Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord Read online

  ‘A warning?’ echoed Dionisio.

  ‘Don’t be disingenuous, Dionisio. You know I am talking about the letters.’

  ‘The letters are hardly a big thing,’ said Dionisio. ‘Anyway, how do you know about them?’

  ‘Everybody does, including me, because despite being a cochinillo I read an intelligent newspaper like La Prensa. Believe me, there are narcoticos who read it as well. Your letters have made you a local celebrity, because no one else from around here gets letters published regularly in important newspapers. There are plenty of people who want you to shut up and mind your own business.’ The policeman raised one eyebrow and tapped one side of his nose. ‘That is my advice as well, cabron, or you will end up like our little amigo here, with your tongue pulled through a pretty little hole in your neck.’

  ‘Do you know who he is?’ asked Dionisio.

  ‘Yes I do, and I can assure you that there will be no mourners at his funeral. As far as I am concerned, these canallas can kill each other as much as they like. To lock them up would be a criminal misappropriation of public funds.’

  Ramon stroked his stubble thoughtfully, tipped back his cap to a jaunty angle, and spat onto the ground next to the body. ‘Come on,’ he said to his companion, ‘let us do our duty.’ They slung the body into the back of the van, and Dionisio came around to the driver’s door to shake the hand of his friend. ‘I will buy you a drink,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’

  The policeman winked. ‘Let us waste no time,’ he said, ‘in bringing perfection to this world.’ He drove away leaving Dionisio wondering whether that was a learned quotation or whether he had just made it up.

  3 Ramon’s Letter

  Dear Sirs,

  I write as police officer of Ipasueño, and as a lifelong acquaintance and friend of Dionisio Vivo. I wish to make a public reply to his comments upon the unreliability of the law-enforcement agencies.

  As he rightly states, the choice presented to us is ‘plata o plomo’. Either we participate in the profits or be tortured to death. However, we would have little fear of the latter fate if there were more of us, better trained, and better armed. We are pitifully few; the country is vast, with great tracts of it unexplored, let alone mapped. In fact there is even doubt as to where the borders lie, especially in the Amazonas region, and this has caused a great many pointless and disreputable wars with our neighbours in the past. It is physically impossible to police such a country as ours, and regrettably many of our police are so demoralised by the perpetual struggle to perform the impossible that they have given up altogether.

  Secondly, it is a well-known psychological fact (at least Dionisio Vivo tells me that it is) that anyone can be bribed by being offered a sum amounting to ten times their annual salary. The annual income of a policeman is considerably less than that received by an unemployed single person on social security in the United States. Is anyone really surprised then that the police seem to be so corruptible? I do not know any policemen who do not have to take second jobs in off-duty hours merely to stay alive. I myself have a herd of goats.

  Lastly, I would like to say to Dionisio Vivo that in my professional opinion his life is endangered, and I also want to ask him a question. Does he know that in this country crimes of passion outnumber coca killings by three to one? Is he contemplating an epistolary crusade against that too?

  Ramon ‘Cochinillo’ Dario,

  Police Officer,

  Ipasueño.

  4 Dionisio Renounces Whores Out of Love For Anica

  IPASUEÑO LAY ACROSS a plain and mountainside on the western reaches of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Margarita. The whitewashed houses rose up above each other glistening in the sun like the snows high above them, and the inclined streets were raucous with the sound of mule-trains, the crashing of the gears of ancient lorries, and the cries of streethawkers selling arepas and pineapple juice. The streets were narrow and the light restricted because of the overhanging balconies draped with washing. It was a small town, which made it easy to call in on one’s friends and to spread rumours, and it was very self-contained. Food was mostly bought from the Acahuatec Indians who farmed on terraces in the Sierra, and from the inhabitants of Cochadebajo de los Gatos in the east. The town was famous for producing the finest Supremo coffee-beans, and for the quality of its cocaine, manufactured by the sulphuric acid and petroleum process. The town was not, however, so famous that outsiders ever wanted to go there, nor so dull that the inhabitants ever wanted to leave. This meant that the population had not changed in its basic nature since the sixteenth century, when it was founded by the Conde Pompeyo Xavier de Estremadura, who was later to perish with eight hundred and fifty souls in an avalanche of snow during an expedition of 1533 to locate the legendary Inca city of Vilcabamba. This is the same aristocrat who was eventually brought back to life by Aurelio the Sorcerer, and who became resident in Cochadebajo de los Gatos, where he met and cohabited with Remedios, the communist guerrilla leader.

