We could hear the yelling before we could even see the barn. There was a large crowd of colonists standing around the goat barn. Ernesto and I found a bench to stand on, from which we could see over the shoulders of the crowd. Tibor was leaning up against one of the walls, while a goat rubbed her head against his leg. I scanned the crowd, and found Claudio standing with a group of boys. His expression was vacant—like many of Uncle Peter’s torture victims.
“Make him crawl!” yelled one of the colonists.
The guard who was on duty pointed his gun at Tibor. “You heard the man,” he called out. “We want to see you on all fours, like the animal that you are.”
Tibor dutifully got down on all fours and crawled around the mucky barn floor.
“We want to see him drink the milk!” said another colonist.
I refrained from looking around to see who had spoken. It would do me no good.
The guard gestured at Tibor with his gun. “Do it.”
Tibor retrieved his tin cup and made his way over to one of the lactating goats. He reached out and grabbed ahold of her teat.
“The way animals do it,” said the guard, loudly. “With your mouth.”
Tibor looked up at the man with sudden murderous rage. Then he clamped his lips around the goat’s teat and suckled. It seemed then to be the most humiliating act that one human could demand of another.
The colonists’ reaction was deafening. There was jeering and shouting. Someone threw an apple into the barn, and it hit Tibor on the back. The vastness of any given person’s capacity for violence and hatred is a sad thing. I tried not to blame any of the colonists—they had been bombarded with fear and anger, and then prevented from retaliating against the man who was responsible for generating these emotions. Tibor’s presence gave the colonists an opportunity to expel some of these feelings, and they were doing so.
I looked over at Claudio. His fists were clenched, and his little chest was heaving. His eyes landed on mine, and he took a step towards me. I knew then there was going to be some trouble. The colonists were still yelling, and Claudio pushed his way through them, moving towards me desperately.
“I don’t want to be here,” he said.
I glanced around to see if anyone was paying attention to us. I put a hand on Claudio’s shoulder and quietly said, “Be patient—I’m working on it, son. What’s important for now, though, is for us to not be seen together.”
He screwed up his face. “I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE!” he screamed.
Those who were nearby turned to look at us. I needed to do something, fast. I put my hands on Claudio’s chest and pushed him hard enough so that he fell down.
“Get this nuisance away from me!” I said loudly.
At that moment, there was a yell from one of the colonists. Several of the goats were bleating fiercely, and one of them charged at the crowd. It crashed into the electrified fence, rattling it hard and letting out a painful squeal. The guard told the colonists to disperse—if there was any damage to the fence, everyone was going to be in trouble. Claudio had stood up, and I signaled with my hands for him to take it easy. “Easy does it,” I whispered. Two boys came by and pulled Claudio away—their group was leaving.
Ernesto and I left along with the rest of the colonists—we did not want to attract any attention to ourselves. The chickens were waiting for us impatiently, clucking and scratching at the ground and looking around.
“Okay, okay,” Ernesto said. “Everybody settle down.”
We armed ourselves with our worm sticks and headed out into the road in a cloud of dust and cackling.
“That boy back there,” Ernesto said.
I nodded, “That’s the one. And the goat man—he’s coming, too.”
Ernesto raised his eyebrows.
“And you?” I said.
Ernesto shook his head. “Oh, no,” he said. “I like my library and my storytelling and my scheduled meal times. If I were a younger man, I might take you up on your offer, but I’m too old to start a new life.”
We walked in silence for a bit.
“If you’re not a reporter,” Ernesto said, “then what exactly are you?”
“It was the 1970s,” I said, “and General Pinochet had just taken power. I was one of many university students who were unhappy with the direction the country was taking.”
