Lunch with the Generals

by Derek Hansen

  ‘I am a child of the Gran Chaco. I was brought up with yerba maté. I consider myself something of an expert.’ He watched to see what Jorge would do.

  ‘I will have coffee,’ Jorge said, pushing his cup to the side.

  ‘I will wager you have never in your life sampled yerba maté, yet you will not even try it.’

  ‘You are right, Carlos. Neither have I sampled poverty, and I have no desire to try that either. I am happy with coffee and quite prepared to defend my ignorance.’

  ‘I believe Rosa has acquired the taste,’ Carlos said quietly. ‘Her husband Victor introduced her to it. He is a very patriotic Argentinian.’

  Jorge started at the mention of Rosa’s name. For years, he had not trusted himself to think of her. When he was with other women, he would sometimes find himself unconsciously comparing them with Rosa, and immediately close off that forbidden part of his memory.

  But Carlos had opened the door. Memories of her flooded back. The pilot flame within him flared at the sudden infusion of fuel. He could feel his cheeks flush. He was like a little boy caught with his pants down.

  Carlos smiled. In the gloom of the restaurant, Carlos could not have seen the colour invade his cheeks. Yet he knew what effect her name would have on him, and he let Jorge know he knew.

  Jorge felt anger and dismay as he yielded whatever advantage he’d aspired to. He cursed himself when his brain should instead have been looking for motive. Carlos did nothing that wasn’t premeditated.

  ‘You will renew your friendship.’ An edge had crept into Carlos’ voice. It was the voice of a man accustomed to giving instructions which were carried out without question.

  ‘She has an appointment with her hairdresser tomorrow at three. You know where to go. You have picked her up from there often enough in the past.’ Carlos made no effort to hide his triumph. If Jorge had carried a gun he would have used it then, pressing the barrel hard into the evil grinning face before him and extinguishing the smugness with one squeeze of the trigger. But he didn’t have a gun. The only weapon he had left was the strength of his will and Carlos was about to dispossess him of that.

  ‘And if I refuse?’ Jorge asked through gritted teeth.

  ‘You won’t,’ said Carlos with the certainty of a poker player dealt all the aces. ‘You won’t disappoint your father.’

  Jorge’s mind reeled. His father was involved? But the reality was that his father had many interests and who knows what favour was required? What error of judgement overlooked? He was being traded quid pro quo and there was nothing he could do about it. At least he now knew, or thought he knew, the source of Carlos’ insufferable arrogance.

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ said Carlos as he got up to leave. He smiled once more, a smile loaded with the contempt victors reserve for opponents who fail to provide the opposition expected of them. Jorge was utterly humiliated.

  ‘Enjoy your coffee, Jorge Luis Masot.’

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Rosa.’

  She stopped dead in her tracks. She did not spin around to see who had called her. She recognised Jorge’s voice immediately and it had triggered too many emotions for her reactions to be instinctive. Slowly she turned. She stared at him for the briefest of moments as if confirming his presence. Then her face lit up with the expression of uninhibited joy he had been hoping for.

  ‘Jorge!’ she cried. And then, ‘You bastard!’ She threw her arms around him and smothered him with kisses. Jorge could have sworn her tongue brushed his, but then it was gone, leaving him wondering.

  ‘Jorge,’ she said. ‘Oh, Jorge. You bastard. Why haven’t you called me? How long have you been back?’

  Her eyes raced over him, checking his hair, his lips, his eyes, the firmness of his chest, the flatness of his stomach against the reference she held in her head. Finally, her stocktaking was done.

  ‘You look beautiful, Rosa. I’m glad you have let your hair grow. It suits you that way.’

  Rosa glowed. This was typical Jorge. He always knew exactly what a woman wanted to hear.

  ‘And you, Jorge, you look more handsome than ever. You are one of those men who improve with every passing year. You will be the despair of the woman you marry.’ She took his hand as a mother might take the hand of a child.

  ‘Come,’ she said, ‘there is a new cafe and they have the most delicious cumquat tarts. I will allow myself one to celebrate. Jorge, you must tell me all about yourself. I want to know everything.’

