The Days of the Rainbow by Antonio Skármeta Read Free Book Online

to Patricia Bettini, this isn’t getting into politics because it’s about one’s father, about one’s teacher.
    “Not yours,” I tell her, wrapping my scarf around my neck.
    But I immediately regret having said that, because her father was taken a few years ago and got his collarbone broken.
    I know by heart the principles of the high school movement—destabilize the dictatorship by provoking riots. This would give the impression that thecountry is ungovernable. They also want to unite all those who’re against Pinochet—whether or not they belong to a political party—even those who only want to make trouble, just for the fun of it.
    We all have taken to saying some phrases in English. We learn them through songs or from our teacher, Rafael Paredes. He’s leaving next month for Portugal, because he was hired to make a movie. My old man thinks this is the perfect time for Mr. Paredes to go to Portugal, Greece, or anywhere else in the world, because he knows very well that the cops are after him and all his family.
    My old man and the English teacher are very close, even though they have an eternal dispute. They can never agree on who’s the greatest man in history. My daddy votes for Aristotle—in whom, he claims, everything begins and ends—and Paredes for Shakespeare. Deep in my heart, I tend to agree with my teacher, Paredes, but how could I be against my daddy?
    Of course, both of them are pretty “daring.”
    It’s less apparent in my father, because he’s a calmer person. Paredes can be as imposing as an opera singer.
    If my English teacher went into hiding, they would catch him in no time. He’s more than six feet tall and has a deep voice that resonates against the school’s old walls every time he walks into theclassroom. He teaches in the mornings, and nights he plays with a group of actors. He’s sort of impressive, that’s why he always plays kings, commanders, or ministers. When he walks into the classroom, he throws the attendance book on his desk and delivers lines from Shakespeare’s plays. We have to memorize and then interpret them in writing, and hand in the paper the following day.
    The last one was, “Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires.” We have to squeeze our brains to guess what Shakespeare meant by it. What happens is that Macbeth is eager to be king, and the fastest way is by assassinating the king himself. Just like Pinochet, let’s say. But it’s not easy for him to make up his mind, even though his wife eggs him on. She’s even more wicked than Macbeth.
    Professor Paredes calls Shakespeare “Uncle Bill.”
    Actually, that’s the last quotation to be included in the English test we’ll have after the opening of
The Cave of Salamanca
, and Paredes has promised us that he’ll be “compassionate” when grading them if we do well in the play.
    After the test, he’ll say good-bye to the school until October, provided that he’s allowed to come back to Chile, because the movie he’ll be filming in Europe is somehow “daring.”
    A “daring” movie is one that’s not going to please the regime.
    The weather in Santiago’s still pretty bad. The drizzle sticks on our cheeks, and the smog makes us cough. We take shelter at the bus stop on the corner to smoke cigarettes, with no desire to go home yet.
    Next to us there’s a boy with long hair and a blue raincoat who catches our attention when he looks in the opposite direction from which the bus is coming. Suddenly, he takes a stack of flyers out of his bag and hands one to each of us in the group. Then he climbs on the first bus leaving and winks at us.
    The blue flyer says, “Action,” and it has instructions on how to take over the school as a protest in support of the teachers who have been laid off. I believe we all would feel ashamed of throwing the flyer on the ground, so we end up putting it in our backpacks.

THE LITTLE MAN who rang the doorbell of the house, making more