Kidnapped and a Daring Escape (34 page)

    
"That’s an art, but do I get that kiss now?"

13

Both apprehensive of a last minute hitch and eager to get out of the
country, they go to the airport early. The check-in queues are long and
slow. They get window seats and immediately proceed to passport
control. Both embassies provided them with an official note, certifying
that their travel documents were replacements for passports stolen during
their stay in Colombia. André presents the passports and letters to the
officer. The latter puts the letters aside without looking at them and
searches through André’s virgin passport. He leafs twice through it page
by page and then looks up, saying with a grave expression: "
Señor
, how
did you get into the country. There is no entry stamp."

    
"These are newly issued passports, replacing the ones stolen from us.
These letters explain it." He points to them.

    
With visible annoyance, the officer takes the top letter, which happens
to be the one from the Italian Embassy, reads it and then says: "You have
a Swiss passport. This letter is from the Italian Embassy. This is highly
suspicious."

    
"The other letter is from the Swiss Embassy,
señor
."

    
Frowning, the officer picks up the other letter and takes his time
reading it. Then he neatly inserts each letter into its proper passport,
announcing: "
Señores
, wait here," and walks away to an office at the far
end of the hall.

    
"What’s going on?" whispers Bianca with a worried face.

    
"We are getting a demonstration of bureaucratic incompetence. Don’t
worry, in time he’ll come back and stamp our passports."

    
People behind them start muttering. Some voice their displeasure
loudly and desert to other queues. After five minutes the man returns,
none too fast. As he sits down, the two letters slide to the floor. He opens
each passport in turn and stamps it, before handing them back.

    
"
Señor
, the letters, please," asks André.

    
The man looks at the counter and answers: "I don’t have them."

    
"Sorry,
señor
, they dropped to the floor," André replies, wording his
comment such that the officer cannot interpret it as an accusation, and
pointing behind the man’s chair.

    
For a moment, he fears the man may refuse to pick them up, but then
he gets off his chair to fetches them.

    
"
Gracias
," says André, as he takes them.

    
When they are out of the officer’s hearing, Bianca questions exasperated: "How can you show such patience with people like this?"

    
"Infinite patience is to only way to deal with them. You show the
slightest sign of impatience and they’ll make you pay for it. They are in
control and will take every opportunity to press that home."

    
They pass through hand luggage X-ray and the metal scanner without
further delay.

    
"Are we now officially out of Colombia?"

    
"Yes, for all intent and purposes, but the security police can still nab
us even here. Let’s go eye-shopping through the duty-free shops."

    
The first they approach is a bookshop with a newspaper stand at its
entrance. An A3 size poster shows a photograph of three people with the
fat headline underneath ‘Drug money donated to women’s refuge.’ It
takes a moment to sink in. He has a second look at the picture. There they
are in black and white — Maria Pasqua, he, and Bianca.

    
Bianca suddenly grabs his arm and drops the regulatory cosmetics
plastic bag she was holding in her hand. Her mouth is wide open. He
picks up the bag, and takes her by the elbow. "Just look and behave
natural. Let’s go over there into the travel accessories shop. You still may
want to buy a handbag to put your things in."

    
They go to the very back of the shop before he lets go of her elbow.

    
"You think somebody will recognize us?" she asks anxiously.

    
"I doubt it. Our faces are too small and not that clear in the photo. You
look like a film star on it. Women will admire the fabulous dress we
bought in Timbio, while men will drool over your equally fabulous
figure. The rain jacket you wear now hides you well. I’m more likely to
be recognized, but then I also count that few people will notice me in that
photo. They’ll only have eyes for you."

    
As he speaks, her uncertain mien slowly changes into a smile. "You
are such a funny man. Your replies are always an unexpected surprise;
but thanks, I think you helped me gained back my confidence." She grabs
his hand and presses it.

    
"Now, look for a handbag. They don’t carry
Gucci
, but you may find
something more practical, albeit, less showy."

    
She takes her time to inspect various handbags. In the end she is very
pleased with her purchase. "This is more practical and so light," she
comments, as she puts her regulation plastic bag inside and various other
items she carried in her pockets.

    
They wander through other shops and then find a partially obstructed
corner in the departure lounge. There is a messed-up newspaper on a
nearby seat. André picks it up and arranges it properly. The front page
has their picture with the same headline. He scans through the article and
is gratified by its accuracy as well as by the style of writing. It even
reproduces his analysis pointing to criminal
ex-paras
as the likely
kidnappers. It lists their names and nationality, but states that they have
already left the country.

* * *

The flight to Caracas takes just over two hours. While waiting for take-off, they hold hands silently. Seeing Bianca’s new handbag under the seat
in front reminds André of the
Gucci
bag with its likely content of
cocaine. He questions her about Franco. "Did he sniff coke? Have you
ever seen him?"

    
"No, I haven’t and I don’t think he is addicted. I once heard him talk
to another university lecturer about a party both attended where cocaine
was freely available. I asked him about it, and he shrugged it off as
nothing special."

