Twilight At The Equator: A Novel

TWlll~HT

AT THE EQVATOR

Books by Jaime Manrique

FICTION

El cadáver de papá Columbian Gold Latin Moon in Manhattan Twilight at the Equator POETRY

Los adoradores de la luna Scarecrow (chapbook) My Night with Federico García Lorca Tarzan, My Body, Christopher Columbus CRITICISM

Notas de cine: Confesiones de un crítico amateur MEMOIR

Eminent Maricones: Arenas, Lorca, Puig, and Me

The University of Wisconsin Press

The University of Wisconsin Press 1930 Monroe Street Madison, Wisconsin 53711 www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/ 3 Henrietta Street London WC2E 8LU, England Copyright © 2003 Jaime Manrique All rights reserved 5

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Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Manrique Ardila, Jaime, 1949– Twilight at the equator : a novel / Jaime Manrique p. cm. ISBN 0-299-18774-8 (paper) 1. College teachers—Fiction. 2. Columbian Americans—Fiction. 3. Americans—Columbia—Fiction. 4. Suicide victims—Fiction. 5. Columbia—Fiction. 6. Gay men—Fiction. I. Title. PS3563.A573 T85 2003 813
.54—dc21 2002075663 This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, places, dialogues, and speeches are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. The author's use of names of actual persons, living or dead, is incidental to the purposes of the plot and is not intended to change the entirely fictional character of the work.

For my grandmother, Serafina ArdiZa, to whom I owe Twilight at the Equator

CONTENTS Acknowledgments IX

1 To Love in Madrid 3

2 Papa's Corpse 39

3 The Documentary Artist 93

4 Twilight at the Equator 1°7

5 The Day Carmen Maura Kissed Me 191

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