FAREWELL TO MOTHER (1)

The Duke of Mantua was strutting about on the dirty boards of the Cariola's stage: he spun around, and with every spin, the scorched hole of his cape showed; a foot and a half wide, the hole have been imagined and carved by the rats in the cloak-room of the Municipal Theatre which had lent to the Cariola this and other trifles such as the star singers, the pitiful choirs, etc. Like an eye wide-open on his back, the hole laughed at the audience. I laughed at the old ladies, who had not yet reconciled themselves to this degrading excursion into the wine-saturated neighborhoods beyond the Alameda, and who sat in the front rows, and it laughed at us —yes, I mean the hole— high school seniors who had earned the chance to acquire a “well-rounded, everlasting culture” as Education Secretary Doña Clarisa Monardes had announced in the opening speech of her extended education programs which were the first in our history.
Everything was going well that night. We had exchanged the flea-infested rows of the Municipal Theatre's nose-bleed section for a more decent place in the back rows of the Cariola —a second rate theater yet more often sprayed with DDT— where we could even spread wide our legs and thus feast on Rigoletto. (2, 3)

My first Christmas in exile was approaching, and I walked through Via della Croce among boutiques, art galleries, and the aroma of roasted chestnuts. I kept walking toward the heart of Rome , to the center of a world of coffee and of ocher-colored hovels, the most sophisticated and end most expensive hovels in the world. There, in the heart of Rome, hollow and unsubstantial but perhaps just because of this, immortal, stroll females of the best quality; there, in a street like Via Belsiana at noon, the outrageous smell of sex could kill a horse even in the middle of winter. The heart of Rome is the worst place in which a lonely man can come out to stretch his bones and air his soul or exhibit his crossbones in December's slanted sun. The aroma of roasted chestnuts shatters your schemes, that is, it shatters any pretense of free tenderness and the romantic look of the would-be-revolutionary. And all the while, that unbearable pain in your balls!

The usual aficionados were there. Myself, Black Ayacaguaca (simply called Estrada), a Jew called Rembalsky, but whom we renamed Remba —because we Chileans reduced everything or cut it by half— and Fatso Morales who had recently arrived in our school as if on temporary leave from the Military School for which he manifested an irresistible nostalgia comparable only to his passion for the opera, a nostalgia which would claim him again later on. In the meantime, he practiced with his pocket knife, which he enjoyed opening all of a sudden and throwing across the room a few inches away from our noses against the blackboard; it did not take him long to cover the blackboard with strange-looking wounds.
As the poet of the group, I was not excessively mistreated through actions or words because of this vague fault of mine. Incomprehensibly, we proved to be a group anomalous to that time and place in which cultural claims could barely camouflage the brutality on which everything was built; the hidden malice; the blackheads of the soul, the bottomless, boring superficiality of Latin America, the wasteland of life and culture; or, in bigger or even lighter words, the soul deprived of its references or coordinates.

I kept walking toward the Pantheon across Via del Corso as if it were Parallel 38 across Korea and under the diluted sun and the lizard-like stare of three carabinieri on duty at Montecitorio. I entered the penumbra from Via della Guglia and ended up in a square crowded with gringos and Japanese tourists who invigorated the Roman air by diligently spending their yens. And finally, I walked toward Piazza Navona, the center of the private and public suffering. Its floor is the luxuriant residence of all the wretched of the world, and its fountain, filled with the water of four rivers, on of which is La Plata , reminds us that Latin America exists even in the middle of this wasted classicism, of all this baroque art squandered on our brown and calm faces. (4)

