“I guess I’ll find out when I get there,” Clete said.
“You’re not really going?” Martha asked.
“I have to. I said I would.”
“Not alone you’re not,” Dorotea said.
“Dorotea and I are going with you,” Marjorie said.
“Oh, come on,” Clete said.
“Yes, thank you,” Marjorie said. “I’d love to. I get to see Junín and meet your Uncle Juan.”
“Out of the question,” Clete said. “God only knows what’s going on in Junín.”
“Don Cletus,” Enrico Rodríguez said, joining the discussion. “If we took two station wagons with Húsares, we’d be all right.”
“Thanks a lot, Enrico,” Frade said.
“Your call,” Dorotea said. “Either we all go, or no one does.”
[FOUR]
Plaza San Martín
Junín, Buenos Aires Province
1645 19 October 1945
Father Welner’s Packard convertible was parked at the curb before the city hall, a not-too-imposing three-story turn-of-the-century masonry structure. Clete, at the wheel of the Horch, followed the first Ford station wagon and pulled up alongside it. There were also a half-dozen cars, four of them official-looking but unmarked Mercedes sedans. At least one of them, Clete decided, probably belonged to General Martín.
Without orders, the ex-Húsares of Frade’s Private Army spilled out of the two station wagons and, led by Enrico Rodríguez, entered the city hall.
Rodríguez came back out almost immediately. He was trailed by el Coronel Juan Domingo Perón, who was wearing a well-tailored suit and a fresh bandage on his cheek. Father Welner came out a moment later, and finally General Bernardo Martín, on crutches.
Perón marched up to the Horch as everyone got out of it.
“My dear Dorotea,” Perón said. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you. Thank you so very much for coming. Evita will be so pleased.”
“Juan Domingo,” Dorotea said—and nothing else.
“I don’t have the privilege of this beautiful lady’s acquaintance,” Perón then said.
“This is my sister, Marjorie Howell,” Clete said. “Marj, this is the vice president of the Argentine Republic, my godfather, Colonel Juan Domingo Perón.”
“How can she be your sister?” Perón challenged.
“Actually, she’s my cousin. But we were raised together, and I think of her as my sister.”
“Of course,” Perón said, and then announced, “Why don’t we all go inside?”
“What happens when we do?” Clete asked.
“The ceremony, I’m told, will take about fifteen minutes,” Perón said. “And afterward we’ll have a small celebration.”
“Of what?” Dorotea asked.
“The wedding, of course. Evita and I are to be married!”
He turned his smile on Marjorie.
“In Argentina, my dear young woman, the system is that there are two ceremonies. A civil ceremony, which takes care of all the administrative details, and then, later, a church ceremony. Today, this will be the civil ceremony.”
Señorita Evita Duarte came out of the city hall and advanced on the crowd at the Horch with a smile. She had a bouquet of roses pinned to a tight-fitting silver lamé dress.
“My darling,” Perón said, “Cletus brought Señora de Frade with him. And his cousin, from the United States, Señorita Marjorie Howell.”
“Oh, Cletus,” Evita gushed. “More family! How wonderful of you! I can’t thank you enough!”
She kissed his cheek affectionately, and then went to Perón and hung tightly to his arm. He beamed at her, then turned toward the city hall door, where two men Clete did not recognize were standing.
“Numenez,” Perón ordered curtly. “You can see that my guests have arrived. Go get the mayor!”
—
There was a small room off the foyer of the city hall. It looked something like a courtroom, except there was no elevated desk or platform for a judge. There was a small wooden barrier separating the front part of the room from the rear.
In the room’s front part were a lectern and three tables. Two of the tables had three chairs at each. The third table, with a pair of chairs, was in the center beside the lectern, and held some sort of register beside a pen-and-inkwell set. There was a large crucifix on the rear wall, and an Argentine flag to the left.
The rear of the room held a dozen rows of benches on each side. Six or eight people could be crowded onto each bench.
It wasn’t hard to figure out that the room was the official place where civil marriages were performed.
But why, Clete wondered, did we have to come way the hell out here for that?
There must be ten, probably more than ten, places like this in Buenos Aires.
For that matter, Perón is vice president; he could have summoned the proper officials to do their thing anywhere he wanted.
Perón ushered people into their proper places.
“Father,” he said to Welner, “if you would be so good, you’re at the right witness table with the general and Cletus. The ladies, I’m afraid, are going to have to use one of the benches.”
There was a man in a business suit at the left witness table. He had risen to his feet when everyone entered the room. Perón now introduced him.
“Señor Duarte,” Perón said, “this is my godson, Don Cletus Frade, and Señora de Frade, and Señorita Howell. Señor Duarte is Evita’s uncle. He will give the bride away.”
Señor Duarte offered his hand to Clete and said, with absolutely no sincerity, that he was delighted to make his acquaintance.
“I have a few words to say,” Perón announced, “and I might as well say them while we are waiting for the mayor, in his own sweet time, to join us.
“When I became godfather to the firstborn of my best friend, el Coronel Jorge G. Frade, may he be resting in peace, I swore to almighty God that I would protect his life as I would my own.