  Seven years, six months and thirty-three days after the illusory war of La Isla de los Puercos (after which President Veracruz was re-elected on the ‘victory vote’) Dionisio Vivo, professor of philosophy, was twenty-eight years old, and was celebrating his birthday in the serpentine embrace of Velvet Luisa in Madame Rosa’s Famous Casa de Putas in the Calle Santa Maria Virgen. Downstairs Jerez was being sick into the lap of the whore known as The Biggest Boa in the World, and Juanito was using his good looks and his powers of persuasion to induce Rosalita to do it for nothing. The Biggest Boa in the World was shrieking with dismay and was about to waste a bottle of Aguila by breaking it over Jerez’ head, and Rosalita was being coy because she was in love with Juanito and was hoping to leave whoring in order to marry him. Jerez and Juanito shared a house with Dionisio and were helping him to enjoy his birthday in the brothel, by enjoying themselves, and thus affirming their solidarity and their brotherhood.

  Madame Rosa’s whorehouse was remarkable not only for the fact that the girls were pretty and clean, but for its genial atmosphere. Madame Rosa got the girls checked every week at the clinic, and was always genuinely happy when one of the girls married one of the clients, drifting away to a new life of children and domesticity. She was already resigned to the fact that in a little while she would lose the most popular whore she had ever had.

  Velvet Luisa had a twin sister who was at university. At the age of seventeen they had tossed a coin as to which of them would go to university first while the other supported them both, and Luisa had lost. She had taken to whoring with verve and vivacity, knowing that she was condemned to it for only three years, and positive that in retrospect it would prove to have been a character-forming and constructive experience. She slept only with clients that she genuinely had an eye for, and brooked no nonsense or violence from anyone, which was why she had a pistol under her pillow and an electric bell for summoning Madame Rosa’s husband in the event of a contingency.

  Madame Rosa’s husband was a formidably huge negro of gentle disposition, who was as fond of the whores as he was of his own daughters and his horse. He had met Madame Rosa in Venezuela, whither she had fled from her previous husband in Costa Rica. This gentleman had himself been an insatiable whoremaster with a vile temper and a habit of drunkenness. Madame Rosa was in truth a bigamist, but she considered that if the Holy Father had known that her first husband used to fire his revolver at huge imaginary spiders at all hours of the day and night, he would undoubtedly have annulled that marriage without hesitation. She had great faith in the Holy Father, and considered that she ran a truly Catholic brothel, with a crucifix on the wall of every room, and days off for the girls on their Saint’s day.

  Dionisio was stroking Velvet Luisa’s perfect black thighs, and was teasing her by just drawing back with his ticklings when he reached the portals of the Gates of Heavenly Bliss. He was saying, ‘This has got to be something for me to be nostalgic about, because after today I don’t think I will be coming back. I’ve fallen in love, Luisa, and I thin
k it’s going to be a big one, and when I am like this I don’t want to make love to anyone else.’

  Luisa sat up, looking a little alarmed, and said, ‘Don’t do that; all the girls here will commit suicide. We all think that with you it is more like making love.’

  Dionisio thought about it, and replied, ‘That’s because I love women more than anything else in the world. I have the suspicion that most men hate them, and that is why they treat them so badly. I think there are a lot of macho types out there who probably would really rather do it with a donkey or a little boy.’

