Luis Casado*, Prensa Latina employee
Meanwhile, readings and traveling took on a privileged place. For decades my old man collected the sports magazines Estadio (Santiago), El Grafico (Buenos Aires) and others and bought us tons of comics, stories and various books every week. My mother read novels and El Fausto, a weekly newspaper for women that contained chapters of romantic stories. This is where my love of books comes from, from the encouragement of a father who had not yet completed the third year of elementary school but loved reading.
The trips always had the same destination: the Chiloé archipelago, more precisely Achao, on the island of Quinchao. Back then – the fifties – the journey there was an unforgettable adventure.
From San Fernando to Puerto Montt you traveled in an old train pulled by a permanent locomotive and operated by the sooty workers of the State Railway Company, so called because their faces bore the indelible mark of coal.
The train moved with a pleasant and gentle slowness. It took him no less than 14 hours to cover the 700 km, not counting the numerous stops in the provincial capitals. If you opened a window, there was a risk of a carbon particle getting into your eye. From time to time a man in a white jacket and very formal would come by and offer you something to drink and eat: the service was impeccable but too expensive for our meager wallet.
In Puerto Montt you stayed overnight in an inn until the steamboat left early the next day to take you to Quinchao Island.
In Achao there was no harbor or shelter (yet): in the middle of the sea you got out by climbing down a narrow ladder on the sides of the steamer and got to the rowing boats that picked you up and took you in. You jumped and risked with yours Suitcases, bags and assorted fagots plunging into the icy waters of the South Pacific.
When you arrived at Achao Beach, you took off your shoes, rolled up your pants and jumped into the water. So you arrived at your destination on foot. There was Luis Soto Romero, my grandfather, mayor of the city, practicing his craft. My father nicknamed him Cacques out of humor.
My grandfather was an army recruit. In Achao, now a civilian, he has done everything: nurse, midwife, minor surgery surgeon, authority, spokesman, justice of the peace … in short, boss.
My grandfather was a socialist, one of those of that time, do not confuse this genre with those of today: my grandfather never had a canon and never founded a foundation. He preferred to give rather than receive. Would it surprise you to learn that he was a friend and companion of one Salvador Allende?
Quite. Salvador Allende.
In 1958, when I was not yet 10 years old, my grandfather announced to us that we had to go to the beach to receive our candidate. They really didn’t understand anything about it, but together with my brothers and a lot of locals we were on Achao beach when a fishing boat appeared under sail in the distance.
On board it was clearly visible how the boatswain maneuvered the sails and the rudder, and two people in suits, whose clothes did not correspond to the location, means of transport and inhabitants of such unknown places.
As the boat approached the beach, the two townspeople in suits performed the familiar travel ritual: They rolled up their pants, took off their shoes and socks, and jumped into the ice-cold water. One of them was Salvador Allende, who visited even the most remote villages of our plagued geography in his persistent effort to obtain the necessary support from citizens to become president and to put an end to the abuse and exploitation of our people and to the plunder People. Basic wealth. Different times, different men, different practices. It was very difficult to be a Democrat and to live by the daily example of decades of political activity. Allende had already been a candidate in 1952. And he would be again in 1964, when my younger brothers wrote his name on notebook paper and went to paste them on Curalí Street.
It was a time when in a cyclical ritual every six years the “wealthy ladies” would come to visit the poor with some “gifts”. And a message: you must vote for the oligarchy’s candidate. I didn’t know it would be called bribery, buying consciences, scaring the unwary, preaching hate with the all-too-obvious help of the local church.
Servidor, a teenager who continued the fight for his grandfather’s ideals, took an active part in the campaign. So I could confirm that there was no place, no matter how small and humble, that Allende did not visit on his long journey to immortality.
Once some miners from Lota suggested, or rather dared, me to come with them to the mines from which they extracted coal. They stretched for miles beneath the Pacific Ocean and accidents were common. But I didn’t want to be afraid and I accepted. I confess that I went into the holes with barely concealed fear. Already in the bowels of the earth the miner with the lamp announced: Now you will get to know the darkness. And he turned off the lamp.
The moments in which I experienced indescribable blackness, a deadly silence, the loss of all orientation… were unforgettable. Starlight does not penetrate coal mines.
When we finally emerged into the light of day, the miners gave me kind words for my steadfastness (it is clear that they did not know the terror that inhabited me). But what impressed me most was that they added:
“The only politician who dared to go to the bottom of the mine with us… was our comrade Salvador Allende.”
Then I could see – during my wanderings through Chile, in the dry and desert north, in the mountains, in the central valley, in the factories, on the coast, in every small town I visited – that the “companion” had already made me more than once there, long before the light of political consciousness, that of civil rights, shone in me.
Now that I have reached the canonical age, I remember with amazement the unimaginable effort, the countless hours, days, months and years, the always hopeful and encouraging words for the social struggle, the epic commitment and the ethical example of Salvador Allende …to offer Chile the dream of a fair, free and democratic country.
And I understand the value of his last words… “I tell the people: I will not resign…”.
I am proud to have known him and to have contributed microscopically to his reaching La Moneda and thus finally entering the history of the great men of this humanity.
rmh/lc
*Chilean journalist, professor, editor, engineer and information technology expert living in France
(Taken from selected signatures)