by Jack Tollers
Chapter Fifteen
A necessary trip
‘Well! You could’ve knocked me down with a feather! What are you doing over here?’ Suter asked with visible alacrity, ‘and you look a bit under the weather, if you ask me, I mean, have you had a bad sleep or something?’
Jimmy shuddered. ‘Come to visit Peter,’ he replied succinctly. He was rather dishevelled after the long night trip and had only managed to wash his face before hopping off the train.
Only the night before, after a couple of beers with Thomas and on the spur of what looked like a blind impulse, he had resolved to come up and see his friend. Without even fetching clothes from his home he had run from the Bar—leaving an astonished Thomas to pay for the beer—taken a taxi to Retiro Terminal and without hesitating had bought a ticket and boarded the train that was about to leave. It had been a long journey and he had arrived in the early hours of the morning. Asking for the proper directions he took a taxi that promptly left him at the 12th Infantry Regiment barracks, not far from downtown Mercedes. He was soon taken to the C.O.’s mess where he stumbled on Suter who was drinking coffee.
‘Oh... he’s in his room right now... I believe he’s gone down with flu or something.’
‘Well, that’s unexpected. Nothing too serious do you think?’
‘No, no. Should’ve got it down at Covunco, not here with this kind of weather,’ Suter vaguely indicated the air that was already pretty hot, despite it only being seven o’clock in the morning.
‘Hmmm.’
‘I say, old chap, and talking about unexpected events... What are you up to? What brings you to these remote parts?’
‘Oh, nothing much. Was on my way to visit an uncle who lives on a farm not far from here and thought I could pop in and say hello to Peter. I didn’t know you were posted here also.’
‘Yes, have been for the last couple of years. It seems ages since we were together at—’
‘Yes, sure. You don’t think I could see Peter immediately? I’m afraid I’m in a bit of a rush,’ Jimmy interrupted rather rudely. He didn’t feel like dwelling on small talk with Suter and, even if he was in no haste whatsoever, he was anxious to get over his piece of business.
Suter shrugged his shoulders and summoned a soldier who was casually passing by, instructing him to the effect that he should show the visitor where Peter’s room was.
Jimmy slowly opened the door to find his friend fast asleep. He discreetly drew up a chair next to the bedside and reflectively looked at Peter who hadn’t woken up. On top of a small table in the corner a small portable wireless was gently transmitting a typical chamamé. On the floor by Peter’s bed the glaring cover of a magazine looked up at him. He picked it up with interest, but let if go as soon as he discovered it was an old number of ‘Pelo’, a rock & roll weekly. He looked around and found nothing of interest in the room and played with the idea of opening the wardrobe doors where Peter surely kept his books, but then discarded the whole idea. They looked like creaky doors and he didn’t want to wake Peter up. So he sat down again and gazed reflectively at his friend. A few pearls of sweat on his forehead seemed to indicate that he had a temperature.
It had been quite rough last evening, he thought once again.
‘Listen,’ Thomas had begun grimly, ‘I don’t know how or why—and I’m certainly not to be blamed for this—but the rumour has begun to go round and Peter is bound to find out any day about this most unfortunate turn...’ Thomas had left his sentence unfinished.
‘Well,’ Jimmy had defensively said, ‘It’s not my fault either, I never—’
‘No, no, no my friend,’ Thomas had interrupted, ‘I know very well that you’ve never explicitly declared your feelings in public, or to Victoria, for that matter, but,’ his wrinkled forehead clearly showed he was picking his words, ‘There’s no way the buzz could’ve spread if it were not true. So in one way or another you must have given yourself away. Showing that one’s in love does not always require explicit language you know. No smoke without fire.’ Thomas’s tendency to ramble on any subject showed up even in these embarrassing circumstances, ‘Conversely, it’s a difficult thing to keep secret as any adulterer soon finds out. As a matter of fact, I’m thinking about writing a story about two lovers—’
‘Good grief! No, no, I mean, how can you even mention such a thing?’
‘All right, all right. No, I know, sorry, I’m not even suggesting such a thing.’
‘Uh-uh.’
Peter groaned in his sleep and Jimmy actually thought he would wake up, but he only turned over in his bed with dim grovelling sounds.
They had remained silent for a while. But presently Jimmy had told Thomas what had been weighing heavily on his mind.
‘As a matter of fact—’ he started and stopped, unsure how to proceed.
‘What?’
‘Well, you see, at your wedding party I started to write a poem dedicated to Victoria when Andrew surprised me suddenly barging into the lavatory...’
‘What are you talking about?’
Jimmy explained that he had been writing on the mirror with a piece of soap.
‘I then thought that I had actually managed to wipe out the poem without Andrew noticing—’
‘Yes, well, it was a silly thing to do anyway. One can’t be careful en—’
‘Well, I’m sorry old chum,’ Jimmy had nearly lost his temper. ‘As you’ve just said, it’s not that easy to conceal a love affair—even if only a one sided one.’ Frowning, he added, ‘And it’s not as though I’ve committed a crime or something, I mean...’
But Thomas had climbed down.
‘Yes, I suppose you’re right,’ he had sighed noisily. ‘Sorry about that. It’s only that I wish to avoid Peter another blow... I mean, how would he feel if he got wind of this? Things are bad enough for him as it is. It would be dreadful for him and even Victoria would take it badly, don’t you think?’
‘Hmm.’
‘And by the way, does she know you’re in love with her?’ Thomas had adopted a parenthetic tone as if he wasn’t actually getting down to brass tacks. Jimmy remembered it with a grim smile. Some question. He was silent for a couple of seconds.
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘You write to her or something?’ Thomas’s curiosity had been getting the better of him.