As Rigoletto approached its conclusion, the public and especially the initiates were looking forward to one single event, the moment in which Genaro Monroy, in the role of the hunchback, would hurl his final Ah! the maledictio-o-o-o-on : we all knew that moment represented the peak of his art, which was not really that of singing, but rather that of the false note. Those prolonged notes, moments, and passages in which the singing is no longer a smooth line but turns into something unpredictable were Monroy's supreme talent. At times, the false note was introduced by a very brief interruption of the sound as if its skin had broken open —this effect was the most appreciated by the audience— and had exploded like glasses crashed by acoustics, at the same time, in every corner of the theater. Those invisible and strange glasses were being smashed by little and in a crescendo beautifully arranged which would almost compete with Stockhausen (5) , who was then yet unknown in remote Santiago of Chile. The false note ended with the most horrid sounds ever produced by human throat: something like the howl of a werewolf, the honk of a horn drowned in kerosene, a bassoon pouring out a stream of insults, an agonizing tuba, the moo of a horny male buffalo. And all of it happened while Monroy seemed to stare particularly at our quartet, although his eyes squinted madly and traveled along orbits in the middle of the stalls as if saying: do not dare to laugh, you miserable one, you are looking for trouble if you dare reveal it by a loud comment; I will wait for you by the exit among the potholes of San Diego street where the final duel will take place in the Sergio Leone (6) style (who would enter public life ten years later, but Monroy always knew everything). And thus the dreadful false note crawled and stretched like a glowworm while the orchestra stopped, not knowing how to handle those uncertain minutes, as if waiting for everything to settle down into place on its own. Monroy himself seemed to be in a trance. In fact, his false notes did not belong to him only but were also the manifestation of a pre-Columbian who was making him holler to exhaustion—as somebody from the Folklore Museum would say—as a revenge on European culture. Therefore, the false note cut the “malediction” in two parts, male-e-e-e … and dictio-o-o-o-on …, the latter finally resolving the agony of the curse's ragged journey and usurping half of the applause which belonged to the efforts of the National Symphony Orchestra.

I felt the tap on my shoulder while I was watching an unbelievable couple of Danish or Swedish tourists who had such a bad sunburn that they looked like shrimps (the December sun is in fact enough to scorch those hyperborean inhabitants of Avalon Isle) (7) . Their huge, tower-like backpacks were clustered with small pots, tents, and sleeping bags visible way above their hair which was so blonde, so straight, so dull!
All those shit-heads need now is a mattress, isn't that right, Babe ? It was the deep voice of the Gorgeous Gorda who was about to invite me to a get-together at her place on the same night.

We left promising each other that next Friday we would be luckier: they were going to show, one after the other as to be expected, I Pagliacci and Cavalleria Rusticana , a double feature which they replaced, at the last minute, with Tosca .

It was while approaching Gorgeous Gorda's place in Campo de' Fiori that I spontaneously remembered those distant musical sorties of my other life which for a Chileans a deceitful, ahistoric past. I surely had put it all together because, in fact, Gorgeous Gorda had sung that unforgettable Tosca when she was soprano Silvia Onfray, twenty years younger and sixty pounds lighter, the new, blooming star of the national opera. She was Venezuelan, but because she had been naturalized Chilean, she had been sharing our destiny in exile, the gloomy brightness of a defeat we could not acknowledge, and had gone crazier than a mountain goat among a bunch of late hippies and junkies. Day after day, they watched old Giordano Bruno's statue being fed by the sun and the insults of leftist radicals who would fasten a jar to his hand. (8)
As usual, Gorgeous Gorda's place was packed with Roman punks most likely on the left of the far left, Chileans, and other Latin-Americans of the same sort. They sprawled on the Indian ponchos she had brought in great quantity from South America and had converted into guest-resistant pillows.
Make yourself comfortable, honey said Gorgeous Gorda from the back of her soggiorno while holding a glass of pisco . (9) On a table there were five bottles, the present of a Chilean friend traveling through Rome who was now sitting with enormous effort, in a yoga-like position under the lofty and vigorous tutelage of the ex-soprano. He lifted his glass of pisco in a circle as the guests arrived or left: full-bearded men in the style of Bud Spencer and dazzling babes with hair like leonine manes who had rummaged through the sales of the NATO outlets and the flea markets of Via Sannio to find Hindu and cowboy clothes. Gorgeous Gorda's hand fondled the fellow's bald head as if trying to plow it.
I want to say that we also drank a toast to the gullible poet.

Fatso Morales had the opportunity to take a musical revenge during the classroom party we had on Friday for the birthday of our English instructor whose name was Aguirre but whom everybody called Hulla Baloo because when he thought we were being too noisy during a lecture he would say This is too much of a Hulla Baloo! I was standing on a desk yelling Hulla Baloo is not here yet! Hulla Baloo hasn't arrived! When I saw everyone else turn pale, Fatso more than anybody else, because he was already rehearsing the text of Vesti la giubba while the Prof.'s table was being crammed with sandwiches prepared by our benevolent mothers plus fruit juice and Bilz soda (10) to celebrate properly the old professor.
After we had warmed up, thanks to the punch of soda and white wine that we had secretly mixed (remember, it is 1954 and we are in a public school), Fatso started: I ha-a-a-ave to a-a-a-act though my heaa-a-a-a-art is maddened with sorro-o-o-o-ow and I know not what I am sa-a-a-a-aying or do-o-o-o-oing … and Bracamonte, with his crocodile-like face, burst out laughing and choked on his punch: Put on thy costume and smear thy face with pa-i-i-i-i-int … People pay the-e-e-e-e and wa-a-a-a-a-ant their la-a-a-a-augh … And though Harlequin thy Columbine has stolen, laugh, clown, and the wo-o-o-o-o-orld will cry Bravo-o-o-o-o . (11)

