by Jerold Last
"If you can identify who are the real leaders, who was at the Punta del Este meeting, and what the meeting was about we will forever be in your debt. And by "we," I mean Israeli Intelligence, who will also be following you in case you need help. And these Israeli agents will be carrying guns. We don't want any more of our agents killed."
"I assume you want us to get back to Montevideo as soon as we can to meet the Ramirez's again," I suggested tentatively.
"No," he replied, "You can finish visiting Iguazu Falls and whatever else you want to do here before you drive back. It will take me several days to arrange for your protection before you should think about contacting Juan."
"Will we see you again?" asked Suzanne.
"Yes, I'll be coming down to Montevideo to direct this operation from the Israeli side about the same time you should be getting back there. I'll let you know how to contact me through Lieutenant Gonzalez if you have any information or if you need anything."
We stood up, shook hands, and said our good-byes. It was late and time for us to go to bed. We still had quite a bit planned for tomorrow before we would be ready to start the long drive south.
"Hey Suzanne, how many legs does a vocal quartet have?"
"Eight."
"No, the correct answer is sixteen."
"That's got to be wrong. 4 X 2 is 8."
"No, you're wrong. One of the guys in a vocal quartet is a tenor."
Chapter9.Argentina and Brazil, Briefly
We drove back across the Paraguayan border to Brazil, through Foz do Iguazu, and across the bridge and the border into Argentina. The border crossing between Brazil and Argentina was as casual as between Brazil and Paraguay. A short drive gained us entry to the Park with our tickets from Brazil. Suzanne and I hiked to the waterfalls to see them from the Argentina side.
The good news is that the falls are bigger on the Argentine side, about 1,900 meters. The bad news is that things are well organized and appear much safer, so you can't get anywhere nearly as close to the falls as in Brazil. The best view from this side was the Devil's Throat. This 85-meter high waterfall, shaped like a horseshoe, plunges straight down into a huge gorge eroded into the rock by the constant impact of falling water. The Devil's Throat is an amazing demonstration of the potential adverse effects of excessive gargling, as well as a dramatic example of Mother Nature's raw power.
There was enough good stuff to see around the falls to keep us happy for about an hour before heading back to the car to drive back to Sao Miguel. Suzanne had managed to thoroughly soak her t-shirt and Levis again in the massive spray from the waterfalls, so I had a lot more interesting scenery to watch than just the native plants. We crossed the border into Brazil and started the drive back to Uruguay. In less than half a day we had accumulated six different sets of immigration stamps for crossing a national border: 1 out of Paraguay, 1 in and 1 out of Brazil, 1 in and 1 out of Argentina, and 1 back into Brazil. If we continued crossing borders at this pace, we would run out of space in our passports for border stamps.
It was about 200 Km to Sao Miguel, a driving time of less than 3 hours. We got back to Sao Miguel in the middle of the afternoon and drove directly to the university.
As luck would have it, we found Professor de Silva in his office. Suzanne explained about the plants in the two backpacks and what she wanted him to do with them. He was to store them in his freezer until the DNA could be extracted. They reviewed the methods for DNA extraction and mailing of the DNA samples to Suzanne. A botanist was ideal for this collaboration because of his expertise in identifying and cataloguing local plants and trees. His job was to identify each of the samples to create a database of what was tested. By the time she received the DNA samples they would all look the same. If any sample contained interesting DNA sequences Suzanne would need the exact identity of the plant it came from to get more for further study. This set of samples was the test case for their new collaboration. If things didn't work out, no real harm had occurred. We had fun collecting the materials and none were pivotal to her research. If things worked out, better yet. In the future Professor de Silva would find truly exotic and more carefully identified plants to send her, and these were what she most wanted.
Professor de Silva heartily agreed to all of her suggestions and made a few suggestions of his own. Then he explained to Suzanne why he had decided to be so cooperative and to collaborate with her.