  But Jorge knew better. He would be the one doing the listening.

  Rosa had married Victor shortly after Jorge had left for New York. They sent him a wedding invitation via his office, but Jorge had hurled it into the waste paper bin. He did not even grant them the courtesy of reply. Whether they married because Rosa fell pregnant, or whether they would have married anyway was immaterial. The mismatched couple had married and, to the curious, seemed as happy as any other couple.

  Jorge wanted to know about Victor, what he was doing and what he had done to arouse Carlos’ interest. The words had stuck in Jorge’s brain. He could hear Carlos say them now, his voice heavy with irony. ‘Her husband Victor is a very patriotic Argentinian.’

  But Rosa only talked about herself and her son Roberto. She filled the air with words and her love for her child until she tired and urged Jorge to speak.

  Jorge learned nothing from that first meeting and was glad. He was a reluctant and unenthusiastic spy. His deceit made him feel ashamed and disgusted with himself. But he had this to be grateful for. Carlos had thrown him and Rosa back together again.

  He was in love with her. He had always been in love with her. Seeing her again had been like the warm breath of spring upon the hibernating beast. He felt alive once more. He wanted to go out and grab life with both hands and wring from it all the joy and rewards it could bring. He was in love. Yes! He admitted it to himself. In fact, he exalted in the knowledge. He was in love with the beautiful, wonderful, irrepressible Rosa, and he wanted her back.

  He did not consider the realities of the situation. He did not ask, ‘Does she want me back?’ He knew only that he wanted her. He believed that he would do anything to get her back. Do anything. Risk anything. With all his heart, this is what he believed.

  In the weeks that followed, Jorge saw Rosa as often as he could, but it was not as often as he would have liked. He was constrained by the demands of his work which, because it denied him access to Rosa, ceased to be the challenge his energies could feed upon, and took on the aspect of a burden.

  When he was free to meet her, she would often be unavailable. She always had reasons. Roberto was sick. The repairman was coming. To Jorge, such reasons sounded trivial and unsatisfactory. He was impatient. He yearned to be with her. The pain of their break-up, which he had so successfully deferred, now took hold. It gnawed at him and distracted him and impeded him in his work. He would go to enormous lengths to make time so that he could see her. It angered him that she did not reciprocate.

  Nevertheless, they did manage to meet, usually for lunch. Jorge would forget his frustrations and disappointments in the vibrance of her company. She would joke and gossip and tease and he would forget the other reason he was there. He learned nothing of use.

  Within twenty-four hours of each meeting, Carlos would ring him. Despite Jorge’s dislike of Carlos and his abhorrence of the role he was required to play, he would feel inadequate when he had nothing to report. To his disgust, he found himself wanting to please Carlos. He wanted to win Carlos’ respect. He wanted to give Carlos information of a magnitude that would demand his gratitude. He wanted to put the upstart peasant in his place. If Carlos was disappointed with the lack of progress, he gave no indication.

  ‘She will talk when your heads share the same pillow,’ he’d say, and terminate the call with his grating, cynical laugh.

  Ah, but if only their heads did share the same pillow!

  Jorge courted Rosa, calling upon all his experience and skills. But Rosa d
eftly fielded his passes. She was not offended even when Jorge was too obvious. Men had always flirted with her and she enjoyed the game. But that was all it was. A game.

  ‘I’m a happily married woman,’ she’d say. ‘Go away. Find another woman. There! She is beautiful. Go talk to her.’

  But she enjoyed Jorge’s compliments, and their flirting took them both back to younger, happier, days. Rosa had resolved not to have an affair with Jorge, or anyone else for that matter. She was happily married. She had a son to whom she was devoted. But she was not immune to Jorge’s flattery, and gradually it exacted its toll.

  She began making comparisons. She speculated on what life married to Jorge would have been like and compared it with her quiet, orderly life with Victor. Occasionally Victor would look up and find Rosa staring at him as if in a trance. But the honest, trusting man never thought to question why.

