Teusaquillo, 1989

Eleven bombs had gone off the previous night, most of them in this neighborhood, which is called Teusaquillo, and it is one of the pleasantest in Bogotá. —Alma Guillermoprieto Flowering sietecueros trees: How easily we married ourselves to the idea of that bruised light outside the window, capillary fibers of the linen, stained wood of the door frame. Deepening hallway. Beyond the stucco portal, crushed purple. At night, tinnitus we thought, the ringing after an explosion, a frenzied inner ear axle squeal, until I placed my stethoscope's bell on the purpled ceiling: Bats at roost under the terracotta tiles, each squeak a vector between mountains, sicarios ricocheting through the dark. "If you press your skull between the pillows, it's like a lullaby." At dawn our windows imploded from the street. Before the glaziers knocked, a breeze: Blood-sweet draft of begonias rising again from the iron grillwork of our little yard.