"The local indigenous people, the Guaranis," he began, "have a creation myth that tells about the origin of the Iguassu Falls. The story says the Iguassu River was inhabited by Mbói jagua, a giant snake with magical powers. A beautiful Guarani girl named Porá-sy refreshed herself by bathing every day in the waters of the river. When she did, Mbói stopped the waters' movement as a sign of admiration. The chief of the tribe noticed this and decreed that Porá-sy had to pledge her entire devotion to Mbói to gain his favor. However, a young member of the tribe named Tarova was also in love with Porá-sy.
"During the celebrations that committed Porá-sy to Mbói, Tarová kidnapped her. They tried to escape in a canoe down the Iguassu River. In his anger about what was happening, Mbói promptly moved under the riverbed and with a snapping of his giant body created the Iguassu Falls just ahead of the escaping couple. Porá-sy and Tarová fell into the abyss of the falls and were never seen again.
"Mbói transformed Porá-sy into a rock under the falling waters of the Iguassu Falls and Tarová into a palm tree on the border of the abyss so they never again could be together. However, on sunny days, when the sunlight shines in a special way through the mist of the waterfalls a rainbow appears with its extremes touching the palm tree and the rock. It happens briefly and unpredictably so the jealous Mbói won’t notice it. The love of Tarová and Porá-sy continues to defy the powerful Mbói and you may witness this when visiting the Iguassu Falls."
Professor de Silva continued earnestly, "The local Guarani also have an updated variation of this religious legend, which I assume is based on their old beliefs combined with the migration of Northern Europeans here 125 years ago. A blonde Goddess named Porá-sy will come here from the depths of the Iguazu Falls. When she comes all of the people who welcome her will be blessed with wealth and good health."
Professor de Silva paused for a moment, looked directly at Suzanne, and continued. "Both times that you visited me you have obviously been soaking wet. The first time it was raining, so that was reasonable, but I decided to hedge my bets and go with the legend. This time it is a beautiful day outside and there is no obvious reason that your clothes and hair should be so wet, so I will continue to think of you not only as a scientific collaborator, but also as the embodiment of the Goddess Porá-sy. I'll send you your samples and a copy of the database as quickly as I can."
Suzanne thanked him for his help and gave him a bottle of our duty-free scotch. This seemed to be an appropriate gift from a Goddess to celebrate their new collaboration. We said our good-byes and got back in the car. We drove until dark, which got us as far as Livorno, the Brazilian city across from Rivera on the Uruguayan border.
There was a convenient hotel to stay at directly across the border from Rivera. We checked in and asked where we could get a nice dinner that wasn't a Churrascaria with Brazilian style beef. In a border town like Livorno everybody was bilingual in Portuguese and Spanish, so communication with regular people was a lot easier than it had been when we were further into the interior of Brazil. Our last dinner in Brazil was a wonderful spicy chicken dish stewed in coconut milk with free access to a buffet bar for side dishes included.
After dinner we returned directly to our hotel. We were both exhausted from all of the driving, but still found time to discuss the day's activities. I told Suzanne I agreed with Professor de Silva that she was indeed a Goddess. That earned me a nice kiss. I suggested that we deserved some scotch too, and we already had an open bottle. A couple of glasses of scotch and some serious cuddling later, we were ready for sleep.
"What children's boo
ks should you plan on reading to our kids when we have a couple of baby rug rats, my little Goddess Suzanne?"
"I don't know, Roger, whose books should a Goddess like me read to the kids?"
"You should read 'Cat In The Hat' or any of the other books written by Dr. Zeus."
Chapter10.Back to Montevideo
The next morning we slept in until 8 A.M., then sadly said good-bye to the fresh tropical fruits that were part of every breakfast in Brazil, but most certainly not in Uruguay. Taking advantage of the lower price in Brazil, we filled the car with gas, crossed the border at Rivera, and drove south on route 5 towards Montevideo.
