W E B Griffin - Honor 1 - Honor Bound

by Honor Bound(Lit)

  "We will talk," Ettinger agreed.

  "I am so happy that you are here," Inge said.

  "I am so happy to see you all," Ettinger said.

  Klausner waited until his wife and daughter had left the house.

  "If you are in the American Army," he challenged, "what are you doing in Buenos Aires, not in a uniform?"

  "That, Ernst, I cannot talk about."

  "You are a spy."

  Ettinger laughed. "No. A spy? No."

  "I don't believe you," Klausner said. "I understand why you feel you must lie to me, David, but I don't believe you."

  "I am sure we-we Americans-have spies here, but I am not one of them."

  "What are you doing here?"

  "I cannot tell you."

  "A spy by another name. You are playing word games."

  "I am here to harm the Germans, Ernst."

  "Yes, of course you are. Thank you for your honesty."

  "Not the Germans. The Nazis."

  "Word games again. There is no difference between them. You should know that You do know that."

  This time Ettinger shrugged.

  "Let me tell you about the Argentineans, David. We Argenti-neans. I am not a German anymore. I speak the language. I read Goethe and Schiller, I eat apfelstrudel. But I am no longer a German. I am an Argentinean."

  "You are also a Jew."

  "I am an Argentinean who happens to be a Jew."

  "You are a German Jew who has lost his life and his family to the Nazis."

  "I am an Argentinean whose family, Inge and Sarah, has been saved by the Argentineans. I am an Argentinean. I became an Argentinean. I swore to defend this country, David, to obey its laws. Argentina is neutral. I want nothing to do with a spy from the United States of America or anywhere else."

  "They killed our people. They are killing our people."

  "I think it would be best if you left, David, before Inge and Sarah come home," Klausner said.

  Ettinger stood up, then looked down at Klausner.

  "Because we were friends together in Germany," Klausner said, "I will not report you to Internal Security. But please, please, do not come back, and do not tell anyone that you knew me in Berlin."

  "As you wish, Ernst," Ettinger said.

  "Auf Wiedersehen, mein alt Freund. May God be with you," Ernst said.

  [TWO]

  4730 Avenida Libertador

  Buenos Aires

  0900 29 November 1942

  Clete was wakened by Se¤ora Pellano, who set a tray-on-legs with orange juice and coffee on his bed.

  "Buenos dias, Se¤or Cletus."

  " 'Dias, muchas gracias," he said, smiling at her, carefully trying to sit up without upsetting the tray.

  "Would you like me to bring you something to eat?"

  "Let me come downstairs," he said, smiling at her. "Give me thirty minutes to shower and shave."

  "I would be happy to serve it here."

  "Downstairs, please."

  "S¡, Se¤or Cletus," she said, and went to the wardrobe and took out a dressing gown and laid it on the bed before leaving.

  Even in the house on St. Charles Avenue, he thought, I was never treated this well, like an English nobleman in the movies.

  There were two maids, so that no matter what hour of the day, his needs would not go unattended. There was also a cook and a houseman, a dignified old man named Ernesto. The staff was run with an iron hand by Se¤ora Pellano, who, his father had told him, came from a fine family who had been in service to the Frades for three generations. One of the maids was a Porteno, the other from a family who lived on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. Both were young and attractive, which made him somewhat un-comfortable. He would have preferred maids twice their age.

  Despite the physical comforts, he had spent an uncomfortable night at the house on Libertador-his second night there-pri-marily because he was bored. Exploring Granduncle Guillermo's playroom, which is what he finally did after everything else failed, didn't really help to cure his boredom.

  At ten of the morning after their meeting, his father called to ask if he was comfortable, and to apologize: He had to leave town and would be in touch in a couple of days, after he returned; if Clete needed anything in the meantime, Se¤ora Pellano would provide it. He did not mention how they parted the day before.

  When Clete tried to call Mr. Nestor at the Bank of Boston to tell him where he was living, he was told that Nestor, too, was out of town.

  "And is there a message, Se¤or?"

  "No, thank you. I'll call again."

  And Pelosi was unavailable. Mallin had arranged a tour of the tank farm for him, and he would be gone all day.

  Clete took a stroll around the neighborhood, including a walk through the stables of the Hipodromo. The horses were magnifi-cent, and he liked their smell. It was comforting.

  But with that out of the way, he couldn't find much else to do. Except explore Granduncle Guillermo's playroom. It was still rel-atively early in the evening when he searched through an abso-lutely gorgeous, heavily carved desk, made from some kind of wood he didn't recognize, and came across a locked compartment at the rear of one of the large drawers.

  Feeling childishly mischievous, he looked for keys. None of the two dozen he could find fit the simple lock. So, telling himself that he knew better than what he was doing-but his father did tell him the place was his-he went downstairs and asked Se¤ora Pellano were he could find tools.

