"What?"
Enrico turned to the table beside him.
"Mi Mayor," he said, "I present to you the saber and decorations of the late el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade!"
He extended to Clete a saber, together with its accoutrements, and the pale-blue velvet medal-covered pillow that had lain on the casket.
Clete's throat tightened and his eyes watered. He came to attention.
"Muchas gracias, Suboficial Mayor," he said, and took them with as much military decorum as he could muster. When he looked at Enrico he saw tears running down his cheeks.
Clete turned, found a table, and laid the saber and the pillow on it, then turned to Enrico, who was standing at the Argentine equivalent of Parade Rest.
"I think that what my father would prefer now, Enrico, is that his friend and his son have a drink to him, rather than stand here weeping like women."
"S¡, mi Mayor, I think he would," Enrico said. He snapped to attention and then relaxed, as if he had been dismissed. He walked to a small bar that had been set up. "English whiskey, Se¤or Clete, or norteamericano?"
"Just as long as it's wet," Clete said.
[THREE]
The official delegation of the Embassy of Germany to the funeral mass and in-terment of the late el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade had arrived at the Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar in two automobiles, and it was presumed that the sugges-tion that mourners walk the half-dozen blocks down Avenida Alvear to the re-ception at the Duarte mansion did not apply to them.
Ambassador von Lutzenberger did not invite Standartenf?hrer Goltz to ride with him and Frau Ambassador in the Embassy Mercedes. On one hand, this surprised First Secretary Gradny-Sawz, for it would be the polite thing to do vis-a-vis a visiting dignitary of Goltz's stature, he thought. But on the other hand, it pleased him, for it allowed him to be with Goltz. Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein also rode with Gradny-Sawz and Goltz in the second, slightly smaller Embassy Mercedes.
The police passed them through the barriers blocking Avenida Alvear with-out question, but the gates of the mansion were closed, and it was necessary for them to get out of the cars on the curb.
A barrage of flashbulbs went off. Gradny-Sawz glanced around, saw an un-ruly crowd on the sidewalk, and quickly decided what was going on. Though the police had tried to keep the journalists from Buenos Aires newspapers a re-spectable distance from the mansion, the journalists had jumped over the police barricades and were overwhelming the half-dozen policemen at the fence gate. They saw a good picture, and were going to risk a policeman's angrily swung baton to get it.
After paying what Gradny-Sawz thought was probably the shortest courtesy call possible. President Ramon Castillo was leaving the mansion with a small entourage just as the American Ambassador with his entourage-Gradny-Sawz saw Vice Consul Spiers and the American military Attach‚-started inside.
An exchange of handshakes was of course required by protocol, and that in itself would be a good news photograph. But this act was taking place as Am-bassador von Lutzenberger also started to enter the mansion. A photograph of the President of Argentina shaking hands with the American Ambassador while the German Ambassador waited his turn was a photograph worthy of the front page, and would probably be seen all over the world.
And God was with Germany, Gradny-Sawz decided, as the American Am-bassador walked into the mansion. At least three photographs got a shot of Castillo shaking hands with von Lutzenberger while, back to the camera, the American Ambassador, trailed by his staff, marched away.
That photo would almost certainly appear on the front pages of La Nacion, La Prensa, and Clarin, the major Buenos Aires newspapers. With a little luck, it would be transmitted by cable all over the world.
The American Embassy Press Officer had somehow managed to make the major Argentine news
papers aware that the late Oberst Frade was survived by his son, Cletus Howell Frade, of New Orleans, Louisiana, USA and Buenos Aires. La Nacion had further described the son as "Teniente Frade, USMC"; and La Prensa as "Major Frade, U.S. Navy." The Buenos Aires Herald-as ex-pected, considering their close connection to the Americans-had reported that Major Cletus H. Frade, USMC, Retired, a hero of the Battle of Guadalcanal, had flown from his home in Texas, USA, to attend his father's funeral. Major Frade was expected to remain in Argentina, the nation of his birth, and was, un-der Argentine law, an Argentine citizen.
The photograph of President Castillo shaking Ambassador von Lutzen-berger's hand, in Gradny-Sawz's professional judgment, would affect Argen-tine public opinion far more effectively than the best public relations efforts of the Americans.
It was, of course, a shame that Ambassador von Lutzenberger was not a more imposing figure physically. Von Lutzenberger's uniform was, of course, even more heavily gold-encrusted than that authorized for First Secretary Gradny-Sawz. It was, Gradny-Sawz thought, as he usually did on occasions like this, no fault of Graf von Lutzenberger that he was fifty-three, sharp-featured, small, skinny, and almost entire bald. But the result was inevitable: Von Lutzen-berger looked somehow comical in his uniform, like a member of the chorus in an operetta.
The police soon managed to get the press back behind their barricades, and Gradny-Sawz, Goltz, and von Wachtstein walked quickly to the gate in the fence. And Ambassador Graf and Frau Grafin Ambassador von Lutzenberger were waiting for them just beyond the servants checking invitations at a table set up inside the door.
There were only two people receiving. Se¤or and Se¤ora Duarte. Gradny-Sawz wondered where the son was; he had been at the church earlier, and it had been reported to him that he had also gone to the Edificio Libertador.
"Permit me, Se¤or Duarte, and Se¤ora," von Lutzenberger said, "to offer the most profound expression of condolences on the tragic loss of el Coronel Frade on behalf of the German government, and my wife, and myself personally."
"How kind of you," Humberto said.
"My brother is now in heaven with the blessed Jesus and all the angels," Beatrice said, almost cheerfully.
"You know my wife, of course," von Lutzenberger said. "And First Secre-tary Gradny-Sawz. May I present Standartenf?hrer Goltz? Herr Standartenf?hrer, these are my friends Se¤or and Se¤ora Duarte. Se¤or Duarte is the managing director of the Anglo-Argentine Bank."
Goltz clicked his heels and bowed, then bent over Beatrice's gloved hand.