The Days of the Rainbow

by Antonio Skarmeta

  Sometimes, after the Scuola Italiana, Laura and Patricia go to the movies. They’re so different! My beloved Bettini wants to go to Italy to visit the museums in Florence and to get to know Fellini in person. Amarcord drives her out of her mind. Instead, Laura … Laura wants to be on the cover of Vanidades or Fotogramas someday.

  She’d like to play the role of femme fatale in a soap opera. But the funny thing is that she’s as nice as they come. If she were rich she would be sharing everything with her friends.

  She’s the superfriend. But with her body, everyone wants to hook up with her.

  Those dudes don’t want to be just friends with her. That’s why she came to me. Because she knows I’m neutralized by my love for Patricia Bettini. She knows I’m not going to cheat with her best friend.

  I finally agreed to let her use my apartment so she could change. I didn’t ask her anything else. I’m fucked-up enough. I don’t need to start fucking up others.

  And now she becomes very mysterious and tells me she wants to see me. She tells me she appreciates it but she doesn’t need the apartment anymore. She wants to give me back the keys. She has her own place now, in Mosqueto, near the Palace of Fine Arts. “Come with Patricia one of these days. She likes paintings.” Her parents shouldn’t find out. Patricia Bettini better keep quiet. If she says something at school, and Laura’s parents find out, they will kill her, literally. Anyway, by December, she’ll have to tell them the truth. She hasn’t been to school for a month.

  I ring the doorbell. Apartment 3A. Third floor. Tiny elevator. Modern building. Only two people fit in it. Schindler. Weight should not exceed 300 pounds.

  If …

  I don’t even want to think about it.

  Hmm … If the cops are looking for me because of the speech I gave at the cemetery, I could hide in Laura Yáñez’s apartment.

  For reciprocity’s sake.

  Would she agree?

  Anyway. Nothing’s going to happen.

  I read Uncle Bill’s entire speech in English.

  English. My only B. My best grade.

  Because I like rock music and Don Rafael liked me. He liked that I was in the drama club. They killed him. Just like that. Lieutenant Bruna did everything he could.

  What in hell, then, is “to do everything I can”?

  I bring the last issue of Caras in my backpack. It’s the kind of magazine that Laura likes. Shiny, with tons of ads, a lot of social life, and full-color fashion pages.

  “You came, dude!” she says, kissing me on the left cheek and pulling me in.

  “Why so much mystery?”

  “I’ll tell you right away. How’s Patricia doing?”

  I say, “Fine. Patricia’s fine.”

  Although in fact I don’t know how she’s doing. I haven’t asked her. Her Professor Paredes was killed, and her father has had a crushing success with his campaign for the No. She must be feeling terribly bad, and probably also good. Everybody’s talking about the campaign for the No. Calls of congratulation until three in the morning. We heated up the pasta puttanesca and opened another bottle of red wine. Don Adrián gave me money for a cab. The subway wasn’t running that late.

  “And you?”

  “I don’t know, dude. But I called you because love is repaid with love.”

  “Where did you get that?”

  “I don’t know. My grandma used to say that.”

  “What’s the matter? Here. I brought you the latest issue of Caras.”

  “Wow! With Michelle Pfeiffer on the cover! A superwoman. Isn’t she?”

  “She’s pretty.”

  “Your type, right?”

  “I don’t know, Laura. I’ve just become eighteen. I don’t know what my type is. And I don’t understand a thing.”

  “But since Patricia Bettini …”

  “What? What about her?”

  “Since she’s so …”

  “So what?”

  “Elegant. On the other hand, me …”

  “You’re different, Laura. No one is better than the other. You’re just very different.”

  “Do you like me?”

  “I think you’re gorgeous.”

  “I have Coke, Bilz, Pap, and beer. Escudo beer only.”

  “Coke.”

  “With ice?”

  “Three cubes.”

  She goes to the kitchen and brings a Coke, family size. She had prepared a small plate with cubes of cheese and green olives. It’s noon, but it looks like an evening cocktail.

  “Sit down or you’ll fall dead tired.”

  “So, tell me,” I say, while obeying her.

  She makes herself comfortable on the edge of a wicker sofa with brown cushions. Very ladylike, she brings her knees together, not to expose her thighs, matte and smooth.

  “It’s about your father, Nico.”

  Aha. That’s why she wanted me to come. No phone calls. I don’t want to know about it. I want to die in advance. To die right away.

  “Do you know anything?”

  Laura looks at the walls of her living room and at the door leading to the bedroom, and then at the one leading to the small balcony. There’s a reproduction of a painting of dancers, by Degas, and a huge photo of Travolta in a white satin suit, very tight, and an unbuttoned vest.

  “Nico … I know how to get to him.”

  “Is he alive? Professor Paredes was …”

  “I know.”

  Something holds her back. She wants and doesn’t want to tell me. Why did she make me come?

  “Please.”

  She shakes her shiny mop of hair, jet black and curly, and stares at me, steadily, in the eyes.

  “What I’m going to tell you speaks badly of me. But I’m only going to tell you, because you gave me a hand.”

