“Advertising agencies have a black list of professionals, issued by your office, in which it’s ‘recommended’ not to hire me.”
“My goodness, Bettini! How do you make a living?”
“My wife has a job, and I make a few bucks writing jingles under a pseudonym.”
The minister moved his neck for a while as if to show a sort of supportive surprise and indignation. He put his finger on his lower lip and stroked it repeatedly.
“Okay, Bettini. So what do you say?”
“I thought a lot about it. Thank you, Mr. Minister. But I can’t accept it.”
“For moral reasons?”
“Yes, sir. For moral reasons.”
He stood up and straightened the edge of his jacket.
“But right now your behavior’s not moral at all. It’s not ethical to reject someone’s offer based on political differences. What if a doctor refused to help someone who’s sick only because the patient’s his political enemy. Would you call that ethical behavior?”
“Honestly, sir, if the patient were Pinochet, yes, I’d say that’s ethical.”
The minister walked to the window and drew the curtain a little. Santiago’s grayish smog was right there, punctual and tenacious.
He talked to the advertising agent in an abrupt voice and with his back turned to him.
“I’m sorry that I can’t count on your services, Bettini. It’ll be a tough campaign. Thank you for coming.”
He kept looking out the window, without turning around. But Bettini remained still until the minister was forced to turn and look at him.
“Anything else?”
“Yes, sir. I came here trustingly because you sent for me. I’d really like to leave this place in the same way I came in. You know what I mean …”
The minister smiled broadly and then burst into loud laughter. “I guarantee it.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He walked toward the door, but his own steps on the soft carpet pushed him down and held him back. The relief he felt when he reached the door was abruptly interrupted.
“Bettini.”
“Sir?”
“If you want to give me a thrill, don’t agree to lead the campaign for the No.”
“That’s okay, Mr. Fernández.”
“Good-bye, Bettini.”
7
THE DOORBELL RINGS. According to the Baroque plan, it cannot be my father because he has the key. If it were the cops, they would be coming either for me or to search Daddy’s desk. I jump up and check what he left on his table. There’s a document addressed to the minister of education, Mr. Guzmán, requesting that our school — the school where he teaches and I study — no longer be led by a military officer. It also says that the presence of that officer at the nation’s oldest school is an insult to teachers’ dignity and goes against freedom of speech. On top of the page, the manifesto reads, “We, the undersigned …,” but the only signature on it is his — Professor Santos. I wad up the document and throw it out the window.
The doorbell rings again and I put on my coat. If they’re going to take me, I’d better go well wrapped up. I’m very sensitive to cold. During class recess I always look for the sunny walls and I shrug my shoulders as if by doing so I could accumulate heat. When at last I open the door, the person who’s there, with her finger still pressing the doorbell, is Patricia Bettini. She comes and hugs me. Then she says, “My poor dear love.”
She asks if I have had lunch. I tell her that I hate stuffed potatoes. She goes to the kitchen and makes an omelet with oil, eggs, cheese, and tomatoes. She cuts the omelet in half. I put salt on mine and dip a piece of French bread in it. She doesn’t use any salt because she says that salt makes you gain weight. She has a lot of theories about how to lead a healthy life; she refuses to put salt or butter in her food, and she’s a great fan of Ionesco’s plays. She played the role of Ms. Smith in The Bald Soprano. Anyhow, everyone’s name in The Bald Soprano is Smith. But now, after graduating from high school, she’s going to study architecture, not drama.
“We have to find your father,” she says.
“But how?”
“Asking everywhere for him.”
“I already did what I had to do.”
I explain to her the whole Baroque syllogism. She listens carefully and shakes her head.
“In cases like these, good people cannot do anything, because they’re all afraid. We should try to make the others do something.”
“The bad ones?”
“Nobody’s one hundred percent good or completely bad.”
“My father thinks that you have no principles and that an ethical person must have principles.”
“I do have principles. My principle’s that I love your father and I love you.”
“Those are not principles. Those are feelings.”
“Okay, then, my feelings are my principles.”
Patricia Bettini does not answer. She takes a cassette tape out of her purse and plays it in the Sony cassette player. It’s Billy Joel, and the song is “Just the Way You Are.” It’s in English:
Don’t go changing, to try and please me
You never let me down before
Don’t imagine you’re too familiar
And I don’t see you anymore.
I wouldn’t leave you in times of trouble
We never could have come this far
I took the good times, I’ll take the bad times
I’ll take you just the way you are.
8
ADRIÁN BETTINI’S WIFE didn’t want to turn off the headlights or move the car from the parking space reserved for members of the government until her husband came back from his appointment with the minister of the interior. That’s what she haughtily and clearly told the captain who, with excessively courteous manners, asked her to move her car. While he used his cell phone to contact Fernández’s office, she twirled her wedding ring around her index finger until the metal seemed to be burning her fingertip. When the guy in uniform was walking away, she saw Adrián coming, so she quickly turned on the engine, as if they were fleeing after robbing a bank.
“How did it go?” she asked while driving around Italia Square and checking the rearview mirror to see whether someone was following them.
“See for yourself. I’m alive.”
“Did he insist that you work for the Yes to Pinochet?”
“Of course.”
Even though the light was not red, Magdalena stopped the car, ignoring the horns of all the cars behind her.
“So?”
Bettini smiled. Trying to imitate Fernández’s resounding voice, he said in his deepest possible tone, “Right now, your behavior’s not moral.”
“But where did he get the idea that you might work for them?”
“Some computer might have told them that I’m the best ad agent in the whole country.”
“Of course you are.”
“In spite of the total consensus between my wife and that computer, nobody gives me a job. Do you want me to drive?”
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.”