Antonio Skarmeta - The Days of the Rainbow

Lacking any ideas, he had given in to the nonsense of an insignificant being such as Raúl Alarcón, with his “Waltz of the No .”

Now his disastrous video could fall into the enemy’s hands.

And the bad luck factor! He crashed. Against a police van! With only a little bit of ill will, taking a look at his criminal records, and viewing the videotape with his incendiary “Waltz of the No ,” the police could turn him in to the intelligence agents, who could apply the Antiterrorist Law to him.

The other collarbone.

Or maybe his femur.

And even that, with luck.

A higher officer came in from the street. He was clicking Bettini’s car keys like castanets.

“Bettini,” he called.

The ad agent stood up with his heart in his throat. Those keys, the sound of those damn keys in the key chain that his daughter, Patricia, had given him a few Christmases ago, was probably the toll of the bell heralding the assault and the knock out that would soon strike him.

“It’s me, Captain,” he heard himself saying, half coarse, half servile.

The man in uniform turned toward a low-ranking officer, so young he could have been of the same age as Nico Santos, his daughter’s boyfriend.

“Search him.”

The cop approached him. He began to frisk him, putting in a black plastic tray everything Bettini had in his pockets: his wallet, his dearest Montblanc pen, a clean handkerchief, a few hundred-peso coins, a comb with some missing teeth, several mint and lemon candies, and sheets of paper folded into quarters.

Bettini didn’t recognize those papers. What were they?

When the cop put the tray in front of the captain, those pieces of paper caught his attention. He unfolded them, read the first one, apparently skipping some lines, and, after smoothing them against the twill of his uniform, gave Bettini a look full of interest.

“So we caught a big shot.”

“Pardon me, Captain?”

The man in uniform dialed a number, slowly and delightedly, and while he waited for an answer, he moved the receiver away from his ear so that he could share the wait with all those present. When the call was answered, without ceasing to watch his detained, he said with a satisfied expression, “This is Captain Carrasco. I need to talk immediately to Minister Fernández. My password is R-S-C-H Carrasco Santiago.”

His smile got bigger as he took a look at the second piece of paper.

“Dr. Fernández, I apologize for calling you so late at night, but I’ve got something here that might be of interest to you.”

“What is it, Carrasco?”

“We arrested a little guy here”—he looked at Bettini, who was wiping his brow with the sleeve of his jacket—“due to a traffic violation. He’s right here in front of me, quite nervous. We were proceeding with the routine control, when we found in his pocket some papers that you may want to see. That’s why I took the liberty of calling you.”

“Well done. Is it anything related to the Department of the Interior?”

“Shall I read what I have here, Minister?”

“Please.”

The captain cleared his throat and, without much emphasis, delivered, flatly, the following lines.

It feels so good to say “no”

when the whole country asked you for that ,

it feels so food to say no

when you have it in your heart .

With the rainbow in the farthest frontiers

even the deers are going to dance .

The No is exciting

and fills the insurrection

with tons of colors .

That’s why, my dear, without hesitation

we’ll say no, oh, oh .

So many times in life I looked for

a deeply felt word for “liberty,”

so many times I saw the wound

in my people sunken in adversity .

I never thought that destiny

would have the rhythm of a song ,

but today I have no doubt ,

as clear as water I see all now .

That’s why, my dear, without hesitation

we’ll say no .

“No,” the precious jewel ,

wave of my sea ,

cloud of my sky ,

fire that sings ,

“no,” my beautiful lover

of flaming eyes ,

snow of my dream ,

mountain range of my wine ,

say no more ,

we don’t need any words .

Let’s just say “no”

and we’ll be together all along .

Captain Carrasco kept moving his jaw rhythmically as if following the cadence of the poem. Bettini noticed that his face, which had been pale, was now blushing. Listening to the text of his song, which would be broadcast on the last day of the campaign, was like listening to an execution sentence. Every image in those stanzas seemed awful, when only a few hours before — before all the disasters — they had seemed brilliant to him, lines that Chileans of all ages, lovers of the sea and the mountains, apoliticals, the undecided, would respond to. Why had he succumbed to his teenage daughter’s poor judgment when she tried to talk him into singing “It feels so good to say ‘no’ ” even though he had never ever used, as all young Chileans do, the recurrent tag “d’ya feel it?” to ask if they had been understood.

D’ya feel it ?

No, Adrián Bettini, holy father of the naïve, he admitted to himself. He hadn’t felt a thing! Hearing the lyrics of his song from the mouth of a cop who was used to giving orders but who was somehow slow when it came to the pronunciation of metaphors, had sunk him in the deepest humiliation. He never imagined that hell always has one more level, deeper, and then another one, Comrade Dante, after which one can keep descending on and on, endlessly.

Carrasco was polite enough to raise the volume of the speaker even more, so that Bettini could hear “live and direct” the minister’s comments to his rhymes. Then, after letting out a nonchalant laugh, the minister of the interior said, “In effect, very interesting material, Carrasco.”

“From the political or the poetic point of view, Minister?”

“Both of them. Tell me, Captain, what’s the name of my Neruda behind bars?”

The man in uniform covered the mouthpiece of the telephone and, lifting his chin, turned to the ad agent.

“What did you say your name was, asshole?”

“Bettini. Adrián Bettini.”

“He says that his name is Adrián Bettini.”

There was silence on the other end of the line, and then cheerful laughter.

“You don’t say! You have Adrián Bettini himself right there!”

“Who’s he, Minister?

“He’s the leading person in the campaign for the No to Pinochet.”

“Is he dangerous?”

“Not at all! With those rhymes … he’s not messing with anybody.”

“But in these papers he talks about insurrection. Shall I scare him a little?”

“No, man. Under no circumstances. Don’t touch him even with a rose petal. We’re in a democracy, my friend. Bettini can write all the nonsense he wants.”

“But not against my general!”

“Even if it’s against our general. That’s democracy, Captain. A simple statistical exaggeration. Those assholes’ votes count as much as ours.”

“Then?”

“Give him back his stupid papers and let him go.”

“And what should we do with his car? He hit the precinct van pretty hard.”

“Send it to the auto repair shop on Carmen Street. They have a dent guy who works miracles.”

“And the bill?”

“Mail it to the Department of the Interior, Carrasco. And tell Bettini that this one’s on the house.”