Colonel Montalban paused in front of a heavy wooden door. On the other side was what sounded like a beehive. He looked me up and down and handed me a comb. I ran it quickly through my hair and gave it back.
“If I’d known I was going to meet the president’s wife tonight, I’d have spent the day shopping for a new suit,” I said. “Maybe even had a bath.”
“Believe me, she will hardly notice how you smell. Not in this place.”
He opened the door and we entered a wood-paneled room about the size of a tennis court. At the far end was another, larger painting of Evita. She was wearing a blue dress and smiling at a group of children. Behind her head was a bright light, and if I hadn’t known better, I’d have said she had a husband called Joseph and a son who was a carpenter. The room was full of people and the smell of their unwashed bodies. Some of them were disabled, some were pregnant, most looked poor. All of them were quite certain that the woman they were hoping to see was nothing less than the Madonna of Buenos Aires, La Dama de la Esperanza. There was no pushing or jostling for position, however. Each of them had a ticket and, from time to time, an official would come into that room and announce a number. This was the cue for an unmarried mother, a homeless family, or a crippled orphan to come forward and be received into the holy presence.
I followed the colonel into the room beyond. Here, there was a long mahogany table against one wall. On it were three telephones and four vases of calla lilies. There was a gold-silk-covered sofa and three matching chairs, and four secretaries holding pads and pencils, or a telephone, or an envelope full of money. Evita herself stood next to the window, which was open to let out some of the smell of unwashed bodies. This was more noticeable than in the big antechamber, because it was a smaller room.
She was wearing a dove-gray robe-style dress with a tied waist. On her lapel was a brooch made of small sapphires and diamonds in the shape and colors of the Argentine national flag. I reflected it was probably fortunate that she wasn’t the wife of the president of Germany: there’s not much a jeweler can do with black, yellow, and red. On the ring finger of her left hand was a sea-anemone-sized diamond ring, with its brother and sister on her little ears. On her head was a rubystudded gray silk beret that was more Lucrezia Borgia than Holy Mother. She didn’t look particularly ill. Not nearly as ill as the skeletal woman and the skeletal child who were each kissing one of Evita’s ungloved hands. Evita handed the woman a folded wad of fifty-peso notes. If Otto Skorzeny was right, some Nazi loot had just found its way into the deserving hands of the Argentine poor, and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. As a means of preventing the democratic overthrow of a government, this touching scene lacked the symbolism of setting fire to parliament, but on the surface, it looked every bit as effective. The apostles themselves could not have handled this kind of charity with any greater efficiency.
A photographer from a Peronist newspaper took a picture of the scene. And it seemed unlikely he would leave out of the frame the enormous painting of Christ washing the feet of his disciples that was behind Evita’s shoulder. Out of the corner of his blue eye, the carpenter seemed to be regarding his pupil and her good works with some approval. This is my beloved daughter, in whom I am well pleased. Don’t vote for anyone else.
Evita caught the colonel’s eye. Still full of effusive thanks, the skeletal woman and child were led outside. Evita turned smartly on her heel and went through a door at the back of the room. The colonel and I went after her. She closed the door behind us. We were in a room with a hand basin, a dressing table, a rail of clothes, and only one chair. Evita took it. Among the makeup and the many bottles of perfume and hairspray was a photograph of Peron. She picked it up and kissed it, which made me think that Otto Skorzeny was fooling himself if he thought this woman would ever risk having an affair with a scar-faced thug like him.
“Very impressive,” I said, jerking my head at the door behind me.
She sighed and shook her head. “It is nothing. Not nearly enough. We try, but the poor are always with us.”
I’d heard this somewhere before.
“All the same, your work must give you a lot of satisfaction.”
“Some, but I take no pride in it. I am nothing. A grasa. A common person. The work is its own reward. Besides, none of what I give is from me. It all belongs to Peron. He is the true saint, not me. You see, I don’t regard this as charity. Charity humiliates. What happens out there is social aid. A welfare state. Nothing more, nothing less. I handle its dispensation personally because I know what it’s like to be at the mercy of bureaucracy in this country. And I don’t trust anyone else to do it. There is too much corruption in our public institutions.” She tried to stifle a yawn. “So I come here, every night, and I do it myself. Especially important to me are the unmarried mothers of Argentina. Can you imagine why, Senor Gunther?”
I could easily imagine one reason why, but I hardly wanted to risk my new benefactor’s displeasure by mentioning her own husband’s efforts to procure abortions for all the underage girls he was having sex with. So I smiled patiently and shook my head.
“Because I was one myself. Before I met Peron. I was an actress then. I was not the putita my enemies like to paint me as. But, in 1936, when I was plain Eva Duarte and working in radio soap opera, I met a man and gave birth to his child. That man’s name was Kurt von Bader. That’s right, senor. Fabienne von Bader is my daughter.”
I glanced the colonel’s way. He nodded back at me by way of corroboration.
“When Fabienne was born, Kurt, who was married, agreed to bring her up. His wife could not have a child of her own. And at the time, I thought I would have more children myself. Sadly, for the president and myself both love children, that has not proved to be possible. Fabienne is my only child. And, as such, very precious to me.
“At first, Kurt and his wife were very generous and allowed me to see Fabienne whenever I wanted to, on condition that she was never told I was her real mother. More recently, however, all of that changed. Kurt von Bader is one of the custodians of a large sum of money deposited in Switzerland by the former government of Germany. It is my desire to use some of that money to help lift the poor out of their poverty. Not just here, in Argentina, but throughout the Roman Catholic world. Von Bader, who still entertains some hope of restoring a Nazi government in Germany, disagreed. He and I quarreled, violently. Much was said. Too much. Fabienne must have heard some of it and learned the truth about her origins. Soon after that, she ran away from home.”
Evita sighed and sat back in her chair, as if the effort of telling me all of this had been a strain. “There,” she said. “I have told you everything. Are you shocked, Herr Gunther?”
“No, ma’am. Not shocked. A little surprised, perhaps. And maybe a bit puzzled as to why you should choose to confide in me.”
“I want you to find her, of course. Is that so hard to understand?”
“No, not at all. But when you have a whole police force at your disposal, ma’am, it’s a little hard to understand why you should expect me to succeed where they have-”
“Failed,” she said, hearing me hesitate to complete the sentence. “Isn’t that right, Colonel? Your men have failed me, have they not?”
“So far we are without success, senora,” said the colonel.
“You hear that?” said Evita. She puffed out her cheeks in a scornful laugh. “He can’t even bring himself to say the word ‘failure.’ But that is what it amounts to. You, on the other hand. You are someone who has experience looking for missing persons, yes?”