“As things turned out, as some of you know, it was Cletus who protected my life as he would his own, and at great risk to his own life. I would not be standing here today were it not for his courage and loyalty. And more than that, were it not for the blood from his veins now flowing in mine.
“Christ taught us, ‘Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.’ General Martín proved his love for me by doing just that on the airfield named for my beloved best friend, Jorge Frade, and almost lost it to protect my life, suffering grievous wounds in the process.
“So I can say that I am grateful to Almighty God that the two men who have proved their love for me are here with me today to witness my marriage to my beloved Evita.”
Jesus H. Christ!
Does he believe that?
And/or does he expect us to believe it?
A middle-aged man in a business suit hurried into the room.
“I’m so glad you could find time in your busy schedule for me, Señor Alcalde,” Perón said unpleasantly. He turned to the man he had spoken to before. “Numenez, get the others in here.”
Clete wondered who Numenez was.
“The others” filed into the room from the foyer, where apparently they had been waiting. There were ten of them. They all looked like plainclothes policemen. Clete remembered Martín telling him that—in his role as secretary of Labor and Retirement Plans—Perón had his own security service, run by Rodolfo Nulder.
And where the hell is randy ol’ Rodolfo?
Eight of the men took seats on the benches. The other two—one of whom held an American Speed Graphic “Press” camera and the other a German 35mm Leica—remained standing. The man with the Leica started snapping pictures.
The mayor took his position behind the lectern, and after a moment signaled, somewhat nervously, to Perón that he was ready. Perón walked to the lectern and stood to the right of it. Evita walked to the man Perón had identified as her uncle and stood beside him.
&nbs
p; “Father Welner,” Perón called, “would you be good enough to bless us before we begin the ceremony?”
Welner started to raise his hand.
“Up here, if you would be so good, Father,” Perón stopped him.
Clete thought he saw on the priest’s face a moment’s indecision before he smiled and walked to the lectern.
When he raised his hand this time, a flashbulb on the Speed Graphic went off, startling Clete.
Welner returned to the table and took his seat beside Clete and Martín.
“In the name of the Republic and Buenos Aires Province . . .” the mayor began.
From what Clete remembered of his own civil wedding ceremony—not much; for some reason he had been a bit distracted at the time—the civil ceremonies were apparently standard.
The mayor gave a little speech announcing they were gathered to witness the union of Juan Domingo Perón and Evita Duarte, told everybody how important marriage was to society in general and the Argentine Republic specifically, and then asked who was giving this woman to be married.
Señor Duarte led Señorita Duarte to the lectern and handed her over to Vice President Perón. Another flashbulb went off. Señor Duarte returned to his seat. When it was only Evita, Juan Domingo, and His Honor the Mayor at the lectern, another flashbulb went off.
—
“You may kiss your bride,” the mayor announced.
Perón kissed Evita with all the enthusiasm he might have had if he had been kissing the mayor.
“And now, if the witnesses will come forward,” the mayor said.
The man with the Speed Graphic used it three times, first as Clete, then Father Welner, and finally General Martín signed the register documents.
“I’ll require two copies of that,” Perón announced.
“Copies?” the mayor asked, confused. “There is only the original.”
“Don’t argue with me,” Perón snapped. “Bring the forms to the hotel. My witnesses can sign them there.”
Flashbulbs went off another three times as the Speed Graphic photographer captured for posterity the bride, the groom, and the three official witnesses to their wedding. The Leica photographer had meanwhile been snapping away steadily.
And for what besides posterity? Clete wondered.
What is my Tío Juan going to do with all these pictures?
What is the clever sonofabitch up to?
—
The bridal party marched to the Hotel Colón, where the missing Señor Nulder was waiting for them in the lobby.
“Everything is ready, Juan Domingo.” He pointed to a door.
“Don’t let them take your picture, Rudy,” Perón replied.
“I understand, Juan Domingo.”
—
Beyond the door to which Nulder had pointed was a room in which half a dozen bottles of champagne and a not very impressive array of hors d’oeuvres waited for them on a table.
Flashbulbs went off again as Perón toasted his bride with a champagne stem, and a half-dozen times as the witnesses were photographed with the bride and groom, separately and together.
The mayor appeared with two copies of the witness page.
Clete, Martín, and Father Welner signed both copies.
Perón examined both and then handed them to General Martín.
“When the boys show up for breakfast tomorrow at the Circulo Militar and the senior officers’ mess at Campo Mayo, General, I want them to find one of these posted at the door. You will arrange that for me, won’t you?”
“Certainly,” Martín said.
“Okay. Well, while I hate leaving this charming company, duty calls. Thank you all for coming.”
Thirty seconds later, the newlyweds were gone.
“What the hell was that all about?” Marjorie Howell inquired.
“True love,” Clete began sarcastically. “One day you may—”
“Shut up, Cletus,” Dorotea said.
He clapped both of his hands over his mouth.
Marjorie smiled. Father Welner shook his head in resignation.
“What that was, Marjorie,” Dorotea went on, “was the brilliant manipulation by Juan Domingo Perón of three people—four, if you want to count me—who are not usually able to be manipulated by anyone.”
