He wondered how the readers of the Herald reconciled the optimistic news reports on the front page with the two and a half pages of obituaries, often with photographs, of the Anglo-Argentines who had been killed fighting with the His Britannic Majesty's Royal Army, Navy, and Air Force all over the world. Three Anglo-Argentines, he noticed, had been killed fighting with His Royal Australian Air Force in New Guinea, another place from which the Japanese obviously had no plans of retreating.
When he saw Claudia enter the room, he dropped the newspaper on the floor beside him, jumped to his feet, and went to her.
"How're you holding up, sport?" he asked, although through her black veil he could see in her eyes and the strain oh her face the answer to that.
She pushed the veil off her face and hugged him and tenderly kissed his cheek.
"So far, not bad," she said. "At least I'm not drinking my way through it."
She indicated the whiskey glass he had left on the wide arm of the chair.
"My first," he lied, and she snorted.
Alicia kissed him, and then Isabela made smacking noises as far from his cheek as she could manage.
"You all right, Enrico?" Claudia asked, and went to the bar. "Do as I say, not as I do," she said, and poured a half-inch of scotch in a glass and tossed it down.
"Life will be empty without el Coronel," Enrico said.
"You have Se?or Cletus to take care of now," Claudia said.
"With my life, Se?ora," Enrico said simply.
"I wondered how you were going to handle Beatrice asking the Germans to come here," Claudia said.
"I'm indisposed," Clete said. "Humberto set this up."
"They're downstairs, exuding condolences and charm," she said.
Clete looked at Alicia. She nodded, signifying that Peter von Wachtstein was among them.
"We don't know that the Germans are responsible . . . ," Isabelle said.
"Jesus Christ, Isabela, not you and el Coronel Per?n . . . ," Clete flared.
Claudia touched his arm to stop him.
"What did you mean, about Colonel Per?n?" Claudia asked.
"I stopped by Uncle Willy's house last night. He was there. And having just come back from Germany, he finds it impossible to believe that. . ."
"Juan Domingo was your father's best friend."
"So he said."
"And you got off on the wrong foot."
Clete shrugged.
"He's going to be at the estancia over the weekend. You really should make an effort to get to know him."
"You mean come out there? Why?"
"You didn't know there's going to be a requiem mass at Nuestra Se?ora de los Milagros for your father on Sunday?"
"Not until just now, I didn't. What's that all about?"
"The people on the estancia naturally expect it. And there will be a number of other people. Your father'sourclose friends. A private mass, so to speak, as opposed to what they did here today. There will be about forty people, counting wives and family."
"And I have to go, naturally?"
Going out there would give me a chance to go to the radio station. And the sooner I do that, the better.
"Of course you must, Cletus. You're the new Patron of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. You'd better start getting used to that."
"That's not going to be easy."
"The people of your estancia, many of whom have never seen you, will expect to see their Patron there."
"OK. Anything to get out of my father's bedroom in the museum," Clete said, and quickly added, "Sorry, I didn't mean that the way it came out."
"I know," she said, then went on: "There's something else, Cletus. There are some papers in your father's safe that belong to General Rawson. He'll be staying with me at Estancia Santo Catalina, and I'd really like to have his papers for him when he arrives."
What kind of papers?
"Oh?"
"You do have the combination to the safe, don't you?"
And that was just a little too casual a question.
"I've never even seen the safe," Clete said "Enrico, what do you know about el Coronel's safe? Where's the combination?"
"Only el Coronel knew the combination, Se?or Clete," Enrico said.
"Well, then, I guess General Rawson will have to wait for his papers until we can get a locksmith out there," Clete said. "Or we could blow it open, if the papers are that important."
Claudia did not find that amusing.
"I just can't believe that your father didn't write the combination down somewhere," Claudia said. "Would you mind if I looked for it?"
Yeah, as a matter of fact, I would. I don't understand why, but the idea bothers me. Why do I have the feeling, Claudia, that you would rather that I dont see what's in the safe?
"If this is important to you, Claudia, as soon as I get out there, I'll call you, and we'll look for it together," he said.
"I'm ... the girls and I ... are driving out to Santo Catalina tonight," Claudia said. "I thought I'd go over to San Pedro y San Pablo tomorrow and see if I could find the combination. If you have no objection to my looking for it, that is."
I can't have her getting into the safe before I do. I don't want her looking through the records of what Humberto has been doing for Peter.
And have I just been sandbagged? Is that persistence innocent, or because she knows damned well I'm not likely to tell her no again, no matter how politely? And what is in that safe that she and General Rawson don't want me to see?
"Does 'G.O.U.' mean anything to you, Claudia?" Clete asked.
He could see in her eyes that she knew what it was.
"What do you know about the G.O.U.?" she asked.
"Not nearly as much as I would like to," he said.
"Clete . . . ," she began, and stopped when a servant opened the door.
"Se?or Frade, Se?or Mallin and his family wish to pay their respects." "I'll leave you, Clete,"
Claudia said. "This has been a very long day for me.
She gave him her cheek to kiss.
"I need to talk to you, too, Claudia," Clete said, thinking of Dorotea.
"Call me when you get to San Pedro y San Pablo," she said, and then, "Let's go, girls."
They left the room, exchanging quiet greetings with the Mallins as they came in.
Chapter Nine
[ONE]
1420 Avenida Alvear
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1320 10 April 1943
Clete walked to the door to greet the Mallin family.
Enrico Mallin was forty-three years old, six feet two inches tall, and wore a full mustache. "Henry" met and married his wife, the former Pamela Holworth-Talley, while taking a degree at the London School of Economics. And they had two children: blond, fair-skinned, lanky "Little Enrico," their fifteen-year-old son; and Dorotea. In her black dress and veiled hat, Clete thought, she looked more beautiful than any female he had ever seen.
Clete was aware that Enrico Mallin believed his daughter had shown an interest in Clete that was inappropriate for one of her tender years, purity, and standing in the community.