Her eyes narrowed and she bit her lip as if she was putting her whole body into each stroke of the verbal whip she was wielding.
“The SS man with a conscience. It’s quite a story when you think about it. A little corny, but then real stories often are, don’t you agree? The Jewess and the German officer. Someone should write an opera about it. One of those avant-garde ones, with miserable songs, minor keys, and bum notes. Only I do think that the baritone who plays you should be someone who can’t really sing. Or better still, won’t. That’s his leitmotif. And hers? Something impotent, repetitive, and hopeless.”
Anna picked up her glass, only this time she stood up when she had finished it. “Thanks for lunch.”
“Sit down,” I said. “You’re behaving like a child.”
“Maybe that’s because you’re treating me like one.”
“Maybe I am, but I’d rather that than see your body on a slab in the police morgue. That’s my only real motif, Anna.”
“Now you sound like my father. No, wait. I think you’re a little older than he is.”
And then she left.
I FINISHED what was left of the bottle and went to the Casa Rosada, to look through all the information Montalban had given me about Old Comrades in Argentina. But there was nothing about a Hans Kammler. But then neither was there anything about Otto Skorzeny. Apparently, some old comrades were beyond suspicion. Later on, I telephoned Geller to let him know I was coming back to Tucuman and to ask if I might borrow his jeep.
“Are you planning to visit Ricardo again?” he asked. “Because he still hasn’t quite forgiven me for telling you where he lives.” Geller laughed. “I don’t think he likes you.”
“I’m sure of it.”
“By the way, you were asking about bastards who give us bastards a bad name. You’ll never guess who showed up here the other day. Otto Skorzeny.”
“Is he working for Capri, too?”
“That’s the funny thing. He’s not. At least, not according to my records, anyway.”
“See if you can find out what he’s doing there,” I said. “And while you’re at it, see what you can find out about a man called Hans Kammler.”
“Kammler? Never heard of him.”
“He was a general in the SS, Pedro.”
Geller groaned.
“What’s the matter?”
“Why ever did I agree to the name Pedro?” he said. “Every time I hear it, I wince. It’s a peasant’s name. It makes me think I probably smell of horseshit.”
“Not so as you’d notice, Pedro. Not in Tucuman. Everything in Tucuman smells of horseshit.”
In the evening I drove to the railway station. As usual, the place was full of people, many of them Indians from Paraguay and Bolivia and easily identifiable in their colorful blankets and bowler hats. At first, I didn’t see her standing at the head of the Mitre line platform. She was wearing a sensible two-piece woolen suit, gloves, and a scarf. By her shapely leg was a small valise and in her hand was a ticket. She appeared to be waiting for me.
“I was wondering when you were going to show up,” she said.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.
“I might say that this is a free country, except that it’s not,” she said.
“You really think you’re coming to Tucuman?”
“That’s what it says on my ticket.”
“I told you before. This is dangerous.”
“My heart is in my mouth.” She shrugged. “Everything’s dangerous when you read the small print, Gunther. Sometimes it’s a good idea not to bring your glasses. Besides, these are my relatives, not yours. Always supposing you have such things as relatives.”
“Didn’t I tell you? They found me under a rock.”
“It figures. You have a number of rocklike qualities.”
“Then I guess I can hardly stop you, angel.”
“It might be fun to see you try.”
“All right.” I let out a sigh. “I know when I’m beaten.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
“Have you been to Tucuman before?”
“I never saw the point of spending twenty-three hours on a train just to end up in a flea-bitten dump. That’s what everyone says, anyway. That there are just a couple of churches and what passes for a university.”
“That, and a couple of million acres of sugarcane.”
“You make it sound like I’ve been missing something.”
“No, but I have.” I took her in my arms and kissed her. “I hope you’ve got a sweet tooth. A million acres is an awful lot of sugar.”
“After what I said to you at lunchtime, I could use a little sweetening, don’t you think?”
“You’ve got twenty-three hours to make it up to me.”
“Then it’s lucky I brought some cards.”
“We’d better get on the train.” I picked up her bag and we walked along the platform, past vending trolleys laden with food and drink for passengers to take on board. We bought as much as we could carry and found ourselves a compartment. Minutes later, the train started to move out of the station. But after half an hour we still weren’t going much faster than an old lady on a bicycle.
“It’s no wonder it takes twenty-three hours,” I complained. “At these speeds.”
“The British built the railways,” she explained. “Until Peron came along, they owned them, too.”
“That doesn’t explain why they go so slowly.”
“The railroads weren’t built for people,” she said. “They were built for the transportation of cattle.”
“And here was me thinking that it was only the Germans who had mastered the art of transporting people like cattle.”
“Hmm. Were you always this cynical?”
“No. I used to be a twinkle in my father’s eye. You should have seen me then. I could light up a room from twenty feet.”
“Your father sounds like quite a man.”
“He had his turn.”
“Ruthless as well as cynical. Like all SS men.”
“How would you know? I’ll bet I’m the first SS man you ever met.”
“I certainly never expected to like kissing one.”
“I never expected to be one, that’s for sure. Do you want me to tell you about it? We’ve got plenty of time.”
“What about our no-questions deal?”
“No, I think it’s time you knew something about me. Just in case I get killed.”
“You’re saying that just to try to scare me. Forget it. These days I even sleep with the light out.”
“Do you want me to tell you, or not?”
“I guess I can hardly walk out the door if I decide you don’t like me after all. Even at this speed. Go ahead. I can always play patience if I get bored listening.”
“My brand of straight talk is strong stuff. It needs a little mixer. Like ginger ale or Indian tonic water.” I took a bottle of whiskey out of my bag and poured a measure in my one small glass. “Or some of this, perhaps.”
“That’s quite strong for a mixer,” she said, sipping it like it was nitroglycerin.
I lit two cigarettes and put one in her mouth. “It’s a strong story. Come on. Drink up. I can only tell it to you when you’re seeing double and I’m blowing smoke in your eyes. That way you won’t notice when I grow lots of hair on my face and my teeth get longer.”
The train was leaving behind the suburbs of Buenos Aires. If only I could leave behind my own past as easily. A strong smell of seawater arrived through the open window. Gulls hovered in the blue sky close to the shore. The wheels rattled underneath the carriage floor like a six-eight march and, for a moment, I remembered the bands that had marched underneath the windows of the Adlon Hotel on the night of Monday, January 30, 1933. That was the day the world changed forever. The day Hitler was appointed chancellor of the Reich. I remembered how, as each band had neared Pariser Platz, where both the Adlon and the French Embassy were situated, they stopped whatever they had been playing and struck up with the old Prussian war song “We Mean to Beat the French.” That was the moment I realized that another European war was inevitable.
“All Germans carry an image of Adolf Hitler inside them,” I said. “Even the ones like me, who hated Hitler and everything he stood for. This face with its tousled hair and postage-stamp mustache haunts us all now and forevermore and, like a quiet flame that can never be extinguished, burns itself into our souls. The Nazis used to talk of a thousand-year empire. But sometimes I think that because of what we did, the name of Germany and the Germans will live in infamy for a thousand years. That it will take the rest of the world a thousand years to forget. Certainly if I live to be a thousand years old, I’ll never forget some of the things I saw. And some of the things I did.”