By Night in Chile (12 page)

murmured. Of course you can’t, because he never wrote anything. And the same goes for Frei and Allende. They didn’t read, they didn’t write. They pretended to be cultured, but not one of them was a reader or a writer. Maybe they knew something about the press, but they knew nothing about books. Indeed, sir, quite, I said, smiling beatifically. And then the general said: How many books do you think I’ve written? My blood ran cold, as I said to Farewell. I had no idea. Three or four, said Farewell confidently. In any case I just didn’t know.

And I had to admit it. Three, said the general. But the thing is they have all been with little-known or specialist publishers. But drink your tea, Father, or it’ll get cold. What a wonderful surprise, I said, I didn’t know. Well, they’re military books, military history, geopolitics, aimed at a specialist readership.

That’s marvellous, three books, I said, my voice faltering. And I’ve published countless articles in journals, even in North America, translated into English, of course. I would love to read one of your books, sir, I whispered. Go to the National Library, they’re all there. I’ll be there tomorrow, without fail, I said. The general didn’t seem to have heard. Nobody helped me, I wrote them all on my own, three books, one of them quite a thick book, with no help, burning the midnight oil. And then he said: Countless articles, on all sorts of topics, but always of course related to military matters. For a while we sat there in silence, although I kept nodding the whole time, as if inviting him to go on talking. Why do you think I’m telling you all this? he said, out of the blue. I shrugged my shoulders and smiled beatifically. To avoid any misunderstanding, he declared. So you know I’m an avid reader, I read books about history and

political theory, I even read novels. The last one I read was
White

Dove
by Lafourcade, very much a book for the younger generation, but I’m not one of those snobs who never looks at anything new, so I read it, and I enjoyed it. Have you read it? Yes sir, I said. And what did you think? It’s excellent, sir, in fact I reviewed it in quite glowing terms. Well it’s nothing to get carried away about either, said Pinochet. No, not carried away, I said.

And there we sat in silence again. Suddenly the General put his hand on my knee, I said to Farewell. A shiver ran down my spine. For a moment my mind was prey to a surging multitude of hands. Why do you think I want to learn about the

fundamentals of Marxism? he asked. The better to serve our country, sir.

Exactly, in order to understand Chile’s enemies, to find out how they think, to get an idea of how far they are prepared to go. I know how far I am prepared to go myself, I assure you. But I also want to know how far they are prepared to go. And I’m not afraid of studying. One should aim to learn something new every day. I’m always reading and writing. All the time. Which is more than you could say for Allende or Frei or Alessandri, isn’t it? I nodded three times. So what I’m saying, Father, is that you won’t be wasting your time with me, and I won’t be wasting my time with you, will I? Absolutely not, sir, I said. And when I finished telling this story, Farewell was still staring at me, his half closed eyes like empty bear traps ruined by time and rain and freezing cold. It was as if Chile’s great twentieth-century literary critic were dead. Farewell, I whispered, Did I do the right thing or not? And since there was no reply, I repeated the question: Did I do my duty, or did I go beyond it? And Farewell replied with another question: Was it a necessary or an unnecessary course of action? Necessary, necessary, necessary, I said. That seemed to satisfy him, and me too, at the time. And then we went on eating and talking. And at some point in our conversation, I said to him: Not a word to anyone about what I told you.

It goes without saying, said Farewell, in a tone of voice that reminded me of Colonel Pérez Latouche. Quite different from the rather ungentlemanly tone Mr.