I told him about the Faculty wine and cheese, where I’d stumbled into a discussion on Social Psychology and emerged with the kernel of an idea. This was followed by many late nights at the library paging through scientific journals. One of the papers that was referenced most widely turned out to have been written by a graduate student at my university. I tracked him down—he was completing his PhD in Sociology and teaching a couple of courses. Julio was less of an outraged idealist than I was, but he was interested in seeing his theories applied in a real-world context. We worked together to organize a series of Manipulations against the dictatorship. On one occasion, we obtained Pinochet’s direct phone number from a seduced secretary and impersonated several foreign heads of state, all of whom urged Pinochet to step down from power. Another time, we applied Julio’s theories of group dynamics to convert a peaceful protest into a violent one—we managed to tear down much of the fence around Pinochet’s home before the water cannons came. Our attempts were generally unsuccessful–but we learned invaluable lessons that guided future Manipulations.
“So you’ve got a plan,” he said.
“We leave on Sunday,” I said. “The day of the big play.”
“You’ve stolen a gun from a guard? A knife?”
“I have a rope,” I said. “And a hammer.”
Ernesto shook his head. “Nobody leaves the Colony—not unless Uncle Peter says so.”
“Then we’ll have to get him to say so,” I said.
The chickens clucked along contently.
“Do you know about the last time Uncle Peter lost at anything?” Ernesto said.
I shook my head.
“When he and my wife were kids,” Ernesto said, his voice dropping down to a more ominous tenor, “they liked to race each other. Angela was slightly faster than him and won every race by a small margin. One morning, Uncle Peter woke up and decided that he would go over to Angela’s that day after school and that he would finally outrun her. He ate a large breakfast and tied his shoes as tight as he possibly could, in hopes that this would give him an extra advantage. All day at school, he was bursting with energy, sitting on the edge of his seat and jittering his legs, and, when the bell finally rang, he and Angela hurried home to her house. They lined up at the fallen rake that served as a starting and finishing line, and counted down from three. They raced around the cornfield, once, and Angela beat him handily. ‘Again,’ Uncle Peter said, and again Angela reached the rake before he did. They raced five or six more times, and, each time, Uncle Peter lost. Finally, he collapsed in a fit of exhaustion and frustration.
“Angela walked him back to his house, and his mother poked her head out and invited them in for a snack. ‘Take your shoes off,’ his mother said, and Angela slipped off her shoes and padded into the kitchen. ‘There’s cookies!’ she called to Uncle Peter, happily. Uncle Peter was sitting on the ground at that moment, discovering that he could not untie his shoelaces because he had tied them too tightly. With a mouthful of crumbs, Angela came to see what was the matter, and she offered to give it a try. Uncle Peter batted her hands away and told her to go into the kitchen and grab him a fork. Angela obliged, and, when she returned, Uncle Peter snatched the fork from her and began digging it into the knotted laces and pulling on it as hard as he could. He tried and tried, and, then, all of a sudden, the fork slipped out, and he jammed it with all his force right into his eye.”
I instinctively raised a hand to cover my eyes.
“Angela says he pulled it out instantly, and it came out with the eyeball on it—but she was just a child at the time.”
There was not much to say after that, so we continued our walk
in silence. I thought about Uncle Peter’s savage competitiveness—the nuns, now this—and it seemed like something I would very likely be able to use against him.
There was much to do before Sunday rolled around. When we returned to the library, I went into the Library Staff Only room to work on the play. The lunch bell rang, and Ernesto and I made our way over to the dining hall. The blackboard was full of names, and I asked Uncle Peter if I could make an announcement before he began.
“The play will be this coming Sunday!” I said. “We will be having a rehearsal tomorrow night and a dress rehearsal on Saturday night.”
There was a clatter of protest from the set and costume volunteers. They approached me when lunch was over, clamoring for more time. I apologized for the short deadline and told them that the colonists would enjoy the play regardless and that this was about the children, after all. One of the costume designers shook her head at me. “Without a good costume, you have nothing!”
I didn’t use costumes much for my Manipulations—last time I did was in the early years of General Pinochet’s dictatorship. It began like most of them did: with a woman walking into my office.
