His Own Man

by Edgard Telles Ribeiro

  But when Max tried to take advantage of the camaraderie and join in the friendly banter (“In that case, I’d also like to have a look at this manual of yours,” he’d suggested), the others had gone quiet.

  “Nice people don’t get into these conversations,” Major Vaz had remarked, with a paternal smile, in an effort to alleviate the awkwardness caused by the sudden silence. To which Max, laying his four aces on the table, had replied, “Keep in mind, I have a manual of my own …” He’d then added with a semblance of pride, while collecting his chips and casting an ironic glance around the table, “… issued by the same printer as yours.” These comments received a hearty round of applause.

  The scene had been akin to a rite of passage. All had laughed at his presence of mind. Max had even gotten a few congratulatory slaps on the back. Not because he’d won that hand — an accomplishment in and of itself — but because he’d conveyed a clear message: they were all in the same boat. It didn’t much matter that some worked above deck, sporting fancy suits or uniforms, while others, in charcoal- and grease-stained clothing, took care of the furnaces below. Without the collective effort of the group, they wouldn’t get anywhere.

  From that night on, Max became one of them. On an honorary basis, it went without saying. As if all he needed to graduate was to learn to deliver electric shocks with the right intensity. Or familiarize himself with the use of paddles, hot irons, water-boarding, and the parrot’s perch, not to mention the police dogs, specially trained to seize the testicles of reticent prisoners without crushing them. Prisoners who arrived at the torture chambers wearing black hoods imbued, as one of them would later recall, with the smell of fear. The episode, meanwhile, had ramifications of another kind, which had led Major Vaz to take Max aside for a chat during the customary sandwich break.

  “Max,” he’d begun, giving the impression of walking on eggshells, “we know that you have the ambassador’s complete trust. And on our end, we’ve heard great things about your work. Insightful investigative work, which has helped us enormously in our sphere of operation — if you know what I mean.”

  “Thank you, Major.”

  “Max, for the love of God! Call me Vaz, the way everyone else here does.”

  “Okay, Vaz. Anyway, thanks for the compliment.”

  “Right … I was thinking that you might be able to provide us with a little extra help. After checking with the ambassador, of course. But we’ll talk some other time. If you have a spare minute, I’ll come by your office tomorrow for coffee. How about it?”

  “It would be my pleasure, Vaz.”

  “I have a proposal that might be of interest. As I said, it would be a big help to us. For you, it could represent …” He was at a loss for the right word, and Max had no way of coming to his aid because he knew exactly what the major was getting at. He needed a better connection with the embassy. For some particular reason. “… a departure from your usual activities,” concluded the major, returning to the game table.

  25

  In the residence library, the ambassador was seated in an armchair, supervising the packing of his books by several uniformed men from the moving company. Max, who had asked to be seen for a few minutes, waited at the entrance while his boss finished giving instructions to the manager of the firm.

  When the two men were through, Max went over and greeted the ambassador. He then announced, “Major Vaz came to see me in my office this morning. So the two of us could talk.”

  The ambassador was silently sorting the books and magazines he wished to donate to the Uruguay-Brazil Cultural Institute from those he planned to discard. With his index finger he pointed to the bookcase in front of him, which held the complete works of Goethe, Hermann Hesse, and Nietzsche. “All in their original versions,” he said with obvious pride.

  Then he invited his colleague to take a seat beside him. He let out a deep sigh, as though having a hard time leaving the realm of literature to step into the far duller real world. “Good old Vaz,” he murmured. Then, shifting gears, as though just waking up, he asked, “How is he? And what did he want with you?” Max glanced at the movers coming and going with boxes. With a discreet gesture, the ambassador instructed him to proceed.

  “What he wants,” Max then replied, “is to transfer one of their agenda items to us. Or rather, to me.”

  “One of their …,” and here the ambassador couldn’t help but laugh. “Since when does that group work with an agenda, Marcílio? They work with their hands! And their feet! At most, with pliers and other implements!” The ambassador had a lovehate relationship with the attachés. One minute, he’d express his admiration, even gratitude; the next, he’d reduce them to dust. He made use of their information but resented having to depend on them to get it.

  “Ambassador,” Max explained patiently, “those are my words. He didn’t put it quite like that. But that’s just what the major wants: to transfer a matter of theirs to me. He’d like me to start gathering information on a couple the SNI planted among the Brazilian exiles in Montevideo two and a half years ago.”

  His boss sprang from dark humor to incredulousness with lightning speed. “Like you to start? But what kind of madness is that, Marcílio? We’ve never operated on that level. We work on another plane. We don’t take on operational duties! We’re like the SNI. A small-scale SNI. How exactly did you create an opening for a request of this nature, which could now —”

  “Forgive me, Ambassador, but the subject came up quite spontaneously, at the poker table. The major, who’s not really a bad person, as you know, called me aside. And, today, he came to see me in my office.”

  “So this more private conversation took place between just the two of you?”

  To Max’s affirmative response, he said, “Good. What exactly came out of your chat?”

