Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar Read online

  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 excursion we realize that the Brazilian girls have vanished through the art and craft of “escorts”—the name given in Colombia to armed bodyguards. We notice that Ángela now occupies the place of honor next to our host, who looks more dashing than all of us put together. Aníbal is happy, too, because he plans to offer Escobar helicopters manufactured by his friend Count Agusta, and also because Escobar has just commented that our friend is the most beautiful creature he’s seen in a long time.

  We come upon a trio of giraffes, and I can’t resist asking their owner how one imports animals of such size, with those mile-high necks, from the Kenyan plains: Who handles the purchase, how much do they cost, how are they loaded on the ship, do they get seasick? How do they disembark, what kind of truck brings them to the hacienda without awaking curiosity, and how long do they take to adapt to the change of continent?

  “And how would you get them here?” he asks me in a defiant tone.

  “Well, with the size of their necks—and given that they’re endangered—bringing them through Europe would be…risky. They’d have to travel by land through sub-Saharan Africa to somewhere like Liberia. From the Ivory Coast to the coast of Brazil, or maybe Guyana, I think they could travel with no trouble to Colombia across the Amazon, as long as you’ve left…a few rolls of bills at each stop along the way, with hundreds of happy patrolmen along the route from Manaus to Puerto Triunfo. I guess it’s not that complicated!”

  “I’m utterly scandalized at your propensity for multinational crime, Virginia! When can you give me some lessons? My giraffes are legally imported. What are you insinuating? They come from Kenya, via Cairo-Paris-Miami-Medellín, to the landing strip at Hacienda Nápoles, with their certificates of origin and all their vaccines in order! It would be impossible, inconceivable, to smuggle them in, because their necks aren’t exactly retractable, you know? Or do you think you can just make them lie down and go to sleep like five-year-old children?” And before I can say yes, he exclaims happily, “And now, we’ll go for a swim in the river, so all of you can see a corner of earthly paradise before lunch!”

  If there is anything that makes a civilized person from Tierra Fría want to get moving, it’s the prospect of an outing with sancocho at a river in Tierra Caliente. (Sancocho is a substantial soup of chicken or fish with yucca, rice, and potatoes, and every region of Colombia has its own recipe.) I can’t remember ever submerging myself into waters that were anything but turquoise since my most tender childhood years, so I feel a great relief when I see that the green water of this Río Claro, fed by dozens of springs on the property, is crystalline. It flows gently among enormous round rocks, its depth seems ideal for swimming, and the clouds of those mosquitoes that tend to mistake my blood for honey are nowhere in sight.

  Several relatives or friends of our host are waiting at the water’s edge, along with dozens of bodyguards and several speedboats. These steel watercraft are designed for the races that, I now know, are the passion of Escobar and his cousin Gustavo Gaviria, and they reach impressive speeds. They carry more than a dozen people, who must wear helmets, vests, and headphones, due to the thundering noise of the motor that is enclosed in a metallic cage in the back part of the boat.

  We take off in a flash, with Escobar at the wheel of our boat. In a trance of pleasure, he glides over that river, dodging obstacles as if he knows every crevice and rock, every large or small whirlpool, every fallen tree or floating trunk, as if he wanted to impress us with his ability to save us from dangers we only glimpse as they shoot past like arrows and disappear in an instant, products of our imagination. The maelstrom lasts almost an hour, and when we reach our destination, we feel like we’ve just plummeted over Niagara Falls. Fascinated, I realize that for every second of the past hour, our lives hung on the precise calculation of that man who seems born to defy the limits of his mortality or to rescue others and, in the process, receive their admiration, gratitude, or applause. And since shared intensity is one of the most splendid gifts that one can offer to those who also have a sense of adventure, I wonder if our host has put all that theatrical capacity of his into creating an exciting and unrepeatable spectacle. I sense he is following his passion for conquering danger and his constant need to display the many forms of his generosity—or, perhaps, his excessive self-regard.

