A Long Petal of the Sea(73)

He learned that, like so many others, Isidro del Solar had returned to Chile a few days after the coup, ready to reclaim their privileges and the reins of the economy, although not political power. For the time being, that lay with the generals while they restored order to the chaos into which Marxism had plunged the country. No one apart from the generals imagined how long the dictatorship would last.



* * *



—

IT WAS HIS NEIGHBOR who denounced Victor Dalmau. The same woman who two years earlier had asked him to use his friendship with the president to secure a place for her son in the police force, the same one on whom he had operated to insert a couple of heart valves, the same one who swapped sugar and rice with Roser, the same one who attended Carme’s funeral in tears.

Victor was arrested at the hospital. Three men in civilian clothes who didn’t identify themselves came to look for him while he was in the operating room. At least they had the decency to wait until he finished operating.



“Come with us, Doctor, it’s just routine,” they ordered him brusquely. Out in the street they pushed him into a black automobile, handcuffed and blindfolded him. The first punch was to his stomach.

Victor Dalmau had no idea where he was until two days later, when they had finally had enough of their interrogations and dragged him out of the bowels of the building, took off the blindfold and handcuffs, and he was able to breathe fresh air. It took him several minutes to adjust his eyes to the blinding midday light and recover his balance so that he could stand up. He was in the National Stadium. A very young conscript gave him a blanket, took him by the arm without violence, and led him slowly over to the stand he had been assigned to. Victor found it hard to walk: his whole body was aching from the beatings and electric shocks, he was as thirsty as a shipwrecked sailor and couldn’t figure out what day it was, or remember exactly what had happened. He could have been in the hands of his torturers for a week or only a few hours. What had they asked him? Allende, chess, Plan Z. What on earth was Plan Z? He had no idea. There were others in similar cells, noise from giant ventilators, hair-raising screams, bullets. “They shot them, they shot them,” murmured Victor.

He saw thousands of prisoners in the stands, guarded by soldiers. He had been there before for soccer matches and cultural events, like the homage to Pablo Neruda. When the conscript who had brought him there moved away, another prisoner came up to Victor. He took him to a seat and offered him water from a thermos. “Don’t worry, comrade, I’m sure the worst has passed.” The prisoner let him empty the thermos, then helped him lie down and put a rolled-up blanket under his head. “Get some rest. We’re going to be here a long while.” He was a metalworker who was arrested two days after the coup and had been in the stadium for weeks. At dusk, when the heat lessened and Victor could sit up, he explained the routine.

“Don’t attract attention. Stay still and silent—they can use any excuse to beat you to death with their rifles. They’re wild animals.”



“So much hatred, so much cruelty…I don’t understand,” Victor mumbled. His mouth was dry, and the words stuck in his throat.

“We can all turn into savages if we’re given a rifle and an order,” said another prisoner who had come over to them.

“Not me, comrade,” the metalworker responded. “I saw how these thugs destroyed Victor Jara’s hands. ‘Sing now, you jerk,’ they shouted at him. They beat him and then riddled him with bullets.”

“The most important thing is for someone outside here to know where you are,” the other man said. “That way they can follow your trail, if you disappear. A lot of people disappear and are never heard of again. Are you married?”

“Yes,” replied Victor.

“Give me your wife’s address or telephone number. My daughter can get word to her. She spends all day outside the stadium with members of other prisoners’ families waiting for news.”

Victor, though, didn’t give him either, fearing he might be an informer planted to get information.

One of the nurses from the San Juan de Dios hospital who had seen Victor being arrested finally managed to reach Roser by telephone in Venezuela and tell her what had happened. As soon as she heard this, Roser called Marcel to give him the bad news and order him to stay where he was, because he could be more useful outside the country than in Chile. She, however, was going to return immediately. She bought a plane ticket, and before boarding went to see Valentin Sanchez. “Once we know what they’ve done with your husband, we’ll rescue him,” her friend promised her. He gave her a letter for the current Venezuelan ambassador in Chile, a colleague from his days as a diplomat. There were already hundreds of people seeking asylum in his Santiago residence, waiting for safe-conducts to go into exile. His was one of the few embassies willing to offer refuge to fugitives. Hundreds of Chileans began to arrive in Caracas; soon there would be thousands.



Roser landed in Chile at the end of October, but it wasn’t until November that she learned her husband had been taken to the National Stadium. When the Venezuelan ambassador went there to ask after him, he was assured Dalmau had never been there. By this time they were evacuating the prisoners and distributing them in concentration camps throughout Chile. Roser spent months searching for him, using her friends and international contacts, knocking on the doors of different organizations, consulting lists of the disappeared put up in churches. His name was nowhere to be found. He had vanished into thin air.