Free The Neruda Case by Roberto Ampuero

that he himself was also preparing for a trip.
    “Can you say what you’re going to do there? Chile is falling apart, and you’re wandering off to the Caribbean …”
    Ángela leaned all her weight on the suitcase, which refused to close, and said, “It’s a political mission.”
    “Political?”
    “Right.” She stared at him defiantly.
    “What are you going to do?”
    “I’m going to prepare for what’s coming. I’m going to Punto Cero.”
    He sat down on the edge of the bed, tense and incredulous. Punto Cero was the military base where the Cuban government trained guerrilla fighters from all over the world. A shot rang out in the distance.
    “Are you crazy? You’re tired of inspecting factories, so now you’re becoming a guerrilla?” he protested. “Are we that bad off? Do you really think the Chilean military is some kind of operetta, like Batista’s? This isn’t the kind of army you can beat with three hundred bearded guys with guns and rifles. It’s irresponsible.”
    “Call it what you want, but that’s where I’m going. This government is going to be overthrown if we don’t defend it with weapons. The right is conspiring with Nixon and the military.”
    “What about that ‘No to Civil War’ slogan your party keeps proclaiming?”
    “There won’t be civil war if the enemy sees we’re prepared to win it. That’s precisely what the good old boys in the Party don’t understand.”
    He had to admit that his wife wasn’t the only one who thought this way. It was rumored that members of the Socialist Party, MAPU, MIR, and even the Christian Left and the Revolutionary Radical Youth, who had been moderate until recently, were now traveling to Havana for crash courses in military training. They were taught to shoot guns, leap over obstacles, climb ropes, make Molotov cocktails, and employ various tactics for attack and withdrawal, and then they took off from José Martí Airport on flights to Mexico City or Prague, taking long and winding routes back to their country. Punto Cero, at the outskirts of the capital, was one of the most prestigious and famous centers because its star instructor was the legendary Benigno, a commander who’d fought with Che Guevara in the mountains of Bolivia, and who had miraculously survived the siege carried out by Bolivian and American troops. And now it seemed that the communists, who until recently had faithfully defended the pacifist route to socialism that President Allende promoted, were also marching to Havana, only to return a few months later dressed in berets, olive-green jackets, and tall boots, with Caribbean accents, wild gesticulations, and cigars hanging from their mouths, as though they were the very commander in chief? As if all revolutionaries were required to become caricatures of Fidel Castro. These youths would return obsessed with iron and revolutionary theory, with the versatility of AK-47s, and the history of the Rebel Army, casting aside the Chilean political tradition and prepared to impose socialism with cries of “Homeland or death.” And now his wife was involved with all this …
    “I thought you’d talk to me before making such a significant decision,” he said, smoothing his mustache. He didn’t hide the tremor in his voice.
    Ángela crossed the room with her hands on her hips and paused in front of the window. Behind her, the city seemed less solid and real to Cayetano.
    “Our relationship can’t be fixed,” Ángela said coldly. “This separationwill be good for us. Perhaps it would be best if you left Chile, where you’ve never made a place for yourself, and instead of returning to Miami, go back to your island to join the revolution. Here and in the United States you’ll always be a foreigner. There’s nothing worse than having no nation to call home.”
    “You know, this is too much. Now you not only don’t know what’s good for you, but you don’t know what’s good for me—or for the rest of the world,” he