Barack Obama appeared along with his heartbreaker smile, his white shirt and his black suit. The warmth in the stadium was almost palpable, like threads reaching out to him from the four or five hundred supporters present; invisible threads, far finer than those a spider weaves in the branches of a bush, but strong enough to raise their candidate up to the skies.
“How far can Barack Obama go?” one interviewer asked Obama’s opponent Hillary Clinton. “I think the sky’s the limit. Some day, anyway,” she said.
However, the supporters gathered in the Wolf Pack stadium, the ordinary workers who applauded him and laughed at his jokes, the students who watched, mesmerised, the harmonious movements of his water-divining hands, did not want to wait, they wanted that “some day” to come right now, in 2008. Change! Change! Change! Obama for President!
The meeting, though, was not quite the same as the one held three months before in the Grand Sierra Resort. The most obvious difference – apart from the tight security, which had been almost non-existent then and was now on a par with airport security – was the participation of Obama’s wife, Michelle, who talked about being black and about the race question. The most subtle difference was the visibility of the campaign’s logo which was everywhere now and which – as I had thought the first time – probably took its inspiration from the Japanese flag: at the bottom, blue and white horizontal lines representing a sea and, emerging from that sea, a white sun; around the sun a blue semicircle, the sky. The rising sun.
I imagined David Axelrod, the chief strategist behind Obama’s campaign, wondering if they should back up the logo with the song “The House of the Rising Sun” – Doc Watson’s version for the West Coast and Eric Burdon and the Animals’ version for the East Coast, but they couldn’t possibly have done that. After all, the House of the Rising Sun, like Mustang Ranch, had been a brothel.
JANUARY 18
HILLARY CLINTON AT THE GRAND SIERRA RESORT
More than a thousand people were at the Grand Sierra Resort, all looking for a place where they could see and hear Hillary Clinton during her first and only campaign visit to Reno. There were about a hundred seats set aside for the elderly, and a large empty space for those of us who would have to stand throughout the event.
Initially, we stood on one side of the hall, behind the disabled area, but this proved problematic, because we kept getting in the way of the people arriving in wheelchairs. So we moved closer to the stage, where the Nevada militants taking part in the campaign were gathered – Hillary Clinton’s chorus.
A woman came over to us and said:
“If you like, you can go up on stage.”
One small leap and we had joined the chorus, like Hillary militants. The spot reserved for the speaker, the podium where she would stand, was just in front of us, about six feet away. We could also see the entire hall and the thousand heads in the audience. A privileged position.
At first, it looked a bit like the annual general meeting of all of Nevada’s teachers and social workers, organised by some honourable association with rather limited means. There were no special effects; a few spotlights; two enormous flags, but not made of satin as they had been at Obama’s meeting in another hall in the same Grand Sierra Resort. There were just two exceptions to that otherwise discreet atmosphere: the television cameras and a large square red carpet bearing the candidate’s first name, “Hillary”. But there weren’t that many cameras or journalists, and the red carpet was quite small given the size of the venue. “I will know what awaits you when I see what you’re wearing,” says a very old Persian poem. To judge by the decor, we were looking at a loser.
There wasn’t much hubbub or excitement. A couple of young people – because not all young people were Obama supporters – were handing out posters that bore the campaign slogans: SOLUTIONS FOR AMERICA, HILLARY FOR PRESIDENT. The message on the T-shirts was different: READY FOR CHANGE.
An announcement over the loudspeakers explained that the candidate’s flight from Las Vegas had been delayed, and the room filled with a murmur of voices. I looked at the people in the front row: seven out of ten women looked like feminists to me. The men, all of whom were getting on in years, bore the stamp of progressives from the 1970s.
“For once, the sociologists are right,” Ángela said.
The sociologists did, in fact, say that the people who would vote for Hillary Clinton, winning her the Democratic nomination and the Presidency, would be feminists and elderly progressives. Plus the Hispanics, because, for them, Bill Clinton had been the first President who could speak Spanish.
