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Show The Great Escape • 21 coffin entirely too much, fiddling with angles, motioning for the forkhft operator to raise them up or lower them down, pushing hard against the locker ceiling, shifting the casket from side to side, crushing the flowers that were stuck to the top, getting the coffin halfway in, then scratching then heads, and I lamented the reality of the situation. I had hoped to write something more noble. The clapping had stopped, and there was a palpable hush. In a situation like this, one wants a smooth resolution, the coffin sliding easily into its sheath, the door closed, heads bowed in meditation or erect in pride, eyes glistening in sadness, memory, admnation. Nobody spoke, but I, realizing a meaning for this sad scene, wanted to laugh, wanted to say that in death, as in life, Arturo was causing problems for the authorities, bucking conventions, acting inappropriately, messing with your mind and emotions. That although he had gone, he had note gone gently, had raged, was still raging. Then, a third worker got on the forkhft to help take the coffin back out entirely and remove the flowers from the lid, and finally, between the three of them, the workers got the coffin, then the flowers, all the way in. Then they closed the door of the locker and lowered the forklift blades and Arturo was off to Avalon, or wherever it is that old Tupamaros go. I walked alone from the cemetery, up Yaguaron to 18 de Julio, kicking brown leaves and broken branches. I couldn't stop thinking about earlier, at the MLN headquarters, when the ceremony began with the Uruguayan national anthem. I had heard the hymn before many times, had never consciously set out to memorize it, but was getting close to understanding all its lyric. Never before had it meant much to me, but here, with these men and women, in honor of this man, it meant. Everybody sang: |
