The Days of the Rainbow

by Antonio Skarmeta

  “And what are you reading?”

  “Macbeth.”

  “Have you memorized any part of it?”

  “I have.”

  “Let me see.”

  Instead of standing up to recite, the young man lies down on a blue mat and, with his chin resting on his left hand, lets Macbeth’s speech flow:

  Blood hath been shed ere now, i’ the olden time,

  Ere humane statute purged the gentle weal.

  Ay, and since too, murders have been perform’d

  Too terrible for the ear.

  The times have been,

  That, when the brains were out, the man would die,

  And there an end.

  But now they rise again,

  With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,

  And push us from our stools.

  This is more strange

  Than such a murder is.

  “I’m confident that Professor Paredes will give me a B now,” Nico Santos says, trying to hide a yawn. “What are you thinking about, Don Adrián?”

  Bettini rubs his eyes and strongly presses the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “About reality. Where’s reality, Nico? In Shakespeare, or in all those fools there on the set?”

  Nico Santos stands up, looking at the other side of the studio, where he sees a group of girls in leotards, carrying a rainbow made of papier-mâché.

  LAST NIGHT we went to a Prisioneros concert. Well, it was not exactly a concert. It was a “toccata.” When a rock band plays, they call it “toccata.” Except that the one last night was “toccata and fugue,”* because as soon as we left the premises in Matucana, we saw several vans parked at the door and the cops waiting for us.

  At the beginning they were not taking anyone, but this fool shouted at the cops, “Fuck you and your horse!” So the cops took out their clubs and started to hit us on the head. We had to run. The owners of the nearby bars, as soon as they saw the cops coming, closed the metal gates, and it was impossible for us to find a place to hide.

  Los Prisioneros’ lyrics are “daring.” But the country is not as daring as their lyrics. That’s what’s cool about rock. It’s as if the songs were more alive than the people. It’s as if the drums and the guitars electrified our veins. It makes you want to leave the toccata and go throw stones at La Moneda. But the truth is that the following day we’re all walking with our heads hanging down, sleepy, trying to read the history chapter in the last minutes before the quiz.

  And the teachers teach their classes apathetically, looking at their watches every few minutes, to see how long they have before the bell rings. They’re so poorly paid! In Chile, teachers are despised. Tell me about it—my dad is a teacher.

  My favorite song by Los Prisioneros is

  The world needs Latin blood,

  red furious and young.

  Good-bye barriers! Good-bye seventies!

  Here comes the strength the voice of the eighties.

  Patricia Bettini listens to her old man’s records, like the Beatles and that stuff. She also knows some of Joan Baez’s and Bob Dylan’s songs. She says that it’s one thing to sing that the strength of the eighties is coming, and another for it to actually ever come. She doesn’t think that rock can overthrow Pinochet. However, her national anthem is John Lennon’s “Imagine,” the most pacifist song of all. She thinks that there’s no way to get rid of Pinochet, so once she finishes high school, she’s leaving for Florence.

  I shake when I think about it. Italians are so handsome, they dress like princes, get million-dollar haircuts, and play soccer like gods. As for myself, she says that if I love her, I better start learning Italian.

  It sounds similar to Spanish, but that can be pretty deceiving. She gave me a couple of books, and I underline whatever I understand and like. For example, that cool quotation from Dante: “Libertà va cercando, ch’è sì cara, come sa chi per lei vita rifiuta” (He is looking for that freedom so cherished, that for which he even despises life).

  Professor Santos would wash out my mouth with soap if he heard me saying something like that. He’s the only one who can be a hero in this house. He doesn’t want me to be involved in anything. The other day I learned by heart some verses from a song with which I left Patricia Bettini stoned a few days ago, “Tu sei per me la più bella del mondo” (To me you are the most beautiful girl in the world).