FORTY-TWO
She was the mistress of a recently exiled man—let’s call him Señor Reyes—who happened to be a very famous leftist writer. General Pinochet had assumed power not long before, and he had exiled Señor Reyes to Europe. Unbeknownst to anyone, Señor Reyes had made his way down to Argentina, and he was hoping to return to Chile to pick up some personal effects and spend some time with his mistress.
“I need this man,” said his mistress, easily shedding a flurry of tears onto my desk. “You don’t know what it’s like.”
I handed her a tissue and asked her some basic questions. I didn’t know anyone in Argentina, so I asked the mistress to have Señor Reyes take a bus to Mendoza—an Argentinian city just across the mountains from Santiago—and I would meet him there.
On the appointed day, I took a bus across the Andean pass (a six-hour drive in the pre-Pinochet era, which took almost eight hours due to lengthy interrogations at the border crossing). I met Señor Reyes at a bar that evening. I had no trouble recognizing his bulbous nose and chin-length hair. We ordered a drink and a large bowl of mussels to share.
“Remind me, which mistress was it that sent you?” he asked, without a trace of arrogance.
“How many are there?”
Señor Reyes wagged a finger at the barman, who came over to refresh our glasses. The writer reached for another mussel, and I understood that he would not be answering my question.
I had spent the last few days trying to obtain a false Chilean passport for Señor Reyes but had not had any luck.
“We’ll need to go to Buenos Aires,” I said, “to get you an Argentinian passport.”
“I’m not Argentinian,” Señor Reyes protested.
“I’m aware.”
We took a bus to Buenos Aires, where we wandered around the seedier parts of town asking questions that led us from one establishment to another. Eventually, we found a man—he told us his name was Ratón—who promised that, for a considerable fee, he could get us a passport in two days’ time.
Señor Reyes and I took a room at a cheap inn and spent the better part of the next two days drinking and walking around Buenos Aires. I found myself helplessly drawn to him—he possessed the charisma and bonhomie often lacking in the few writers I had met. I was not the only one to be charmed by him; each of the two nights we spent in Buenos Aires I slept alone in our shared room, while he returned in the mornings with unbounded energy and the desire to take a long, hot shower.
When I had given up hope on ever hearing from him again, Ratón called and told us where to pick up the passport. We followed his directions and ended up at what appeared to be a brothel.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” said an elderly woman, handing us each a glass of wine. It was not yet noon, and I couldn’t even look at the wine. Señor Reyes took a sip of the wine and kissed the elderly woman’s hand.
“Oh, dear,” she said. “Now, isn’t that lovely!”
She led us into a larger room, furnished with a small card table and several sprawling sofas. The room was filled with women of all types—large and small, tall and short, dark-skinned and light, brunette and not. The only commonality they shared was a tendency to be wearing only the most minimal clothing. Three of the women were seated around the table, thoroughly engaged in whatever card game they were playing.
“You deal with the passport,” Señor Reyes whispered, “I’m going to go play cards.”
The elderly woman took my arm and led me over to a young woman who was idly flipping through a magazine on the couch.
“This one seems like she would be to your liking, wouldn’t you say?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I haven’t been clear. We’re here because Ratón sent us to pick something up.”
“Ratón!” exclaimed the elderly woman. She pulled me away from the young woman and hurried me over to a small adjoining room.
“What is it that you’re here for?” she said briskly, taking a seat behind a large desk.
I explained that we were picking up a passport for my companion. The woman pushed her chair back and began rifling through one of the lower desk drawers. She muttered to herself as she pulled out a couple of passports and studied their pictures. She showed one to me and asked what I thought.
“This looks nothing like him,” I said. “Look at the nose.”
She showed me another one. I took a look at it and sighed.
“You need to be creative,” she said. “There are things you can do to change his appearance.”
