A Quiet Flame

I nodded. “Is it true, what I’ve heard? That the general likes them pretty young himself?”

Melville pursed his lips and looked evasive again.

“Maybe that’s why you can get away with it,” I said.

“You make it sound like a crime, Hausner.”

“Isn’t it? I don’t know.”

“These girls know what they’re doing, believe me.” He rolled an emaciated little cigarette and held the match up to his mouth. The roll-up crackled into flames like a tiny forest fire. With one chuckling puff he managed to consume almost a third of it.

“So where would I go?” I asked, affecting nonchalant curiosity. “If I was thinking of picking it off the tree, like you describe.”

“One of the pesar poco joints down at the portside in La Boca,” he said. “Of course you would have to be introduced by a member.” He lifted his whole mug in the air in a big self-satisfied grin. “Like me.”

Restraining my first impulse—to introduce his jaw to a short uppercut—I smiled and said, “That’s a date, then.”

“Mind you,” he said, “the fruta inmadura scene is not what it used to be. Immediately after the war, the country was flooded with underweight baggage. That’s what we used to call the really fragile fruit that was coming from Europe. Little Jewish virgins escaping to a better life, they imagined. All of them looking for the caballero blanco. A few found one. Some grew up and went on the game. The rest? Who knows?”

“Who knows, indeed? The way I hear it, some of those illegal Jews got themselves picked up by the secret police. And disappeared.”

Melville pulled a face and shook his head. “Everyone disappears at one time or another in Argentina. It’s a national bloody pastime. The porteños get depressed about all kinds of shit. And then they take off for a while. Sooner or later most of them turn up again, without a word of explanation. Like nothing happened. As for the Jews, well, it’s my own experience they’re an especially melancholy lot. Which, if you don’t mind me saying so, is largely the fault of your own countrymen, Hausner.”

I nodded, conceding the point, which was well made.

“Now, take Perón,” he said, warming to his theme. “He was vice president and secretary of war in the government of General Edelmiro Farrell. Then he disappeared. His colleagues had arrested him and put him in jail on Martín García Island. Then Evita organizes some mass demonstrations of popular support, and a week later he’s back. Six months after that, he’s the president. He disappears. He comes back. It’s a very Argentine story.”

“Not everyone has an Evita,” I said. “And not everyone who disappears comes back, surely. You can’t deny that the jails are full of Perón’s political opponents.”

“You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Besides, most of those people are Communists. Do you want to see this country handed over to the Communists like Poland and Hungary and East Germany? Like Bolivia?”

“No, not at all.”

“Well, then. You ask me, they’re doing the best they can. This is a fine country. Perhaps the finest country in the whole of South America. With excellent prospects for economic growth. And I’d much rather live in Argentina than in Britain. Even without the unripe fruit.”

Melville flicked the pungent roll-up into the street. It was something I’d dearly like to have done to him.

“What are you doing here anyway, Melville?” I asked, trying to conceal the exasperation I felt with him. “I mean, what is it that you do? Your work. Your job.”

“I told you before,” he said. “Obviously you weren’t listening.” He laughed. “But there’s no great mystery about what I do for a living. Unlike some I could mention.” He shot me a look as if to say he meant me. “I work for Glasgow Wire. We supply a range of stock fencing and wire products to cattle ranchers all over the Argentine.”

I tried to stifle a yawn and failed. He was right. He had told me before. It was just that I’d seen no reason to think it was something I ought to remember.

“It sounds boring, I know,” he said wryly. “But there wouldn’t be a beef industry in this country without galvanized-wire products. I sell it in fifty-meter rolls, by the pallet. The Argie cattlemen buy miles of the stuff. They can’t get enough of it. And not just the cattlemen. Wire is important to all sorts of people.”

“Really?” This time the yawn got the better of me.

Melville seemed to regard my apparent disinterest as a challenge.

“Oh, yes. Why, just a few years ago, one of your own countrymen awarded me quite a large contract. He was an engineer working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. What was his name, now? Kammler. That’s right. Dr. Hans Kammler. Ever heard of him?”

The name itched a little, although I couldn’t think why.

“I had several meetings with your Mr. Kammler at the San Martín Palace, in Arenales. An interesting man. During the war he was a general in the SS. I expect you knew him.”

“All right. I was in the SS. Satisfied?”