The first morning of that weekend unfolds in utter normality, but then strange things begin to happen, as if a guardian angel were trying to warn me that present pleasures and innocent adventures are almost always the masks that cover the face of future sorrows.
Aníbal is certainly one of the craziest human beings to ever walk the planet, a superlative that greatly entertains my adventurous spirit, and all my friends predict that our engagement will end, not at the altar, but at the foot of a cliff. Though he drives his Mercedes on narrow and winding two-lane mountain roads at more than one hundred miles per hour, with a glass of whiskey in one hand and a half-eaten snack in the other, the truth is that he has never had an accident. And I ride happily in the dune buggy with his little girl on my lap, the wind in my face and my hair flying, enjoying the pure delight, the indescribable joy you feel when you ride for miles and miles over flat, virgin terrain at top speed with nothing to stop or limit you. At any other Colombian hacienda, those vast expanses would be dedicated to raising zebu cattle, and they would be peppered with barred and locked gates to safeguard thousands of cows gazing languidly and dozens of bulls on eternal alert.
For nearly three hours we travel over miles and miles of grasslands in every shade of green, interrupted only by the occasional lake or slow-moving river, a mustard-colored hill, soft as velvet, a slight undulation in the distance, similar to those prairies where, years later, I watch Meryl Streep and Robert Redford in Out of Africa, only without the baobab trees. The whole place is populated only by trees and plants, birds and small animals native to the American tropics, impossible to describe in detail because every new scene starts before the previous one has finished parading before our eyes—vistas that first went past by the dozens now seem to pass by the hundreds.
At vertiginous speed we head toward a long hollow of thick and junglelike vegetation, about half a mile wide, to cool off for a few minutes from the burning noontime sun under the giant feathered fans of a guadua bamboo forest. Seconds later, flocks of multicolored birds take flight with a shrill squawking, the buggy jumps over a depression hidden by dead leaves, and a stick about seven feet long and almost two inches thick enters like a bullet through the front part of the vehicle, crosses the narrow space between Adriana’s knee and mine at about sixty miles per hour, and stops exactly one millimeter from my cheek and two inches from my eye. No damage done—to me or Adriana, at least—because dune buggies stop on a dime. And because, it seems, God has a very singular destiny reserved for me.
In spite of the distance we’ve covered, and thanks to that invention called the walkie-talkie, which I had always considered snobbish and superfluous, in a matter of twenty minutes, several jeeps come to rescue us and to collect the “cadaver” of the first totaled dune buggy in the whole history of humanity. Half an hour later we are in the hacienda’s small hospital receiving tetanus shots and Mercurochrome swabs on the scrapes on our knees and my cheek, while everyone breathes a sigh of relief because Adriana and I are alive and have all four eyes intact. Aníbal, wearing the expression of a chastised child, grumbles about the expense of having that blasted machine repaired or possibly replaced, for which he’ll need, first of all, to find out how much it costs to ship one from the United States.
We are informed that the hacienda owner’s helicopter arrived a while ago, though none of us remembers hearing it. Somewhat uneasy, my fiancé and I prepare ourselves to offer apologies for the damage we caused and to ask about how to repair it. Minutes later, our host makes his entrance into the small salon where we’ve gathered with the rest of the guests. His face lights up when he sees how astonished we are at his youth. I think he senses how relieved my buggy-assassin boyfriend and I are that he’s the same age as most of the members of our group, because a mischievous look flits over his face, and he seems to fight against one of his guffaws that, I later learn, are the precursors to peals of laughter.
Some years before, during a visit to Hong Kong, I was looking at the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost that was parked in front of my hotel twenty-four hours a day with its chauffeur in hat, uniform, and black boots. Its owner, the venerable and elegant “Captain” Chang, answered: “Don’t worry, dear madam, we have seven more just for our guests, and that one is yours!”
In the same tone of voice, our smiling young host exclaims with a dismissive wave of his hand: “Don’t worry about that buggy, we have dozens of them!” eliminating all our worries straightaway—and with them, any shadow of doubt about his resources, hospitality, or total willingness to share the infinite entertainment of his paradise with us. Then he sets about greeting us one by one in a voice that first calms, then disarms, and finally seduces us—women, men, and children alike. His smile makes each of us feel like the accomplice chosen for some carefully planned joke that only he is in on.
“Delighted to meet you in person, finally! How are those scrapes? We promise to more than make up for the time the kids lost; they won’t be bored for a minute! Nice to meet you, I’m Pablo Escobar.”
Though he is a fairly short man—under five foot six—I feel absolutely certain he has never cared a whit. His body is solid and of the type that in a few years will tend to gain weight. His double chin, premature and prominent, over a thick and abnormally short neck, detracts youth from his expression but adds a certain authority, the air of a respectable older gentleman, to the carefully measured words that emerge from his straight, firm mouth. He speaks with a serene voice—neither high nor deep, polite and truly pleasant—utterly sure that his wishes are commands and that his dominance of the subjects that concern him is complete. He sports a mustache under a nose that in profile is almost Greek and, along with his voice, is the only striking characteristic of a man who, in another setting, would be described as perfectly ordinary, more ugly than beautiful, and who could be confused with millions of others in the streets of any Latin American country. His hair is dark and curly, with an untamed triple wave across his forehead that he brushes away from time to time with a quick movement; his skin is fairly light—he’s not tan like us, who are golden year-round, though we live in Tierra Fría—the Cold Land. His eyes are very close-set and are particularly elusive; when he feels he’s not being watched, they seem to withdraw into unfathomable caves under his sparse eyebrows to scrutinize those outside. I notice that he looks almost constantly toward Ángela, who observes him with polite disdain from her stature of five foot seven, her twenty-three years, and her superb beauty.
We take the jeeps and head to the part of the Hacienda Nápoles where the zoo is. Escobar drives one of the vehicles, accompanied by two Brazilian girls in thongs, pretty cariocas of small stature and perfect hips who never talk and who caress each other, though with growing discretion because of the children and the elegant beauties who are now taking all of the host’s attention. Aníbal notices their utter indifference to what is happening around them, which for an authority in his field is an indisputable symptom of repeated and deep inhalation of Samarian Platinum. Remarkably, on this sumptuous property Samarian Gold is merely cheap pot. We notice that both girls, tender like little angels about to fall asleep, sport one-carat diamonds on their right index fingers.
Three elephants appear in the distance, perhaps the main attraction of any respectable circus or zoo. Though I’ve never been able to distinguish between Asian and African species, Escobar tells us they are Asian. He also informs us that all the larger species and the ones in danger of extinction have two or more females, and that, in the case of the zebras, camels, kangaroos, Appaloosas, and other less expensive horses, they have more. And he adds with a malicious smile:
“That’s why they stay so happy, and why they don’t attack or get violent.”
“No, Pablo, it’s not because of the surplus females. It’s because of this gorgeous place, just like the plains of Africa. Look at those hippopotamuses and the rhinoceros running toward the river: happy, as if they were at home!” I say to him, pointing. I adore contradicting men who overvalue sex, but it’s also the truth—the best thing about his zoo is the animals’ total freedom to trot in open spaces or hide in tall grasses, from where, when you least expect it, the panther and tigers from the day before could leap out.
At some point during the