A Quiet Flame

“At first, Kurt and his wife were very generous and allowed me to see Fabienne whenever I wanted to, on condition that she was never told I was her real mother. More recently, however, all of that changed. Kurt von Bader is one of the custodians of a large sum of money deposited in Switzerland by the former government of Germany. It is my desire to use some of that money to help lift the poor out of their poverty. Not just here, in Argentina, but throughout the Roman Catholic world. Von Bader, who still entertains some hope of restoring a Nazi government in Germany, disagreed. He and I quarreled, violently. Much was said. Too much. Fabienne must have heard some of it and learned the truth about her origins. Soon after that, she ran away from home.”

Evita sighed and sat back in her chair, as if the effort of telling me all of this had been a strain. “There,” she said. “I have told you everything. Are you shocked, Herr Gunther?”

“No, ma’am. Not shocked. A little surprised, perhaps. And maybe a bit puzzled as to why you should choose to confide in me.”

“I want you to find her, of course. Is that so hard to understand?”

“No, not at all. But when you have a whole police force at your disposal, ma’am, it’s a little hard to understand why you should expect me to succeed where they have—”

“Failed,” she said, hearing me hesitate to complete the sentence. “Isn’t that right, Colonel? Your men have failed me, have they not?”

“So far we are without success, señora,” said the colonel.

“You hear that?” said Evita. She puffed out her cheeks in a scornful laugh. “He can’t even bring himself to say the word ‘failure.’ But that is what it amounts to. You, on the other hand. You are someone who has experience looking for missing persons, yes?”

“Some experience, yes. But in my own country.”

“Yes, you are a German. Like my daughter, who has been brought up as a German-Argentine. Castellano is her second language. Already you move easily among these people. And I am convinced that is where you will find her. Find her. Find my daughter. If you succeed, I will pay you fifty thousand dollars in cash.” She nodded with a smile. “Yes, I thought that would make your ears move.” Evita lifted her hand, as if taking an oath. “I’m no chupacirios, but I solemnly swear by the Holy Virgin that if you find her, the money is yours.”

The door opened briefly to admit one of her dogs. Evita greeted her as “Canela,” picked her up, and kissed her like a favorite child. “Well?” she asked me. “What do you say, German?”

“I’ll do my best, ma’am,” I said. “But I can’t promise anything. Not even for fifty thousand dollars. But I will do my best.”

“Yes. Yes, that is a good answer.” Once again, she looked accusingly at Colonel Montalbán. “You hear? He doesn’t say he will find her. He says he will try his best.” She nodded at me. “It’s said throughout the world that I am a selfish and ambitious woman. But this isn’t the case.”

She put down the dog and took my hand in hers. Her hands were cold, like those of a corpse. Her red fingernails were long and beautifully manicured, like the petals from some petrified flower. They were small hands but, oddly, full of power, as if in her veins was some strange electricity. It was the same with her eyes, which held me for a moment in their watery gaze. The effect was remarkable, and I was reminded of how people had once described the experience of meeting Hitler and how they had said there was something about his eyes, too. Then, without warning, she opened the front of her dress and placed my hand between her breasts, so that my palm was directly over her heart.

“I want you to feel this,” she said urgently. “I want you to feel the heart of an ordinary Argentine woman. And to know that everything I do, I do for the highest motives. Do you feel it, German? Do you feel Evita’s heart? Do you feel the truth of what I’m telling you?”

I wasn’t sure I felt anything very much other than the swell of her breasts on either side of my fingers and the cool silkiness of her perfumed flesh. I knew I had to move my hand only an inch or two to cup the whole bosom and to feel the nipple rubbing against the heel of my thumb. But of her heartbeat there was no sign. Instinctively, she pressed my hand harder against her breastbone.

“Do you feel it?” she asked insistently.

Her gaze was tearful now. And it was easy to see how she had once been such a success as an actress on the radio. The woman was the personification of high emotion and melodrama. If she’d been the Duport cello, she couldn’t have been more highly strung. It was a risk letting her go on. She might have burst into flames, levitated, or turned into a saucerful of ghee. I was getting a little excited myself. It’s not every day that the president’s wife forces your hand inside her brassiere. I decided to tell her what she wanted to hear. I was good at that. I’d had a lot of other women to practice on.