The murmurs grew like a bubble, then burst whenever anything happened. Not that much did happen. Someone brought on a lectern and it seemed – at least to the many people who briefly stopped talking – that the candidate would arrive at any moment, but she didn’t. A little later, an elegantly dressed Afro-American woman ran across the stage and, again, people stopped and looked; but as Cervantes says: “Fuese y no hubo nada”, she left and that was that. It was five in the afternoon. The candidate was now an hour late.
Two musicians sat down on the stage in front of the chorus. One of them, wearing a scarf and a beret that made him look French, would occasionally address the audience:
“Hillary Clinton’s on her way! Hillary Clinton, the first female President of the United States!”
Her supporters responded by waving banners and applauding. They were impatient, but not angry.
“Why don’t you play something?” someone shouted.
The two men played a couple of folk songs, and a woman standing in front of the disabled area translated the words into sign language. Two men went over to her, as if to talk to her, but instead they merely removed the lectern they had placed on the podium a few minutes before.
The two musicians were playing their fifth or sixth song when the applause and the shouts suddenly grew louder, almost drowning out the music, and everyone present stood on tiptoe, looking intently at the spot where Hillary Clinton would appear. Two banners showing the intertwined flags of America and Turkey rose up above all the others: TURKISH AMERICANS WITH HILLARY. The musicians stopped playing. Camera flashes filled the room with bursts of light. Hillary Clinton walked briskly onto the stage, stopping a couple of times, just long enough to greet someone she knew among the chorus. When she stepped onto the podium, she applauded the people applauding her. Another gesture typical of 1970s progressives.
She was wearing a black suit and a pale blue, round-necked top. The retired general who accompanied her onto the stage made a very persuasive introductory address: he had known Hillary for a long time and knew how capable she was. A woman was finally going to be elected to the White House.
Hillary Clinton began her speech quoting a politician from the past and then talked about the new generations. Whenever we talk about change, we must be sure to think of our children and grandchildren, because it is their future that lies in the balance. She went on, briefly but calmly, to set out the main themes of her campaign: education, the war, the plight of war veterans and the health system.
“How many of you know someone who has no health insurance?” she asked those present. Hundreds of arms shot up. “And how many people do you know who are having problems with their insurance company?”
Again, hundreds of arms went up.
A woman fainted and collapsed. Someone handed Hillary Clinton a bottle of water, and she asked them to give it to the woman who had fainted.
“The same thing happened to me in a museum in Florence, while I was looking at Michelangelo’s ‘David’,” she said.
The remark, the reference to Europe and to a classical work of art, seemed appropriate somehow. Of the two rival candidates, Barack Obama was the romantic choice, and she was the classical or, if you like, the pre-romantic choice, like Michelangelo.
Political candidates all over the world are always aware of what their critics say about them and their work, and Hillary responded to one such criticism when she res
umed her speech.
“They say my health plan wasn’t any good. Of course it wasn’t! I know that! That’s why I’ve spent fourteen years thinking about how to make it better!”
She spoke in more bitter tones when she mentioned the people who accused her of being in cahoots with the political lobbyists in Washington. Weren’t her rivals as “Washingtonian” as she was? For example – she didn’t name names, but she didn’t need to because they were there in the newspapers – who had supported Obama in Nevada? A well-known lobbyist.
She was a great speaker. The other candidates, and especially Barack Obama, may have garnered more applause, but she garnered more silence, more respect. The people at the Grand Sierra Resort understood the depth of her words and listened intently. “I’ll know what awaits you when I see what you’re wearing …” But things don’t always happen as they do in poems. Judging by what she was wearing, Hillary Clinton looked like a loser, but after her speech, no-one gave her clothes a second thought.
“Reality is what matters,” I once heard the Hellenist Rodríguez Adrados say. That, in essence, was Hillary Clinton’s message. Given the choice, better a classical president than a romantic one.
