Antonio Skarmeta - The Days of the Rainbow

“Hi, Daniel.”

“This cueca is for my husband, a missing detainee.”

“Whom are you going to dance the cueca with?”

“With him, sir. With my husband.”

She pulled a white handkerchief out of her blouse, and holding it with her right forefinger and thumb, waved it delicately. The boy played the first strums, and in a high-pitched voice she sang the first verse: “My dear, there was a time when I was happy …”

The fact that the woman responded to her missing husband’s dance steps in such a decent, simple way made her dance even more devastating. Bettini made a vague gesture to excuse himself and went to the restroom.

He let the water from the sink run over his neck, not caring if he was sprinkling his shirt, and rubbed his face under the faucet as if he wanted to wash away his pallor.

His tears, too, dissolved in the sink.

AFTER HIS FIRST WHISKEYthere was a second one, and he softened the third with so many ice cubes that the glass overflowed.

In between sips, he played a few arpeggios that distracted him rather than helping his imagination focus. The aversion he felt for the political apathy of the Chilean people was so strong that he wondered whether President Allende’s suicide, in such a pusillanimous country, had really been worth it. What was left of all the energy of the seventies? Just tons of skepticism, a somber burden that prevented them from flying.

On TV there were only game shows, old stars hoping to make a comeback, bolero dancers in effeminate sequins, plummy voices announcing that a street in Ñuñoa had been recently paved.

And commercials.

The frenzy of advertising — apartments, lingerie, jeans, lipstick, chocolate milk, perfume, bank loans, mattresses, supermarkets, sunglasses, wine, tickets to Cancún, private colleges. The ads were much better than the soap operas and the pop singers.

No wonder! All his friends in the movie industry who had been laid off were now making cameo appearances for advertising agencies under pseudonyms. People were used to that. And that’s what he should use to advertise No . Present it as a tempting product, like strawberry ice cream or French champagne, like a vacation package to Punta del Este, a Falabella suit, or a crispy rotisserie chicken.

At the dinner table, he talked to Magdalena about it. His wife listened, rolling crumbs from the bread basket into balls. Finally, she could not keep quiet anymore, and brushing off the tablecloth with the palm of her hand, confronted her husband.

“The No to dictatorship is not a product. It’s a profound moral and political decision. You have to convince people that their dignity is at stake. You were always an ethical person. Don’t sell out now.”

Bettini raised his voice, too. “I know that the No is not a product. But in order to convince people, Pinochet has been advertising on TV for fifteen years. I get only fifteen minutes to convince the ‘undecided’ to vote against him. I have to encourage the Chilean people to buy something that’s not yet in the market.”

“What is it?”

“Joy! Let’s start with a drawing, a simple image that could be the campaign poster.”

He extended a white poster board on the tablecloth.

“Let’s take it one step at a time,” his wife proposed. “That simple image, what should it convey?”

“The drawing must show at first glance that there are sixteen political parties that are very different from one another but have united to win.”

Magdalena took the black felt-tip pen and drew a sketch on the poster board.

“A hand. What do you think? There are five fingers, but they make up one hand. It gives the idea of unity and diversity at the same time.”

“Hmm. There are some fingers missing from that hand.”

She changed the image. “Then let’s have two hands shaking. Ten fingers.”

“But all those fingers are the same color.”

Magdalena poured India ink on the board.

“A white hand and a black hand.”

“Who’s going to look at it? This is the only Latin American country where there are no black people.”

“Look at this — a hand squeezing a tube of paint.”

“Not bad. But a hand squeezing something is a fist. A fist may please the Socialists and the Communists, but not the Liberals or the Christian Democrats.”

“Let’s forget about the hands. The text that goes with the image, what would it say?”

“ No .”

“Just that?”

“The No will be better alone than in bad company. Everybody has to have a reason to vote No , and the poster should be broad enough.”

“It must be more explicit, Adrián. ‘No more torture,’ ‘No more poverty,’ ‘No more missing people,’ ‘No more exile.’ ”

“Oh, nooooo! Don’t come to me singing the same sad tango we have being dancing all these years, please. The new thing must be joy. The promise of something different.”

“Frivolous and banal.”

“My broken collarbone appreciates your compliments.”

“You don’t have any principles.”

“But I have goals. And my goal’s to make the No win. And I can assure you that with your pathetic militant and melancholic help I won’t get too far.”

“What do you need, then?”

“Joy. Light at the end of the tunnel.”

“How can we make something positive out of a negative word? The Yes campaign has it made: ‘Yes to life!’ ‘Yes to Chile!’ ”

“I need a break. Give me a breather. I need a miracle.”

The doorbell rang, tinkling like a Christmas sleigh bell. Both turned toward the clock on the wall, and they kept looking at it with their question hanging from their jaws.

When the doorbell rang again, Magdalena pulled her hair back, tied it with an elastic band, and walked toward the door.

“I’ll open,” she said.

THE YOUTHof the Pro-FESES movement, who want to unite the high school students of all Santiago, think that the fact that my father’s missing is an excellent reason to take over the school, and they have summoned me to a meeting at the library.

I follow my old man’s instructions and tell them I don’t get into politics. According to Patricia Bettini, this isn’t getting into politics because it’s about one’s father, about one’s teacher.

“Not yours,” I tell her, wrapping my scarf around my neck.

But I immediately regret having said that, because her father was taken a few years ago and got his collarbone broken.

I know by heart the principles of the high school movement — destabilize the dictatorship by provoking riots. This would give the impression that the country is ungovernable. They also want to unite all those who’re against Pinochet — whether or not they belong to a political party — even those who only want to make trouble, just for the fun of it.

We all have taken to saying some phrases in English. We learn them through songs or from our teacher, Rafael Paredes. He’s leaving next month for Portugal, because he was hired to make a movie. My old man thinks this is the perfect time for Mr. Paredes to go to Portugal, Greece, or anywhere else in the world, because he knows very well that the cops are after him and all his family.

My old man and the English teacher are very close, even though they have an eternal dispute. They can never agree on who’s the greatest man in history. My daddy votes for Aristotle — in whom, he claims, everything begins and ends — and Paredes for Shakespeare. Deep in my heart, I tend to agree with my teacher, Paredes, but how could I be against my daddy?