Infinite Country

Given that all South American nations are typically perceived to be steeped in Catholicism, readers will not be surprised that several characters engage in church rituals such as the blessing of icons. Perla and to an extent Elena are invested in following these practices. Aguja, the teenager who provides a motorbike ride for Talia during her escape, stops along the way to light a candle at the basilica in his mother’s name. Observant Catholicism is a backdrop to the story.

Equally prevalent in this narrative, however, is Andean pre-colonial animistic religion, particularly as recounted by Mauro, who shares many of the creation stories and fables with Talia. These come back to her during her trip across the country, as when she wades in the Rio Bogotá one night and picks up a stone for good luck, taking comfort in the symbolism: “Her father once told her that river stones are good luck for journeys because waterways are peopled with spirits traveling between worlds, grazing those stones, leaving them as talismans for the living” (141).

A third religious strain is Colombian civil religion, which in English might be called “old wives’ tales.” Perla uses these morality fables to keep Elena and then Talia in line, in that most of the stories depict bad outcomes for those who misbehave. Typical of these is the story of the daughter who refused to let her hungry mother sample the food she was preparing because her husband was supposed to eat first; the cooking pot, when opened, revealed a deadly snake that ate everyone’s food. Similar folk tales, along with prescriptions of various spells, are passed among the characters in Colombia.

Finally, there is a fourth form of religion practiced, which by Engel’s description is clearly the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Engel describes the religious tenor of the group meetings, with various attendees speaking of demons and the devil. When Mauro first began to attend, “he felt like a corpse among corpses” (98). The stories told in the meetings of this religion are not of saints, sacred animals, or folk fables but instead the tales of the misspent lives of miserable men who, through the process—at least in Mauro’s case—begin to recover.

Virtually every character longs for something they don’t have. For the most part, this is not because they think it will make them happy, like the unfulfilled Americans Karina and Elena mock, but because pieces have been carved out of them and they long for the missing parts.

Perla longs for her absent husband. Elena longs for Mauro, Talia, and Colombia. Mauro longs to reunite his family. Karina longs to feel that she belongs somewhere, especially that she has a future. Nando longs to escape the pernicious bullying of white American boys. Talia yearns for her deceased grandmother. No member of this family is satisfied with the life they have. As a part of this sense of dissatisfaction is a shared sense of failure. At the end of the story, the family is reunited, and there is great satisfaction, harmony, and growth. Still, the specter of being torn apart again lingers over them.