LITMIR.BIZ

       The Kingdom of White Gold

      IT WAS MID-1982, and Colombia was plagued by various rebel groups. They were all Marxist or Maoist, and rabid admirers of the Cuban model. They lived off subsidies from the Soviet Union, from the kidnapping of people they considered rich, and from stealing landowners’ livestock. The most important of these groups was the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), born of the violence of the fifties, an era of unlimited cruelty so savage that it is impossible to describe without feeling ashamed to belong to the species of man. Other groups had fewer members: the ELN (National Liberation Army) and the EPL (Popular Liberation Army), which later would lay down arms to become a political party. In 1984, the Quintín Lame Armed Movement would be born, inspired by the brave man of the same name who fought for the cause of protecting indigenous peoples.

      And there was the M-19: the movement characterized by spectacular, cinematic attacks, whose members were an eclectic mix of university students and professionals, intellectuals and artists, children of bourgeois and military parents, and those hard-liner combatants who in the argot of the armed groups were known as troperos. Unlike the other armed groups—which operated in the jungles and countryside that cover almost half the Colombian territory—“the M” was eminently urban and counted several women among its leadership who were just as prominent and publicity-loving as their male counterparts.

      In the years after Operation Condor in South America, the rules of combat in Colombia were written in black and white: when any member of one of these groups fell into the hands of the military or state security services, they were jailed and often tortured to death without trial or mediation. Likewise, when a wealthy person fell into guerrillas’ hands, they were not freed unless the family handed over the ransom, often after years of negotiations; he who didn’t pay died, and his remains were rarely found. With few exceptions, this situation holds as true today as it did then. Any professional Colombian can name more than a dozen people among their friends, relatives, and employees who were kidnapped—some returned safe and sound, others who never came back. These last, in turn, can be subdivided into those whose families did not have the means to satisfy the kidnappers’ demands, those whose ransom was paid but were still never returned, and those whose existence was deemed not to merit the surrender of the wealth accumulated over several generations, or just over one lifetime of honest work.

      . . .

      I HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP with my head resting on Aníbal’s shoulder, and I’m woken by that double jump that light aircraft give when they touch ground. He caresses my cheek, and when I try to stand up, he tugs gently at my arm, as if to say I should stay sitting down. He points out the window, and I can’t believe my eyes: on both sides of the landing strip, two dozen young men, some with dark glasses and others with their brows furrowed in the afternoon sun, have the small plane surrounded and are pointing their machine guns at us; their expressions say they are used to shooting first and asking questions later. More of them seem to be half-hidden in the brush, and two are even playing with their mini-Uzis the way any of us would play with car keys; I can only imagine what would happen if one of those guns hit the ground, spraying six hundred bullets a minute. The boys, all very young, are wearing comfortable, modern clothes: colorful polo shirts, imported jeans and sneakers. None of them is wearing a uniform or camouflage.

      As the small plane careens down the runway, I calculate how much we would be worth to a rebel group. My fiancé is the nephew of the previous president, Julio César Turbay, whose government (1978–1982) was characterized by a violent military repression of insurgent groups, especially the M-19, throwing a large number of their upper leadership in jail. But Belisario Betancur, the new president, has promised to free and give amnesty to all fighters willing to participate in his peace process. I look at Aníbal’s children, and my heart sinks: Juan Pablo, eleven years old, and Adriana, nine, are now the stepchildren of the second-richest man in Colombia, Carlos Ardila Lülle, owner of all the soda companies in the country. As for the friends who are with us, Olguita Suárez—who in a few weeks will marry the friendly Spanish singer-songwriter Rafael Urraza, the organizer of today’s outing and whom we call “the Singer”—is the daughter of a millionaire cattle rancher from the Atlantic coast, and her sister is engaged to Felipe Echavarría Rocha, member of one of the most important industrial dynasties of Colombia; Nano and Ethel are decorators and marchands d’art, Ángela is a top model, and I am one of the most famous TV anchors in the country. I know perfectly well that if we fell into guerrilla hands, all the people on board the plane would be identified as oligarchs and, in consequence, “secuestrables” or “kidnappable,” an adjective as Colombian as the prefix and noun “narco,” which we’ll get to later.

      Aníbal has gone silent, and he looks unusually pale. Without bothering to wait for their answers, I fire off two dozen questions in a row:

      “How did you know that this was the plane they sent for us? Don’t you realize they might be kidnapping us? How many months are they going to keep us when they find out who the mother of your children is? And these aren’t poor guerrilleros; look at their guns and tennis shoes! But why didn’t you tell me to bring my tennis shoes? These kidnappers are going to make me walk through the whole jungle in Italian sandals, and without my straw hat! Why didn’t you let me pack my jungle-wear in peace? And why do you accept invitations from people you don’t know? The bodyguards of people I know don’t aim machine guns at their guests! We fell into a trap! All because you go through life snorting coke and you don’t know where reality is. If we get out of this, I am not marrying you, because you’re going to have a heart attack, and I do not intend to be a widow!”

      Aníbal Turbay is big, handsome, and free; he is loving to the point of exhaustion and generous with his words, his time, and his money, despite the fact that he’s not a multimillionaire, as all my ex-boyfriends are. He is equally adored by his eclectic

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