The Days of the Rainbow

by Antonio Skarmeta

  “What a disaster!” the ambassador said. “It seems there are only red lights on this street!”

  I TEAR OUT the calendar page. This month is full of holidays. Independence Day, Coup d’État Day, Army Day. I heard on the radio that, for this month of national holidays, there will be an amnesty for political prisoners. Maybe they’ll let my dad go.

  We’re approaching the plebiscite.

  Patricia’s father changes offices every three days. He’s trying to prevent the cops from breaking into the premises where he keeps the videotape with the campaign against Pinochet. He wants the images to be a secret, so the ad agents for the Yes don’t have a chance to react.

  We’re in art class. The teacher just explained Van Gogh’s yellow sunflowers. She says that colors elicit certain sensations and moods. Blue is the saddest of all. It’s a cold color, like green. The other ones are warm colors. We are working in silence on our watercolors, trying to paint something that would evoke an emotion. On the back of the page we have to write what we expect to convey with our drawing. I peek at Che’s work. It’s a mountain range, but instead of painting snow on the peaks he has drawn angels shaking their wings. I don’t know what he means by that.

  I cannot get lost. On the back, I wrote “Joy,” and on the front I drew a rainbow.

  Inspector Pavez walks in. We’ve been instructed to stand up every time a guest enters, but the inspector makes a gesture for us to stay seated. Something in the direction of his gaze tells me that I shouldn’t sit. And I’m right, because he says, in his hoarse voice, “Santos.”

  I know what all my classmates are thinking. I know they remember the day my father was taken. And I know they know that they’re going to take me now. Daddy was right. I shouldn’t have gotten myself in trouble. It was stupid to say my little speech in front of Lieutenant Bruna. The inspector puts on a serious face. Serious like a funeral. Now I’m afraid they have found my father. I’m afraid they found him dead, and that’s what the principal’s going to tell me. That’s why Pavez has that expression on his face and is clenching his teeth.

  All of the students have sat down, except Che.

  “I’m going with you,” he says.

  He patted my shoulder and squeezed my arm. My throat is dry.

  I look at our drawings on the desks and don’t know whether or not to pack all my stuff before leaving. Everything’s happening incredibly slowly—I don’t want to leave and it seems like Inspector Pavez wants to delay the moment he has to take me to the principal’s office.

  “What’s the matter, Inspector?” the art teacher asks softly.

  Without answering, the man urges me to go with him and hurry up. I decide to leave everything where it is.

  “Che, why did you put angels instead of snow?” I ask him, letting go of his embrace.

  “We need fools.”

  He leafs through his sketchbook, and on most of the pages he has drawn an angel. Sometimes flying, sometimes lying down, or sitting by the curb, or carrying a hen in its hands.

  AS HE WAS getting in the car, carrying the video for the first broadcast of the No campaign, Bettini doubted that he would be able to coordinate his movements. The extra drinks couldn’t quiet the tremors running through his body. So the political delegates had found his campaign harmless, a cute footnote, too Goody Two-shoes, a watery herbal tea for an old lady.

  All those nights of insomnia and fury, seated at the piano, trying to convey some “joy,” have led only to the ironic smiles of the men who had hired him.

  His archenemy, the minister of the interior, had achieved his purpose by getting his men to break Bettinis’s collarbone, but his own clients had broken his soul.

  He felt a cry in his stomach. His eyes were swollen. The drizzle was the faithful dog accompanying the beggars. He felt sorry for himself. He embraced his self-pity.

  This No, which was supposed to reunite him with his creativity, was starting to be a farewell letter.

  His father had taught him not to put too much hope in anything, not to have his present life depend on the eventual outcome of any enterprise. “Always think you’re going to lose.” A philosophy very different from the one practiced by his wife, Magdalena, and her friends: recommendations to improve digestion, self-help, Buddhism in daily life, Zen here, Zen there. Bad thoughts will result in bad deeds. If you think positive, happiness will come to you, wagging its little tail. He had believed in the fucking No with the same faith as in his childhood he had believed in a guardian angel. He had put his protection and anxieties in his hands. He had gone against his best judgment. He was sure that, this time, David wouldn’t defeat Goliath. Poetry’s breath like a canary wouldn’t be strong enough to beat the ogre.

