“I don’t think there are any still out there,” he said.
“And when do you think Schmidt and his men are going to get here?”
The door opened and Father Kurt Welner, S.J., trailed by Mother Superior, came into the room.
“Well, you two, are you about ready to have that beautiful baby of yours baptized?”
“Would it matter?” Dorotea asked. “We’re outnumbered.”
“Dorotea!” Mother Superior said. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“And when we have that out of the way, Dorotea,” Welner said, “Mother Superior and I have been talking about moving you to the hospital. You’d be more comfortable there.”
“What is that, what they call a double standard?” Dorotea challenged. “We can’t lie to you, but you can lie to us? You don’t give a tinker’s damn about my comfort. You think I’d be safer in the convent when Schmidt comes here.”
“Baby, you would,” Clete said.
“Call me Ruth, Cletus.”
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“What?”
“ ‘Whither thou goest, I will go,’ and I’m not going anywhere without you. This house is where we live. I’m going to be here when my husband leaves to do what he has to do about this Coronel Schmidt, and I’m going to be right here when my husband comes back.”
There was a long silence.
“You don’t deserve her, Cletus,” Mother Superior then said.
“I know,” he said.
[FOURTEEN]
Casa Montagna
Estancia Don Guillermo
Km 40.4, Provincial Route 60
Mendoza Province, Argentina
1905 16 October 1943
Don Cletus Frade, having been run out of his bedroom by Mother Superior, went to the bar, wondering if he should feel guilty that this was going to give him the opportunity to have a stiff drink.
“Gentlemen,” the president of the Argentine Republic called, “I give you Don Cletus Frade, proud papa of Jorge Howell Frade.”
There was applause.
“Sleepless nights and diaper changing will come later,” the president added.
Not knowing how to respond, Clete walked to the bar, reached for a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, poured, had a healthy sip, and then turned to face the men in the bar. He raised the glass to them.
The bar was crowded. Everybody but General Nervo seemed to be there, even the two Húsares de Pueyrredón Cub pilots and Siggie Stein.
The president reached over and patted the seat of an armchair next to where he was sitting with el Coronel Martín, Roberto Lauffer, and the Reverend Kurt Welner, S.J.
I’ll be damned—they saved a seat for me.