Word play defined the universe. From Gabriela Mistral, beautifully groomed and sitting at her poetic bureau, down to the fishmonger on the docks, knife in hand, flecks of blood and scales dried onto his bare chest, everyone played. It was complicated, more complicated that dancing the cueca, but everyone mastered it.

Speech was not intended for the exchange of information, comrade. Not in the Chilean system. If something was really important, you probably already knew it. Language was for mapping territory. There were no winners and no losers, no beginning and no end. The ball came and went, until the last rays of the sunlight disappeared into the sea.

Unless there was bad news, comrade, a cultural breakdown, with tanks in the street and a curfew. And pronouncements that ended abruptly with a period. Things got really quiet for a while. As if the people had lost their soul.

When someone was a gifted talker, Chileans would say that he was like the radio because the transmission never stopped; a profane litany of virgins and martyrs, saints and sinners, bathed in sweat and dusted by every passing car. Our joys and our hopes, our sorrows and our fears, were all defined by that ongoing stream of words. It wasn’t pure and it wasn’t neat, but it was tasty. Dance your cueca and stomp on that, comrade.

One of my colleagues at Andacollo, a young guy from the neighborhood who taught Castellano, took me to El Puerto one weekend, to meet some relatives. El Puerto just meant San Antonio. El Viejo Puerto was Valparaíso. Valparaíso was elegant, historic, beautiful and closer to Viña del Mar, but San Antonio was second class. 

It tumbled to the ground in the earthquake of ’85, but that turned out well. El Puerto was rebuilt and modernized. Today, it handles more cargo than any other port in the country. Valparaíso was left at the mercy of the poets, the tourists and the prostitutes. Oh, and Pinochet built the new Congreso there.

When the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, docked in Rio de Janeiro in 2004, it was serviced by a sizeable team of local working girls. Then, following naval tradition, the ship rounded the Horn and stopped in Valparaíso on its way to California. There were 8,000 men on board. In spite of centuries of experience efficiently accommodating whalers, sailors and pirates, Valparaíso was overloaded. Demand exceeded supply by two thirds. 

But Chilean businessmen (and women) had learned strategic planning from the Chicago boys during the Pinochet years. Reservists were called. They arrived, directly from Rio, in countless droves. As Reagan rounded the Horn, they ladies of the night crossed the continent by bus. Wonder women, an army of amazons to save the day. Red bulbs were hung from every cheap hotel, upper room and hot dog stand; all strategically in place and ready to receive the hungry naval regiment. Some even arranged to meet up with the same clients they had fleeced in Rio. It was a testimony to the ingenious flexibility of the free market, General Pinochet’s genuine legacy to a very clever and resourceful people. Mercosur in action. Capitalism’s finest hour.