The Sound of Things Falling

Antonio Yammara sits in his apartment in Bogotá in 2009. In a magazine, he sees a story about a hippopotamus that was recently shot. The hippo escaped years ago from Pablo Escobar’s zoo in the Magdalena Valley. To pierce the hippo’s thick skin, officials used .375-caliber bullets. After the hippo dies, his death becomes a symbol of how an unjust system victimizes innocent creatures. People in Bogotá wear shirts that read “Save the Hippos,” and news stories about the hippo become inescapable. In the week after the hippo’s death, Antonio finds himself thinking more and more about Ricardo Laverde. As he approaches his 40th birthday, Antonio thinks that maybe it’s time to tell his story. That story won’t cover his whole life, though. Instead, it will only be about a few days, which happened a long time ago. 

On the day of Ricardo Laverde’s death in 1996, Ricardo goes to a billiards club on 14th Street. Antonio plays pool on the table next to Ricardo’s. After Ricardo finishes playing, he asks Antonio if he has a tape player that he could use to listen to a tape he just received. Antonio first met Ricardo a year before when Antonio was about to turn 26. Antonio graduated from law school two years before that and then became the youngest lecturer ever on the law school faculty. In those days, Bogotá was just emerging from years of entrenched violence, most of it carried out by the government and drug cartels. At the billiards club when Antonio first met Ricardo, they saw a news story about the death of Álvaro Gómez, the son of a controversial former president.

Similar killings occurred throughout Antonio’s life. In 1984, Pablo Escobar ordered the killing of Justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla. When Antonio was 16, the publisher of El Espectador was assassinated, and Luis Carlos Galán, a presidential candidate, was killed when Antonio was 19. That assassination occurred during a campaign rally, which was broadcast on TV, so the entire country watched it happen. After that, Escobar blew up an Avianca plane mid-flight to kill a politician who ultimately wasn’t on board.

On the day of  Álvaro Gómez’s death, the people at the billiards club watch the news about his assassination on TV. Then, the story changes to one about Pablo Escobar’s property, which was seized and neglected by authorities after Escobar’s death in 1993. As Antonio and Ricardo watch the news on TV, Ricardo wonders aloud what the authorities would do with the animals from the zoo that Escobar kept. “It’s not their fault,” he says. That’s the first time that Antonio meets Ricardo Laverde. Initially, Antonio doesn’t take much notice of him.

Later, Antonio hears that Ricardo has just gotten out of prison after 20 years, and Antonio becomes more interested in getting to know Ricardo after that. The two begin playing pool together and gradually get to know each other better. One day, Ricardo leaves the pool hall and has his photo taken by a street photographer. He takes the photo into the billiards club the next day and tells everyone that he hopes his wife will come to visit soon from the United States, where she’s from and where she now lives. Antonio surmises that the photo is meant as a gift for Ricardo’s wife, and he wonders if she knows that Ricardo has been released from prison.

Ricardo tells Antonio his wife’s name is Elena Fritts and that he used to be a pilot. Antonio asks more questions before Ricardo stops him. Ricardo says he doesn’t give out his life story so freely and asks Antonio to stop prying. An idea occurs to Antonio for the first time: perhaps the person Ricardo is now is not who he used to be. Ricardo seems drunk, so Antonio decides to walk him home when they leave the billiards club. On the walk, Ricardo says that Elena is all he has and that, in the past, he did something that he can’t take back, which messed up their entire relationship. He explains that their lives changed in 1970, the year Antonio was born. When they reach Ricardo’s house, Ricardo invites Antonio in for another drink, but Antonio declines, afraid the emotional intimacy will be more than he can handle.

After that night, Antonio doesn’t see Ricardo again for a long time. The two keep missing each other at the billiards club, and one day, Antonio hears that Ricardo has gone on a trip. Antonio stops going to the billiards club after that; he’s lost interest now that Ricardo is gone. Around that same time, Aura Rodríguez—one of Antonio’s former students, whom he has been dating in secret—tells Antonio that she’s six weeks pregnant. Aura had a difficult relationship with her parents and an itinerant childhood; she chose to study law, in part, to remain rooted in one place. She’d been Antonio’s student his first year as a professor. When Aura tells Antonio she’s pregnant, she says they should spend the holidays together and then make a decision about what to do next.

Aura recalls the difficult relationship she had with her parents growing up and says she’s not sure if she’s ready to have a child. Antonio says he thinks they’re both ready, and Aura begins to quietly cry. They spend the next few weeks together, leading up to Aura’s first ultrasound. On the morning of the ultrasound— December 21, 1995—they hear about American Airlines Flight 965, which crashed into El Diluvio mountain the night before, killing all but four people on board. At the ultrasound, Aura and Antonio learn that the baby is healthy. Antonio is somewhat surprised that, after learning that something delicate and of great significance has been entrusted to him, he feels up to the task. Together, Aura and Antonio settle on the name Leticia for the baby.

On the first working day of the new year, Antonio goes to the 14th Street billiards club, where he sees Ricardo. After they’ve played pool for a while, Ricardo shows Antonio a cassette tape labeled with the letters BASF. He then asks Antonio if he has a tape player he can use to listen to it. Antonio takes Ricardo to the nearby Casa de Poesía, where there is a listening room with tape players. Antonio listens to a recording of poetry. As Ricardo listens to his tape, he begins to cry. Antonio closes his eyes, and when he opens them, Ricardo is gone. Antonio leaves the house and sees Ricardo walking two blocks ahead of him. Antonio catches up to him and says that everything’s going to be okay. Ricardo tells him that Elena was on the American Airlines plane that crashed.

Just then, Antonio sees a motorbike approaching. He grabs Ricardo’s arm and sees the men on the back of the bike hold out a pistol before firing two shots. Ricardo falls to the ground, and Antonio falls too. When Antonio gets up, he says Ricardo’s name, but there’s no response. Someone comes to help, but Antonio says he’s fine. He then realizes that blood is soaking through his t-shirt. Before losing consciousness, Antonio sees the men who lay his body in the back of a truck beside Ricardo’s.