The Days of the Rainbow (5 page)

AFTER SCHOOL
, I don’t feel like going back home and stay on the street corner. When Dad’s not home I don’t keep things tidy. I don’t do the dishes and let everything pile up in the kitchen.

I try to remember the phone number of the guy who would talk to the priest. He would probably have some information already. But I shouldn’t call him from home. I wait for the pay phone at the bus stop to become available. I rub the hundred-peso coin until the metal gets warm.

That’s what I’m doing when Professor Valdivieso approaches me.

“A cup of coffee, Santos?”

“What for?”

“For the cold, I think.”

We walk up to Café Indianápolis and lean on the counter looking at the waitress’s bottom
wrapped in a miniskirt two sizes too small. When they bring us the steamy coffee, the teacher puts his hands around the cup to warm them up, and I pour so much sugar that Patricia Bettini would surely disapprove.

“Santos,” he says, “this is not an easy situation for me. It’s not my fault that I have to teach you in the class that your father was teaching.”

“It’s not my father’s fault either.”

“I accepted the job not to make your father’s life more complicated but because life must go on. Our children have to get an education, no matter what.”

“An
ethical
education,” I say.

“I don’t care what kind of political opinions your father may have had.”

“Well, they’re nothing special. His fundamental conviction’s to fight against Pinochet.”

“Do you see? Your father shouldn’t mix a political situation like the one the country’s going through with the philosophy of Plato, who lived two thousand years ago.”

“Professor Valdivieso, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He takes a sip of coffee and gets some foam above his upper lip, which he wipes off with his sleeve. I see that the pay phone has just become available and squeeze the coin in my pocket.

He takes a folded piece of paper out of his jacket and flattens it on the metal counter. It’s a handwritten text. He reads it aloud, but comes closer to me, and in a confidential tone: “ ‘We can then say that Chileans under Pinochet’s dictatorship are like the prisoners in Plato’s cave. We’re looking at sheer shadows of reality, misled by a TV that’s corrupt, while brilliant men are confined to dark prison cells.’ ”

“Where did you get this, Professor?”

“These are the notes of one of your classmates, Santos. The student handed them over to the principal.”

I stir my coffee so briskly I spill it all over the saucer. Behind the cashier, there’s a shelf with cigarettes of all brands. The black tobacco my father smokes is there, too.

If I only knew where he is, I’d bring him a pack.

“Santos, I hope you won’t hold a grudge because I’ve taken your father’s position.”

“Not at all, Mr. Valdivieso.”

“You know that this is Chile’s best school, and that, for a young teacher, getting to work here’s something to be proud of and an asset in his professional career.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“The thing is that I would rather have gotten here under different circumstances. For example,
through a public examination, instead of having been handpicked by the principal.”

I bring the cup to my mouth and blow on the coffee. It’s still too hot. I put it on the counter and pour the coffee in the saucer back into the cup.

“If you had not accepted the job,” I say, “someone else would’ve.”

“That’s the problem, Santos. Before calling me, they had offered the job to Dr. Hughes and Professor Ramírez. Why are you smiling, young man?”

“Your class on Aristotle, Professor Valdivieso, was really good. My father’s a great fan of the
Nicomachean Ethics
. That’s why he calls me ‘Nico.’ Because ‘Nicomachus’ would be a little too much.”

The man takes off his John Lennon glasses and rubs his eyes.

“By the way,” he says, “I’ll see how I can compensate in some way the harm I’m causing you.”

“No, Professor. I beg you not to worry. I’m okay. I’m great.”

But when I finally make that phone call, I’m not okay anymore. I’m not great at all.

The priests don’t know in what cell Professor Santos had been thrown.

IN THE AFTERNOON
, Adrián Bettini ended up in downtown Santiago. In that mixture of bank clerks, store managers, financial executives, and secretaries wearing too much makeup and miniskirts so short they provoked long gazes from men, he believed he could feel the truth of a city destroyed by violence.

From downtown, everyone went back to their neighborhoods, either rich, middle class, or a poor housing area. Downtown offered them the chance to be in physical contact where all the differences of a country so sharply divided seemed to dissolve. At night, there wouldn’t be any amusement for them other than watching TV. There, unless the dictator changed his mind, his own fifteen-minute show would appear, encouraging that defeated mass, wrapped in worn-out coats and frayed scarves, to vote against Pinochet. The way they drank their
coffee, in silence, at Café Haiti, letting their absent gaze slide down the waitresses’ hips, was a good sign of apathy.

On the front page of
La Segunda
, below the newspaper’s green logo, a headline in red print stood out:
OCTOBER
5
PLEBISCITE
. But nobody was buying the newspaper. Only he stopped to read a subheading in bold, “The
No
Campaign Is Authorized to Be on TV.”

He used to run into friends from the advertising industry in that café. Or journalists. Nowadays, most of them had left the country, and all that his lively old-days café friends were doing now was discussing soccer and the ups and downs of the exchange rate. These men would be some of his campaign’s target group. Rather than inscrutable, their faces seemed to be uniformly expressionless. It wasn’t because of fear, but because of their simple daily lives emptied of all hope. They had their coffees in a long ritual designed to delay going back to their offices, where they would stare at their computer monitors with someone else’s numbers and products. Exactly that, like someone else’s, their lives didn’t concern them at all.

