1425 23 December 1942
There was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” Clete called. He was lying on the bed.
El Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade entered the room and stared at Clete without speaking.
“Claudia called the Duarte house,” Clete said without getting up, “and arranged for my car to be driven to her estancia. In an unusual manifestation of Argentine efficiency, it was actually sent there. So she’s having it brought here. I’ll be out of here just as soon as it arrives.”
“It’s here,” Frade said.
Clete rose to his feet. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll be on my way.”
“Do you think we could have a small talk, as officers and gentlemen?”
“We could have a shot at it. What’s on your mind?”
“Enrico, leave us, please,” Frade ordered.
“Mi Teniente, should I put your bags in the Buick?”
“Please, Enrico. I’ll be right out.”
Frade waited until Enrico picked up the bags and left the room. Then he checked to make sure the door was closed, and finally turned to Clete.
“You are planning to leave without greeting your aunt Beatrice and your uncle Humberto?”
“Well, I thought I would avoid a—a what?—a possibly awkward situation.”
“I see.”
“And the truth is, now that I think about it, blood aside, the two of them don’t really feel like my aunt and uncle. They’re just two nice people I feel sorry for because they lost their son. I just met them; I hardly know them.”
“I had trouble with that too,” Frade said.
“With what?”
“Realizing, blood aside, that you are really my son. A flesh-and-blood creature…not a dream.”
Clete could think of no reply to make.
“After you arrived yesterday,” Frade said, “Enrico came to see me. He told me that honor requires that he leave my service.”
“I had nothing to do with that,” Clete said.
“Enrico left Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo to enlist in the Army shortly before I was to be commissioned. That way he could complete his training by the time I became an officer, and he could be my batman.”
“Your what?”
“My personal servant. Officers in the Corps of Marines do not have servants?”
“No, we don’t,” Clete said, chuckling. “I thought he was a Suboficial Mayor?”
“He was, of course, much more than a servant. As long as I can remember, back to when we were boys on the estancia, he has been my friend. So I saw to it that he became a soldier, not a servant in uniform. He ultimately became a Suboficial Mayor, and a very good one.”
“I understand, I think.”
“When I retired from the Army, he retired with me. And when he came to me yesterday and told me he must leave my service, I told him to do what he wished, but that he was never to visit San Pedro y San Pablo again, after today.”