“A discreet man Eduardo,” Escobar said. He fumbled past his wife to the seat by the window and sat down. Almost as soon as he closed his eyes he appeared to be asleep, sitting bolt upright. He looked as one of his ancestors might have looked, asleep on the saddle, crossing the Andes; he rocked gently with the stride of the plane across the snowy summits of the clouds.
“What did he mean, Eduardo?” his wife asked in a whisper.
“How do I know?”
He remembered that Escobar had always been a very heavy sleeper. Once, very early in their relationship, Margarita had told him, “Nothing ever wakes him except a sudden silence. Just go on talking.”
“What about?” he had asked.
“Anything. Why not tell me how much you love me?” They had been sitting together on a sofa and her husband was sleeping in an armchair at the opposite end of the room, the back of the chair turned to them. Doctor Plarr couldn’t even tell whether his eyes were closed. He said cautiously, “I want you.”
“Yes?”
“I want you.”
“Don’t sound so staccato,” she said as she touched him. “He needs to hear the steady murmur of conversation.”
It is difficult to keep a monologue going while a woman makes love to you. In desperation Doctor Plarr had begun to recount the story of the Three Bears, beginning it in the middle, while all the time he watched with anxiety the powerful statuesque head above the chair back.
“And then the third bear said in his gruff voice, ‘Who has been eating up my porridge?’ “
Seńora Escobar sat astride him as though she were a child playing ponies. “And so all three bears went upstairs and the little bear said, ‘Who has been sleeping in my bed?’ ” He clutched Seńora Escobar’s shoulders, and lost the thread of the story, so that he had to continue with the first phrase which came into his head, “This is the way the post boy rides. Gallopy, gallopy, gallopy.” When they were relaxed again on the sofa side by side, Seńora Escobar-he had not been given enough time to think of her yet as Margarita-said, “You were speaking in English. What were you saying?”
“I was telling you how much I wanted you,” Doctor Plarr said warily. The post boy had been a game he had played with his father: his mother had no repertoire. Perhaps Spanish children had no games-or no childish ones.
“What did Gustavo mean about Seńora Fortnum?” Margarita asked again, bringing him back to the present and the plane which lurched in the wind currents above the Paraná.
“I have no idea.”
“You would disappoint me terribly, Eduardo, if you really had anything to do with that little putain. I am still very fond of you.”
“Excuse me, Margarita,” he said. “I want to have a word with Colonel Perez.” The lights of La Paz blinked below them-there was a white ruled line of lamps along the river with complete darkness on the other side, as though the lamps marked the edge of a flat world. Perez was sitting at the far end of the plane near the lavatory and the seat beside him was empty.
“Any news, Colonel?” Doctor Plarr asked.
“News of what?”
“Of Fortnum.”
“No. Why? Were you expecting any?”
“I thought perhaps the police might have some… Didn’t the radio say you were looking for him in Rosario?”
“If he had been really in Rosario they could easily have brought him into Buenos Aires by this tune.”
“And what about the call from Cordoba?”
“That was probably a stupid attempt to confuse us. Cordoba is out of the question. I doubt if they could have even reached Rosario by the time of the call. It would have taken fifteen hours in the fastest car.”
“Then where do you suppose he is?” Doctor Plarr asked.
“He is probably dead in the river or else he is hidden nearer home. What were you doing in Buenos Aires?” It was a polite question, not a police question. He was no more interested than Escobar.
“I wanted to see the Ambassador about Fortnum.”
“Yes. What did he have to say?”
“I interrupted his siesta, poor man. He said the trouble is that no one’s really interested.”
Colonel Perez said, “I assure you I am. Yesterday I wanted to organize a thorough search of the barrio popular, but the Governor thought it too dangerous. He does not want shooting if possible. Ours has been a very quiet province up till now except for a little trouble from those third world priests. He sent me off to Buenos Aires today to talk to the Minister of the Interior. I think the Governor hopes to delay matters. If he can postpone action long enough and we are lucky Fortnum’s body may be found outside the province. No one can complain then that we acted imprudently. The blackmail will have failed. Everyone will be happy. Except myself. Even your government will be happy. I hope they will pay a pension to the widow?”
