The next day we took a bus to Osorno in Chile, an awful town whose central cultural focus was a sculpture of a bull in the main square. He just stands there, bored, lacking the menace and the potential of the Wall St. bull. He appears in postcards, equally forlorn. We spent the day online, and I called a Chilean lady we met in Buenos Aires who invited us to her house for dinner. As well as that I finally got to talk to Fabian whose tent we still had; we were leaving it with his in-laws in Santiago and I needed the address, which turned out to be the same area as Carmen our hostess. The bus journey up to the capital was spectacular – there were 9 seats altogether in the lower section where we were, they showed Avatar on a widescreen TV and served us snacks and breakfast in the morning. We arrived in Santiago as well rested as you can be on a bus, albeit 3 hours late (the motorways are still badly damaged from the earthquake), and left our bags in the locker for the day; we were going to Valparaiso, allegedly, that night. As soon as we walk out onto the street I asked a man for directions – with all the pointing and what not I walked into a tree, which resulted in a cut head. We arrived at Carmen´s with flowers and wine and me looking ridiculous.
We met Carmen Lemaitre in Che Lulu, a hotel in Buenos Aires. Her daughter was starting a course in hairdressing in the city and she was there to help her find an apartment. We met over a series of breakfasts, and we got on immediately. She was full of compliments about how handsome I was, and how beautiful ewa was. Her daughter cringed appropriately; they seemed a good family. She left us her number in Santiago and told us that if we arrive we must call her. Her apartment was in a good area of the city, you could tell by the bins, and we were greeted by a friendly doorman who called up to Carmen and spoke in English – Mrs Carmen! Hello! Is here Mr David Smith to know you! – he gives me a wink. She meets us at the door on the sixth floor and is again the essence of charm, showing us round the house, thanking us for the flowers, letting us see the damage from the earthquake (some cracks, a broken shelf, a cut knee). She invites us into the sitting room whereupon Sergio, their servant, comes in to see what we want to drink. I thought he was a brother that was just wearing an apron for a laugh and got up and shook his hand, but Carmen told us that Sergio works here, 7 days a week, and has done for the past 14 years. Sergio brings us pisco sours and some cheese. We talked for a while, mostly about my head, until Jaime comes in, the father. Jaime is also incredibly charismatic, with the most believable eyes I have ever seen; I thought right away, what a politician he would make. His suit hung loose and his collar and tie were impeccably tailored. He was immediately worried about my head. Jaime had lived in Belfast in 1968. He was an economist and was wise.
After a few drinks we had lunch in the dining room, served to us by Sergio. Carmen showed us a photo of their family – they had 7 children, one religious, a historian, 2 lawyers, an economist and some other ones too. We began to talk about politics; he said he was very happy with the recent change of government to centre right. He made the usual platitudes about all sides being more or less the same these days, and he sounded a typical conservative until he let us know, in one sweeping breath, that frankly he didn’t believe in democracy, that himself and his wife had been strong Pinochet supporters since his rise to power, that they lament the fall of the dictatorship and they still consider themselves his staunchest supporters.
Our slight pause was maybe a little too long, I could see that he noticed our displeasure, but he had obviously dealt with this before, having lived in Europe for a time; over the next hour, he and his wife went into a spirited justification of their political stance. It felt like we were in the presence of a strange and rare species that only survived under certain conditions. As it turned out, Carmen was the more vitriolic of the two about Allende, and the more idealistic about Pinochet, but both of them had some staggering things to say. They were quick to say that they were aware of his crimes and those of the regime, but they believed it necessary, and in any case the numbers were ridiculously exaggerated by the left. I tried to imagine what the prospect of socialism must have been like for a wealthy family like theirs. Carmen´s family had a silver mine northern Chile which was taken by the government during the land reform years and as a result she feels, and sounds, personally slighted by the socialists. How her family got the mine in the first place wasn’t explained – the sharp edge of revenge softens like memory over time. Jaime told us that at the end of his period in office, Allende was a drunk, that he was incapable of maintaining a conversation let alone control. – And he was a Marxist! He welcomed Castro here! I don’t think you in Europe realise how bad things were! – He told us that when the coup happened, that everyone was out on the streets “celebrating and drinking champagne” I thought that anyone with Champagne in their fridge would rejoice the end of socialism, whatever the change. I thought a lot at that table, but I didn’t say much, nor did ewa, we just listened. I imagined that kind of sclerotic Victorian who would have stood up, thrown down his napkin, and said “I’m sorry but I am afraid that my political convictions do not permit me to share a table with you, Goodbye!” but I was my diplomatic best, even ewa said it after the meal when we left.
They were a family who wanted to protect what they had, and were afraid. Fear seems to have been their greatest motivator and you felt it had done its job; the opinions were embedded and had become fact. There was no point in arguing. Some of the things they were saying were awful though. Carmen told us that when a patient has gangrene in a limb, the doctor must remove that limb and that was what Pinochet did – he made hard decisions for the greater good. They explained that only 3000 people were killed during the regime, and over 2000 of those were “radical militants.” And the students, I asked, the tortures? All necessary evils, sad but essential. And Victor Jara? They looked at each other. And the American involvement? The General Schneider murder? Schneider was the weak link for the military at the time leading up to the coup, the only general openly opposed to the idea of a military takeover. He was shot dead on the street in daylight during a failed kidnapping attempt. Four men were arrested in the aftermath. Two were CIA operatives, immediately released when the coup was instigated and brought back to the US. The other two were Jaime´s two best friends, whom he had known since he was a child. They were people he knew, he told us, his whole life – “people who wouldn’t do harm to anybody.” They wanted to “convince” him, this is the word he used, of the benefits of the impending coup.
No comments:
Post a Comment