Around this time, Delia and Neruda were given refuge by Víctor Pey, a Spanish engineer who had come to Chile on the Winnipeg. After reading the newspapers one afternoon, he and Neruda started an ongoing debate about the situation. Pey pointed out, as many others did, that if the police did actually arrest Neruda, it would create international headlines that would reflect terribly on the government. Neruda wasn’t so sure. But the blue-eyed engineer explained that politically, for Neruda and the Left, the best thing that could happen at the time was Neruda’s capture. The poet stayed silent and looked at the Spaniard with incredulity. “If they get me, those guys will humiliate me. Be sure of that,” Neruda insisted. “I know them. They’ll submit me to all types of indignities.”
Some felt that the government wasn’t really serious about persecuting Neruda, fearing an international public relations scandal. However, there is evidence that the police were indeed actively looking for him during this time, including internal reports made public later. The police noted they were keeping tabs on at least sixteen different cars, but, as the chief of investigations attested in an update to the court of appeals, Neruda had numerous friends in intellectual, political, and diplomatic circles beyond his fellow party members, all of whom could easily hide him. The chief attached a list of sixty-three houses they had under surveillance.
In the last months of 1948, yearning for the camaraderie of his old literary world and wanting feedback on his new poems, Neruda invited a group of close friends over for an intimate reading of his new Canto General material. He was staying in Valparaíso, and great lengths were made so that no notice would be made of the gathering. Among the group were his sister, Laura; a Communist congressman; the head of the University of Chile’s library; his old friends Rubén Azócar and Tomás Lago; and Lago’s wife, Delia Soliman. It was the first time Lago had seen Neruda since the arrest warrant had been issued.
Starting around five o’clock, they drank whiskey and a relaxed Neruda, sitting on a divan, read from more than seventy pages of the gestating Canto General. Friends then took turns reading more of Neruda’s new poems themselves. Neruda would watch whoever was reading with particular interest, all the while drinking his whiskey. He was so acutely focused on the reading that whenever an errant sound arose that interrupted the recital—someone clearing his throat loudly, or even just the creak of a chair—Neruda would raise his finger to whoever was reading: “Repeat. Repeat. So-and-so coughed and we couldn’t hear a thing.” Everyone would laugh.
The reading began to pick up a rhythm. By the end, Neruda was interjecting about historical figures or events mentioned in a poem, especially in the section “The Conquistadores.” He continued drinking his whiskey, despite the protests of Delia, who was keeping count. The room was cold; there were no heaters. Around ten o’clock they ate dinner together, and by midnight everyone left, content from the brief respite in the midst of such dark times.
A few days later, Tomás Lago brought Juvencio Valle over to the Valparaíso hideout. Valle, Neruda’s poet friend from growing up in Temuco, hadn’t seen him in several months. He came with his dog Kutaka, who thrilled Neruda by recognizing him immediately. Valle sat quietly as Neruda and the dog played, the fugitive’s heart filling up at this simple, life-affirming pleasure.
Meanwhile, headlines kept saying that Neruda would be caught any day. The persecution of Communists continued throughout 1948. The magazine Vea reported:
As of the evening of Monday, October 27, eight hundred members of the Communist Party, whether union leaders or politicians, were in jail throughout the country. This number is not official, though, because the police are keeping quiet about the extent of the offensive. But despite all the secrecy, we know that there were more than four hundred people arrested in the city of Antofagasta alone—a record.
Neruda, fearful of joining the others in jail, continued to move from one house to another, growing out his beard even fuller, now traveling under the alias Antonio Ruiz Legarreta, ornithologist. For over a year, one plan after another to flee by boat or by car failed to materialize, until Víctor Pey realized that a friend of his could help.
Jorge Bellet was a member of the party and the foreman on a ranch at the foot of the Andes, just above Patagonia. From there, Neruda could cross into Argentina on horseback through an unpatrolled pass, known to few people other than the Mapuche and smugglers. After he and Bellet formulated the plan, Pey sent a message describing it to Galo González, the main leader of the party at the time. A few days later he got the green light.
The departure was delayed for nearly a dozen weeks due to torrential rains in the austral region those winter months. When the road was finally passable, the first step was to drive some five hundred miles south to Valdivia. Pey believed it should be done in just one car, one in optimal mechanical condition. The driver needed to be a mechanic himself and to know the route perfectly. They would also get the name and addresses of reliable, long-term party members who lived in towns along the route where they could stay if anything happened.
In the end, Bellet drove the car himself, a fine-tuned cherry-red Chevrolet on loan from a party member. Getting out of Santiago was the first and most dangerous step. To this end they enlisted Dr. Raúl Bulnes, who had moved