Of one thing we are sure , say the bald fellow, the Junta is not going to make it to the end of this year (the babes with leonine manes and the full-bearded men turned to look at him) and there are plenty of signs, only signs for now, but which I would are sufficiently eloquent . One of them is the Church's attitude: it becomes stiffer everyday, and this clearly indicates the diminishing somebody says the strong weakening, of the initial support it gave to the authors of the coup d'etat. Just think about cardinal Silva Henriquez's statements: nobody has ever dared to say anything like that. And right in the face of the military. Yes, right in the dog's face. They were purple with rage: you should have seen them. (Gorgeous Gorda translated in a low voice for the close-by punks). It also seems certain that the disagreements among the officials of the three branches of the Army cannot be resolved. There are many who consider Pinocchio himself (and it was the inevitable illuminating reference to Collodi: the punks laughed) too flabby and wish for more repression, greater harshness. (12) On the other hand, there are those who cannot resign themselves to the betrayal of the Constitution and—again they are only rumors—are ready to rise. The latter are said to be Christian-Democrats but, of course, still within the Army. By the way, since we are talking about them, even the demo-dummies are displeased with the military rule. Frei himself wrote a booklet. But we have non been able to read it, because about these matters we are even less informed than you who live abroad, no bullshit. We are kept in the Ab-so-lu-te Dis-in-for-ma-tion. The mass media are all under their control and censorship. Even the Christian-Democrats complain covertly through the radio and the newspapers. Yet, thanks to Radio Moscow and radio Havana , they cannot hide everything. But some say that those pigs have already found a way to jam them with the complicity of Channel 13 (13) and The Voice of America . It is also said that they can detect who is listening to outlawed radio stations and from where. So they come by surprise and arrest people on the spot like pigs on a spit. The say that Big Nose's (14) book is unbelievable and that it particularly demolishes the image of Pinochet, but the only thing I say is this: why he didn't write it before? Because he believed that the bastards would make him president only a few months after the coup d'etat. But they played a nasty trick on him. I think the guy is under pressure because of internal conflicts in the armed forces. I mean Pinocchio, not Frei, who will always be able to suck on Uncle Sam's tit. There are no doubts about it. Not even of the CIA backing him. One more thing: the truck drivers are also upset. They believe they are not getting what they deserve for having supported Allende's down fall. (15) And could it be true that he did not kill himself? I'll tell you, many in Chile doubt it …

(Gorgeous Gorda shuddered)

Hide with laughter thy tears and thy sorrow; play thy part and conceal thy cri-i-i-i-ies … Laugh, clown, though thy love has been destroyed, laugh, though sorrow is poisoning thy hea-a-a-a-a-a-art … It was a triumph. Fatso was glowing red, swollen from exertion, and old Hulla Baloo applauded quietly, because he could not resign to celebrate Morales' performance instead of torturing us with the pronunciation of Hyawatha.
The bald guy was quiet while he raised his glass again. He took a long drink to rinse his throat. The full-bearded men were uneasy and shifted as if tormented by an itchy ass. The American elections are our other hope. Let's not fool ourselves: a lot depends upon them, not only upon us. They put Pinocchio in place and they will have to remove him when they realize that he does not suit their interests either. The collapse of the Junta is obvious, but we, the average people, cannot clearly see the way out. Our people's soul has been crushed. It is going to take another fifty years to recuperate. And we will never be the same people again. Nobody believes in anything any longer, not even those mummies. (16) And the pigs know that everything is falling apart, that they cannot keep it together. But at this `point they cannot retreat. And they also like the tit from which they are sucking; that's as clear as crystal. I can see why: they get paid in U.S. dollars while they loot on whatever there is left, which is not much anyway. The Yankees are aware of it but they are scare to death (Gorgeous Gorda interpreted: paura ) at the idea of loosing also Latin America , the only colony they have left. Let's hope that Ford looses the election since Yimi Carter seems to be a compassionate man who may finally, and please forgive me this vulgarity , sit Pinocchio in the bald one (17) (Gorgeous Gorda burst out laughing and almost choked, but the freaks remained doubtful and unmoved because she did not dare to translate) together with Merino and Leigh, since Mendoza, that imbecile, does not count, being only their lackey. (18) One day we will be able to regain the freedom we have lost, also, thanks to ourselves. Yes sir, it is not going to help to deny it. We missed the opportunity history was offering us in the platter. We threw it away, that's what we did. However, I think that we should feel optimistic, since it is coming to an end. I warn you: start packing …
(while still laughing, Gorgeous Gorda squeezed his bald head as if to determine the equation of its circumference with an impatient motion perhaps meant to scold him for his scandalous optimism characteristic of those who never left the Happy Replica of Eden and keep on evaluating everything according to that Ocean which smoothly bathes you and on believing that the White Mountain was a bulwark given to us from our Lord (19) , or rather for his assumption that the curse of exile has ended and that the nation's mood was softening to receive the prodigal sons and sit them at the sama table—what-the-hell, one has to get used to everything—with the hangmen of yesterday, today fellow-citizens again, brothers to whom you should offer repentant cheeks and resilient back…)