  In appearance Dionisio Vivo was stocky enough to reveal some of the Indian blood in his veins, but he had startlingly blue eyes. This was, curiously enough, the direct result of one of the Conde Pompeyo Xavier de Estremadura’s exploits in the sixteenth century. Dionisio had a full and sensuous mouth, olive skin, a black moustache, and the kind of luxuriant sideburns that are still common in that country. He was in general quite hairy about the body, and was still well-muscled as a consequence of a narcissistic obsession with his torso during his teenage years. Characteristically he would dress in blue, and it was true that all the girls in the whorehouse thought that he was wonderful both in and out of bed. Velvet Luisa was both jealous and curious. ‘Is it true that it is Anica Moreno that you have fallen in love with? Everyone is saying that.’ She gave him a searching look and toyed with one of his nipples so that he took in his breath sharply. ‘Yes, it is Anica,’ he said, ‘and tomorrow we are going to sleep together for the first time. It is all agreed between us.’

  Anica Moreno was at that time only just twenty years old, and was governed chiefly by her sense of beauty. She had had very few experiences of a romantic nature, the first being at the age of thirteen, when she had masturbated a young man in the front of a Russian-made jeep while on the way to Cochadebajo de los Gatos to see the temple and the statues of the cats. At eighteen she had given her virginity to a married man who had pretended to be in love with her. This man worked for the Catholic Mission to Single-Parent Families, and he disowned her completely when she fell pregnant. She miscarried at three months, leaving no one any the wiser, and became a little inhibited sexually. Thus one could say that she had had her share of sorrows, especially as at the same time her beloved mother had died at an early age of an intractable cancer. This had affected her extraordinarily deeply, as indeed it had affected her father, a very mild and reticent man, conspicuously religious and humane, who had made a fortune in arms dealing.

  Anica had some artistic talent which she expressed with refreshing naivety and simplicity in her drawings, preferring zig-zag patterns in bold colours. She was possessed with the absolute conviction that one day she would become renowned as a great artist, and although she was a soft and sentimental person who would not wish harm to her worst enemy, there was a determined portion at the core of her which got her into trouble as a child, and which was a mixed blessing in the time of her adulthood.

  These two first met when artistic ambitions induced an interest in photography in Anica. She was slightly acquainted with one of the men with whom Dionisio shared his house. This man was Jerez, a character so worthless and irredeemable that no one ever thought of trying to reform him; they just accepted him as he was (with the exception of the Biggest Boa in the World, who hated to be puked up on). Consequently he had always led an equable and happy life, a fact which intimates how little justice there is in the world. He divided his time and his somewhat minimal energy between a very great many lonely and (to other men) undesirable women of indeterminate age and worn-out appearance. He scratched a living by taking photographs for the two local newspapers, and fancied himself as an artist in his craft. One of his less attractive foibles was to gatecrash private fiestas, and it was at one of these that he had met Anica and impressed her with the fact that he was a photographer. He had invited her to come and see him if her artistic interests should lead her in the direction of photography, though there is no doubt whatsoever as to his real hopes and intentions.

  It so happened that she lived almost directly opposite to Dionisio and Jerez, and it was miraculous that hitherto none of them had met before. One day the thought came into her head that she might as well drop in on Jerez so that he could explain the more subtle mysteries of her new camera, which was the gift of her father on her twentieth birthday.

  Dionisio was still in his work-clothes, and had his feet up on Jerez’ home-made coffee-table, whose top was attached to its base by no other force than gravity, when Anica knocked at the outer shutters of the hallway. Jerez answered the door and let her in.

  When she came into the living-room Dionisio thought that she was the most striking woman he had ever seen. Some of the verses of the Song of Solomon sprang unbidden into his mind. She brought with her such an air of humour, self-confidence and gentleness that the house was lit up with her presence as though with a lamp. She put Dionisio instantaneously into such a fine mood that she was given a first impression of him that he was both handsome and jovial, when in fact he was very ordinary-looking and distinctly prone to periods of moroseness.

