El Mono, page 18
As promised, over the next twelve days the evenings at the Fernández house were full of introductions, conversations, cocktails, laughing, some social manoeuvring, and general promises to keep in touch – ‘You must come round to our place’… that sort of thing: all very pleasant; some people absolutely delightful, others not quite so.
Daytimes were a welcome break, time to dip in the pool, relax and lounge around the house and, of course, to go shopping and look around Cali.
‘Karin, you must come with me to a certain shopping mall in town,’ said Claudia after lunch one day. ‘It has a sort of reputation for the type of people who go there.’
‘Are we going to add to its reputation? Are we the type of people who go there?’
‘I’m not saying,’ Claudia replied. ‘Like I’ve told you many times before, I want you to make up your own mind. I don’t want to influence your opinion beforehand.’
Karin laughed. She was itching with curiosity. Claudia was always doing this to her.
They called a taxi and set off. They arrived at the shopping centre Claudia had mentioned around mid-afternoon, entered and parked themselves by a table outside a small ice-cream and milkshake parlour. There was a sort of shoppers’ walkway that passed in front of their table and then snaked around a number of cafes, fashion stores and miscellaneous shops and kiosks that spread out in front and beside them.
Claudia waited for Karin to comment on what, or rather who, they saw. There were lots of pretty girls, young women, walking round in twos, threes, or with partners. One or two pushing babies. Pretty girls … but all with lots of make-up and skin-tight clothes – and surely they must have enhanced figures?
Karin looked at a number of these young women parading around in front of her and then she turned to look at Claudia. Neither said a word … but both suddenly exploded in laughter.
‘What is this, Claudia? Cali’s answer to Silicon Valley?’
Claudia snorted in suppressed laughter again. ‘Yes! More plastic here than at a Tupperware party!’ she claimed.
Both girls tried not to look at the occasional passing poseur but at times it became simply too fascinating to resist. ‘Look at that one in the white top,’ whispered Claudia. ‘They’re pushed up so high she could be a frog, croaking for a mate!’
‘And that one in the red jeans’, said Karin. ‘she’s so round behind she probably can’t sit still, just roll back and forth like a spring-back dummy!’
It was an entertaining hour’s fun and Karin thanked her friend for what she said was a titillating experience. Claudia guffawed again.
‘I told you this place has a reputation. It’s even in some tourist guide books now.’
‘I can believe it,’ said Karin. ‘It is certainly worth the taxi ride.’
They returned home and exchanged their stories with Claudia’s mother, who was interested to know what the two of them were laughing about.
‘I suppose those girls see it as an investment,’ she said, ‘just the same as buying your best dress to attract a mate. It probably started like that and now the competition between them drives them to buy a better and better body shape … or what they think is a better shape.’
Women in Colombia had no reservations about flaunting their femininity, Karin thought. All the emphasis on looks, figure, posture, fashion; all the pressure to conform to a stereotype model or ideal of beauty; all the values that back in the UK would be associated with a brainless bimbo were heartily indulged in here. Women loved being women and did not seek to compete with men.
Karin broached the subject with Claudia that night – sitting on her bed and exchanging views as was their ordained habit.
‘I can’t comment so much on UK or US society,’ said Claudia, ‘but here women are more accustomed and I guess more confident in using their femininity to get what they want, rather than compete head on with menfolk. I’m quite happy to have the boys shoot their mouths off first in seminars, for example. It doesn’t threaten me. I can more than hold my own. Have you noticed that even the top academics and professionals of our gender look sexy and go out to turn the heads of their male colleagues? They are not content to just browbeat them in boardrooms.’
Karin resolved to look out for that. She retired for the night, not for the first time with a flood of thoughts, experiences and sensations all whirling around in her head.
The experience she was most looking forward to, however, was the long drive down to Popayan and then up to the Fernandez finca. The day soon came when Claudia’s father brought out the family’s capacious Toyota Land Cruiser from its garage and proceeded to fill it up with all sorts of supplies before finally he was ready and announced to his three accompanying women that, with their permission, they should be off on their way.
