Lunch with the Generals

by Derek Hansen

  But he was patient and he was calculating. He had confidence in his ability to win her. After all, he had charm, good looks, money and he was accustomed to getting whatever he wanted.

  Like all good students, he did his homework. He found out her name, her attachments, and listened with interest to the malicious tales spread about her by her female colleagues. He liked what he heard. Jorge was no leftist and judged that Rosa wasn’t either. Yet that appeared to be the key to her, for it was the predisposition of those who surrounded her. So he joined the movement, an extraordinary thing to do, given the extreme right-wing beliefs of his parents and his own near total lack of interest in politics.

  He timed his entrance well. Rosa, fed up with Victor’s austerity and endless commitments to the movement, welcomed the attentions of their newest member. Jorge had a lot to offer a girl like Rosa. He was handsome enough, and tall, with muscles well defined by hours in the gym and by college rugby. He was intelligent and money hadn’t blunted his ambitions. He was one of those fortunates who seems able to cruise through life plucking the fruit but never troubling to water the tree.

  Jorge knew he would steal Rosa from Victor, yet he was cautious. He didn’t want her to run back to Victor, guilty and ashamed, the first time they made love. He waited till Victor was tied up in a factional debate before inviting Rosa to lunch. She accepted without hesitation.

  The rains had eased and sun bathed the capital. Jorge took her to a cafe in Calle Lavalle, a boulevarde closed to traffic and therefore wide open to street musicians. It was lively and bustling, hardly the obvious choice of a sneaky seducer. But it was the right choice, exactly what Rosa needed, and a contrast to the austerity of life with Victor.

  From the lunchtime cafeterias it was a short step to evening confiterías for coffee and pastries. From there, they gravitated to the pulsating tango clubs of San Telmo.

  Jorge had charm and his charm hid his real intent. He didn’t love Rosa any more than he had loved the other beautiful young women he took to bed. But he had a burning desire to sample her pleasures. He wanted to have her weep and moan beneath him. To subject her to his drives till both his mind and body snapped. Such were his fantasies. Such was his ego.

  He was smooth. He listened with interest to her stories, flattered her wit, and never once failed to compliment her on her clothes, or the way she wore her hair. He was very observant. He was very attentive. He was very practised.

  Inevitably, after yet another lunch during which they flirted shamelessly, they wound up on the Avenida Alveal, in Jorge’s apartment. Once there, she rewarded him for his patience, and he took her to bed with the smug satisfaction of the true scoundrel. But she didn’t lie back as Jorge had envisaged. She jumped on him. She wrestled him. She rode him. She bit him, she scratched him and she licked him. She never gave him a moment’s rest. She was so enthusiastic and uninhibited that Jorge found he had little time to indulge his ego, lest a lapse in concentration cause Rosa to question his virility. She came at him and at him, and he loved every delicious moment until, finally, all he could raise was a white flag.

  Over the next few weeks Rosa conquered Jorge. She overwhelmed him with her passion and infected him with her joy of life. Gone were the days when his interest in her was purely copulatory; now he felt a growing, deepening well of affection. He loved being with her, the energy that radiated from her, and her naïvéte found the cracks in his civilised shell and penetrated to his very core. Yet he never asked her to share his apartment though it was large enough. Jorge was much too selfish for that.

  When Victor finally accepted what all his friends had been trying to tell him, it was too late. He fell into a deep depression, the kind that only those who love blindly and foolishly ever know.

  So Rosa had betrayed Victor. But she was young and that is the way of the young. Their affair was no more than a brief stopover on the road to maturity. Victor had expected too much and assumed too much. What she did was forgivable. What Jorge was about to do was not.

  There was another witness to Jorge and Rosa’s blossoming romance and his interest cast a shadow Jorge was unable to ignore. At first, it was nothing. An irritating little cloud that briefly blocked the sun. But clouds have a way of gathering others to themselves until, one day, they grow and build into a great roiling mass, and unleash a tempest of destruction.

  Jorge was approached on campus. To anyone watching, the encounter would have seemed innocent enough.

