“Larry,” he says, and then asks, “Libardo’s son?”
“Yes,” Pedro answers for me.
Ro’s expression goes cold, though he holds out his hand to shake. Pedro reminds me who Ro is. Rodrigo Álvaro Ospina, son of a former governor, former senator, former ambassador, one of our neighbors way back when. Though we didn’t go to the same school, we were sort of friends because we used to see each other outside, back when we played in the street.
“Larry got in today from London,” Pedro tells him. “He’s an economist from the London School of Economics,” he says, and La Murciélaga chimes in with a servile giggle.
“That’s great,” Ro remarks, without much enthusiasm.
“What are you guys up to?” Pedro asks.
Ro looks back at the group inside, and a woman raises her glass of aguardiente in greeting.
“Tere brought a bag of green mangoes, so we had no choice but to open a bottle of liquor to go with them,” Ro says plaintively.
“Mangoes, yum,” says Julieth.
“More like aguardiente, yum,” says Pedro.
Ro laughs so he can buy time to study me again. Then there’s a short but piercing silence, throughout which my heart’s only desire is that Ro will keep his mouth shut and not invite us in. But that doesn’t happen, and he finally makes up his mind:
“Come on, come inside for a bit and then we’ll go see La Alborada. There’s still some booze left. And time.”
I let out a dissident snort. Pedro turns and tells me, “Chill, man, let’s stay here for a bit—I’ve got everything all worked out. With me, happiness is guaranteed.”
He gets out, opens my door, and gives an exaggerated salute. And he asks, “By the way, man, did I welcome you to hell yet?”
5
What sounded like shattering glass, at gate 27, turned out to be Charlie’s scream. The few passengers still waiting to board froze. She dragged out the scream into a mad, maddening lament. It sounded like a mentally ill person was trying to force her way onto the plane, or somebody having a panic attack. A couple of airline workers hurried toward her as she sat doubled over on the floor next to a row of seats, her face red and distended from the scream. They helped her up and led her over to a seat. Charlie kept moaning, her cell phone clutched to her chest. They asked her what was wrong, what was happening, and she just shook her head.
At the counter, they made the final boarding call. One of the employees asked if she was on that flight. Charlie nodded. They asked if she was sure she still wanted to travel, and she said yes and begged, please don’t leave me, I’ve got to be on that plane. The employee signaled to his colleague at the counter to wait and asked Charlie for her passport and boarding pass. Shaking, she rummaged for them in her purse. The employee rushed over to the counter with the documents, and the one who stayed behind said, I’m sorry, but you have to board now, they’ve announced the final call. And he asked her again, Are you sure you want to go?, we can book you for another day. At this, Charlie jumped up. No, she said, I’m going, I have to go. Have you been drinking?, the employee asked. She looked at him in confusion. What? I asked if you’ve been drinking, he repeated. Alcohol?, Charlie asked. Yes, alcohol. She stopped sobbing and let out a laugh and shook her head. Let’s go then, he said.
On the jet bridge, a small group was still waiting to enter the plane. Just four or five passengers. Charlie was pulling a small suitcase, though it looked like the suitcase was actually pushing her. Larry was the last one in line, and he turned to look at her. She grabbed the handrail as her knees buckled. She landed on her butt on the floor, alone, in the middle of the passageway, beneath a glaring fluorescent light. The people waiting to board turned to stare at her. Charlie’s agonized sobbing peeled the skin from their bones. Nobody appeared behind her to help, nobody went over. Two more people from the line moved forward into the plane, and Larry was the only one left outside. He peeked inside the plane to see if a crew member had noticed what was going on, but they seemed to be busy helping the passengers settle in. So he walked halfway up the jet bridge, to where Charlie was, and asked in English, “Are you O.K.?”
She shook her head.
“Can I help you?”
She nodded and replied in Spanish, “Help me into the plane.”
Larry helped her up. A flight attendant appeared in the airplane doorway and urged them to hurry. Larry held Charlie’s arm and with his other hand pulled her suitcase behind him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“My father just died.”
“I’m really sorry.”
The two of them boarded the plane. The flight attendant pointed her to her seat. Larry followed behind. Charlie stopped at the fourth row in first class and dropped into the seat. He asked if that was where she was sitting, and she nodded. He opened the overhead compartment and stashed her suitcase inside.
“If you need anything, I’m in the back, row 35,” he told her, but she was crying again, her face in her hands.
He headed further back toward his row, threading his way between people who were still organizing their things. Suitcases, hats, stuffed animals, Selfridges bags full of crap. Larry tried to turn around and go back to tell Charlie that he was on his way to a funeral too. Maybe that would give her a little consolation. She wouldn’t feel so alone, he thought, as if grief could be shared. But it was different too—he was going to a funeral that was twelve years late. Another flight attendant asked him to take his seat, saying that the flight had been delayed already and was being held up even further by the boarding process. Larry obeyed and found his spot, between two strangers. He’d be there for the next eleven hours. He closed his eyes, thinking.
There’s no flight in the world worse than one that’s taking somebody to say a last goodbye . . .
6
Three days after Escobar’s death, we gathered around the table again. Before, everybody used to do their own thing—Julio and I off to school, or the two of us with Fernanda, or her with Libardo—but it took just three nights for the four of us to end up at the dining room table again and discuss the subject as a family for the first time. During that period, Libardo was constantly in and out of the house; one night he didn’t even come home to sleep, but Fernanda wasn’t worried. I was. The country was in turmoil—whether for good or for ill, something transformational had happened, something so significant that nobody was talking about anything else. Even today everybody remembers what they were doing when they heard about Escobar’s death. So I kept a close eye on Libardo. I read his facial expressions, his mood, to guess what was going on. Relax, son, he kept saying, without my even asking anything. But the more he said it, the more I worried. I tried to keep close to him so I could eavesdrop on his phone conversations, but he’d shut himself up in his study, talk in a low voice, or persuade the other person to meet face to face. When he talked to Fernanda, they’d go off by themselves and speak in monosyllables. She didn’t share much with us. She asked to us to let Libardo do his thing, saying he’d always taken care of us and that wasn’t going to change.