The evening they arrived at the finca, as Alfonso and María helped the family unpack and set up home in the farm, Karin found time to ask if El Mono had been seen around recently.
‘He has been very active, journeying from one pueblo to another over a great distance,’ said María, ‘so there have been weeks when we haven’t seen anything of him. But two days ago he brought me some rabbits to cook and he wanted a long talk with Alfonso, so, if you ride out tomorrow, maybe you will find him.’
Karin took her advice and the very next morning prepared to lead Bella out after breakfast. Claudia had refused to accompany her.
‘No, Karin, you go without me,’ she said. ‘If you find him, it will be easier for him to talk to you than if I were there. You know how shy and distant he can be. As you have said, I do need to see him and say thank you for what he has done for me … but you see him first. I hope you find him. If you get the chance, why not tell him that he is very welcome here? Why don’t you ask him to come and share our Christmas meal with us tomorrow night? My parents ought to meet the famous Mono, after all, and I’m sure they would be intrigued by him as we were at first, and still are. Tomorrow night, OK? Be sure to invite him!’ Claudia waved a goodbye to Karin as she mounted the mare and took the familiar path across the farm field, and up into the mountain rainforest.
And so Karin rode away from one world and into another. Material wealth, urban society, convenience and sophistication lay behind; rural simplicity, discomfort and a direct and immediate relationship with life, death and all that the natural environment offered lay in front. Being so accustomed to one it was not easy making the transition to the other but, as always, she was determined to be up to the challenge. There was one dominant reason to succeed in this, after all.
He saw her coming from a great distance away. The falcon set off to signal to her and lead her in the right direction. Karin saw her and her heart fluttered like the falcon’s wings as she realised she had been sent the messenger. Daniel stood on the skyline, his poncho wrapped around his upper body, a bag or knapsack at his feet, waiting for her to ride up.
‘Hello, Daniel … it’s been a long time,’ she smiled at him. ‘How are you?’ She spoke in English.
‘Fine.’
It had been almost three months since they had seen each other; they came from different cultures, different worlds; it took a little while for the undoubted chemistry between them to close the distance.
Daniel was boiling up water to make coffee over a small fire. He helped Karin down from her horse and there was an awkward pause for a fraction of a second as the two of them greeted one another, not sure whether to embrace or not. In that space, the falcon dived down to perch on Daniel’s shoulder as he invited Karin to sit down and share coffee. Karin looked around her as she tried to make herself comfortable. Everything here, especially the relationship between them, seemed so fragile.
‘Daniel, where do you live here? Where do you spend the nights?’
Karin didn’t know whether or not just leaping in and asking him the sorts of questions that she had often thought about was the best way to open a conversation between them, or whether it was the best way to close one.
Daniel opened up. He smiled ruefully. ‘I move around a lot, especially recently, and call on friends. Then there are three places I gravitate between where I stay by myself – all disused cabins that in the past have been used by farmers, cattle and various stores – but I often spend nights with people I see and who invite me to stay over. Like Alfonso and María, for example.’
Karin loved his smile and the way it suddenly broke into his seriousness and distance, like the sun bursting through an overcast sky. She thanked him for the coffee, burning her lips as she drank from a battered metal cup he had produced from his bag. He carried a minimum of possessions with him.
‘But you used to come from Bogotá, from a city lifestyle that I’ve just come from. Don’t you miss it? Don’t you want to go back sometimes? It must be hard living up here.’
‘It was a long time ago and I can’t go back now.’ Daniel replied. ‘I visit Popayán on occasions and see there what drives me away. So many people seem to chase such false idols; lead such shallow lives; want more and more things that they don’t really need. It is not so hard here – it’s just that life is much simpler, so much clearer here.’
