His Own Man (16 page)

Max seemed as though he was having trouble believing this.

“And based on what criteria …,” Max began.

“… was the choice made?” completed the ambassador.

“Yes.”

“Think about it, Marcílio. These things can be painful. Although, in your case, we’re dealing with character traits that I personally admire. And rightly consider assets. Not shortcomings, as some do.”

“Let’s have them, Ambassador.”

“Your name came to my attention because of how deftly you switched sides in sixty-four. I’d even say because of the extraordinary resourcefulness you demonstrated on the occasion. A gazelle couldn’t have leapt more gracefully.
Kissing the cardinal’s ring …
not even I would have thought of that.”

Before Max could crawl and hide under the rug, the secretary knocked on the door and entered.

“The colonel is here,” she announced. “He’s in the reception area.” She tilted her head to read the card in her hand. “With a Mr.… Dan-iel Ma-trone,” she pronounced.

“With Mr. Daniel
A
. Matrone,” corrected the ambassador, with a friendly smile in Max’s direction. “Make them wait a bit. And have them come in a few minutes after Secretary Marcílio leaves us.”

Turning back toward Max, who was now standing, he extended a hand. A hand that sealed their partnership. “Let’s see what our angel wants,” he said then, before seeing Max out. “We’ll continue our conversation in a few days.”

Max left the room through a side door. He found himself in a hallway, where he remained for a few seconds, lost in thought. He was, in fact, stunned. So much so that he needed to brace himself against the wall for a minute.

Before taking the first steps toward the stairs, he overheard the final part of the introductions: “Call me Dan, Ambassador. Everyone calls me Dan,” a voice was saying.

“Fine, Dan,” he heard the ambassador replying. “As for you, you may address me as Your Excellency.”

The following months, Max found himself facing serious challenges on two fronts: at home and at work. The first scenario worried him far more — perhaps because he felt unable to understand it. He merely noted that, despite the happy news of her recent pregnancy, Marina was pulling away from him, for no logical reason he could grasp.

“Pregnancy really messes with a woman’s emotions,” Esmeralda, to whom he opened up during a rare moment of helplessness, had told him. “Especially the first.”

Max took consolation from her words, until he remembered that she had never had children and therefore came by her information secondhand.

As for work, the atmosphere was complicated by a combination of factors, some predictable, others not. Consistent with the first conversation he’d had with his boss about the Tupamaros, the civil war climate had indeed begun to intensify in the country. The government struggled to remain in place, political crises broke out, the numbers of victims on both sides increased. The military grew agitated, in many cases issuing contradictory statements.

As threatening as this scenario may have seemed, however, Max’s daily routine was actually far more affected by the climate of transition that took hold of the embassy as soon as word of the ambassador’s replacement got out. It was as if an entire empire were on the verge of ruin and another, the details of
which remained unknown, was about to take its place. The resident vassals were left unable to figure out what was really happening around them and thus change allegiances and redirect their talents (if they had any).

In the women’s realm, this state of affairs had devastating effects. The cliques all vanished into thin air, and the ambassador’s wife — left in a vacuum, to her bewilderment — saw her power and influence shrink with each passing day.

The city and the country threatened to implode in a thousand ways. Yet what happened within the embassy walls seemed infinitely graver in the eyes of those who worked there.

Against this complex and unstable backdrop, the ambassador and his wife threw one last dinner for the three military attachés and all the diplomats. According to custom, they should have done so later, a few days prior to their departure. Holding it in advance symbolized the ambassador’s wish to show everyone that he had no fear of the future. Or, as he said to Max in private just hours before the event, that he was grabbing the bull by the horns. And one of his greatest pleasures in this process (which he had revealed to his young colleague alone) consisted in being the keeper of the ultimate secret: the extraordinary fate awaiting him in Brasilia.

As such, of the twenty-four diners seated at the endless table, only two shone brightly in the shadows (the ambassador’s wife having opted for a candlelit banquet to underscore the funereal climate to which she saw herself demoted): the host and Max. Neither the fine English china nor the numerous crystal wineglasses sparkled as they did. Even the candelabra and floral arrangements spaced along the spotless white tablecloth paled in comparison to the elegance the two men displayed.

Of all those people relegated to anonymity, Marina was, by far, the most depressed. That same afternoon, by unhappy coincidence, she’d had her fateful encounter with Nilo Montenegro
downtown. As a result, she’d spent the first part of the dinner in a cold sweat, not knowing where to rest her eyes.

