safeguarded the ministry’s ideals and upheld our dignity abroad. But this remained a moot point because Max took it upon himself to redirect the conversation.
“Countries thrive on such paradoxes. Mutatis mutandis, the same thing happens in the United States. Consider recent examples: Nixon, a Republican, established relations with China, the same way Reagan is the one who negotiates best with the Soviets today. The Democratic Party, with whom we share affinities of another sort, only holds us back. They’re essentially protectionists.”
“Besides their inconvenient obsession with the issue of human rights — so aggravating!”
“You can kid all you want.” He laughed. “Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about your more personal grievances. From that difficult time. At the ministry.”
“My
grievances
, Max?”
“The ones you didn’t share with me. All you did was grumble. At most. I always asked myself why. Considering our longstanding friendship …”
The sweet-sounding cicadas that had greeted us earlier were in for a treat.
16
“What did you feel was unfair? Or absurd?”
“
Everything
was absurd, Max. Starting with the stifling conditions we were living under. And still are.”
“Okay. Tell me about the dictatorship, then.”
“Max, what interests me, what ought to interest you, is something else altogether. It includes the ministry but goes beyond.
Well
beyond …”
“I’m all ears.”
“Okay. Compared to the acts of violence that took place throughout the country, the cases that occurred among us obviously don’t seem so grave. There was no physical aggression, no bloodshed, torture, or rape to speak of, no cases of young children seeing their parents in chains, or
parents watching their children being tortured
. There was nothing comparable to the electric shocks applied to nuns’ vaginas or adolescents’ rectums.”
“Exactly.”
“
Exactly?!
”
“I’m reacting to
your
words, my friend. I’m trying to figure out what
you’re
getting at, not evaluating the intensity of a shock to someone’s anus. I’m the first to regret that things like that happened.
If
they happened.”
“What I’m getting at is this: the bloodshed and violence aren’t enough to evaluate what happened in our midst. At the ministry, to begin with, there were individuals who remained indifferent or cynical. Some threw their career out the window,reducing a worthy profession to a mere job. That kind of atmosphere, transposed to poorer or more radical social contexts, could have led hundreds of people all over the country to despair, possibly even to suicide.”
“Or worse, to armed conflict.”
“How is that
worse
?”
“From the point of view of the military, of course.”
“Of course.”
“
And
…
?
”
“Max, how many people were baited, pressured, corrupted by the regime? People who under normal circumstances would never have gone off track, abandoned their values, whether ethical, moral, or religious? And who, later on, when confronted by relatives and friends regarding the consequences of their actions, were driven to depression or despair, if not more extreme measures, without ever being tallied among the horrors? Without even becoming so much as a footnote in the annals of the dictatorship?”
“You know what I think about all this?” he asked wearily.
“No, Max. What do you think about this? I’d love to know.”
He took a deep breath and said, “When the history of this period is written, impartially, without being manipulated by one side or the other, it will become clear that these weren’t acts planned by the military or political leaders, much less by bankers or businessmen, as rumor would have it.
They were works orchestrated in absolute secrecy
. As if the CIA had commissioned Merce Cunningham, who was at the peak of his career in the sixties and seventies, to choreograph the series of coups to happen in rapid succession, so
“Countries thrive on such paradoxes. Mutatis mutandis, the same thing happens in the United States. Consider recent examples: Nixon, a Republican, established relations with China, the same way Reagan is the one who negotiates best with the Soviets today. The Democratic Party, with whom we share affinities of another sort, only holds us back. They’re essentially protectionists.”
“Besides their inconvenient obsession with the issue of human rights — so aggravating!”
“You can kid all you want.” He laughed. “Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about your more personal grievances. From that difficult time. At the ministry.”
“My
grievances
, Max?”
“The ones you didn’t share with me. All you did was grumble. At most. I always asked myself why. Considering our longstanding friendship …”
The sweet-sounding cicadas that had greeted us earlier were in for a treat.
16
“What did you feel was unfair? Or absurd?”
“
Everything
was absurd, Max. Starting with the stifling conditions we were living under. And still are.”
“Okay. Tell me about the dictatorship, then.”
“Max, what interests me, what ought to interest you, is something else altogether. It includes the ministry but goes beyond.
Well
beyond …”
“I’m all ears.”
“Okay. Compared to the acts of violence that took place throughout the country, the cases that occurred among us obviously don’t seem so grave. There was no physical aggression, no bloodshed, torture, or rape to speak of, no cases of young children seeing their parents in chains, or
parents watching their children being tortured
. There was nothing comparable to the electric shocks applied to nuns’ vaginas or adolescents’ rectums.”
“Exactly.”
“
Exactly?!
”
“I’m reacting to
your
words, my friend. I’m trying to figure out what
you’re
getting at, not evaluating the intensity of a shock to someone’s anus. I’m the first to regret that things like that happened.
If
they happened.”
“What I’m getting at is this: the bloodshed and violence aren’t enough to evaluate what happened in our midst. At the ministry, to begin with, there were individuals who remained indifferent or cynical. Some threw their career out the window,reducing a worthy profession to a mere job. That kind of atmosphere, transposed to poorer or more radical social contexts, could have led hundreds of people all over the country to despair, possibly even to suicide.”
“Or worse, to armed conflict.”
“How is that
worse
?”
“From the point of view of the military, of course.”
“Of course.”
“
And
…
?
”
“Max, how many people were baited, pressured, corrupted by the regime? People who under normal circumstances would never have gone off track, abandoned their values, whether ethical, moral, or religious? And who, later on, when confronted by relatives and friends regarding the consequences of their actions, were driven to depression or despair, if not more extreme measures, without ever being tallied among the horrors? Without even becoming so much as a footnote in the annals of the dictatorship?”
“You know what I think about all this?” he asked wearily.
“No, Max. What do you think about this? I’d love to know.”
He took a deep breath and said, “When the history of this period is written, impartially, without being manipulated by one side or the other, it will become clear that these weren’t acts planned by the military or political leaders, much less by bankers or businessmen, as rumor would have it.
They were works orchestrated in absolute secrecy
. As if the CIA had commissioned Merce Cunningham, who was at the peak of his career in the sixties and seventies, to choreograph the series of coups to happen in rapid succession, so
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