The Neruda Case by Roberto Ampuero

disposal of Commander Camilo Prendes? Then what? Go out and face down armed soldiers, armored tanks, andthe officials who’d been conspiring against democracy since Allende had arrived at La Moneda, if Ángela was to be believed? Face them with what? With the bamboo cane he’d been offered at Hucke, or with slingshots, stones, and nunchucks?
    Two trucks passed down Alemania Avenue, carrying workers waving red and green flags, sympathizers with the popular government who seemed in a hurry to get somewhere. In Collado Way, however, the dogs were still curled up under the theater marquee, and there were no signs of the poet. Maybe he was still in the hospital? Would the doctors attend to him this week, or would the attempted coup distract them? He felt impotent. The situation scared him: a rebel colonel in the capital, Ángela about to leave for Cuba, their marriage on the rocks, the poet sick, and him charged with the mission of finding the only doctor who could save him. He feared that sedition was spreading through the country like the malignant cells in the poet’s body.
    He had no choice but to stay in Alí Babá, with the disheartening sense that he was a mere spectator. His wife was right. Being a foreigner was the worst. Better to suffer misfortune in your homeland than to have only a passable time overseas. He ordered another coffee from Hadad, and as the man filled the small coffeemaker with grounds and grumbled to himself behind the bar, a new radio dispatch began. This time, the reporter announced, in a hoarse, truculent voice like those sometimes heard on afternoon radio theater, that now General Carlos Prats, the army chief, was marching, pistol in hand, into the center of the capital to quash the rebellion. Whom would the rest of the armed forces support? the alarmed journalist asked himself amid shouts and blaring horns. Three coffees later, the tension waned. Souper surrendered, the radio now announced. Order and tranquillity were restored, the pro-government station celebrated Prats as a hero, and it was said that Allende was back in his office at La Moneda, in command of the nation from Arica to Magallanes,including the Easter Islands and Robinson Crusoe Island. The leftist parties immediately called a rally in front of the presidential palace for that afternoon, and “La Batea,” the catchy song by the band Quilapayún, began to cheer up the day with its Caribbean rhythm. People walked on Alemania Avenue once more, cars and buses reappeared, Alí Babá filled up with happy patrons, and the city was bursting with life.
    According to the people who sat at the soda fountain, drinking the smelly wine Hadad diluted with water every night, Allende had ordered the armed forces to crush the uprising and defend democracy. If they didn’t, he’d made it clear from the radio in his Fiat 125, he’d do it himself with gun in hand and the backing of both his bodyguards and the people, and the men in uniforms would be responsible in the eyes of history for whatever happened. Faced with this threat, even the generals who had conspired against Allende stepped up to support him, and the loyal Prats was able to reach the street and, with his back covered, disarm the insubordinates. The story quickly spun into a legend: alone and with his gun at the ready, the general stopped the deafening advance of rebel tanks, while the people chanted his name from the sidewalks. Souper had stuck his head out of the top of his tank like a rat peering from its lair, and the crowd had frantically applauded the victory of democracy.
    That night, all the plazas of Chile filled with rallies organized by the Single Center for Chilean Workers and Unidad Popular. In Santiago, thousands of citizens celebrated in front of La Moneda, where Salvador Allende stood on a balcony and thanked Prats, the armed forces, and the people themselves for their defense of the Constitution. In Valparaíso, Cayetano joined the festivities in the Plaza del Pueblo,