They pulled Jaime up by the hair so much that he began to have intellectual ambitions. He really began to read the newspaper way up there. The circus folk made fun of him:
“We, luckily, are out of the rube world, which is pure foolishness and lies. Nothing they tell you is true. Reality is not a pile of letters. The only defect you have, Jaime, is that you learned to read. Do you know why the rubes write so much? They transform the gestures they don’t know how to make into words.”
All the headlines on the first page celebrated the heights the economy had reached. Jaime became upset: their continuous travel throughout the country allowed him to see the degrading misery in which the peasants and workers lived. How could they celebrate industrial success amid all that hunger? To understand that an even sharper mind would be necessary, one accustomed to having a bird’s eye view of events. Not knowing how to analyze what he was reading gave him a sensation much like being with one eye swollen shut against a champion who attacked from the blind side. He made a big decision. One stormy night, when the women did not return to sleep (“Don’t worry,” said his comrades. “They’ve probably finished their work late and, to avoid getting soaked, they’re sleeping in some cheap hotel, as they have on similar occasions.”), he hid in the cargo truck where they had the burro sleep in order to avoid being struck by lightning. After making sure the animal was asleep (he didn’t want even an irrational witness), he summoned the Rabbi.
The Rabbi, surprised by such an unexpected signal of interest from someone who’d gone as far as epilepsy to force him to wander, dying of boredom, through the gray deserts of the Interworld, obeyed enthusiastically, like a lost dog who had found his master.
“You shitass ghost! Stop bouncing around like a drunken crow and sit still in front of me, because I have a proposition to make you.”
“Well, Chaim.”
“My name’s not Chaim, not that or any other weird name! Call me Jaime, or I’ll expel you from this world!”
“Well, Jaime.”
“That’s better! I don’t know if you really exist or if you’re a family hallucination. My father died insane, and my mother is following in his footsteps. I wouldn’t be surprised if I were demented too. Be that as it may, you appear when I call you and you say coherent things I hadn’t even thought. You may be useful to me. I suppose you want to exist, which is why you’re here. But you depend on my will. Now listen: I have to understand what I’m reading in the papers. Chile interests me. The Jews and their tradition have nothing to do with me. I want you to wear different clothing; I can’t stand you tricked out as a rabbi. Invent a sober suit for yourself, a normal one, not that wild crap in central-European 1800s style. Appear without a beard and with short hair. Study this reality in depth, and never speak to me again about Adonai, the Torah, Kabbalah, or the Talmud. What do you say?”
“Even though you abuse your power, Jaime, I realize that times change and that the truths of one era and one place don’t work in other times and other places. My physical aspect, though for an eternity I haven’t wanted to recognize it, is pure illusion. I’m not made of matter but of memories. I’ll let them go straightaway. Look.”
And the Rabbi, heroically overcoming his nostalgia, transformed into a clean-shaven, well-combed man dressed in an elegant gray suit, a white poplin shirt, a tie with discreet stripes, and an umbrella. Smiling, he said, “At your service, sir. What do you think?”
“I think the umbrella is superfluous and the smile useless. I’ll call you only to discuss the news.”
“Something, however small it may be, is much, much more than nothing, sir.”
“Stop calling me sir, and speak to me in familiar terms. Now get lost.”
The obedient spirit dissolved. From then on, Jaime would see him whenever he isolated himself to defecate. A solemn moment that justified the newspaper he carried folded up in one hand and authorized the solitude necessary to engage in dialogues that, to the others, seemed a madman’s monologues.
“Jaime, I’ve finished studying the matter. This period of prosperity the journalists talk about so much is a whited sepulcher. The truth, absent from the editorial pages, can be found in the business section. The country you call yours, I hope you’re not making a mistake, is being sold, mine by mine, field by field, to the Yankees. Of course, the dollars seem a blessing for those who live by speculating, but they are papers that will vanish. The wealth of the land is being taken away by foreigners. Your Chileans are not getting rich but getting into debt. A dangerous situation. The people’s hunger may produce a revolution, but with the presidential elections they’re going to try to cover it all up.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Jaime, you are already a circus man. You know that the big-time rubes use lies as a universal remedy. Remember the comic numbers: a clown can’t make people laugh by himself. He needs a partner to be his straight man and make comments. Toni is exuberant, charming, full of colors and wise cracks; his partner, Augusto, is disagreeable, severe, gray, and says little. They seem enemies, but between the two of them they create the laughter that makes the circus work.
“At the moment there are two candidates for president: Arturo Alessandri, the Toni, who is emotional, outspoken, popular, and optimistic; and Luis Barros Borgoño, the Augusto, who is academic, cold, aristocratic, authoritarian. The first one talks about a prosperous future, the second about a threatening present. One asks for freedom, the other oppression. Behind them, both have the same supporters. They both want the same thing: to fool the poor, making them believe they participate in the Destiny of the nation. The more disagreeable Borgoño gets, the more Alessandri will shine among the people, who, uniting around an illusion, may elect him president.
“But the capitalist regime, aside from some superficial reforms, will go on exactly as it is. It will go right on selling the country, and hunger will only be calmed with bullets. There is a third candidate that few see, who has no possibility of being elected because he preaches outside the circus, that is, from jail. He’s proposing an impossible truth, this Luis Emilio Recabarren. Instead of asking for small conquests, like a monkey in the zoo who demands to be well treated by his keepers — a few extra nuts — but doesn’t consider destroying the cage, Recabarren wants everything; he wants to abolish borders, to turn the planet into one single nation, declare war on war, expropriate land to distribute it among the peasants, end private property, demolish the capitalist system, give sovereignty to the people, augment public education.
“In sum, he wants to repeat the Russian Revolution. This man will suffer a great deal. There are no large fortunes to support him; he works against power, and the immature people prefer to listen to the ‘luminous’ words of Alessandri, contenting themselves with promises. Even though he’s an almost saintly warrior, he does have a defect: like Don Quixote trying to follow in the footsteps of Amadís of Gaul, Recabarren tries to imitate Lenin. The thing is, the Chileans, high and low, because they’ve been dominated for so many centuries by foreign conquistadors, have lost their identity. It’s always the neighbors who tell them what they should want. No level in this society has its own ambitions. Everything is done by imitation. The capitalists copy Europe and the United States, the workers imitate the Bolsheviks. Too many mirages, Jaime. Those implanted desires will lead them to failure and violence. Recabarren, because he is incapable of inventing his own path, will some day end up the victim of his ideal.”
These conversations with the Rabbi went on for most of the winter. But wherever they went they heard nothing but talk about Alessandri. So great was the fervor for this candidate, that on the days when the rain allowed them to perform, the audience, before the show began, would stand up and sing, as if it were the national anthem: