You will never wash out that stain;
you cannot talk long enough for that.
- Demosthenes, "On the Crown"

Who wishes to speak?
Who wishes to rake up old grievances?
Who wishes to be answerable to the future?
- Demosthenes, "On the Crown"

For Francis Laurenty
(1924-2003)

On the morning of April 7, 1991, when my father telephoned to invite me to his apartment in Chapinero for the first time, there was such a downpour in Bogota that the streams of the Eastern Hills burst their banks, and the water came pouring down, dragging branches and mud, blocking the sewers, flooding the narrowest streets, lifting small cars with the force of the current, and even killing an unwary taxi driver who somehow ended up trapped under the chassis of his own vehicle.