“Not at all. I think it’s important, with you going down there, that you understand the situation as fully as possible. I owned one hundred percent of Howell Petroleum (Venezuela). I wanted to keep control, of course, so I had to have fifty-one percent. I had two children. That left forty-nine percent for them. Half of forty-nine percent is twenty-four-point-five percent. You understand?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“At the time I thought it would give my daughter a little walking-around money, so she wouldn’t have to go to Hor-gay Goool-yermo Frah-day every time she wanted a dress or a pair of shoes. So they got married and went on their honeymoon. To Europe. All over Europe. But no matter where they were, or what they were doing, my daughter wrote me a letter, two, three times a week.
“And then, before they left Europe—they were in Venice; I still have the letter—she wrote that she was in the family way, and that she wanted me to come down to Argentina and visit them, just as soon as she got her feet on the ground.
“Hor-gay Goool-yermo Frah-day didn’t invite me, you understand, my daughter did. So I went down there several months later. Went supercargo on one of our tankers. She was eight months along when I got there. She looked terrible. She was all alone in their house in Buenos Aires. Hor-gay Goool-yermo Frah-day was out at the estancia, and sent his regrets, and would be in town in a couple of days. That poor child was lonely. Hardly any of the servants could speak any English, and she didn’t speak a hell of a lot of Spanish. But I was concerned about the way she looked, so I called the Ambassador, and he recommended a good American doctor to me…his name was Kennedy, he’d trained at Massachusetts General, and he was down there teaching Argentine doctors at the medical school of the University of Buenos Aires…and I took my daughter to see him.
“And I was right. She was a sick girl. The details are unimportant, but she was a sick girl; he took me aside and told me if she got through this confinement, she should never have another child. He told me he wasn’t sure how that pregnancy was going to turn out, either. Well, he was wrong about that, of course. Cletus has been as healthy as a horse all his life. But he was right about my daughter. She damned near died in childbirth.
“Anyway, when Hor-gay Goool-yermo Frah-day finally could get away from his estancia and come to Buenos Aires, I not only pulled him aside for a little chat, but I took him to see Doctor Kennedy. He didn’t want to go, I could tell that; he didn’t say anything, but I could tell he thought I was putting my nose in where it had no business. And Dr. Kennedy told him what he told me, that if my daughter managed to pull through this confinement, she should never try to have another child. It would kill her.
“So I stayed down there until the day came. She had…she had a terrible time, and we damned near lost her. She was in the hospital over a month. And I was there when they baptized Cletus into the Roman Catholic Church. They make a big thing of it down there. They did it in a place called the Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar. Their Archbishop did it.
“And then when I was sure my daughter was all right, a week or two after that, I came home. It was a pity, of course, I thought, that they could have only the one child…one child tends to get spoiled. But at least they had that, and with a little bit of luck, she could get her health back.
“Nine months after that, I got another letter. She was in the family way again. I decided against going down there…God only knows what I would have said to Hor-gay Goool-yermo Frah-day for doing that to her, knowing what was at stake. But I telephoned Dr. Kennedy—telephoning down there in those days wasn’t as easy as it is now—and asked him to see her. And two days after that I got a cable from Kennedy, saying that Hor-gay Goool-yermo Frah-day had told him his services would not be required.”
“Why?” Ettinger asked. “Did he say?”
“I think Hor-gay Goool-yermo Frah-day was telling me to keep my nose out of his business,” the old man said. “So I didn’t know what the hell to do. So I went down there again, and when I saw her, she looked even worse than I imagined she would. So I had a real man-to-man talk with Hor-gay Goool-yermo Frah-day, and he finally gave in, and I took my daughter to Dr. Kennedy. And he said—and I was there when he said it, and I know damned well that Hor-gay Goool-yermo Frah-day understood what he said—that it was his advice, considering the clear threat to the mother’s life, that the pregnancy be terminated.”
“I understand,” Ettinger said.
“And Hor-gay Goool-yermo Frah-day said that he would have to talk that over with his wife and his priest, and that he would let us know what had been decided.”
“Abortion is against the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church,” Ettinger said.
“Yeah. It is. That’s what he said. But he said that under the circumstances, he was willing to let my daughter come to the United States to have the baby. Our medicine was better than their medicine, and he knew it. So we got on a ship and came here. She was sick all the way, never got out of her bed. Lost a lot of weight. Had no strength. I radioed ahead and we had an ambulance waiting on the dock when we got to Miami. I put her in a hospital in Miami and telephoned down there and told him she was in pretty bad shape. I suggested he get on a ship and come to Miami. He said he couldn’t get away right then—that’s what he said, he couldn’t get away—and would I please keep him posted.
“Well, they fixed her up in Miami well enough so we could put her on a train and bring her here, and I put her in the hospital again here. They fixed her up well enough so I could take her to the house, and I found nurses and whatever else she needed. She was even able to get out of bed for my son’s, James Fitzhugh Howell’s, wedding. We took her to Texas on a train, and she got all dressed up and watched him get married.
“Hor-gay Goool-yermo Frah-day wrote that he would do whatever he could to be in New Orleans when the baby was born. My daughter really wanted him to come. He got here five days after my daughter’s funeral, Hor-gay Goool-yermo Frah-day did. He was all upset about that. He said that his wife should be buried in their family tomb in Buenos Aires, not in what he called ‘un-consecrated ground’ here. I buried her, with her baby in her arms, in our family plot. I told him she was going to stay buried where she was buried, where she belonged. And then finally he got around to asking about Cletus…asked when could he take him back to Argentina, and could I recommend a nurse to care for the child on the trip. I told Hor-gay Goool-yermo Frah-day that my son and his wife were caring for my grandson in Texas, and that if he went near him, my son was going to kill him.”
“And what was his reaction to that?”
“I had the feeling that Hor-gay Goool-yermo Frah-day was relieved, that the whole unfortunate business of his marriage to the foreigner from
North America was over. He wouldn’t have to concern himself with raising a child, he could spend all of his time on his estancia, and he could get married again to some Argentine woman without having to worry about a child.”
“That’s a tragic story,” Ettinger said.
“I don’t like to air the family linen in public, Mr. Ettinger…” the old man said.
The family linen, maybe not, Clete thought, but I’ve never known you to pass up an opportunity to proclaim what an unmitigated sonofabitch Hor-gay Goool-yermo Frah-day is. I wonder if it has ever occurred to you that it’s damned embarrassing for me.
Probably not. You expect me to hate him as much as you do—after all, he killed my mother. And since the child cannot choose his father, it’s obviously nothing for me to be embarrassed or ashamed about.
But it is, damn it, it is. And there’s no way I have ever been able to stop you.
“…but I thought, since you are going down there, a little insight into the way their minds work might be useful to you. They’re all, pardon the French, sonsofbitches. The man my daughter married is not some anomaly. I, for one, haven’t been surprised at all that the Argentines are on the side of the Germans in this war against us.”
“I appreciate your sharing this with me, Mr. Howell,” Ettinger said.
“I thought it was my duty,” the old man said. “And now, Mr. Ettinger, unless you’ve made other plans, I was going to suggest you ride out to the house with us. I’ve got a bottle of cognac out there, much too good for Cletus, that I think you might appreciate.”
“I hate to impose, Mr. Howell.”