LUNCH AT HARRAH’S CASINO
I went to Harrah’s Casino with Dennis and Mary Lore, and Earle led us into the members’ dining room. It was a very elegant setting: wood-lined walls, carpets, lamps, mirrors. The eighty-something man sitting at a table to one side was wearing a black velvet suit and a gold Certina watch on his wrist. The food was on display, like in a self-service place, but it was served by a waiter.
Before sitting down, we went to the poker room, and one of the men playing cards got up from the green baize table to greet us.
“This is my little brother,” Earle said, introducing us. “As you see, he plays poker. A true Nevada man.”
We all shook hands.
“Were you winning or losing?” Earle asked him.
“As a true Nevada man, I will make no comment,” his brother said. Then he said goodbye and went back to the poker table.
Over lunch, the conversation was all about the political events that had just taken place in Reno, the visits by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and it soon became clear that Mary Lore and Dennis held very different views. Mary Lore was in favour of Hillary because she was a woman and because she had a track record in government; Dennis was in favour of Obama, a breath of fresh air in the rather tawdry world of American politics. Earle followed the discussion with a faint smile on his lips, but did not offer his own views.
I told them about the woman who had fainted during the meeting, and about Hillary Clinton’s reaction, describing what had happened to her once in Italy.
“What did she actually say about Italy?” Earle asked.
I gave him the details, and he burst out laughing.
“Loads of rich Americans fall into a dead faint in front of a Michelangelo sculpture. It’s the glamorous thing to do. It’s not like fainting in a gas station on Virginia Street.”
“Obama never comes out with stuff like that,” Dennis said.
Mary Lore didn’t like this comment.
“No, of course, Obama prefers to quote Martin Luther King. For some reason, he always calls him ‘Dr King’, so as to look like his disciple, I suppose, and win votes.”
“At any rate,” Earle said, “Hillary’s fainting fit would have been very brief and barely perceptible to other people.”
“Are you saying she lied at the Grand Sierra Resort?” asked Mary Lore, who was getting angry now.
“I’m going to tell you something that will amaze you,” I said, interrupting. “Unless I’m very much mistaken, I actually witnessed Hillary’s fainting fit on a trip I made to Italy with my mother, ten years ago.”
The waiter came over to us. Earle and I ordered coffee, and Mary Lore and Dennis green tea.
“I’m going to smoke a cigar while I hear this second tale from Italy,” Earle said, placing a slight emphasis on that word “second”.
The waiter named half a dozen brands of cigar. I only recognised one of them, “Cohiba”.
“Bring me a small one. You choose,” Earle said.
Five minutes later, the coffees and teas were on the table and Earle was smoking his cigar. It smelled very good.
“So you were there when Hillary fainted in Italy, and with your mother too,” he said.
“Yes, I think so. Rather a lot of things happened on that particular trip.”
“Why don’t you tell us about it? We’re in no hurry,” Dennis said. “Nor are you, I believe. I met Ángela at the university earlier on. She was about to take Izaskun and Sara to a school party.”
It took me fifteen minutes to tell the story.
“You should write it down,” Mary Lore said when I’d finished.
“I already have,” I said.
Earle got up and so did we. We waved to the players from the door to the poker room.
“What a very enjoyable lunch,” Earle said as we emerged onto Virginia Street.
JOURNEY TO ITALY
(A MEMORY)
There were forty-two of us, thirty-eight pensioners and four young or semi-young people, and we were all travelling to Italy on a bus. The circumstances were, to say the least, rather complicated, since we were not all of the same nationality; we were, in alphabetical order, from Barcelona, Guipúzcoa and Madrid. Charles de Gaulle once asked with a sigh: “How can you govern a country that has two hundred and forty-six varieties of cheese?” I wondered: “How can you govern a Confined Space forty feet by eight feet by nine feet filled with three different nationalities?” This was, however, a purely rhetorical question. We were at the beginning of the trip – with Cannes behind us and Monaco ahead – crossing a part of France blissfully free of tunnels, and the route was very pleasant.
