15.1 Holy Faith

In the morning, she lights the first pipe with marijuana even before eating breakfast. Mary wakes up with five chicas lying in bed and a marica in their middle. She keeps a shaver and a Bible, white thongs and a bustier, red high heels shoes and dope on the table.

Twenty-six-year-old Christian was born in Cartagena. She came to Bogotá at her age of nineteen to find a place that suits her lifestyle. They say she could undergo a sex change here in the city of Bogotá which wasn’t true because she couldn’t afford it. Christian started on the streets as any other girl would.

Danna Ossa, the forty-year-old woman keeping the house at Villa Magellanica, picked her and sheltered among several other chicas and maricas. On the rear side, on the top floor, there were five rooms where the chicas dwelt, five or six in every bed. They did their cooking and living in the rooms. Danna arranged Mary to share with Christian.

This three-storey building fronting the road served as a motel and a nightclub where a customer could pick a girl and find a room. Obviously, there were rules but considered as a zone of tolerance. Recent outbreak of AIDS and creating awareness brought authorities to concern. The talk of AIDS was the biggest fear; a fear they had to live with ignoring it. Life set to steer but the only way they could steer was not to drive out of course. And the rooms and services, with all its procedures, were still very basic.

On Saturdays, Mary stays at home. On the rooftop, they run a laundry. A laundry that handwashes everything and hang them to dry under the eaves in the rain and the sun.

On the rooftop, under a cloudy sky, all the chicas were active in washing and drinking Aguardiente of homemade beer.

Colombia missed the final but took the fourth place in Copa América held in Chile. In the meantime, they were listening to a recent hit from a Colombian girl called Shakira.

In the 50’s, The García Family lived in the original villa by the corner. Then land grew priceless and the gardens were invaded by tall upfront buildings and rented as shops, offices and hotels. Santa Fe was the capital of trade; a bustling city. The remnants of the old ancestry house still could be found in crumbles inside the block. The Garcías bought land from the outskirts of the city and moved to Chapinero. They never decided to disband Santa Fe and kept the old house.

These days, Ana Garcia’s gold business was to buy or to keep gold and part with loans. Some would see her as a miserly person but in business she maintained a strict policy. If the loans were not paid, she’d keep the gold. She demanded respect and loyalty. If you cheated, there’d be no place in her heart and no second chance. She drove a Cherokee Jeep wearing a colourful sombrero vueltiao and in marroquinería leather boots.

Then in July 1993, Colombia won third place in Copa América held in Ecuador. They went wild and jubilant. They were not waiting for the final match to start on Sunday between Argentina and Mexico.

Mary stepped on the corner and to her surprise she saw Madeleine Blanche heading up the pavement with a big black hobo bag on her shoulder. She wore an orange floral flare skirt and a white top with a beige coat on her arm, black hat and a cigarette in the fingers. There was a traffic jam by the corner of Caracas because a crane loading a weight on a truck. Madeleine told the driver that she’d climb out and walk to the address.

“What took you so long?” cried Mary.

“I’m here for my birthday that I wish to spend with you. I’ll be forty-four on the sixth,” Madeleine expressed, “We go to Cartagena.”

“I haven’t been there!” said Mary.

“Did anyone call? Your sister?”

“No, but that girl called, I don’t recollect too well, Maria Taylor. Mom is dead. Sister wants to arrange some money transfer, Maria said. I’m thinking over it.”

“Take your time.”

“And she said that she wants to write a book about me.”

“A book!” cried Madeleine Blanche.

“About my life.”

“What! I can describe life in one word,” cackled Madeleine, “Struggle.”

Deep in the busy Arset Moulay Moussa, behind the ramparts of pisé walls, there were musicians, jewellers, weavers, street vendors, snake charmers, teashops, shisha cafés, stores and stalls, restaurants and five-star hotels. A location where criminals were executed in the medieval times.

Calima lodged at Hotel Zitoun, a motel with a small pool in the middle and four large rooms around. Vines grown on the first-floor balcony covered the surrounding walls open to a sky view. Few trees and a couple of palms in the swimming pool expanse and the floor paved of stones. Her room stood to the extent of the far wall with a broad two-leaf wooden door in the middle.

Calima dyed her hair to an ash blonde. In white caftan top and black tights, a black frame bag and sunglasses, she hassled to go to the hospital.

Her mazarie mother was admitted at Al Mokha Hospital. She was very old and ill. Last two days she slumbered in bed and took no feed. Calima’s family gathered in Riad Square to wait her final days. Their father was too old and stayed in the confines at their home in the Medina of Marrakech, unable to walk.

Calima crossed a corridor teeming with people; buyers and sellers, artefacts, textiles, rugs and pottery, gold and stones, hanging on the walls of the stalls on both sides of the aisle in the shade under an overhanging mesh. She passed another two corridors to come out in an alley leading to Bab Al Mokha.

Soon, she stepped on the marble floor, decorated walls of intricate designs, mosaics and murals, kind of stuff she was studying at the university in Barcelona. Calima just turned twenty-three.

She paused at her mother’s bed. A tiny spark lit the old woman’s face knowing it was her daughter standing beside the bed. This old mother couldn’t say a word. She was tired and purposeless, in fact, nothing to her name or in her hand, no craving, she was done with life.

“Mama!” Calima touched a hand gently, “Marina is not coming back. She is fine. She is well and alive.” She decided to tell before her mother passes away. In her words, she sent a hand across her chest, “She has crossed.”

The old mazarie mother remained like that for a long moment and closed her eyes to take a deep sleep wearing her best face.

– The End –