In the mean time, on a table of hybrid-Louis XVI style, like those which used to be auctioned in the house of Nicanor Marticorena and which, supposedly, had furnished the Palazzo Farnese, Baron Scarpia's helmet began rolling. (20) Soprano Silvia Onfray, erect with the pride of a hurt woman in every bit of her six feet, pulled out a cardboard scimitar from her underskirts and was about to stab him when the Roman helmet reached the edge of the table where it stopped and started swaying. Its slanted to-and-fro movement, rather than Tosca's drama, hypnotized the entire audience. And when the baron fell under the deadly blow, the tin helmet also came crashing down because during the struggle he had pushed the table with his rear. It produced a racket, like a chorus of tin plates among which could be heard a laughter suppressed into a hiccup: Remba was suffocating.

One by one, all the punks took off. The bald fellow's inflated optimism did not agree with the anxiety of their talk about permanent revolution and have it all and now. But he too, thanks to the massive amount of pisco he had gulped down, was soon snoring on the carpet.
Gorgeous Gorda called me from the bathroom where she was taking a bubble bath. The scent of the exotic soap in which she was immersed poured out through the entire apartment magnifying the aphrodisiac night of Campo de' Fiori where the same punks had gathered again under the statue of comrade Giordano Bruno and his infinite compassion. Gorgeous Gorda lay in the tub rubbing her soapy armpits which she kept accurately shaved according to the New World 's customs. On the contrary, Mediterranean customs allow the natural and exquisite exhibition of these small groves as a preview, available to all human beings, of a more exciting bush. The motion caused her dark, heavy breasts to rise from the bubbles like young whales emerging to spout. Would you scrub my back, honey? , she said.

Raúl Fabres, in the role of Mario Cavaradossi, was standing before a funky firing squad consisting of four trembling extras who carried Mausers bought at the army's surplus sale. Next to the squad, with Castel Sant'Angelo in the background, great Silvia Onfray quivered with the hope of the fake execution, both hands clasping her ample, powdered face. The castle painted on the backdrop did no look like Castel Sant'Angelo at all but rather anticipated glorious Disneyland: towers raising up in a sky filled with clouds like sheep travelling towards infinity, and we all, the audience and the actors, waiting for the blast.
And when the blast came, big-bellied Raúl Fabres in his white, cotton socks slipped on his silver-buckled shoes, and under Tosca's terrified stare he performed an unbelievable somersault in the air. For a moment we were able to perceive his body upside-down before he crashed with extraordinary violence, head first, on the dusty boards of the stage. The impact raised the twenty layers of dirt accumulated on the boards, and a grim cloud descended toward the stalls all the way to the back seats, painfully stinging my nose, by then already allergic to immortal dust, while wretched Fabres, truly unconscious, lay lifeless on his big belly like the real Cavaradossi, killed in retaliation by the baron from beyond the grave, a bump rapidly swelling on his head like one you could see in a film by the Three Stooges, and Gorgeous Gorda crying on his chest. The scenic arrangement for the ending, simple yet clever, was that Tosca would jump off the stage into the orchestra pit where a mattress had been placed behind the old tuba player. But since Cavaradossi was still death-like and gave no signs of coming to, at the final applause Tosca appeared alone and visibly alarmed against the curtains which remained closed, while Cavaradossi was coming back to life in the emergency room, and the theater seemed to crash down under the cheers.

