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  The man made me nauseous.

  After something very nasty happened—I’m planning to tell you about it later, when I’m strong enough, although you can already imagine it, can’t you?—driven crazy with pain and humiliation, I made up a story that God had called me and that I wanted to go to a convent school to pray for the sins of the world. Obviously I didn’t believe in anything, no way! What I wanted was to get out of that fucking house.

  There was a convent near Palmira called Santa Águeda, run by nuns from the Order of St. Clare, and Mother agreed to take me. So did her disgusting boyfriend, who thought he’d be safe that way. The guy was a partner in a motorcycle dealership in district three, and in Cali that’s a more lucrative business than selling coke, so he had money and that was the source of his power over Mother. She boasted that we were in the middle class now. Middle class, forget it, she was still working as a waitress in a chicken rotisserie in La Flora. The man didn’t trust me because I could denounce him and so for him it was a relief to know I was going. He even gave money to the nuns so that they’d take me quickly before I could change my mind. And so it was.

  But in Santa Águeda the life I’d been hoping to get away from was still there, Doctor, only even crazier than outside. The place was like a volcano of raging hormones. The novices, who’d all been forced there by their families, apparently to get them away from the vices of the world, were fucking perverts and drug addicts. Adolescence in total eruption. The fourth night I was there, a girl from my dormitory asked me if I was a virgin and I didn’t know what to reply. She said that if I didn’t know, that meant I was, because you know these things, and then she asked if at least I’d had sex with another woman or if I’d like to eat a girl’s pussy. I told her I wouldn’t. It’s really great, she said, don’t you want me to teach you? Seeing my surprise, she lifted the sheet, put in her hand, and stroked me. Then she stuck her head in and started sucking me and I kept very still, embarrassed but also happy because I felt things and it was nice. When she took her head out from under the blankets she was very red in the face, and then she said to me, now it’s your turn to suck me, come on, and she opened her legs, but I couldn’t do it and I told her that it disgusted me, that I was too young for that kind of thing, but she insisted, what do you mean, young? didn’t you say you were fourteen? I told her I owed her one and pulled the sheet up over me.

  Then I dreamed that I was a rabbit running across a meadow. Something like a shadow was pursuing me, carrying a club in its hand to hit me on the back of my head and throw me in a pan. Sometimes my pursuer was my mother’s boyfriend and sometimes the girl from the dormitory, whose name was Vanessa, and suddenly she lifted her uniform and you could see her red pussy, and hear her saying, you owe me one, bitch! but I kept running until they trapped me and when they were about to deliver the blow a gap appeared in the grass and I escaped through it.

  I woke up screaming and the nun keeping night watch switched on the light and asked, what’s going on?

  Nothing, Mother, nothing. A bad dream.

  In the convent, they had a Chevrolet van for running errands, shopping at the market, and transporting the choir. I joined the choir on my very first day because I always liked singing, and after a few months they took us to an event in Palmira. I think it was for a religious festival, I can’t remember which one. And what a surprise I got! When we changed into our elegant uniforms, I saw that some of my companions had G-strings on under their smocks, which were like nuns’ habits. Then, in the van, a tall bitch who was called Sister Concepción and we called Conche told me that they’d put them on because there were going to be men there, and even though they were novices and students, men were men and when they looked at us they could tell we were wearing G-strings.

  That struck me as strange because I felt nothing, and even wore gray underwear that went from the navel almost down to the knee. Passion killers! Conche called them, and I didn’t argue, although our only passion was supposed to be God and praying for the vices and sins of the world, or perhaps something even more concrete, which was to make this little shithouse or quadrilateral of excrement we call Planet Earth a little less foul (if you think that’s too vulgar, Doctor, we can delete it).

  I’d also noticed that the novices shaved themselves.

