I stayed in Costa Rica for a few weeks and was able to return to Columbia. I saw my stay in the United States as precarious; if Elena had metastasis, I would go back. I wouldn’t leave her alone, especially after discovering the solidarity of the rest of the family. Every break I had I took the plane to Costa Rica to take care of my mother, I planned to do my thesis on the diplomatic relations between the United States and this Central American nation during the thirties and forties. This way, I could conduct my research at the National Archives in San Jose.
Ted brought me the news that terrible diseases were appearing in the New York community. The first one was viral herpes, and then a worse one would come, gay cancer.
Between 1979 and 1983, over fifty percent of gay men in New York were infected with what would later be known as AIDS. Meanwhile, my mother had completed her primary and secondary education through and was about to enter the field of Social Work at the University of Costa Rica.
By the end of that year, I went to New York again to defend my doctoral thesis. Ted was more alarmed by the advance of AIDS; by January, two thousand people had been diagnosed. So far, the patients were homosexuals, hemophiliacs, and Haitians, the three H’s that no one cared about. I started paying attention to the television; they said that prevention measures were being taken in San Francisco, but they 165
didn’t explain what they were. In the bars of New York, people denied what was happening; none of the dark rooms would be closed. Like Larry Kramer, the playwrighter, I saw the similarity with some aspects of the Holocaust. Thousands of people, without society reacting, were being condemned to death. The sick was treated like garbage; in my history department, colleagues stopped drinking from shared cups and greetings with cheek kisses disappeared.
I began to fear that I would be next. I asked Ted that we should avoid other relationships because we could get infected.
The fear of being in the eye of the storm made me accept a job offer in the city of Atlanta. I went to teach at Emory University. By the end of 1982, there were still no cases in Georgia, and people hoped for the miracle that the virus would not cross their borders.
Condoms were barely used, and I heard absurd things like the Southern society being healthier than the Yankee society and having better nutrition. According to some, Southern chicken would immunize them.
“My little Polish golem, you finally arrived in my land. How do you like the South? Don’t tell me Atlanta isn’t beautiful and that Southerners aren’t attractive.
Have you been to the bars? How are the classes going?
Do you like Emory?”
“Ted, don’t distract me. I’m worried. Do you know that we have television here and I see what you’re doing? I don’t approve of anything you say, but you 166
don’t care about that. What scares me is what they’re exposing you too. What do your children say? Stop this madness for God’s sake. You won’t get that position, and they’ll destroy you. I saw that another witness of your adventures in California came out.”
“I have everything under control, my Mossad spy.
I’ll come visit you next week, and we’ll talk more cal-mly. I’ll send you the hotel and room number.”
“And how do I enter the hotel? Through the employees’ elevator?”
“Well, yes. Actually, you pass as an illegal Mexican.”
“Since you’re in such a good mood, let me tell you four things.
Atlanta is a lifeless city in its downtown. Southerners are not as beautiful as you think and they themselves complain that they have the worst sex in the country. Emory is a university that will never compare to Columbia and to top it all off, I have Jimmy Carter and his World Peace Institute or whatever it’s called as my colleague in the History Department, so no one notices that I’m here. You know, when he eats, he opens his mouth and reminds me of my father? I will never understand how the hell he became president. Yesterday he told me that he saw a flying saucer on his farm”.
-My little sweetheart and bald monkey. I told you to stay in New York and not run away. If you controlled yourself and only slept with me, you wouldn’t have to run away where there are no cases of AIDS. Do you 167
think the first cases won’t appear in Atlanta? I give you three weeks before the first one shows up.
In May 1983, I returned to New York and used my savings to invite Elena on a trip to Spain to celebrate my graduation. Elena who disapproved of David because he was a simple waiter had another attitude toward Ted. The man was a Senator and Elena like Sylvia the Nanny’s mother was elated.
At dinner in Manhattan Ted was dying of laughter at my mother’s broken English. “Where is the speech?”
she asked in the restaurant. Ted was stunned. “Mom is asking where the phone is,” I explained. “Tell her the speech is next to the bathroom.” Ted couldn’t contain his laughter. And while my mother was talking on the phone, Ted warned me, “Don’t sleep with anyone in Spain. Don’t trust that there are still no cases.”