  Max had noticed, in these few months of working together, that his boss tried to play it cool when he came up against unexpected situations. Generally, to protect himself and keep his options open, while he absorbed what he was told.

  “The couple, Ambassador. The attachés’ assistants haven’t been able to deliver. They can no longer extract anything significant from the two. Which wouldn’t be a problem if they didn’t feel that the couple is hiding something important.”

  “They’re no fools, those two.”

  “The major suspects that the team in place, after all these years, no longer has …”

  “… any way to objectively assess what the couple knows. Or what they think the couple knows,” the ambassador finished.

  “Precisely. They’re practically friends these days after seeing so much of one another, although it’s always on the sly. And the issue might have to do with Chile.”

  As Max had foreseen, the ambassador bolted out of his seat. “Chile? How so?”

  “No one has been able to find out.”

  The ambassador began to pace from one side of the partially dismantled library to the other, avoiding the piles of books and half-open boxes strewn here and there. The movers seemed to have magically disappeared. “This could be interesting,” he finally said as he came to a stop in front of Max’s chair.

  Max stood. For a few seconds they remained on tenterhooks, facing one another. Max was quite a bit taller than the ambassador. They looked at each other with heads cocked to the side. Interesting, but dangerous, they were both thinking — and for the same reasons: once certain bridges were crossed, it would be hard to turn back. Even so, the ambassador’s reply surprised Max. For the first time since they’d met, his boss seemed to hesitate.

  “It’s a lot of responsibility for me in this final stretch. String along the major. Let Carlos Câmara work this out when he gets here. That’ll be in less than a month. Whatever you two decide is fine. But the matter has to stay between the three of us. Did you tell Vaz you’d be double checking with me?”

  “He was the one who suggested it. He never imagined I’d act on my own.”

  “That’s both good and bad. G
ood, because it shows him to be a man of character. Bad, because it means we’re going to have to keep him in the loop. And I don’t like to be in anyone’s back pocket. We can’t run that risk.”

  “And he’s not the only one. The team that’s been interrogating the couple is going to end up having to know.”

  “Not necessarily, Marcílio. These projects have a beginning and an end. A command from above is enough to shut down an operation. The military does it all the time. It’s part of their apocalyptic scenarios.”

  “Destroying the evidence? Burning the heretics?”

  “Just the evidence, Marcílio, just the evidence. Not the heretics. These aren’t the Middle Ages; we conduct ourselves far more discreetly. No fires, no stakes, just a simple order, no questions asked. We start or abort operations, and no one is the wiser.”

  As Max pondered these words, the ambassador proceeded. “In any case, an operation like the one involving this couple usually has a short life span. Once its usefulness has been exhausted, it’s shut down. All it takes is a command from above. With paperwork, the process is even simpler. It’s burned. I myself keep almost no files at all. Our Holy Alliance exists only in my head. Even so, it’s more alive than ever.”

  Here he allowed himself a brief moment of tenderness. “You know, I’m actually liking that nickname. Holy Alliance …” He took a few steps around the room, this time with his hands clasped behind his back. “Now, as for Vaz: have our friend believe we’re thinking about it.”

  He stopped and turned to face Max, who was watching him intently. “Nothing more than that. Try to find out the financial implications. Who would pay the couple, and so on. It’s not going to be me. And I doubt Itamaraty has a budget to cover something like this.”

  They both had a good laugh over that.

  “Ambassador,” Max resumed, “I was given the impression, from something Major Vaz said, that the couple would do anything in exchange for their freedom.”

  “Freedom?”

  “That’s right. From what I gathered, they’re here against their will. They’re being forced to operate in Montevideo.”

  “Forced?” Without realizing it, the ambassador was the one breaking the rule of not posing questions that echoed words just spoken.

  “Yes. The story is pretty ghastly. As always in such cases …” The boss waited, motionless, like a tiger in the savannah. He’d already heard of almost everything in this world.

  Max went on. “It seems they were imprisoned and tortured in Brazil some three years ago. The man, in São Paulo. The woman, in Pernambuco. They didn’t even know each other. Then, after they’d been tortured and threatened with death for crimes that may well have been minor, according to what the major led me to believe, someone had the brilliant idea of planting them among the exiles in Montevideo. And they agreed to it. In exchange, their lives would be spared.… So, they’ve been working the community for two and a half years. They were made to feel quite welcome. And there’s one more detail.”

  Here Max paused briefly. He felt embarrassed, but he laid out the final piece of information. “Before their arrival in Montevideo, the army made them marry.”

  “The army made them marry?” The ambassador was even more bewildered than Max had been when he’d heard the same story that morning.

  “That’s right. They arrived here as a couple, with official paperwork and everything. Not to mention signs of torture all over their bodies, the kind that assuage the doubts of most distrustful Marxists. The scars are real. Among other things, the young man lost his right eye, the woman two fingers from her left hand. They were introduced the day before their departure. And they were trained right here, in Montevideo, by the attachés and some of their deputies.”