Raef and Mr. Etah had used a few days before. In any case, the following week, a rumor began to spread like wildfire around Santiago. Father Ibacache had given the Junta lessons in Marxism. When I found out, my blood ran cold. I saw

Farewell, I mean I imagined the scene so clearly I could have been spying on him, sitting in his favorite easy chair or armchair at the club or in the salon of some old crone whose friendship he had been cultivating for decades, holding court, half gaga, surrounded by retired generals who had gone into business, queers in English suits, ladies with illustrious names and one foot in the grave, sitting there blabbing out the story of how I was engaged as the Junta’s private tutor. And the queers and moribund crones and even the retired generals turned business consultants wasted no time in telling the story to others, who told it to others, and so on. Naturally, Farewell claimed he was not the motor or the fuse or the match that had started the gossiping, and as it was I had neither the strength nor the desire to blame him. So I sat down beside the telephone and waited for my friends or my former friends to call, or Mr. Etah, Mr. Raef and Pérez Latouche, to reproach me for being indiscreet, or anonymous callers with axes to grind, or the ecclesiastical authorities ringing to find out just how much truth and how much fabrication there was in the rumors that had spread through Santiago’s literary and artistic circles, if not beyond, but no one called. At first I thought this silence was the result of a concerted decision to ostracize me. Then, to my astonishment, I realized that nobody gave a damn. The country was populated by hieratic figures, heading implacably towards an unfamiliar, gray horizon, where one could barely glimpse a few rays of light, flashes of lightning and clouds of smoke. What lay there? We did not know. No Sordello. That much was clear. No Guido. No leafy trees. No trotting horses. No discussion or research. Perhaps we were heading towards our souls, or the tormented souls of our forefathers, towards the endless plain spread before our sleepy or tearful eyes, our spent or humiliated eyes, by all the good and bad things we and others had done. So it was hardly surprising that nobody cared about my introductory course on Marxism. Sooner or later everyone would get their share of power again. The right, the center and the left, one big happy family. A couple of ethical problems, admittedly. But no aesthetic problems at all. Now we have a socialist president and life is exactly the same. The

Communists (who go on as if the Berlin Wall hadn’t come down), the Christian Democrats, the Socialists, the right and the military. Or the other way round. I could just as well say it the other way round! The order of the factors doesn’t alter the product! No problems! Just a little bout of fever! Just three acts of madness! Just an unusually prolonged psychotic episode! Once again I could go out, I could ring people up and no one made any remarks. Throughout those years of steel and silence, many people actually praised me for resolutely continuing to publish my reviews and articles. Many praised my poetry! Several came to ask me for favors! I was generous with letters of recommendation and references, performing various Chilean leg ups of little consequence, which earned me the undying gratitude of my beneficiaries. At the end of the day, we were all reasonable (except for the wizened youth, who at that stage was wandering around God knows where, lost in some black hole or other), we were all Chileans, we were all normal, discreet, logical, balanced, careful, sensible people, we all knew that something had to be done, that certain things were
necessary
, there’s a time for sacrifice and a time for thinking reasonably. Sometimes, at night, I would sit on a chair in the dark and ask myself what difference there was between fascist and rebel. Just a pair of words. Two words, that’s all. And sometimes either one will do! So I went out into the street and breathed the air of Santiago with the vague conviction that I was living, if not in the best of worlds, at least in a
possible
world, a
real
world, and I published a book of poems that struck even me as odd, I mean it was odd that I should have written them, they were odd coming from me, but I published them in the name of freedom, my own and that of my readers, and then I went back to giving classes and lectures, and I published another book in Spain, in Pamplona, and then it was my turn to frequent the airports of the world, mingling with elegant Europeans and serious (and weary-looking) North Americans, mingling with the best-dressed men of Italy, Germany, France and England, gentlemen whom it was a pleasure simply to behold, and there I was, with my cassock fluttering in the air-conditioned breeze or the gusts that issue from automatic doors when they open suddenly, for no logical reason, as if they had a presentiment of God’s presence, and, seeing my humble cassock flapping, people would say, There goes Fr. Sebastián, there goes Fr. Urrutia, that splendid Chilean, and then I returned to Chile, for I always return, how else would I merit the appellation
splendid Chilean
, and I went on writing reviews for the newspaper, and critical articles crying out for a different approach to culture, as even the most inattentive reader could hardly fail to notice if he scratched the surface a little, critical articles crying out, indeed begging, for a return to the Greek and Latin greats, to the Troubadours, to the
dolce stil nuovo
and the classics of Spain, France and England, more culture! more culture! read Whitman and Pound and Eliot, read Neruda and Borges and Vallejo, read Victor Hugo, for God’s sake, and Tolstoy, and proudly I cried myself hoarse in the desert, but my vociferations and on occasions my howling could only be heard by those who were able to scratch the surface of my writings with the nails of their index fingers, and they were not many, but enough for me, and life went on and on and on, like a necklace of rice grains, on each grain of which a

