Antonio Skarmeta - The Days of the Rainbow

“Where did you get this, Professor?”

“These are the notes of one of your classmates, Santos. The student handed them over to the principal.”

I stir my coffee so briskly I spill it all over the saucer. Behind the cashier, there’s a shelf with cigarettes of all brands. The black tobacco my father smokes is there, too.

If I only knew where he is, I’d bring him a pack.

“Santos, I hope you won’t hold a grudge because I’ve taken your father’s position.”

“Not at all, Mr. Valdivieso.”

“You know that this is Chile’s best school, and that, for a young teacher, getting to work here’s something to be proud of and an asset in his professional career.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“The thing is that I would rather have gotten here under different circumstances. For example, through a public examination, instead of having been handpicked by the principal.”

I bring the cup to my mouth and blow on the coffee. It’s still too hot. I put it on the counter and pour the coffee in the saucer back into the cup.

“If you had not accepted the job,” I say, “someone else would’ve.”

“That’s the problem, Santos. Before calling me, they had offered the job to Dr. Hughes and Professor Ramírez. Why are you smiling, young man?”

“Your class on Aristotle, Professor Valdivieso, was really good. My father’s a great fan of the Nicomachean Ethics . That’s why he calls me ‘Nico.’ Because ‘Nicomachus’ would be a little too much.”

The man takes off his John Lennon glasses and rubs his eyes.

“By the way,” he says, “I’ll see how I can compensate in some way the harm I’m causing you.”

“No, Professor. I beg you not to worry. I’m okay. I’m great.”

But when I finally make that phone call, I’m not okay anymore. I’m not great at all.

The priests don’t know in what cell Professor Santos had been thrown.

IN THE AFTERNOON, Adrián Bettini ended up in downtown Santiago. In that mixture of bank clerks, store managers, financial executives, and secretaries wearing too much makeup and miniskirts so short they provoked long gazes from men, he believed he could feel the truth of a city destroyed by violence.

From downtown, everyone went back to their neighborhoods, either rich, middle class, or a poor housing area. Downtown offered them the chance to be in physical contact where all the differences of a country so sharply divided seemed to dissolve. At night, there wouldn’t be any amusement for them other than watching TV. There, unless the dictator changed his mind, his own fifteen-minute show would appear, encouraging that defeated mass, wrapped in worn-out coats and frayed scarves, to vote against Pinochet. The way they drank their coffee, in silence, at Café Haiti, letting their absent gaze slide down the waitresses’ hips, was a good sign of apathy.

On the front page of La Segunda , below the newspaper’s green logo, a headline in red print stood out: OCTOBER 5 PLEBISCITE. But nobody was buying the newspaper. Only he stopped to read a subheading in bold, “The No Campaign Is Authorized to Be on TV.”

He used to run into friends from the advertising industry in that café. Or journalists. Nowadays, most of them had left the country, and all that his lively old-days café friends were doing now was discussing soccer and the ups and downs of the exchange rate. These men would be some of his campaign’s target group. Rather than inscrutable, their faces seemed to be uniformly expressionless. It wasn’t because of fear, but because of their simple daily lives emptied of all hope. They had their coffees in a long ritual designed to delay going back to their offices, where they would stare at their computer monitors with someone else’s numbers and products. Exactly that, like someone else’s, their lives didn’t concern them at all.

He arrived home late. On his desk, he found Magdalena’s message: “Warm up the stew in the microwave.” There was a bottle of red wine, unopened, and several bread rolls, not so fresh. He poured himself a glass of wine and, without knocking, entered Patricia’s room.

In the semidarkness, he saw his daughter sleeping with an arm around the pillow. He turned on the soft light of the table lamp and stayed there, looking at her for a while. Who could teach him how to make her happy? He regretted the hard years when trying to survive without a steady job made him accept temporary positions that didn’t leave him any time or money to give his little one. He could barely make the Scuola Italiana’s monthly payments, and even that, only with a burdensome loan.

He talked to her in a soft voice. “Patricia, wake up.”

The girl sat up abruptly in her bed. “Anything going on, Dad?”

“I’m sorry, dear. But I have to ask you something important.”

“Tell me. What is it?”

“What are you going to vote for in the plebiscite?”

“And you wake me up only for that, Dad?”

“Please, answer me. What are you going to vote for?”

“No!”

“What a relief! At least one person is going to vote No .”

“No, Dad. You misunderstood me. I’m not going to vote No . I’m just not going to vote.”

Bettini swallowed. He wished he had a glass of water.

“Why not?”

“We have already discussed that many times at school. I want to go back to sleep.”

“But it’s very important that you tell me now.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve just accepted the ad campaign for the No .”

“Oh, Dad, you’re crazy!”

“Yes, we agree on that. Now, tell me why you’re not going to vote. I need that information. Professionally.”

“Because Pinochet will commit fraud. No dictator calls a plebiscite to lose it. Because the politicians who are in favor of the No are a jumble of groups that have no idea of how to lead the country if they win. Because I’m convinced that this country has no way out. I don’t believe that a dictator who came to power by force of arms could be overthrown by putting little papers in a ballot box.”

“What do the other students think?”

“The ones in lower grades, who are under eighteen, don’t vote. In my class, they think like me.”

“They all think the same way?”

“No. The usual cuckoos think that it makes sense to vote No .”

“Like me.”

“Like you.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“What do you mean? What am I going to do for what?”

“To end the dictatorship. To put an end to Pinochet.”

“Nothing.”

“Patricia!”

“Why are you so shocked, Father? Instead of wasting my time doing cheap politics, I’m going to get good grades, I’ll apply for a fellowship, and I’ll go as far away from this country as possible. I’ll leave it all to Pinochet and his ass kissers.

Bettini got closer to the lamp, and Patricia could see his astonished expression.

“So you don’t have any courage to fight?”

“What for, Dad? Look at yourself. You haven’t had a job in years. Everybody says wonderful things about you, but just like they would say wonderful things about someone who’s dead. About Napoleon, for example! Times have changed. The rules of the game have changed, too. I find your moralistic attitude very nice but totally naïve.”

The girl raised her hand and caressed the man’s cheek.

“I see,” he said.

“Am I hurting you with my words, Dad?”

“No, no.”