Isvik Page 10

  The waiter arrived with the next course and they reverted to politics, talking Spanish again, Ward’s tone, his whole manner softened. He was trying to put Rodriguez at his ease. But then he suddenly asked, ‘Why did he leave Argentina?’ He was a fast eater and now he was leaning forward across his empty plate, his English sharp and abrupt. ‘Why?’

  Rodriguez shrugged. And when Ward persisted, he said almost reluctantly, ‘Why does any man leave? There were rumours. I have said that in my book.’

  ‘Rumours concerning the Desaparecidos?’

  ‘Per’aps.’

  ‘But nothing ever proved?’

  ‘No. It was just stories in one or two of the papers, the Peronista journals mainly.’

  ‘And that’s why you interviewed him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You wrote that you caught him at his flat just at the time he was leaving the country.’

  ‘The second time, yes. That’s right. He was already packing.’

  ‘Because he was afraid if he stayed he would be arrested?’

  Rodriguez shook his head.

  ‘When Alfonsin came to power was there never any talk of arrestin’ him?’

  ‘I tell you nobody ever accuse him of anything. After the Mahdnas war he is something of a hero. In Puerto Argentina his plane is destroyed on the ground. All the aermacchis are destroyed, so he takes some marines to make a reconnaissance across the island, his objective Goose Green. Shortly after he is flown back to the mainland, to the most south naval base of Río Grande in Tierra del Fuego. From there he fly a Learjet, acting as pathfinder for the Skyhawks, and I believe once for the Super Etendards. At that time they have one Exocet left.’

  ‘Yes, but what about before the Falklands war, when he was a youngster, before he was commissioned? Was he a member of the Triple A?’

  ‘The Triple A?’

  ‘Aye, the right-wing Peronistas who destroyed the Montoneros back in ’73 – June 20, wasn’t it, at Ezeiza Airport? You mention that in your book, too.’

  Rodriguez’s eyes were fixed on his plate, his short dark fingers crumbling the remains of his tortilla. Ward leaned forward across the table, his eyes fixed on the man’s face, his tone aggressive as he said, ‘The Triple A was based on the ESMA, the Navy Mechanics’ School.’ He reminded me of a barrister I had once watched interrogating a hostile witness and I was sure his switch to English was not for my benefit, it was done to put Rodriguez at a disadvantage. ‘Your book doesn’t say whether or not he was at the Escuela Mecánica de la Armada, but the implication –’

  Rodriguez was shaking his head angrily. ‘What you read into my book is more what you want, I think. There was some talk, but nothing proved, no accusations.’ He emptied his glass and poured himself some more beer. ‘All I know is that he is with the naval air forces. At the start of the Malvinas war he is with the Escuadrilla de Ataque based at Punta Indio, flying Aermacchi 339As and he is sent to Puerto Argentina –’

  ‘You mean Port Stanley. But that was much later. The time that interests me is before he was posted to the aircraft carrier Veinticinco de Mayo, before he became a flier. Also why he has now left Argentina. You don’t say why in your book, so perhaps you tell me now.’ Ward leaned quickly forward again. ‘Come on, man – why?’ And when Rodriguez did not answer him he said very quietly, ‘Was it because of anything that happened when he was at the Escuela Mecánica de la Armada?’ A pause, and then, ‘Ángel de Muerte, that was his nickname, wasn’t it? And he was proud of it. He had it painted on his aircraft, that’s what you say.’

  There was a long silence, Rodriguez sitting there, dumb.

  ‘Well, just tell me where he is now. Surely ye can do that. Where dae Ah find him – in Peru, where?’

  ‘Te digo, no sé.’ Rodriguez said it in Spanish, in an obstinate tone of voice that suggested finality. ‘I don’t care to talk about him – not to you, not to nobody.’ He slapped his hands flat on the table and got to his feet. Then, leaning down, staring into Ward’s face, he said nervously, ‘Who are you? Why do you ask me all these questions about him? He is not important. Not any more.’

  He was scared. It showed in his eyes, and in the way his voice had become increasingly sharp, almost strident.

  ‘Sit down.’ Ward’s tone made it a command, but his voice was quiet.

