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September 12th, 1985
The journalist slams the fate-sealed document from Hugo Spadafora on the table.1 She turns to the TV, Ronald Regan’s words burning her ears.
“Drugs steal away so much. They take and take, until finally, every time a drug goes into a child, something else is forced out—like love and hope and trust and confidence. Drugs take away the dream from every child's heart and replace it with a nightmare, and it's time we in America stand up and replace those dreams.”
She rifles through the pictures of men shaking destructive hands. She crunches the one of General Manuel Antonio Noriega.
“Where’s the fucking remote!”
The papers, with all their Truth, fall to the ground.
“Each of us has to put our principles and consciences on the line, whether in social settings or the workplace, to set solid standards and stick to them. There's no moral middle ground. Indifference is not an—”
“Shut the fuck up!” she screams as she leaps towards the TV to turn it off.
The dog at her feet whimpers.
“What’s going on, Lucky?”
She picks the dog up and walks with him to the door. As soon as she opens it, the dog jumps out into the enveloped darkness, barking.
A yelp.
All that’s left is the cacophony of the cicadas.
“Lucky!”
She traverses past the small garden and peers at the end of the driveway—a minibus. No lights. No running engine.
She turns—
“Where are the documents, tu puta gringa!”
The man squeezes her neck with one hand. With the other, he puts a large knife under her skirt.
“In the kitchen cabinet. La cocina.”
With the gun under her skirt, he pushes her toward the house.
“¿Donde?”
She points to the cabinet above the sink. As he releases his hand from her hair, she leaps for the drawer with knives.
The drawers open, she reaches in, and—
He slams the drawer on her fingers.
Her scream is over in no time. Her body falls to the floor, blood leaking from her throat.
The man walks to the table and grabs the fate-sealed document.
September 14th, 1985
Lucas
The sun dips below the horizon, casting long shadows across the rugged terrain as Ron and I hurtle down the dusty backroads in his Toyota Landcruiser. Bollie, the magnificent Belgian Bouvier, dozes in the back, his fur ruffling with the wind.
"Did you read it in the newspaper?" Ron's voice cuts through the engine's hum.
"What, Ron?"2
"About that fellow Hugo Spadafora. They found him at the border. His head was on the Panama side, but his body was in Costa Rica."
"Hugo Spadafora? Really. Catalina met him just a week ago at the Hotel Colonial with Elizabeth. She mentioned he was easy to look at. Who did it?"
"Can be anybody. Noriega, CIA, contras, Sandinistas, a jealous Belgian husband, you name it."
“Do you have the newspaper?”
“Yes, Bollie is reading it.”
Bollie’s Saliva turned the headlines into a kind of painting. I might make out a few words, so I reach for the paper under Bollie’s front paw. I’ve almost got it, but he wakes up and rips the wet front page into pieces. The picture of Hugo Spadafora is gone.
"Lost his head again," says Ron, observing everything in his rearview mirror.
The Land Cruiser rumbles as Ron navigates the twisting roads, tackling potholes and rocky stretches. Bollie stirs, his nose pressed against the window.
"O.K. Here we go." Ron's eyes sparkle. "This car is crazy."
The vehicle confronts a steep, almost vertical hill. Ron swings the door open, and Bollie leaps out. The engine roars as the Toyota claws its way to the hill's summit, a sensation hinting at a backflip.
"Feels good to be alive!" Ron exclaims, steering the car across the plateau, with Bollie sprinting alongside.
"I have to admit, Belgian dogs are unbelievable. And intelligent, can you believe it?"
Ron pops the glove box, revealing a Smith & Wesson 36. "Let’s practice for the revolution, my dear socialist friend."
Now back in the car, Bollie rests his nose against the window as Ron closes it. "He has sensitive ears."
We trek 100 meters to an open field with a target range, the distant echo of gunfire signalling our arrival.
"Ever used a gun before, Luca?"
"No, I don’t like guns. But you go ahead. I’ll watch."
