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Chili is a shadow, a long
stretched shadow, dark in my memory since 1973. This is how I remembered
Chili. The fall of Salvador Allende, the democratic, socialist President of
the Republic. His palace bombarded by the airforce, the papers of his desk
in flames, the president shot down when he rose up from his chair in his
presidential room. After this, a blind folded silence. Chili, a misused
stadium and finally football regained. The world was deaf for a long time.
The generals reigned, the generals did as they wanted. Exiles all over the
world, economic growth restored.
March 2006. The day I
arrive, Michelle Bachelet is inaugurated as socialist President of the
Republic. Her father, a general shot dead by the coup leaders. She herself
in exile for years. Today, downtown a huge crowd, democracy back on track.
Flags all over the city.
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Do you pick me up? Yes, she
had e-mailed, I will be there. My daughter, her little son, uncle A. He
drives us up the Santa Maria hill in town. Up the curves of an asphalt road
and many bikers on their way to the top. At a small roundabout, a viewpoint
and a big statue of the Holy Mary. Down hill we see the urban sprawl, yellow
streets, innumerable houses, small and large squares, the river and its
banks, we do not see the city. Air pollution has no substance, I think, it
has a strange structure and a light brown color, almost ocre, it seems a
filter of city light from heaven, topsy turvy view. It is a beautiful day, a
lightly trodden day. We are happy to see each other. |
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Chili on the map. A long model, a Brancusi model of a young
woman made of copper or bronze. A lean model with a swollen belly. Not
just a woman, but a sword too. A long sword piercing the heart, the
mind, the capital. A sword modelled by the ocean, the land gnawing waters
from far. A sword that hangs down into the fires of ice, moved invisible by
itself, loses pieces of metal, white frozen islands in the deep south of
Patagonia, thousands of islands, cristals of ice I have never seen. A frozen
world close to the forests of Neruda. |
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