Renaldo

by James McCreath

  De Seta that the pond was really just a small part of a huge underground

  lake that he had discovered while mapping the area for settlement years before

  any other civilized human had ever been to this particular part of Argentina.

  Lonfranco had subsequently named the lake after a famous plainsman and great

  explorer . . . himself! But what he hadn’t told Peter was that the lake was also

  the scene of some of the most romantic liaisons he and Lydia had engaged in

  during her first visit to Argentina years before. It was only the sanitized version

  of the family folklore that had been passed down to the two brothers who now

  swam in the invitingly cool water. For several precious moments that beautiful

  summer day, all the world’s problems and turmoils disintegrated into a fond

  remembrance of their youth.

  Over the sandwiches and roast chicken that Oli had prepared for them,

  accompanied by two bottles of a local white wine called ‘Torrontes,’ Renaldo

  broke the first piece of news to his brother.

  “I have been asked to join the preliminary lineup for our World Cup

  team. Isn’t that crazy? I am still in shock! The day I arrived here, that morning,

  I met with Octavio Suarez, the newly appointed manager. He talked about how

  he is looking for some new faces, because of all the trouble with the veterans,

  and . . .”

  Lonnie almost choked on his drumstick as he listened to his brother’s

  news. He was quick to taunt his younger sibling, cutting him off in mid-

  sentence.

  “You? On our National Team? A skinny little kid like you on Argentina’s

  World Cup team? What have you been smoking, brother? Give me some, too,

  so I can make the team with you! It must be primo shit! God help you, the

  Brazilians and Germans will eat you alive!”

  The older brother was writhing on his back, holding his head in disbelief

  when he suddenly sat up, threw the half eaten chicken bone at his hurt-looking

  companion, then pounced on top of him.

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  RENALDO

  “You little son of a gun, I always knew you were good! Right from those

  first days when you could keep the ball away from me in the garden at home.

  The only way I could get that damned thing back was to beat the crap out of

  you. Congratulations, little brother! Now, you had better get me some damn

  good tickets to your games.”

  He rumpled Renaldo’s long, curly hair, then pulled him upright into a

  sitting position and embraced him with sudden tenderness.

  “What about Mama? Have you told her yet? She will shit! Don’t let her

  talk you out of this one. I want those tickets! This is great news. I can’t believe

  it. . . my little brother playing for Argentina in the World Cup. Amazing!”

  “I have to make the team first, Lonnie, so your tickets are still in doubt at

  the moment. And no, I haven’t told Mama yet. I thought you might have some

  pointers for me, you being the one that is always in trouble, always giving her

  bad news.”

  He threw the chicken bone back at his brother, then reached for the open

  wine bottle and took a healthy swig.

  “I have some other news that you might find just as interesting. I had lunch

  the other day with Symca, the rock star and television actress,” he commented

  nonchalantly, a large smile planted on his face.

  “Now I know you’ve been toking up. Who helped you make up these

  fantasies? Maybe it’s LSD that you’ve been experimenting with. No grass is

  powerful enough to give you these hallucinations.” Again the doubting tone of

  voice and mock disbelief shrouded Lonnie’s face.

  “Believe me, it’s true, all of it. The whole thing started in Córdoba. I tried

  to tell you about it that Sunday that Mama made us go to mass together, but I

  was so tired that I crashed when we got home. The next morning, you took off

  to Celeste’s before I woke up. Anyway, I helped save a man, a very influential

  man it turns out, from being hung, drawn, and quartered by a mob of pissed off

  locals. So once we were safely in the hands of our military escort and on our way

  to the train station, this bigwig says to Estes Santos and I that we have saved his

  life, that he is indebted to us, and please would we ride back to Buenos Aires

  in his private rail coach. That’s what started this whole thing.”

  The storyteller stopped long enough to soothe his parched throat with the

  local vintage, then continued to illuminate his spellbound listener.

  “So Estes and I get a phone call to meet this guy for lunch ten days later.

  No big deal we think. A free lunch, then the permanent kiss-off. But no, we

  walk into this guy’s office, and who should be sitting there but Symca in the

  flesh! She goes to powder her nose and The Fat Man, the guy we saved, says to

  Estes that Octavio Suarez has asked for him to be the goalkeeper coach of the

  World Cup team. And Suarez also wants me to try out for a spot in the lineup.

  Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather!”

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  JAMES McCREATH

  Renaldo brushed his right hand past his face and fell languidly backward

  to emphasize his point. The wine and sun were making him feel very good. He

  raised himself up on one elbow and continued.

  “Then it’s off to lunch at the Jockey Club no less, and for three hours I just

  sit there, staring at the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. It was like I had

  died and gone to heaven. She is an absolute angel, a very sexy angel.”

