“And if the President decides to go to the Frade wedding, how many people will we have at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo to augment them?”
“Six, Señor,” Cortina said.
“That should be enough,” Martín said. “We do know, right, that he’s going out there?”
“Sí, Señor,” Cortina said.
There came a rapping at the closed doors.
Too sharp for knuckles, Martín thought, and signaled with his hand for someone to open the door.
Señora Mazza, a squarish, fiftyish woman in a simple black dress, marched into the office. She held a miniature cavalry sword—her letter opener, and obviously the source of the sharp rapping on the door.
“Excuse me, mi Coronel,” she said, and went to his desk and picked up one of the telephones there.
“Here is el Coronel Martín, Señor Presidente,” she said, and extended the phone to Martín.
“Coronel Martín,” he said into it.
“General Rawson, Coronel,” the President of Argentina said. “I’m glad I caught you in.”
“How may I be of service, Señor Presidente?”
“Obregon,” Rawson said. “How does he strike you?”
El General de Division Manuel Federico Obregon was one of the eight senior officers in the running to be Director of the Bureau of Internal Security.
“General Obregon, Señor Presidente?”
“How would you feel if he took over BIS, Martín?”
My honest answer is that Obregon is the one man I desperately hoped would not be given the appointment.
“I would be honored to serve under General Obregon, Señor Presidente.”
“General Ramírez and Coronel Perón feel he would be the best choice.”
He could tell from the pained looks of the faces of his three agents that they felt as he did.
The question now becomes: Is Rawson going along with Ramírez and Perón because of—or despite—Obregon’s hatred for the English and the North Americans? Is it possible he doesn’t know? Or is he afraid to defy Ramírez? Or Perón?
The question is moot. I am being told Obregon will be the Director of BIS, not really asked for my opinion.
“I would never question the judgment of either General Ramírez or Coronel Perón, Señor Presidente.”
“How well do you know General Obregon?”
“Only slightly, Señor.”
But well enough to know that he is intelligent and ruthless, and that nothing would give him greater pleasure than to become the Argentine version of Heinrich Himmler.
“I want to get the two of you together, privately, as soon as possible,” Rawson said. “I want him to know how much I appreciate your services in the execution of Outline Blue”
The plan—in American military parlance, the operations order—for the coup d’état had been called “Outline Blue.”
“The next few days will be out of the question, I’m afraid,” Rawson went on, “but I am going to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo for Señor Frade’s wedding, and perhaps there will be the opportunity there.”
“Señor, I am at your disposal.”
“It would help if we knew when, precisely, the wedding will take place, wouldn’t it?” the President said somewhat petulantly.
“I understand the Cardinal Archbishop has promised his decision by today, Mr. President,” Martín said.
“Don’t tell me you have someone in the Cardinal Archbishop’s office?”
“An absolutely superb agent, Señor Presidente. My wife’s sister. She considers Señor Frade’s request outrageous.”
Rawson chuckled, and then returned to the subject of General Obregon.
“Martín, while the appointment has not been made public, General Obregon has been told. I wouldn’t be surprised if he came to Edificio Libertador to have an unofficial look around.”
“I will hold myself at his disposal, Señor Presidente,” Martín said.
“I really think, under the circumstances, Martín, that this was the best choice.”
If he believed that, he wouldn’t have said it. He has his doubts, which suggests that he gave in to some kind of pressure. Or was trying to solidify his position by appointing Obregon. Which is the same thing.
“I’m sure it was, Señor Presidente,” Martín said.
IV
[ONE]
Estancia Santo Catalina
Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province
1005 1 May 1943
The wedding of Señor Cletus Howell Frade to Señorita Dorotéa Mallín posed certain problems. The basic problem, the blame for which had to be laid squarely at the feet of the prospective couple, was that Dorotéa was three months pregnant.
Her condition precluded the events that would otherwise surround a marriage between the offspring of two prominent Argentine families. Ordinarily, there would have been a formal dinner party to announce the engagement. This would have been followed by a six-month engagement period, during which there would be myriad lunches, dinners, bridal showers, and the like.
Ordinarily, the wedding would have been held in the Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar, in the Recoleta section of Buenos Aires; and, considering the prominence of the respective families, the nuptial mass would have been celebrated by the Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires himself.
The bride’s family would then hold a reception for the newlyweds at their home, or perhaps, considering the number of people who would attend, at either the Plaza or Alvear Plaza Hotel.
That was all now impossible, because of the careless carnal impetuosity of the couple.
An immediate marriage was the obvious solution, but that itself posed problems, primarily because the groom was just beginning the year’s mourning for his late father, during which, without a special dispensation from the Church, he could not marry.
Obedience to the canons of the Roman Catholic Church regarding marriage was required, even though the bride and groom were Anglican and Episcopalian, respectively. Roman Catholicism was the official religion of the nation, and therefore only Roman Catholic marriages were regarded as legally valid.