    
"Coke was very much part of the recreational drug scene in early 20
^th
century aristocratic circles. However, the amount in that bag would last
him for a lifetime. So I guess it wasn’t for personal use but for sale. Its
cut street value may well be over 200,000 euros. Have you ever done
coke?"

    
"No, have you?"

    
"Once, when I was twenty. I worked in Lugano in a hotel that summer
— a desk job in the office. There was this woman from Milan. The naive
twenty-year old that I was, I saw her as the image of a woman of the
world, a woman in the know. I think she was associated with one of the
Milan fashion houses. Fabulous clothes always —"

    
"How old?"

    
He smiles before responding. "Probably in her late thirties. I wasn’t
yet an expert yet in judging a woman’s age. Anyway, she had a permanent room in the hotel and drove up most Friday nights in her flashy
Porsche Carrera, and left Monday early morning. During the day she was
usually sunbathing in a screened-off corner of the hotel’s roof garden. I
saw her once. She lay there as God had made her, and he had made her
well. Occasionally she brought a gigolo along. Once, when she came
alone, she asked me to drive her to Campione with clear instructions not
to drink any alcohol —"

    
"Where is Campione?"

    
"It’s the casino in the Italian enclave across the lake. She drank quite
a bit and must have lost a thousand euros within one hour on the roulette
wheel and then suddenly gained all of it back and more. At one point she
disappeared for a few minutes. I presumed that she had gone to the toilet.
Only later on did I guess the true reason because, back at the hotel, she
took me up to her room and then set out several lines of coke on the glass
top of her coffee table. She invited me to share it. I must admit that I was
actually shit scared, but was not willing to show it. So I bravely snorted
two lines. She did the remaining four. Then we just sat there on her
leather lounge sofa in front of the open balcony door and looked into the
night across the lake. I don’t think I really got a decent high. It was
pleasant, lasted for fifteen, twenty minutes, but I get more out of good
sex."

    
"Did you not have sex with her?"

    
"Yes, we did, but she was very lethargic. I think that was the last time
I fucked a woman. After that, sex was always part of a steady relationship."

    
"Have you been with many women?"

    
"You want to know my entire sexual history?"

    
"Yes."

    
"I have never counted them, but the last five years I have only been in
three relationships, not counting ours."

    
"How did they end?"

    
"The one in New Zealand, because I moved away. She wasn’t willing
to follow me to Edinburgh. In Edinburgh it was a married woman and the
last two years I had an off-again-on-again affair with the young wife of
one of the local newspaper editors in Lausanne. He is twenty years older
than she."

    
"I don’t want you to ever have sex with another woman." Her face is
endearingly serious.

    
He kisses her and says: "Don’t worry; I’m not a wandering man. I only
want you."

    
"Good," she replies, putting her head on his shoulder.

    
"So, that’s settled then."

    
She lifts her head, her face a frown. "What is settled?"

    
"My declaration of eternal faithfulness. I just gave it to you."

    
"Oh, André, why does every serious discussion always end up in a
joke with you."

    
"But being faithful is no joke."

    
"See, now you joke about the joke." She looks out the window.

    
"Bianca, look at me, please." When she does, he says: "I may have
mixed a bit of humor into a most serious thing. I really meant it, when I
said I intend to be faithful to you."

    
She locks eyes with him for several seconds. "I also pledge that I will
be faithful to you."

* * *

On their flight from Caracas to Rome, they have a row of three seats for
themselves. Bianca curls up after dinner, places her head on André’s
thighs and promptly goes to sleep. He covers her with a blanket and then
tries to get some sleep too. An hour prior to landing, they are served
breakfast. It is well past nine before they finally retrieve their luggage
and get into the arrival hall.

    
A dozen reporters, paparazzi, and two TV crews immediately rush
forward, cameras flashing. He expected reporters, but it nevertheless
comes as a bit of a shock of how aggressively they surround them, all
shouting questions and pointing their microphones into their faces. On
the spur of the moment he decides to play a trick on them. He shoves the
microphones in front of his mouth resolutely away, points at his left ear,
shaking his head, and then opens his mouth while waving his left hand
in a circle away from his mouth. He repeats this a second time, uttering
a muffled "no".

    
"He is a deaf-mute," one of the reporters cries, echoed by others.

    
Bianca looks at him puzzled, sees him wink almost imperceptibly and
catches on, her eyes lighting up in amusement.

    
"Sorry,
signori
, André Villier cannot hear you. He cannot answer your
questions."

    
The gaggle of reporters now crowd around her, all shouting questions.
She tries to answer, but her voice gets lost in the clamor of the reporters.
André watches for a few second, fully enjoying the joke. Then he spots
another young woman maybe a twenty feet away. Her resemblance to
Bianca leaves no doubt that this is her sister, Gabriela. He raises his left
hand in greeting, smiling at her. She seems unsure, searching behind her
to see if the greeting is for somebody else. He shakes his head and raises
his hand again, and now she responds, returning his smile.