"You said your father arranged it. Could you have stopped him?"
"I was wondering about that too. I didn't try."
"I was glad to get off of Guadalcanal," Clete said. "I figured I was running out of percentages."
"Excuse me?"
"You can only go up and come down in one piece so many times," Clete said. "Eventually, you don't come back. We call it the percentage."
"Yes," Peter agreed. "But you felt no ... obligation of honor... to remain?"
"I did not ask to be relieved, but I was glad when I was."
"I got drunk when I was relieved," Peter said. "I told myself I did it because I did not wish to be relieved. Now I am wondering if I really wasn't... glad."
"I thought maybe you were with Duarte when he was killed," Clete said.
"Never met him. I was told he was killed at Stalingrad flying a Storch, a little high-wing monoplane used for artillery spotting, carrying people around, that sort of thing."
"That he wasn't supposed to be flying in the first place. My father told me that if he had any idea he was putting him in the line of fire, he never would have let him go over there."
"What sort of a fellow was he?"
"I never met him," Clete said.
"Really? I thought he was your cousin."
"He was. But I never met him. Or his parents. Or, for that matter, my father, until a couple of days ago."
"I met them this afternoon. That was very difficult. I had the feeling they were asking, 'What are you doing alive when our son is dead?' "
"I had exactly the same feeling when I met them," Clete said.
"How is it you never met them?"
Clete told the story, including the cover story of his heart murmur and his job down here making sure the Argentines weren't diverting American oil products to the Germans. The lies made him uncomfortable, especially after "mine enemy" had been so openly sincere.
"Does that mean you can't fly anymore?"
"No. It just means I can't fly for the Marines."
"I miss flying," Peter said. "And I don't think I'll be doing much, if any, flying here."
"My father has a light airplane. If I can persuade him to let me use it, I'll take you for a ride."
"I would like that," Peter said seriously. "Thank you very much."
Se?ora Pellano came into the library a few minutes after one to find Se?or Cletus and the young German officer standing by the fireplace making strange movements with their hands, like little boys pretending their hands were aeroplanes.
They seemed embarrassed that they had been drinking. There was no reason for that.
She told them she had gone to midnight mass at the Basilica de Nuestra Se?ora del Pilar, which was why she was so late, and asked them if they would like anything to eat.
But they thanked her and said they were about to go to bed.
For about half an hour she sat on a little stool behind the door of the corridor that led from the foyer to the kitchen, until she heard themsounding very happy if perhaps a little drunktell each other goodnight.
[FOUR]
Calle Olavarria
La Boca, Buenos Aires
1135 13 December 1942
As he prepared to enter the Church of San Juan Evangelista, Tony was telling himself for the tenth or twelfth time that he was making a fool of himself, a church seemed to be on every other corner, and the odds of her showing up at this one were one in nine zillion. That was when he saw her coming around the corner from the direction of Ristorante Napoli.
She wasn't as well-dressed as the last time he saw her. She was wearing a simple cotton dress and sandals, with a shawl around her shoulders and over her head. But she was even more beautiful than he remembered, like one of the statues of the Virgin Mary in St. Rose of Lima's, back in Cicero.
Seeing him standing by the church door seemed to surprise her, even to frighten her, as if he might do something bad to her, and she quickly averted her eyes.
Tony had gathered his courage. "Buenas noches, Se?orita," he said, smiling. It wasn't all that much different from Italian.
She looked at him and just perceptibly smiled, but did not speak.
He waited a good three minutes before following her inside the church, among other things debating the Christian morality of trying to pick up a girl there. He finally decided it was all right, he wasn't trying to fuck her or anything.
He had a little trouble finding her in the church; it was dark inside. And when he did find her, he had trouble finding a seat that would give him a view of something besides the back of her head.
But even that wasn't so bad. He stepped on some old lady's foot and she yelped, and he said without thinking, "Scusi," in Italian, and the old lady answered him in Italian. She said he was a clumsy jackass, but she said it in Italian, and that made him think that maybe the girl also spoke Italianwhy not? She had gone into the Ristorante Napoli, and this was an Italian neighborhood. Maybe if he had a chance to say hello to her again, he could try it in Italian and wouldn't sound like the neighborhood idiot trying to talk to her in Spanish.
He said a prayer for his family, and thanked God for not getting caught in Uruguay. And he asked God's protection when they tried to blow a hole in the ship. And then he asked God, "Please let me meet her." And for a moment he wondered if he should have done that, but decided there was nothing wrong with it, he had no carnal lusts for her or anything like that.
Once she turned around and saw him. And even in the dim lighthe didn't think there was a bulb bigger than forty watts in all of Argentina, and the ones in here looked like refrigerator bulbshe thought he saw her blush.
When she stood up and left, walking past him out of the church, she didn't look at him, although he knew damned well she had seen him. He hurried after her, and saw her heading toward the Ristorante Napoli. He waited until she disappeared around the corner and then walked quickly after her.
What the hell, it was three blocks to the ristorante, maybe I can catch up with her.
She turned another corner, a block away from the Ristorante Napoli, and he walked faster so he wouldn't lose her. And in case she went in some house or something, he would know where she lived.
When he turned the corner, she was waiting for him.
"If my father sees you following me, he will cut out your heart with a knife," she said. In Italian!
His mouth went on automatic. He was startled to hear himself say, "Oh, please don't tell your father. I am just a poor Italian boy far from home and all alone."
Boy, did I put my foot in my mouth with that stupid line.
But she smiled.
"You're telling the truth?"
Tony held up his right hand.
"I swear to God!" he declared passionately.
"Where are you from? The North?"
"Cicero."
"Where?"
"Cicero, Illinois. Outside Chicago. In the United States of America."
"You're telling the truth?"
"I swear to God, on my mother's honor."
"I have never heard of Cicero, Illinois," she said.
"It's a nice place. You would like it. You ought to visit there sometime."
There you go again, asshole! Think before you open your goddamned mouth!