  "If anything needs fixing," she told him patiently but firmly, "I will fix it myself; or else the houseman will do it."

  "All I need is a screwdriver," he said. "A small one. And maybe a small knife. I'll take care of it myself."

  She led him to a toolbox in the basement. The box held both a penknife and a screwdriver.

  The locked drawer quickly yielded to the removal of the brass screws of the lock.

  It contained more evidence of Granduncle Guillermo's preoc-cupation with the distinguishing characteristics of the opposite gender. The drawer contained two leather-covered boxes, each containing fifty or sixty lewd and obscene photographs.

  Clete had never seen anything like them (even at stag movies at his fraternity house at Tulane). They were glass transparencies, about four by five inches. Not negatives, positives. He suspected that there was probably some kind of a projector, to project them on a screen.

  To judge by the appearance of the women, they had been taken a long time ago, certainly before the First World War, possibly even before the turn of the century. The women were far plumper-plusher-than currently fashionable, and wore their hair either swept up or braided, while all the men had mustaches and were pretty skinny.

  Holding them up to the light, he examined every last one of them, concluding that they knew the same positions then that he was used to. The women far outnumbered, the men, and it was possible to suspect that the women were more interested in other women than in the scrawny men in their drooping mustaches.

  After carefully replacing the glass plates in their boxes and relocking the drawer, Clete realized that he was going to have to commit the sin of Onan. Somewhat humiliated by the process, he did so.

  At least I won't stain the sheets tonight, he thought afterward.

  Unfortunately, things didn't work out that way. He woke up from a painfully realistic dream-Princess Dorothea the Virgin was exposing her breasts to him-to find that he had soiled the sheets after all.

  He took a shower, hoping that by morning the sheets would be dry and the maid would not notice, and tittering, report her finding to Se¤ora Pellano.

  Clete drank the orange juice and half the coffee, took another shower, put on a short-sleeve shirt and a pair of khaki pants, and rode the elevator down to the main floor. The twelve-seat dining-room table had been set for one and laid out with enough food to feed six hungry people.

  Halfway through his scrambled eggs, he heard the telephone ring, and a minute later, Se¤ora Pellano set a telephone beside

  hi
m. It looked as if it had been built by Alexander Graham Bell himself.

  "It is a Se¤or Nestor. Are you at home, Se¤or Clete?"

  He picked up the telephone.

  "Good morning, Sir."

  Shit, I'm not supposed to call him "Sir."

  "Good morning, Clete," Nestor said. "Jasper Nestor of the Bank of Boston here."

  "I tried to call you yesterday to tell..."

  "I called the Mallin place, and they told me where to find you."

  "My father offered me this pla-"

  "The reason I'm calling, Clete," Nestor interrupted, "and I know this is damned short notice. The thing is, there's a small party at the Belgrano Athletic Club this evening. We sponsor, the bank, one of the cricket teams. Nothing very elaborate-no black tie, in other words. Just drinks and dinner. There's a chap I want you to meet. I introduced you at the bank, if you'll remember. Mr. Ettinger?"

  "Yes, I remember meeting Mr. Ettinger."

  "Well, you have things in common-being newcomers and bachelors. Why don't we put you two together and see what hap-pens? Or do you have other plans?"

  "No. Thank you very much."

  "Perhaps we'll have a few minutes for a little chat ourselves. Right about seven? Would that be convenient? Do you know where it is, can you find it all right?"

  "Yes. I have a guest card. I've played tennis there."

  "Good. Look forward to seeing you about seven."

  [THREE]

  The Belgrano Athletic Club

  Buenos Aires

  1925 29 November 1942

  I wonder what the rules of that game are, Clete thought as he looked out the window of the bar at a cricket game being played under field lights.

  He held a scotch and water-he had told the barman to give him a very light one-and was munching on potato chips, waiting for Nestor to show up.

  The Belgrano Athletic Club looked as if it had been miracu-lously transported intact from England. In the bar, a paneled room with photographs on its walls of the Stately Homes of England, the conversation was in English-English English-and even the bartender spoke as if London was his home.

  The bar was for men only, but there were a good number of women outside in the stands watching the game, and parading past the windows of the bar. Good-looking, long-legged, nice-breasted blond women, in lightweight summer dresses.

  Just what I don't need after Granduncle Guillermo's dirty pic-tures. -

  I wonder what the boys on Guadalcanal are doing right now.

  "Ah, there you are, Clete!" Nestor said behind him. "Admir-ing the view, are you?"

  Clete turned to face him. Ettinger was with him.

  "Good evening."

  "You remember David, of course. You met him at the bank?"