  Rodriguez shook his head. ‘I cannot answer any more questions.’ And he added, ‘I don’t know who you are, why you want to ask me –’

  ‘Please!’ Ward raised his left hand, a placating gesture. ‘Por favor. As your host I have perhaps been a little too brusque. Please sit down again. And please try to give me some indication of where this man can be found.’

  ‘Why you want to know?’ His voice was high-pitched, his English slipping. His short, stout body was very still as he stared down into Ward’s face.

  Silence then, the two of them facing each other. I could hear the talk at the next table, the staccato clatter of Mexican, and behind me the piercing voice of an American woman.

  ‘All right, I’ll tell you why I’m interested in the man.’ Ward waved him back to his seat and called to the waiter to bring the coffee. ‘Y tres más tequilas,’ he added. And to Rodriguez – ‘Come on. Sit down, fur God’s sake. Ah’m not goin’ to shop ye!’

  ‘What is shop?’

  Ward frowned. He had used the word quite automatically. It expressed his intention exactly, but to explain it … ‘Let’s say that Ah’m not going to the police or anybody in authority. This is a purely personal enquiry. Now sit down and Ah will explain just why I am interested in this Mario Ángel Gómez.’

  There was a further moment of hesitation, then Rodriguez suddenly made up his mind, and with a brief nod of his head, resumed his seat. ‘Okay, señor. Why is it, then, that you are so interested?’

  Ward began to explain, about Iris Sunderby and the boat waiting for us in Punta Arenas. The coffee came and with it three more glasses of tequila. ‘Señora Sunderby should have flown straight to Punta Arenas, but instead she stopped off in Lima. Her name before she married Charles Sunderby, an English glaciologist, was Iris Madalena Connor-Gómez. My information is that Mario Ángel Gómez sometimes uses the double name Connor-Gómez and that they are related. In fact, they both have the same father. Is that right?’

  Rodriguez shook his head. ‘I never meet this woman you speak of.’

  They stared at each other for a moment, then Ward said, ‘All right. What about Carlos then? She told my friend here that he was some sort of cousin. Do you know who his mother was?’

  Rodriguez shook his head again.

  ‘The boy was in London, a student at the university, and according to our immigration people he gave his name as Borgalini, his address care of a bank in Lima. Why Lima?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Is it because Ángel Connor-Gómez is in Lima?’

  Rodriguez shook his head violently. ‘I tell you, he is packing up to leave Buenos Aires the last time I saw him. He don’t say where he is going.’

  ‘Did you ask him?’

  ‘No.’

  A pause then as the waiter brought the coffee and refilled our cups. Rodriguez leaned forward. ‘Sometimes, you understand, is not very safe to ask questions.’

  ‘So you did regard him as dangerous?’

  ‘No, I don’ say that. It is just that one learns to be careful, particularly if one is a writer. Look what happened to that Indian chap of yours who wrote about the Koran.’

  ‘There is nothing blasphemous in your book. Nobody has issued a fatwa or put out a contract. So why are you scared?’ There was a silence then, an uneasy stillness between the two of them as they sat facing each other. ‘Is it because he was called Ángel de Muerte?’

  ‘No, no.’ Rodriguez shook his head emphatically. ‘That is something that come out of his reconnaissance to Goose Green. It became a last stand, all very dramatic. His marines, suddenly faced with the British paras, took up a defensive position in some abandoned trenches and
under Gómez’s leadership fought very last ditch, full of courage. They were killed almost to the man. That is probably when they give him that name – the Angel of Death.’ He said it in English, slowly, as though enjoying the sound of the words, and he added with a secret little smile, ‘That happened just before he was recalled at the request of Lami Dozo himself. His navigational skills were required at Rió Grande and it was then he painted his Learjet with the name Ángel de Muerte, on both sides, so that on the radio beamed to the English they could say the Angel of Death was coming with his French missiles loaded to kill.’

  ‘Then the nom de guerre was nothing to do with the Disappeareds?’

  Rodriguez hesitated, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘Who can tell? As I have said, there were rumours. That is all.’

  ‘You questioned him about it?’

  ‘Not directly. I tell you, it is dangerous to ask questions like that. But I make enquiries. Nobody can tell me anything that is certain. There is no record.’

  ‘But he was at the Escuela Mecánica de la Armada?’

  ‘Si.’

  And then Ward asked him what had happened to Iris Sunderby’s father, Juan Connor-Gómez.