  He was talking so quickly that Lonnie had to have him repeat several

  details, especially about Symca’s short minidress.

  “Man, oh man, for a schoolboy you sure have had an exciting few days.

  What about Symca? Are you going to tell mother about her? She will really

  freak out about that one! Well, look at it this way. If you become a doctor, you

  can be a celebrity doctor that handles only football stars and entertainment

  personalities. Renaldo De Seta, doctor to the stars.” He fell back on the cool

  grass, laughing with great gusto.

  “The best part is that Symca wants to see me again. She wrote me this note

  before I came here.” Renaldo pulled the photocard from the inside pocket of his

  blue jean jacket and handed it to his now thoroughly incredulous brother.

  “Oooooh la la, this picture! What are you, some super stud or something?

  I thought that I was the one that was good with the señoritas, but nothing

  close to this has ever happened to me. Are you going to call her?” The leer on

  Lonnie’s face left little doubt about the real meaning of his question.

  “I don’t know. She must be just toying with me. I don’t understand girls

  at all. You know me. I’ve only had a handful of dates all through high school.

  Those were ones that Mama arranged so that I could go to the social functions

  that she thought would be good for our family image. I’ll admit it, I’m lost!”

  The anguished look on his face left little doubt that he was telling the truth.

  “I have this feeling, one I’ve never had before. It is so weird. I can’t stop

  thinking about her, yet I know that she will break my heart if I give her the

  chance. What should I do, my wise and sexually experience
d brother?”

  They talked for over an hour, and through it all, Renaldo could feel that

  Lonnie had something of great urgency that he wanted to get off his chest.

  The younger brother had confided his innermost secrets to his older, more

  worldly sibling, but now it was time to turn the tables and search the depths of

  Lonnie’s soul. When a break came in their fluid discourse, Renaldo seized the

  opportunity and struck with uncharacteristic bluntness.

  “You have changed, Lonnie, I’ve noticed it ever since you arrived at the

  estancia. Something is going on with you. Feel like opening up to your little

  brother? I am a good listener, and I can keep a secret. What do you say? Is it

  something to do with Celeste?”

  Lonnie sat silently, deep in thought, all the while staring at his brother. He

  is a good kid, kind, and honest. None of this mess is his fault. How can I tell him that I

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  RENALDO

  am about to try to change the only values he has ever known? The values that have made

  this family part of the ruling oligarchy, part of the wealthy bourgeoisie that I despise so

  much. How can I tell him that I will stop at nothing, even the most violent acts, to bring

  social change to Argentina?

  Celeste had done her job well. In the almost two weeks that they had

  spent together since his interrogation by her brothers, the tutor and student had

  worked an exhaustive schedule of eighteen-hour days. They only left the flat to

  shop for food and other necessities. A strict regimen prohibited the consumption

  of alcohol and drugs, as well as abstinence from all physical contact.

  Lonnie slept on the couch in the living room, the same couch where she

  had first seduced him. This fact did not go unnoticed by its occupant during

  the solitary, sexually repressed nights that he spent on it.

  During their working time, Celeste gave him documents and excerpts

  from textbooks and newspapers to read and memorize. She would then test him

  on the material. If she was not happy with his progress, he was forced to address

  the subject in question over again.

  Lonnie, never a great scholar, took to this quest for knowledge with

  newfound enthusiasm. He asked many insightful questions of his tutor, and

  with each answer, learned a little more about the woman with whom he was

  so deeply in love.

  He had learned that her family had not joined the E.R.P., a militant

  organization that was actually founded in their hometown of Tucumán, because

  of its Marxist philosophy of class struggle and antinationalist leanings. They,

  instead, threw their lot with the Perón-inspired Montoneros, who espoused a

  fairer redistribution of the nation’s wealth.

  The central policy was dubbed ‘Justicalism,’ the giving of social justice to

  the long oppressed workers by redistributing the reserves and assets of the state

  to the workers, all within a nationalistic framework.

  Celeste’s eldest brother, Yannick, had attended university in Buenos Aires

  with Mario Firmenich, the current Montonero leader, who was at that very

  moment, either in exile or dead. Not even Firmenich’s most ardent followers

  knew of their leader’s fate.

  Yannick had participated in the kidnapping and assassination of ex-

  president Pedro Eugenio Aramburu in May of 1970. Aramburu was the man

  that had forced Juan Perón into exile in 1955, and as such, was the target of a

  blood vendetta by the Montoneros. It took the rebels fifteen years to attain their

  retribution, but when they did, Yannick Lavalle was there to see it happen in

  person.

  The violence did not end there, however, and in the end, those responsible

  for Aramburu’s murder were hunted down and eradicated. Yannick and another

  brother, Patrice, were blown to pieces right inside the family home in Tucumán.

