Alejandro Jodorowsky - Where the Bird Sings Best

A barricade of one hundred policemen, armed with rifles and wearing metal helmets, stopped the procession. The human river paused. The master’s companion, standing next to the coffin, sang with such intensity that her voice could be heard blocks away:

Without fear of sanctions

I bid farewell to the subversive man

Who has known a thousand prisons

Without committing any crime.

Thousands of voices united in the melody and, repeating the refrain, the marchers once again moved forward. The soldiers didn’t dare fire and disappeared as if by magic. In the cemetery plaza, every worker became an orator. Thousands of inflammatory speeches launched in spurts, joined in a chaotic chorus, like the sound of a waterfall, to bid good-bye to Recabarren’s remains. As those who were hungry and tired gave up, others took their place. At 6:00 p.m., the ceremony was finished, and the body was left in the hands of the cemetery staff so that on Monday, the gravediggers could place the coffin in the family crypt.

The next morning, very early, the sun barely giving a yellowish tinge to the cloudy sky, the gravediggers, asleep on their feet, dissimulating with grumbles the ill effects of alcohol, opened the gates to let Teresa, Jaime, and Sofía Lam (who turned up riding a man’s bicycle and wearing a sailor suit) enter. The three marched silently behind the four drunken gravediggers who carried the coffin on their shoulders, zigzagging and tripping amid muttered curses. The iron crypt that belonged to Recabarren’s grandfather was open. A dark-skinned boy, about twenty-five years old, with short, thick legs; a wide, hairy chest; calloused hands; big teeth; and straight black hair, was waiting for them, leaning on the aluminum cross.

“Yesterday I hid here, Doña Teresa. I forced open the doors and spent the night here, trying to join my family. I am Elías Recabarren.”

Surprised, Teresa set aside her painful silence. “You are Elías? Luis Emilio’s son?”

“Yes, ma’am. I came because… ”

“Let’s get on with the ceremony. Later you can tell us everything.”

The gravediggers tossed the coffin into a niche as if it were a sack of potatoes. The jolt produced a bell-like sound in the metal crypt. They screwed the cover back on, whispering obscene jokes, and stretched out their right hands in hopes of a tip. Teresa gave each one money. Grumbling, even though the amount was correct, they demanded more. Jaime kicked them out. They went off to sit on a tomb emblazoned with a winged woman playing a trumpet, where they passed around a bottle of wine as they took turns caressing the statue’s marble hips.

At the coffee shop, The Last Good-bye, across the street from the cemetery, Teresa, Jaime, Sofía, and Recabarren’s son drank their sodas in silence, not knowing how to begin the conversation. Sofía slapped the table, trying to kill a fly. The others emerged from their immobility to keep the glasses from spilling over, and attention focused on the girl.

“I came today to pay intimate homage to the master and to express my repentance. For obscure sexual motives, I betrayed the most sacred thing, the Party. My vagina and clitoris weighed more heavily than the pain of the exploited working class. Shame made me discover my vocation: I am an atheist monk. Count on me for anything. Are we friends, Lautaro?”

“Friends, Sofía!”

“Now it’s time for me to talk, and I’ll be sincere. About Communism I know nothing. I’ve lived far away from politics, no fault of my own but of my father. As you well know, Doña Teresa, he was married to Fresia Godoy, a maid, my mother, an uneducated woman from the south. Recabarren learned to read quickly, developed his intelligence, found the ideal that would guide his life, went north, and never came near us again. His love for the people made him forget his son. He worried about everyone but me. I grew up humiliated, with no education, in the basement of our bosses. My mother died when I was thirteen. I had no money to bury her decently. She disappeared into a potter’s field. I hated politics, the struggles of the workers, that world that had stolen away my father. I also detested him. He should have come to find me, to teach me what he knew, to give me the chance to prepare the Revolution at his side. He shouldn’t have left me cast aside like a contemptible orphan. I was working for a few days here in Santiago, in a furniture factory. I’m a carpenter. I read the news of his death. I shed not a single tear. To the contrary, I smiled and felt avenged. I asked permission to take a day off, saying I wasn’t well, and I walked downtown intent on getting drunk. It was there the demonstration caught me. That human river following the body of the man who engendered me was pressing against my body, clinging to my skin, to my bones, in order to add me to its flow. I dissolved in the mass, and then, without personality, anonymous, one more cell in the gigantic animal of the people, I felt what everyone else felt, the greatest sadness coupled with an immense gratitude. I admired the honor of a solitary and valiant man who gave everything he had trying to get his compatriots out of poverty. I understood that my hatred was egoistic, and I felt proud to be the son of such a father. When the crowd left the cemetery, I hid so I could sleep in the crypt. Last night I felt no cold even though the walls and floor are iron. Recabarren’s arms were around me. Also, those of my grandfather and great-grandfather. This metal place is a grave for men. In our family, hearts detach from women and immerse themselves in the struggle. That’s the tradition I wish to continue.”

“Elías, what you’re saying is very beautiful, and I’m sure that if there were such a thing as heaven, your father would be happy to hear you. Luis Emilio often asked himself about your fate. We made inquiries, but we never managed to find your whereabouts. Finally, we reached the conclusion that you were dead. From this moment on, our house is your house.”

“Let’s not forget Comrade Lautaro Quinchahual. I too want to continue the work of my master and adoptive father. Give us advice, Teresa.”

“Often, Luis Emilio talked to me about the importance of developing political awareness among the workers. Despite the fact that in the past few months he was crippled by a sadness impossible to explain, he was also very concerned about art. He thought that the best medium to awaken the workers was the theater. He thought about the possibility of forming theater groups of four persons each to travel the country and go to the mines, putting on shows. He wrote several one-act plays. He finished the last one a day before his death. It’s a comic drama for clowns, quite symbolic. If you want to be faithful to the ideal of my companion, I suggest the following: I’ll sell the house, and with that money buy a truck. There are four of us, and we can travel the country putting on his posthumous works!”

A spontaneous and enthusiastic “Agreed!” turned them into traveling actors for several years.

In January of 1925, a movement led by young army officers staged a coup d’état against the junta of conservative generals and brought Arturo Alessandri back to finish his term in office. But it wasn’t really the president who controlled things. All power was concentrated in the minister of war. Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, who on the one hand tried to attract the workers and on the other tried to destroy the workers movement. The new constitution had been approved and left almost all power in the hands of the executive. On June 4, at the La Coruña mine, the police and army massacred more than two thousand miners, women, and children. Discontent grew to such a point that Alessandri had to resign a second time before finishing out his term.