  ‘He kill himself. I say that in my book. He is Chairman and Managing Director of the Gómez Emporium, a big store in the centre of Buenos Aires. When it is burn down he lose everything, so …’ He shrugged.

  ‘You wrote that he was arrested.’

  ‘Yes. The company was in difficulty. This is at the beginning of the Malvinas trouble. It was thought he may have set a match to it himself. For the insurance, you see. But nothing is proved, so he is released. That was about a year before he commit suicide. The insurance people are still fighting the claim in the courts.’

  ‘And his other son? What happened to Eduardo? You don’t mention him, except to say that he was a biologist and that he went to England to work for two years at the chemical weapons experimental establishment at Porton Down. You don’t say what happened to him.’

  More tequila arrived and Rodriguez sat there staring down at the yellow-green liquid in his glass.

  ‘Well?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what happen to him.’

  ‘Is he one of the Desaparecidos?’

  ‘Could be. I don’t know. A few months after he return from England he bought a flight ticket to Montevideo in Uruguay. That is the last anybody hear of him.’

  Ward switched then to the Gómez family background. They were talking in Spanish again so that I couldn’t follow what was said, only the gist of it, and that largely from the names they referred to: Iris Sunderby’s, of course, her grandfather, too, and the Connors, Sheila Connor in particular, and there was constant repetition of the name Rosalli Gabrielli. Suddenly Rodriguez’s eyes widened. ‘¿Me acusás a mi? ¿Por que me acusás? No escondo nada’ His eyes darted to the door.

  ‘Och, relax, man. Ah’m not accusin’ ye of anythin’.’ Ward was leaning forward, his gaze fixed on the Argentinian’s face. ‘All Ah’m askin’ from ye is the man’s present whereabouts.’

  ‘I tell you, I don’t know.’

  Ward’s left hand crashed down on the table, spilling coffee from the cup he had just filled. ‘Ye’re lyin’. Tell me his address –’

  Rodriguez jumped to his feet. ‘You do not speak to me like that. You have no right. If I tell you I don’t know, then you must accept –’

  ‘Balls!’ Ward’s hand slammed the table again, his voice gone quiet, almost menacing, as he said, ‘He’s in Peru. Ye just tell me where –’

  ‘No. I am leaving you now.’

  Ward was on his feet in a flash, his gloved right hand reaching out for the other’s arm. ‘Sit down! Ye haven’t finished yer drink yet.’

  ‘No, no. I go now.’ Rodriguez’s face was screwed up with pain as the grip of that dummy hand on his arm forced his body slowly sideways towards his seat. ‘¡Dejame ir!’ It was almost a squeal.

  ‘Ah’ll let ye go when ye give me his address. Now sit down.’ Ward pushed him back into his chair. ‘Got a pen?’ he asked me. His hand was still gripping the man’s arm, holding him there, and when I nodded he said, ‘Give it to him. And pass him one of those paper napkins; he can write the address down on that.’

  Rodriguez was still struggling and out of the corner of my eye I could see the patron watching us uneasily. I thought he might phone the police at any moment. Ward was leaning forward again, his weight dragging at the arm he was still holding. Rodriguez hesitated, his eyes shifting from Ward to the silent faces of the other diners, all watching us. Then suddenly he seemed to sag back into his seat, his hand reaching slowly for the pen I was still holding out to him. It shook slightly as he scribbled an address, then pushed the serviette across the table, his body slowly relaxing as Ward let go of him and picked up the serviette.

  ‘Cajamarca?’ He passed the serviette to me, his eyes fixed on the man. ‘Why Cajamarca?’

  ‘It is where he lives.’

  ‘Yes, but why? Why there? Why not in Lima or Trujillo or Cuzco?’

  The other shook his head, shrugging his padded shoulders. ‘He has a hacienda there. The Hacienda Lucinda.’

  ‘At Cajamarca. Where’s that?’

  Rodriguez’s face looked blank.

  ‘All right, you haven’t been there, you say. But you must have been sufficiently curious to check it out on a map. So where is it?’

  There was a pause, then Rodriguez said, ‘Cajamarca is in the north of Peru.’ He pronounced it Cahamarca. ‘It is inland from the coast, behind the Cordillera do los Andes.’

