It was a divided culture, but it was also a divided country. The Argentines I met said it was two countries — the uplands of the north, full of folklore and mountains and semi-barbarous settlers; and the 'humid pampas' of the south, with its cattle ranches and its emptiness, a great deal of it still virgin territory (pampas derives from an Aymara word meaning space). You have to travel a thousand miles for this division to be apparent, and Argentines — in spite of what they claim is their adventurous spirit- only travel along selected routes. They know Chile. Some know Brazil. They spend weekends in the fleshpots of Montevideo. The richer ones own second homes in the Patagonian oasis of Bariloche. But they do not travel much in the north of Argentina, and they don't know, or even care, very much about the rest of South America. Mention Quito and they will tell you it is hellish, small, poor and primitive. A trip to Bolivia is unthinkable. Their connections tend to be with Europe. They fancy themselves Frenchified and have been told so often that their capital is like Paris they feel no need to verify it with a visit to France. They prefer to maintain their ancestral links with Europe; many go to Spain, but almost a quarter of a million visit Italy every year. The more enterprising are Anglophile. They are unsure of the United States, and their uncertainty makes them scorn it.
'But what do you know about Argentina?' they asked me, and by way of forestalling their lectures — they seemed deeply embarrassed about their political record — I said things like, 'Well, when I was in Jujuy — ' or 'Now, Humahuaca's awfully nice — ' or 'What struck me about La Quiaca — .' No one I met had been to La Quiaca or taken the train across the border. The person in Buenos Aires who wishes to speak of the squalor of the distant provinces tells you about the size of the cockroaches in nearby Rosario.
I had arrived in Buenos Aires exhausted at the beginning of a heatwave which people said was the Argentine autumn. Five days and nights on the train from La Paz had left me limp. I had a bad cold, my wounded hand throbbed, and for several days I did nothing but convalesce; I read, I drank wine, and I played billiards until I was completely myself again.
At last, I felt well enough to see my Argentine publisher. But I had no luck with the telephone. The receiver honked and buzzed, but no human voice could be heard on it. I decided to see the hall porter at my hotel aboutit.
'I am having difficulty calling this number,' I said.'
'Buenos Aires?'
'Yes. A company on Carlos Pellegrini.'
'But Carlos Pellegrini is only four blocks from here!'
'I wanted to call them.'
He said, 'You will find it much quicker to walk.'
I walked to the office and introduced myself as the author of the three titles I had seen in the bookstores in Tucuman.
'We were expecting someone much older,' said Mr Naveiro, the managing director of the firm.
'After what I've been through, I feel eighty years old,' I said.
Hearing that I had arrived, a lady entered Mr Naveiro's office and said, 'There is a certain general in the government who has read your books. He is Minister of Transportation, and he would like you to take the train to Salta.'
I said that I had already been to Salta, or at least a few miles away.
'He would like you to take the train from Salta to Antafagosta in Chile.'
I said that I would prefer not to.
'The general was also wondering where else you would like to go.'
I said south, to Patagonia.
'He will give you tickets. When do you wish to go?'
Like that, the arrangements were made.
'We hope you will enjoy your stay in Argentina,' said Mr Naveiro. 'We have passed through terrible times, but things are better now.'
It seemed so. There had not been a political kidnapping for two years. My friend Bruce Chatwin, who had recently returned from Patagonia, said that the urban guerillas were on holiday in Uruguay or skiing in Switzerland. Isabel Perón had been overthrown; disarmed, she lived under house arrest in a remote valley with her pet canaries and her maid. I was more sceptical about the official reports of political prisoners. There are no political prisoners in all of the Argentine Republic,' said Colonel Dotti, Director of the National Prison System. They are subversive delinquents, not political prisoners,! Shortly after I arrived, sixty 'subversive delinquents' died in a prison riot in Buenos Aires; some had been shot, others had been asphyxiated.
I could not draw Mr Naveiro on this issue, and it seemed rude to insist. He was anxious to please. Did I want to send anyone a telex? Did I wish to dictate some letters to his lovely secretary? Was my hotel comfortable? Was there anyone in Argentina I wished to meet? Did I want someone to fly to Patagonia to make arrangements for me there?
'My idea,' he said, 'is to get someone to take a plane to Patagonia. You take the train. When you get there, you will have someone on hand, if any problem arises. All you have to do is say yes and it will be done.'
I explained that this might have been helpful in the mountains of Colombia, but that I did not anticipate any difficulties in Patagonia.
'Well, then,' he said, 'I suppose you know that this is the country of meat. You must have a big piece of meat to celebrate your arrival in Buenos Aires.'
It was the biggest steak I had ever seen, the shape of a size twelve football boot and tender as a boiled turnip. In this particular restaurant it was necessary to specify the cut as well as the steer. You said rump, then long-horn; or tenderloin and short-horn.
'Yes, things are very quiet at the moment,' said Mr Naveiro, pouring the wine. He said that Isabel Perón had been a disaster, but that most people regarded her as pathetic rather than malicious. General Videla, a man so corpselike in appearance he was. known as 'The Skull' or 'The Bone', was a shy, cautious man whom most people hoped would return Argentina to civilian rule.
It struck me that Argentina was bureaucratic and ungovernable in the same way that Italy was. This was a developed country which was attached geographically to the Third World, but it was underdeveloped politically, with a distrust of government and a contempt for politics. Patriotism, without a tempering faith in legality or free elections, had become muddled aggression and seedy provincialism. Politics was seen to be a cheat because it was ineffectual. With the highest literacy rate in Latin America, and one of the highest in the world (91.4 %), there was really no excuse for Argentina to be a tyranny. Even the most charitable witness had to find a carelessness in the attitude that tolerated authoritarianism and said that the alternative was anarchy. Wasn't this, I suggested, rather infantile?
'I don't know,' said Mr Naveiro. 'But I will tell you what I suspect. This is a very rich country. We have resources. We have a very high standard of living — even in the north where you have been it is quite all right. And I think I am right in saying that we work hard. Some people here work very hard. But we have one great defect. Can you guess what it is?'
I said no, I couldn't.
'Everyone works well separately, but we cannot work with one another. I don't know why this is so, but we just cannot work together as a team.'
'I wouldn't have thought a self-appointed government of generals was much inspiration for people to work together,' I said. 'Why don't they hold an election?'
'We keep hoping,' said Mr Naveiro. 'I would like to change the subject, with your permission.'