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

up to.”
    The little man’s eyes lit up. “Dude, you’re getting into it, aren’t you?”
    If, awhile before, Bettini couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw Little Kinky Flower in his timelessoutfit, now he couldn’t believe his ears hearing such broad anthology of Chilean slang.
    “I’m getting into it, Alarcón. Very much so.”
    “Now, feel this,” he said. He cleared his throat and licked his lips. “Excuse my voice, sir.”
    “Go ahead.”
    After a brief and florid piano introduction, Raúl Alarcón, aka Tiny, also called Little Kinky Flower by his friends, delivered the following verses to the tune of Strauss’s “Blue Danube.”
    We start to hear now “No, no. No, no”
    all over Chile, “No, no. No, no.”
    There they sing “No, no.”
    Here they sing “No, no.”
    Women sing “No, no”
    and the youth sing “No, no.”
    “No” means freedom
.
    Let’s sing together, “No, no, no.”
    For life—“No.”
    To hunger—“No.”
    To exile—“No.”
    To violence—“No.”
    To suicide—“No.”
    Let’s dance together
,
    to this “No.”
    No, no
.
    No, no
.
    No, noooo
.
    No, no, no
.
    No, no
.
    No, noooo
.
    No, no
.
    No, no
.
    No, no
.
    Let’s dance together
    to this “No.”
    No, no
.
    No, no—
    “May I interrupt you for a moment, Mr. Alarcón?”
    “Sure, Mr. Bettini.”
    “I have to make a phone call right now.”
    “No problem.”
    “I’ll be back in a second.”
    Bettini dialed Nico Santos’s number as if he were stabbing him.
    “Nico?”
    “Don Adrián!”
    “He’s here, in my house. Alarcón, I mean.”
    “Tiny?”
    Bettini looked at the man, who made a friendly gesture at him with his hand.
    “Yes, Tiny.”
    “And what do you think?”
    “I think that if you ever send me another mad man like him, I won’t let you walk into my house again. And I’ll forbid Patricia from seeing you.”
    “But what’s the matter, Don Adrián?”
    “You know what’s wrong? That in this country there’s no room for more foolishness. And you sent the king of fools to my place.”
    “So?”
    “So what?”
    “Didn’t you want joy, Don Adrián? There it is. ‘No, no, no, no, no, noooooooooo …’ I find it awesome!”
    Bettini hung up with a somber expression, and with his head hanging down, he walked toward Alarcón, who was eagerly waiting for him.
    “So, Mr. Bettini? What do you think about my ‘Waltz of the
No
’?”
    The ad agent let each syllable drop like a stone from his mouth: “Awesome, Mr. Alarcón. Awesome.”
    “Thank you. But I only take credit for half of the work. The other half comes from Strauss’s talent.”
    “Alarcón and Strauss.”
    “A winning duo.”
    “Strauss and you make a great team.”
    “Like identical twins.”
    “As thick as thieves.”
    “Exactly.”
    Bettini grabbed the man by his neck and without much effort lifted him off the piano stool. Keeping him up in the air, he took the man to the door and gave him a final push.
    “Get out!”
    Only then did he realize that Patricia Bettini, holding the key in her hand, had just witnessed the unusual scene.

IN GYM CLASS we are jumping over a pommel horse, rolling over the mat, and then running back to the end of the line to start all over.
    We’re wearing white T-shirts and shorts, and the exercise is not enough for us to overcome the cold weather. We rub our thighs and forearms. The teacher blows a referee whistle every time he wants us to change the pace of our jumps and somersaults. He should be feeling warm in his blue sweatshirt. Next to him, there’s a boy about our age. The teacher makes him watch everything we do. After a while, he asks me to make room for him before me in the line.
    “He’s a new student,” the teacher explains to me. “A Chilean who just came back from Argentina.”
    The student is warming the palms of his hands by breathing into them.
    “Where did you come from?” I ask him.
    “From Buenos Aires. My old man was exiled there and now he was allowed to