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  JAMES McCREATH

  This personal tragedy for the Lavalle family only strengthened the resolve of

  the remaining members to attain their goals of social justice through the most

  violent means possible. The blood of their martyred brothers had not turned

  cold before revenge had been exacted. And so it continued, right up to the

  present.

  The problem was that the government forces were winning the war, if not

  all the battles. Not only were known members of the antigovernment forces

  being systematically hunted down and incarcerated or executed, but their family

  members, friends, and even their acquaintances were being dragged from their

  homes and tortured until they surrendered at least some form of information.

  The right-wing terror group, the A.A.A., declared outright war on any

  individual or group that entertained leftist leaning. Community centers in

  communist neighborhoods, upper-echelon trade unionists, and even members

  of congress were targeted. The E.R.P. and Montoneros struck back by robbing

  banks and food depots, in addition to assassinating police and military officers

  that they believed were responsible for the deaths of their comrades.

  Whether in the provinces or in the heart of Buenos Aires itself, the terror

  squads from both left and right plied their deadly trade with cool efficiency and

  little or no regard for human rights. Many an innocent victim was sacrificed in

  this unprecedented orgy of violence and destruction.

  Lonnie was an easy convert to the cause of the Montoneros. Having

  no political ideology before he met Celeste left him vulnerable to both her

  dogma and her womanly charms. His pent-up emotional frustrations could be

  channeled into acts of aggression that were beneficial to the cause.

  But more than anything else, Lonnie’s primary value to Celeste and her

  brothers was his sizable bank account. Money to buy state-of-the-art weapons,

  rent safe houses, and acquire a fleet of automobiles for car bombings and escape

  vehicles.

  Celeste had been careful to ask only very impersonal questions about her

  lover’s financial status at first. She would accompany him to his bank and watch

  him make various transactions. She was even introduced to his bank manager

  on one occasion.

  Lonnie’s income was derived from a trust that his grandmother, Lydia, had

  established in his behalf. The amount of annual capital and income dispersed

  was determined by the trustees of the trust, according to his need.

  On Lonnie’s twenty-first birthday, a payment of two hundred thousand

  American dollars was made to his account under the terms of the trust. Another

  payment of two hundred thousand dollars was to be made at age twenty-five.

  The trustees had the discretion to accelerate that payment date upon request

  from the beneficiary. The full trust was to vest in Lonnie at age thirty. That

  sum was estimated in the range of twenty million American dollars.

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  RENALDO

  Celeste was saddened slightly by the knowledge that Lonfranco De Seta

  would never live to see the ripe old age of thirty. The tigress from Tucumán

  knew that there was already a bullet out there with his name on it. She just

  had to keep him alive long enough to make sure that his monetary assets were

  diverted to the proper location, the private bank account
she had set up under

  an assumed name to channel funds to her Montonero brothers!

  By the twenty-fourth of December Lonnie was wound up tighter than

  a top. He was ready to prove himself worthy of the cause and pleaded with

  Celeste to give him a mission that would display that he was more than just a

  textbook warrior.

  She had refused his request, insisting that he go to Pergamino to keep

  up relations with his family. She knew that he must be encouraged to keep

  the ties strong with family members who controlled his purse-strings. She also

  devised the ruse of their traveling together for the summer in order to explain

  his sudden disappearance to the family.

  It would probably also be the last time that they would ever lay eyes on

  him. Even though Celeste hated people like the De Setas and all they stood for,

  she was not so cruel as to deny them a final Christmas with their prodigal son.

  After he returned to her, she would give him his sought-after trial by fire.

  So she packed him off to the Pampas with a kiss on the cheek and a gift

  box wrapped in Santa Claus paper. The sexual tension was written all over

  his face, but he was told that if he studied hard while they were apart and

  passed the final test that she would administer to him on his return, then she

  promised to make his wait very worthwhile.

  Once he was in his Mercedes 350 convertible on the road headed to

  Pergamino, Lonnie reached over to the passenger seat and ripped open the gift.

  He almost swerved onto the shoulder of the highway as the sun reflected off

  the chrome-plated barrel of the revolver that Celeste had used to make him a

  convert to the cause two weeks earlier.

  The hand grenade that he had caught an inch from his groin accompanied

  the revolver. He shoved the package under the passenger’s seat and reduced

  his speed to the legal limit. This was one time he would not be caught for

  speeding.

  The student tore open the flowered envelope that the tutor had placed

  in the box, then held up the note it contained so he could read it. He smiled

  lustily at its message.

  “To my soldier boy. Keep your weapon well-oiled and clean, for it will

  be put to exhaustive use when you return. Viva la revolution! All my love,

  Celeste.”

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