  "Yes, of course. How are you, Mr. Ettinger?"

  "We're quite informal here," Nestor said. "It really should be 'David' and 'Clete.' "

  "Nice to see you again, David," Clete said.

  They shook hands.

  "Let me find us something to drink. You all right, Clete, or will you have another?"

  "I'm fine, thank you just the same."

  As soon as he was out of sight, David asked, "No Tony? I thought maybe I'd be introduced to him too."

  "He wasn't invited. He's not even supposed to know who Nes-tor is."

  "I meant I thought Nestor the banker might invite him as a courtesy to an employee of Howell Petroleum. One of the things I've learned is how much Howell money flows through the Bank of Boston."

  Clete shrugged.

  "Maybe later. Nestor strikes me as a very cautious man." He smiled at Ettinger. "All things considered, you like being a banker?"

  Ettinger looked at Clete a moment as if wondering if he should say what he wanted to. He glanced around to make sure no one was within eavesdropping range, and then said, "I had a very strange, disturbing thing happen to me yesterday."

  "What was that?"

  "I went to see some people I used to know..."

  "Used to know"? Oh. In Germany. One of the Jewish families on Nestor's list.

  "People named Klausner. A man named Ernst Klausner. We were rather close at one time. Until he found out what I was doing here-"

  "You told him?" Clete interrupted, shocked and then angry.

  Jesus Christ, here he goes again. First he tells his mother he's going to Argentina, and then he tells somebody he used to know-

  "I told him I was in the Army, nothing else. At that point, he pulled the welcome mat out from under my feet. He told me he was now an Argentinean, not a German, and that as an Argenti-nean, he should report me to the authorities. For auld lang syne, he wouldn't, but don't come back."

  "Jesus! Was this before or after you asked him about the ships?"

  "I didn't get as far as asking him anything. And he didn't seem at all concerned what the Germans are doing to Jews in Germany. He's out, and that's all he cares about it."

  "Did you tell Nestor?"

  "Of course."

  Well, Nestor is the Station Chief. If he's not upset that David ran off at the mouth, why should I be?

  Because if we get caught, we go to jail, or worse, not Nestor.

  "And what was his reaction?"

  "He said there were a lot of other names on the list."

  Two other men came to the window, effectively shutting off further conversation. A moment later, Nestor rejoined them.

  "We owe you an apology for keeping you waiting, Clete," he said, handing Ettinger a drink.

  "Not at all."

  "We were out buying David a car."

  "Really?"

  "A '39 Ford, with the steering wheel on the wrong side," Ettinger said.

  "You'll have to take me for a ride in it," Clete said.

  "As soon as I actually get it, I'd be delighted to."

  "This is Argentina, Clete," Nestor explained. "You don't buy a car and drive off the lot with it the same day. With a little bit of luck, David may lay his hands on it in a week or ten days."

  "I love the view from here," Ettinger said. "Look at that blonde!"

  Clete had noticed her too. A stunning female, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and a pale-yellow dress.

  "Her husband is probably standing at the bar," Clete said, laughing.

  "He's not," Nestor said. "He's one of ours at the bank. And he's out of town. But if he was here, he would take it as a com-pliment."

  "It was intended as one."

  "I think maybe we better wander in," Nestor said.

  "Wander in where?" Clete asked.

  "To the lounge."

  "I hate to walk away from the parade," Clete said.

  "They'll be in the lounge," Nestor said. "They're not allowed in here, which I think is a rather good idea. But they will be in the lounge, and they will, of course, be at dinner."

  Clete's companion at dinner turned out to be the blonde who had caught David's attention.

  Her name, she told him in a delightful British accent, was Mon-ica Javez de Frade. But they were not related.

  "We're not even a poor branch of your family. No relation at all."

  Which means that Nestor told you who I am. Or that word had spread around the bank who I am-who my father is-after Nes-tor introduced me around his office.

  The proof of that theory seemed to come when she told him that Pablo, her husband, was in "real estate" at the bank, and worked closely with Nestor.

  "Agricultural real estate, unfortunately," Monica added, "which means that poor Pablo spends most of his time in the country, leaving poor Monica to spend most of her time alone in the city."

  Clete smiled politely, telling himself that her remark had the meaning he was giving it only because his near-terMi¤al chas-tity-and Granduncle Guillermo's dirty pictures-had inflamed his imagination.

  But during supper, and during the award afterward of small silver cups to the triumphant members of the Banco de Boston cricket team, Monica's knee kept brushing against his. At each encounter, Clete quickly moved his
knee away... until he decided to leave his knee there. Then the pressure of her knee against his increased. He withdrew it then, telling himself that the cure for his near-terMi¤al chastity should not involve a married woman, and especially one whose husband worked closely with Jasper Nestor.