The Sound of Things Falling

Elena returns to Bogotá after field training before heading to La Dorada. In Bogotá, she and Ricardo carry on their clandestine relationship and go to every protest against the Vietnam War that occurs. After three weeks, Elena formally swears into the Peace Corps. The night before she’s set to leave, Ricardo invites her to dinner at a restaurant called Gato Negro. At dinner, he gets down on one knee and asks Elena to marry him. Elena kisses him and says yes. She delays her departure by 15 days. With the help of Gloria—whom Elena has to convince she’s not pregnant—they arrange an almost secret marriage.

At the wedding in San Francisco church, Elena feels like she’ll be happy for the rest of her life. There’s then a reception at the Laverdes’ house. Ricardo says they have to have the reception at their house in part because the family has no money. Elena asks if she and Ricardo will be okay financially since her work doesn’t pay much. Ricardo says it will be enough for a little while and then he’ll see what he can figure out. He assures her that as a pilot, he’ll always be able to find work. After the guests leave the reception, Ricardo says he has a gift for Elena, but she can’t see it yet. He ties a blindfold around her eyes and walks her outside. Elena reaches blindly for a taxi door.

When Elena gets out of the taxi, Ricardo leads her by the hand and into what seems like another vehicle. Then she hears Ricardo talking to air traffic control. When they’re in the air, Ricardo takes her blindfold off. That’s his wedding present to her: he’s flying her to La Dorada in a borrowed Cessna Skylark. Elena can’t believe it. She’s sure no other Peace Corps volunteer has ever arrived at their site by plane like this. She marvels at the wonders of her new life. She and Ricardo find a nice single-story house in La Dorada to live in, and Elena gets a horse to travel to nearby towns.

One day soon before Christmas, Elena comes home and hears men’s voices in the kitchen. She assumes that it’s someone from town who has come to ask her to do something, but when she goes inside, she sees that Ricardo is talking to Mike Barbieri and Carlos. Ricardo says the two men are there to see Elena, but Elena knows immediately that Ricardo is lying. Ricardo quickly grabs papers with a roughly drawn map of North America from the table before Elena can see the papers more clearly. Ricardo says that Mike is going to spend Christmas with them. Carlos leaves, but Mike stays and drinks rum and cokes. He tells them that he’s learned how to talk with people in the U.S. through a ham radio for free.

Mike spends Christmas with Elena and Ricardo. Ricardo says Mike is like a brother to him. At night, they drink before smoking weed that Mike supplies and then talk about politics. On the first day of 1970, Ricardo tells Elena that he’s found a job. He’s going to fly some TVs from San Andrés and then stay over in the “destination.” After that, Ricardo gets more and more jobs. He flies out of Bogotá for the jobs, so he and Elena begin to see each other less. Ricardo then decides to go back to the flying club so he can work toward earning a commercial pilot’s license. One day in June, Ricardo drives into La Dorada late at night in a white jeep. Elena asks whose car it is and where Antonio got it from. Antonio says it’s a gift for Elena and doesn’t explain where it came from.

Ricardo tells Elena that things are going well with his work. He then says he wants to have a child. Elena says he’s crazy, and she’ll have to finish her volunteer service first. Plus, they would need to live in a different house. Ricardo says they can get a different house. When Elena asks where the money would come from, Ricardo explains the business deals he’s been doing with Mike. He tells her that Nixon closed the Mexican border the year before to try and stop an influx of weed. With that route closed, distributors needed to find other ways to get weed from Colombia to the U.S. That’s where Mike came in. He met distributors and also had connections to campesinos (rural farmers) in Colombia and people in the U.S.

Mike taught campesinos how to grow cannabis plants. He now has contacts with 10-15 hectares’ worth of weed, and each harvest nets about 400 kilos. The campesinos earn more than they ever had in their lives. They put weed in plastic bags, and then Ricardo takes the plastic bags to different destinations in his plane. They make $60,000-$70,000 for every trip they take. Ricardo tells Elena that he’s become indispensable to the operation. He knows where the airstrips are and where he can land. He was in the right place at the right time and lucked out by getting the jobs. Ricardo says he’s really good at flying and avoiding radar detection. What’s more, there’s an adrenaline rush that comes along with the risk, and flying at night is beautiful.    