"Watch? Do you have your pampers on? You’re going to shoot. It’ll change your life forever."
“You know I’m a pacifist. One of the reasons I’ve stayed in this country the past years is so I don’t need—”
“—to do Belgian military service. I know. I admire it just like Catalina does, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love this gun, baby.”
Ron coaches me on gun handling, breathing, and steadying my arm. I aim at a round piece of wood, pull the trigger, and the overwhelming sound reverberates. The kickback shocks me.
"Well done, Luca. Shot him between the eyes. Want to try again?"
"Not really, Ron. It's not for me."
Ron, without warning, unleashes five shots at the target. Wood splinters fill the air, and my ears buzz.
"That feels so good. Can’t believe you don’t like it. Everybody’s addicted after the first shot. Even Mother Teresa."
"Whoever wields the sword will perish by the sword. Remember that, Ron."
Remember that, Ron.
Ron rereleases Bollie, and I salvage what remained of the newspaper. On page five, a headline about a murder outside Cartagena caught my eye.
"Look, Ron. Some woman got murdered in her house. Almost beheaded. What’s wrong with this country?"
"And that’s why I have a gun, Luca. The police won’t save me. Must be a drug-related murder."
"She was an American journalist."
Then it hit me.
“Luca, you’re crying,” he said as he put his arm around me. “What’s going on?”
“The journalist, Ron…”
“…Elizabeth.”
September 6, 1985
Catalina
He thought each memory recalled must do some violence to its origins. As in a party game. Say the word and pass it on. So be sparing. What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality, known or not.
— Cormac McCarthy
Ron and Elizabeth are open wounds in the chapter we tried to close. I cannot bring them into the present like your father has. I do not want to recall the smells and sounds of Hotel Colonial, but I will tell you about my dear friend Elizabeth only this once.
"Who is that handsome man sitting beside Jimmy?" I asked Elizabeth, soaking in the evening’s glow on Hotel Colonial’s terrace.3
She took off her glasses, slipping them into her purse, revealing a younger appearance without them.
"That is Hugo Spadafora. He fought with the Sandinistas against Somoza but later joined the contra movement of Eden Pastora.”
"You know him? Spadafora?"
"Too well, Catalina. I had lunch with him last week. He has all the ins and outs of the relationship between Panamanian drug lords, the CIA, and the contras who get paid by the drug money."
Although Elizabeth whispered all this to me, Hugo Spadafora seemed to have a sixth sense and walked toward our table. Confident about his looks, he gazed straight into my eyes. He handed Elizabeth a big envelope right in front of me.
"Here you have some information I told you about. Read it carefully, but don’t publish it yet. I first want to visit my family in Panama, and with General Noriega, you never know."
"When are you leaving?" Elizabeth asked.
"Next week, September 12." He smiled at me, and I felt a strange sensation like I was watching a movie star in a war movie. Then he walked into the hotel. It was the last I ever saw of him.
"You better be careful, Elizabeth. I mean, you’re talking so freely about the information in that envelope. Did you tell more people about it?"
"No, just Jimmy."4
I felt a little sick. I never trusted Jimmy, although he helped with the yacht. He had the aura of a hustler—someone who sold people to the highest bidder. Perhaps I was being judgemental. The combination of yellow teeth and thin gold necklaces always put me off.
“You’re not fond of Jimmy, are you?” she said, reading my mind. “And you’re right not to, Catalina. Who can you trust nowadays? But Jimmy helped me a lot to get my resident status in order.”
"I wonder how we’re going to survive in Costa Rica. In the beginning, I liked this country a lot, but since the war in Nicaragua and all that stuff with the contras, I don’t know what I’m doing here… But you, you seem to handle it so well. I mean, look at you. I’m sorry to ask, but how old are you?”
"I am 52," Elizabeth replied.
I looked at her face, searching for some wrinkles and sun spots, but discovered only youthful skin. "What’s your secret, Elizabeth?"
