The Speed of Light Read Online Free PDF

of Salvador Allende the dictatorship had dismissed him and forced him to earn his living with other jobs, among them that of cellist in the National Symphony Orchestra. He was roughly the same age as Rodney and had a wife and two children in Santiago, and the melancholy air of an orphaned Indian, with a moustache and goatee, that in no way betrayed his bleak sense of humour, his compulsive sociability or his fondness for wine and good food. That Sunday, as well as Felipe Vieri and Frank Solaun, the editors of the journal and unconditional Almodovar fans, several assistant professors came to his house, including Laura Burns and an Austrian called Gudrun with whom our host was going out at the time. We ate roast chicken with mole sauce that Gines had made, and sat round the table long after the meal discussing the contents of the journal. We talked about poems, stories, articles, about the need to find some new contributors, and when we were discussing this last point I brought up Rodney's name, with the suggestion that we could ask him to write something for the next issue; I was about to sing the praises of my friend's intellectual virtues when I noticed that all the rest of the guests were staring at me as if I'd just announced the imminent landing in Urbana of a spacecraft crewed by little green men with antennae. I shut up; there was an uncomfortable silence. That was when, as if surprised to find a suitable instrument in his hands to assure the success of the meeting, Gines interrupted to tell a story. I can't guarantee that all its details are true, I'm just telling it the way he told it. It seems that the Tuesday of that same week, as he made his way earlier than usual to his first class of the day, my Chilean friend had seen a dusty Buick stopping abruptly in the middle of Lincoln Avenue, beside a lamppost, right at the intersection with Green Street. Gines thought the car had broken down and kept walking towards the crossroads, but recognized he was mistaken when he saw the driver get out and, instead of going to look at the engine or check the state of the tires, opened the back door, took out a bucket and brush and a poster and stuck the poster on the lamppost. The driver was sporting a patch over his right eye and Gines quickly recognized it was Rodney. According to Gines, up till that day they hadn't exchanged a single word, and perhaps for that reason he stopped a few metres from the car, watching Rodney finish pasting up the poster, confused and intrigued, not knowing whether to go over to him or take off walking down Green and leave as if he hadn't seen a thing, and he was still wondering when Rodney finished smoothing the poster onto the lamppost, turned around and saw him. Then Gines had no option but to approach. He went over and, although he knew Rodney didn't have any trouble with his car, asked him if he had any trouble with his car. Rodney looked at him with his uncovered eye, smiled crookedly and assured him he didn't; then he pointed to the poster freshly pasted to the lamppost. Since he hardly understood any English, Gines didn't understand any of what was written on it, but Rodney told him that the poster was calling for a general strike against General Electric in the name of the Socialist Workers' Party or some faction of the Socialist Workers' Party, Gines didn't quite remember.
    'Against General Electric,' Gines repeated, interrupting his tale. 'Shit! And I didn't even know there still was a Socialist Workers' Party in this country!'
    Gines explained that he stood staring at Rodney not knowing what to say at that moment and Rodney stood staring at him not knowing what to say. A few endless seconds passed, during which, according to him, he felt successively like laughing and crying, and then, as the silence went on and he waited for Rodney to say something or for something to occur to him to say, the image of General Pinochet's face appeared in his mind, that immobile face with its invisible gaze