El nueve de Abril: Visions--and versions--of hell inside the bogotazo

Version 1: 1997

Someone has murdered the great Gaitán.

My grandmother is running with her girls through the streets of Bogotá, small white dresses flying in the air. Glass is breaking.

My mother sees three men in ruanas bless a priest with gasoline and rum and set him on fire. The man twirls in the middle of the Avenida Caracas, arms out, like a believer being sucked into hell. Fidel Castro is bending to enter a taxi.

My mother still remembers a certain yellow rose. Crow of sirens and rage of bells. Black smoke pours from the newspaper building, and the snakes with two legs come out of the mountains or retreat into plush suites. Windows are being smashed with bricks and fists.

Iron shoes of a horse gallop into a blind alley.

Hospital morgues are piling the dead people like stacks of wood.

My grandmother pulls the two sisters forward by their long black hair for several blocks until their feet are actually trailing off the ground.

My aunt says she saw Jesus Christ, with fair skin and a gold tooth, selling lottery tickets and firecrackers from a burning streetcar.

Version 2: 1999

In the first ring of the circus year 1948:

The great Gaitán is murdered on the ninth of April, while far away, in India, Gandhi is swirling peacefully out of control.

My grandmother is running with her girls down the streets of Bogotá, small white dresses flying in the air, storefront glass crashing all around them.

What is the English rhyme my mother tries, eyes closed, to remember from school that morning?

Hello Mr. Traffic CopI’m going to the candy shopTo buy a presentFor my sister’s birthday party . . .

Her eyes open as three men in ruanas bless a priest with gasoline and rum and set him on fire. He twirls across the Avenida Caracas, arms out, like a believer being sucked into hell. And into the revolving door of the Tequendama Hotel, Fidel Castro disappears.

Still my mother remembers a certain yellow rose, a crow of sirens, the rage of bells. Black smoke pouring from the newspaper building while snakes with two legs slide out of the mountains or retreat into plush suites. Bricks and fists, and more splinters of glass falling as if from an ice storm.

Iron shoes of a horse gallop into a blind alley.

Hospital morgues are piling the dead like stacks of wood.

My grandmother pulls the two sisters forward by their long black hair, their feet trailing off the ground for several blocks. In the flying blur, my aunt sees Jesus Christ, with fair skin and a gold tooth, selling lottery tickets and firecrackers from a burning streetcar.