ABSTRACT
Pinochet once yelled at me. I was a journalist at the time, and somehow managed to wriggle through the crowd to get in close to the dictator during his performance of “democracy,” as he deposited his ballot into a box with great fanfare on December 14, 1989, an election day he had only grudgingly allowed after almost seventeen years in power. Given the crush of cameras and tape recorder-wielding reporters, I hadn’t expected to fi nd myself standing at arm’s-length in front of the man of the hour himself. An inane question popped out of my mouth: “Who did you vote for?” (He most likely voted for the candidate he had backed in the election, his former fi nance minister, Hernán Büchi.) Pinochet responded with a long, loud, and surprisingly high-pitched for such a large man, reprimand posed as a series of counterquestions accusing me of meddling in the internal affairs of Chile. The tirade climaxed: “What are you doing here? And where are you from? Why are you meddling here? This is our affair. You are an intruder!” My initial shock and alarm soon turned into elation at the realization that I had stumbled on what might later pass for an interview, or at least provide some good quotes for an election-day article highlighting for my U.S. readers the xenophobic side of a man who still enjoyed substantial support both inside Chile and among the international community (Puga, “Pinochet”). My tiny part in the drama of the general’s reluctant, extremely gradual relinquishment of power was one of many events that have led me to refl ect upon how performances collide and compete-sometimes accidentally and with unexpected results. What seems like an innocuous bit role can suddenly blossom into an opportunity for attempted subversion.