“I doubt it. He was only an Honorary Consul. What did the Minister say?”
“He is not afraid of shooting, that man. We could do with more like him. He advises the Governor to go ahead whatever happens and to use troops if necessary. The President wants everything settled before the General finishes his fishing. What else did your Ambassador say?”
“He said if the papers made enough fuss…”
“Why should they? Have you heard the afternoon radio? A BOAC plane has crashed. A hijacker let off his grenade this time. There are a hundred and sixty-seven death’s-a hundred and sixty-seven Fortnums, and one of them a film star. No, Doctor Plarr, we have to admit that ours is a very small affair.”
“Do you want to give up then?”
“Oh no-I have dealt all my life in small affairs, and I have always preferred to see them settled. Unfinished dossiers take up a lot of room. A smuggler was shot yesterday on the river, so we have been able to close his file. Somebody has stolen a hundred thousand pesos from a bedroom in the Naciónal-but we have our eyes on the man. And early this morning there was a small bomb found in the church of La Cruz. A very small bomb-for we are a very quiet province-and it was set to go off at midnight when the church was empty. If it had exploded, though, it might have destroyed the miraculous cross-and that would have been real news in El Litoral, even if not in the Nación. Perhaps it may become news in any case. There are rumours already that Our Lady herself got down off her altar and defused the bomb with her own hands and the Archbishop has visited the scene. You know the cross was first saved-years before Buenos Aires even existed-when lightning killed the Indians who were going to burn it.” The door of the lavatory opened. “You know my colleague Captain Velardo, doctor? I was telling the doctor about our new miracle, Ruben.”
“You may laugh, colonel, but the bomb did not go off.”
“You see, doctor, Ruben half believes.”
“I keep an open mind. Like the Archbishop. The Archbishop is an educated man.”
“I think the fuse was badly set.”
“And why was the fuse badly set? One has to go back to the source, colonel. A miracle is very much like a crime. You say the fuse was badly set, but how can we be sure that it was not Our Lady who guided the hand which set the fuse?”
“All the same I prefer to believe we are kept in the air now by the engines-even though they are not Rolls Royce-rather than by divine intervention.”
The plane dropped again in a pocket of air and the warning lights went on, telling them to fasten seatbelts. Doctor Plarr thought that Colonel Perez looked a little uneasy. He went back to his seat.
2
Having sent out invitations by telephone from the airport Doctor Plarr waited for his two guests on the terrace of the Nacional. On a sheet of hotel notepaper he drafted a careful letter which he believed the Ambassador would have found sober and convincing. The city was beginning to wake up for the evening hours after the long siesta of the afternoon. A chain of cars drove by along the riverside. The white naked statue in the belvedere shone under the lamplight, and the Coca-Cola sign glowed in scarlet letters like the shrine of a saint. Through the darkness the ferry boat was screaming a warning from the Chaco shore. It was a few minutes past nine-far too early for most people to dine-and Doctor Plarr was alone on the terrace except for Doctor Benevento and his wife. Doctor Benevento sat taking little sips at an aperitif, as though he were suspiciously testing the tonic of a rival, while his wife, a severe and middle-aged woman who wore a large gold cross like some order of distinction, ostentatiously took nothing and watched the disappearance of her husband’s aperitif with a false air of patience. It was a Thursday, Doctor Plarr remembered, and perhaps Doctor Benevento had come straight to the hotel from his weekly inspection of Mother Sanchez’ girls. The two doctors ignored each other: after all the years which had passed since he arrived from Buenos Aires Doctor Plarr was still in the eyes of Doctor Benevento a foreign interloper.