And I am alive, and in one piece, and there is a good deal to be said for that.
At least, so far, I am alive and in one piece.
And, in the sense that I am going to have a little Christmas Eve supper with my father, I am home.
That little supper will probably consist of no more than eight or nine courses, served on fine china and dissected with monogrammed sterling silver. Last year, it was sort of turkey chopsuey, eaten off a stainless steel tray, with cranberry sauce atop the mashed potatoes. Or was it mashed potatoes dumped over the cranberry sauce?
And if that sounds awful, I wonder what the boys on the ’Canal are having for Christmas this year?
Stop being maudin, Clete, things are getting better.
Without much effort, he thought of two prime examples:
On the way to Buenos Aires, Enrico, literally riding shotgun beside him in the front seat of the Buick, worked out how to meet Pelosi and Ettinger without broadcasting everything they said to one another to Internal Security or the Germans.
“Your problem, mi Teniente, is keeping the clowns and the Germans from hearing you. The clowns will of course be following you, and them, and they will have telephone surveillance on your line and theirs.”
“So what do I do?”
“Mi Teniente, you take them for a ride in your automobile. The clowns will not be able to hear what you say, and it will embarrass them to have to be so obvious about following you.”
“Just telephone them and say I’ll pick them up?”
“No. Just set a time and place to meet them. The man who brings daily deliveries of agua mineral, vegetables, and meat to the house is a friend. He will carry messages safely past the clowns.”
“When does he make his next delivery?”
“Starting at three o’clock this afternoon. Three times a day.”
“This is Christmas Eve.”
“People need food and agua mineral on Christmas Eve,” Enrico said with a shrug.
“You’ve got everything laid out, right? You’re pretty good at this, Enrico.”
“I have learned much from your father, mi Teniente.”
And then Clete himself worked out a temporary, partial solution to the problem of the Virgin Princess: At Clete’s suggestion, his father agreed to invite the Mallíns and their children to dinner at the big house on Avenida Coronel Díaz in Palermo.
“After Christmas, of course, and before New Year’s. As an expression of my gratitude to them for their hospitality when you first arrived.”
“Thank you.”
“You will be able to see Dorotea before you go to Miami.”
“It’s nothing like that, Dad,” Clete said, aware that he didn’t sound at all convincing. “They were just very kind to me.”
“I understand completely,” his father said, and winked at him, man-to-man. “Get one young, and train her right.”
Somehow—he wasn’t sure how—he would take the Virgin Princess aside for a few minutes and talk to her. He wasn’t sure yet what exactly he would say, but the gist of his words would be that there was a great difference in their ages, that she was really too young to know her own emotions, that while he held her in the highest possible regard, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
He would at least have a chance to be with her one last time before he left. That was very important to him.
He was considering that the real, as opposed to the wishful thinking, chances were that somewhere down the pike…If I even come back to Argentina at all, if I survive the war, if she doesn’t just dismiss me from her mind when I’m away from Argentina, I might be able tell her how I really feel about her—Christ, ask her to marry me!…when he heard the whine of the elevator motor, and then the sound of the door sliding open.
He didn’t even turn to see who it was. The bad guys stood little chance of getting past Enrico, who had stationed himself and his Remington in an armchair in the foyer. And in any event, bad guys would not take the elevator. It was either Enrico checking on him, or one of the maids, here to clean the bath, make the bed, or do something else useful.
It was much more pleasant to fantasize about the Virgin Princess in a white dress in a church somewhere smiling at him as he lifted her veil and the priest saying, “You may now kiss the bride.”