be heard, the word “mad” repeated several times, and then only silence. Eventually the Intelligence agents left as quietly as they had arrived, carrying three shoe boxes provided by the owner of the flat, containingthe photographs from the exhibition. Well, gentlemen, said the captain, before following them out, I advise you to get some sleep and forget everything that happened here tonight. A pair of lieutenants stood to attention, but the rest were too tired to observe protocol or any kind of ritual and they didn’t even say good night (or good morning, since day was breaking). Just as the captain left, slamming the door behind him, Wieder emerged from the bedroom (the timing, had anyone been in a state to appreciate it, was worthy of a sit-com) and walked across the living room to the window, without so much as a glance at the others. He drew the curtains (it was still dark outside, but a faint glow could be seen in the distance, towards the Cordillera) and lit a cigarette. What happened, Carlos? asked Wieder’s father. No answer. For a moment the silence seemed definitive, as if they had all fallen asleep on the spot, staring fixedly at Wieder’s silhouette. The room, Muñoz Cano recalls, felt like a hospital waiting room. Finally the owner of the flat asked, Are you under arrest? I guess so, said Wieder, without turning to face them, looking out at the lights of Santiago, the sparsely scattered lights of Santiago. With painfully slow movements, as if he had to gather his courage, Wieder’s father drew near and finally gave him a quick hug. Wieder did not respond. Why the drama? asked one of the surrealist reporters. You can shut up, said the owner of the flat. What do we do now? asked a lieutenant. Sleep it off, replied the host.
Muñoz Cano never saw Wieder again. But that last image was indelible: the big living room a mess; bottles, plates and overflowing ashtrays, a group of pale, exhausted men, and CarlosWieder at the window, showing no sign of fatigue, with a glass of whisky in his perfectly steady hand, contemplating the dark cityscape.
7
The reports of Carlos Wieder’s activities from that night on are vague and contradictory. His shadowy figure makes a number of brief appearances in the shifting anthology of Chilean literature. According to some rumors, he was expelled from the air force at a secret court martial, held at night, which he attended in full-dress uniform, although his die-hard fans prefer to imagine him wearing a black greatcoat and a monocle, smoking a long pipe made from an elephant’s tusk. The most unbalanced minds of his generation claim to have seen him wandering around Santiago, Valparaiso and Concepción, working at a variety of jobs and participating in strange artistic projects. He changed his name. He was associated with various ephemeral literary magazines, to which he contributed proposals for happenings that never happened, unless (and it hardly bears thinking about) he organized them in secret. A theatrical magazine published a short play in one act by a certain Octavio Pacheco, who was a mystery to everyone. This play is odd, to say the very least: the action unfolds in a world inhabited exclusively by Siamese twins, wheresadism and masochism are children’s games. Death is the only punishable offense in this world and the main subject of the twins’ discussions throughout the work, along with non-being, nothingness and the next life. Each character devotes himself to torturing his Siamese twin for a certain period (a cycle, in the author’s words), after which the tortured becomes the torturer and vice versa. But the inversion can only take place when “the depths have been plumbed.” The reader of this play is, as one might imagine, confronted with every possible kind of cruelty. The action takes place in the principal characters’ house and the parking lot of a supermarket where they encounter other Siamese twins who display a broad variety of disfiguring scars.
Muñoz Cano never saw Wieder again. But that last image was indelible: the big living room a mess; bottles, plates and overflowing ashtrays, a group of pale, exhausted men, and CarlosWieder at the window, showing no sign of fatigue, with a glass of whisky in his perfectly steady hand, contemplating the dark cityscape.
7
The reports of Carlos Wieder’s activities from that night on are vague and contradictory. His shadowy figure makes a number of brief appearances in the shifting anthology of Chilean literature. According to some rumors, he was expelled from the air force at a secret court martial, held at night, which he attended in full-dress uniform, although his die-hard fans prefer to imagine him wearing a black greatcoat and a monocle, smoking a long pipe made from an elephant’s tusk. The most unbalanced minds of his generation claim to have seen him wandering around Santiago, Valparaiso and Concepción, working at a variety of jobs and participating in strange artistic projects. He changed his name. He was associated with various ephemeral literary magazines, to which he contributed proposals for happenings that never happened, unless (and it hardly bears thinking about) he organized them in secret. A theatrical magazine published a short play in one act by a certain Octavio Pacheco, who was a mystery to everyone. This play is odd, to say the very least: the action unfolds in a world inhabited exclusively by Siamese twins, wheresadism and masochism are children’s games. Death is the only punishable offense in this world and the main subject of the twins’ discussions throughout the work, along with non-being, nothingness and the next life. Each character devotes himself to torturing his Siamese twin for a certain period (a cycle, in the author’s words), after which the tortured becomes the torturer and vice versa. But the inversion can only take place when “the depths have been plumbed.” The reader of this play is, as one might imagine, confronted with every possible kind of cruelty. The action takes place in the principal characters’ house and the parking lot of a supermarket where they encounter other Siamese twins who display a broad variety of disfiguring scars.
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