  We arrive at the lunch spot, and I’m happy at the chance to rest in the water while the sancocho and barbecue are prepared. I float on my back, and lost in my thoughts and the beauty of the sky, I don’t notice the concentric circles of a whirlpool closing around me. When I feel strength like that of a metal whip paralyzing my legs and dragging me down, I wave my arms to call my fiancé and friends on the shore, some 250 feet away. But they think I’m inviting them to join me in the water and they all laugh; they only want to enjoy a good drink to celebrate the odyssey they’ve just been through, and to recover their body heat with a delicious hot bowl of soup. I’m about to die in the presence of four dozen friends and bodyguards who can’t look beyond their own comfort, machine guns, or cocktail glasses, when, nearly spent, I make eye contact with Pablo Escobar. He’s the busiest person, directing the show and giving orders—the orchestra conductor, el dueño del paseo (the “outing’s owner”), as a Colombian would say—but he’s the only one who realizes that I am in a blender I won’t come out of alive. Without a second thought, he leaps into the water and reaches me in seconds. First, he uses words to calm me; then, movements so precise they seem choreographed; and finally, a strength that seems equal to the whirlpool’s to pull me out. And that confident, brave man snatches me from the arms of death as if I were a feather, as if that act were just one more responsibility of a gallant host, and as if he were immune to a danger that he brushes aside. I hold tight first to his hand, then his forearm, and then his torso, while Aníbal watches us from afar, wondering why the hell I am not moving away from a man we’d met just a few hours ago, and who five minutes ago had been chatting breezily with him.

  Approaching the water’s edge, Escobar and I touch bottom and stumble onto the shore. He holds me firmly by the arm and I ask him why, among so many people, he was the only one who realized I was about to die.

  “I saw the desperation i
n your eyes. Your friends and my men only saw your hands waving.”

  I look at him and tell him that it wasn’t just that—he was the only one to see my anguish and the only one who cared about my life. He seems surprised, and more so when I add, with the first smile I’m capable of after the fright, “So now you’ll be responsible for me as long as you’re alive, Pablo….”

  He puts an arm around my shoulders, which can’t stop shaking. Then, with a cheerful expression, he exclaims, “As long as I’m alive? What makes you think I’m going to die first?”

  “Well, it’s just a saying…but let’s make it as long as I’m alive, so we can both take it easy, and you can pay for my funeral!”

  He laughs and says he’s sure that will be a century from now, because judging from the events of today, I have more lives than a cat. When we reach the shore where the group is, I let myself be wrapped in the towel that Aníbal’s loving arms hold out to me; it’s warm, and because it’s large, it hides what he doesn’t want me to see in his eyes.

  The grilled beef is as good as the best parrillada in an Argentine estancia, and the view from the cabin above the river is simply a dream. In complete silence, and a bit withdrawn from the rest of the group, I contemplate the opposite side of the river with the eyes of Eve granted a second chance in paradise. In the years to come, I would relive that afternoon in my mind time and time again, with me gazing toward the calmest part of that Río Claro, mirroring the magnificent wall of tropical foliage behind it and now covered with a million sparkling emeralds, the sunlight bathing every leaf of every tree, God shining in the wings of every butterfly. Several months later, I would beg Pablo to take me back to that place of reverie, but he would answer that such a thing was no longer possible because it had been taken over by guerrillas. Then, on a random day almost a quarter of a century later, I would finally come to understand that we must never return to the places of splendid beauty where we were once incredibly happy for a few hours, because all that is left of them is the nostalgia for the colors and, above all, the longing for the laughter.

  *

  —

  EVERYTHING IN HACIENDA NÁPOLES seems colossal. We find ourselves now on the Rolligon, a gigantic tractor with the strength of three elephants, wheels almost seven feet in diameter and a basket that fits fifteen people.

  “Bet you can’t get that one, Pablo!” we shout, pointing to a medium-sized tree.

  “Bet we can knock that one down, too!” shouts Escobar, delighted, steamrolling the poor tree without compassion, arguing that anything that can’t stand up under his attack doesn’t deserve to live and should return to the earth and become food.

  On the way back to the house, we pass a car riddled with bullet holes; it looks to be a Ford from the late twenties.

  “It’s Bonnie and Clyde’s!” he informs us proudly.

  I ask if he means the real couple’s or the one from the movie, and he replies that it’s the original—he doesn’t buy fakes. When we say that it looks like it was shot with a machine gun, Escobar explains that the six policemen who caught the lovers to claim the reward had shot it up with automatic rifles for over an hour, leaving more than one hundred bullet cartridges around the car.

  Clyde Barrow, the American Robin Hood, was the U.S. government’s public enemy number one in 1934. He robbed banks, and four months before his death he successfully orchestrated the jailbreak of several members of his gang. Bonnie Parker accompanied him in the robberies but never participated in the police killings, which increased as the search for the couple spread through more states and the reward for them grew. When they died, she was twenty-four years old and he was twenty-three. The couple’s naked bodies were displayed before hundreds of photographers on the morgue floor, in a spectacle that raised angry protests not only because it was morbid but also because of the dozens of bullet holes in the body of the young woman whose crime and fate had been to love an eternal fugitive from justice. Bonnie and Clyde were the first underworld couple to be immortalized in literature and film, and their legend came to be a true modern version of Romeo and Juliet. Twenty thousand people accompanied Bonnie’s funeral procession after her mother decided she couldn’t be buried beside Clyde, as she had wanted.