"I mostly eat raw vegetables. I can’t stand eating meat, much less how they treat all those animals. The province of Guanacaste is completely deforested because McDonalds wants ranches. One bloody cow per acre. In a forest, hundreds of creatures live together and keep everything in balance. If you are serious about loving nature, Catalina, you better become a vegetarian."
"Ah, Elizabeth, don’t worry. My cow is vegetarian."
We both laughed.
And it then sat in silence. Although honesty can be direct and simple, Truth rarely is. Honesty can be shouted, but Truth comes in a whisper. Like the past, it sneaks up on you.
July, 1985
Lucas
Sitting in a small socialist bar, I soak up the ambient hum of laughter and inhale the amalgamation of malty sweetness and inherent yeastiness. The picture of Salvador Allende centred between rockstars like Hendrix and Morrison brings in the hopeful and foreign third of people who frequent Hotel Colonial a few blocks away.
Caty and I enjoy our first Cuba Libre of the month. The citrus and caramel notes of aged rum intermingled with cola's crisp, biting effervescence hit my tongue like a gift.
"Well, well, who do we have here?”
The voice immediately turns every taste in my mouth to bitter acid.
"Rik?” Caty says. “Johan?”
“Feels like a student night in Brussels, doesn't it?” Rik asks.
Caty met Rik Daems when she was studying media in Brussels. He’s the rising star of the Liberal Party in Belgium.
If I hadn't invited Caty to travel to Jamaica, these handsome career men would have been her colleagues. I don’t want to be one of those men who strip women from their opportunities. My mother never complained about giving up her librarian work, but I knew it left an empty space in her mind and heart.
“Luc, did you hear that?” says Rik.
“Sorry, I need to step outside for some fresh air.”
I roll a cigarette and watch the rain drizzle.
Maybe it would be better to put Catalina on a plane to Belgium, where she could complete and develop her student life and immense potential. What awaits her here? In one of the poorest regions in the world, plagued by civil wars, corruption, and glaring poverty.
Caty’s hand grazes my shoulder, and with the words, “Wow, those guys are boring and empty,” my doubts vanish.
“You’ve been talking to them for five minutes.”
“Have I? Felt like an hour. All those guys do is plan their careers. Sure, they travel, but with their small-minded bourgeois milieu that feeds off taxpayers' money. But do you want to read a book about that? Or, as Jim Morrison said, 'Did you have a good world when you died? Enough to base a movie on?’”
But the movie had only just begun.
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Start from the beginning
Start from Costa Rica
Hugo Spadafora was a physician and a fighter for people's freedom, a voluntary and internationalist "freedom fighter," as he declared himself. At age 25, he joined the liberation movement of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) as the first doctor in the war of independence of the former Portuguese colony, now the Republic of Guinea-Bissau. In 1968, he assisted in treating Panamanian rebels after the military coup of 1968, later joining the government of then-General Omar Torrijos, eventually becoming Vice Minister of Health in 1976. In 1978, he resigned to organize the Victoriano Lorenzo brigade and fight alongside the Sandinista movement for the liberation of Nicaragua after the long and brutal dictatorship that had been under the power of the Somoza family for 40 years. Two years after the triumph of the Sandinista guerrillas, which overthrew Anastacio Somoza in July 1979, he returned to fight in Nicaragua, this time on the side of the Miskito indigenous people, against the communist government established by the nine commanders in power, who betrayed the ideals and commitment of the Sandinista movement. In 1985, he was brutally murdered and decapitated in Panama by the military power led by former General Manuel Antonio Noriega. Hugo Spadafora was gathering evidence of Noriega's involvement in drug trafficking. With his death, the end of the dictatorship in his own country was sealed.
Every story in Forever Foreign stands alone but holds more weight for those who read from the beginning. Check out “Beneath the Red Mask” if you missed the introduction to Ron.
Check out “Beneath the Red Mask” for more about Hotel Colonial.
Check out “Beneath the Red Mask” for the introduction to Jimmy.