The Days of the Rainbow (6 page)

My classmates work in silence, filling in the first page fast.

I hear the paper rustling every time they turn the page to write on the other side. I know the allegory of the cave by heart, and Dad and I have read Plato’s dialogues a few times. He plays Socrates and I play the other character, but instead of answering I keep on thinking about Patricia Bettini, about
Dad’s raincoat, the one he took from the chair the morning they came for him, and about the lyrics of Billy Joel’s song, “Just the Way You Are.”

Five minutes before the class ends, I think I was able to remember the entire first stanza of Billy Joel’s song. I write it down in Spanish on the test page, while I sing it in English:

I don’t write anything at all about the allegory of the cave.

“How are you, Santos?” Professor Valdivieso asks me when I hand him the test.

“Still here,” I say and walk out to the schoolyard amid my classmates.

WHEN BETTINI LEFT
the place, he was determined to tell Olwyn that he was going to quit. After all, the sum of factors yielded the same product: a demoralized population, acceptance of the dictatorship, discouragement mixed with tedium, isolated heroic acts of resistance crushed by the regime, not even one bright idea to start the campaign, and Dr. Fernández’s voice resounding in his head like a bitter warning: “If you want to give me a thrill, don’t agree to lead the ad campaign for the
No
.”

He entered Olwyn’s office without a greeting so that he wouldn’t have to regret it.

“I cannot think of anything,” was the only thing he said.

“How come?”

“This country’s emotionally devastated by Pinochet. People feel hopeless. I resign.”

“Your task is to come up with a campaign that would give them courage.”

“Courage! They see everything gray!”

“Think of a strategy that would make them see the future in a different color. I’m sorry, but I cannot waste my time with you right now. I have to work my butt off to keep the sixteen political parties that are with us together, to keep the coalition from breaking apart, and you dare to come with your little metaphysical quibbles?”

Bettini let himself fall in the old leather sofa. “I feel so lonely, sir!”

“But why? The Chilean people and sixteen political parties are on your side!”

“I’d rather have just one opposition party with a clear identity, instead of this jumble.”

Olwyn struck a hard blow on the table. He seemed to have lost his patience. “ ‘Jumble’! Where did you get that word, Bettini?”

“From my daughter, sir.”

“From your own daughter?”

“Yes, sir, my own daughter.”

“By Saturday, at the latest, I need the logo for the
No
, the jingle for the
No
, and the poster for the
No
.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to have a whiskey.”

“You’re a genius! Couldn’t you think of anything at all?”

“Just stupid things. Things like ‘Democracy or Pinochet.’ ”

“What a bore!”

“Instead, I came up with a good one for the campaign in support of Pinochet, ‘Either me or chaos.’ It has all the precision that we don’t have. Besides, people don’t want freedom. They only want to consume. They look at the commercials, totally captivated, and get into debt so they can buy everything. And Pinochet tells them that if he loses, the shelves will be empty.”

Olwyn stared at him while rubbing his hands together, like a priest.

“Would you feel more comfortable working for the
Yes
?”

THE VOLUNTEERS
who wanted to testify about how they were enduring the dictatorship gathered in the studios of Movie Center Productions—mothers of disappeared children, women who had been raped, teenagers who had been tortured, blue-collar workers with kidneys beaten to a pulp, deaf old people, jobless men and women who had lost their homes, students thrown out of the university, pianists with broken wrists, women whose nipples were bitten by dogs, office clerks with absent looks, hungry children …

A fifty-year-old woman accompanied by a guitarist approached Bettini. “I want to dance a cueca on your TV show.”

“A cueca is fine,” the advertising agent said. “It’s something cheerful.”

“This young man’s my son, Daniel. He’s a guitarist.”

“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 WHISKEY
there 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.