She went back to looking through the drawer. After a minute or so, she gave a satisfied grunt and slid a passport across the desk. I opened it and nodded my reluctant assent.
“Then it’s settled!” said the woman.
We haggled a bit over the price (though it would be Señor Reyes’ mistress who paid the bill), and, when we were both somewhat satisfied, we left her office. Señor Reyes was sitting at the card table in a state of complete nudity. The other girls were either naked themselves or nearly so.
“I think I’m winning,” Señor Reyes said, winking at me.
“Look at you!” said the elderly woman, her eyes shamelessly roving.
“I’m afraid, ladies, that it’s time for me to go,” Señor Reyes said, stooping to pick up his clothes. I turned away—too late, unfortunately—and headed for the door.
That evening, we took a bus back to Mendoza, where we spent much of the next day trying to alter Señor Reyes’ appearance to make him resemble the passport photo. At the barbershop, Señor Reyes complained that losing his long hair could have disastrous Samson-like consequences. We found a cheap pair of reading glasses at a pharmacy and a false mustache at a magic shop.
The next morning, we boarded a bus to Santiago. Crossing the Andes in the wintertime is something everyone should experience at least once. The bus wound its way through the snow-capped Cordillera, allowing us unfettered views of forests and rivers.
At the border, the officer did not give us a second glance (or a first glance, for that matter—it seemed that any of the passports the elderly woman showed me would have sufficed), and, before we knew it, the bus was pulling into Santiago’s busy downtown station.
“You’re on your own now,” I said, “for the next week.”
Señor Reyes rubbed his hands together happily, and I gave him the name of the mistress who had hired me. I hoped that he would remember to go see her at least once.
The week passed somewhat uneventfully (for me—I’m sure Señor Reyes had his hands full), though I did receive a call early one morning from his mistress, who breathlessly thanked me over and over again for returning her lover to her. On the appointed day, I met Señor Reyes at his hotel. I sat down on his bed and waited while he shaved and glued on the false mustache. He would be flying to Buenos Aires, I explained, as the Andean border crossi
ng had been temporarily closed due to a snowstorm.
I used the telephone to call down to reception and asked them to put me through to the airport. Once connected, I spoke to an agent for LanChile airlines and explained that I was the handler for Mr. Such-and-such, the current star of Argentina’s most popular soap opera, and that he would be flying to Buenos Aires that afternoon. He would be somewhat disguised, I said, but they should still be prepared for some disruptions due to love-struck fans.
Señor Reyes and I took a taxi to the airport. I asked the taxi driver to turn on the radio and then quietly briefed Señor Reyes on the upcoming Manipulation. When we arrived, we got in line at the LanChile counter. We were nearly at the front of the line when a young woman came up and breathlessly asked if he was Mr. Such-and-such, and she was his biggest fan, and could she take a picture with him. She was quite convincing—one of my most promising students—though she did at one point fan herself with one hand, which I thought was a bit much. I could see the LanChile agents exchanging nods with another, and I knew they had been warned by whomever I had spoken to on the phone.
When Señor Reyes and I finally reached the desk, he handed over his passport and winked over the top of his glasses at the agent. She ran the passport through the computer and frowned. Then she tried it again and was again not happy with the results. I knew better than to trust people like Ratón and the madam, and so I reached over to put my briefcase on the ground. At that signal, a pair of women ran over and began squealing over Mr. Such-and-such. They made quite a commotion, and soon a couple of other women (and a man, simply because he was my least favorite student and I thought it important for him to do things that might make him uncomfortable) stampeded over and began clutching and shrieking at Señor Reyes. If I pulled my hat off my head, one of them would faint.
I asked the LanChile agent for some leeway, and Señor Reyes asked her if she might want to have dinner with him next time he was in Santiago, and the others were shrieking—the agent did not know how to deal with having everyone talking at her, so she hastily waved us through. Señor Reyes was escorted directly to his gate by an agent while I held back his adoring fans with promises of signed photographs.
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