Antonio Skarmeta - The Days of the Rainbow

I can’t believe what I’ve just said.

I hadn’t planned on finishing this way.

I got overexcited while reading Marcus Antonius’s speech: “I’d put a tongue in every wound of Caesar that would move even the stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.”

Lieutenant Bruna didn’t come, but how many of those who’re here today, with faces of bereavement, are agents? Look at the audience. As a whole and at each individual. They don’t know I’m shaking. Just a boy. A giant.

I close the book and walk away from the mike. Silences and silences. Different kinds of silences. A final look. At Patricia Bettini. At the Italian consul. At the back of the crowd.

An old man raises a red flag over his head with both hands. Che Barrios unfurls another one tied to a stick and waves it. The art teacher raises hers. Five or six unknown adults raise their flags and let them flutter in the breeze. The principal doesn’t see them. The principal pretends not to see them. Lieutenant Bruna excused himself for not coming “due to decency.” There’s a different kind of silence now. A silence that allows us to hear the tapping of the red flags against the air.

Only one flag is different from all the others — the flag that Patricia Bettini’s raising right now. A white flag with the image of a rainbow.

“ TOO LATE FOR ANYTHING.All the cards are dealt, Bettini. We’ll show whatever you have. We’ll go out fighting with our bare hands. Whatever is done, is done, even if it’s total nonsense,” Olwyn blurted out with a weak smile.

In accordance with the current legal resolutions, it’s mandatory for all TV channels in the country to broadcast tonight the ads of the Yes and No campaigns. We wish you a calm and pleasant dinner, and a happy return to your programming.

Appetizers: tomatoes with olive oil and mozzarella cheese. Molto Italian, Adrián. Red cabernet wine. Main course: spaghetti alla puttanesca. With black olives, garlic, red wine tomato sauce, with capers, and onions, and pasta al dente. Not so soft that they’ll stick together, nor so hard that they won’t absorb the sauce.

Homemade bread, like little buns, warm and crunchy. In front of each dish, a small plate with butter.

There are four party guests. There’s Valdivieso brut champagne. It’s chilled, but nobody opens the bottle. Not even a thimbleful of joy comes out of this group. What can come out of this melancholy seed? Magdalena thinks, showing her biggest smile. Her husband, Adrián, smiles as well, and Patricia caresses her hair over and over, following a line of thinking that leads her nowhere.

No one wants to ask the other, “What are you thinking about?”

In a few minutes, the cards will be dealt, Adrián Bettini. Whatever your imagination gave birth to will be there, for all of Chile to see. Don’t jump to negative conclusions. Think that there are a lot of people who will vote for the No . Almost half the country. Those are already persuaded. Whatever the campaign for the Yes or you does, they won’t change their minds. Instead, your target’s those who’re afraid to be filmed while they’re voting, who’re afraid to be stabbed because of the way they vote, the undecided who fear that, if the military leaves, there will be chaos and unrest. That’s why, Adrián Bettini, you have to encourage them, first to vote, then to vote for the No . Don’t mull over the past. We all regret the past. Give us some future, some transparent air. Make them see how Chile will be without the dictator in power. Without the fear of disappearing. A country without beheadings.

“Instead of that,” Bettini thinks while he passes the olive oil to Nico Santos with a gentle smile, “I have disrespected everyone. With the ‘Waltz of the No ,’ I have trivialized the relevance of this historic moment. Why did I do that?”

Nico thanks him with a charming smile. Fatally wounded. And Bettini smiles back.

“You’re sad, Nico.”

“I am, Don Adrián.”

“Then why do you smile?”

“Me? It may be because of Shakespeare.”

Patricia spreads butter on a piece of bread. She thinks of the chain of associations that could cause a short circuit: Shakespeare, Mark Antony in the cemetery, a play, Mr. Galíndez , the dagger, Professor Paredes, her father. Nico’s father, Rodrigo Santos.

“Get some wine. Shakespeare?”

“There’s a character in Romeo and Juliet , Don Adrián, called Mercutio. He’s Romeo’s close friend. And one day, they’re walking around the market in Verona, and Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin, shows up. He’s a naughty guy who’s constantly provoking the Montagues. They call him the Cat, because he brags about having many lives.”

“I don’t remember that part. I remember the moon—‘Swear not by the moon.’ ”

“Tybalt starts insulting Romeo and challenges him to unsheathe his sword. But, of course, Romeo’s crazy about Juliet, so he’s not going to start fighting to the death with his beloved’s cousin. So he says to him, look, I’m sorry, but I have reasons to love you that you can’t even imagine. How was Tybalt supposed to know that Romeo was dating his cousin? So when Tybalt hears all that stuff—”

“Get some wine.”

Magdalena fills the glasses, but no one drinks.

“—when Tybalt hears all that touchy-feely talk about I have reasons to love you, he starts baiting Romeo, calling him bland, sissy, scaredy-cat, you know? So when Mercutio hears this, he starts calling him names, and unsheathes his sword in front of Romeo and challenges Tybalt to fight with him …”

“I remember that part now,” Bettini says, looking out of the corner of his eye at the countdown for the campaign ads on the digital clock of Channel 13, thankful for being taken to medieval Verona at least for a while.

“And that’s when everything goes to hell. Because to prevent his girlfriend’s cousin and his best friend from killing each other, Romeo grabs Mercutio by his arm. And of course Tybalt takes advantage of that and, seeing him defenseless, drives his sword into Mercutio. Poor Mercutio falls to the ground, bleeding, and Tybalt and his gang split.”

“Romeo might have felt real awful,” Bettini comments, absentminded.

“Terrible. Then their friend Benvolio leans over Mercutio, who’s bleeding from his mouth, and asks him … and asks him … how do you feel? And do you know what Mercutio says to him?”

“Tell me.”

Bettini turns his back to the TV set not to see the fateful clock advancing.

“Mercutio answers him: ‘The wound is not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but it’s enough, it’ll serve. Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man.’ ”

“And that’s why you were smiling?”

“That’s why, Don Adrián. Imagine. The guy is on the verge of dying and he comes up with all this gibberish!”

“And you remembered that.”

“And when you said … When you said …”

Nico covers his face with the napkin and suddenly bursts into tears.

Patricia looks at Magdalena, Magdalena at Adrián. Adrián takes a sip from his glass of wine.

Fucking Shakespeare , he thinks.

IF HE HAD BEEN ASKEDabout dinner, Bettini wouldn’t have known what to answer. He didn’t even know what he ate. His fate as a reborn ad agent was not the only thing at stake, but also the fate of the entire country. There was a small crack in the cave through which some light could come in. He feared having wasted that chance. If the whole country was shaken by violence, how could joy look believable?