We got off and Andrés Felipe said, best if you don’t say too much while we’re here, gorgeous, you do understand? and I said, yes, but who are these friends? and he said, don’t ask too many questions, precious, I’ll tell you later. We were received with hugs and taken to the guest room, which was like a suite in a five-star motel, with air-conditioning and a bathroom with a marble tub, porcelain containers, bars of Spanish Heno de Pravia soap, and mirrors with wooden frames. The only thing missing was Benetton condoms. We left our bags and were invited to sit on the terrace, next to the swimming pool, and someone said, would you like a nice cold aguardiente? I accepted, but Andrés Felipe asked for a Coca-Cola Light. He was nervous, kept looking around, and every now and again talked in a low voice with the people from the house. A very nice lady, who seemed to be the wife of the host, asked if I wanted to put on a bathing suit; I said yes and she took me to the changing room, and in the meantime I started talking to her, do you live here? and she replied, no, I just come here to relax, and so I said to her, what kind of work do you do? No, I don’t work, I live with my husband. I felt like asking her, if you don’t work why do you need to relax? but I preferred to keep quiet, you had to be blind and stupid not to realize that the house belonged to paramilitaries, or straight drug traffickers, so instead I said, it’s a lovely house, I congratulate you on your good taste, and she said, thank you, we hired a foreign interior decorator, my husband didn’t want to build the typical Antioquian ranch house, but something high-class, and it came out well, didn’t it? Oh yes, I said, really high-class!
We went out on the terrace, and with the heat, I got straight into the pool. It was nice and cool. A waiter reached me my glass of aguardiente, but I noticed that the others weren’t drinking, so I said to myself, this party is a little strange. Better to act as if I’m stupid and not ask any questions; then I heard one of the men say that the gentleman wouldn’t be coming until the following day, we have to wait for him. After that Andrés Felipe relaxed and had a few whiskeys. The lady of the house started a conversation but I couldn’t say anything because they were talking about Colombian soccer. Our soccer that’s poor and ugly, like the country: poor and ugly, and that’s why I don’t like it. Like talking obsessively about a disease, the way most people only talk about accidents or madness. But nothing else seemed to matter to them, and they talked and talked, that if the Junior or the DIM, or something very strange called La Equidad, which sounded like a discount store for poor people, and the strange thing is that the one who most insisted on the subject was the lady of the house. I realized they were talking about all this because they didn’t have any other subject and because the reason for this meeting was a secret and could only be touched on with the husband, who would be arriving the next day. Her role was to distract us. When they served the food she showed us into a very swanky dining room, with silver cutlery and a beautiful blue and white dinner set with embossed hunting scenes, and of course wine, not Argentinian or Chilean wine but French wine, Pomerol, a delicious red wine, though it was a strange thing to drink in that tropical heat; I had about four glasses with the first course, which was an asparagus consommé; then they replaced it with a white, a Sancerre, also delicious and very cold, and the main dish arrived, which was fish, a roll of salmon with fines herbes with a salad of leeks and purée, a delicious thing, and since I love to ask awkward questions, pretending to be dumb, I wanted to know if the salmon was from some nearby river, and the lady of the house laughed and said, yes, from the river Orkla, not here in Antioquia but in Norway, and everybody laughed and I sat there like a silly young busybody but she looked at me affectionately, since I’d given her the opportunity to tell her joke and look good.
When night fell it got cooler, and they lit the fire and served us brandy and offered cigars, Montecristo and Davidoff; now the talk was about Shakira, whether or not she represented Colombia well abroad. The hostess complained that she sang in English, she didn’t think that was right because in Colombia people don’t speak English, but I said, yes, they do, it’s the mother tongue in San Andrés and Providencia, then she said, all right, and also the yuppies of Parque de la 93 in Bogotá, wasn’t it? Again everybody laughed. Andrés Felipe looked at me gratefully, I was giving a perfect performance in my role as the pretty but dumb girlfriend.
After the brandy they passed around trays with a delicious dark whiskey, served in cognac glasses, without ice, because they said it was too fine, and they talked vaguely about how well the country was doing; around midnight we retired to the bedroom and I commented to Andrés Felipe, pretending to be dumb, what elegant people, nobody snorted coke or smoked joints, and he said, no, gorgeous, it’s different here, that’s why I told you that the best thing is not to talk too much and go with the flow, although you’re doing it very well, precious, I’m really glad you came. I fell asleep after a good fuck, but before I did I thought: are they paramilitaries or just traffickers?
The following day, the host arrived at last, riding a sorrel with a high-quality saddle, surrounded by bodyguards. He greeted Andrés Felipe and said, how nice to see you, are they looking after you as you deserve? and Andrés Felipe answered, of course, Don Fermín, I wasn’t treated this well even in my grandmother’s house, and then the man said, come on, Andrés Felipe, don’t exaggerate, I knew your grandmother’s house, maybe you don’t know this, but my mother was one of her maids. Andrés Felipe didn’t know what to say and we all stood there nonplussed, there was a silence that seemed to go on forever, you could hear the air passing, so I stuck my oar in, out of pure intuition, and said, that’s the good thing about this country, the opportunity it gives us to advance, I congratulate you on your house, Señor Fermín, we’ve been feeling as if we’re in the Palace of Versailles, and then the man started to laugh and gestured to Andrés Felipe and said, and who is this very polite young lady? and he said, a friend, I invited her because I know you like to see friendly young people, and he said, good for you, come, my dear, and he took me by the arm and walked me as far as the terrace and said to me, before you leave here I’m going to give you a gift, and I looked at him and said, the only gift I need is this invitation, but I’ll take it because it came from you, and he said, yes, I like intelligent sensitive people, but go get in the swimming pool because I have to work with Andrés Felipe until lunchtime, all right?