the square where I’d lost everything. I was handed from one set of guards to another. This new group was even rougher than the previous and put the black bag on my head.
The hours of interrogation and torture had taken their toll. I couldn’t move and lay in that dank cell awaiting what I thought would be my eventual execution. It felt like days — maybe it was — but eventually the cell door opened. They jammed the bag on my head again and dragged me through hallways and up staircases. Eventually we were outside. I could feel the sun and the breeze. I was placed in a truck and off we went. I had no idea where we were going, but the smell of many unwashed bodies, including my own, wafted through the truck. The only sounds were the noise of the truck, the occasional whimper from one of the other people or the thud of a guard hitting someone, who then screamed out in pain. Eventually the truck stopped, and we were shuffled off, still blinded. There was a brief relief from the stench when we felt a cool breeze, but that quickly transitioned to hot and stagnant air. We were loaded into another vehicle, our hands freed, only to have our torsos and ankles restrained against seats. They removed our hoods. I was surrounded by dozens of others in dull grey wool, all of us along the edge of the carriage, facing each other. There were large windows with heavy iron bars set horizontally. We were on a train. My spirits lifted. I was the only fool in this train car with a smile on my face.