  One evening I went into the bathroom and found several of them sitting in a circle, with their habits raised to their waists and their panties around their ankles. They were holding razors and had bowls with water and soap between their legs. Conche, who knew everything, was telling them: first use the scissors to reduce the bush, girls, and then move the razor up and down in the direction of the hair so as not to irritate the follicles, gently but firmly, okay? so that you can feel it cutting, and when I asked them what was so bad about having hair they said, so as not to look like natives, bitch, and to stop lumps forming, and they laughed. They thought it was funny how little I knew of life even though I was fourteen. According to them, I should already know how the world was and why lumps formed in the pubic hairs.

  Oh, if I’d told them the truth as I’m thinking to tell you, Doctor, those bitches would have been amazed, and some would even have cried. But let’s take it a bit at a time, and we’ll see if I can summon up the courage as I go along.

  The day arrived and we went to Palmira to sing with other religious schools. Then the city council provided a buffet in a big hall upstairs, with a view of a very pretty shaded square and park. Palmira is near Cali but I’d never been there, and I liked it. In my modest way, I felt that I was getting to know the world, because Palmira might be backward and hot and even ugly, but it’s still the world, isn’t it?

  At the buffet, I ate French fries and ham appetizers. My classmates were talking with a group of boys from another school, young men in white shirts and gray pants, all with spotty faces, all tongue-tied, very ugly but very beautiful, you know what I mean? You could see their innocence and their desire to believe in something and that’s why they were beautiful, although they tried to act tough, even though they were just a bunch of ordinary young guys.

  Learners.

  That’s what I thought when I saw them.

  I stayed close to the window, looking out at the park, and for a moment I forgot what was around me, engrossed in the shapes of the clouds, which looked like roosters’ crests, and the wind shaking the palm trees. The sun was going down slowly behind the mountains and I said to myself, when it comes down to it life is beautiful, Manuelita, don’t make such a fuss, the world is overflowing with peace and beauty, look at the mountains in the distance and that little brown village all the way over there, isn’t it beautiful? Keep going, I said to myself again, and I filled my lungs with that air that brought so many things that did me good, and closed my eyes and convinced myself that life and even God had seen me and were about to give me a second chance.

  I ate some fried bread with onions and tomatoes and took a sip of my Coca-Cola, waiting for them to call us to go down to the Chevrolet. The reverend mother was still talking with officials from the town council and the choir mistress, planning more excursions and concerts. One of the officials showed her some papers and told her dates, and the reverend mother took out her diary and drew red circles around particular dates.

  I went to the bathroom and there I found Vanessa, Estéfany, and Lady, who were the worst. They were already smoking, blowing the smoke out through the window. We weren’t allowed to smoke and I was scared of being caught with them, but I couldn’t get out of the damned bathroom without being called a nerd or God knows what, so I went into a cubicle to take a leak. That’s when it struck me that the smoke smelled different, it wasn’t cigarettes they were smoking but marijuana. I knew that fucking smell well because of Mother’s boyfriend, where did they get it from?

  I asked them and they said that the guys from the boys’ boarding school had given them three joints to get them in the mood. In addition they had half a b
ottle of Domecq brandy and they were mixing it with soda in a plastic bottle. This is a private party, Vanessa told me, but you can stay if you want. And there’s going to be a surprise.

  No sooner had she said this than I heard a noise at the window and saw one of the tongue-tied young guys in gray uniforms come in. He had come from the men’s bathroom, balancing on the ledge, which was pretty dangerous. He jumped down from the windowsill with his little angel face and pimples on his forehead and started smoking a joint with them, sucking greedily, almost desperately, taking deep breaths. It was obvious they already knew each other because Vanessa and Lady started kissing him on the mouth and in no time at all they took down his pants. I looked at the door of the bathroom and felt panic, what if someone came in? They took a huge cock out of his underpants and Estéfany, already high as a kite, stuck it in her mouth. I thought about the mother superior, who was only a few yards away. I wasn’t doing anything but I was there. The young guy lay down on the bench, shifting so that Estéfany could suck him off more comfortably, and all the while he was sticking his hand under Vanessa’s and Lady’s skirts.

