We talked some more, but people passing had begun to stare at me. What was this, some pervert cajoling homeless boys into performing unspeakable acts? I went away, but I did not go far. About fifteen minutes later I walked by. The children were in the doorway, lying down. They slept over-lapping each other, like sardines, the smallest boy in the middle, the black boy using the flap of his jacket to keep out the cold - wrapping it around the other two. I was wearing my leather jacket; I was not warm. I watched the boys from a distance. They were restless and fidgeting, their bare legs outstretched. I walked to the corner and paused to let a car pass. When its sound died out I heard the smallest boy's cough, a deep dragging tubercular cough, followed by a harsh gasp.
Such children are not news. Armenia had a paper, and on the front page the next morning, with the news of the election - the votes were still being counted - was an item about an incident that had taken place in Columbus, Ohio. It triumphantly announced that a seven-hour operation had been performed to separate a pair of Siamese twins. Mark and Matthew Myers were now in satisfactory condition, said the doctor. 'Mark is kicking perfectly.' This was news: the freakish element suited the readers of this provincial paper - freaks had an abiding popularity all over Latin America. But it seemed more remarkable to me that children should sleep on cold nights in doorways, on strips of cardboard. They were not mentioned; they were not noticed: after all, the child in the doorway had the singular misfortune of having been born without two heads. There was nothing strange in Colombia about homeless children; because it was commonplace it had ceased to be seen as savage.
I turned the page. Here was a full-page advertisement for an expensive housing estate. Who Says You Have To Leave The Country To Live California-style? That was the headline. The houses were being built a mile from Armenia, a mile from that doorway. They were described in lush detail. They had 'fabulous interiors' and two-car garages. And for safety and convenience, the text went on, the estate would be completely walled-in.
The railway station in Armenia is a substantial yellow chunk of South American turn-of-the-century architecture, a Roman villa which, enhanced by shabby neglect, looks even more like a Roman villa. This railway gave Armenia, Medellin, and - by a circuitous route - Bogotá, access to the seaport of Buenaventura. The trouble with the railway station - the trouble with so much in Colombia - was that people warned me away from it. 'Do not go there alone,' said the lady in the hotel. 'I would not go there alone.'
But I was travelling alone, I said.
'It is very dangerous.'
I asked why.
'Thieves.'
There were thieves, people told me, at the railway stations, at the bus stations, in the markets, the parks, on the hill paths, on the back streets, on the main streets. When I asked directions to a particular part of town, no directions were given. 'Do not go,' they said. On the Expreso de Sol, I was told Bogotá was dangerous. In Bogotá I said I was going to Armenia. 'Do not go - it is dangerous.' The railway station? 'Dangerous.' But the train was leaving at six in the morning. 'That is the worst time - the thieves will rob you in the dark.' How, then, should I get to Cali? 'Do not go to Cali - Cali is more dangerous than Armenia.'
I did not take these stories lightly. A tourist's warning is like the mugging story in New York: it is a whisper of fear rather than a report of actual experience. But a Colombian's warning about a place he knows well is something to heed. He has every reason to reassure the stranger and persuade him to linger. But the message of most Colombians was: Get out of town, hire a taxi, take a plane, go home.
This was impossible. I took the precaution of removing my watch when I went out. But as I never stayed more than a few nights anywhere I was usually on the move, with my suitcase and (credit cards were no help in the hinterland) several thousand dollars. I was easy game: I knew that, and this was why I had grown a moustache - that and my slicked-down hair would make me anonymous. The thieves, I was told, approached you in pairs. They stuck a knife in your ribs or they slashed open your suitcase. And I had been approached ('Con ere, meesta. Leesen - joo my fren . . .'); it annoyed me to be singled out, after having taken trouble with my disguise. But I was lucky -1 ran, or I ducked out of sight. I was never robbed, in Colombia or anywhere else.
The persistent warnings about this threat of thieves gave me a fantasy that entertained me throughout Colombia. I was walking down a dark street with a pistol in my pocket. A thief accosted me and held a stiletto at me. Your money, he said. I pulled out my pistol and, getting the drop on him, robbed him of his last peso. So long, sucker. I chucked a cigarette at him and watched him creep away, pleading for his life.
But without this imaginary pistol I was nervous in Armenia. It was dangerous. I woke early and hurried through the dark slum to the far side of town. That was dangerous. The railway station, on its side street, contained huddled Indians and indistinct shadows. That was dangerous, too. I bought my ticket, jumped cnto the train, found a corner seat and kept my head down until the train left. This Colombian train, by Colombian standards, was luxurious - much better than the Expreso de Sol which had taken me on that long haul from the coast. There were net curtains on the windows, and at this hour it was not crowded. With any luck I would meet the boastful Amazon-bound Frenchman in Cali and I would tell him that the train was thirty-five cents cheaper than the bus.
The hills had been visible from the streets of Armenia; the train drew out and we were in them, and I could see how, beyond this range of green ones, was another range of blue ones, and a third range of black ones, much higher and more sharply defined. We travelled through the Cauca Valley, past groves of fern-like bamboos: they were clumped against the river which ran the length of the country. I could see the road, too. The road crossed the railway and climbed the hillsides, but the railway kept to the straight line of the riverbank. The buses on the road heaved back and forth, then shot out of sight; the train moved at its turtle pace, chugging south, stopping frequently. We travelled into heat; I was encouraged, because this was the way to Patagonia, this rumbling south. It was the delays, and easterly and westerly traverses that exasperated me and made me think how mistaken I had been in Boston to assume that I could board a local train and arrive in Patagonia within a couple of months. I had been gone well over a month and where was I? On a sleepy train in a green and distant country. The people here had no notion of where Patagonia was.
This was a lush place - bananas and coffee growing together, cultivation as far as the eye could see. Where were the owners of these estates? I saw only the peasants; small huts, pigs, skinny horses, people living dustily among garbage, all of Colombia's blameless savagery. The grazing cows had irimmed the hills and meadows, so that the grass looked newly mowed, and each expanse had the manicure of a golf course. But this was hyperbole; unless it rained soon the entire area would become over-grazed and unable to support these herds.
At Tulua Station I bought a bottle of 'British'-brand soda water. I drank it on the train after we got underway. An old lady was watching me.