Father Kurt Welner, S.J., not without difficulty, had found solutions to the ecclesiastical problems. Welner was not only a close friend of the Frade family (and had been a trusted friend of Jorge Frade), he was an expert in canon law and an adviser to the Cardinal Archbishop.
First, he had obtained from the Right Reverend Manuel de Parto, bishop of the Diocese of Pila, in which Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo was located, a waiver of the year of mourning requirement for Cletus Frade. The waiver was not in fact difficult to obtain. He had had to mention to the Bishop only twice that more than half of the diocesan budget came from the pious generosity of el Patron of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.
Father Welner had not mentioned to Bishop de Parto that, in deference to the feelings of the bride and her mother, and the groom’s almost belligerently Episcopalian family, he was also seeking from the Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires a special dispensation permitting the bride’s priest, the Very Reverend Matthew Cashley-Price, of the Anglican Cathedral of Buenos Aires, to take part in the wedding ceremony.
The Cardinal Archbishop had told Father Welner that he had to think long and hard about this, and it had taken him until last night to decide how to handle the granting of the dispensation needed to make the Anglican priest a part of the wedding ceremony. Once the decision was made, he himself had decided that he had to be the one to inform Bishop de Parto. Both Welner and the Cardinal were aware that the Bishop would be very uncomfortable with the notion of the Very Reverend Cashley-Price having anything to do with the wedding.
As would the two priests of El Capilla Nuestra Señora de los Milagros, who tended to the spiritual needs of the more than 1,400 people who lived and worked
on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, and in whose chapel the wedding would be held.
And so would Monsignor Patrick Kelly, of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, who would celebrate the mass, representing the Cardinal Archbishop. The Cardinal would not be able to personally participate, as he would “unfortunately be tied up with pressing business,” or so he had explained to the Jesuit.
Monsignor Kelly, the family priest of the bride’s father and of the groom’s aunt and uncle, had made it quite clear to Father Welner that he held him responsible for this outrageous business of having a bloody English Protestant involved in the wedding.
But there were other problems, of a more social nature.
Though Señora Carzino-Cormano—who had been “a very dear friend” of the groom-to-be’s father and was a close friend of the bride’s mother, and whose daughter Alicia and Dorotéa had been close since childhood—had felt that she had both the right and the obligation to provide any assistance she could, and would open Estancia Santo Catalina to the family of the bride to use as their home until the marriage was accomplished, her ministrations could not make straight what had long been crooked.
Enrico Mallín, for example, the father of the bride and Managing Director of the Sociedad Mercantil de Importación de Productos Petrolíferos (SMIPP), was having a very difficult—and only partially successful—time concealing his unhappiness with his daughter’s intended.
Worse—or at least generating more problems—the groom’s maternal aunt, Beatrice Frade de Duarte, had been under the constant care of a psychiatrist since the death of her son, the groom’s cousin. The psychiatrist spent a large portion of his time feeding her just enough tranquilizing medicine to keep her behavior under control while not putting her into a trance. When not so controlled, she moved rapidly between euphoria and black depression. Usually, he was successful.
Señora Claudia de Carzino-Cormano, the mistress of Estancia Santo Catalina and its 80,599 (more or less) hectares, was a svelte woman in her mid-fifties, with a full head of luxuriant, gray-flecked black hair, drawn up from her neck to the top of her head.
When Sarita, her maid, entered to inform her that Padre Welner had just arrived and wished to see her, she was standing before a triple mirror in the dressing room of the master suite in the main house, wearing a simple black silk dress and holding a cross on a chain in each hand. “Where is he?”
“On the veranda, Señora.”
“Offer him coffee, or something to drink, and tell him I will be with him in a moment.”
“Sí, Señora.”
Claudia dropped her eyes to the crosses she was holding. The simple gold cross on its delicate chain in her left hand was quietly elegant, and was entirely appropriate for luncheon. The cross in her right hand was maybe three times the size of the other. Its heavy gold chain looked sturdy enough to hold an anchor. There were four rubies on the horizontal bar of the cross and six on the vertical. At their junction was an emerald-cut 1.5-carat diamond.
It looks like costume jewelry, Claudia thought. Of the type worn by a successful brothel madam.
But it’s real. The best that money could buy—if taste doesn’t enter the equation.
I can’t even remember any more what Jorge did, just that I had every right to be angry with him, and he knew it, and this was his peace offering.
She had imagined then, and imagined now, Jorge standing in the jewelry store off the lobby of the Alvear Plaza Hotel, being shown their entire collection of crosses and picking this one because it was the most expensive.
Anything to make peace. He couldn’t stand it when I was angry with him. He really loved me.
Oh, Jorge!
Her eyes watered, and she closed them, and then she put the simple cross back in her jewelry box and fastened Jorge’s cross around her neck.
Padre Welner will understand.
