Between the two of them, they got the gates open, and Frade drove inside.
When he left the car, Alberto was standing there.
“My apologies, mi Coronel,” he said. “We did not know you were coming, and we are not receiving.”
“It’s all right,” Frade said. “My sister is at home?”
“I have told the Señora you are here. You will be received in the library, mi Coronel.”
Frade walked into the house. There was a huge foyer, furnished with heavy, leather-upholstered furniture, tables along the walls, and a fountain, not presently in use, in the center. The floor was marble.
He walked into the library, which was carpeted and quite dark. Alberto followed him in, turning on lights and opening the curtains on two windows which looked out onto the garden.
“May I take your hat, mi Coronel?” Alberto asked. “And may I bring you something?”
Frade handed him the hat.
“I would like a drink,” he said. “I know where it is. Would you get me some ice? And some agua mineral con gas?”
While Alberto left to fetch ice and soda water, Frade went to what appeared to be—and had once been—an ancient chest of drawers and tugged on one of the pulls. The entire front opened to him, after which he slid out a tray that held half a dozen bottles of spirits and as many large, squat crystal glasses. He took a bottle of Dewar’s scotch and poured three fingers’ worth in a glass.
He looked at it a moment, then took a healthy swallow, grimacing slightly as the whiskey passed down his throat. Then he refilled the glass to a depth of two fingers and waited for Alberto to bring the ice and soda.
When his sister and her husband walked into the library, he was sitting in a chair apparently taking his first sip of a drink. No one spoke. He rose as Beatrice came toward him, took two steps toward her, and kissed her on the cheek. A real kiss—he could taste her face powder.
Beatrice is still a handsome woman, Frade thought. She looks ghastly right now, but even so, she seems much younger than Humberto…and they are what? Forty-six. Beatrice is actually six months older than Humberto, now that I think about it.
“People mean well,” Humberto Valdez Duarte, his brother-in-law, a tall, slender man, said as he put out his hand. “But they—we closed the gate, hoping they would think we were gone away, or take the suggestion that we are not receiving.”
“I understand,” Frade said.
“What is that you’re drinking, Jorge?” Beatrice asked, then went on without giving him a chance to reply. “Will you have something to eat?”
“The scotch is fine, thank you,” he said.
“We went to eight o’clock mass,” Beatrice said.
“Did you?”
“At Our Lady of Pilar,”* Humberto said, evenly, but looking at Frade.
Christ, I know what’s coming.
“And then afterward, we went to Recoleta,” Beatrice went on.
There is a dreamy quality to her voice, and to the way she behaves. I hope to God she doesn’t become addicted to whatever she’s taking.
“We visited the Duarte tomb,” Beatrice went on, “and of course ours. I left flowers on Mommy’s casket and Daddy’s.”
“I haven’t been there in almost a year,” Frade said, thinking aloud.
“Humberto said I shouldn’t ask you, because you wouldn’t know,” Beatrice said, “but I have been wondering, Jorge, do you think there was a mass when they buried our Jorge?”
“I don’t know about a mass, Beatrice, but I’m sure there was a priest. They have chaplains in the German Army, as we do. Beatrice…”
“And I would really like to know, Jorge,” Beatrice said, looking at him, “whether you think—after this horrible war, of course—there are chances of our bringing him home, to put him to rest in Recoleta, with the Duartes?”
“Actually, Beatrice, that’s why I’m here,” Frade said.