  Magdalena’s poetry ideas were sheer wishful thinking. The dictatorship’s heavy sea had thrown over the rocks and beaches only debris from shipwrecks. Raúl Alarcón and Strauss, his partner; Olwyn, so convinced that he could become the king of freedom; and his own dream, that rainbow coming off the sky, were all the premonition of a cataclysm rather than a hymn to victory.

  He put the key in the ignition and felt that the exhaust gas was filling the interior of the car through one of the many holes in its body. The smell of Santiago was there, an unidentifiable little animal multiplying itself in the drizzle, encouraged by the lights of the cars that moved slowly during rush hour.

  Spring would be coming, but not the poet’s spring. The damn spring of the radio song.

  The spring of those military men who had overthrown the democratic government on a Tuesday, September 11, who now, with the plebiscite, would see the red stains magically vanish from their uniforms. Pinochet would win comfortably and would continue terrorizing the country, unharmed, dying of laughter. His generals would once again toast one another with bubbling champagne.

  And people would point their fingers at him.

  Like in Frost’s poem, Adrián Bettini had taken the road less traveled, the road leading to originality, but also to the abyss.

  His campaign for the No and for joy didn’t interest anyone.

  The minister of the interior was going to authorize broadcasting the TV ad, thanks to the harmless chorus of the Nobel Prize winner to be, Raúl Alarcón. That little waltz had watered down the explosive fuse everyone was expecting to see in those brief fifteen minutes. Naïve humor in a country that had shed so much blood trying to earn its freedom!

  Harmless.

  He got to the corner and, instinctively, covered his nose for a sneeze. That second was enough for his car to crash into the vehicle in front of him. It wasn’t a big deal, only one more wound on the old Fiat, one more scratch in his life, nothing compared to the huge dent in his soul.

  He went from that fatalistic resignation to blind panic as saw that the vehicle he had rear-ended was a patrol van.

  In a flash of lucidity, he hid the tape with the No campaign under the driver’s seat and resignedly rolled down his window.

  The honks of the other drivers, impatient with this new delay, amplified through the open window. They made his nerves screech, precisely at that moment when he needed peace, good judgment, sagacity. Mettle. Good mood.

  There he was, the police officer with his excess of formality, asking him for his “documents.”

  He put his hand into his pocket and the invitation to the cultural event at the Argentine embassy came out along with his wallet. Perhaps the invitation would provide a rationale for softening the blow that would soon come.

  Bettini handed him the invitation with the coat of arms of the trans-Andean country. After looking at it with indifference, the cop gave it back to him.

  “Your documents, sir.”

  “Sure, sure, Lieutenant,” Bettini said, digging inside his wallet. As he did this, he added, as if he were presenting an absurd safe-conduct, “I’m coming from a reception at the Argentine embassy. Right here. On Vicuña Mackenna. A reception hosted by the ambassador himself.”

  The officer took the documents, protectin
g them from the rain with his left hand.

  “Your name is Adrián Bettini?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant. I’m coming from a reception at the Argentine embassy. The embassy of the Argentine Republic, our neighboring country.”

  “Turn off the car and get out.”

  “Gladly, Lieutenant. I don’t understand how this happened. It’s a regrettable accident. The wet road, probably …”

  “The road is wet for everyone. Only you crashed.”

  “You’re right, Officer. Probably because I was coming from a reception at the Argentine embassy—”

  “Did you drink?”

  Absurdly, he tried to cover up the smell of alcohol on his breath. Equally absurdly, he replied, “I don’t think so.”

  “You’ll have to come with me to the police station, sir.”

  Another cop detoured the traffic to the opposite side of the road and signaled Bettini to park near the sidewalk.

  “This guy’s going in. Driving under the influence and damaging a vehicle of the armed forces.”

