the honeymoon

When we married Raquel we made our honeymoon last a year. We saved everything we could, we gave up our jobs and decided to go around the world. We made our forecasts and the money gave us to spend the year without hurry. We went to several countries in Europe and South America, we saw many sunsets and sunrises in different places. A honeymoon of twelve months. There are many stories to tell of those trips, but if there is one that was bizarre, it was the one that happened in Buenos Aires.

-Do you remember when we were jugglers and traffic lights clowns in Bogotá? We were bad for that.

-As I do not remember Gustavo, but it was not so bad. All because of your brother who did not send us the money on time. But we did not starve, you saw.

The first three months were from Europe, and when we returned, we stayed here in Guatemala for a month to rest, and then the next we went to South America. First stop, Buenos Aires. There we were met by some acquaintances at the airport and we stayed at their house for a week, at their request.

Andrea and Marcelo Morello was a marriage of our age, so we got along well from the beginning. They lived in Olivos, Buenos Aires, in a spacious apartment with a good view. I do not remember what business they had, but from what it looked, it was very profitable. They were very kind to us, but they had a love-hate relationship between them. That kind of relationship in which they verbally attack and still remain together, and even happy.

• Did you like Marcelo?

-Well, it was not there.

-Unfortunately.

The Morellos had strange neighbors. Two guys and a woman, who did not bathe, but they greeted politely, although with gestures so exaggerated that they made you feel afraid. They got up early to go buy breakfast things, then they went out again at lunchtime, always together, and then they did not leave the apartment anymore. They seemed to be of the same age, about 35 years old. His appearance was healthy, although they had a lost look, except when they greeted you.

Our hosts told us that they were brothers, and that they had inherited a great fortune, so nothing would be lacking. However, they never left the apartment except to buy groceries. They had no television, but an important collection of books and records. They liked jazz.

-The time I could not stand was when that Cuban mulatto was insinuating in my face and you followed the flow.

-I did not follow the flow, you are exaggerated.

-Now you're crazy.

-Vos you were very jealous, what faces you made me. Ja.

On the second day of being in Olivos with the Morello, the rare neighbors found out that we were from Guatemala. They showed interest in us, which made us feel uncomfortable. In the corridors and the elevator they asked us all kinds of questions and told us that the only country they had ever traveled to was Guatemala. We tried to shake them off with monosyllables, but it was useless. They were obsessed with Guatemala.

They invited us to lunch one day. It was so much the affectation that they showed when inviting us that we were forced to accept. Then Rachel and I went to lunch and we went to the weirdest house I've ever visited. All the dusty furniture, leaks arranged with a funnel and hose system that was going to give a drain in the bathroom and a rat circulating freely around there. The only thing that was clean was the kitchen. When we entered awkwardly they shook the dust from the chairs a little. They treated us with that exaggerated sympathy that threatens you instead of making you feel good.

• Do you remember the time I called you and told you I was with some friends at the lookout on the way to La Antigua? You left to come by bus although you did not know how to get fucked. It was raining When you finally arrived, I was not there anymore and you got soaked. You did not want to call me proud, you preferred that Christian would pick you up, that crazy lover who asked you not to marry and who serenaded you the day before the wedding.

• ...

The lunch was a roast that was obviously not prepared by them. It was not bad. During the meal we then learned that they wanted to go back to Guatemala and visit Tikal. According to these brothers, the soul of their parents was locked in the temple of the Great Jaguar. Why? Who knows, they had got the idea and there was no living thing that could get them out. They looked at us with wide eyes, at times they had their breathing accelerated. I think they saw in us some kind of angels that would connect them with the souls of their parents killed in a terrible accident in Petén, 20 years ago.

In the room were several pictures of the parents of these three crazy brothers on the wall. I do not know if it was because of the tension we were in, but those gentlemen seemed to us rather gloomy people. Of the three brothers, the woman had a twitch in her right eye, which trembled every time she blinked. We had not noticed at the beginning.

-It's amazing that we're here waiting for the divorce hearing to begin, Raquel.

Things started to get tense when the older one told us that we had to bring them to Guatemala, that this should be our mission, that we had found something for something. We told them that we would not return in the short term to Guatemala, because we were on a trip to South America and Argentina was just the first country we visited. They then exchanged their threatening kindness for insults and shouting.

The youngest went to the interior of the house and returned with a shotgun, while the woman held Rachel and the other brother took my neck with his right arm behind me. We were trapped. Raquel then offered to change all our plans to do what they wanted, but we would have to go to the airline office to change tickets and buy theirs. But since they did not have the habit of leaving the house, it was better that we did it. We needed that, money to do it.

-We went to a lot of places, but the afternoon that I remember most was that first time in La Antigua, when it drizzled and you were happy and we entered that art gallery. I told you that day that you sent us where we were going. I only listen and obey and pay, of course, I offered. And then you hugged me tight.

-Yes, it was good. But it's over.

When people tell you what they want to hear, they usually fall. And fortunately for us that's how it happened. The madmen agreed and took some good dollars from an old chest full of money to make the process. We left there and never came back, of course. Those dollars helped us to continue the trip. We barely said goodbye to the Morello, we just went through the things to the apartment and went straight to the airport, heading to Peru. After we asked Marcelo on the phone that if they asked for us, we said we had died when our taxi crashed with a truck on the road. There had been an accident by accident on the day of our departure in which an unidentified couple had died. A cut of the news convinced the three crazy brothers.

-When we enter with the judge let's say that we will no longer divorce.

-Are you crazy.

-That's why the hearing is called conciliatory. To reconcile one.

-It is not a conciliatory hearing, it is a compromise. And after what you did to me, I do not want to go back to you.

-As it is, the sex of reconciliation is good, they say.

• ...

-Well, then let's divorce and get married again. So we would have another one year honeymoon and we would have a great time.

-It's late Gustavo, I really loved you, but it's over. Let's enter, sign and it's done. Do not insist, I do not love you anymore.