  After school, she was waiting for me. As soon as she saw me, she asked me to hug her, as tightly as I could, and said that she wanted to die. I dropped my backpack and squeezed her behind the hot dog stand, because everybody was looking at us. She couldn’t stop trembling and her cheeks were burning. I took her to the Indianápolis’s ladies’ room and I splashed cold water on her face.

  She had come running from school.

  When she arrived that morning, a helicopter was hovering over Apoquindo, and before going to class, she saw a couple of cars without license plates parked near the corner.

  It’s not strange that she had considered that to be strange, because in Chile we learn to pay attention to things like these, even if we don’t realize it.

  Just as she’s entering the building, she bumps into Professor Paredes. But as she’s greeting him with a kiss, as she always does, three cops come storming out of a car, grab him, drag him, and throw him into the car. The school principal starts fighting with the guys, but they hit him, throw him on the ground, abduct Professor Paredes, and flee with him in the car.

  Since then, she hasn’t stopped trembling.

  The police came and she told them everything she had seen, about the car without license plates, while the principal is bleeding on the ground. Soon after that, the Italian consul arrived in an official car. Quickly, he got out of the car and told all the students to go into the school building.

  Dante.

  Freedom.

  I don’t know how, but while I’m hugging her so that she stops trembling, I start trembling, too.

  * Fuga in Spanish is a musical form, but it also means “flight” or “escape.”

  SCREENING NO. 1.

  Bettini talked the Argentine ambassador into inviting the leaders of the Chilean opposition to attend an homage to the great film director Armando Bo and his favorite actress, Isabel Sarli. A limited number of invitations were sent for the screening of Flesh, which would be followed by a tasting of pinot noirs from Mendoza and the launching of a new cabernet sauvignon produced by a Chilean entrepreneur with vineyards in Pirque, whom bankers affectionately called Vial the Democrat.

  Bettini wanted the political leaders of the coalition against Pinochet to be there in order to sanctify, once and for all, the TV spot that had caused him so much distress. The attendance of these skillful leaders would give the meeting a businesslike atmosphere, which would be very helpful, since the film to be shown would actually be the first images of the No campaign, not the erotic story starring Sarli—that innocent creature who wonders in the film what is it in her that awakens the lust and savagery of men.

  The ambassador, instead of saying “È arrivato Zampanò,” as Giulietta Masina introduced Anthony Quinn in La Strada, greeted his guests with a conspiratorial “È arrivato il No.”

  Olwyn didn’t want to go to the premiere of the No campaign because he knew he was being watched, and he was trying to move around without being noticed. Going to the embassy ran the risk of revealing the mysteries of the No campaign to his rivals. The leaders of the parties didn’t go either—only second-rank representatives attended.

  Olwyn’s absence could lead to disaster for Bettini. If the man who had asked for “joy” didn’t show up, how would he explain to all those brave and long-suffering leftist activists who were ready to test him, for example, Little Kinky Flower’s “Waltz of the No”?

  Would they understand the strategy of diluting the hemlock with syrup?

  He’d rather watch the first fifteen minutes of the campaign with them, just in case he had missed any details. He wanted to make sure that there
were no silly images out of context that would jeopardize the broadcasting of the TV ad.

  It was necessary to be careful. To denounce without provoking. And even to praise Pinochet, if it were necessary, for the courage of wanting to look like a democratic ruler in the eyes of the entire world. He was going to react right away, even before the censors, to anything that could be perceived as impertinence, so that his reputation remained unharmed.

  That’s why he had suggested that the ambassador invite Olwyn to watch the movie. Impeccable, he thought.

  The minister of the interior’s spies would report that Olwyn had gone to a cultural event at the embassy of the kindred country. He never expected the diplomat to really have a copy of Flesh.

  “You’re a perfectionist, Ambassador. I’m sure that when you attend a baptism you demand to see a baby, and if you attend a funeral, you get angry if there isn’t a corpse around.”