  ‘Jorge Luis Masot,’ the man said. ‘An illustrious name in some circles. A name with certain attachments and obligations.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Jorge asked, angry, because he had taken considerable pains to conceal the identity of his family.

  ‘Relax, I am a friend. I have an official interest in your wellbeing. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Carlos.’

  ‘Just Carlos?’

  ‘Not much of a name to be sure, but adequate.’

  The man irritated Jorge. He was a half-breed, a mestizo. His accent was coarse and provincial. Jorge suspected that he was in his father’s employ one way or the other yet he showed no respect. In fact, his tone was mocking, even insolent. He was a big man, bull-necked, with powerful shoulders and chest; but it was his immense self-confidence which intimidated Jorge and inhibited his responses.

  ‘Are you my bodyguard?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking, I suppose I could be.’ Carlos laughed. ‘You have become a leftist, Jorge Luis Masot.’

  It was a statement not a question, yet Jorge found himself unaccountably eager to explain. He dismissed the activities of the movement as childish, and boasted of his conquest of Rosa in the crude terms men reserve for such discussions. Plainly joining the movement had been an act of expediency.

  ‘I suspected as much,’ said Carlos evenly.

  ‘Now I have my prize I think my membership will lapse.’

  ‘No,’ said Carlos. ‘The People’s Democratic Movement is a foolish affair and harmless enough. Still we like to keep an eye on things. Who joins, who the leaders are, what alliances are made, what they plan, what arms they may have. You know the sort of thing.’

  Jorge did, and said he’d be happy to oblige, now knowing to whom Carlos answered. What did it matter? Jorge knew he’d never be trusted with any worthwhile intelligence and neither would Rosa. What harm could he do? It seemed such an inconsequential thing at the time, a variation in an increasingly silly game. Besides, he really had no choice in the matter. Only a fool went out of his way to make enemies in the military.

  ‘You are a wise man, Jorge Luis Masot. I will see to it that your efforts are recognised.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I will also see to it that your initial indiscretion is erased from your record. I will be in touch.’

  Chapter Four

  For Rosa life suddenly revealed new pleasures and excitement. She knew Jorge was wealthy, though she never suspected quite how rich and powerful his family was. She did ask, for Rosa was not the sort of girl who would die wondering.

  ‘You never mention your family,’ she said. ‘Have they disowned you? Did you make some poor girl pregnant that you shouldn’t have?’

  Jorge laughed.

  ‘No, I did not make any girls pregnant, though God knows, I owe more to good luck than good shooting. And no, my family have not disowned me. At least, no more so than my brothers. We are not a close family. My parents are very busy, and we all have our own interests. When I marry they will come to my wedding. If I die before them they will come to my funeral. My father’s secretary always sends me a card on my birthday. My father sends a boost to my bank account. It is the perfect arrangement.’

  ‘Are they very rich?’

  ‘Some would say so.’

  ‘Are they very important?’

  ‘Some would say so.’

  ‘Are they related, are you related, to the newspaper Masots?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied truthfully. ‘But only distantly,’ he lied.

&n
bsp; Rosa simply accepted that Jorge was reasonably wealthy but no more so than his friends. They knew how to use their wealth for pleasure and entertainment. And that, as far as Rosa was concerned, was enough. There was always a lavish party somewhere, and often there would be photographers and famous people. Instead of the noisy student hangouts of the Reconquista she now frequented the elegant bars and restaurants of the Barrio Norte, and the Avenida Junin.

  She watched Jorge play rugby though she hardly understood the game, and she watched his friends play polo which she understood even less. But both were followed by parties and they were events at which she starred.

  Rosa became popular for the fun and irreverence she brought to such gatherings and the laughter that always seemed to surround her. She was in her element and Jorge encouraged her. He showed her off like a new toy.

  Rosa’s wardrobe expanded by the week. She only had to admire a dress or a blouse for Jorge to buy it for her. He was extraordinarily generous and sometimes Rosa felt a twinge of guilt at her excesses. She needn’t have. She was Jorge’s accessory and a reflection upon his taste. That is why he made sure she always dressed at least as well as he did.

