Carlos Gamerro - The Adventure of the Busts of Eva Perón

He had reached the top of the stairs now and was through the doors to Eva’s office, and there she sat, in her Louis Quinze chair, behind an imposing mahogany desk, legs crossed, bun bunched, answering the requests whispered in her ear by each petitioner and reading their letters with radiant smiles, every inch the Eva he had followed. Save for one detail: instead of wearing her white dress, dripping with jewels, this Eva was nude.

Marroné looked ahead, at the line of men standing between them, then behind, at the newcomers. No one else seemed to have noticed the anomaly, or they were all turning a blind eye out of politeness or embarrassment. Or was this a case of the Empress’s new clothes? He looked again at those ahead to see how the procedure worked. Like fettered galley slaves, the men shuffled forward in single file, heads bowed, hats in hands (those wearing them, at least), their postures and contrite expressions redolent of the faithful taking communion. On reaching her desk, they would each hand her their letter and she would open it, read it, write something on a card, hand it to them with a smile and let them in. Only with those in authentic English or Italian suits did the procedure vary somewhat: she responded to their letters not with a fresh smile, but with an indignant scowl, pointing a compelling arm to a corner, where others of their ilk stood and waited. The man in front of him, a tramp with dishevelled hair and grubby, foul-smelling clothes, prostrated himself before her and asked to kiss her hand, to which Eva graciously consented. And finally it was Marroné’s turn, and such were his embarrassment and her composure that he was the one who felt naked and exposed.

‘Welcome to the Eva Perón Sexual Aid Foundation. All your desires will be satisfied. Did you bring your letter?’

Marroné tried to keep his eyes on her face, but they kept slipping downwards to the violet nipples and the dark bush peeping out from between her crossed thighs. There was another reason, apart from the ones on view, for his bewilderment: this Eva was not the same one he’d followed through the alleyways of the shanty town. The darkening of her complexion could at least be blamed on the change from moonlight to electric light, but her ears stuck out like a chimpanzee’s and were made doubly prominent by the severely tied hair, whose style was different again: rather than the usual high bun, this one, as befitting her attire, wore an altogether less austere, more bouffant chignon.

‘Well?’ said Eva encouragingly.

‘No… er… the letter no…’

‘Not to worry,’ said Eva nonchalantly. ‘You can ask me for whatever you want, don’t be afraid. Whisper it in my ear if you’re embarrassed,’ she concluded, aligning one of her radio dishes in his direction.

‘Busts,’ blurted Marroné in the end. ‘I want busts of Eva.’

Eva jotted something down on a card with the letterhead of the Foundation and handed it to him with a smile. Marroné made for the door through which those ahead of him had exited.

More surprises awaited on the other side. The door led to a vast lounge decorated in the official Peronist style: a soft blend of Soviet Constructivism and Californian Provençal, with touches of neoclassical stucco; around this fantastic décor strolled as many as a dozen and a half Evas. There were Evas with chignons and Prince of Wales-check suits; Evas in veils and hats; Evas in summer dresses with their hair down; a Dior queen bejewelled from head to toe; another wrapped in sumptuous furs; another encased entirely in black vinyl; one wearing nothing but stockings and suspenders, and another not even that, both with stern-looking buns. Upon closer inspection the variety of builds and features became apparent: they were unified in a general ‘Evita’ look by the high or low heels to even up their differences in height, the make-up to lighten their skin tones, the clothing to flatten the bustier ones and, above all, the dyed hair: it wasn’t for nothing that the naked ones with no distinguishing features wore the obligatory bun. A crowd of men swarmed about each, like drones about a queen bee and, try as he might, nowhere could Marroné spot the Eva who had led him there.

His nostrils filled with the scent of cheap eau de cologne and his ears with a shrill voice before his eyes located the source of both.

‘First time, am I right?’

Slick as butter in a hot pan, a footman had slid up to him wearing an embroidered jacket that barely covered his backside, tight torero trousers and bright satin slippers, all in light blue and white and gold. Marroné nodded, still speechless.

‘Well? What do you think?’

He groped in the recesses of his stunned mind for something to say.

‘Well… At long last… the happiness of the people.’

One particularly insistent worker kept sticking his nose under the bell-shaped Dior skirt, trying to crawl under it on all fours, while Eva waltzed around him with amused giggles, tapping him with her fan in mock discouragement.

Marroné’s companion gave a brief forced laugh, followed by a hirsute handshake:

‘Aníbal Vitelo at your service. As is everyone here at the Foundation. What can I do for you?’

‘I’d like to… look around.’

‘Allow me then. I shall be your cicerone.’

One of the three waitresses swept by, serving cider from a bottle with the profiles of the presidential couple on its label: she was wearing high heels and a sober tailleur that, when she turned round, he saw was held together by nothing more than two satin cross-straps, leaving her back, buttocks and legs totally exposed. Marroné’s guide took two glasses and handed one to him to toast Eva.

‘Cheers… Here’s to all of this… What have you ordered? Can you show me your card?’

Marroné held it out to him in a daze, only now noticing what it said. The naked Eva had scrawled ‘ ’ in an illiterate hand. Aníbal clapped his palms in the air. The three nearest Evas turned around as one.

‘Let’s see, girls…’

One was wrapped from head to foot in a sumptuous sable coat that rippled over her in superb folds like the skin of an animal too big for its body; Marroné’s eyes took in the marbled pallor of her complexion, the purplish lips, the dainty feet shod in still daintier shoes. Another, the tallest, floated over in a gold lamé dress, like someone out of a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film: train fanning out behind her, wasp-waisted sleeveless corsage pushing up her breasts, gold sandals with pearls, and banana curls. The third wore a simple floral-print summer dress, flat-soled sandals and loose chestnut hair and, for one hopeful moment, Marroné thought his own María Eva had come back to life. But when he looked more closely, he realised it wasn’t her.

‘This poor little greaseball wants to see Eva’s bust.’

The Eva in furs had only to open her sable coat wide, as she hadn’t a stitch on beneath; her large, marmoreal breasts were pear-shaped and stretch-marked, lined with faint little sky-blue veins. The Eva in the floral dress first helped the Hollywood Eva unfasten the hooks that girded the corsage to her body, then, while her companion levered first one then the other white breast from her bra cups, she had only to loosen one shoulder strap then the other to pull the dress down to her navel and display her small, round breasts.

‘So, comrade? What do you think? Does Eva deliver or doesn’t she?’

In his infinite tiredness and confusion Marroné felt he was slowly coming apart, separating into his component parts: while his mind waved its legs in the air like an upturned beetle, searching for words to clarify the ridiculous misunderstanding, his nether regions responded to the display of female flesh with a pulsing erection and waves of sexual obfuscation that rose to his cheeks and clouded his sight. He clung to his sense of duty as to a mountain ledge.