  Bettini parked his car near an oriental banana tree, got out, and closed the door. He was about to put the keys in his pocket, when one of the officers grabbed his wrist.

  “I’ll take the keys.”

  “But …”

  “But what? Are you afraid that we will steal your car?”

  He wasn’t able to say but what.

  There it was, the campaign for the No that was going to be broadcast in a few days, for all Chile to see. For his humiliation. For his funeral. His apocalypse.

  Why say anything?

  “I’m coming from a reception at the Argentine embassy …”

  THE INSPECTOR DROPS ME at the principal’s office as if I were a bundle he was eager to get rid of. He leaves the office without even saying good-bye. The door remains open and I can hear him going up the stairs to the second floor.

  The receptionist operates the switchboard and talks to the principal. She only says one word: “Santos.” With a gesture, she signals me to go in.

  I walk into that place that holds only bad memories. I was there twice. Once, I was suspended for misbehaving, and it was the school’s highest authority who informed me, “Come back with your legal guardian.” The second time was for bad grades in chemistry.

  “Sulfuric acid. Write the formula, Santos, one hundred times in your notebook.” “Water, Professor! H2O! Give me a break, Professor Guzmán!” “I’m not expelling you only because you’re Professor Santos’s son.”

  “Never again.”

  “I’ll study. I promise.”

  Today, the office seems even darker and colder than on those two occasions. The kerosene heater is off. The curtains look heavier. The oil portraits of the founding fathers who went to our school look older. Cold colors. A lot of black, and brown, and blue, and green.

  The principal’s sitting behind his desk and seems to be drawing something on a piece of paper. He may be filling the sheet with circles of different sizes. That’s what I do sometimes. Like when I’m waiting for something.

  In the leather armchair, wide, comfortable, worn-out, like scratched by a cat, is Lieutenant Bruna. He has set his kepi very carefully on his knees. With discipline.

  Nobody says a word.

  Nobody greets me.

  I don’t say a word either.

  “It’s cold outside,” the principal says.

  As if he wanted to confirm it, he walks to the window and lifts the curtain a little bit. The brief light that, for a couple of seconds, filters into the room crosses like a gust in front of the officer’s face, who remains absorbed looking at the tips of his boots. I bear that long silence by rubbing my thighs.

  “Yes, it’s cold,” the lieutenant repeats, an eternity later. “Did you bring your coat, Santos?”

  They’re going to take me, I think. Tears start to flood my eyes. For me. But even more than for me, for my dad. The tears don’t fall.

  “Santos,” the lieutenant says, still looking at his boots, “life is difficult for everyone. For an officer. For a teacher. For a student, too. Do you understand?”

  I understand, but I don’t know what he’s trying to tell me. Is he trying to tell me that he’ll arrest me? My leather jacket is hanging on a hook in the classroom. My black leather jacket. Raindrops slide down over it. I like how I look in it. I like it when I’m playing with Patricia Bettini and she hits my back and it sounds like chas.

  I hear the tip of the principal’s pen scratching the piece of paper. The three of us are there, dancing to a silence. Just like when someone dies and they call for a moment of silence. A bus with a broken exhaust pipe passes by and goes away. And there’s silence again. Blown up.

  “I …,” Lieutenant Bruna begins.

  He doesn’t say more.

  He comes to me and hugs me. Then he moves away and shows me his face. He looks sad.

  Lieutenant Bruna’s very sad. My knees are shaking. I want to ask what’s going on, but no sounds come out of my throat.

  My father, I think.

  The officer blows his nose and regains his composure. He opens the door and asks the receptionist to go to the classroom and bring my jacket.

  “A black one. Leather,” I add.

  “Black. Leather,” he says as well.

  Outside, there’s a jeep waiting with its engine on. The driver’s a soldier in combat uniform. Camouflage, like in the movies.

  I zip up my jacket. I feel the cold on my chin. The jeep is a convertible. I have a history test tomorrow. I won’t be able to study. My high school average is pretty low. I get by in English, philosophy, and Spanish. The art teacher likes me.