  Anica Moreno was one hundred and eighty-four centimetres tall, and this alone would have made her striking. On this day she was dressed in dungarees of that emerald green which, curiously enough, astrologers associate with Venus. She wore a green and white striped tee-shirt, and old lilac espadrilles, with a spot of green sock showing through where the toes were worn away. This waifish touch alone would have melted the heart of any man. Her hair was strawberry blonde, a rare thing in those parts; it was short and spiky, an effect designed to reveal her artistic nature, and she had a high forehead above grey eyes the colour of a winter sea. Dionisio noticed that she had a very small mouth, but that when she grinned she revealed marvellous shiny white teeth that looked as though they would have spoiled her face if they had been only a fraction bigger. She wore a very large green plastic earring in one ear in the shape of an isosceles triangle.

  He could tell that she was quite thin by her arms, whose forearm seemed thicker than the upper part, but he was struck by her gracefulness as she stood with her shoulders back, standing with all her weight on one leg, with the other bent at the knee in such a way that her toe was posed casually on the ground. He was reminded of a little girl at a confirmation. She was big-breasted, but she gave the impression of being embarrassed about this fact, since her breasts were always concealed beneath the shapelessness of her clothing. In fact it was true that she was embarrassed about them, not because of their volume, but because one of them was very slightly larger than the other, a fact indiscernable without close inspection.

  Dionisio having been captivated by her charm and vivacity to such an extent that he began to ask himself whether he might have any luck with her, and Anica Moreno having had a woman’s thoughts about him, she left the house and did not reappear in it for three months.

  After she had gone Jerez had said, ‘Lovely body,’ and Dionisio had grunted. The best thing about Jerez was that everything that he believed or said was either so crass or so gross that it made one feel either intellectual or virtuous by comparison.

  ‘I tried to seduce her once,’ said Jerez, ‘but she ran kilometres.’

  How surprising, Dionisio had thought.

  ‘I am surprised,’ said Luisa, when Dionisio had confessed that it was indeed Anica that he was in love with. ‘She is so tall, and blonde hair on a mulatta looks strange to me. I am surprised that you have fallen in love with someone so . . . unusual.’

  ‘I would have fallen in love with you, but . . .’

  ‘I am a whore?’

  Dionisio was embarrassed, but Luisa just smiled, and said, ‘I have no illusions.’ She leaned over him so that her pointed breasts that reminded him of missiles (he called them ‘Cupid’s Warheads’) caressed his chest deliciously. She whispered, ‘Make love to me for the last time, then, and make it slow, and make it last.’

  He looked into her face and saw her expression. He s
troked her cheek. ‘You are beautiful, Luisa. Please do not cry. Nobody knows the future.’

  5 The General’s Letter

  Dear Sirs,

  I have in recent months read with great interest the letters from my son, Dionisio Vivo, in your newspaper, concerning the trade in coca and its undesirable effects.

  I have in the past often feared that my son would turn out to be the kind of degenerate who not only abuses coca but trades in it; he certainly showed every sign of it in his teenage years. It is therefore a matter of great pride and relief to me that I am able to find myself in complete agreement with the general tenor of his remarks. As most people know, I have in my own department used the armed forces under my command to wipe out this trade almost entirely.

  However, I wish to remonstrate with my son over his remarks in his last letter about the armed forces, when, in recommending the use of the armed forces in combating the coca trade, he says ‘. . . this would give them something to do other than sit around in idleness plotting coups.’ As he well knows, no such plots have come to light ever since the time of Fleta, Ramirez, and Sanchis. Since those best-forgotten days the armed forces have been co-operating upon the well-nigh impossible task of wiping out the dozen or so left- and right-wing guerrillero groups which are so seriously impeding the construction of a decent civilisation in our country. Who would have believed that in this day and age there would still be Maoists and Stalinists? But there are, and the armed forces have sustained terrible losses in the struggle against them. My son owes us an apology.

  General Hernando Montes Sosa,

  Military Governor (elected) of Cesar, Valledupar.

  6 Ramon Leaves A Warning Note