  As we approach the entrance to Hacienda Nápoles, we see perched on the enormous gate, like a giant tightrope-walking butterfly, a white-painted, single-engine plane. Escobar slows down and stops. I hear a hatch opening above us, and out of the corner of my eye I notice my companions move to the sides and back of the Rolligon. In seconds, gallons and gallons of freezing water are dumped over me, leaving me stunned, breathless, and sputtering. When I manage to recover my speech, I can only ask him, shivering, “And that turn-of-the-century shell—is it Lindbergh’s plane, or Amelia Earhart’s, Pablo?”

  “Now, that one was mine, and it brought me good luck, just like you had today when I saved your life! Ha, ha, ha! I always collect on my favors, and now you’ve been ‘baptized’! Now we’re even, my dear Virginia!” he exclaims, rolling with laughter, while his dozen accomplices go on celebrating the prank.

  That night, as I’m getting dressed for dinner, someone knocks very softly on the door of our room. Thinking it’s Aníbal’s little girl, I tell her to come in, but the person who shyly pokes his head in without letting go of the doorknob is the owner of the house. In a concerned tone that’s trying to be sincere, he apologizes and asks how I’m feeling. I reply that I feel cleaner than ever because, in the past twelve hours, I’ve been obliged to take five baths at various temperatures. He laughs, relieved, and I ask him about the wildcats, which we hadn’t seen at any point during the tour.

  “Ohhh…those. Well…I have to admit that there are no carnivorous animals in my zoo: they would eat the others, which makes them difficult to import…legally. But now that I think about it, I do believe I saw a furious panther shivering and soaked under a plane, and three tigresses in the salon, about ten minutes ago. Ha, ha, ha!”

  And he’s gone. When I realize that the whole episode on the runway was a show, I can’t help thinking with happy incredulity that this man’s ability to make mischief is comparable only to his bravery.

  When I walk into the dining room, looking golden and radiant in my turquoise silk tunic, Aníbal praises my appearance by exclaiming in front of everyone, “This is the only woman in the world who wakes up looking like a rose….It’s like seeing a miracle of creation every morning.”

  “Just look at them!” says the Singer to Escobar. “Two sex symbols, together…”

  Pablo looks at us, smiling. Then he stares straight at me. I lower my eyes.

  Back in our room that night, Aníbal comments in a low voice, “Really, a guy who can smuggle three giraffes here all the way from Kenya is capable of getting tons of anything into the United States!”

  “Such as what, love?”

  “Coke. Pablo is the King of Coke, and there is so much demand that he’s on his way to becoming the richest man in the world!” he exclaims, raising his eyebrows in admiration. I tell him I would have sworn Pablo financed that lifestyle of his with politics.

  “No, no, my darling, it’s the other way around: he finances the politics with this!”

  And half closing his eyes, rapturous with pleasure after his fortieth line of the day, he shows me a fifty-gram rock of cocaine that Pablo gave him.

  I am exhausted, and I fall deeply asleep. When I wake up the next day, Aníbal is still there, but the rock isn’t. His eyes are bloodshot, and he’s looking at me with enormous tenderness. I only know I love him.

  Presidential Aspirations

  A FEW WEEKS LATER, Aníbal gets a call from Escobar, inviting us to visit the hacienda and zoo of Jorge Luis Ochoa, near Colombia’s Caribbean coast. Ochoa is Escobar’s best friend and his partner in the social project Medellín sin Tugurios (Medellín Without Slums). Pablo sends a plane for us, and when we land we see that he is already waiting for us, and only the crew of his own plane is with him. It’s
clear that, not being the owner of the house, he is there to join us as one more guest in the group, which again includes our friend Ángela. We weren’t able to bring Aníbal’s children this time because their mother was truly horrified when she heard about the adventures we’d had in Nápoles; she strictly forbade him from bringing the kids on “weekends with those extravagant nouveau riche people.”

  There is very little traffic on the highway that leads from the airport to Ochoa’s hacienda. After a few minutes of driving under a merciless sun, with Escobar at the wheel of a convertible jeep, we reach the checkpoint where the toll is the equivalent of three U.S. dollars. Our driver slows down, greets the collector with his widest grin, and keeps right on going, relaxed and slow, leaving the poor boy stupefied. First he stands openmouthed with the ticket in his hand, and then he runs after us, waving his arms uselessly to get us to stop. Surprised, we ask Pablo why he voló el peaje, as Colombians say, or “blew the toll.”