landscape had been painted, tiny grains and microscopic landscapes, and I knew that everyone was putting that necklace on and wearing it, but no one had the patience or the strength or the courage to take it off and look at it closely and decipher each landscape grain by grain, partly because to do so required the vision of a lynx or an eagle, and partly because the landscapes usually turned out to contain unpleasant surprises like coffins, makeshift cemeteries, ghost towns, the void and the horror, the smallness of being and its ridiculous will, people watching television, people going to football matches, boredom

circumnavigating the Chilean imagination like an enormous aircraft carrier. And that’s the truth. We were bored. We read and we got bored. We intellectuals.

Because you can’t read all day and all night. You can’t write all day and all night. Splendid isolation has never been our style, and back then, as now, Chilean artists and writers needed to gather and talk, ideally in a pleasant setting where they could find intelligent company. Apart from the inescapable fact that many of the old crowd had left the country for reasons that were often more personal than political, the main difficulty was the curfew. Where could the artists and intellectuals meet if everywhere was shut after ten at night, for, as everyone knows, night is the most propitious time for getting together and enjoying a little unbuttoned conversation with one’s peers. Artists and writers. Strange times. I can picture the wizened youth’s face. I cannot

actually see him, but he is there in my mind’s eye. He is wrinkling his nose, scanning the horizon, shaking from head to foot. I cannot actually see him, but there he is in my mind’s eye, crouching or down on all fours, on a hillock, black clouds racing past over his head, and the hillock becomes a hill and the next minute it is the atrium of a church, an atrium as black as the clouds, charged with electricity like the clouds, and glistening with moisture or blood, and the wizened youth trembles more and more violently, wrinkles his nose and then pounces on the story. But only I know the story, the real story. And it is simple and cruel and true and it should make us laugh, it should make us die laughing. But we only know how to cry, the only thing we do wholeheartedly is cry. The curfew was in force. Restaurants and bars shut early. People went home at a prudent hour. There were not many places where writers and artists could gather to drink and talk as long as they liked. That’s the truth. So this is how it happened. There was a woman. Her name was María Canales. She was a writer, she was pretty, she was young. In my opinion she was not without talent. I thought so then, and still do. Her talent was, how can I put it? inward,

sheathed, withdrawn. Others have recanted, they have put it all behind them and forgotten. Naked, the wizened youth lunges at his prey. But I know the story of María Canales, the whole story, everything that happened. She was a writer.

Maybe she still is. Writers (and critics) didn’t have many places to go. María Canales had a house on the outskirts of the city. A big house, surrounded by a garden full of trees, a house with a comfortable sitting room, with a fireplace and good whiskey, good cognac, a house that was open to friends once or twice a week, even occasionally three times a week. I don’t know how we got to know her.

I suppose one day she showed up at the editorial office of a newspaper or a literary magazine or at the Chilean Society of Authors. She probably attended a writing workshop. In any case before long we all knew her and she knew all of us. She was pleasant company. As I said before, she was pretty. She had brown hair and large eyes and she read everything she was told to read or so she led us to believe. She went to exhibitions. Maybe we met her at an exhibition. Maybe at the end of a vernissage she invited people to continue the party at her house. She was pretty, as I said. She was interested in art, she liked to talk with painters and performance artists and video artists, maybe because they were not as well educated as the writers. Or so she thought. Then she began to mix with writers and realized that they were not particularly well educated either.

What a relief that must have been. A very Chilean sort of relief. So few of us are truly cultured in this godforsaken country. The rest are completely