Philip Kerr - A Quiet Flame

“Is Fabienne close to her stepmother, would you say?”

“Yes. Very. I mean she treats my wife like she’s her real mother. And to everyone who knows us, that’s the way it’s always been. Evita has had very little to do with her daughter until comparatively recently.”

I looked at Colonel Montalban. “What made you think she might have chosen to hide out with a German family? And in case you didn’t recognize it, Colonel, that’s a straight question of the kind that deserves a straight answer.”

“I think I can answer that, Herr Gunther,” said von Bader. “Fabienne is a very sophisticated little girl. She knows a great deal about the war and what went on and how it is that so many Germans such as yourself have chosen to live here in Argentina. You might even say that Fabienne was a National Socialist. She herself would say that she was. My wife and I sometimes argued about that.

“The reason the colonel wanted you to search among our old comrades here in Argentina is really quite simple. Because it was Fabienne herself who had suggested she might run away and seek sanctuary with one of them. She was often threatening it after the discovery that Evita was her real mother. Fabienne could be cruel like that. She said who better to hide her than one who was himself in hiding. I know this seems a strange thing for a father to say about his own daughter, but Fabienne is a very charismatic sort of girl. Her photographs don’t do her justice. She is quintessentially Aryan and, among those who have met her, there is general consensus that the Fuhrer himself would have been captivated by her. If you ever saw Leni Riefenstahl in The Blue Light, Herr Gunther, you’ll know the sort of thing.”

I’d seen the picture. An Alpine picture, they called it. The Alps had been the best thing in it.

“To that extent, she is truly Evita’s daughter. Since you’ve met her, I assume you will know what I’m talking about.”

I nodded. “All right. I get the picture. She’s everyone’s little sweet-heart. Geli Raubel, Leni Riefenstahl, Eva Braun, and Eva Peron all rolled into one precocious siren. Why didn’t you level with me before?”

“We weren’t at liberty to do so,” said the colonel. “Evita didn’t want her secret to be told to anyone. Her enemies would use this kind of information to destroy her. However, eventually I persuaded her to talk to you about it, and now you know everything.”

“Hmmm.”

“What does that mean?” asked the colonel.

“It means maybe I do and maybe I don’t and maybe I’m used to not expecting to know the difference. And besides, she’s his daughter, so why would he want to lie about it, except that people will lie about anything, of course, and on any occasion, except when there’s a month with an X in it.” I lit a cigarette. “These old comrades that she met. Did they have names?”

“About a year ago,” said von Bader, “my wife and I held a garden party to welcome many of the old comrades to Argentina.”

“Very hospitable of you, I’m sure.”

“One of my former colleagues was in charge of the guest list. Dr. Heinrich Dorge. Formerly, he was aide to Dr. Schacht. Hitler’s finance minister?”

I nodded.

“Fabienne was the star of the party,” said her father. “She was so fresh, so captivating that many men seemed to quite forget why they were here. I remember she sang a number of old German songs. My wife played the piano. Fabienne moved many of them to tears. She was remarkable.” He paused. “Dr. Dorge is dead, I’m afraid. He had an accident. Which means we are unable to remember everyone who was there. Certainly there must have been as many as one hundred and fifty old comrades. Possibly even more than that.”

“And you think she’s hiding with one of them, is that it?”

“I’d say it was a strong possibility.”

“One that is still worth checking,” added the colonel. “Which is why I would like you to keep going with your previous inquiry. There are still a great many names you haven’t yet spoken to.”

“True,” I said. “But look here, it’s my guess that if she hasn’t been found it’s because she’s no longer in Buenos Aires. The chances are she’s somewhere in the country. Tucuman, perhaps. There are lots of old comrades up there, working for Capri on the dam at La Quiroga. Maybe I should go and look for her up there.”

“We already did,” said the colonel. “But why not? Perhaps we missed something. When can you leave?”

“I’ll catch the evening train.”

THERE WERE ONLY two dishes on the menu at the Shorthorn Grill: beef with vegetables, and beef on its own. There was a lot of beef displayed on skewers in the window, and pictures of various beef cuts-cooked and uncooked-hung on the roast-beef-colored walls. A steer’s head surveyed the restaurant and its patrons with glassy-eyed bewilderment. As fast as the beef was cooked and carried to the tables, it was eaten, in companionable silence, as if beef were something much too serious to be interrupted with conversation. It was the kind of place where even your shoe leather felt a little nervous.

Anna was sitting in a corner, behind a table covered with a red-checked cloth. Above her head was a lithograph featuring a gaucho roping a steer. There was pain in her eyes, but I didn’t think it was because she was a vegetarian. As soon as I sat down, a waiter came over and heaped some beef sausage and red peppers onto our plates. Most of the other waiters had eyebrows that met in the middle; our waiter had eyebrows that had already mated. I ordered a bottle of red wine, the kind I knew Anna liked, made of grapes and alcohol. When he’d gone, I laid my hand on top of hers.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you like beef?”

“Perhaps I shouldn’t have come,” she said quietly. “I’ve just had some bad news. About a friend of mine.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

“She was an actress,” said Anna. “Well, that’s what she called herself. Frankly, I had my doubts about that. But she was a good person. She’d had a hard life, I think. Much harder than she’d ever have admitted to. And now she’s dead. She couldn’t have been more than thirty-six.” Anna smiled ruefully. “I guess it doesn’t get much harder than that, does it?”

“Isabel Pekerman,” I said.

Anna looked shocked. “Yes. How did you know?”

“Never you mind. Just tell me what happened.”

“After you telephoned this morning, I got a call from Hannah. A mutual friend. Hannah has the apartment upstairs from Isabel. It’s in the Once. That’s the barrio officially known as Balvanera. Historically, it’s where the city’s Jews used to live. Still do, quite a few of them. Anyway, she was found dead this morning. By Hannah. She was in the bath with her wrists cut, as if she’d committed suicide.”

“ ‘As if’?”

“Isabel was a survivor. She wasn’t the suicidal type. Not at all. Not after everything she’d been through. And certainly not while there was any hope that her two sisters might still be alive. You see-”

“I know. She told me about the sisters. As a matter of fact, she told me last night. She certainly didn’t look like someone who was going home to cut her wrists.”

“You were with her?”

“She telephoned me at my hotel and we arranged to meet in a place called the Club Seguro. She told me everything. Your doubts about her profession were quite correct, I think. But she was a good person. I liked her, anyway. I liked her just about enough to have gone to bed with her. I wish I had. Maybe she’d still be alive.”

“Why didn’t you? Go to bed with her.”

“All sorts of reasons. Yesterday was a hell of a day.”