When they went to the house to pick up Neruda, they found the poet, Delia, Galo González, and the Communist senators Carlos Contreras Labarca and Elías Lafertte Gaviño, who had represented the northern provinces with Neruda. Delia had been told that she wouldn’t be going with Neruda, and she was irate. The party leadership said the decision was motivated by concern for her safety, though she was an equestrian and Neruda was the one who would have to learn how to ride again, not having been on a horse since childhood. But the operation was too complicated and dangerous, she was told. It would be even more complicated if a couple was involved. She shouted with frustration, but her arguments fell on deaf ears.
Dr. Bulnes’s wife, Lala, urged the others to let not just Delia go, but herself as well. She was a well-trained equestrian who could help. But they refused her. “Galo was a male chauvinist,” she said. “My husband [who would be part of the operation] wasn’t political. I was communist to the soul.”
It had been a tough year and a half of living on the run. Delia said years later, “Once Pablo and I were in a car and a policeman hitched a ride. He sat in the front and we sat in the back. We didn’t say a word . . . In a sense, that period was very romantic, if you know what I mean.” Others, though, have said that despite some very good times and warm bonding, the constant hardship and anxiety did put a strain on the relationship, and guarded resentments erupted with Delia’s exclusion from the Andean escape. Some believed Neruda himself was opposed to her going; perhaps he didn’t want to be bound to her or responsible for her safety, but he never said as much himself. Later, Delia sensed the separation would mark the beginning of a definitive distancing between them, but in that moment, no one could imagine them no longer being a couple. There were farewell hugs all around, a kiss and long embrace between Pablo and Delia.
They left in the evening, Bellet in the passenger seat, the fugitive senator in the back. Thanks to the police flag, Dr. Bulnes’s car passed through a checkpoint on the edge of the city without problems. Around nine at night, at a designated site near the town of Angostura, thirty miles south of Santiago, Neruda and his car met up with Víctor Pey and the red Chevrolet. An exiled Communist congressman, Andrés Escobar, was there as well. A railroad workers’ leader, he was experienced in engine mechanics and would be able to help if there were any problems with the car. Five little glasses appeared, which Neruda filled with whiskey. They toasted the mission and the end of González Videla.
Escobar, Bellet, and Neruda got in the Chevy; Pey left with Bulnes. “From this moment on,” the poet said to the other two, “Pablo Neruda disappears. You must call me Antonio. I am Antonio Ruiz Legarreta, ornithologist. I’m going to the interior of Valdivia to work on the ranch you’re the foreman on, Jorge. This will be our only story until I’m in the hands of our comrades in Argentina.” Bellet nodded and drove in silence, all his attention on the road, the fluvial coastal town of Valdivia some five hundred miles away. From there they would turn eastward to the Andes.
They passed horse-drawn carts and carriages, then trucks. The evening air was warm and carried the scents of jasmine and manure. Neruda, who had seemed dejected and uneasy while in hiding, began to fill with hopeful, renewed spirits on the open road toward the expected escape. He broke Bellet’s silence and became something of a chatterbox for most of the drive, more animated with every passing town.
In the morning hours he began to name—or try to name—the insects that splattered across the windshield, or the scientific names of trees they saw outside the windows. He talked about the agriculture of the different regions they passed through, about the pink grapes and different wines, as they made their way down and out of the Central Valley, toward where he was born and raised.
They entered what is considered Chile’s south. As they were leaving the large town of Chillán, a policeman standing on the side of the road signaled with his baton for them to pull over. Bellet stopped the car. The officer approached the window and asked humbly, “If it’s not a bother, can you give me a ride? I’m going about six miles up the road, to my mother’s house.” Bellet didn’t risk making an excuse, despite the fact that Neruda’s image had been shared widely in the press and in police bureaus. They dropped the officer at his mother’s house without incident.
Eventually, they reached Temuco. Neruda hadn’t been there in years, but he couldn’t stop to see anyone. It was near noon, and nobody recognized him. He noticed how many of the main roads were now paved, but he also saw the same carts pulled by oxen, manned by the same suffering Mapuche. He felt a longing for his childhood innocence, despite the pain it brought with it. They passed a train that brought back strong memories of his father, and it inspired the poet to tell tales of his childhood to his travel companions.
Finally, they reached Valdivia and the majestic confluence of three rivers that flow along the historic town, surrounded by forests and deep green fields. They stopped only for gas, where Neruda felt the station’s attendant staring at him as if he recognized the