  Bettini himself had provided Olwyn’s stern emissaries with the most comfortable armchairs in an improvised first row. The ambassador lit Dutch Tiparillo cigars for them, Patricia brought some footrests so that they could stretch their legs, and Raúl Alarcón, aka Little Kinky Flower, bowed emphatically as he walked by them.

  Che Barrios connected the speakers and then Bettini held out his hand, indicating that the young man should sit next to him. He wanted to have the privilege of watching his own work with the young and improvised technician sitting nearby, just in case it became necessary to interrupt the showing.

  The ambassador offered some introductory words before the film. He said he was expecting to be pleasantly surprised by such an illustrious group of artists. He had to tell the distinguished friends in the audience that the minister of the interior had called him on Monday to assure him that all diplomats accredited in Chile could be certain—and to let their respective countries know—that whatever the outcome of the plebiscite, he would recommend that General Pinochet respect the people’s verdict.

  “That being said,” the ambassador continued, apologizing in advance for the vulgar remark he would quote literally, and showing a smile with perfect teeth, “he also said to me, ‘When you lose, you have to recognize that you’re in the shit.’ ”

  The ambassador to the neighboring country ended his remarks to this “ecumenical” event—smiling once again at finding such a felicitous adjective—where the leaders of the opposition parties would watch Isabel Sarli’s fifteen-minute ad campaign, which would be broadcast in a few days, in the presence of their own creators.

  “Although the Constitution of 1980 requires Pinochet to call this plebiscite, it’s also true that the military forces have the power to put any constitution you know where when they feel like it. So let’s not see things so black and white all the time, you know? The general keeps his promises, you know?”

  He pointed at Bettini with his cigar and kept it in that position as he went on with his speech.

  “To tell the truth, I’m afraid we’ll now see something terrific, because we all know the résumé of this talented ad agent. A man who’s ‘a bit bitter, like life,’ a man who was asked, not long ago, by the minister of the interior himself to lead the advertising campaign for the Yes. He, who defines himself as a David among Goliaths, has chosen, in spite of the many risks involved, to be the president’s adversary. That’s his legitimate right. I can’t wait to see what he has invented to overthrow the general from the Chileans’ heart.”

  The ambassador held the video of Flesh in one hand and the tape of the No in the other, and, leaning over to the delegates of the political parties, asked if he could dispense with Isabel Sarli in spite of “the two powerful reasons she’d have to occupy the screen.”

  They all laughed willingly, and Héctor Barrios, the young Chilean student recently repatriated from Argentina, pressed the Play button. The ambassador dimmed the lights, and the fifteen-minute campaign for the No began.

  SCREENING NO. 2.

  The young Nico Santos couldn’t attend the private premiere of the No campaign. It was opening night of The Cave of Salamanca at his school’s auditorium.

  The first row was reserved for special guests—the principal and the military official in charge of the school, Lieutenant Bruna, who encouraged cultural activities as an antidote against the political protest the students were so inclined to.

  Dressed for his role as the sybaritic, lecherous sacristan, Nico stepped out from behind the curtain. With a ballet-style bow, he acknowledged the applause and cheers of his friends in the audience and, asking for time out, the way basketball coaches do, he cleared his throat. He knew that he was about to violate the pact he had with his father about not getting into trouble. He missed his dad a lot, but at least he had the consolation that his father would never know about the blunder he was about to make. If Professor Santos were in the audience, he would surely intuit what Nico was about to say, and he would place his finger to his lips, urging his son to keep silent.

  “You must be wondering, respectable audience, what I’m doing here dressed as a sacristan …”

  “Yes!” the students roared.

  “I’m a character from Cervantes’s play The Cave of Salamanca.”

  “Bad cave, bad luck,”* a funny one shouted from the last row.

  The burst of laughter filled the auditorium. And Nico, in an accommodating mood, decided to join the racket without losing sight of his goal.

  “I hope you have fun with this little piece by Cervantes. You know Cervantes, right?”

  Lieutenant Bruna nodded, satisfied. “Don Quixote” the official said loudly.