  At the corner streetlight, the jeep stops. It cannot be true. There they go, Patricia Bettini and Laura Yáñez, crossing the street, arms around each other. They look happy. They know nothing about what’s happening to me. I wonder if Santiago has always been this sad. I don’t call them. There’s no way I’ll call them. They’d die if they saw me in this military jeep.

  Lieutenant Bruna rubs his face. The cold hits hard.

  We go up Recoleta, then take Salto, and end up in a neighborhood with vacant lots.

  The jeep arrives in an area cordoned off by military vans. There are also two photographers with their credentials in plastic holders hanging around their necks. A priest is drinking coffee from a plastic cup. People are leaning against the walls of their houses, or sitting on the doorsteps. In the distance, a helicopter’s propellers are in motion. The privates lift the white-and-red ribbons as they see Lieutenant Bruna coming.

  He doesn’t greet them. They point at a lamppost a few yards away. Cold metal. Tall. The light is off. There are many white clouds and a stripe of black turbulence here and there.

  We arrive at the lamppost. With a rough gesture, a plainclothes police official with a sort of rosette on his lapel points at the thick mat that lies on the ground covering something. With a gesture of his chin, Lieutenant Bruna signals him to lift it. The officer pulls the mat fully off. It’s the body of a man.

  Professor Paredes.

  His eyes are closed, and around his neck there’re one or more sheets stained with blood.

  “They slit his throat,” the man with the rosette says to Lieutenant Bruna.

  I’m unable to say anything. I can’t breathe. I feel a flow running down my legs. I double up with pain and fall on my knees.

  Lieutenant Bruna runs his hand over my hair.

  “I did everything I could, my boy,” I hear him saying. “You asked me for it, and God knows that I did everything I could.”

  HE FELT SOMEHOW CLOSE to the group of the “detained”: a drunk man lying on a wooden bench, a student bleeding after being hit with a police club, a street vendor of unlicensed merchandise, a handcuffed union delegate.

  Two hours had passed and not a single officer had begun any proceedings. Once in a while, an officer peeked in, took a look at the group, and disappeared into some back room. Jail is always like this. The feeli
ng of an endless, unproductive time. A prelude to uncertainty. An intermission blown up by desperation. The humiliating wait. Time to imagine your loved ones worrying about your absence. The guard in uniform typing on an old Remington some report that a local judge would probably read a few months later.

  The last time that he was taken prisoner, the cops wanted to teach him a good lesson. In a street demonstration against the rise of the public transportation fares, he tried to rescue a girl who was being dragged to a police van by some undercover cops.

  He wasn’t even participating in the march. He only followed the impulse of his heart. That’s why, when questioned by the police, he couldn’t give names or addresses of the rioters who had organized the protest, simply because he didn’t know them.

  Sometimes his damn heart made him act recklessly before his head could stop him.

  On another occasion, he let his mouth run off, saying whatever he held true. Even though he knew there would be consequences. All those times it was he, only his own body, that was at stake. But now everything could result in a catastrophe that could affect a lot of people. If the images of the No campaign fell into the hands of the minister of the interior, he would have not only put at risk the people who had lent their faces to sing and fight against the dictator but also reveal the nature of his campaign to his rivals—the people working for the Yes to Pinochet, who would be now able to design an antidote and create a strategy to nullify whatever improbable advertising merits his naïve oeuvre might have.

  He felt like a traitor for having had alcohol at the embassy, knowing that he’d have to carry the videotape in his car.

  It was understandable, because he was nervous, irritated, insecure. He was going to show for the first time his masterpiece to the political delegates for the No, and he feared their verdict. He was so brutally out of practice. How the hell did he succumb, against all logic, to the vanity of assuming the temptation of … saving Chile? He corrected that pathetic idea. Chile hadn’t been saved by the martyrs of the resistance movements, or by the disciplined activists, or by the hundreds of thousands of freedom lovers who had confronted the repression here and there. And he, the pope of all fools, had agreed to be the leader of a campaign that, instead of leading him to glory, would take him to hell.