By Night in Chile

explanation, now and then asking a pertinent
    question, and from time to time both of us fell silent and looked at the moon sailing on alone through infinite space. Perhaps it was that vision that gave me the nerve to ask him if he knew Leopardi. He said he didn’t. He asked who Leopardi was. We stopped for a moment. Standing at the window, the other
    generals were looking out into the night. A nineteenth-century Italian poet, I said. If I may be so bold, sir, I said, this moon reminds me of two of his poems: “The Infinite” and “Night Song of a Wandering Shepherd of Asia.” General Pinochet did not express the slightest interest. Walking beside him I recited what I knew by heart of “The Infinite.” Nice poetry, he said. In the sixth class everyone was present again: General Leigh struck me as something of a star pupil, Admiral Merino was a fine and, above all, a friendly conversationalist, while General Mendoza, true to form, remained silent and took notes. We talked about Marta Harnecker. General Leigh said that the young woman in question was intimately acquainted with a pair of Cubans. The admiral confirmed this report.
    Is that possible? said General Pinochet. Can that be possible? Are we talking about a woman or a bitch? Is this information correct? It is, said Leigh.
    Suddenly I had an idea for a poem about a degenerate woman, and I made a mental note of the first lines and the general drift that night while talking about
Basic Elements of Historical Materialism
and going back over some points from the
Manifesto
that they still hadn’t properly grasped. In the seventh class I talked about Lenin and Stalin and Trotsky and the various rival schools of Marxism around the world. I talked about Mao and Tito and Fidel Castro. All of them (except General Mendoza who wasn’t there for the seventh class) had read
Basic Elements of Historical Materialism
, and when the discussion started to flag we went back to talking about Marta Harnecker. I remember we also discussed Chairman Mao’s military accomplishments. General Pinochet said that the really gifted strategist in that part of the world was not Mao but another Chinaman, whose unpronounceable names he mentioned, but of course I forgot them straightaway. General Leigh said that Marta Harnecker was probably working for the Cuban secret service. Is this information correct? It is. In the eighth class I talked about Lenin again and we examined
What Is to Be Done?
and then we went over Mao’s
Little Red Book
(which General Pinochet found very simple and straightforward), and then we came back to
Basic Elements of Historical Materialism
, by Marta Harnecker. In the ninth class I asked them questions about Harnecker’s
Basic Elements
.
    Overall, the answers were satisfactory. The tenth class was the last. Only General Pinochet came. We talked about religion rather than politics. When it was over, he gave me a gift on behalf of himself and the other members of the Junta. I don’t know why, but I had expected the goodbye to be more personal. It was rather cold, though perfectly polite of course, in strict accordance with state protocol. I asked him if the classes had been useful. Of course, said the general. I asked if I had lived up to their expectations. You may go with a clear conscience, he assured me, you’ve done a splendid job. Colonel Pérez Latouche accompanied me home. When I got there, at two in the morning, after driving through the empty streets of Santiago, reduced to geometry by the curfew, I couldn’t get to sleep and didn’t know what to do. I started walking up and down in my room while a rising tide of images and voices crowded into my brain. Ten classes, I said to myself. Only nine, really. Nine classes. Nine lessons. Not much of a bibliography. Was it all right? Did they learn anything?
    Did I teach them anything? Did I do what I had to do? Did I do what I ought to have done? Is Marxism a kind of humanism? Or a diabolical theory? If I told my literary friends what I had done, would they approve? Would some condemn my actions out of hand? Would some understand and forgive me? Is it
always
possible for a man to know what is good and what is bad? In the midst of these deliberations, I broke down and began to cry helplessly, stretched out on the bed, blaming Mr. Raef and Mr. Etah for my misfortunes (in an intellectual sense) since they were the ones who got me into that business in the first place. Then, before I knew it, I was asleep.