Free The Days of the Rainbow by Antonio Skármeta Page B

She couldn’t stop trembling and her cheeks were burning. I took her to the Indianápolis’s ladies’ room and I splashed cold water on her face.
    She had come running from school.
    When she arrived that morning, a helicopter was hovering over Apoquindo, and before going to class, she saw a couple of cars without license plates parked near the corner.
    It’s not strange that she had considered that to be strange, because in Chile we learn to pay attention to things like these, even if we don’t realize it.
    Just as she’s entering the building, she bumps into Professor Paredes. But as she’s greeting him with a kiss, as she always does, three cops come storming out of a car, grab him, drag him, and throw him into the car. The school principal starts fighting with the guys, but they hit him, throw him on the ground, abduct Professor Paredes, and flee with him in the car.
    Since then, she hasn’t stopped trembling.
    The police came and she told them everything she had seen, about the car without license plates, while the principal is bleeding on the ground. Soon after that, the Italian consul arrived in an officialcar. Quickly, he got out of the car and told all the students to go into the school building.
    Dante.
    Freedom.
    I don’t know how, but while I’m hugging her so that she stops trembling, I start trembling, too.
    *
Fuga
in Spanish is a musical form, but it also means “flight” or “escape.”

SCREENING NO . 1 .
    Bettini talked the Argentine ambassador into inviting the leaders of the Chilean opposition to attend an homage to the great film director Armando Bo and his favorite actress, Isabel Sarli. A limited number of invitations were sent for the screening of
Flesh
, which would be followed by a tasting of pinot noirs from Mendoza and the launching of a new cabernet sauvignon produced by a Chilean entrepreneur with vineyards in Pirque, whom bankers affectionately called Vial the Democrat.
    Bettini wanted the political leaders of the coalition against Pinochet to be there in order to sanctify, once and for all, the TV spot that had caused him so much distress. The attendance of these skillful leaders would give the meeting abusinesslike atmosphere, which would be very helpful, since the film to be shown would actually be the first images of the
No
campaign, not the erotic story starring Sarli—that innocent creature who wonders in the film what is it in her that awakens the lust and savagery of men.
    The ambassador, instead of saying “
È arrivato Zampanò
,” as Giulietta Masina introduced Anthony Quinn in
La Strada
, greeted his guests with a conspiratorial
“È arrivato il No.”
    Olwyn didn’t want to go to the premiere of the
No
campaign because he knew he was being watched, and he was trying to move around without being noticed. Going to the embassy ran the risk of revealing the mysteries of the
No
campaign to his rivals. The leaders of the parties didn’t go either—only second-rank representatives attended.
    Olwyn’s absence could lead to disaster for Bettini. If the man who had asked for “joy” didn’t show up, how would he explain to all those brave and long-suffering leftist activists who were ready to test him, for example, Little Kinky Flower’s “Waltz of the
No
”?
    Would they understand the strategy of diluting the hemlock with syrup?
    He’d rather watch the first fifteen minutes of the campaign with them, just in case he had missed any details. He wanted to make sure thatthere were no silly images out of context that would jeopardize the broadcasting of the TV ad.
    It was necessary to be careful. To denounce without provoking. And even to praise Pinochet, if it were necessary, for the courage of wanting to look like a democratic ruler in the eyes of the entire world. He was going to react right away, even before the censors, to anything that could be perceived as impertinence, so that his reputation remained unharmed.
    That’s why he had suggested that the ambassador