Santiago Gamboa, Night Prayers. Howard Curtis, translator. Europa Editions, 2012/2016.
This is the first book that I’ve read by Gamboa, whose publishing career began about the same time as my favorite current Colombian author, Juan Gabriel Vásquez, whose work, any of it, I strongly recommend.
Night Prayers is structured as a piece of detective fiction, or the detective element of the novel gives the story its impetus: it could be subtitled “Search for Manuel and Search for Juana” or “Search for the Brother and Search for the Sister.” The novel takes place in the first decade or so of the century, from before Alvaro Uribe became president of Colombia to the years after, and, among the many things that the novel does, it is a condemnation of Uribe’s presidency and all whom supported or facilitated the regime’s corruption, violence, and death-dealing. The novel is set in Colombia, Bangkok, Delhi, Tokyo, and Tehran, and the story is told primarily from the perspective of an unnamed Colombian diplomatic consul stationed in Delhi who is also a published author. Part of the time, the consul is telling his own story–narrating his own experiences–and part of the time he is simply the ear/the scribe for Manuel to tell his story and Juana to tell her’s. At regular intervals, the book also has chapters titled “Inter-Neta’s Monologues,” which seem to function as a kind of chorus to book’s narrative, although the relevance to the action is often obscure as is the identity of Inter-Neta (more on this later). The book is broken up into three sections and an epilogue: the first is Manuel’s story, the second is Juana’s story, the third and epilogue are the tragic ending. Although the novel is awash in alcohol and drugs, mostly cocaine, it is not focused on the cartels.
Part 1 introduces all the primary characters and narrators, focusing on Manuel’s story. The narrator is a diplomatic consul stationed in Delhi after years in Europe. He is in Bangkok because Columbia does not have an embassy in Thailand, and he has been tasked with seeing to Manuel, who has been jailed on drug possession charges. Because the consul is a writer, he is very good at capturing the details of the world around him (sights, sounds, smells) and his reactions to them. He is also very good at describing the procedural details of his job and is diligent in knowing and executing the bureaucratic mechanisms that allow him to do his job, all of which he writes about because he clearly finds his work fascinating. He also folds his own interests into the narrative: his love of good alcohol and food; his interest in Teresa, the local Mexican diplomatic consul in Bangkok who helps him; the increasing personal stake he feels in both Manuel and Juana’s lives. So while Manuel is the focus of this section and Juana the next, their stories are enmeshed within the consul’s own.
The story Manuel tells is about his unhappy childhood and young adulthood, his love of books and learning, the discovery of his talent as a graffiti artist, his love for his sister, and his desperate search for her, which leads him to Bangkok and jail. He grows up in a poor middle class family with unhappy conservative parents who end up blindly supporting Uribe because of all the resentment and hatred they feel toward the world which has disappointed them; Uribe made big promises to clean up Colombia(drugs, communist guerillas, leftists) by whatever means necessary and restore order, and the parents unquestioningly bought into the vision he sold. They do not trust his love of books and intellectual curiosity, and Manuel tells them nothing of new found talent as an artist. At home, Juana is the only one who understands and supports Manuel. She, too, is alienated from their parents, because she too loves books and learning. Manuel shares his art with Juana, who vows to work to support him as an artist (buy the best spray paints). They share books and movies, talk on the roof out of earshot of their parents.. They know they will have to leave Colombia one day, and Juana plans to make enough money to send Manuel to film school in France. Manuel is inspired at National University to study philosophy, and he is working on his doctorate, specializing in Gilles Deleuze, when Juana disappears, and he leaves Colombia to search for her. Before he was a diplomat, the consul was a reporter and wrote an article about Deleuze’s suicide. Night Prayers is full of literary, philosophical, artistic, and filmic allusions, all of which act as a cultural net to connect the characters, whether lower middle class, professional, or upper class. The novel makes a clear distinction between those who are cultured and sophisticated and those who aren’t. The problem comes when circumstances–drugs, politics, political maneuvering, exploitation, uncaring bureaucracies–violate, subvert, or neutralize what should be the humane uplift of culture and education. Whatever good he may have experienced, Manuel feels that his life is empty and that he does not matter. In an attempt to recuperate some sense of value from what he has suffered, Manuel tells the consul that “this is not a crime story but a love story” and then asks the consul to find his sister. He hooks the consul, a writer, with the promise of an atypical story. Also, despite his education and his experiences, at 27 Manuel is an innocent, first in Colombia and then abroad. He is still the younger brother protected by his older sister.
In the first section, the consul and Manuel and, to a lesser extent, Juana’s stories are all told in pieces over fifteen chapters. The second section, which has only five chapters, tells its stories in two long chunks. The first section is the consul’s search for Juana, who, according to Manuel, should be in Tokyo. which leads the consul from Delhi to Tokyo and then to Tehran. The consul’s time in Tokyo represents the two sides of his professional life. On the one hand, because he is an author he is invited to Tokyo to attend a literary festival dedicated to Colombian literature, where he hangs out in a posh hotel and hobnobs with his fellow literati. On the other hand, he seeks out the shadow world in Tokyo where Colombian women, including Juana, are employed as prostitutes, tracks down women who knew her and traces her to Tehran, where she escaped with an Iranian man who had been working as a bodyguard in Tokyo, married him and has an infant son. In Tokyo, the consul moves between the celebrated visible world of professional success and the dark world of sexual exploitation. In Tehran, the consul decides to set up a mobile consulate, since Colombia does not have an embassy in Iran. The mobile consulate is a screen for his search for Juana. In Tehran, the consul is impressed by the cleanliness and modernity of it all, and he spends much of his time describing the nuts and bolts of a diplomat’s job in a foreign capital. Much of what he writes in this section feels like work-related diary entries with personal asides and reactions inserted. But Juana appears with baby, wanting to escape Tehran and see her brother–legitimate diplomatic work(issuing passports, approving visas) successfully screened the consul’s purpose–and they all return to the consul’s house in Delhi. Juana is impatient to see Manuel in Bangkok, but there are delays, so the consul throws a party for local Colombians, Spanish speakers, and friends, a convivial gathering of cultivated people who eat, drink, and talk about book. After everything she has been through, Juana relaxes and fits right in to this cultured calm oasis. Again and again throughout this book, culture, literature, art, and philosophy–that is, education–are ways for characters to connect and find solace in a world that primarily seems to be about suffering and exploitation.
