Pilar Quintana
TRANS. BY María José Giméne
Bones and Hair
THE JAGUAR
In Orinoco, Colombia’s easternmost region, a German traveler told me about a jaguar being held on a reserve in Pacífico, Colombia’s westernmost region. He said they took it out on walks like a dog, on a collar and leash. Knowing that jaguars are not tamable animals, I had to see it.
I took a bus across the country—the wide plains, the three cordilleras, the blazing valleys—and reached the port of Buenaventura, where everything is always gray and raining. There, I boarded a speedboat to Juanchaco, the last stop before the jaguar reserve. It was an hour-long trip across a rippled green sea.
Juanchaco is a Black community with wooden houses and a concrete pier guarded by military from a nearby naval base. El Paisa—a white man who organizes local sightseeing tours—escorted me to the reserve. First we rode a motorcycle to a dock in the middle of the jungle, then reached my destination on a dugout canoe through murky marshlands.
The reserve manager welcomed me with little enthusiasm. They kept the jaguar in a small transport cage. He could barely stretch or turn around, and they no longer took him out on walks like a dog because he’d taken a swipe at a tourist’s leg. I wanted to cry. The volunteer who took care of him—who tossed food between the bars, that is—said he would build him a decent cage. The man had shaved off his hair, and he promised me he’d grow it out until the cage was finished.
BIRDS AND BUTTERFLIES
The volunteer’s light blond hair had grown long enough to touch his ears. The cage was magnificent. There was a tree for the jaguar to climb, a high platform for him to sleep on, and a pool for him to swim in. It had been a challenge to build it in the middle of the jungle—rain, sun, flooded trails, having to bring in materials by boat all the way from Buenaventura. And it took him even longer because he was always smoking pot. He had a motto: “I may not work every day, but when I do, I work hard.”
I’d helped as much as I could with physical labor and a cash donation. Now there was nothing left to do for the jaguar but to toss food between the bars, a job the volunteer and I were in charge of as the only ones left on the reserve. When I told him it was time for me to leave, he said he was thinking of fixing up the abandoned house. I pretended not to understand what he was insinuating, so he added: “Fixing it up for you—for us.”
The abandoned house was deep in the reserve, far from the jaguar, the trails, the office, and the lodgings for tourists and volunteers. It was next to a fruit tree that attracted colorful birds and giant butterflies with metallic blue wings. It had been built during the logging years to house engineers—a concrete house, built to code and everything, in the middle of the jungle. At one point it had been painted white.
I was torn. If I stayed, I wouldn’t have any more money to keep traveling. But there was the abandoned house with its birds and blue butterflies and this strong man who walked barefoot through the forest. With a worried look I told him he’d better not get bitten by a lancehead.
ROACHES, RATS, AND BATS
The house had been abandoned for so long it was infested with roaches, rats, and bats. We spent days spraying, pulling out weeds from the crumbling concrete, digging out black dirt from holes in the floor and walls, and trying to kill mildew with bleach. Everything leaked.
As the weeks passed, the man surrendered to idleness and marijuana. He hadn’t tried to deceive me, but I hadn’t imagined he’d get worse. He forgot his motto and no longer worked hard—or at all. He spent all day in his hammock, and all night it rained inside the house. We had to sleep in the living room, the only room that stayed dry. When I said this time I was leaving for real, he got up from the hammock, promised he would really fix the leaks this time, and got to work.
Ten months later all he’d done was patch the leaks, and every time I despaired and threatened to leave, he would fix any new leaks that had opened up. But the house was the same as before: invaded by mold, dampness, holes, black dirt, and if I let up for a moment, weeds and pests always lying in wait.
By now his hair was down below the ear. No one came to visit the jaguar anymore. We kept feeding it with provisions sent by the manager, who had long ago quit and moved to Buenaventura. I’d run out of money, but I figured I could grow plantains and sell the harvest.
THE LANCEHEAD
The plantains had grown so heavy I couldn’t carry the bunches myself. After much pleading and threatening and promising to give him a cut of the profits, I managed to convince the man to harvest them for me. Within moments, he was back without the plantains and collapsed in the doorway. He was in such bad shape that he couldn’t explain what had happened, but I knew right away: he’d been bitten by a lancehead.
I checked. The bite was on his right ankle.
Now I’m trying to decide what to do. I know I’d have to get him to Juanchaco and beg the guards to helicopter him to the closest hospital. I’d say: “He’s the volunteer who built the cage for the jaguar,” and they wouldn’t be able to refuse. But Juanchaco is really far, there’s no one here to help me carry him, and I don’t have a way of calling Paisa, who could take us on his boat.
So I’m thinking I’ll just leave him there. The other day a deer died nearby. The vultures and worms ate the carcass. Within three days, there was nothing left but bones and hair.
Pilar Quintana has published five novels, including La perra (RandomHouse) and numerous short stories, many of which have appeared in literary reviews and some in a collection published by Cuneta. A recipient of a number of literary prizes, including the Colombian Narrative Award 2018 for her most recent novel, and Mar de Letras 2007, Pilar was selected as one of the 39 most important Latin American writers under the age of 39 by Bogotá, World Book Capital and the Hay Festival. Extracts of her novel writing and a number of her short stories have been translated into other languages.
María José Giménez is a Venezuelan-Canadian poet, translator, and editor working in English, Spanish, and French. Assistant translation editor for Anomaly, she received the 2016 Gabo Prize for Translation and fellowships from the NEA, The Banff International Literary Translation Centre, and the Katherine Bakeless Nason Endowment. Translations include Edurne Pasaban’s memoir Tilting at Mountains, Alejandro Saravia’s novel Red, Yellow, Green, and Mara Pastor’s chapbook As Though the Wound Had Heard.