Memoir: El Negrito y La Niña, Part 3

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Click here to read Part One

© 2001-2002 R.C. Barajas

Part 3 (February 21, 2002)

This is the last in a 3 part series.

uring my time at the jewelry store, the climate of violence in and around the city of Bogotá dissuaded people from leaving their homes except for essentials. Rumors flew. One terrified woman, who had come into the store to pick up her jewelry, whispered that the narco traffickers were going to poison the water supply. She hurried out of the store, glancing right and left lest Pablo Escobar be lurking there.

There was talk of bombings: some based on legitimate evidence, some on wild speculation. Each threat sounded as credible as the next, leading to a generalized brewing panic. One Saturday afternoon, we closed up the store and fled after a well-connected client tipped us off that the bomb squad was at that moment trying to defuse a car bomb right outside our mall. This was true, a haggard looking Eldest confirmed when we opened for business on Monday. Still another time, as we stood in the store with a few customers, a bomb exploded three blocks away. It rocked the center, sucking at the plate glass windows, bowing them into the mall, the glass arching outward into the vacuum before the force released them to wobble -- miraculously unbroken -- back inward.

Business suffered terribly. The Sons could be seen taping the inside of the windows -- to minimize the shrapnel should they shatter inward. They fitted removable steel shutters to the outside, to deter thieves and vandals if a bomb hit the center in the dead of night. Those of us inside the store watched and waited and had yet another tiny cup of coffee while the afternoons wore on into early evenings. As there were very few customers, there was not much for the niñas to do. Now we turned our eyes nervously to the door at the once common sounds of the city -- backfires and jackhammers, the shuddering passing of a huge truck and the airy shriek of bus brakes.

When at last Pablo Escobar was captured, the country could finally relax, at least temporarily. The devil was finally behind bars, which was a great improvement to daily life. We didn't yet know that "bars" was just a figure of speech. Escobar was housed in a luxuriously equipped compound, from where the infamous drug lord would conduct his business without much interference. Later, of course, he would escape, and soon thereafter, he would be gunned down on a rooftop, his chubby hide riddled with police bullets.

But that was yet to come. For the time, people were celebrating his capture and thinking about life returning to normal. Business picked up and the spring was back in the steps of Sons.

I began to grow impatient and bored as the months wore on. The days were endless and I felt under utilized. I began to feel like a niña. After a rather heated exchange with Eldest -- which resulted in a chagrined apology on my part -- it was decided I would supervise the outfitting of the new in-house casting studio. I would also create new designs for the ever-popular (ever-dull) Equestrian line. The Brothers warned me that with this new responsibility, I would be required to spend much time in the workshop, with the common laborers, the Indios, who, they informed me, were a rough and dishonest crowd. Yes, I would need to watch my back, nodded Youngest, with satisfaction.

continued...