He arrived home late. On his desk, he found Magdalena’s message: “Warm up the stew in the microwave.” There was a bottle of red wine, unopened, and several bread rolls, not so fresh. He
poured himself a glass of wine and, without knocking, entered Patricia’s room.

In the semidarkness, he saw his daughter sleeping with an arm around the pillow. He turned on the soft light of the table lamp and stayed there, looking at her for a while. Who could teach him how to make her happy? He regretted the hard years when trying to survive without a steady job made him accept temporary positions that didn’t leave him any time or money to give his little one. He could barely make the Scuola Italiana’s monthly payments, and even that, only with a burdensome loan.

He talked to her in a soft voice. “Patricia, wake up.”

The girl sat up abruptly in her bed. “Anything going on, Dad?”

“I’m sorry, dear. But I have to ask you something important.”

“Tell me. What is it?”

“What are you going to vote for in the plebiscite?”

“And you wake me up only for that, Dad?”

“Please, answer me. What are you going to vote for?”

“No!”

“What a relief! At least one person is going to vote
No
.”

“No, Dad. You misunderstood me. I’m not going to vote
No
. I’m just not going to vote.”

Bettini swallowed. He wished he had a glass of water.

“Why not?”

“We have already discussed that many times at school. I want to go back to sleep.”

“But it’s very important that you tell me now.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve just accepted the ad campaign for the
No
.”

“Oh, Dad, you’re crazy!”

“Yes, we agree on that. Now, tell me why you’re not going to vote. I need that information. Professionally.”

“Because Pinochet will commit fraud. No dictator calls a plebiscite to lose it. Because the politicians who are in favor of the
No
are a jumble of groups that have no idea of how to lead the country if they win. Because I’m convinced that this country has no way out. I don’t believe that a dictator who came to power by force of arms could be overthrown by putting little papers in a ballot box.”

“What do the other students think?”

“The ones in lower grades, who are under eighteen, don’t vote. In my class, they think like me.”

“They all think the same way?”

“No. The usual cuckoos think that it makes sense to vote
No
.”

“Like me.”

“Like you.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“What do you mean? What am I going to do for what?”

“To end the dictatorship. To put an end to Pinochet.”

“Nothing.”

“Patricia!”

“Why are you so shocked, Father? Instead of wasting my time doing cheap politics, I’m going to get good grades, I’ll apply for a fellowship, and I’ll go as far away from this country as possible. I’ll leave it all to Pinochet and his ass kissers.

Bettini got closer to the lamp, and Patricia could see his astonished expression.

“So you don’t have any courage to fight?”

“What for, Dad? Look at yourself. You haven’t had a job in years. Everybody says wonderful things about you, but just like they would say wonderful things about someone who’s dead. About Napoleon, for example! Times have changed. The rules of the game have changed, too. I find your moralistic attitude very nice but totally naïve.”

The girl raised her hand and caressed the man’s cheek.

“I see,” he said.

“Am I hurting you with my words, Dad?”

“No, no.”

Slowly, Bettini moved away from the edge of the bed. He felt as if the ceiling had fallen onto his shoulders.

“Don’t leave so sad, Father. I love you a lot.”

“I know, my dear.”

“And it’s important to tell the truth to the people we love.”

“I agree.”

Right at the moment when Bettini was about to open the door, the girl jumped out of bed and hugged him tightly.

“Dad?”

“Patricia?”

“If you lead the campaign for the
No
, then I’m going to vote
No
.”

PATRICIA BETTINI
is kind of a hippie, but she doesn’t want to have sex with me before we graduate from high school. She sees the end of high school as a moment of liberation. She thinks that all good things in life will come together—going to college, having sex, and, of course, the end of Pinochet.

It’s like when Catholics make a vow. She got it into her head that if she can hold on for the next six months, she’ll get a great score on the aptitude test, get accepted into the architecture program, and Pinochet will be overthrown.

Last Tuesday we were supposed to get together, but she didn’t show up. Later that evening, I called the same number and a voice said, “I’m sorry, kid, we have no news about your father.” On Wednesday, early in the morning, it’s drizzling again, like last week. Some buses go through the Alameda
Avenue toward Barrio Alto, where blue-collar workers, maids, and gardeners go to work at the rich people’s houses. The smoke from the exhaust pipes rises and mixes with the stagnant gray air.

Nobody seems to be doing anything to change the situation. They are paralyzed, just like me.

Actually, I obey my dad. He’s a philosophy teacher, and if he said that we’re in the Baroque syllogism, I believe him. While I’m at the school gate, staring at the sidewalk looking for a lit cigarette butt to smash, I have a brief daydream. I’m walking into the classroom a little bit late, and Professor Santos is taking attendance, and when he calls my name, I say, “Here.”

I’m a little late, but I get to class in time to get a piece of paper with questions that Professor Valdivieso is handing out. He wants us to explain how one can ascend, according to the allegory of the cave, from the world of shadows to the brightness surrounding the ideas.