However, once we left Ventimiglia, we entered Italy, where the tunnels awaited us. When we came to the twentieth tunnel, the Catalan nation uttered its first complaint:
“Aren’t we ever going to stop?” asked Eugeni, a retiree. “These seats are so cramped, we’ll be too stiff to move.”
The guide in charge of the Confined Space was a young man, who was accompanied by his new wife. He clearly had very acute hearing and, although he was sitting in the first row of seats, and Eugeni was halfway down the bus, he was ready with an immediate response:
“These tunnels can get very wearing, Eugeni,” he said, picking up the microphone. “I’ve been through them hundreds of times, and I know what it’s like, but the tunnels will come to an end soon, and then we’ll find ourselves in one of the most beautiful places in the world.”
His wife followed up these words with:
“Eugeni, et ve de gust un albercoc?” And she held up one hand to show him an apricot. Eugeni replied affirmatively and the apricot was passed from hand to hand down the bus.
The driver was made of stern stuff and put his foot down on the accelerator, but the tunnels were made of still sterner stuff and went on and on. The atmosphere in the Confined Space grew more strained, and it was not long before the first conflict between nations broke out.
“Of course, if we hadn’t been held up for so long in Barcelona …” grumbled a white-haired gentleman from Madrid, also sitting halfway down the bus.
“Yes, it’s because we were held up in Barcelona that we now have to drive on without making a single stop,” said the fair-haired woman beside him, doubtless his wife.
“I suppose you’d have us all start the journey in Madrid!” retorted Eugeni, the most dynamic element in the Confined Space. “Madrid! Madrid! N’estic fart de Madrid! I’m sick to death of Madrid!”
The madrileños remained undaunted.
“You can say what you like about Madrid. We’re from outside the city, from Tres Cantos.”
We, the members of the Basque Minority, said nothing.
Someone blew into the microphone a couple of times. It was our guide, the newly-wed, the husband.
“Forget about Barcelona and Madrid! We’re in Italy!” he cried. “We’re fifty miles from Genoa and there are no more tunnels. To celebrate, I’m going to play some Italian music: Adriano Celentano’s Azzurro!”
The song immediately reached into all four corners of the Confined Space.
We, the members of the Basque Minority, approved of his choice of song. “Azzurro” has always been one of my favourites.
“The gentleman from Madrid was right in a way, don’t you think?” my mother said, sitting beside me. “We did spend far too long in Barcelona.”
I quietly agreed with this concession to Centralism, but the moment belonged to Adriano Celentano: “Azzurro, il pomeriggio è troppo azzurro e lungo per me…”
To our left, beyond the fields full of polytunnels, the Mediterranean resembled thick blue ink, azzurro. On its waters, like dark specks, we could see the fishing boats; in the sky, like yellow specks, a scattering of about ten stars. Night was coming on.
“Have you seen the sea?” our guide asked when Adriano Celentano had fallen silent. “Well, carry on enjoying the view while you listen to this next song.”
Once again music filled the Confined Space: “Sapore di sale, sapore di mare …”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if that young man was a psychologist, because he coped brilliantly with the situation,” my mother said. “If I was younger, that’s what I would study, psychology. When I was young, I liked chemistry best, but now I prefer psychology.”
“Sorry to keep bothering you, and I’ll shut up after this,” said the guide, the newly-wed, the potential psychologist. “But you really need to know what the words of this next song mean: ‘Se piangi, se ridi, io sono con te…’ It means: ‘Whether you’re laughing or crying, I’ll be there with you.’ It’s a lovely song, my friends. Close your eyes and listen!”
The voice of Bobby Solo emerged from the loudspeakers: “Se piangi, amore, io piango con te, perchè tu sei parte di me…” Over the sea, the stars were growing brighter in the sky, but the fishing boats had vanished.
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