“You want to explain that?” Marjorie asked.
“Yeah, honey,” Clete said, smiling at Dorotea as he reached for a bottle of champagne. “Why don’t you? I’m just a little confused by all this myself.”
“So far as the army—the officer corps, army and navy—is concerned,” Dorotea said, “they don’t know what to expect of Perón after the assassination plot failed and his speech from the balcony of the Casa Rosada. So, he just told them, using these three as actors in a carefully staged little play.
“I would say that he extended the olive branch of peace, but the gesture was more like this.”
She held her left hand out, fingers closed except for the center finger, which pointed upward.
“I can’t believe my wife,” Clete said in mock horror, “the mother of my children, a member of the altar guild of the Anglican Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist, has any idea what that gesture she’s making means.”
Marjorie chuckled.
“You told me on our wedding night, darling,” Dorotea said. “The message of the copies of the wedding register he’s having Bernardo pin to the doors of the senior officers’ mess at Campo Mayo and the Circulo Militar dining room is: ‘I just married that woman you don’t like, so go screw yourselves.’ And there’s a second message: ‘General Martín pinned these up because he works for me and does what I tell him to do.’
“And when the photographs of the wedding appear in La Nacíon and El País, there will be Father Welner blessing the wedding. The message there is: ‘Don’t think you can still complain to the Church about me marrying’—in my husband’s words—‘a semi-hooker half my age because if Father Welner approves, you know that the Church does.’”
“I think you’re grossly overestimating my reputation, Dorotea,” the priest said. “As well as my influence.”
“Hah!” Clete snorted.
“And the presence of my husband here today,” Dorotea went on, “and last night on the balcony, tells them, ‘Whatever you may have heard about Don Cletus throwing me out of el Coronel Frade’s house on Libertador because he disapproved of me sleeping with teenaged girls . . .’”
“He was doing what?” Marjorie asked incredulously.
“‘. . . is untrue. Or at least has been forgiven,’” Dorotea finished.
“He was doing what?” Marjorie asked again.
“What Mom thought Jimmy Cronley was doing with you,” Clete said.
“You sonofabitch!” Marjorie exploded. “You know that never happened! The last person in the world I’d do something like that with is Jimmy Cronley. He’s just a . . . shallow kid.”
“Cletus, stop!” Dorotea said angrily.
“Not any longer. He’s now an officer and a gentleman,” Clete went on. “They even let him have a pistol. No cartridges, but a pistol. He wears it slung low, like John Wayne. All the fräuleins are dazzled.”
“I don’t see how you can stand to live with him,” Marjorie said to Dorotea.
“It’s not easy,” Dorotea said.
“Quickly changing the subject,” Clete said, “tell me, General Martín, your professional analysis of Dorotea’s analysis of recent events.”
“Actually, I thought it was quite accurate,” Martín said.
Dorotea gave Clete the finger.
“There she goes again! Shocking! Did you ever hear, Bernardo, that the true test of another man’s intelligence is how much he agrees with you?”
“You’ve mentioned that once or twice in the past, Cletus,” Martín said, smiling.
“What I have been trying to figure out is why he had to stage his little amateur theatrical here. He could just as easily have done everything in Buenos Aires.”
“
I think I can answer that,” Father Welner said.
“Please do,” Dorotea said.
“Señora Duarte de Perón was born not far from here, in a little village called Los Toldos,” the priest said. “Her birth certificate says that she was born out of wedlock to a Señor Duarte—the manager of the estancia on which they lived—and a Señorita Ibarguren. As I understand it, Señor Duarte and Señorita Ibarguren lived together essentially as man and wife. They never married, as he was already married when he met Evita’s mother. But Evita looked upon him as her father.
“He died when Evita was fifteen. His lawful wife inherited all his property—it wasn’t much but she got all of it. And when Evita tried to attend her father’s funeral here in Junín, the lawful wife refused to let her in the church, or be present at the Junín cemetery when he was buried. Evita moved to Buenos Aires the following year when she turned sixteen.”
“So she returns to the site of her humiliation for her marriage to an army colonel,” Marjorie said.
“An army colonel who will be the next president of Argentina,” Welner said.
“I thought you priests were supposed to keep family secrets like this to yourselves,” Clete said. “Why did you tell us this?”
“My God, Clete!” Dorotea protested.
“For one thing, it’s public knowledge,” Welner said. “More important, for another, we—the four of us—are going be dealing with Señora de Perón in the future. This afternoon, with her marriage to Juan Domingo, she became an important woman. The more that all of us know about her, the better.”
“You knew about this, Bernardo?” Clete asked.
Martín nodded.
“And didn’t tell me?”
“An oversight, Cletus. The subject just never came up.”
“I wonder what the mattresses in this place are going to be like,” Dorotea said.
“We’re not staying,” Clete said. “Hansel will be back from Germany in the morning. I want to be there.”
“He can land without your advice.”
“He’s bringing with him the dossiers of those Nazis who von Dattenberg brought with him. The sooner Bernardo has that information, the better, and Bernardo will be too tired from nailing the wedding registry announcements to the mess hall doors to be at Jorge Frade.”
Empire and Honor Page 35