  Occasionally they would go slumming with her friends, to the bars of La Boca and Reconquista and occasionally, at Jorge’s insistence, they would attend rallies and marches organised by the movement. Jorge took head counts at meetings and listened to the gossip. When Carlos rang, he duly reported what he’d learned. He couldn’t imagine it being of any use to anybody. It didn’t occur to him that Carlos might be training him, getting him used to the role of spy, recruiting him for more serious involvement at some later stage. Jorge would have reacted indignantly if anybody had called him naive. But that’s exactly what he was.

  Jorge and Rosa became inseparable. Still he would not let Rosa move in permanently to his apartment, though they virtually lived in each other’s pockets. They played together, ate together, studied together and Rosa even adopted Jorge’s exercise regime.

  They would exercise naked, side by side, watching each other, competing with each other, all the time becoming more suggestive and blatant in their movements until their arousal demanded release. Then they would leap upon each other in a frenzy of love-making. Were two people ever more suited or happy together? Certainly Rosa was happy. Happier than she’d ever been. Happier than she’d ever be again.

  Love can be likened to a match that flares too brightly when first struck, for often this match is the first to fail. So it was with Rosa and Jorge. For a year and a half they were as bound together as Siamese twins. But as Jorge completed his final year of study, the gaps began to appear.

  It is the way of women in Argentina to give their rivals no peace. They flaunt their triumphs in ways too subtle for men to comprehend, yet too flagrantly for any woman to ignore. Rosa began to catch knowing looks and smug glances cast in her direction, suggesting that Jorge was also dipping into other honeypots. At least, that was Rosa’s interpretation.

  She confronted Jorge, fire in her eyes, flame on her cheeks, her voice strident. Jorge would simply brush aside her accusations. On occasions when her fury overran her brain he would hit her. The beginning of the end came when Rosa hit back, and Jorge put her to bed for a week, black and blue and bloodied.

  Rosa could not forgive him. Their love-making, once a celebration of youth and athleticism, became mechanical. When they split up, each felt a sense of relief, and they separated painlessly with expressions of regret on both sides.

  It was the behaviour of mature adults but, paradoxically, and with the benefit of hindsight, it served only to expose their immaturity. The fact is they never entirely let go of each other. The flame had burned too brightly to be extinguished altogether. Within each the pilot light still burned, ready to flare up at the slightest provocation.

  The pain came later for Jorge. Many years passed before he really understood and came to appreciate what he had thrown away. But for Rosa the pain was almost immediate. She thought her life would return to its former carefree exuberance and for several days it did. But the fact is she had become dependent upon Jorge and had constructed her life around him. The realisation shocked her. She’d let go of her friends for his friends, and he had prior claim on their loyalty.

  She didn’t know who to talk to. She felt lost, displaced, unfocused. She was like the silver dorado which roam the South Atlantic Ocean. Unable to bear the emptiness of a world with no reference points, they congregate around flotsam, staying with it for thousands of kilometres or until it abandons them by sinking. Rosa needed something or someone she could attach herself to.

  She stayed in bed when she should have attended lectures and tutorials. Her old girlfriends bubbled on a level Rosa could no longer reach and their company only depressed her more. Men rang her, but her libido had taken a holiday, and she read their best intentions as shallow opportunism. She thought of renewing contact with the movement, but both she and Jorge had allowed their involvement to lapse, despite his secret pledge to Carlos. Her interest in politics, never strong, was now almost nonexistent.

  Besides, the increasing violence and number of political assassinations warned against further involvement. Only recently, the faithful Lydia, who had so gladly filled the void in Victor’s life created by Rosa’s defection to Jorge, had been dragged from her bed and left for dead in the gutter, having first been raped and brutally beaten. Popular opinion held that the right-wing Peronista were responsible, because Lydia had attacked them in a fiery speech. But it could have been any of a number of right-wing groups, because the People’s Democratic Movement was now fair game for all. They had been thoroughly infiltrated, and their limited capacity to respond was well known.

