Though Father Daniel’s words did not quiet the turmoil in Ignacio’s mind, they gave him something new to think about. He was still full of doubts, but his future no longer looked like it had to be a shameful lie—pretending to be someone he was not. For the first time in his life, he had a small bit of hope.
Ignacio had noticed that whenever he ran into Father Superior, the man would glare at him disapprovingly. He was particularly aware of this dislike one afternoon when Father Superior wandered into the library and found Ignacio and Father Daniel chatting. Father Superior immediately came up with an errand for Ignacio—as if he couldn’t stand the thought of the two of them being together. After that encounter, Ignacio sensed that Father Superior was always watching him. With no other students around, the tension escalated rapidly. Ignacio decided that unless Father Superior forbade him to talk to Father Daniel, he would seize any chance he had to speak with him. Their brief exchanges made his loneliness less raw; he was thrilled that an adult he admired took an interest in him. But Ignacio was distressed that in his dreams, he and his teacher kissed and made love. Those dreams saturated the hours of the day too. He’s only interested in teaching me about poetry and Colombian politics, Ignacio would repeat to himself. That’s all. But what if it was love—that feeling that was often expressed in the poems and a few of the novels they’d studied in the seminary? Whatever it was, it was the most powerful feeling he had ever experienced before, because it was not just sexual—as it was with Lucas, whom he now admitted to himself he’d wanted to touch and possess.
* * *
Shortly before the new semester began, Father Superior called Ignacio to his office. Because he had been asked to visit the office on only a couple of occasions, Ignacio knew that something of consequence was about to happen. Father Superior invited him to sit down and immediately got to the point.
“Ignacio, after consulting with the other brothers here, we’ve decided that you should continue your religious education in the seminary in the town of Palos de la Quebrada, in the Putumayo. You can finish your high school there and then begin your novitiate. If everything goes well, you’ll go to university before you get ordained. Good luck to you, Ignacio. You’ll be provided with everything you need for your trip.” With a wave of his hand, he indicated that their meeting was over.
Palos de la Quebrada. Ignacio recognized the name as soon as Father Superior had said it. He must have been about ten years old when he saw a newspaper photo of a massacre that had taken place there. Without knowing it, Father Superior was exiling Ignacio to live inside an image that had haunted him.
He kept busy all day so he didn’t have time to think, but when he took his walk in the courtyard at the end of the day, the news began to sink in. It was common knowledge that aspiring seminarians whose vocation was suspect, or about whom it was thought the strict discipline of priestly life might be too much, were sent to inhospitable places where they would be physically, psychologically, and spiritually tested. No matter what happened to him, Ignacio told himself, there was no going back to his parents’ farm—no fate could be more depressing than that. He thought it was unfair he was being punished for being argumentative about Catholic precepts, but he would do the best he could with the path that had been laid out for him. From that moment on, Ignacio decided he would wrap himself in an invisible cloak that concealed his true feelings.
The photo that had haunted him since childhood had been published under the headline, “FARC Massacres Boys.” The photo showed a mass of rotten, bloated corpses of adolescent boys floating on the surface of a small lagoon in the Putumayo jungle, near Palos de la Quebrada. The article reported in stark language that forty-eight boys, between the ages of twelve and sixteen, had been killed by the FARC guerrillas because they had refused to march off with them into the jungle.
Each boy had been shot in the forehead. In the photo it looked as if they all had a third eye staring lifelessly at the unconcerned sky. There were no vultures in the picture. Had they been shot at to keep them away from the carrion until after the pictures were taken for the press? Who had taken the photos—the army? The guerrillas?
Ignacio didn’t cut the picture out of the newspaper: the image was instantly etched in his brain. He started having nightmares about the dead boys with their distended bellies trapped in a lake of coagulated blood. He never mentioned the photo to anyone; its gruesome power forced him into silence. He feared that if he talked about it he would lessen the horror of what had happened and that would somehow make him complicit. In his nightmares, the dead children parted their stiff purple lips and chanted a mournful tune Ignacio had sung in childhood games: “Mambrú went off to war—oh what pain, what pain, what sorrow.” Over and over, the dead children uttered these lyrics. In the background, he heard a macabre buzz of frenzied flesh-eating flies.
On his last day in Facatativá, while walking with Father Daniel during the hour of recess before dinner, Ignacio informed him of his imminent departure.
“I didn’t know you were being sent to the Putumayo,” Father Daniel said, looking surprised. He stopped walking and put a hand on Ignacio’s shoulder. “I will miss you.”
Ignacio took those four words as a terse admission of Father Daniel’s affection for him. They made him happier than he had been since first meeting Lucas.
“In some fundamental way the community where you’re going may not be very different from this school,” Father Daniel said. “But in the Putumayo there’s no way to ignore that Colombia is at war. Here in Facatativá we’re so close to Bogotá that it’s almost as if the war is happening in a foreign country. I want you to keep your eyes open—which I know you will do—and think about what you see. But be careful what you say to anyone, and whom you trust, until you understand the world you’ll be living in. In particular, mind what you say to the people outside the seminary. Until you understand the situation, promise me you’ll keep your opinions to yourself.”
The seriousness of these words alarmed Ignacio. “I will, Father.”
“Maybe the doubts that you have about your vocation will be answered in the Putumayo. Listen carefully to your conscience and your true calling will be revealed.”
Later, as they were heading in the direction of the main building, Father Daniel put his hand on Ignacio’s wrist. “I’d like to stay in touch with you. If you like, we can correspond. I promise to tell you things that right now we don’t have the time to go into. I will pray for you, Ignacio.” As they entered the dining hall, Father Daniel blessed him before they went off in separate directions.
Ignacio remained awake that night, deeply fearful of this drastic change in his life. The next day, when he boarded the bus bound for the jungle, Father Daniel’s promise to write to him was still ringing in his ears, and it was enough to make him feel he was not alone in the world.
CHAPTER THREE
the putumayo
1994
The journey by bus from Facatativá to Palos de la Quebrada took over twenty-four hours, traveling on dusty roads. Ignacio had to change buses twice and noticed that the passengers on each bus eyed one another suspiciously. As the hours passed and the Andes faded behind them, leaving the coolness of the mountains painted with emerald hues to enter the metallic-green jungle with its stupefying heat and humidity, Ignacio became covered in sweat and was stung by pertinacious mosquitoes. On both sides of the road, behind the wall of vegetation, lay an inscrutable world. One-horse towns with names like Mocoa, Puerto Asis, and Puerto Leguízamo appeared on the borders of the jungle, breaking up the monotony. The bus crossed bridges over the waters of the Putumayo, Caquetá, Orito, San Miguel, and Macayá rivers. Ignacio was hearing many of these names for the first time. For the first time, too, he saw the Quichuas, Ingas, Sionas, and Vitotos Indians who lived in protected areas. Ignacio had heard at school that these Indian communities welcomed the evangelical missionaries, who competed with the Catholic church in proselytizing