#el coronel

It was the first time Horacio spoke about his wife, Juliana. He had murmured her name in his sleep.

In the morning, he yelled her name so loud that the houses perched on the mountains facing your home could hear.

El Coronel had awakened.

You let him be as you tended the plants. The roots of a nearby tree were threatening to crack the foundation of your home. One had extended so far that it ran up the side of Doña Manuela’s house, through the window, and into her kitchen.

For days her family didn’t eat because they were convinced the root of the tree was an omen. When her husband returned from the fields, he chopped it into pieces and stored it in the shed to use as firewood.

You placed the café con leche on the table along with his two fried eggs and pan de queso. It didn’t matter that it was not how his wife made his breakfast.

He ate all of it, and his eyes asked for more, too embarrassed to tell you that he was still starving – but then, he remembered that his entire life, he had been a starving man, and it wouldn’t make a difference if he told you.

“Juliana was my wife…is my wife,” he whispered.

“She was reaching out to you.”

Horacio looked at your face for the first time all morning. “How do you know?”

“Everyone knows that when you dream of a loved one, a loved one is dreaming of you.”

He shook his head. He didn’t believe in those things, and in a moment like this he didn’t want to believe in those things.

“What good is there in dreaming of a dead man?”

“A man is only dead once the memory of him has died, Horacio." You stroked his palm.

Those words took him back to his childhood. To the days his grandmother would speak of his grandfather, a man who sailed down the Caribbean in search of gold.

A man who had died before Horacio was even born but was more alive than any man in the flesh could ever be.

The way his abuela spoke of him… the way she smiled when she remembered how he used to bring her turtles and dance under the summer rain.

Horacio couldn’t bear the thought of Juliana’s sorrow, her tiny figure laying in a fetal position on the bed they shared for years.

The sun outside the window glistened on the side of your face. You almost forgot about how bright that corner of your house could get after so many weeks of rain and thunder.

Horacio noticed it too, the violent winds mimicked his own heart, and when he saw that ray of light enter your home, he knew that maybe you weren’t lying.

Maybe you weren’t saying an old wives’ tale.

Maybe Juliana was calling out to him from the city, and in some way, unknown to men, she had come to the realization that, maybe just maybe, her husband was still alive.

Upon looking at that beam of light again, he almost swore that he heard a voice.

The voice of his wife – speaking softly, the same way she did when it was only them. Away from the crowds that judged them. Away from their children.

The way she spoke on the days following their wedding. When she was still a little timid but overpowered by excitement and desire for her husband.

“You know she used to play cumbia in the house? …Before I led the Search Bloc.”

You listened as you stirred the sugar in your coffee.

“Every single afternoon. I’d use to go back home for lunch. A warm plate of rice and beans, plantains, chicken, and cumbia.”

You sipped from your cup of coffee.

“Then one time, before I left, she said – Horacio, stay a bit longer, dance with me. I still remember the lyrics.”

I like to see how your hair blows in the wind

When you go walking down the street

And your aroma stays in the air

You recognized the words. Sometimes you’d hear Toño sing the song in in the plaza del pueblo.

“I used to hum that song in her ears when we first dated. Her father never took his eye off me. Always chaperoned us…I remember as if it were yesterday.”

Across the valley, the horses were feeding. The women were hanging their garments on the clothesline and their children were giggling as they sprinted across the white rocks in the river.

When the winds blew east, Horacio knew, as if by some divine providence, that his wife was playing her favorite song, that she swayed her hips to the music in order to keep his memory alive.

As you stood up, you noticed the creases on his forehead had disappeared, the tiny strands of gray hair had returned to their original dark color.

“I’m sorry I doubted you,” he spoke clearly for the first time in days.

“There’s nothing to forgive. You know deep in your heart…that you never doubted…”

“I heard her voice…it was as clear as the day.”

You both stood on the balcony of your house, looking at the green valley below.

“You see, Coronel, you are alive as ever.”

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Translations:

Cafe con leche - coffee with milk (we don't use creamers in Latin America 🙃)

Pan de queso - cheese bread

Cumbia - music genre very popular in Colombia and other parts of Latam