As for myself, I was travelling through time like an absurd ball made of regret and self-pity: our generation was both victim and culprit because it had functioned as a cushion or a muffler between the old vampires which we had always known to be devouring not only our blood but also our visions and understanding, and the generation of our young people, those kids who indeed died en masse after September 11 th , 1973. Just think about Jorge Cañas, that sucker who went to school with us although he never came to the opera: already then he was as serious as turtle with a Ph.D. and now, being one of the Chicago Boys, had graduated summa cum laude from the Milton Friedman's baseball team.
In Chile we always say: they say. Or they told me. Or even more vaguely: it seems like. So, for example, they say that Estrada is dead, that he was killed in the factory where he worked as an interventor (21) (he was one of those who didn't give up), and the say that Fatso Morales went back to the military academy in 1956, and with the advent of the New World Order he was promoted Major, and we can be sure that he was no longer using a blackboard as a target for his knife. And they say that Rembalsky had taken off to the U.S.A. way before 1970 —when the bulk of those pathetic asses like himself were going to Miami— had his chemistry degree validated and now is so full of himself that he is bigger than the envious toad of the fable, and they even say that he lives on sunset Boulevard like Billy Wilder's old lady.
But anyway, we all get what we deserve; those with a guilty conscience say that life is the great leveling agent, that it make it all even. And as or myself, well, this time I was alone listening to and watching I Pagliacci and Cavalleria Rusticana which was now approaching its final lines with compare Turiddu saying mother … mother … listen, if I don't come back …and I was, why hide it, quite horny, in spite of Gorgeous Gorda's shaved arm pits, for her still attractive tits and what lay still hidden under the exotic bubble soap while I washed her back with my hands contaminated by exile and dreams. And after I had waited through those long moments of delay, an intermission yet longer than any other for man whose marigolds are blossoming, now it happened that all of a sudden everybody in the house began to snore: two punks lying affectionately in each other's arms on the staircase, the bald fellow on the floor, and Gorgeous Gorda in her bed, wrapped in many other Araucanian ponchos turned into covers, the face of Che Guevara on the wall over the bed, just another one of his posters, a face tired of being so trivialized, and a psychedelic print of good Rafael Alberti (22) next to one of the pre-Columbian textile exhibitions on the Latin American Institute. And then I told myself it looks as if your hour has come. Completely naked but with my stiff pride way up high, well erect, I approached the old lady's bed. She had fallen sleep while still holding a butt which, fortunately for her, had gone out on its own, thus sparing her a death like that of Ingeborg Bachmann (23) , with the only difference that, in this case, there would have been more than one fireman with the hose ready. I approached her cautiously, lifted the covers, and looked at what probably only Mario Cavaradossi must have seen back then: her smashed breasts, her lardaceous belly and hips, the sparse bush (brunettes are such a disappointment sometimes: sheer promises, sheer promises!), her thighs like sea sponges, the rabbit fur slippers she had gone to bed with, and on top of it all an ancient stench of tobacco stuck to her breath, an old woman's stench of something more than ripe-and-decayed and which opened a hole in my awareness as it were hit by a massive bullet, and everything escaped from that hole like the Egyptian soul in the shape of a bird taking flight toward the sky.

Frightened by such devastation and by all those years also assailing me from every corner of the hovel I was about to leave, my tool withered, when she awoke from her opaque remoteness and something brought light to her brain, if nothing else that primordial light which any female feels senses when he is about to fall on her (twenty years earlier, at the Cariola, we had heard a deafening cry: Compare Turiddu has been killed !!! ) and she didn't even blink, but just looked at me sadly, as if saying we always learn something in this dungheap of a world, and turning her buttocks to me, she said get lost, you bedbug …

Rome , July 1977.

Translated from Spanish by Lucia Casalinuovo with later edition and added notes by the author.

NOTES

(1) 'Addio alla mamma' received the first award in the international short story contest of literary magazine Hispamérica on May, 1978; members of the jury were leading Latin American writers Julio Cortázar, Augusto Roa Bastos and Mario Vargas Llosa (before he changed in 180 degrees his political views from progressive into conservative neo-liberal).