  Suddenly, another young guy fell through the window and joined the party. He opened an envelope of silver paper and took out a powder that they started putting in their noses. They offered it to me and I said again, no, thanks, I’m too young for that, and they all laughed, too young? you’re fourteen, aren’t you? and I said, yes, I’m too young for vices like that. Then the newcomer knelt in front of me and said, you’re not too young and it’s not a vice, it’ll be great, let me teach you something, and then the other girls said, yes, yes, deflower her, come on, deflower her! They grabbed me by the shoulders until I was lying down and they pulled down my panties, laughing and joking about my pubic hair, look at that bush! it’s like a jungle! I kicked, I was choking with anger but I couldn’t scream. Seeing that I couldn’t escape, I took a puff at a newly lit joint, but it turned out to have a sweet taste that wasn’t marijuana and in no time at all it was if a cannon had shot me through the window, I was flying with my eyes closed, my muscles loose. It made me cough and I felt like throwing up, and I managed to say, this isn’t weed, and the boy said, no, sweetheart, it’s crack, do you want some more? When he parted my legs I stopped struggling. He put his head down and I felt his tongue and his teeth biting me. I liked it. It was cool that this young guy who was so handsome should notice me, because for a while now my body had been asking me something, as if the scars had disappeared. Then the boy took down his pants and slowly put it into me, and it didn’t hurt. I was so high from the crack that it took my fear away. When the three girls saw that I wasn’t bleeding they said, didn’t she tell us she was a virgin? look at her, the bitch, the hypocrite!

  I didn’t give a fuck. I closed my eyes and enjoyed it.

  When I opened them again I felt as if years had passed, but my boy was still there, on top of me. Although he was also kissing Estéfany, the bastard. Lady was fucking the first boy on the other bench and Vanessa, sprawled on the floor, was greedily smoking one crack joint after another, as if clinging to that tube of smoke was her only chance of survival.

  Suddenly I felt a tremor, my muscles tensed, preparing for something, and I gave out a soft cry. Estéfany heard it and said to the guy:

  “Don’t get her pregnant, come on her belly button.”

  He quickly took it out and spilled himself over me, a hot drool that trickled slowly down my sides. I gave a stupid smile because my head was out of it, and just then I heard knocking on the door. My heart beat faster. It was the mother superior saying, girls? are you ready? We’re going! Fortunately she didn’t ask us to open the door. We washed our faces with cold water and straightened our uniforms. The boys got out through the same window they’d come in by.

  On the ride back in the Chevrolet the chafing of the cushion made me come every time the van braked or accelerated. Vanessa noticed. She had purple circles around her eyes, which were swollen from the crack. She looked at me and said, well, hypocrite, did you like it? Fucking’s great.

  When we got back to Santa Águeda we were sent to the chapel to pray until dinnertime, fortunately, because all three of us were still high. It’s awesome, praying like that, Doctor. That’s when you understand religion and the appearances of the Lord, who that day wasn’t on the cross but sitting beside me, looking at me tenderly, and so I took advantage to ask him, or rather, I said to him, now that I can I want to ask you a question, just one, why wasn’t I given a normal life? why was it my fate, when I’m so fragile, such a crybaby? Christ heard my question and smiled but didn’t answer, as if the answer wasn’t important, and so I insisted: why have you abandoned me in the middle of so many bad people? and he kept looking without looking, in a way that his presence didn’t seem to contradict, it was strange, until I couldn’t stand it anymore and said to him, inside my mind, why don’t you or anybody ever hear me when I scream?

  Silence, nothing but silence.

  What that party in Palmira did was to gradually open the gates of hell, because from that day on not a week went by when we didn’t do drugs or get it on with anyone that showed up at the convent, whether man, woman, or priest. And we did it with enormous joy, as if something religious was being manifested in all that apparent chaos. Isn’t there a certain spirituality in excess? Between the extremes of sorrow and the extremes of escape, why do we have to prefer sorrow? I was born to sorrow, but what do judges know of the sorrows of life?

  This seems like fiction, but it was true.

  It even seems like literature, but before that it was true.