‘But we are not all shallow in the city. Don’t be so hard on us. There are plenty of people who are leading important lives, working to create a better future. Didn’t your own parents want that before you lost them?’ Karin recognised this was a dangerous question but there was something about Daniel that always prompted serious discussion. There was never any way to pass the time with superficial chit-chat. He didn’t live in such society.
Daniel struggled. His face contorted in reconciling buried feelings with what he had just said. ‘You’re right. They did want that. But I guess I lost them because that is what happens in the city. Life loses its direction. Good things get swallowed up or die out in the mad rush that goes on. There are good people down there – look at you – but it seems to me as if you are all caught up in a monstrous and destructive machine that is destroying the environment there as up here and chewing up people and discarding them as it moves along …’
‘Oh, Daniel, that is such an awful and pessimistic outlook on the world I live in.’ Karin reached across to hold his hand, her eyes pleading him to reconsider. ‘It really doesn’t look like that from where I stand. So many lovely people, doing good things and looking out for one another. You’ve been up here so long and on your own … Surely you can see that life doesn’t always fit the stereotypes you’ve mentioned. Look, why don’t you come down and meet some of my friends? Claudia has invited you to join us tomorrow night for Christmas dinner. Come and meet her parents, dine with us in their farm, spend the night with us like you do with others? You’ll see what sort of people they are, we are. We’re not so bad.’
A shy smile came out again. ‘Thank you, that is very kind. Tell Claudia I’m very grateful … but I can’t. I know what it will be like. You’ll all have a lovely time while Alfonso and María work in the background, preparing the meal, serving you at the table, seeing to it that their masters are well cared for first before they can relax and maybe return to the kitchen where they finish off the leftovers. I can’t join you like that. I can’t have them serve me. I share my own food with them; they share their lives with me. It would be a betrayal of our friendship to have them wait at table for me. I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry.’
‘But it’s Christmas, Daniel. Who will you share it with?’ She realised she knew so little about him, only that she wished he would share a little more of his life with her.
‘I’ll go and visit Carlos, Alfonso’s cousin, and his wife and family. They are lovely people. I’ve had a lot of dealings with them recently and I know they’ll be happy to have me.’ He stopped. ‘I’m going to need a horse to get me over there so I’ll come back with you to see Alfonso. Do you understand now why I can’t dine with you tomorrow? I’m going to need Alfonso to loan me a horse overnight. He will do me that favour since I will never betray him; I’ll always help him and María in whatever way I can. Just as he will help me. So to sit at a table and have María serve me food alongside you and the Fernández family would, for me, be terribly wrong. Like an insult. I will never do that to them.’
Karin wanted to kiss him. He was a good man. He lived a simple life but with his own well-defined rules, customs and obligations. She understood perfectly and could not ask him to do what was against his nature – he was so eloquent in explaining his values and giving her an insight into his world. But how was she ever going to get closer to him? She decided to ask.
‘I do understand. Thank you for explaining it to me. But I would have loved to share a meal with you tomorrow … so, if it can’t be then, you have to come with me another time, OK? I won’t put you in any situation with others that is uncomfortable for you. It might even be that we have a meal together with Alfonso and María, or with whomever else you are happy with, but I want you to come down and share time with me and join me anywhere but on the mountain. Will you do that for me? Please?’
Daniel laughed. ‘OK, OK, I agree. I guess I have to if I want to see you again. Typical gringa – you can get away with doing things that would be difficult for us. María serving you one day, then you sitting alongside her the next. She would find that impossible with anyone else, but you are the different one, the gringa, and we have to expect the impossible with such people.’
Karin smiled. He said he wanted to see her again so she really did want to kiss him this time. She wasn’t sure how to hold herself back. Quick, change the subject. She stopped grinning at him and suddenly turned serious.
‘Daniel, the last time we saw you, you said you’d search for Martín’s body. The next thing we know was that Claudia heard from her father that his body had indeed been found. We have to thank you so much for that. Can you tell me about what happened?’