  Ward nodded. ‘Ah remember now. It’s where Pizarro ambushed the Inca army, right?’ He was suddenly smiling. ‘Very appropriate.’ He seemed to wait for his words to sink in, then added, slowly and with emphasis, ‘Pizarro was a thug. An avaricious, cruel bastard.’

  ‘He was a brave man,’ Rodriguez muttered. They might have been referring to somebody they knew.

  ‘Oh yes, he was brave all right.’ He turned to me. ‘If ye read Prescott ye’ll get the impression Pizarro crossed the Andes and destroyed the great empire of the Incas with just forty horse and sixty foot. But it wasn’t quite like that, was it?’ He had turned back to Rodriguez. ‘He had guns and armour, and the God of the Catholics behind him, and a whole army of dissident Indian auxiliaries in support. Still, Ah grant ye, an incredible feat.’ And he added, his voice quietly emphatic, ‘A brave, very determined, very obstinate man. Not a gentleman like Cortés, but a peasant, with a peasant’s cunning and greed. The Mafia would have loved him.’

  Rodriguez was getting to his feet again, the uneasy look back on his face. He seemed to find something disturbing in what Ward had said.

  ‘Sit down, man. There’s a little matter we haven’t touched on yet.’ Ward pointed to the chair. ‘Sit down, for God’s sake.’ He leaned back. ‘Here in Mexico the Spaniards topped every Aztec temple to Huitzilopochtli, every pyramid, either with a church or a statue of the Virgin Mary. Ye’re a Roman Catholic, Ah take it?’

  Rodriguez nodded slowly.

  ‘A very pragmatic church. A lot of glitz.’ He seemed to be talking to himself. ‘Ah wonder what Christ makes of all the horrors done in his name. And now we have fanatical variations of the Muslim faith breathin’ hate and venom all over the Near East.’

  I didn’t follow the relevance of his religious digression. Nor I think did Rodriguez, who had subsided into his seat again, a sad, dazed look on his face.

  ‘¡Salud!’ Ward raised his glass.

  ‘¡Salud!’

  ‘Tell me –’ His tone was mild, almost conversational – ‘how much did he pay you?’

  The man’s eyes slid sideways to the street door. ‘No comprendo.’ The door was open and he started to rise.

  ‘You understand perfectly well.’ Ward was very much the old Etonian now, his manner still mild, but with something in the voice that held Rodriguez riveted, both hands on the table and his bottom half out of his seat. ‘You went to Pe
ru.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You went to Peru,’ he repeated, ‘and you saw Gómez. He still uses his service rank, does he?’

  ‘Yes, he is Capitán now.’

  ‘So you saw him.’

  The other didn’t answer.

  ‘How much?’ Ward’s voice had hardened.

  ‘I don’t go to Peru. I come here to Mexico City where it is not too far by airplane to visit my publishers in San Francisco.’

  ‘You went to Peru.’ Ward said it very quietly this time, but with an emphasis that made it sound like a threat.

  ‘You cannot prove anything.’

  ‘No?’ Ward left his enquiry hanging there, smiling quietly. Then he said, ‘What I need from you is not so much what he paid you, but why. You went to Peru –’ He pulled a diary out of his breast pocket and checked some notes at the end – ‘on March 5 this year. That is just two months before your book came out. What were you going to write into the book if he didn’t pay you?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing, I tell you. He pay me nothing.’

  Ward glanced at his diary again. ‘According to my information your book has sold some eight thousand copies in the English language and the print figure in the Spanish edition was twenty-five thousand. You have two wives to keep, the one you are living with here, who is really your mistress, and I believe rather expensive, particularly as she already has a daughter, and your wife proper who will not divorce you and is living in the Argentine with your two children, a boy and a girl. You also run a big Chrysler and have two addresses, one here in Mexico City, the other in Cuernavaca. In other words, you live an expensive life, more expensive than you could possibly afford on the basis of the royalties from your two books and the articles you periodically write for newspapers and magazines in the States. So – what is it you haven’t told me about this man?’

  Rodriguez didn’t answer. He subsided back into his seat, staring down at his drink, while Ward watched him, waiting. Their eyes met. Then Rodriguez glanced at the door again as though seeking escape, but it was shut now. His eyes flickered round the restaurant. There were still several people watching us, conversation muted.