He took the steaks from the grill and wrapped them in tinfoil.
“We should let the meat rest a bit,” he said.
“Come here.” In her nervousness, she barked the words out like a command. He turned, surprised.
“You gonna ask me nicely?”
Now she overcompensated, attempting a girlish playfulness. “No,” she said. “I’m not nice.” And when he just stared at her, confused, she repeated, “Come here.”
He walked over, his face wary. When did she get so bad at this?
There were lights far down the slope of the mountain, maybe from boats on the waters of the Embalsa de Fe, the lights below brighter than the stars above. And then he was standing over her as she sat low in an absurdly flimsy plastic chair, but he just stood there, waiting. She felt a surge of anger, at herself, at him for being so passive, so stupidly inert. And what did he want from her anyway? For a moment, she considered turning away, telling him, Forget it. Forget I said anything. But that would be a failure of some kind. Perhaps a failure of nerve. Her hands were slightly shaky but she affected a pose of confidence and started unbuttoning her skirt as he stood there, doing nothing, nothing, not even a change of expression. And she watched him watching her, her nervousness turning to mortification with him looming there, mute, a silent silhouette above her, and she reached and grabbed his hand, and then she was guiding his hand down and he was letting her, and she let out a breath, and he stooped, then knelt before her, the skin of his hand chilled from the air but then warm and damp against her and he knew what to do, kneeling, as he guided his fingers inside her underwear and then inside her, entering her with his index and then middle finger as well, stroking upward and then, after a slight nod from her, pulling her underwear down, kneeling down deeper, bringing his face to her and then his tongue.
She looked at the fire and at the lights below, and she breathed deeply, and made little sounds not so much of pleasure but of deep relief, tension flowing outward, into the darkness, and she felt very relaxed, very much in the right country, at the right time, in the right place, doing the right thing.
After she was done, he kept rubbing her, playful, sending shocks of pleasure that became almost painful and then, finally, were painful, and she pushed his hands away, and they were both breathing heavily. She considered reciprocating but then thought, No, let him wait. And she said, simply, “Let’s eat.”
They unwrapped the steaks and sat down and, at first, ate in silence. It was only after a few minutes that Diego asked her, “Honestly, Liz, what are you doing here?” He spread his hands out and gestured to the valley below.
“I burned out.” It felt shameful to say it out loud.
Diego smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “But here you are, back in the saddle again.”
Lisette laughed. “Why’d you leave the army? And don’t say ‘money.’”
He leaned back and eyed her carefully. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe it was the wrong call. I was done with army bullshit.”
“It’s strange to see you someplace that’s not Afghanistan,” she said. “Doesn’t feel real.”
He nodded.
“But it’s nice.”
They chatted a little more of this and that. Nothing important. They finished their steaks, which were bloody. She didn’t normally eat her steaks that way but it tasted good. And with that taste on her lips, she let him lead her inside to his bed.
• • •
Two days later, Lisette was sitting in a beat-up pale blue van with no air-conditioning, no shocks, and hardly any stuffing left in the seat cushions, heading up Ruta Nacional 70. It was hot. Thirty degrees Celsius and climbing. She was sitting shotgun. In the middle section of the van, scrunching next to the boxes of gear she’d brought with her, was Juan Agudelo, a middle-aged professor of law at Nacional with a crooked nose and a mostly bald head. Crammed in the back were the two students Agudelo had brought along with him, a pair of eager young things who were there to cart gear, type off transcripts, and generally handle bitch work. And next to Lisette, driving, was the foundation’s regional director, Luisa Porras Sánchez. She was a tough, heavy, square-shaped woman with dark hair, a strong jaw, and utter contempt for journalists.
“It was not my decision to bring you here,” Luisa had told her flatly when she arrived. “Bogotá insisted.” Local players in the peace movement sometimes had a bit of resentment against the Bogotá-based national players, the people with university degrees, European funding, and plenty of abstract notions about conflict resolution and transitional justice. “And, of course, we’re responsible for feeding you,” Luisa had continued. “Are you going to write something worth the cost of what you eat?”
As shtick we nt, it was pretty good.
They emerged from the city into flat plains of sparse grass and grubby trees with half the leaves missing from their branches. Ahead of them were brown, ugly mountains.
It had been easier finding an NGO operating in the region than Lisette thought it would be. A friend of Bob’s had tipped her off to a New York hedge fund manager who, inspired by a complex mix of conservative politics and liberal sympathies with the human rights movement, was funding the documentation of human rights abuses within FARC territory and surrounding areas. She’d reached out to New York first and received an enthusiastic response—“Try to get your article out before the peace vote”—which had then made connecting with the local actors easy. They knew the money they were getting from abroad came with implicit demands.
“How does Norte de Santander . . .” Lisette wasn’t exactly sure how to say what she wanted to ask, or if Luisa might find it offensive. “Are there more problems here, in Norte de Santander . . .”
“Poverty here has, for my
