a girl in horseplay; as he set her down, both gave us a sidelong glance. I asked Manuel if he’d like to go for a walk. We nodded at the guard and headed down the street.
“Are you a dancer? One of Gracia’s friends?” he asked.
“Flamenco, no—I wish. I’ve known Gracia since grade school.”
“Can you sing?”
“Sing?” I echoed. “No, I sing like a dying parakeet sounds.”
He laughed a little, lightly touched my back. “I’m sure you’re not as bad as that. So how do you know Ana then? From church? I’ve never seen you there.”
“I’ve never been to church. Ana’s parents know my father.”
“Never?” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I see.”
Manuel was twenty-one. He had just finished two years at a trade school and was now building cabinets for his father’s furniture business. I asked about his family. “My parents are good middle-class people,” he replied, “and very religious.” An older brother, Emilio, planned on entering the seminary in September to become a priest. Carlos, the youngest brother, had just started attending university to study engineering. Manuel lived with them on the outskirts of la Ciudad Jardín in a neighborhood I’d never been to, but had heard was decent. Then he asked where I lived, and about my parents. When I mentioned Papi and our hacienda, his expression changed. He pretended to study me, finger to chin, eyes squinting comically—like the ways Papi teased.
“Hmm,” he said. “You don’t appear dangerous. I guess you might be worth the risk.”
“What are you talking about?” I trailed my hand along the low-lying branches of a tree we passed, the petals like newborn skin.
“Your father is Diego Martinez, right?” His expression was one of disbelief. “There are stories about your father that aren’t too nice.”
We walked briskly. “What stories?” I flicked a blossom I’d picked at the V of his shirt, and he caught it. “My father runs a big farm. Is he not a good businessman?”
“You haven’t heard stories about his days in the cartel?”
I slowed my pace. I said, “People like to invent stories, I guess. Because the truth is boring.”
“But it’s somewhat foolish to imagine that it’s all purely false, don’t you think? If the people saying such things were actually there?”
“Foolish?”
“Easy, simple. And yes, foolish.”
“That’s crazy, okay?” I stopped and faced him. “My father is completely obsessed with my school progress. He’s generous to his workers, our house staff, everyone.” What was he talking about and why was he asking so many questions about my father, and not me? Was this what Ana had meant? We’d reached the small square and Ana’s church. A wreath of white lilies adorned the entrance, and a gust of wind blew a lone sheet of newspaper against it. I blinked back tears.
Manuel touched my shoulder. “I’m sorry. That was silly of me, to bring that up. Of course people talk. I’d much rather hear about what it’s like for you, growing up on such a big farm.” His thumb traced my collarbone; I shivered. “What you’re doing in downtown Cali, hanging around holy processions.”
“I don’t usually,” I said, and laughed. “I guess I had better watch out.”
“You should,” he said. Then he pulled me toward him and kissed me. I clung to him hard; his hands ran down my body. His mouth tasted faintly of lime and soda water, his stubble grazing my face. I opened my eyes, caught my breath. Candles burned at window shrines. Somewhere in the valley gunshots rang out.
“I’m sorry, I just had to do that,” he said. We both laughed. Then he said, “You know, you’re very well-spoken for being fifteen.”
“Oh, really?” This time I drew him toward me, the hair at the nape of his neck as fine and slippery as corn silk.
“I had better get your number before I leave,” he said. “We might be testing our luck if we count on running into each other again.”
He removed a little notebook and pen from the back of his jeans pocket. Rather peculiar. When I asked him why he carried those, he replied that he wrote his own lyrics, including some of the songs he had performed with Carlos.
At Ana’s he helped Carlos load the guitars into a Honda. Manuel led me to his motorcycle, handed me a CD before he mounted the bike. “Something to keep you company until we see each other again,” he said. I told him where my school was, suggested we meet up the next afternoon. Underneath his helmet the corners of his eyes lifted up. The air swept my face, the moto’s roar crackled in my ears, and a moment later he rounded the block, out of sight.
The festivities over, I joined Ana’s family for a late meal of lechona. Ana’s father stood over the roast pig, his carving hurried and erratic; he apologized, laughing, as vegetables and rice spilled out of the belly and onto the tablecloth. Foisting a slice of pork onto my plate, he asked if I had any plans yet for my future. I talked about working for Taca like my Tía Leo and avoided mention of the boarding school idea, which Ana’s parents would no doubt praise. My response drew a few chuckles and raised eyebrows, and her father said only, “Well, that would be a nice way to see the world, wouldn’t it?” Then the conversation shifted to their emerald mines in the Andes; Taca Airlines evidently did not rank highly on their list of occupational goals.
Fidel and I drove home in silence, the radio off. Under the stars, the remaining sugarcane left to be harvested swirled with the breeze. I rolled down the window, stuck out my arm, and spread my fingers. In the city or on the autopista, we could never lower our windows and locked the car as soon as we shut the doors; Gracia’s mother had been carjacked outside the Cali courthouse several years before. We rounded the curve where the bandidos had held up the bus. Now that side of the road was bare, with no trace of what had happened but my memory of it.
I raised the window, took out the case holding the plain disc Manuel had given me, and rested it on my knee. “Sucursal del cielo” he’d titled it in black marker—in English, “Branch of Heaven.”
On the porch Papi played cards with the men, their weekend tradition for as long as I could remember. Cash piled up in the table’s center: mostly American dollars, peso notes in higher amounts, plus some coins strewn on top. Sometimes visitors were invited to join, or Fidel, but not often—he probably didn’t earn enough. I guessed they had eaten a typical Colombian meal for their Easter dinner, sancocho or another soup of potatoes and rib meat, nothing fancy. The cigar smoke stung my eyes, but I leaned down and kissed Papi on the cheek anyway. He asked if I’d had a good time. Guillermo’s cards buckled in his thick fingers as he broodily studied them. Vincente muttered something to the horse trainer, who was absently stroking his day-old stubble; the two erupted in laughter. At the far end, Luis slapped the table’s edge and swore. He was the ignorant, sloppily-dressed main jefe of the cane fields, and almost never quiet.
“Is it okay if I have a friend over for dinner this week?” I asked Papi.
“Sure. Who’s the friend?” He fanned the cards onto the table. Luis groaned.
“Oh, someone I just met at Ana’s. From her church.”
“Talk