  “The author of Don Quixote of La Mancha,” confirmed Nico, crediting the lieutenant with a smile for his precise info. “This is a brief piece that I hope you like. We had scheduled its premiere for next week, but considering the distressing circumstances surrounding Professor Paredes, the director of this play, we have decided to bring the premiere forward as a way to call the attention of all of you, comrades and school authorities, to the abduction of Professor Paredes, who, as of today, is a”—Nico swallowed— “ ‘missing detainee.’ ”

  All the teachers who had escorted the principal and the lieutenant to the honor row simultaneously lost their smiles. The expression “missing detainee” was taboo. The most you could say was “missing,” and you had to immediately add, as in the news, “in unknown circumstances.”

  Nico Santos had just lighted a bomb fuse. All the students looked toward the exit door, wishing they were somewhere else.

  The principal snapped his fingers and made a signal to Nico to raise the curtain.

  “Let the show begin,” he said as cheerfully as he could.

  But Nico Santos stayed restless on the proscenium, possessed by a sudden recklessness that clouded his brain and loosened his tongue.

  “I’m especially addressing you, Lieutenant Bruna, to ask you to make the most of your high rank and influence on the military forces, and to act accordingly, so that we can have our dear English teacher and director of this play back with us.”

  Bruna nodded with a crisp movement of his chin. “We’ll do all we can.”

  For ten seconds, Santos and the lieutenant looked at each other amid the overwhelming silence that filled the room. Until the beautiful teenager from High School 1 for girls, who played the role of the wife, dressed in such a way that the lubricous young audience wouldn’t miss the volume of her breasts, broke onto the stage caressing her husband, while crying false tears whose hypocrisy she underscored by pointing at them with a finger as they flowed down her cheek.

  As soon as her husband, and future cuckold, comes onto the stage, she makes the obscene gesture with her finger upward and shouts, “Go down, lightning, to the house of that whore, Ana Díaz. May you go and never come back, like smoke.”

  From offstage, Nico Santos watches Lieutenant Bruna, in the first row, with his right leg crossed over his left leg, impatiently jiggling his right foot. Nico Santos lifts up the skirt of his purple sacristan gown to
wipe the sweat off his forehead.

  * “Mala cueva” (literally bad cave) means bad luck in Chilean slang.

  BETTINI’S FAVORITE LINE was by Camus: “Everything I know about morality and the duty of man I owe to soccer.” Especially, he added, that the ball never comes where one expects it to.

  The bitter-faced man chosen by the parties’ delegates to be the spokesperson for all authorized the ambassador to put one more ice cube in his whiskey and then raised the glass to his lips.

  “I think Olwyn was wrong, Bettini. You’re not the best anymore. You used to be the best.”

  “Did you find the campaign that bad?”

  “As harmless as a mint tea. That supposedly ironic parade of commanders, with Strauss’s little waltz as background music, makes even the military look nice.”

  “Does it mean that you’re not going to approve it?”

  “A little waltz by Strauss! We don’t have any time to change anything. We’re screwed!”

  “ ‘A little waltz by Strauss,’ ” Bettini repeated while rubbing the glass of whiskey over his forehead to sooth the heat.

  “I was expecting Troy to burn—you attacking Pinochet with the issue of the missing detainees, human rights, torture, exile, layoffs … And you come up with a little joke here, a little joke there … Strauss’s little waltz! Tell me, Bettini—”

  “Mr.…?”

  “Cifuentes. When, exactly, did you lose your way?”

  “I really don’t know. I’ve been unemployed for so many years!”

  “Pinochet may win the plebiscite just because he has balls. Instead, you seem to have only songs.”

  The ad agent mumbled something so softly that Cifuentes had to lean forward to hear him.

  “What did you say, Bettini?”

  “Songs and broken collarbones.”

  “Don’t talk rubbish, man!”

  The ambassador hugged them both and walked them to the balcony. On Vicuña Mackenna Avenue, the traffic was moving very slowly.