  “Some wedding night they must have had!” exclaimed the ambassador, who immediately regretted the remark and bit his lip.

  “The two have relatives,” Max continued, ignoring the comment, “relatives who could be thrown in jail at any point should they try to run away.”

  “My God! These military guys, frankly … How diabolical! … And to think we have to deal with these people! What a nightmare.”

  But pragmatism soon prevailed over dignity. “Has this at least produced any results?”

  “Close to fifty jailed in Brazil these last two years,” replied Max without hesitation, as if keeping count. “As a direct result of information obtained by them among the exiles. A complete success, according to the major. Two secret networks broken up. A third about to come down. And assorted intel relating to Cuba. Who’s there, who’s come back, and where they’re hiding. That kind of thing.”

  “And no one suspected them? Not in Brazil? Or here?”

  “Not until now, no. That must be why they’re trying to put a high price on what they know: to pull out!”

  “Obviously.”

  “And they need passports to go back to Brazil.”

  “Of course. And that’s where we come in … the passports. Feel out Vaz a little more. Make clear we’re still thinking about his request. Then talk to the air force people. First chance you get, hitch a ride on their jet so you and Câmara can put your heads together. This matter might be more pressing than we think. And not a word of this over the phone. Here or in Brazil.”

  Since Max didn’t get up to leave, despite the conclusive tone of the last statement, the ambassador waited, watching him closely.

  “It seems the children don’t trust them,” Max murmured, as if talking to himself and this information, more than any other, bothered him.

  “The children?”

  “Yes, the exiles’ children. The couple told one of the military officials that the kids stare at them without saying a word. The adults seem to have swallowed their story hook, line, and sinker. But not their children. So the parents keep telling the kids, ‘Say hello to Auntie Helena.… Go talk to Uncle Heitor.’ But the children don’t budge — as if they can sense something’s not quite right. Strange, isn’t it?”

  “Animals have that too. A sixth sense …”

  “But it might also be the couple’s paranoia.”

  “Could be.”

  Sighing, the ambassador sat back down. They couldn’t end on this note. If there was one mood the ambassador didn’t handle well, it was melancholy. To lift his spirits, he decided to take a more familiar path. “This thing about Chile,” he finally mumbled, as if the topic were still in the forefront of his mind, “it could be a ruse to test border security. Find the weak spots to cross by way of Argentina. When things start to escalate in Uruguay, they’re going to try to cross in droves. Without calling attention to themselves. Poor things … they won’t know that they’ll be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.”

  He glanced over at Max, who remained silent.

  “And besides this?” the ambassador asked. “What else do the attachés suspect?”

  “That there are weapons. They want to know where they’re hidden.”

  “What weapons? There are no weapons.” His tone was stripped of its earlier indignation. To Max’s ears, it even sounded deflated.

  “They’re not convinced of that. They think the weapons are buried on some farm. And they taught the couple to play checkers.”

  Puzzled yet again, the ambassador turned to Max. “Checkers?”

  “The exiles organized a checkers competition. Among themselves. It was completely innocent. Except that the attachés, encouraged by their deputies, are convinced that the exiles used the games to exchange information about the weapons. They went as far as to think that certain moves had a strategic meaning!”

  “Unbelievable …”

  “And the couple had to learn to play checkers so they could be in the competition. They came in last, of course. And didn’t find out a thing. At least not about weapons. But they wound up learning about schemes to steal passports.”

  “Brazilian passports? That’s certainly relevant to us.”

  “It sure is. The exiles told the story laugh
ing all the while, between one game and the next. Because the idea came from one of them, who already went back to Brazil. The whole thing started here.”

  “Here in Montevideo?” His tone had turned indignant again, only now tinged with concern. As if the ambassador suddenly felt responsible for a security breach that might have occurred under his watch.

  “That’s right. Here in Montevideo,” confirmed his subordinate, eyes downcast.

  To his surprise, Max experienced something he hadn’t before: pleasure in provoking his boss. To this sensation was added another, also mysterious, bordering on sheer delight — that of having him in his power. What if he could demystify the terrible reputation that followed the ambassador like a shadow? In a matter of seconds, the man had shrunk, taking on the appearance of a frightened child. As if all the evils that occurred in the territory under his jurisdiction, particularly those having to do with stolen passports, could be attributed to him. A novelty for Max. One that would have considerable influence on his life (although he wasn’t yet aware of this — and wouldn’t be until much later).

  To prolong the sensation, he feigned a dry cough, which led him to pull out a handkerchief. Only after folding this with care and slowly replacing it in his pocket — his boss watching as if hypnotized — did he begin to recount: “At a leather industry expo, about three years ago.”

  The ambassador leaned forward in his chair, trying to recall the event. He was morphing from a tiger in the savannah to a cat in a kennel. And, suddenly, filled with hope, he asked, “Organized by the embassy?”

  “Yes,” Max answered casually. “By the embassy’s commercial sector. Hundreds of Brazilian exporters came.”