At the end of September, Elena goes to a departmental Peace Corps meeting. She feels sick and vomits on the tile floor. She knows that she’s pregnant and calls Ricardo. Elena keeps working for a few months until the pregnancy makes it more and more difficult. Ricardo only makes one trip during the pregnancy. The trip seems to have paid especially well. Otherwise, he devotes himself to taking care of Elena. One day, Elena visits a local official to try to get a polio vaccine campaign underway. They don’t seem to make any progress, and Elena walks out of the house dejected. Before they leave, Ricardo goes back to talk to the man. Four days later, the vaccine campaign is approved. Elena suspects that Ricardo offered the man money to give to other officials to ensure the campaign would be approved, but she doesn’t confront Ricardo to confirm her suspicions.  

Elena works until she is about 30 weeks pregnant. Maya is born in Bogotá in July of 1971, which is about when Nixon uses the phrase “war on drugs” for the first time in a public speech. Ricardo has to go on another trip soon after Maya is born. Elena stays with Maya at the Laverde house when he goes. She tells Ricardo that she wants to go with him on one of the trips to assure herself that his work isn’t dangerous. She asks Ricardo what would happen if he were caught. Ricardo says that won’t happen and that weed will be legalized at some point. He then describes his trips, saying that he stops in Nassau on his way to the U.S. and then exchanges the weed for dollars in Miami before making the return trip.

Ricardo comes back four days later, and he, Elena, and Maya go in the jeep back to La Dorada. On the drive, Ricardo turns off the main road and passes the normal entrance to town. Elena asks where he’s going, and Ricardo doesn’t answer. Ricardo stops the car and shows Elena six hectares of land and tells her that it’s their house; they just need to build it now. Maya starts to cry. The construction of the house takes longer than expected. They build a swimming pool and a stable for two horses. In 1973, just before the DEA is established, Ricardo hangs a sign out front that says Villa Elena. Ricardo installs a heavy door with a bolt to ensure that his family will be protected when he’s gone. The next three years are the happiest years of Elena’s life in Colombia.

When Elena feels comfortable leaving Maya with other people, she gets back in touch with the Peace Corps office in Bogotá. The deputy director says he’ll have to touch base with officials in Washington, D.C. to ensure that it’s okay that Elena returns to Peace Corps service. In the meantime, Elena starts working again with Acción Comunal. Ricardo brings home an armadillo from one of his trips as a pet for Maya. Unprompted, Maya names the armadillo Mike. Through that, Elena learns that Mike Barbieri visited the house three weeks before. When Elena asks Ricardo about it, Ricardo says he forgot to tell her. 

In April of 1976, heavy rains cause landslides and floods. Ricardo goes on a trip and doesn’t return on the day he’s supposed to, which has happened before, so Elena isn’t too worried. The night after Ricardo was supposed to come back, Elena hears a shout while she’s reading The Little Prince to Maya. Elena goes out to check who shouted and sees Mike, who has arrived on a motorcycle and is soaking wet. Maya gets up and asks what “Uncle Mike” is doing there. Mike says he’s come to see Ricardo, but maybe he got the dates mixed up. Elena asks if Ricardo knew Mike was coming, and Mike doesn’t answer. Elena can’t figure out why Mike is there. She gets him a dry shirt, and before long, Mike starts playing Bob Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel songs on guitar.

While Mike is singing “America” by Simon and Garfunkel, the dogs outside start barking. Elena tells Mike not to worry because nothing eventful happens at the house. Mike goes to his backpack, though, and takes out a silver pistol. He walks outside and fires two shots into the air. He says if there was nothing there, then now there’s even less. When Elena wakes up the next morning, Mike is gone. After Mike leaves, Elena feels profound hatred toward him, as she begins to piece together the fact that Mike had known the whole time he was at her house that Ricardo wouldn’t be coming back.

Mike approached Ricardo before his last trip and told him that the money they made from weed was pocket change when compared to what they could be making from a new kind of coca paste that people in the U.S. were paying exorbitant amounts of money for. Mike said that a single trip could earn them $30 million, and Ricardo, as the pilot, could keep $2 million. Ricardo told Mike that after that run, he would retire, a millionaire before he was 30.

Mike brought Ricardo to Medellín, where they met two men on the Colombian side of the deal. When Ricardo landed in the U.S., DEA agents were waiting for him. Mike couldn’t explain how the agents knew where Ricardo would be. Ricardo ran from the plane. With no desire to hurt anyone, he fired a single shot over his shoulder and hit the hand of one of the agents, which would end up significantly increasing his prison sentence. Another agent then caught up to Ricardo in the woods, where Ricardo had broken his ankle.