"If you went about 10 or 20 mph faster and we get stopped for speeding, do you think Columbo could fix the ticket for us?" asked Suzanne, who was obviously impatient to get back to Montevideo and out of the cramped seating in the undersized rental car.
"I wouldn't count on it and we'd only save a half hour or so."
It took us about 5 hours of driving at the posted speed limit to get to the Montevideo city limits.
"How about lunch, then let's try to find Lieutenant Gonzalez?" I asked.
"Sounds good to me."
After a couple of Chevitos Canadienses at a restaurant we passed on one of the larger avenues coming into downtown, a phone call to Columbo got us an appointment at his office for 4 PM. So we had a few hours to kill.
"Would you prefer to say hello to your friends at the University or do a winery tour?"
"Let's do the winery tour," replied Suzanne.
"Tannat or not tannat---that is the question?"
"Definitely I would choose tannat."
It was about a 10-mile drive on broad city streets to the Carrau winery, about a 20-minute trip from the Balmoral Plaza Hotel in downtown. We were told that Bodegas Carrau makes the best tannat in Uruguay, called Anat Tannat. The Carrau family originally made wines in Catalonia (Spain), starting in the 1700s. Their grandfather immigrated to Uruguay in the 1930s. The family now owns large vineyards just outside of Rivera on the Uruguayan side of the border, and built a second large winery there about 15 years ago. The Carrau’s vineyard in northern Uruguay, at an elevation of more than 1,000 feet, is the highest vineyard in Uruguay. The relatively large difference in day and night temperatures seems to result in grapes that make very good wine. For the first 20 years of the vineyards in northern Uruguay they trucked the grapes more than 500 Km to their main winery. Now they truck finished wine to the Montevideo winery for final bottling and sale.
The Bodegas Carrau has a lovely tasting room and several scheduled tours of the winery each day. We got there just in time for a tour, and saw an ultra-modern winery that looked very much like the newer wineries in Cafayate, Argentina and in California's Napa Valley. Everything was stainless steel, highly automated, and scrupulously clean. Different wine varietals stood aging in oak barrels, neatly stacked wherever there was room in the cool parts of the thick-walled winery. As we passed them the guide pointed out the Carrau brothers who currently owned and managed the family winery, and an adult son of one of them who would one day be the fourth generation of this family to manage the winery in Uruguay.
In the tasting room we sniffed and tasted several of the available wine varietals. There were two versions of the tannat, with the Anat more expensive than the reserve. Both are very good wines with deep dark color and a fruity nose that matches well with the taste. The Anat is more complex and definitely more elegant, as well as more expensive. With their high tannin content these wines would age well and be suitable for special occasions, much like California's Cabernet Sauvignon wines. Several other styles of wine were available for tasting, but the tannats were definitely the stars.
Soon it was time to head back to the Intendencia and our appointment with Lieutenant Gonzalez. He greeted us warmly, and invited us to call him Martin, pronounced Mar-teen.
"The only new information I have since you left is the pathologist's report on the cause of death, which was indeed drowning. The water in her lungs was almost certainly from the Rio de la Plata. Now tell me all about your adventures since you left Montevideo."
My answer started with a brief summary of our various meetings with the Nazis in Uruguay and Brazil, and a longer summary of our time spent with Eduardo Gomez, his Paraguayan counterpart. The parts Eduardo had told us in confidence were left out but my story included a description of his test of our martial arts skills on the streets of Ciudad del Este. I shared with him Eduardo's plan for us to infiltrate the Uruguayan Nazi Party and to investigate the Punta del Este meeting, omitting any reference to the Israeli connection. I also told him to expect a visit from Eduardo any day now.
"Very good," Martin said, "It sounds like you have made some progress and that we have a plan to go forward. But one thing makes me hesitate. Do you understand the risks you will be taking?"
"Yes we do," replied Suzanne confidently. "We're willing to take the risks. I can't tell you how disgusting the Nazis we met are and how much we would enjoy seeing them in cages, where they belong."
