ANKE OESTERREICH From BOGOTÁ, Colombia
She believes to have been lover barranquillera of Jorge Isaacs in another life, for that fervor that feels for him from their student time. She studied in the American School of Young ladies and remembers well that the literature teacher put them to read The Cuisse of the Stain of Cervantes, Aura or the Violets of Vargas Vila, José's Vortex Eustacio Rivera and naturally María of Jorge Isaacs.
From then on no longer it was the same one. The description that the writer makes of the red glows of the Valley of the Cauca, the religious knot among Jews and Catholic, the relationship of the masters white von the black slaves and Efraín's love for his dog May, they left it totally subdued. They reminded him their father's voyages and their happy days of childhood. To her, Anke Oesterreich, a German that was born in the airport of Berlin and it arrived, in 1949, to Barranquilla escaping from the havocs of the Second World War.
Already during the years thirty their father, single and with 22 years, The Grassland had lived in the neighborhood and had decided that Barranquilla was definitively the most beautiful region of how many had known. There learned how to eat egg round maize loaf, coastal cheese, serum and Catalan sausage that later Anke also savored.
Taken of their hand enthused seeing to the palenqueras pass with their lit dresses and of colors selling their ear buns, of angelito and of yucca. And contemplating the foreign ships that arrived and that before robbing in Port Colombia they threw bugle hoots and they floated on the waters with their sway of saurian made drowsy.
Of their father it inherited that pleasure that has for our things. Him that had confirmed adventurer's soul and that it had decanted for many countries of the world, thought that no place was so prendedizo and riotous as this port on the sea Caribbean. Finally made part of the recently founded SCADTA (Society German Colombo of Air transport), in the years thirty and then it could anchor that trip fever that had..
It was during one of their journeys in the Yunkers of the company when met with an anaconda that transformed into their mascot and when it rescued to a wounded tigrillo that then strolled relaxed for their house. She went this way as Anke learned how to manage snakes and fierecillas and like loved of having heard the wild lands and virgins of those that he spoke to him. Maybe for that reason, their curiosity for María's author. By Jorge Isaacs. A man that described the forest, the landscape and the exuberance of the Valley of the Cauca like few that had had a short life- died to the 58 years-and of a similar intensity to that of their father.
It began him to discover when their literature teacher spoke of the autobiographical character of the novel and to her she was given to dig in her author's life. She began to read and to clip all that there was on the writer. To look for with their daughter Tanya in the antique dealers and libraries. To continue him the rake and to travel the places in those that he had lived or state. Anke became Jorge's enthusiast Isaacs. It ended up this way being made to more than 100 editions of María of different countries (Colombian, Peruvians, Venezuelans, Panamanian, Chilean, Argentinean, Mexicans, etc.) and to gather many writings and analysis about their life.
Could you interrogate then on these incognito ones that maraud their personality Isaacs Studied, finally, in the doctor's School sacred Spirit Lorenzo María Lleras in Bogotá, as some authors mentions it and other not? What exact place of the call state of the cauca was the one that saw it be born? And regretted the potholes insalvables in their collection of albums of pictures, documents and movies. What she would not give to have María's tape carried out by Bald Maximum in 1920 of the one now that, apparently, they are not but 23 seconds. or to be made to the Mexican version of 1971 interpreted by Taryn Power and fernando Allende, when it only possesses the one carried out in the '91 for RCN con Victoria Eugenia Góngora and Luis fernando Holes like main characters…
The holes compensate them with the moments of happiness and discovery that has had. What more than to look with their own eyes the genius of sugar Manuelita, in the Valley of the Cauca, a country property that was property of the family Isaacs in another time. Or to visit The Rita's house, the place where the writer spent some years of his childhood. Or to know Santa Helena's town and to travel the cemetery where-it counts the legend-Esther's remains rest Isaacs. Or to step the country property The Paradise-call the house of the mountain in the novel-the niche where the love was developed between Efraín and María and that she has classified room for room.
And to all that, sink another happiness more: the one of making well-known recently to María and Stella Isaacs, the writer's great-grandchildren and their bigger son's granddaughters, Lisímaco who facilitated him copies of many writings and documents.
However, she sighs and thinks: The reincarnation should exist. “Ah, to know so many characters that wanted to know”, says. To know more than that fascinating man that was novelist, poet, discoverer of carboniferous locations in the Magdalena, studious of the aboriginal languages, general Consul from Colombia in Chile, educator, military, browser, journalist and political. And mainly, an in love with their country. Of their legends, their customs and their people.
As her. A German from birth with pure heart of Colombian.
(The Spectator's Magazine, Sun, 28 of Julio 2002 - No. 106)