  Rosa tried hard to see the good things about their marriage, and there was much to see that was good. Victor was a sympathetic husband and father, who loved his family and gave them as much time as he could.

  Rosa was grateful for Victor’s dedication to the family and loved him all the more for it. But this was not the life she was cut out to lead, however hard she tried. It was suburban. It was conventional. It was dull. In short, it was everything she wasn’t. This was not the life for the little girl who had farted in the San Isidro cathedral, and questioned her sisters’ boyfriends in minute detail about their genitalia. Still, she convinced herself that life with Victor was what she wanted, and that she was happy. Perhaps she would have been content to live with the lie if Jorge had not reappeared.

  Rosa never asked Victor what he did when he left to keep his appointments. She never understood his work as a corporate lawyer, and he would no longer involve her in his politics beyond the small part she still insisted on playing. Even that caused friction between them and was the source of the few arguments they had. Naturally, it was in the one area where the true Rosa exerted herself. The People’s Democratic Movement had long since disbanded, but the reason Rosa had joined them in the first place lived on.

  ‘You are a mother now. You have responsibilities to your son. To me. You can no longer afford the luxury of involvement in politics. You are no longer in a position to take risks. You put us all in danger.’ Victor’s voice would rise in exasperation.

  Rosa would throw his own argument back in his face.

  ‘You are a father now. You too have responsibilities. I will give up politics when you give up politics.’

  They argued in circles and Rosa defiantly stood her ground. She’d watch, child-like in triumph, as her stubbornness drove her husband from the house, doors slamming behind him. And so Rosa, the vivacious, gregarious, frequenter of hairdressers and confiterías, continued to distribute copies of Argentina Libre. Who would suspect her? Certainly Jorge didn’t.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ he exploded, when Rosa brazenly passed him a copy over lunch. La Voz del Pueblo had been particularly strident and his sources uncomfortably well informed. Everybody knew somebody who knew somebody who had been arrested for possession of the prohibited newspaper. Usually, they’d been beaten until blood and swelling blinded their eyes, and blood from their battered kidneys coloured their urine.

  ‘Read it and pass it on. That’s what everyone does. Or leave it on a chair for somebody else.’ It amused Rosa to see Jorge panic. ‘That’s how I got mine.’

  Jorge was horrified. How could she be so stupid? He felt sick. She was the reason Carlos had renewed his interest in Victor. She was implicated. And any information he gathered could only implicate her further.

  ‘Rosa, this paper hasn’t been read. Look at it. The pages are still crimped together from the guillotine.’ He had become strident. He saw concern flash across her face and dropped his voice to a whisper. He grabbed her arm, so tightly it hurt.

  ‘Rosa, are you still involved? Has Victor still got you doing his dirty work?’

  ‘Relax, Jorge. And let go of my arm. Yes, if you want to know, I am still involved. But only slightly. To amuse myself. Every week I distribute a few copies. That is all.’

  Jorge realised he could not withhold this information from Carlos. He was bound to reveal all that he learned. He had to keep faith, to keep up his side of the deal his father had struck. It was not the information that was important, for Carlos probably knew exactly what Rosa was up to. It was the fact that he reported it. How could Rosa have been so naive and foolish? But hadn’t she always been that way? Jorge lay the copy of Argentina Libre on a nearby chair.

  ‘And what of Victor?’ he asked. ‘Is he still committed to his mission?’

  Rosa had given Jorge the opening he had been waiting for. He could not let it slip by. Perhaps he could make a deal with Carlos. If his information was good enough.

  ‘Victor is still involved, as you would expect him to be. Which group, I am not sure and he won’t say. He says it is better for me to know nothing of his other activities. It is safer that way.’

  ‘Yet he still expects you to distribute Argentina Libre. There is nothing safe about that.’

  ‘No, he is against it. We argue about that all the time. But I insist.’

  Jorge understood immediately. Rosa was still a little girl playing her mischievous games in total disregard of the consequences.