(2) The author refers to theaters Cariola and Municipal, where Italian operas were represented during the fifties. The nose-bleeding section ( gallinero [chicken house]) refers to the top gallery seats in the theater, the favorites for students because they were the cheapest.

(3) Opera by Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901). Other operas mentioned in the text are I Pagliacci by Ruggiero Leoncavallo (1857-1919), Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945) and Tosca by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924).

(4) Rome 's historical center, referred in the text by naming some of its more famous places, was built mostly during the baroque artistic period (XVII and XVIII Centuries). The Fountain named of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona, was sculpted by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) great sculptor and architect of that time.

(5) Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928) German avant-garde composer of electronic postmodern music, very much respected in artistic circles since the fifties.

(6) Italian movie director, author of the so called "spaghetti westerns", some classics of the genre such as For to Fistful of Dollars or For to Few Dollars More.

(7) Hyperboreans: refers to semi-mytological entities that writers such as Louis Pauwels, Robert Charroux or Miguel Serrano often assimilate to certain earthly ancestors of great wisdom, possibly coming from other worlds. In Celtic legends, in the Isle of Avalon lived the more blessed souls. Avalon is also mentioned in the King Arthur and the Round Table's cycle of legends.

(8) Famous plaza in the historical center of Rome , where on February 19th, 1600 The visionary philosopher and theologian Giordano Bruno was burned alive there by the Inquisition. The statue referred in the text was erected on the exact place of Bruno's martyrdom.

(9) See note (6) in Chinese Carnation.

(10) Bilz is a traditional and very popular Chilean soda, similar in taste (and much better) to tropical punch.

(11) In the original Spanish version, Fatso Morales sings this passage from I Pagliacci in Italian but with a heavy Spanish accent. He also distorts the actual Italian words, because he does not know what they mean. The result is a butchered Italian which is virtually untranslatable.

(12) Refers to Pinocchio and its creator Carlo Collodi (1826-1890) There's a phonetical play for the Spanish name of the character Pinocho , and Pinochet.

(13) Channel 13 belongs to Santiago's Catholic University. Before the coup, it played a fundamental role supporting the subversive campaign that ended the democratic rule in the country.

(14) Big Nose, in Spanish Narigón , was the nickname of Eduardo Frei Montalva (1911-1982) the Christian-Democrat president who preceded Allende (1964-1970) . The role of Frei Montalva within the process ending in the coup d'etat, as well as his misterious death, have been the subject of political controversy until the present.

(15) It refers to the long strike artificially mounted by the truck drivers' unions, in order to break down Chile's economic structures. Later declassified C.I.A. papers showed that this organism supported with considerable funding, the above mentioned strike.

(16) During the Unidad Popular years, “momios” (mummies) was a popular nickname for right-wingers, and conservatives in general.

(17) Literally, to sodomize somebody; metaphorically, to harshly reprimend and punish that person.

(18) The commanders in chief of the Navy and Air Force, and the commander of the police corps (carabineros), all of whom integrated the Government Junta after the military coup d'etat. Later Augusto Pinochet, commander in chief of the Army, took the absolute control of government, naming himself President.

(19) Lines from the Chilean National anthem, which are quoted in the text to ironize about the average Chilean's patriotism and its naiveté.

(20) The dramatic script of Tosca by Giacomo Puccini is developed in famous historical sites of Rome. The painter and revolutionary Mario Cavaradossi loves Tosca, a leading Roman soprano, who also is pretended by the tyrannical chief of the police forces in Rome, Baron Scarpia. Cavaradossi has been condemned to death but Tosca agrees to have sex with Scarpia in exchange of the life of her lover. Scarpia tells Tosca that Cavaradossi will be shot with blank ammunition, and he will be able to escape after. But this is just another Scarpia's trick, and Mario dies under the firing squad. Consequently Tosca throws herself from the tower of Castel Sant'Angelo and dies too.

(21) Political supervisor in factories and businesses intervened by the government, whose job was to help enforce the government's policies.

(22) Rafael Alberti (1902-1999), Spanish poet and painter, the last survivor of the so-called Spanish Generation of 1927. He lived in Rome in the years of this story. He often had shows of his paintings, usually crowded by the Latin American exiled colony.

(23) Austrian poet (1926-1973) who died in Rome in a fire provoked when she fell asleep with a burning cigarette butt in her hand. This event happened in the very same days I arrived exiled to Rome in November, 1973.