“You sonofabitch!” Marjorie exploded. “You know that never happened! The last person in the world I’d do something like that with is Jimmy Cronley. He’s just a . . . shallow kid.”
“Cletus, stop!” Dorotea said angrily.
“Not any longer. He’s now an officer and a gentleman,” Clete went on. “They even let him have a pistol. No cartridges, but a pistol. He wears it slung low, like John Wayne. All the fräuleins are dazzled.”
“I don’t see how you can stand to live with him,” Marjorie said to Dorotea.
“It’s not easy,” Dorotea said.
“Quickly changing the subject,” Clete said, “tell me, General Martín, your professional analysis of Dorotea’s analysis of recent events.”
“Actually, I thought it was quite accurate,” Martín said.
Dorotea gave Clete the finger.
“There she goes again! Shocking! Did you ever hear, Bernardo, that the true test of another man’s intelligence is how much he agrees with you?”
“You’ve mentioned that once or twice in the past, Cletus,” Martín said, smiling.
“What I have been trying to figure out is why he had to stage his little amateur theatrical here. He could just as easily have done everything in Buenos Aires.”
“I think I can answer that,” Father Welner said.
“Please do,” Dorotea said.
“Señora Duarte de Perón was born not far from here, in a little village ca
lled Los Toldos,” the priest said. “Her birth certificate says that she was born out of wedlock to a Señor Duarte—the manager of the estancia on which they lived—and a Señorita Ibarguren. As I understand it, Señor Duarte and Señorita Ibarguren lived together essentially as man and wife. They never married, as he was already married when he met Evita’s mother. But Evita looked upon him as her father.
“He died when Evita was fifteen. His lawful wife inherited all his property—it wasn’t much but she got all of it. And when Evita tried to attend her father’s funeral here in Junín, the lawful wife refused to let her in the church, or be present at the Junín cemetery when he was buried. Evita moved to Buenos Aires the following year when she turned sixteen.”
“So she returns to the site of her humiliation for her marriage to an army colonel,” Marjorie said.
“An army colonel who will be the next president of Argentina,” Welner said.
“I thought you priests were supposed to keep family secrets like this to yourselves,” Clete said. “Why did you tell us this?”
“My God, Clete!” Dorotea protested.
“For one thing, it’s public knowledge,” Welner said. “More important, for another, we—the four of us—are going be dealing with Señora de Perón in the future. This afternoon, with her marriage to Juan Domingo, she became an important woman. The more that all of us know about her, the better.”
“You knew about this, Bernardo?” Clete asked.
Martín nodded.
“And didn’t tell me?”
“An oversight, Cletus. The subject just never came up.”
“I wonder what the mattresses in this place are going to be like,” Dorotea said.
“We’re not staying,” Clete said. “Hansel will be back from Germany in the morning. I want to be there.”
“He can land without your advice.”
“He’s bringing with him the dossiers of those Nazis who von Dattenberg brought with him. The sooner Bernardo has that information, the better, and Bernardo will be too tired from nailing the wedding registry announcements to the mess hall doors to be at Jorge Frade.”
[FIVE]