Ambigüedad

Welcome. I have been asked to leave a few notes for my replacement, which is you, and I am happy to, because I want this to go smoothly for you, and because I suspect nobody else will.

The job is straightforward. You will report to Gustavo. Gustavo is a very good manager, in the sense that things are managed. On your first day he will tell you that his door is always open. This is true. It is open because the handle has been broken since 2019; I reported it four times.

Most of the work arrives on Monday morning, for Thursday. You will be told it is urgent. It is not urgent, but it will become urgent at about four o’clock on Wednesday, when Gustavo reads it. I recommend that you finish everything by Tuesday and say nothing. If you mention that it is finished, it will be changed.

Meetings are on Wednesdays at nine. They begin at ten. Gustavo will ask what everyone thinks, and will then write down what he thought before he asked. Do not take this personally; he does it to everyone, including, I suspect, himself.

Expenses are approved by his assistant, Liliana, who is the most powerful person in the building and the only one who will tell you so to your face. Be kind to her. I was, and it is the one decision here I have never regretted.

The quarterly report is written by you and presented by Gustavo. It is a good report, and he presents it well. Last year he received an award for it, which is on the shelf behind his desk, and I was very pleased for him.

The password for the shared drive is on a yellow note under the keyboard. Please change it. I never did, because nobody but me ever used the shared drive, and I find I have become sentimental about it.

You may hear people say that I was difficult. I would only ask you to notice who says it, and when, and whether they have ever been in the office after six.

Finally, there is a plant on the windowsill. It is called Hernán, and nobody else waters him. I am taking almost everything else with me, but I am leaving Hernán, because he is the only thing in this office that has never pretended to be something he isn’t, and I think you will need the company.

Good luck. I mean that more than it probably sounds.

— M.

Good evening. For those who don’t know me, I’m Natalia, Daniela’s older sister, which means I have known her longer than anyone here except our parents. Daniela asked me — last Tuesday — to say a few words, so I will try to keep it to a few.

Daniela has always been the one people remember. When she was four, she sang at our cousin’s first communion without being asked, and the priest, who was not an easily moved man, applauded. I was nine. I had been practising the reading for a month. Nobody remembers the reading, and that is as it should be. Some people are born to be applauded and some are born to be reliable, and our family has always been grateful to have one of each.

She was the first of us to learn to swim, although she was younger. She was the one who got into the university in Bogotá — not the one I went to, the other one — and the one who came home every December with a new accent and a new opinion, both of which we loved. When she chose music instead of medicine, our father did not speak to her for a month. Then he spoke to me for a month, about her, which I like to think helped.

When she was seven, she broke our grandmother’s vase, the one from Spain, and she cried so beautifully that our grandmother apologised to her. I was in the garden at the time. I was blamed anyway, on the grounds that I was older and should have been watching. I have been watching ever since.

And now she has found Andrés. Andrés, I have known you for two years, and I liked you immediately — not least because you were the first of Daniela’s boyfriends to ask me a question about myself. It was where the bathroom was, but it was a start.

A wedding, as everyone here knows, is a great deal of work, and I want to thank everyone who made today possible: the florist, the band, Andrés’s mother, who has been wonderful, and the many friends who sent Daniela messages of support while she chose the shoes. I helped where I could. I booked this hall, I wrote the invitations, I found the band, and I collected the cake at seven this morning. But it is Daniela’s day, and that is exactly as it should be.

I want to say one serious thing, because a toast should have one serious moment, and I have saved mine for the end so that nobody can leave before it.

When we were children we shared a room, and Daniela was afraid of the dark. Every night, for about six years, she asked me to leave the light on, and every night I said no. And every night, once she was asleep, I got up and turned it on, and in the morning I turned it off before she woke. She never knew. I am telling her now because she is getting married, and because from tonight it will be Andrés who has to decide what to do about the light.

Andrés: turn it on. Don’t tell her. It is the only advice I have, and it has worked for me for thirty years.

Daniela, you have always been the bright one. I hope you never have to be the reliable one. I say that with more love than you will ever know, and probably more than you would believe.

So, please, raise your glasses. To Daniela and Andrés — and to the light, which was on all along.