‘What a cruel and unpleasant man,’ said von Igelfeld.
‘They are all like that,’ sighed Cinco Fermentaciones. ‘They have no heart.’
Dolores Quinta Barranquilla seemed lost in thought. ‘Not everyone can be entirely bad,’ she said. ‘Even the entirely bad.’
Von Igelfeld and Cinco Fermentaciones stared at her uncomprehendingly, but she seemed in no mood to explain her puzzling utterance. Rising to her feet, she announced that she would go for a walk, would do some sketching, and looked forward to seeing them both at dinner.
Von Igelfeld was aware of a great deal of coming and going among the guerrillas during the course of the day, but paid them little attention. He went for a brief walk in the late morning, but found the constant tailing presence of a young guerrilla disconcerting and he returned to the villa after ten minutes or so. It seemed that although Pedro was prepared to allow them to wander about the villa, he was determined that they should not escape.
After an afternoon of reading in his room, von Igelfeld dressed carefully for dinner. Whatever the uncertain future held, and however truncated that future might be, he was not prepared to allow his personal standards to slip. Dressed in the smart white suit which he had brought on the trip he crossed the courtyard and made his way into the salon where Cinco Fermentaciones and Dolores Quinta Barranquilla were already sipping glasses of wine. They were not the only ones present, however: Pedro, dressed now in a black jacket, a pair of smartly pressed red trousers, and a pair of highly polished knee-high boots was standing with them, glass of wine in hand, engaged in conversation.
‘That’s very interesting,’ he said, referring to a point which Dolores Quinta Barranquilla had made just before von Igelfeld’s entry into the room. ‘Do you mean to say that Adolfo Bioy Casares himself was here. In this very room?’
‘Absolutely,’ replied Dolores Quinta Barranquilla. ‘He spent many hours talking to my father. I was a young girl, of course, but I remember him well. He wrote us long letters from Buenos Aires. I used to write to him and ask him about his first novel, Iris y Margarita.’
‘Remarkable,’ said Pedro.
‘I remember telling Che about that,’ Dolores Quinta Barranquilla went on. ‘He was very intrigued.’
Pedro gave a start. ‘Che?’
‘Guevara,’ Dolores Quinta Barranquilla said smoothly. ‘Che Guevara. He called on a number of occasions. Discreetly, of course. But my father and I always got on so well with him. I miss him terribly.’
‘He was in this house?’ said Pedro.
‘Of course,’ said Dolores Quinta Barranquilla. ‘Such a nice man.’
Pedro nodded. ‘He is sorely missed.’
‘But now we have you!’ said Dolores Quinta Barranquilla. ‘Perhaps one day you’ll be as well-known as dear Che. Who knows.’
Pedro smiled modestly and took a sip of his wine. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘You’re too modest,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘You never know. I used to be unknown. Now I am a bit better known.’
‘That is true,’ said Cinco Fermentaciones. ‘And now Professor von Igelfeld has become a Corresponding Fellow of the Academy of Letters.’
‘Really?’ exclaimed Pedro. ‘Well, my congratulations on that.’ He looked at von Igelfeld, as if with new eyes. ‘You don’t think . . . ’ he began. ‘Might it be possible . . . ’
Von Igelfeld did not require any more pressing. ‘I would be honoured to propose you as a Member of the Academy. I should be delighted, in fact.’
‘And I would support your nomination,’ chipped in Cinco Fermentaciones. ‘I am virtually a Member myself and could expect to become a full Member provided . . . provided I survive.’
‘But of course you’ll survive,’ laughed Pedro. ‘Whatever made you think to the contrary?’
‘Something you said,’ muttered Cinco Fermentaciones. ‘I thought that . . . ’
‘Oh that,’ said Pedro nonchalantly. ‘I’m always threatening to shoot people. Pay no attention to that.’
‘You mean you never carry out your threats?’ asked von Igelfeld.
Pedro looked slightly uncomfortable. ‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘It depends on whether it’s historically necessary to shoot somebody. In your case, it is no longer historically necessary to shoot you.’
‘I am pleased to hear that,’ said von Igelfeld.
‘Good,’ said Dolores Quinta Barranquilla. ‘Well, that’s settled then. Let’s go through for dinner. After you, Pedrissimo!’
Pedro laughed. ‘That is a good name. My men would respect me more if I were called Pedrissimo. That is an excellent suggestion on your part.’
‘I am always pleased to help Moviemento Veintidós,’ said Dolores Quinta Barranquilla.
‘Moviemento Veintitrés,’ corrected Pedro, almost pedantically, thought von Igelfeld; or certainly with a greater degree of pedantry than one would expect of a guerrilla leader.
‘Precisely,’ said Dolores Quinta Barranquilla, taking her place at the head of the table. ‘Now, Professor von Igelfeld, you sit there, and Gabriel, you sit over there. And this seat here, on my right, is reserved for you, dear Pedrissimo.’
Dolores Quinta Barranquilla had instructed the kitchen to make a special effort, and they had risen to the challenge. The depths of the cellar had been plumbed for the few remaining great wines (laid down some twenty years earlier by Don Quinta Barranquilla, who might not have imagined the company which would eventually consume them). These were served directly from the bottle, as decanting would have caused such vintages to fade. They were particularly appreciated by Pedro, who became more and more agreeable as the evening wore on. It might be impossible for him to travel to Bogotá in the near future to receive his Academy Membership, owing to the fact that the Government had put a price on his head (‘Such provincial dolts,’ Dolores Quinta Barranquilla had observed); however, he would be able to do so he hoped in the future, under a more equitable constitution.
They ended the evening with toasts. Pedro toasted von Igelfeld, and expressed the hope that the rest of his stay in Colombia would be a pleasant one; Dolores Quinta Barranquilla proposed a toast to Pedro, and hoped that he would shortly be received into the Academy; and Cinco Fermentaciones proposed a toast to the imminent success of Moviemento Veintidós, rapidly correcting this to Veintitrés on a glance from Dolores Quinta Barranquilla. Finally, von Igelfeld gave a brief recital of Auf ein altes Bild by Mörike, which Pedro asked him to write down and translate into Spanish when he had the time to do so.
Replete after the excellent meal, they all retired to bed and slept soundly until the next morning, when, to von Igelfeld’s alarm, they were awakened by the sound of gunfire. Von Igelfeld tumbled out of bed, donned his dressing-gown, and peered out of the window. A group of thirty or forty of Pedro’s men were marshalled in the courtyard, breaking open a crate of weapons and handing them round. Dolores Quinta Barranquilla was there too, helping to pass guns to the guerrillas. Von Igelfeld gasped. They had got on extremely well with Pedro the previous evening, and both sides had obviously reassessed their view of one another, but he had not imagined that it would lead to their all effectively joining Pedro in his struggle. And yet there was Dolores Quinta Barranquilla, rolling up her sleeves and organising the guerrillas, and was that not Cinco Fermentaciones himself perched on the roof, rifle at the ready?
Von Igelfeld dressed and waited in his room. A few minutes later, there was a knock on his door and he opened it to find Dolores Quinta Barranquilla standing there, a rifle in her right hand and another in her left.
‘Here’s yours,’ she said, handing him the rifle. ‘The ammunition is over there.’
Von Igelfeld could not conceal his astonishment. ‘I don’t want this,’ he said, thrusting the rifle back at her.