Postscript

40 THE MINNESOTA REVIEW JAMES SCULLY POSTSCRIPT Washington, Sept. 21—Orlando Letelier, who was foreign minister in the Chilean government of President Salvador Allende Gossens , was killed here today when a bomb exploded in his car as it sped along fashionable Embassy Row. A woman assistant to Mr. Letelier was killed and a third person injured. Mr. Letelier was a leader of Chilean political exiles in this country who oppose the military junta mat overthrew President Allende in 1973. -New York Times One last word for Orlando. But what? word will do justice to the man nicknamed 'Fanta,' the diplomatic gentleman with moustache, the receding tabby colored hair where 's the bajativo for humor that outmaneuvered pathos! Where is it that passed across the table as banter, or better yet butter between Orlando and Garcia Ma'rquez? Where is that word now. And the other, that legal word mincing other legal words to kiss off the piranhas— where is that one! Frazzled in Paris? with Neruda pumping spitballs and jokes down the solemn conference table? SCULLY 41 With Pablo then? whispering those hands shuffling paper murder people Or was it the word sprung from prison calling long distance: who ever dreamed a man in a concentration camp but in a poem, too! would step out one day, bother getting in touch to say thank you, I was moved by your poem He was moved? We were humbled. Words were real after all! Yet where is the soft firm hugging word for Isabel, his wife, and their 4 strong boys? Where for Jose, Chris, Pancho, for Pablo always away with grandmama. . . Where was it September 21st, 1976, when that old frost blue Chevy the split second it sounded like water on a hot wire as that same car like any other rolled down Embassy Row by Sheridan Circle: when his legs were gone and his beautiful life. His wasn't the only life. When he died, when his beloved Allende died, assistants and workers by thousands with hard hands or soft hands, 42 THEMINNESOTA REVIEW all naked hands, lay mangled by their side. Where then was the word word reform, where the peaceful road to socialism, the sad bourgeois comedy of blood! The word DINA didn't exist, no yellow pages listed CIA, not one word rose waving over the payroll of Cuban worms winding through their corridorscoming out, that morning, to murder Orlando before squirming back. No word for that. But for Orlando whose blood ran from offices and ledgers into the street, word came at last. For Orlando, who once did dance in Caracas and in Georgetown. For Orlando who'd gone too far, whose gut breath burst the chains of his own wretched expensive class. He did not say this. He did not have to say it. Around his death his life was joining in, by 2's and 3's, by more, and much, so much life raising dragging banners, placards, passing out leaflets even in Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.A. And the word began to chant COMPAÑERO ORLANDO LETELIER and the word sang back¡PRESENTE! is HERE. . . is no more KROLL 43 gone to negotiate life with worms— but here on the street of arms linked in arms, with Hector, Juan, Bessy, with Elsa and little Franco milling and marching, like it or not, his life now sings through us who salute with our fist: that no comrade may be lost, that together we are all present! Orlando, present, and in this struggling love accounted for. ERNEST KROLL CONSTITUTION AVENUE Who credits that the Fathers meant With building blocks to make a street The model of the general Implied in the concrete? The sun slides over great facades; Light and marble interact, And blind us. Shrined, the absolute Reigns over the abstract. ...