Señora Claudia de Carzino-Cormano and el Coronel Jorge Frade had been lovers—in fact, all but married—for many years. Though both of their spouses had died, for various reasons marriage had been out of the question.
She had just finished repairing the tear-caused damage to her mascara when Sarita returned.
“Father is on the left veranda, Señora.”
“Thank you.”
“You are going to wear that cross, Señora?”
“Obviously, wouldn’t you say, Sarita?”
Claudia went into her bedroom, then passed through a French door to the walled private garden just outside, and then through a gate in the wall, and then walked to the veranda on the left side of the sprawling house.
The Reverend Kurt Welner, S.J., was a slim, bespectacled, fair-skinned, and elegantly tailored man of forty-four with thinning light brown hair. Claudia found him leaning against the wall. His legs were crossed, and he was holding a crystal Champagne glass by its stem.
As she approached, he raised it to his mouth and drained it. Then, stooping slightly, he set the glass on a small table beside him, took the bottle of Bodega San Felipe Extra Brut from its resting place in a silver cooler, refilled his glass, straightened up, and had another sip.
“A little early for that, isn’t it, Father?” Claudia challenged.
“My dear Claudia,” he said, smiling at her. “Certainly a good Christian like you is familiar with Saint Paul’s words in his letter to Saint Timothy? ‘Take a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine other infirmities’? And besides, we have something to celebrate. The Cardinal Archbishop has come down, if not very firmly, on the side of indulging our Anglican brothers and sisters.”
“Well, that’s good news,” she said. “When did you find out?”
“He called me to the chancellery about ten last night and told me. I decided it was too late to drive out then.”
She smiled at him.
“There are two glasses,” he said. “May I?”
“I shouldn’t,” she said.
“But you will?”
For answer she picked up the glass on the table and filled it herself. “To your amazing diplomatic skills,” she said, raising the glass. “Thank you.”
“No thanks required,” he said. “I am but a simple priest doing what he can to ease the problems of the sheep of his flock.”
She laughed.
“That’s Jorge’s cross, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Jorge’s peace offering cross,” she said. “I don’t even remember what he did, but to judge by this, it must have been something awful.”
“They were doing The Flying Dutchman at the Colón,” he said, smiling, referring to Buenos Aires’ opera house. “You gave a dinner, at which he failed to appear. He showed up at the Colón during intermission, deep in the arms of Bacchus, and took improper liberties with your person.”
“He was as drunk as an owl,” she said, now remembering, without rancor. “He’d been playing vingt-et-un at the Jockey Club. And he’d won. A lot. Enough to buy this incredibly vulgar cross!”
“Which you have chosen to wear on the day we can schedule his son’s wedding,” Welner said. “How appropriate, Claudia! Good for you!”
“Oh, Father, I wish he was here.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Welner said. “I think he would be delighted with this union.”
“That would make three of us,” she said. “You, me, and Jorge.”
“I think you must add the bride’s mother, the groom’s aunt, and even, believe it or not, Señor Howell to your short list. You may be right about the others, unfortunately.”
“I thought the groom’s grandfather hated all things Argentine,” she said. “You really mean that?”
“Now that he is about to become the great-grandfather of another Argentine, I think he has been reevaluating his feelings vis-à-vis all of us.”
She laughed. “When can
we have the wedding?”
“Whenever we want,” he said. “I was going to suggest that you schedule the date and present it as a fait accompli.”
“That’s really the bride’s mother’s business.”
“Not, I would suggest, under these circumstances.”
She chuckled.
“If I started right now,” Claudia said, “and gave up the luxury of sleep, we could have it next Saturday. That would give me a week. There are so many people to invite…”
“I gave the Cardinal the impression it would be a small ceremony, just the immediate families and the closest of friends.”
“That’s simply impossible, and you know it,” she said.
“That’s also the impression Cletus has,” Welner pursued.
“Cletus better begin to understand who he is, and his obligations,” she said. “He is not in a position to insult people who believe they are the closest of friends.”
“Of his? Or of Jorge’s?”
“You know what I mean,” she said. “Stop being difficult.”
“Cletus has inherited from his father a great capacity to make himself difficult.”
“Why do I think you have something in mind?”
“Someone, actually. What are you going to do about Coronel Perón?”
“If you mean am I going to invite him, of course I am.”
“When you showed Cletus your first rough draft of the guest list, he crossed the Coronel’s name off with…what shall I say? A certain emphasis.”
“Juan Perón is Cletus’s godfather,” Claudia said. “He was Jorge’s best friend. I don’t know what’s happened between them, but Cletus is just going to have to work it out.”
Welner didn’t reply.
“You did call him and tell him the Cardinal granted the dispensation?” Claudia asked.
“I called Señor Mallín,” he said. “I wanted to tell Cletus in person. After I told you.”
“If you called Enrico, then I had better get onto the telephone with Pamela,” she said, as much to herself as to him. Pamela Mallín was the mother of the bride. “Can you find something to occupy you until luncheon?”
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