‘Not an awful lot to say. It wasn’t very pleasant. I found out after you left what your friend Martín had been wearing when he was taken, and also where he was captured. So I spent a day and a half crisscrossing the area and then suddenly came across his body and the bodies of those who I guess had kidnapped him. I told Alfonso, who told the police and army. We all had the impression that someone had tried to rescue him, or there had been some sort of argument among the captors. I guess we will never really know, but it looked like they were all killed. Not a nice sight.’ He didn’t mention the horrific details of vultures picking over the remains.
‘It must have been horrible. It was so good of you to do that for Claudia. Traumatic as it was for her, finding out brought an end to the misery for her and for Martín’s family. So thank you again and I know Claudia wants to see you to say that herself.’
‘She needn’t, that’s OK. But I have to tell you that things have moved on up here since then. It has been a bit of a battlefield between the FARC, paramilitaries and the mining companies on either side of the mountain. Maybe Martín was just a bystander who got caught up in the violence, but there has been an increase in the fighting between all parties from that date on.’
‘How’s that? What’s happening?’
‘I told you I’ve seen a lot of Carlos, Alfonso’s cousin, and his family recently. He lives some distance away, beyond the Triple F mine where Martín was killed, closer to the TMG mine on the other side of Volcán Puracé. Well, between here and there, the TMG mine has suffered from explosions where men have been killed. Paramilitaries may or may not have caused those deaths. Certainly, people have threatened Carlos, I guess like Martín because he is in the wrong place at the wrong time. The FARC are also caught up in this; they’ve threatened Carlos, too. The mining companies, both of them, I reckon, are somehow feeding the conflict and paying one party or another to fight their battles for them. It has been getting dangerous.’
‘Well, shouldn’t you be careful then? You don’t want to be in the wrong place at the wrong time either. If it’s dangerous here, why are you not going in the opposite direction, away from where the trouble is?’
‘Thank you but don’t you remember what you said to me? You got me thinking that I can’t just stay here or run away hating the big city and the big city businesses, that I should do something. Well, I am now. I’m visiting the pueblos, talking to local people, indigenous families that have lived and worked these lands since before the conquistadors. We are planning to make a lot of noise, hopefully to raise the attention of those who can help. I am organising a big protest for the start of the New Year when people go back to work after the holidays.’
Daniel stopped and smiled again. ‘Well, you started me off on all this. I have you to thank for that.’
Karin was lost for words so Daniel continued: ‘Would you like to help? You know city folk better than I. Can you get me the names and contact details of news media in Popayán and Bogotá? Bogotá would be especially useful since that’s where the decision-makers all live. Will you do that for me?’
Karin gaped. ‘Yes’ was all she could say.
‘Great,’ said Daniel. ‘Now let’s go down the hill together. I need to see Alfonso, and you, Claudia and her family …’
When they got to the stables, Karin darted inside the house to fetch Claudia, telling her that Daniel was outside talking to Alfonso and she had to go and see him. This she duly did, thanking him profusely for his services in finding Martín’s body and trying to drag him inside to meet her parents. But Daniel pleaded to be left with the horses and his friend. He promised he would come and see them another time, but he really had to visit people a long way away and needed to be gone. And so Daniel escaped from the girls once more. He bid them farewell and a happy Christmas and then went with Alfonso to choose a horse, thanking him as ever for his loyal support. He walked quietly away at the back of the buildings, leading his mount until he was out of sight of eyes that he felt always seemed to follow him. It was time to join Carlos and his family and to discuss progress on what he had been doing.
By early evening, long after having crossed the company road to the Triple F mine, Daniel rode on into the valley just before Carlos’s farm, and arrived at an old, unused cattle shed that he had been sweeping out and renovating. It was a little way above the stream that tumbled down and filled the tank where the women from the pueblo now came to bathe. He had mended the roof of the shed and stored one or two of the few things he possessed inside. The stallion he had borrowed from Alfonso he left patiently to graze outside as he stopped to make up a bed for the night on his journey to the pueblo to meet his friends.
