News of a Kidnapping by Gabriel García Márquez, Edith Grossman

political and personal journal that the dynamic of events transformed into a poignant conversation with herself. She wrote in her large, rounded hand, clear-looking but difficult to decipher, that completely filled the spaces between the lines in her copybook. At first she wrote in secret, in the middle of the night, but when the guards discovered what she was doing they gave her enoughpaper and pencils to keep her busy while they slept.
    She made the first entry on September 27, a week after the kidnapping of Marina and Pacho, and it read: “Since Wednesday the 19th, when the man in charge of this operation came here, somany things have happened that I can hardly catch my breath.” She asked herself why their abduction had not been acknowledged by those responsible, and herreply to herself was so that perhaps they could kill them with no public outcry in the event the hostages did not serve their ends. “That’s my understanding of it and it fills me with horror,” she wrote. She was more concerned with her companions’ condition than with her own, and was interested in news from any source that would allow her to draw conclusions about their situation. She had always beena practicing Catholic, like the rest of her family, her mother in particular, and as time passed her devotion would become more intense and profound until it reached mystical states. She prayed to God and the Virgin for everyone who had anything to do with her life, even Pablo Escobar. “He may have more need of your help,” she wrote to God in her diary. “May it be your will that he see the goodand avoid more grief, and I ask you to help him understand our situation.”
    There is no doubt that the most difficult thing for everyone was learning to live with the guards. The four assigned to Maruja and Beatriz were young, uneducated, brutal, and volatile boys who worked in twos for twelve-hour shifts, sitting on the floor, their submachine guns at the ready. All in T-shirts with advertisementsprinted on them, sneakers, and shorts they had cut themselves with shears. When the shift came in at six in the morning, one could sleep until nine while the other stood guard, but both would almost always fall asleep at the same time. Maruja and Beatriz thought that if a police assault team raided the house early in the morning, the guards would not have time to wake up.
    The boys’ common conditionwas absolute fatalism. They knew they were going to die young, they accepted it, and cared only about living for the moment. They made excuses to themselves for their reprehensible work: It meant helping the family,buying nice clothes, having motorcycles, and ensuring the happiness of their mothers, whom they adored above all else in the world and for whose sakes they were willing to die. Theyvenerated the same Holy Infant and Lady of Mercy worshipped by their captives, and prayed to them every day with perverse devotion, for they implored their protection and forgiveness and made vows and sacrifices so that their crimes would be successful. Second only to the saints, they worshipped Rohypnol, a tranquilizer that allowed them to commit movie exploits in real life. “You mix it with beerand get high right away,” explained one guard. “Then somebody lends you a good knife and you steal a car and go for a ride. The fun is how scared they look when they hand you the keys.” They despised everything else: politicians, the government, the state, the law, the police, all of society. Life, they said, was shit.
    At first it was impossible to tell them apart because the only thing the womencould see was their masks, and all the guards looked the same. In other words, like only one guard. In time they learned that masks can hide faces but not character. This was how they individualized them. Each mask had a different identity, its own personality, an unmistakable voice. Even more: It had a heart. Without wanting to, they came to share the loneliness of confinement with