Ardiente paciencia

The story opens in June, 1969 in the little village of Isla Negra, off the coast of Chile. Mario Jiménez, a timid teenager, rejects the profession of his father, a fisherman, and instead takes a job as the local postman. Despite the entire village being illiterate, he does have one local to deliver to—the poet, Pablo Neruda, who is living in exile. Mario worships Neruda as a hero and buys a volume of his poetry, timidly waiting for the moment to have it autographed. After some time, Mario garners enough courage to strike up a conversation with Neruda, who is waiting for word about his candidacy for the Nobel Prize for literature, and despite an awkward beginning, the two become good friends. Neruda fuels Mario's interest in poetry by teaching him the value of a metaphor, and the young postman begins practicing this technique. In the village, Mario meets Beatriz González, the daughter of the local barkeep, Rosa. Beatriz is curt and distant from Mario, and the young man finds his tongue tied whenever he tries to speak to her. With Neruda's help as a poet and an influential countryman, Mario overcomes his shy nature and he and Beatriz fall in love, much to the dismay of Rosa, who banishes Beatriz from seeing Mario. Neruda's matters are complicated when he is nominated for candidacy as the president of the Chilean Communist Party, but returns to the island when the nomination turns to Salvador Allende. Neruda tries in vain to deter Rosa's negative attitude towards Mario. Months later, when a clandestine meeting between Beatriz and Mario turns to intercourse, Beatriz discovers she is pregnant and the two are married, much to the dismay of Rosa. Neruda leaves to become the ambassador to France, and as he leaves, he gives Mario a leather-bound volume of his entire works. National workers enter the village to install electricity, and Rosa's bar becomes a restaurant for the workers. As Neruda is gone, Mario is no longer needed as the postman, but takes on a job as the