Dorotea had noticed that, just as Alicia had noticed Peter's.
Cletus had told Dorotea that he'd stolen his from the U.S.
Marine Corps, and Dorotea wasn't sure if that was the truth or not. Peter had told Alicia that he had "found" his American watch, and obviously hadn't wanted to talk about it, so she hadn't pressed him.
"It's six and a half minutes after four," Peter announced indignantly.
That was the German in him, Alicia thought. She would have said "it's four" or "a little after four," not "six and a half minutes after four."
"I have to go to the house," she said. "We're going to
Estancia Santo Catalina this morning."
"What time this morning?"
"Probably in time to have a late lunch at the estancia," she said, and computed the time. "Leave Buenos Aires at eleven." She paused. "You are coming out for the weekend?"
"Unless the Ambassador or Gradny-Sawz finds something for me to do," he replied, and then asked, "So why do you have to leave now? Is Mama sitting up in the foyer waiting for you?"
"She's sound asleep, but she will know five minutes after she wakes what time I came in. The maid will tell her when she brings her coffee."
"So if the maid tells her you came home at half past six?
Half past seven? What's the difference?"
"The roof garden at the Alvear closes at half past four. She knows that. She will expect me to be home half an hour after that."
"That's," he consulted the watch again, "fifty-two minutes from now."
"Yes," Alicia said, and felt herself blushing again. "I didn't say I had to leave this instant. Just very soon."
"Oh, baby!"
"Can you?"
"Of course I can. I'm a fighter pilot."
Her smile vanished.
"I wonder how often you've said that in the past," she said.
"Once or twice, I admit-"
"Once or twice, hah!"
"Always before I met you," he said.
"Do you think you'll hear something today?" she asked.
"That was a quick change of subject," he said.
"Do you think?"
"I don't know. Maybe. Maybe today. Maybe not until next week."
"And if they tell you to go to Germany?"
"I'll cross that bridge when I get to it," he said.
She felt tears form, and she was not quite able to suppress a sob.
"Honey, don't do that," Peter said.
"God, Peter, I'm so frightened!"
He put his arms around her.
"It'll be all right, baby," he said.
She held him tightly. He kissed her hair.
"Sorry," she said.
"Oh, Christ!"
He ran his hand down her spine.
"Senorita, your question has been answered," he said.
"What?"
He took her hand and guided it to his groin. "Our friend has also waken up," he said.
She held him.
"If I could see your face, would you be blushing?" he asked.
"Shut up, Peter," she said, and lay back on the bed, pulling him down on top of her.
Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein, now wearing a shirt and trousers, knocked at the bathroom door.
"I'm brushing my hair," Alicia called softly, and he pushed open the door.
She was standing in front of the mirror in her underwear.
She smiled at him. "You didn't have to get up," she said.
"I'm going to drive you home," he said.
"I'm going to take a taxi," she said. "We've been through this before."
"Christ, you're as hardheaded as you are beautiful."
She smiled at him. "I've explained the rules to you," she said. "I pretend to have been dancing with friends at the
Alvear roof garden, and Mother pretends to believe me."
"You've had a lot of experience with this sort of thing, right?"
Her smile vanished, replaced by a look of hurt and anger.
"You know better than that," she said.
He knew better than that. Alicia had been a virgin.
"Just a little joke," he said.
"I don't like your sense of humor," Alicia said, and began to furiously brush her hair.
After a moment she said, "I learned the rules from Isabela."
Isabela was the older of the Carzino-Cormano girls.
"And has el bitcho been dancing at the Alvear tonight, too?"
"Don't call her that, Peter, I've asked you."
It had been loathing at first sight when Isabela and Cletus
Frade had met. Clete had dubbed her "el bitcho." Though it was neither Spanish nor English, the term had immediately caught on. Alicia often caught herself thinking of Isabela that way, and she had even overheard one of the maids calling her that to another maid.
"Has she?" he pursued.
"I don't know what she did last night. She's been…" Alicia stopped herself just in time from saying "bitchy," "… difficult about the wedding. She really doesn't want to participate."
Alicia finished brushing her hair and started to make up her face.
"I like to watch you standing there in your underwear, doing that," Peter said.
She smiled at him. "Go back to bed," she said.
"Not alone," he said.
"Sweetheart, I have to go."
"I'll put you in a cab," he said.
She nodded.
[THREE]
The Embassy of the German Reich
Avenue Cordoba
Buenos Aires
0915 29 April 1943
"And a very good morning to you, Fraiilein Hassell," Peter von Wachtstein said to the Ambassador's secretary as he entered the Ambassador's outer office. He was wearing a well-cut, nearly black pin-striped double-breasted suit, a stiffly starched white shirt, and a striped silk necktie. She was a middle-aged spinster in a black dress, and wore her graying hair drawn tight and gathered in a bun at the nape of her neck.
"His Excellency wanted to see you the moment you arrived at the Embassy," Fraulein Ingebord Hassell said, sounding to Peter much like a scolding schoolteacher.
"And here I am," Peter said.
"It's sixteen past nine," she said. "He sent for you at eight twenty-five."
"I was caught in traffic," Peter said. "May I go in?"
"One moment, please, Herr Major," she said.
She pushed the TALK lever on her intercom box. "Excel lency, Major Freiherr von Wachtstein is here."
"Send him in, please, Fraulein Hassell," the ambassador replied. "And would you bring us some coffee?"
"Jawohl, Excellency," she said, and glared at Peter. "One day, you're going to try his Excellency's patience too much."
"Oh, I hope not," Peter said.
He walked to the Ambassador's door, knocked, and then entered without waiting for a reply. "Heil Hitler!" he barked so that Fraulein Hassell would hear him, but he did not give the requisite salute.
"Heil Hitler," the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipo tentiary of the Fiihrer of the German Reich to the Republic of
Argentina replied.
Manfred Alois Graf von Lutzenberger was a very slight man of fifty-three who wore his thinning hair plastered across his skull. He signaled for Peter to come in. "I sent for you forty-five minutes ago," he said.
"My apologies, Excellency, I was caught in traffic."
Fraulein Hassell scurried into the room with a tray holding coffee and sweets.
Von Lutzenberger waited until Fraulein Hassell had left and closed the door behind her, then pointed to the chair beside his desk, an order for Peter to sit down. "Traffic, eh? I thought perhaps you might have overslept." He pushed a sheet of paper across the desk to Peter.
"I wonder what Untersturmfuhrer Schneider did from ten fifteen to four A.M.," Peter said.
"His duty to his ambassador, von Wachtstein," von Lutzen berger said. "Making a report that will also be of great interest when the people arrive from Berlin."
Peter looked at von Lutzenberger with that question in his eyes.
"Not a word," von Lutzenberger said. "But it will come,
Peter, as inevitably as the sun rises."
Peter nodded.
"When do you next plan to see Senor Duarte?" von Lutzen berger asked. "I have something I want you to give him."
SECRET