Another sound, this time to Will’s left.
Will turned and saw an older man, wearing black tie. On his feet. Applauding, rapping his palms together, his expression afraidand desperate. Around the theater, a few other people lunged to their feet, joining him, apparently those people unwillingfor whatever reason to allow one of the Oracle’s predictions to be false, or wanting to become part of it now that it wascoming true.
And then one of the people gathered around Pittaluga onstage turned and shouted out to the audience, something in Spanishthat Will didn’t catch. Quick, short, anguished, and angry.
The meager standing ovation tapered off, the men and women lowering their hands and sinking back into their seats. Next tohim, Iris gasped, her hand to her mouth, a sound echoed across the theater by other members of the audience, following bya growing surge of disturbed murmurs.
“What is this?” Will asked Iris. “I didn’t understand what he said.”
She turned to him, her face pale.
“Someone shot Pittaluga,” she said. “He’s . . . he is dead.”
The bubble of tension exploded, the audience beginning a panicked surge into the aisles. Will stood, looking toward the stage,trying to see. Other theatergoers jostled him as they shoved past him out of the row, Iris among them.
On the stage, José Pittaluga lay on his back in a slowly spreading pool of blood, shining crimson under the stage lights.
Ripples
Finely dressed men and women spilled out of the Teatro Solís, clogging Plaza Independencia, slowly filling the sidewalks leadingup along Soriano and Bartolomé Mitre. Approaching sirens could be heard in the distance.
Most of the patrons stayed in the area, clumping into knots, fervently arguing about what they had all just seen, and whatit could mean. Sweat trickled down their backs from the unaccustomed exertion of fleeing the theater, compounded with themidsummer heat. Men removed their tuxedo jackets, and women fanned themselves with programs, but no one felt as if they couldleave. Not yet.
Across Montevideo, in its parks and public spaces—the Plaza España, just blocks away from Teatro Solís; the manicured landscapeof the Parque Rodó; the sandy sweep of the Playa de los Pocitos—great screens had been erected, to allow residents and touristsalike the chance to experience José Pittaluga’s forty-third performance of Prospero live, alongside the privileged few wealthyenough to afford tickets to see the show in person.
Thousands of people, of all backgrounds, packed tightly together, fueled by liberally consumed portions of alcohol and streetfood—fried, greasy sopaipillas and empanadas and chivitos, washed down by endless bottles of Pilsen and Barbot and Mastra.Stunned, confused, worried, fearful people.
The screens still showed the stage at Teatro Solís, where emergency workers—medical, police—and tearful, traumatized membersof the production, milled around Pittaluga’s corpse. No one had thought to end the broadcast, and while there wasn’t verymuch to see, the images were a reminder of how wrong things had gone.
The Oracle, for whatever reason, had wanted the world’s attention focused here. Had wanted millions, if not billions of men,women, and children, all around the planet, to watch a man’s murder.
It began on the beach. A bottle arced up above the crowd and smashed against one of the poles of the metal scaffolding holdingthe large screen, with Montevideo Bay visible behind it. Fragments of green glass rained down amid a shower of foam, sparklingin the light cast by the image on the screen. Almost immediately, more bottles, crashing against the supports and the screenitself. Inevitably, the rain of glass found upturned faces below, and cries rang out. Shoves, anger, shouts as perpetratorswere sought, leading to blows.
At last, the screen went dark, either via damage from the glass or because a technician realized what was happening, but toolate. A critical point had been reached, and the crowd broke, spilling out from the beach into the city in a panicked, gleeful,drunken surge.
Word spread quickly, and the group from the beach was joined by others, from all across the city—windows were smashed, carsoverturned, people were hurt or killed or burned or trampled.
Three days later, an overwhelmed police force was finally relieved by army units from the Ejército Nacional, who restoredorder in the city through an indiscriminate application of force. An uneasy peace, and then a checkpoint close to the citycenter was firebombed, with responsibility claimed by a group calling themselves the Nuevo Tupamaros, after the infamous liberationmovement of the ’60s and ’70s.
Their public statements claimed no connection to the Oracle, insisting instead that they simply wished to free Uruguay fromthe long-standing political oppression now finally, tangibly evidenced by armed soldiers on the streets infringing upon thefreedoms of citizens. More bombings, robberies, manifestos, and at last martial law was declared within the municipal borders,until such time as the threat posed by the Tupamaros was neutralized—clearly their goal from the start.
Decisions, consequences, adaptation, and further decisions, all based on a future that was becoming impossible to predict.
Chapter 19
“Sit down, Tyler!” Miko said, in that special tone of voice all teachers could produce on demand—sharp with irresistible authorityand barely restrained exercise of higher disciplinary powers, from ruler raps (once, anyway), to visits to principals’ offices.Or, if the infraction was sufficiently dire, the ultimate threat—a black mark on the never viewed but monolithic set of documentsgoverning the future of every child in every school—the permanent record.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Sheikh,” Tyler said, slinking away from the classmates he’d been distracting and returning to his own desk.
Miko shifted her gaze away and scanned across the rest of the room, where twenty-five fourth graders worked through theirfree-choice reading with varying degrees of engrossment.
Teachers developed any number of superpowers—the voice was one, but another, almost as important, was the read. The same batchof kids could be working quietly on two different days and appear identical to an outsider. But on one of those days, theserene pods of children scattered around their beanbags and desks and wedged into corners might be mere moments from an eruptioninto undisciplined chaos. Impossible to foresee, unless you had the power of the read—and any experienced teacher did.