Because of the delays coming from the Colombian government (bureaucratic permissions to travel to Bangkok on state business), Juana has the chance to tell her story. Unlike Manuel’s, which is cut up into multiple chapters, Gamboa gives Juana an uninterrupted space to tell her whole story, which functions as the climax of the novel. To invoke Blake, while Manuel’s story is one of innocence–he just doesn’t know much or is aware of much, despite his education–Juana’s story is one of experience. Manuel is introverted, reserved, reflective and remains rather lost throughout the book, which is why he ends up in jail in Bangkok: he is unaware of the scheming malevolence of others. Conversely, because Juana wants to know and act in the world her story reveals the complexity and complicity of Colombian politics under Uribe: the connections between the government, the military, the paramilitaries, the extra-governmental advisors, the drug cartels, the FARC, and all those who aspire to power and position with Uribe’s sphere. Juana’s story is the glue that holds all these pieces together. This section could also be called The Education of Juana. Her education is two-fold: the National University and what she learns from the old, dying misanthropic Frenchman for whom she works and who is cultured and well-educated–he is cultured and well educated and has plenty of books–but who dismisses book learning for the primacy of the individual asserting power and freedom against forces which would stifle that freedom, freedom in a world that is quite messy. His advice is that she use her sexuality to infiltrate the world she hates (government, Uribe, the powerful people around him) to know it and work to topple it. Juana acts on that advice, and between her education and her sexuality she becomes a node that links various shady parts of the Uribe elite (Secret Service, paramilitaries, extra-governmental advisors) which, at the moment of the book, are looking to scapegoat someone and cover their asses for the extrajudicial killings that have been brought to light, in particular the “false positives” scandal where 22 innocent men were killed as terrorists. Juana is, I suppose, a Mata Hari figure, but she too is caught out and has to flee before she is scapegoated, which is why she flees to Japan to become a prostitute, using the connection she developed at the ranch of the paramilitary leader with connections to Uribe. Juana has learned to successfully maneuver in a world that is rigged against her. She can disappear. It’s her special talent.
While the second section luxuriated in story, the third section and epilogue move very quickly. The Thai government suddenly and unexpectedly move up Manuel’s trial date; Manual pleads not guilty rather than guilty as recommended by the lawyer in charge of the case. Because he has pled not guilty, and because of a nasty quirk in Thai law, Manuel now can be executed at any time. Approval from Colombia to travel to Bangkok has still not come through, so the consul takes time off and pays for the plane tickets for him and Juana himself. In Bangkok, the Mexican consul Teresa greets them and puts them up; she would help but can’t get anywhere. Government bureaucracies are failing. In a momentary relief from the precipitous speed of the narrative, there is a long paragraph where the consul observes and compares Teresa and Juana as they converse. Both are sunny and open despite the differences between them: Teresa as the divorced mother of two with a successful career; Juana’s hard life that could have embittered her but hasn’t. Both are well-educated, which transcends the shitty worlds they live in. After the slow moment of solace, the consul, Juana and son, and Teresa go to the prison where Manuel is held to convince him to plead guilty, but he commits suicide not long before they arrive. On the wall of the cell, he has painted a graffiti commemorating his love for his sister, and he left a suicide note saying that he has given up hope. Turns out that the messages that Consul had sent that he had found Juana and was bringing her to Bangkok never got to Manuel. The consul is an expert bureaucrat, but bureaucracies fail and people die, in Bangkok or Bógata.
The final chapters of the novel frays into unresolved threads. Manuel’s body is sent back to Colombia. In spite of email/phone contacts, Juana disappears again. She is very good at disappearing. In the consul’s last contact with her, Juana is in Paris. She tells him about the settlement that the Thai government has offered her and says that she will write a book. The first is a lie, and the second is, well, who knows. It is also unclear what the Consul will do: Will he write a book? Is Night Prayers the book he has written? What conclusions are to be drawn? For Juana, people like her and her brother are simply sacrificed to whoever is managing, exploiting, corrupting government agencies, whether in Colombia or anywhere in the world. Despite that there are good people like the consul or the other cultured and cultivated people she has encountered, Juana doesn’t trust anyone to do right by her, so disappearing is the only power she has over her life.
Finally, Inter-Neta’s Monologues remain a mystery. They function as a chorus, a deracinated voice offering tangential or contrapuntal commentary on the main action. They are a mysterious alterity outside of place, and place is very important in the main narrative of the novel. A sampling: a woman addicted to the computer screen and screen sex with a man; a description of Thailand’s drug and sex industry; an unidentified trans woman tells the story of her transition in Bangkok and then her Pamela Anderson transformation in Colombia; The Virgin Mary appears to Inter-Neta and tells stories of those women who lost their virginity that day, from youngest to oldest; Death comes to visit and empties out life. They may be from Juana, but that may just be me wanting to link them to a character, a nomadic character living out there beyond politics.