A Mystery That Ends In Poetry

Thus began five years of obsession. Not until the end of 2004, months after the Cultural Center had celebrated the centennial of Neruda's birth, did Angel's persistence pay off: A retiree was helping the curator when Angel began talking, again, about memory.

Angel, a 57-year-old artist and architect originally from Colombia, traces his obsession with memory to "the fact that I'm a Latin American, and we live in a constant state of forgetfulness. . . . We seem to repeat many mistakes. It's not because we want to, but it's because the present is always the main concern."

He mentioned the Neruda reading to the man in his office.

"You know what? I think I have that tape," the man answered.

"I jumped from my chair," Angel remembers. He was elated, then dubious. "I didn't believe it. Could he show me the tape?"

The man -- whose identity Angel is protecting because he doesn't want him troubled for having taken the tape from someone who'd threatened to throw it out -- seemed almost relieved to know what to do with it.

When Angel finally held it, he saw that it was from "one of those old recording machines at the time, and of course, my first thought was: It's ruined." They sent it to a specialist and were told it was in good shape, except for a hiss. Still, the voice was "very clear," Angel says, "so we decided to remaster the tape."

The result played last night to a thrilled audience.

"He's a hero to all Latin American artists," said Jeffrey Palacios, a project coordinator for Big Brothers Big Sisters, who held a paperback anthology, "55 Latino Poets." He had nearly forgotten about the reading and stopped in on his way to Hecht's to buy his brother a birthday present. "He lived a triumphant and tragic life."

"Pablo Neruda," exhaled Gloria Elliott, the Chilean mental health director of La Clínica del Pueblo in Adams Morgan. "Of course, of course." No other reason was necessary to come hear the great man's poetry and his voice, which she described lovingly as "very slow and melancholic."

Once last night's reading ended, with applause in the auditorium echoing applause on the tape, Georgette Dorn of the Library of Congress stood up to accept the long-sought tape for her collection. She recalled Neruda's giving a reading at the library two days after the Mayflower reading.

But what the poet read at the Library of Congress was quick and almost simple when compared with the rich and long version Neruda presented for the IDB. Holding tight to the IDB tape, Dorn said, "It's much better than what he read at the library."

In the summer of 1966, she was a 20-year-old who had just come to work at the library. That June day, Neruda did his reading, had lunch with poet Stephen Spender, then returned to Dorn's office and asked, she said, "Can I see the papers of Walt Whitman?"

There was a big reception at the Chilean Embassy, Dorn sad. But the poet spent the afternoon, in the library, reading.