This also is from Chile.
It's called "General Matthei Drives Home Through Santiago."
General Matthei.
The Junta there is made up of four generals,
and General Matthei is one of those lucky men.
And he's General of the Air Force.
Pinochet, who also calls himself President,
was General of the Army.
"General Matthei Drives Home Through Santiago."
The part where General Matthei leaves his office,
I don't know about.
And when he gets home, that I don't know about either.
Or if he had a hard day or easy day
or if his secretary bent down in front of him
so he could see her large breasts
or if he has a secretary or if she has breasts--
all this remains shrouded in mystery.
Likewise, when he got home, whether his four
Dobermans romped out to greet him
or if he spent his evening polishing his pistolas--
this too is hidden from me.
But I know for certain it takes 12 men to help
General Matthei drive home.
It takes five vehicles-- two motorcycles with sirens
and three big gray cars.
Were they Mercedes?
They were going too fast to tell.
As for why it is necessary for him to hurry home so rapidly,
this too is a mystery, except that each day he
requires 12 men, five vehicles, and most
of the speed in Santiago.
It has been said his bowels were shot away in a duel
and the poor general must spend his life rushing from bathroom
to bathroom.
It has been said that as General of the Air Force
he fears the Earth as the wealthy fear the poor.
Or perhaps he is jealous of his wife,
or has bread baking in the oven, or is accustomed to watching
the American cartoons on a TV at 7.30.
But the other generals of the Junta
also rush home at 100 kilometers per hour
down the crowded avenidas.
Surely they are not all jealous of their wives.
So again the curtain of mystery is lowered before us.
But yesterday, as I was driving home
and the general was driving home and about a million
other residents of Santiago were also going home,
I saw the small humiliation of a middle-aged woman
in a small red Fiat who was neither beautiful,
nor was she driving fast.
Maybe she was thinking about her dinner,
or maybe her car radio was turned up
and she was singing to the music.
In any case, she didn't hear the sirens.
The military policeman riding the first motorcycle
wore white leather gauntlets that nearly reached his elbows.
And when the red Fiat had the audacity
not to scramble for the curb, he swerved around it
and smashed his fist down hard on the red Fiat's hood.
For an instant, that was the loudest noise in Santiago.
Did the red Fiat leap several feet in the air?
I believe it did.
Then it braked and swerved right, and dozens of other cars
braked and swerved right and blew their horns,
and in that moment, the general was gone.
I wish I could say all this led to some small tragedy.
That the red Fiat smashed the cart of a man selling bread
or ran over a dog or the woman swallowed her teeth.
But this was a normal evening in late spring,
and the sky was as blue as ever, and the lowering sun
had just begun to redden the tips of the snowcapped Andes.
And in another moment, the tangled cars
straightened themselves out, and the woman in the red Fiat
simply drove home.
When she arrived, maybe she told her husband about the general,
and maybe he went out and stared at the Fiat
but saw nothing but a smear in the dust on the--
but saw nothing but a smear in the dust on the red hood.
But maybe he looked at it, and the rest of his family
looked at it.
And maybe he mentioned it to some friends,
and they looked at it too.
And someday, when General Matthei is shot and dragged
by his heels through the streets,
this man will think of his red Fiat and suck his teeth
and, in a way that is typical of the people of Santiago,
he'll half roll and half shrug one of his shoulders
as if letting a heavy strap at last slide from it.