Alejandro Jodorowsky - Where the Bird Sings Best

After two years of tug of war with the judiciary, Colonel Ibáñez was elected president, initiating a dictatorial government that brought with it detentions, exiles, disappearances, executions, and the limitation of civil liberties. Luis Emilio Recabarren’s theatrical work began acquiring more and more meaning as these things took place. Teresa, Sofía, Elías, and Jaime slept in the truck, which, chugging and bucking like an angry mule, carried them from one mine to another. The workers to whom the companies gave no entertainment other than the wine from their company stores, filled, with infantile eagerness, the soccer fields transformed into theaters thanks to the stages constructed from tables in the collective dining rooms.

Teresa was no longer the discreet woman who had remained silent for twenty-five years next to her idol. Dressed in trousers and a blue work shirt, she drove the truck through the pampa, overcoming the obstacles along the way by means of her ironclad will. Without her, the truck would have collapsed like an old house. She learned how to change tires and fix flats, to repair the motor, take it apart, put it back together, change parts, and, her face stained with grease, to curse at the mist to make it fade and clear the road. At the end of every performance, it was she who took up the collection. In addition to a bit of money, they were also given some food and a tank of gas. With every change in the government, with every important political event, they reexamined their act. And merely by changing their tones of voice, leaving the text intact, they managed to keep it up to date.

Teresa would announce: “Ladies and gentlemen and children: you are going to witness the grand performance of the International Failure Circus! We shall present on this stage a beast… ”

(And here Elías, dressed as a bureaucrat, would enter and sit on the floor.)

“and an implacable lion tamer… ”

(And here Jaime, dressed as a colonel, would enter dragging a chair and snapping a whip.)

“Let the action begin!”

Lion Tamer: “Come along! Get up on that chair!”

Beast: “Grrr!”

Lion Tamer: “It’s your property!”

Beast: “Yes, it is mine! I sit on it. Few beasts manage to own their own chair. I’m happy!”

Lion Tamer: “Take a look at this chair.”

Beast: “It’s the same as the other.”

Lion Tamer: “Apparently it is, but actually it’s very different. Generations of noble beasts have sat on it. It’s an honor to own it!”

Beast: “I want it for myself!”

Lion Tamer: “Impossible. It belongs to the director of the circus!”

Beast: “I’ll trade the one I have for that one!”

Lion Tamer: “Yours is vulgar.”

Beast: “I’ll give you all my money too!”

Lion Tamer: “You don’t have enough money.”

Beast: “What can I do? I’m ashamed of living on an ordinary chair.”

Lion Tamer: “If you kill the director of the circus, I can get it for you.”

Beast: “I’ll get the chair, but what will you earn?”

Lion Tamer: “I’ll get to direct the circus!”

Beast: “Perfect! I’ll rip his guts out! Let’s go!”

The bureaucrat Elías and Jaime, the colonel, went over to a corner where Sofía, the circus director, dressed as the president of the republic, was standing. Jaime would give her a shove and throw her to the floor. Elías threw himself on her, biting her stomach, pulling out of the vest a long intestine made of rags. With a tricky sleight-of-hand it looked as if he’d eaten it. Teresa, sitting in the audience, would applaud and shout, “Bravo! Great, magnificent, they killed him! Now the circus will work really well!”

Lion Tamer: “Take the second chair. You’ve earned it.”

Beast: “Grrr. It’s delightful to sit in it.”

Lion Tamer: “Even so, your first chair, despite being ordinary, had a warmth the other does not possess.”

Beast: “That’s true. My new chair is cold.”

Lion Tamer: “The first is so agreeable that other beasts have decided to buy it.”

Beast: “Never! It must be mine again!”

Lion Tamer: “But you already have a chair.”

Beast: “I want both of them!”

Lion Tamer: “I can get it for you.”

Beast: “How?”

Lion Tamer: “First, obey me blindly.”

Beast: “Give me orders!”

Lion Tamer: “Fight, shoot cannon, gas them, invade, destroy, massacre!”

Beast: “Grrr! Ready! What next?”

Lion Tamer: “Take the chair you want by force!”

Elías would then leap toward the chair, imitating the attack of a ferocious soldier, and, after liquidating his invisible enemies, would take control of the chair, place it next to the other, and lie down on both with his hands under the nape of his neck.

Beast: “Now I’ve got both! Now I’m happy!”

Lion Tamer: “This place is full of people in chairs. What are your two chairs next to all these? You’ve got to expel the audience so that the entire circus is ours!”

Elías would then leap toward Teresa and hustle her around to drag her off the floor. Then he would return and stand on top of his chairs.

Beast: “We’ve expelled the audience! The circus is ours!”

Lion Tamer: “Stupid beast! You deserve a thousand lashes! Who do you think you are? The circus belongs to me!”

Beast: “Oh dear! Forgive me! You keep the circus. I’ll be happy with my two chairs.”

Lion Tamer: “Why? Have you got two backsides? This chair where generations of noble beasts have sat belongs to the person who gives the orders. I’m taking it back.”

Beast: “Oh, first chair of mine, I’ll find you again. I never should have abandoned you.”

Lion Tamer: “Delusional beast: not even this chair belongs to you. I’ve decided to appropriate it. Animals don’t need to sit down. Stretch out on the ground.”

Beast: “So what are you leaving me?”

Lion Tamer: “Freedom!”

Beast: “Freedom to do what?”

Lion Tamer: “Freedom to eat just enough to stay alive. Freedom to obey me without arguing. Freedom to move around within a square yard. Freedom to receive the blows I might want to give you. Freedom to die for me!”

And Jaime would then take out a rifle and fire at Elías. He would fall down dead with red ink pouring from his mouth. Then my father, in anguish, would lament:

“And now what do I do alone in this enormous circus?”

Teresa would pass around the hat, whispering into the ears of the spectators, “Without a beast, there is no lion tamer.”

Dressed as miners, Elías, Jaime, and Sofía would appear with guitars to sing a cueca. The public would abandon their chairs and start dancing.

At dawn, March 15, 1927, the Communist Party was declared illegal. Radio Mercury transmitted the high-pitched, incisive voice of Carlos Ibáñez:

The definitive moment for settling accounts has come. The malevolent and socially corrosive propaganda of a few professional agitators along with a handful of daring outsiders is no longer acceptable. We must cauterize society above and below. The time has come to break completely the red ties to Moscow. The Communist press will be shut down. All the organs of the Party, beginning with the Central Committee, will be under strong and constant siege by the police. We shall jail hundreds of their militants and leaders, relegate them to the most inhospitable places, submit them to severe torture, and assassinate some of them. After this operation, the nation will be at peace: happy within, and respected abroad.

Teresa removed the hammer and sickle that adorned the hood of the truck and began to paint it black. They went on giving performances without changing a thing, but with other costumes, more innocent in appearance. Elías would wear a tiger suit. Jaime would exchange his colonel’s uniform for a blue lion tamer’s costume, and Sofía, the circus director, would wear a tuxedo. Teresa would introduce the show dressed as a clown.