  ‘God help you, Rosa. It is only a matter of time before Victor is picked up. Informers are everywhere. Anyone will talk to save their own neck. Do you really think you will be spared when they come to your door? Do you really think you alone, in all Argentina, are immune to retribution?’

  ‘Victor is no fool, Jorge. He would not put Roberto or me at risk. He loves us too much. Even more than his damned politics.’ It was her turn to raise her voice and she glared at Jorge. But his words had sown doubts and brought to the surface fears she had tried not to face. She could no longer meet his eyes. She began to plead for reassurance.

  ‘Victor is so careful. He works behind layers, behind filters. He has told me this. There is nothing to link him with this organisation or that. He has nothing to do with protests or demonstrations. He has nothing to do with violence. Like before in the movement, he fights only with his ideals and his pen.’ She looked up once more. But if she was looking for reassurance, she found none. Jorge’s face had become a hard, cold mask.

  ‘Rosa, you have just defined somebody who is very senior. Why else would they go to so much trouble to protect him?’

  Rosa burst into tears.

  ‘Oh, Jorge!’ she cried ‘What am I going to do?’

  Jorge let her rest her head on his shoulder. He stroked her and comforted her and made soothing noises. At last, he was making progress.

  Chapter Eight

  Over the course of their next few meetings, Jorge played on Rosa’s fears. Rosa, who was so often alone at home with her sleeping child, came to fear every squeal of brakes from the street outside. She froze when she heard a car pull up nearby. She began ringing Jorge at his office and at his apartment, seeking the comfort of his voice. But Jorge was master in this situation. The reassurance he gave was hollow, calculated to sound insincere, and her trepidation grew.

  ‘You must stop distributing Argentina Libre,’ he said, and she did. ‘You must confront Victor. You are entitled to know what danger you face.’

  Rosa hesitated. Victor had been adamant that she should never pry. But Jorge was relentless. He kept up his attack and gradually his persistence began to tell. In Jorge’s mind a plan was developing that would honour his father’s obligations to whomever was behind Carlos and, at the same time, win back Rosa.

  ‘I am getting close,’ he told Carlos, emboldened by the power of the information he knew would soon be his. ‘But before I give you this information, I want a commitment from you. There is something I want in return.’

  ‘I wonder what that could be?’ Again Carlos mocked him, but the point had been made and Carlos could not ignore it.

  Jorg
e was proved right. Informers were everywhere and nobody could be trusted to keep secrets when their testicles were being used as footballs.

  In one devastating sweep, government forces raided the building where Argentina Libre was being printed and the homes of those who worked there. Many dissidents were killed in the firefight that took place and more than thirty were arrested. More arrests would follow as the interrogators and torturers applied their craft. The ranks of los desaparecidos, the disappeared ones, would swell.

  The system of cut-outs and filters isolated Victor and he was spared. He did not find out about the raid until the following morning when Rosa found a note for Victor tucked among the still-warm brioche that was delivered to them.

  Rosa screamed and Victor slapped her, suddenly and hard. She stood dumbstruck. Victor grabbed her by the shoulders and his blue eyes, now glacial, bored into hers.

  ‘You are not a child, Rosa. Do not behave like one. We knew one day this might happen. It changes nothing. It is a tragedy for those who were caught and killed. But they cannot reach us through those who were arrested. Our systems make that impossible. They cannot reach us, so long as we don’t panic. You must act as though nothing has happened. Because in the life of Señor and Señora Sanguineti, nothing has happened. Nothing! You understand? I love you and I love Roberto. I would not put you at risk. Don’t you place us at risk either. Go about your day as normal. Now I must leave you. I must go to work as normal. As normal, Rosa, remember that.’

  He kissed her, but when he went to move away, she held on.

  ‘What are you in the organisation?’ She hissed. ‘Why are you so protected? What do you do? I am your wife. I have a right to know. I’m scared, Victor.’

  Despite his outward control, Victor had been badly shaken. It caused him to say things he knew he shouldn’t. He was about to make the biggest mistake of his life.

  ‘Can’t you guess?’ he asked, his expression softening. ‘What have you always done for me since the day we met?’