Antonio Skarmeta - The Days of the Rainbow

The honks of the cars behind were getting louder and louder, so Magdalena set off at once.

“And finally, what did you tell him?”

“No, thank you.”

“Were you polite?”

“As much as I was able to be.”

“And what did he say?”

“ ‘That I could give him a thrill by refusing to lead the ad campaign for the No .”

Now it was Magdalena who kept smiling for a long while.

“As soon as it was announced on the radio that there would be a plebiscite, Don Patricio called to offer you to lead the advertising campaign for the No .”

“Oh, my God!”

“You have to accept it. I’d be so proud of you if you did it.”

“Magda, if I accept, the minister won’t be thrilled. And you know what that means.”

“If you were the advertising director for the No , your visibility would protect you. The government cannot pretend they are calling a democratic plebiscite and kill the director of the opposition’s advertising campaign.”

Bettini rubbed his eyes. Everything seemed so normal and real. However, he still had a slight hope that it was all just a bad dream.

“I must admit that you have a point. Even so, there’s another reason why I shouldn’t accept it.”

“Tell me.”

“Pinochet has been bombarding the country with advertising for fifteen years and I would have only fifteen minutes on TV. It’s like the battle of David and Goliath.”

“Adrián.”

“What?”

“Who won?”

“Who won what?”

“The battle of David and Goliath.”

Bettini fell back onto the seat and covered his ears with both hands. In the last year, Magdalena had gotten into the habit of stopping the car every time she thought she had said something clever. Now Bettini didn’t know what was upsetting him most — her words or the honking of the cars behind them.

TODAY’ S MONDAY.The sky’s covered with black and gray clouds, but it’s not raining. The city of Santiago feels heavy on people’s necks and everyone walks fast with their heads bent down. I barely slept last night, and now, as I walk to school, I yawn ten times per minute. Our first class is history; then we have philosophy.

That means that I’ll have the chance to sleep at my desk. When I get to school, I remember Dad again. I wonder if he has cigarettes and if he’s allowed to smoke. I see a butt on the floor and I smash it with my shoe.

When it is time for our philosophy class, we enter the classroom all at once, without lining up first in the corridor. A couple of classmates pat me on my shoulder and I wrap my blue scarf around my neck. It’s freezing cold. To avoid having to talk with the boy next to me, I take out my pencil case and start sharpening a pencil with my metal sharpener.

Then the philosophy teacher comes in.

He’s not Mr. Santos. He’s a young man with thick eyebrows and turned-up nose. He wears round glasses like John Lennon’s and a shiny blue blazer. He’s very slim, and as if to show his strength, he lets the attendance book fall on his desk with a thud. Then he opens it, clears his throat, and starts taking attendance.

After saying each name and hearing the word “Here,” he looks up and makes an affirmative gesture, as if he already knew the students. When he calls “Santos,” I stand up, but he doesn’t make that affirmative gesture — he keeps his eyes fixed on the attendance book. Then he looks up again—32, Tironi; 33, Vásquez; 34, Wacquez; and 35, Zabaleta.

He takes a piece of chalk from the edge of the blackboard, tosses it up and catches it without looking at it. That gesture makes him look even younger. Then, he says, “My name is Javier Valdivieso, like the Valdivieso champagne. I have seen Professor Santos’s notes and I know that you have already studied the pre-Socratics and Plato. So today we’ll start to study Aristotle. Aristotle’s ethics. Write this down: ‘None of the moral virtues arises in us by nature, for nothing that exists by nature can form a habit contrary to its nature. For instance, the stone that by nature moves downward when we drop it cannot be habituated to move upward, not even if one throws it up ten thousand times, for it would end up falling down ten thousand times.

“ ‘The virtues, therefore, arise in us neither by nature nor against nature; rather, human beings possess a natural aptitude to receive them and perfect them by habit. That way, by performing just actions we become just, and being afraid or acting valiantly in front of danger makes us either cowards or brave.’ ”

And then he says, “On Wednesday, we’ll have a quiz on Plato and the allegory of the cave.”

BEFORE ADRIÁNinserted the key, Magdalena opened the door for him from the inside. She kissed him energetically on his cheek and made a gesture with her head toward the living room.

The opposition leader, Don Patricio Olwyn, was smiling at him with an expression that seemed cut from the same cloth as Jack Nicholson’s.

“Coffee, Senator?”

“Thank you.”

“Sugar, Senator?”

“That’s fine. And don’t call me ‘senator,’ I beg you. Since those beasts closed the Congress, what’s left is just my longing for that title.”

“And what brings you here, Don Patricio?”

“Something big, something that can become magnificent.”

“Tell me about it.”

“For the October fifth plebiscite, Pinochet is going to authorize the opposition to do a fifteen-minute campaign against him on TV.”

“Really? That’s amazing!”

“The election is thirty days away, and our ad must start broadcasting next week.”

“There’s no time for anything.”

Bettini touched the pocket of his shirt and was about to take out a cigarette when he thought that it would be impolite to smoke in front of such an important person. He kept the box between his hands, caressing the cellophane wrapper.

“That’s the dictator’s strategy. Strike fast, so the enemy doesn’t have a chance to react.”

To place more emphasis on his words, he stood up.

“My friend Bettini, on behalf of the sixteen political parties that have agreed to vote against Pinochet, I came to offer you the leadership of the advertising campaign for the No .”

Adrián Bettini stood up as well and, with a gentle gesture, asked his wife and daughter to leave the living room. Still, he was able to read what Magdalena’s lips were saying behind her smile: “Go ahead!”

Once he was alone with Don Patricio, Bettini replied, with no tact whatsoever, “How much are you paying?”

“The pay is … well … it’s ad honorem .”

“What do the polls say?”

“Ours? That the No could win.”

“And theirs?”

“That the Yes wins.”

“And what do you think?”

“I don’t know. But I can assure you that our polls are not embellished to please ourselves. In Chile, there’s a lot of unrest and anger against Pinochet, and that unrest represents the feeling of the majority. The problem is that this plebiscite will be determined by those who, as of today, are undecided.”

“Are there any undecided people in Chile today, after fifteen years of terror?”

“Pinochet has convinced everyone that if he loses, Chile will go to hell. He appeals to those who don’t have good memories of the overthrown Socialist government.”