"I share your passion for justice," Martin answered, "but unless we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that one or more of the Nazis killed Maria Fajao nobody is going to be putting them into cages, nor should they be put in jail just because of their political beliefs. Uruguay is a democracy, just like the USA. Democratic Uruguay takes great pride in having freedom of speech, no matter how obnoxious the words being said may be. Let's also remember that the chief suspect in this murder, the victim's estranged husband, is still at large. Most of the official effort in three countries, Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay, is directed towards finding and arresting him.
"Your investigation of the local Nazi Party is just a piece of a larger puzzle. Go ahead and contact Juan Ramirez and see if he is still interested in recruiting you, and use your best judgment on how to proceed from there. Be sure to keep me informed at every step you take. You might want to buy a new cell phone here in Montevideo with prepaid local minutes for this purpose and make sure I have the number. Assume that all of the calls from your hotel room are being monitored. I don't want to find any more dismembered corpses on the Rambla."
Martin gave us instructions for returning the rental car to an agency a few blocks from the police station, just down San Jose Street. After saying adios we drove to the Balmoral Plaza Hotel, checked into the same room we had been in previously and put our luggage, duty-free wines, and scotch in the room. The car was returned and the substantial bill was charged to Suzanne's credit card.
On the way back to the hotel, we stopped to buy a cell phone on my credit card. The cell phone got its first use on the walk back to the hotel when Suzanne called Gerardo and Andrea to tell them we were back in Montevideo and ask if they wanted to join us for dinner. They said yes, and they would pick us up at the hotel at 9.
As Yogi Berra said, "It was just like deja vu all over again."
The next couple of hours were spent productively in the bed and shower of our hotel room. We were in the lobby waiting at 9 when Gerardo drove up to the front of our hotel, and off we went to dinner. This time we ate at a seafood restaurant along the Rambla several miles east of downtown near Pocitos.
"This is a perfect choice," exclaimed Suzanne, "I think we're both thoroughly beefed out and more than ready for a welcome change in our diet."
We agreed to share an appetizer so ordered a full main course of squid a la Romano. The squid was cut in rings, breaded and fried, just like calamari is usually served in the United States. We shared a bottle of Uruguayan Sauvignon Blanc with it. Each of us also had a different main course of fish with an agreement to taste each fish communally along with a second bottle of the wine.
Andrea discussed more details of her research work, which included a major project to analyze the water in the Rio de la Plata during seasonal algal blooms to test for the presence of toxins produced by the blue-green algae, also known as cyanobacteria. These mycotoxins could sicken or kill people swimming on Montevid
eo's many beaches, so this work had major public health importance.
I asked Andrea, "Could a bunch of terrorists trying to get their hands on something nasty to put in Montevideo's drinking water concentrate the mycotoxins from the Rio de la Plata during an algal bloom?"
She pondered over this for a moment before answering thoughtfully, "Probably not. It would be easy to get contaminated water from the river but the toxins are too dilute to use directly as a poison to dump into the city's water supply. Purifying and concentrating the tiny amounts of toxin from the dirty salt water or brackish water of the river is pretty much impossible for anyone to do on any kind of useful scale."
Suzanne recounted our trip to Iguazu Falls declaring that the falls were the single most spectacular thing she had seen so far in South America. Andrea suggested seeing Macchu Pichu in Peru, which is also very special. We talked about the spectacular scenery we saw in Salta when we were there. Neither Gerardo nor Andrea had ever been to Northwest Argentina, which surprised us because it was so close to Uruguay. Suzanne also mentioned her new collaboration with Professor de Silva in Brazil. Gerardo was surprised that she had been able to convince a total stranger to collaborate with her on the spur of the moment. We all had a good laugh when Suzanne explained that the collaboration had been expedited because she was considered to be the Goddess Porá-sy, at least locally.