“You must be wondering, respectable audience, what I’m doing here dressed as a sacristan …”
“Yes!” the students roared.
“I’m a character from Cervantes’s play The Cave of Salamanca.”
“Bad cave, bad luck,”* a funny one shouted from the last row.
The burst of laughter filled the auditorium. And Nico, in an accommodating mood, decided to join the racket without losing sight of his goal.
“I hope you have fun with this little piece by Cervantes. You know Cervantes, right?”
Lieutenant Bruna nodded, satisfied. “Don Quixote” the official said loudly.
“The author of Don Quixote of La Mancha,” confirmed Nico, crediting the lieutenant with a smile for his precise info. “This is a brief piece that I hope you like. We had scheduled its premiere for next week, but considering the distressing circumstances surrounding Professor Paredes, the director of this play, we have decided to bring the premiere forward as a way to call the attention of all of you, comrades and school authorities, to the abduction of Professor Paredes, who, as of today, is a”—Nico swallowed— “ ‘missing detainee.’ ”
All the teachers who had escorted the principal and the lieutenant to the honor row simultaneously lost their smiles. The expression “missing detainee” was taboo. The most you could say was “missing,” and you had to immediately add, as in the news, “in unknown circumstances.”
Nico Santos had just lighted a bomb fuse. All the students looked toward the exit door, wishing they were somewhere else.
The principal snapped his fingers and made a signal to Nico to raise the curtain.
“Let the show begin,” he said as cheerfully as he could.
But Nico Santos stayed restless on the proscenium, possessed by a sudden recklessness that clouded his brain and loosened his tongue.
“I’m especially addressing you, Lieutenant Bruna, to ask you to make the most of your high rank and influence on the military forces, and to act accordingly, so that we can have our dear English teacher and director of this play back with us.”
Bruna nodded with a crisp movement of his chin. “We’ll do all we can.”
For ten seconds, Santos and the lieutenant looked at each other amid the overwhelming silence that filled the room. Until the beautiful teenager from High School 1 for girls, who played the role of the wife, dressed in such a way that the lubricous young audience wouldn’t miss the volume of her breasts, broke onto the stage caressing her husband, while crying false tears whose hypocrisy she underscored by pointing at them with a finger as they flowed down her cheek.
As soon as her husband, and future cuckold, comes onto the stage, she makes the obscene gesture with her finger upward and shouts, “Go down, lightning, to the house of that whore, Ana Díaz. May you go and never come back, like smoke.”
From offstage, Nico Santos watches Lieutenant Bruna, in the first row, with his right leg crossed over his left leg, impatiently jiggling his right foot. Nico Santos lifts up the skirt of his purple sacristan gown to wipe the sweat off his forehead.
* “Mala cueva” (literally bad cave) means bad luck in Chilean slang.
28
BETTINI’S FAVORITE LINE was by Camus: “Everything I know about morality and the duty of man I owe to soccer.” Especially, he added, that the ball never comes where one expects it to.
The bitter-faced man chosen by the parties’ delegates to be the spokesperson for all authorized the ambassador to put one more ice cube in his whiskey and then raised the glass to his lips.
“I think Olwyn was wrong, Bettini. You’re not the best anymore. You used to be the best.”
“Did you find the campaign that bad?”
“As harmless as a mint tea. That supposedly ironic parade of commanders, with Strauss’s little waltz as background music, makes even the military look nice.”
“Does it mean that you’re not going to approve it?”
“A little waltz by Strauss! We don’t have any time to change anything. We’re screwed!”
“ ‘A little waltz by Strauss,’ ” Bettini repeated while rubbing the glass of whiskey over his forehead to sooth the heat.
“I was expecting Troy to burn — you attacking Pinochet with the issue of the missing detainees, human rights, torture, exile, layoffs … And you come up with a little joke here, a little joke there … Strauss’s little waltz! Tell me, Bettini—”
“Mr.…?”
“Cifuentes. When, exactly, did you lose your way?”
“I really don’t know. I’ve been unemployed for so many years!”
“Pinochet may win the plebiscite just because he has balls. Instead, you seem to have only songs.”
The ad agent mumbled something so softly that Cifuentes had to lean forward to hear him.
“What did you say, Bettini?”
“Songs and broken collarbones.”
“Don’t talk rubbish, man!”
The ambassador hugged them both and walked them to the balcony. On Vicuña Mackenna Avenue, the traffic was moving very slowly.
“What a disaster!” the ambassador said. “It seems there are only red lights on this street!”
29
I TEAR OUT the calendar page. This month is full of holidays. Independence Day, Coup d’État Day, Army Day. I heard on the radio that, for this month of national holidays, there will be an amnesty for political prisoners. Maybe they’ll let my dad go.
We’re approaching the plebiscite.
Patricia’s father changes offices every three days. He’s trying to prevent the cops from breaking into the premises where he keeps the videotape with the campaign against Pinochet. He wants the images to be a secret, so the ad agents for the Yes don’t have a chance to react.
We’re in art class. The teacher just explained Van Gogh’s yellow sunflowers. She says that colors elicit certain sensations and moods. Blue is the saddest of all. It’s a cold color, like green. The other ones are warm colors. We are working in silence on our watercolors, trying to paint something that would evoke an emotion. On the back of the page we have to write what we expect to convey with our drawing. I peek at Che’s work. It’s a mountain range, but instead of painting snow on the peaks he has drawn angels shaking their wings. I don’t know what he means by that.
I cannot get lost. On the back, I wrote “Joy,” and on the front I drew a rainbow.
Inspector Pavez walks in. We’ve been instructed to stand up every time a guest enters, but the inspector makes a gesture for us to stay seated. Something in the direction of his gaze tells me that I shouldn’t sit. And I’m right, because he says, in his hoarse voice, “Santos.”
I know what all my classmates are thinking. I know they remember the day my father was taken. And I know they know that they’re going to take me now. Daddy was right. I shouldn’t have gotten myself in trouble. It was stupid to say my little speech in front of Lieutenant Bruna. The inspector puts on a serious face. Serious like a funeral. Now I’m afraid they have found my father. I’m afraid they found him dead, and that’s what the principal’s going to tell me. That’s why Pavez has that expression on his face and is clenching his teeth.
All of the students have sat down, except Che.
“I’m going with you,” he says.
He patted my shoulder and squeezed my arm. My throat is dry.
I look at our drawings on the desks and don’t know whether or not to pack all my stuff before leaving. Everything’s happening incredibly slowly — I don’t want to leave and it seems like Inspector Pavez wants to delay the moment he has to take me to the principal’s office.