But little, if anything, could be done at this point. Dr. Velasco remembers how the cancerous metastasis in his hips provoked so much pain that he could barely walk. On his last visit to La Sebastiana in Valparaíso, Velasco had to put one of his old friend’s arms over his shoulders and help him with his cane as they walked down the long alley to the iconic house they had shared. On one of Velasco and María’s last trips to Isla Negra, he saw Neruda trying to write his memoirs in bed, with great difficulty. At one point the pen fell out of his hand as he fell into a state of semiconsciousness from which he recovered rather quickly. His body was failing him, but he persevered.
* * *
On February 27, Dr. John R. G. Turner of the State University of New York at Stony Brook wrote Neruda a letter that lifted his spirits and expanded his legacy in a romantic, nostalgic way. Turner explained (in Spanish) that a new subgenus of South American butterflies of the genus Heliconius needed a name. With Mount Helicon being a setting in Greek mythology where inspirational muses dwelled, the custom of the past century was to name a new subgenus after a muse, such Melpomene, the muse of tragedy, whom one evokes to stimulate poetry, or Erato, the muse of erotic poetry. “The era of those classical names has come and gone, but we still think it appropriate to name the new subgenus after a poet of our time, and since said butterflies are from South America, we were thinking about a Hispano-American poet”: Pablo Neruda. (No other Heliconius subgenus has been named after a modern writer.)
The butterfly Neruda is found in Peru, Ecuador, and French Guiana. It is beautiful, dark with orange stripes and white splotches. Neruda, a collector of butterflies since his youth, was thrilled. Neruda wrote a brief and charming note back to Turner: “I’ve never been given such a great honor as the one you propose. I am deeply moved to accept the tribute and will be delighted to think of those butterflies flying in some corner of our continent with my name on their wings.” The name Neruda has remained in use, and it was even elevated to the level of genus by one of Turner’s colleagues, meaning that butterflies have been flying around with names like Neruda aoede and Neruda metharme on their wings.
Another respectful acknowledgment of Neruda’s significance came when the Cuban publisher Casa de las Américas published an anthology of Neruda’s poetry with a prologue by Roberto Fernández Retamar. But the Chilean still held great animosity for the man who had signed the 1964 letter of attack against him. Neruda wrote to the publisher:
Unfortunately, I must seriously protest against a part of the new edition that you have done. It has to do with the name, and prologue, of Señor Fernández Retamal [Neruda played on Retamar’s name, changing the final r to l, making it “Reta-bad”].
A while back, a defamatory and calumnious letter was widely distributed around the world. Señor Fernández was the main author of that erroneous, monstrous, and unjustifiable letter . . .
His body may have been failing him, but his defiance could still flare, and his ego could still inflate.
* * *
Throughout this time, the democratic Chilean revolution was in tatters. Allende hoped that General Prats would anchor his administration amid rampant inflation, constant political and economic crises, and the rising pitch of rhetoric between the government and its opposition. However, Prats was losing his popularity with the public. His support among fellow officers was eroding because he remained an Allende loyalist, with his own personal political ambitions becoming more evident. Additionally, he made the mistake of threatening a woman driver with death after she reportedly stuck out her tongue at him, an embarrassing, if not fateful, public relations disaster.
The streets of Santiago became violent with terrorist acts from both the Far Right and the Far Left. Chile was in chaos. Many felt the situation was moving toward civil war.
On May 26, from Isla Negra, Neruda gave an interview that was broadcast on national television, in which he spoke of the danger of fascist takeover and, alluding to his experiences in Spain, urged the people to realize what a civil war would really mean in terms of human suffering.
In the words of Joan Jara, wife of the activist folk singer Victor Jara:
The whole cultural movement responded to Neruda’s call. Exhibitions and television programmes were organised; a cultural open-air marathon [of activity] took place in the Plaza de la Constitución. It lasted several days and hundreds of artists, poets, theatre and dance groups, musicians and song groups took part. It was a great anti-fascist event to which thousands came, and there were similar events all over the country. Victor’s contribution, apart from performing as a singer, was to direct a series of programmes for the National Television Channel with a common theme: a warning, relating documentary material about Nazi Germany and the Spanish Civil War to the situation in Chile, to make people aware of the real dangers of the same things happening here and now. Victor had put to music one of Neruda’s latest poems which had the refrain “I don’t want my country divided . . . ,” and he sang it as the opening theme for each programme.
Yet while Neruda appealed to everyone to join in to stop this confrontation among brothers, many already thought the collapse of the Allende experiment was inevitable and readied themselves for the transition.
In Congress, the opposition (the center-left to the right wing) called for the military to intervene to guarantee institutional stability, civil peace, and development. At the same time, hundreds of military officers’ wives protested in front of General Prats’s home, demanding that he resign. He subsequently did so, and two other generals