  One of those stories whose aim is to forge beauty out of the ugliest and dirtiest things in life.

  After two months, I was given the task of going with the sister in charge of the kitchen to do the weekly shopping, and when she wasn’t looking I slipped away and bought myself a beautiful collection of G-strings in the colors of the flag. I felt patriotic and jubilant, a good pupil who wears tricolor G-strings so that the men of the country, our heroes, should die wrapped in the flag. I wanted to swallow the world whole, to burn my adolescence like someone throwing gallons of gasoline over a stand of dry trees and setting fire to it. I couldn’t wait to do that.

  I had with me money from the other girls in my dormitory to buy them their special orders. From the drugstore, Canesten for a newcomer named Lucy, who had really bad thrush and stank. Aspirin for hangovers, Lúa fruit salts, Ibuprofen, condoms, KY jelly. In another place to which they had directed me, a bit scared, I bought drugs. They’d told me the prices, so I got some bags of crack for Vanessa, five grams of coke, and a quarter kilo of marijuana, which was what we all did most of. I hid it all in the fruit sack. I also bought three bottles of aguardiente from Cauca, which was great to mix with the juices they gave us at meals.

  4

  When I got to Madrid, I learned the extraordinary news that an Islamist cell had just seized the Irish embassy on Paseo de la Castellana. Seeing the images on the screens in the airport, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS!

  Groups of soldiers were patrolling the corridors of the terminal, nervous and aggressive, asking for papers and frisking anyone they thought looked suspicious, especially those with dark skin or of Arab appearance. People crowded around the monitors with expressions of fear on their faces, as if saying, what else is going to happen now?

  I hadn’t known anything about it when I left Rome, and the flight had lasted barely two hours, which meant it was all very recent, but everything that happens in the world is unexpected seconds before it happens, except to those who plan and execute it. A red news ticker at the bottom of the screens presented a permanent flash:

  TERRORISTS SEIZE IRISH EMBASSY IN MADRID!

  Distant sirens and the clatter of a helicopter engine mingled with the deafening announcements from the loudspeakers. Iberia flight to Palma de Mallorca . . . !!! To make matters worse,
the airport employees increased the volume of the monitors with every new bulletin. Perhaps worst of all was the din of the crowd. The cries of people yelling to each other, people talking and gesticulating, in person or on their cell phones, the shouts and the laughter, the protests, the comments and explanations. Some travelers were sleeping on the rows of seats or even on the floor, beside the machines dispensing drinks and candy, using them to lean their backs against because they were empty. A number of mothers were breastfeeding their babies on the escalators, which were out of service.

  I went into the bathroom. The smell knocked me back. There was no toilet paper in the cubicles and the bowls were overflowing with shit and urine. I waited in line to pee in one of the urinals, which was oozing a dark liquid. As for washing your hands, forget it.

  Outside, very close to the entrance, I saw a family sitting in a circle on the tiled floor of the arrivals lounge. They were eating from a pan, on plastic plates. What was happening in Madrid? What were all these people doing? They were leaving. They were waiting their turn to leave Spain on charter flights to Northern Europe or Latin America. Just as in Italy, here, too, many people had decided to leave, or simply to return home.

  I walked out of the terminal and found a taxi amid the crowds. The driver had the radio tuned to a news program, although he preferred to tell me himself what was happening, looking in the rearview mirror, putting both of us at risk. He was nervous, slapping the wheel and waving his hands as he talked.

  “What they’ve said so far is that first three black guys walked into the embassy, quite casually, and then two more, acting as if they were coming to apply for something. And nobody knows how, those five sons of bitches killed the guards and opened the door to the others to come in with weapons and bombs. Apparently they even drove a car into the garage. On the radio they’re saying some of these guys are Spanish, but how can they be Spanish? They must be blacks with Spanish passports, which isn’t the same thing. They’re holding thirty people hostage, and they say they’re going to cut their throats and blow up the building if they don’t give them God knows how much money. How can those bastards be Spanish? They’re screwing us.”