The Days of the Rainbow by Antonio Skármeta Page B

any moment.
    Conclusion—she wants to drop out of school right away and get a job.
    She stares at me as if she had lit a bomb and was now waiting for it to explode.
    But I don’t say a word because I’m thinking about what I’m seeing, and what I’m seeing in mymind, like on a movie screen, is what life holds for her if she drops out of school.
    I shove half a cookie in my mouth and make it crunch as I chew it just so I don’t have to talk. She raises her brows and asks me what I think. I know very well what I think, but I also know very well I’m nobody to start giving my opinion. Deep inside, what bothers me is knowing why Laura comes to me with her story instead of going to, for instance, Patricia Bettini.
    “So you want to know my opinion?” I ask her.
    “Actually no, Santos. I’ve already made my decision.”
    She takes a makeup case out of her purse and checks the corner of her mouth in the oval mirror. Then she runs her tongue over a small wound that surely stings.
    “Did you tell Patricia?”
    “Of course not.”
    “She’s your close friend.”
    “She’s my close friend, but she’s pretty prudish, too.”
    I get up from my chair and open the window, looking out onto the terrace.
    It’s a few minutes after six, but it’s already getting dark in Santiago. The tires of the buses squeal on the wet pavement and the whistles of the traffic cops are unable to ease the traffic congestion.The drivers honk their horns as if it makes any difference.
    I pour more tea. I wonder when Dad will come back.
    “I need your help, Santos.”
    “What for?”
    “I just found a job close to here.”
    “Where?”
    “Across the street.”
    “So?”
    “I can’t tell my parents that I’m quitting school. I’ll wear my uniform when I leave home, but I’ll need your room to get changed. I have to wear something sexy. It won’t take me more than five minutes.”
    “Look, Laura, you shouldn’t drop out of school. I can help you with English and philosophy. Patricia can help you with math.”
    “And chemistry, and physics, and history, and visual arts?”
    “I’d rather not help you with your scheme.”
    “Please, Santos. It’s only five minutes. Only on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
    “No.”
    “You’re my best friend.”
    “Patricia Bettini’s your best friend. Not me.”
    “Why don’t you want to help me?”
    “Just because! I don’t feel like helping you!”
    Laura Yáñez stands up and gives me an evil look, as if she wants to kill me. “You’re a moralist, Santos.”
    Coming from her, that sophisticated word sounds awkward.
    Because what she really wants to say is that I’m a scaredy-cat.
    Or, like my old man would say, “You’re not ethical, Nicomachus.”
    “Do whatever you want. You can use the apartment as you please. Here, you can have my father’s key.”

AFTER TRYING DIFFERENT HARMONIES , filling ashtrays with half-smoked cigarettes, sipping whiskeys sometimes straight, sometimes on the rocks, Bettini let himself fall on the keyboard—half drunk, half exhausted—and had a dream. The images had the grandeur and precision of a wide-screen movie.
    On the stage of the Teatro Municipal, a chorus of about one hundred elegantly dressed men and women—the men in smoking jackets, the women in long silk dresses—await the conductor’s entrance, while in the orchestra, string and brass instruments are tuned following the first violinist. This lively hubbub is accompanied by the cheerful talk of the audience sitting in the red velvet armchairs and the tinkling of bracelets of the ladies, who’re looking at the box seats, wheresome of the prominent figures of Chilean society pose nonchalantly.
    In his dream, Bettini sees himself behind the scene and concludes that his job there is to signal when the chorus and the conductor have to take their place at the stage. He perceives the nervousness in the audience’s coughs and the cracks of the fans the ladies use to prevent sweat from smudging