News of a Kidnapping by Gabriel García Márquez

Author:Gabriel García Márquez [Márquez, Gabriel García]
Format: epub
Tags: Drug traffic, Sociology, Social Science, Political Science, International, Espionage, Organized Crime, Murder, True Crime, Garcia Marquez; Gabriel - Prose & Criticism, Drug Crimes, Hostages, History, Current Events, Drug traffic - Colombia, Serial Killers, Latin America - South America, Kidnapping, International Relations - General, Latin America, Kidnapping - Colombia, Hostages - Colombia, General, South America, Colombia, Politics, Criminology
ISBN: 9780375400513
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 1997-05-27T07:00:00+00:00

Her walks in the courtyard also began to bear fruit. The German shepherd, overjoyed at seeing her again, tried to squeeze under the gate to play with Maruja, but she calmed him down, petting and talking to him, afraid the guards would become suspicious. Marina had told her that the gate led to a quiet yard with sheep and chickens. Maruja confirmed this with a rapid glance in the moonlight. But she also saw a man with a rifle standing guard outside the enclosure. The hope of escaping with the complicity of the dog had been canceled.

On February 20, when life seemed to have reestablished its rhythm, the radio reported that the body of Dr. Conrado Prisco Lopera—a cousin of the gang’s bosses, who had disappeared two days earlier—had been found in a field in Medellín. Another cousin, Edgar de Jesús Botero Prisco, was murdered four days later. Neither man had a criminal record. Dr. Prisco Lopera was the physician who had tended to Juan Vitta without concealing his name or his face, and Maruja wondered if he was the same masked doctor who had examined her earlier.

Like the death of the Prisco brothers in January, these killings had a serious effect on the guards and increased the anxiety of the majordomo and his family. The idea that the cartel would exact the life of a hostage as payment for their deaths, as it had with Marina Montoya, moved through the room like an ominous shadow. The majordomo came in the next day for no apparent reason, and at an unusual hour.

"I’m not trying to scare you," he told Maruja, "but something very serious has happened: A butterfly’s been on the courtyard gate since last night."

Maruja, a skeptic regarding invisible forces, did not understand what he meant. The majordomo Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

explained with calculated theatricality.

"You see, when they killed the other Priscos, the same thing happened," he said. "A black butterfly stayed on the bathroom door for three days."

Maruja recalled Marina’s dark presentiments, but pretended not to understand.

"And what does that mean?" she asked.

"I don’t know," replied the owner, "but it must be a very bad omen because that’s when they killed doña Marina."

"The one now, is it black or tan?" Maruja asked.

"Tan," said the owner.

"Then it’s a good omen," said Maruja. "It’s the black ones that are unlucky." His attempt to frighten her did not succeed. Maruja knew her husband, the way he thought and acted, and did not believe he would do anything rash enough to rob a butterfly of its sleep. She knew, above all, that neither he nor Beatriz would let slip any detail that could be of use in an armed rescue attempt. And yet, accustomed to interpreting changes in her inner state as reflections of the external world, she did not discount the fact that five deaths in the same family in one month might have terrible consequences for the last two hostages.

On the other hand, the rumor that the

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