‘No, no. But you know how these things are. Our eyes have met more than once. I know that she knows that I know,’ Jimmy had wanly smiled, ‘That’s all.’
Thomas had nodded. He understood all right.
But Jimmy hadn’t seen a way out of his quandary and had felt more depressed than ever. He had recently applied to the Army with fervent hopes that they’d accept him again but had kept the whole thing secret, feeling a bit silly about what looked like another example of fickleness. He was expecting an answer from the military authorities any day and had resolved to make a fresh start in every way. He had actually had a haircut and had vowed to shave his by now quite well grown moustache as soon as he heard from them.
And then Thomas had suggested this trip to Mercedes to talk it over with Peter. There was a just a chance, he had said, that Jimmy could straighten things out... in fact pour oil on the troubled waters and between them allay suspicions and otherwise inevitable misgivings.
Peter slept on with a light snore that made Jimmy smile, despite his gloomy recollections. Start anew. Probably that’s why Thomas’s sudden idea caught on in such a compelling way, he thought. Turn over a new leaf. But first he had to iron out this dreadful business with Peter. He hoped to God that his friend somehow would accept the fact as a fact whatever his feelings towards his friend from then on.
Suddenly, Peter woke up and hoisted himself violently up with wide-open eyes.
‘Jimmy!’ he exclaimed, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
They hadn’t seen each other for more than a year and with a knot in his stomach, Jimmy recognised his old-time friend with that frank and welcoming smile of
his.
‘Come to visit, old man.’
‘How? When did you arrive?’
‘This morning. Took that dreadful train last night and appeared here ten hours later. Do you think we can get some maté here in the hospital?’
Eventually a soldier brought them the stuff and Peter and Jimmy were deep in conversation about this and that. They gossiped enthusiastically, Peter asking about his parents, and Thomas and Veronica, and Andrew, and Henry. Just about everyone, Jimmy thought, except Victoria. But eventually Jimmy questioned his friend over his new destination, something quite unusual after only a year at his first posting.
‘Well,’ Peter said slowly, ‘As a matter of fact, it’s classified information, but...’
Jimmy looked at him with interest. He couldn’t make head or tails out of it all.
‘How can a second lieutenant like yourself gain access to classiffied—’
‘Well, yes, a bit of an accident I suppose. I was actually sent to Buenos Aires on a peculiar commission. I was at Intelligence Headquarters at the Chief of Staff building where I had to deliver an envelope to a certain General... And, well, was sort of questioned about my degree in English... I don’t know if you remember...’
Jimmy impatiently waved a hand. ‘Of course, of course... What General? And what the heck has that got to do—’
‘Hmmm... I’m not sure I can tell you all I know... which isn’t much in any case... Anyway, as I say this is class—’
‘Oh, come off it, mate. I’m not telling anybody... out with the Asian mystery will you?... If you do so I’ll tell you my secret in return,’ he added with a grin.
They both felt like schoolboys sharing confidential reports on this or that master and a whiff of nostalgia silently passed between them.
‘All right. But as soon as I tell you what little I know you’ll see that it looks like that this is no small matter.’
‘Yes, yes, well, will you tell me or not?’
‘Apparently this Regiment over here in Mercedes is being sent somewhere where my English could come in handy. That’s all I know.’
‘War with Chile, do you think?’ Not four years earlier Argentina had nearly gone to war with that border country after years of jostling over some complicated frontier disputes. But no one had heard any rumours of the quarrel getting out of control again. There was absolutely nothing about it in the newspapers. Nor, for that matter, about any other conflict hypothesis. Jimmy was mystified.
‘I just don’t know,’ Peter said, ‘And if I knew anything else I wouldn’t be telling you,’ he added with a malicious grin.
Jimmy insisted one way or another, trying to extract more information, but Peter staunchly refused to budge.
‘I’ve already told you more than I should have and all I can say is that this whole thing is quite unintelligible to me too... I can only speculate, which I’m doing wildly. And that isn’t doing much good either.’ Peter spoke slowly and calmly, not showing the least sign of excitement.
‘All right then... what’d’ya think is going on?’
‘No, I really don’t know... I’m telling you, I’ve only been guessing, on account of being here in bed for the last couple of days, feeling rather feverish and bored to death. But I know nothing... and then...’ he didn’t finish the sentence.
‘What? And then what?’ Jimmy urged him on.
‘Tell you later. Remember to ask me about that later, will you? Now it’s your turn, mate, you promised to tell me your secret if I remember properly.’
So Jimmy told Peter all about his applying to the Army again and his high hopes that he could take up a military career once more.
The other secret would have to wait, he thought.
Peter was delighted with the peace of news and actually leaped out from his bed and gave his friend a vigorous hug while they both laughed with pleasure. Soon enough they got down to planning Jimmy’s future, Peter trying to remember what officers were in charge this year at the Army Academy, what chances his friend had of completing his pending year successfully, and so on. They presently went on to speculate on their chances of being posted together and when a soldier appeared with a tray of lunch, Peter jumped out of his bed without ado.
‘Let’s have lunch in town,’ he joyfully said, ‘I’m not staying a minute more in this damn bed.’
He looked quite all right, so, despite Jimmy’s protests, Peter put on his uniform, shaved in a minute, went out to see a senior officer from whom he wangled a car and a clearance, and in no time they were out of the Regiment barracks, driving towards the town centre. Peter was in excellent spirits and prattled away about the merits and demerits of his new Regiment. He didn’t look in the least bit sick. On the other hand Jimmy felt that that particular knot he had felt in his stomach had come back with renewed force.
He still had to get this thing off his chest. He still hadn’t talked to Peter about Victoria.