  “Okay. Tell me.”

  “I find you pretty childish, but I’ve always liked you. I’ll do it for you. And for Professor Paredes. He gave me a D. For the first stanza of Poe’s ‘Annabel Lee.’ Do you remember? ‘Your little D,’ he said to me.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  She rubs her nose and sniffles as if she had a cold.

  “A guy got this apartment for me. D’ya get it?”

  “Yep.”

  “A married guy.”

  “Okay.”

  “An agent.”

  “From the CNI, the intelligence agency?”

  “You’re not that childish … Why? Are ya’ gonna lecture me now?”

  I don’t know. I don’t know what to do or say. I wasn’t expecting this. I drink half the glass of Coke. I have a piece of ice in my mouth and I move it with my tongue from one side to the other.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “I believe that, through him, we can get to your dad.”

  “Why?”

  “I just know it, Nico.”

  I’d like to be an adult. To understand more about life. To have read more books. To know the psychology of people.

  “What do I have to do?”

  Laura leans toward me and takes my hands. She then takes them to her mouth. She doesn’t kiss them. She just touches my fingers with her lips.

  “D’ya have any money?”

  I look at her. I look at her with all my soul poured into my awe.

  “Where from, Laura? I haven’t even picked up my dad’s check from September. I’m terrified that they’ll take me.”

  “D’ya know where to get a few bucks? Sell something?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. A car.”

  “We don’t have a car. We walk. Or take the subway.”

  “A TV set.”

  “Everybody has a TV. What are they going to give me for a TV?”

  Laura separates my fingers and kisses them, one by one. Then she blinks three or four times. She doesn’t look at me.

  “I understand, Nico. I do.”

  She goes to a wood cabinet and takes out a bottle of Bacardi white rum. She pours some in my glass and a little bit in he
r own glass.

  “Then I don’t have any option, except to see how much this fucking cop loves me.”

  RAÚL ALARCÓN, Little Kinky Flower, called Adrián Bettini to thank him, enthusiastically, for having included him in the campaign. “I’m the most popular man in Chile,” he said. “People kiss me in the streets. A taxi driver didn’t want to charge me for the ride—‘If you’re brave enough to confront Pinochet, why not me? I’m going to vote No. And I’m going to convince everyone who takes my taxi that they should vote No. Great, Don Flower. Really great!’

  “Thank you, Don Adrián.”

  “There’s nothing to thank me for,” Bettini said, looking through the window at a gray car without license plates parked across the street from his house. The driver lowered the window, and his companion—whose face he wasn’t able to see—lit a cigarette for him. The driver half opened the door and activated the mechanism to push his seat back. He made himself comfortable and blew a puff of smoke through the window.

  “Nothing to thank me for, Mr. Alarcón. I’m the one who should thank you.”

  “Me? But I’m nothing. A poor little kinky flower.”

  “People think that you’re a hero. A great future is waiting for you, my friend.”

  The companion of the man in the gray car got out, crossed the street, walked to Bettini’s door, and looked at the number. Then he compared it with the one written in his notebook and gave the driver a thumbs-up, signaling that it was okay.

  “A great future, my friend,” Bettini repeated.

  He gestured Magdalena to go to the balcony and take a look at the car.

  He covered the mouthpiece of the phone and whispered to her, “Go and buy something at the grocery store and take a good look at the driver’s face.”

  “Don Adrián, do you think that we’re going to win the plebiscite?”

  “The plebiscite, sure,” Bettini said, blowing a kiss at his wife. “But I don’t know if they’ll accept the outcome.”

  “They have no option, Don Adrián. The foreign press is here, and the reporters told me that they’re going to stay until election day.”

  The driver’s companion was now looking at Magdalena, who was crossing the street on her way to the grocery store. He put his finger just below his eye, signaling the other to pay attention.

  “Tell me something, Mr. Alarcón …”

  “At your service, Don Adrián.”

  “By any chance, do you have a friend with a small house outside Santiago? In the countryside, or on the coast?”

  “Sure. Fernández, in Papudo. Why?”

  “Well, the weather is so nice and I’ve seen you looking a little pale. Why don’t you go to the beach for a few days, to sunbathe and rest?”

  There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Then Alarcón cleared his throat and asked, “Is there anything wrong, Mr. Bettini?”

  “No, nothing. Nothing.”

  “Excuse me for asking, but … are you afraid?”

  “No, my friend, no,” Bettini answered, while looking for the number of the Italian consul in his address book.

  “Because, as for me, I can say that …”

  “Shit scared?”

  “Well … not as much as shit shit-scared, but … close. I’m sorry, Don Adrián. I didn’t want to bother you. It was only to thank you … for having believed in me …”

  Bettini smiled bitterly. He didn’t tell him what he really had to tell him: “I didn’t believe in you. I doubted you all along. Until last night, I was sure that you were a complete fool.”

  “Bravo for your waltz, Little Flower.”

  “I did nothing, Don Adrián. Strauss is the great one.”

  “Take care. Is everything okay at your place?”

  “Everything’s perfect. You know … People love me.”

  “Much deserved.”