  Rosa felt that there was only one thing she could do, and the barriers of her pride began to crumble before the onslaught of her loneliness. She made her decision.

  She rang her hairdresser and was fortunate to get a cancelled appointment. She ran a bath and was generous with the fragrant oils she added to it. She shaved her legs and rubbed lotion into every part of her body. She put on make-up, skilfully contriving to appear as though she were wearing none.

  After some deliberation, she chose a simple white shift, provocatively short and tight-fitting. She put on gold hoop earrings and, around her neck, she hung a heavy chain of gold with a crucifix that nestled in the hollow between her breasts.

  Before her hairdresser even laid a hand upon her she looked stunning. This was confirmed by the men she passed, in the sidewalk cafes and on the street corners. Their eyes locked on to her like radar, and they called out to her, and chrrrrrd to one another in appreciation.

  Two hours later, she stood before the apartment door. She rang the bell. She was confident and devastatingly beautiful. She was as ready to conquer as any woman had ever been. But the door had no sooner opened than her poise evaporated and she dissolved in tears.

  Is Rosa at fault because loneliness drove her back to the man who had loved her completely and unconditionally?

  ‘That was her weakness,’ people said, and that was why they came to blame her.

  Victor picked her up on the rebound and it was unquestionably gratitude Rosa felt, not love. But how could she have anticipated the effect her actions would have on her life and the lives of those around her? Or on the lives of people she had never even met, thousands of kilometres away?

  But what if she had been made of sterner stuff. What if she had not tripped at the first obstacle life had put in her path. What if she had retained confidence in her ability to pick and choose from the army of men who would gladly have been her suitors. What if she had taken any of the alternative paths open to her, if only she had looked. If, if, if! But the world is full of regrets, and hindsight is hollow wisdom. Rosa had chosen her path. Nothing could alter that.

  In every story there are natural pauses, and this was one. They provide breathing space, giving listeners time to reflect upon what they have heard, and the storyteller time to coll
ect his thoughts. Ramon eased back in his chair so Gancio could serve coffee.

  ‘There is one more “if”,’ said Ramon and the others leaned forward expectantly. ‘Milos, if you don’t order Gancio’s special grappa or at least a cognac, I will not continue with my story.’

  Milos reacted in mock horror.

  ‘Give me a chance, Ramon. You are your own worst enemy, no? I’m still in Argentina. How am I supposed to remember cognacs when you make me forget where I am? I must confess my thoughts had returned to Rosa’s first meeting with Victor. I was a fly on the wall by Victor’s desk.’

  ‘Ha!’ exploded Lucio. ‘I was the desk.’

  Their laughter reached Gancio at the bar. He heard them above the wheezing of his espresso machine. It pleased him greatly, for it reminded him of his home in Italy where men often met, as these four did, to laugh and enjoy each other’s company.

  Chapter Five

  There comes a time when all men must begin to assume responsibility. That time had come for Jorge. He shut Rosa out of his mind and buried himself in his studies. He made plans for the future. As his final year at university drew to a close he rang his father to arrange a meeting. That is, he rang his father’s secretary, Esther Teresa.

  Esther had been his father’s secretary for as long as Jorge could remember, and she greeted his call with more warmth and affection than he would have received from his own mother. Jorge suspected Esther was also his father’s mistress, and she had developed an almost maternal interest in him and his brothers.

  She made an appointment for him for half an hour the following week. It was only postponed twice before Jorge finally confronted his father. Jorge remembered how he had trembled in his father’s presence, never daring to speak unless spoken to, and always addressing him as ‘Sir’. How every Sunday after mass, his father would stand before him and his brothers and rebuke them for their transgressions, telling them exactly what was required of them in future. He was a hard and ruthless man yet he never raised a finger to his sons. He never had to. His hard eyes could strike with the force of hammer on anvil and his voice never knew a moment’s doubt. It battered and hammered and pummelled the boys into compliance. Jorge maintained he could always tell when his father was at home somewhere in their vast mansion. He could feel the waves of power that emanated from him.