  Bettini hung up and called the Italian embassy at once.

  Little Kinky Flower hung up and looked again, worried, at the black car parked a little farther down the street, near the square.

  A FEW DAYS BEFORE the elections, sociologists published the results of their polls.

  Sixty-five percent of the undecided had now decided to vote No.

  This, added to the great majority that would vote No regardless, the poll numbers assured that the option against Pinochet would win the plebiscite.

  The team commanded by the minister of the interior didn’t show any reaction or flexibility in the face of the new wave of popularity that the No was riding. They appeared on numerous TV programs, benefiting from the government’s TV monopoly, and they never tried to address the undecided—only their own most fervent supporters.

  Pinochet continued to trust Minister Fernández and his advisers, who presented him only the polls that looked favorable. The No campaign was harmless, and sociologists, who were giving the victory to your enemies, my general, are a gang of laid-off delinquents.

  One of those laid-off delinquents had written, “The gods blind those whom they wish to destroy.”

  At Bettini’s house, everybody’s spirits had been lifted almost as much as in every Chilean province. In a country where the main entertainment was TV, the emergence of the No in the media lessened the loneliness that was haunting the lives of every person or family. The long-standing hopelessness was somewhat softened.

  For the first time, sociologists explained to Bettini, people were feeling that TV was talking to them instead of ignoring them. Those fifteen minutes were a big bang of stellar images that didn’t vanish immediately after the transmission. They kept on producing new constellations, new bursts of energy everywhere. The grave grimace had relaxed; the bitter expression on their faces had given way to smiles.

  Up to that moment, what wasn’t shown on the screen didn’t seem real. People felt that the fictitious, banal characters on the TV shows were more real than themselves. They had only silence. They didn’t have authorization to live, only to witness the lives of those unreal beings they watched every night.

  That brushstroke of democracy that Pinochet had allowed had broken the dam. The strategy that seemed a harmless little game had sparked the longing for a future and happiness. Slowly, Bettini was starting to believe it, too. But his success was becoming more and more dangerous. From American films, he had inherited a word that he used only when he was among trusted friends—fucking. Now he was able to talk about his fucking success with a half smile. The days before the elections he barely slept at all. There was an excess of adrenaline around him, which didn’t allow him a single moment of calm.

  There were rumors that the military, aware that the eventual outcome might not favor Pinochet, were going to send all this democratic comedy to hell and not announce the results of the plebiscite. Others said that they were going to fabricate acts of terrorism to have an excuse to suspend the elections.

  The parties favoring the No called on voters to choose No without hatred, violence, or fear.

  On October 5, Bettini arrived at his polling station, near Egaña Square, accompanied by Magdalena and Patricia. He stood in line under a cheerful sun, buying, every once in a while, a few small bottles of mineral water from the street vendors. As he was approaching his voting table, his heart began to pump faster. That apparent routine made him feel happy. He had imagined everything more solemn and complex. But it wasn’t. There he was. One among hundreds in his Ñuñoa. One among hundreds of thousands in Santiago. One among millions in Chile. Where might Little Kinky Flower be voting? Bettini was as thankful for his anonymity as the singer was happy with his popular acclaim.

  If the No won, he vowed he wouldn’t ask anything else from life. Maybe to rent a house on the beach, to take his favorite cassettes, his Greek history books. (Hmm! “The gods blind those whom they wish to destroy.”)

  If the No won …

  Actually, he couldn’t conceive a future beyond the No. It felt weird to think that this was only one step on the way to something bigger. This insignificance, hi
s rainbow, his handful of images, Alarcón’s waltz, deep down, they were … everything.

  The crowning moment of his life.

  Let others worry about the future. He—he raised a fist and kept it in the air when an acquaintance greeted him from the other side of the line—wanted only to enjoy the present. The eternity of this precise moment.

  We only need for the No to win.

  ————

  AT MIDNIGHT, he leaned out of the window just before the secretary of the interior made the results known. The commanders of the armed forces had gauged the country’s climate and it was too late for them to ignore or falsify the votes.

  “There are already so many people celebrating in the streets that it would be an atrocity to start shooting,” the minister of the interior reported to the palace.

  Undersecretary Cardemil announced that the No had won fifty-three percent of the votes.

  The journalists, swinging between ecstasy and disbelief, looked for the minister of the interior. But they didn’t find him.

  Finally, Pinochet consented to talk to them. Wearing civilian clothes and overbright makeup, he delivered his verdict before dozens of cameramen from the national and international press. “One day, the Jews also had a plebiscite. They had to choose between Christ and Barabbas. And they chose Barabbas.”

  And he left with a smile. “No more questions.”

  At Bettini’s house, the glasses of white and red wine were followed by a bottle of champagne, and the champagne and the phone calls were followed by a shift change at the gray car, which remained in the same place since the day it was first parked there.

  It was a constant and punctual presence. A massive stillness. Sometimes there was nobody in it. At times two men got in. Sometimes the same two men who were there the first day came back. Sometimes two different guys were there. They turned on the radio, listened to rock music, then shifted to cumbias, and one day they even played Mozart’s A Little Night Music very loud.