She and Max had just gotten back to their apartment when the conflict they were going through came to a head: Marina had spoken of running into Nilo. In a matter of seconds, she’d turned her insinuations into criticisms. For the first time since they’d met, she’d raised her voice and pointed an accusatory finger at Max. He’d vehemently denied the charges, claiming they were unfounded and merely derived from the fact that he worked at the embassy. He was in no way compromised, he assured her. But he’d been rattled by his wife’s tone. And by the sadness with which she’d listened to his explanations — a sadness that, from that point onward, would follow her like a shadow.
Was it possible that his wife knew something concrete about him?

By the next morning, Max had hurried to check the file on the actor in the embassy archives.
Nilo Montenegro
 … He couldn’t remember what the man looked like but the name was familiar. Had he and Ana performed onstage together? Had they all gone out one night, as often occurred in the theater world? He breathed easier on seeing that there was nothing incriminating against the man, except that, until recently, he had shared an apartment with a political activist who had sought refuge in Montevideo.

The former roommate, from what Max would glean at the poker table a few nights later, was indeed a dangerous man. He realized this when, between one hand and the next, Major João Vaz had asked the number two air force official “if the package had been shipped off,” to which the young man, who was picking up his cards right then, had replied with a laconic “affirmative.”

Max had had no way of connecting one fact to the other. Except that, a few seconds later, after looking over his cards carefully, the young official had put a few chips on the table and said, in a lower voice, “We’re just not sure what to do with the
guy who shared his digs.” Once the wagers had all been made, the major, who was cleaning up that night, made Nilo a part of his winning streak. “Nothing. Don’t do a thing,” he’d advised, counting his chips. And added, “As far as I can tell, he’s just an actor.” Then he’d thrown back his whiskey. That’s how a man’s fate was decided in those days. All things considered, the ambassador had gotten it both right and wrong by having Max infiltrate Major Vaz’s poker table. He’d erred because Max would never be able to detect, in that cohesive group, the doubts or uncertainties his boss assumed were prevalent. Max therefore had no way to supply his boss with intelligence about dissidence or distrust that might warrant being noted in that environment.

On the other hand — and here the ambassador had unintentionally gotten it right — once he’d earned the trust of his fellow poker players (the kind of trust generally established among men who belong to the same club, independent of class or distinction), Max couldn’t have had better access to the underworld in which they operated with ease and chilling resourcefulness. That it was an underworld of the worst kind, Max had no doubt. It was as if those hands holding cards or chips had, just moments earlier, dealt with lives and destinies — which still pulsated around them. The only evidence Max had for this dismal impression was the amount of liquor everyone consumed without showing any sign of being drunk at night’s end. To this was added the steel grip each person greeted him with on the way in and out, leading our hero to run his hands under hot water for several minutes when he got home, before filing his notes.

In his presence, officials avoided being explicit about the nature of their areas of activity. But to attuned ears like Max’s, any word spoken with special emphasis gained resonance. The games and teasing further helped. “Our pal Pedro is bullshitting us tonight,” someone at the table claimed. “Must not have read his instruction manual very closely,” another joked. “And he still hasn’t figured out that sooner or later all secrets come
out,” a third had concluded to everyone’s amusement. “All you have to do is push the right button …,” a fourth reminded them, barely containing his glee, “… or administer another sip of water,” rounded out the first, closing the harmonious circle.

But when Max tried to take advantage of the camaraderie and join in the friendly banter (“In that case, I’d also like to have a look at this manual of yours,” he’d suggested), the others had gone quiet.

“Nice people don’t get into these conversations,” Major Vaz had remarked, with a paternal smile, in an effort to alleviate the awkwardness caused by the sudden silence. To which Max, laying his four aces on the table, had replied, “Keep in mind, I have a manual of my own …” He’d then added with a semblance of pride, while collecting his chips and casting an ironic glance around the table, “… issued by the same printer as yours.” These comments received a hearty round of applause.

The scene had been akin to a rite of passage. All had laughed at his presence of mind. Max had even gotten a few congratulatory slaps on the back. Not because he’d won that hand — an accomplishment in and of itself — but because he’d conveyed a clear message: they were all in the same boat. It didn’t much matter that some worked above deck, sporting fancy suits or uniforms, while others, in charcoal- and grease-stained clothing, took care of the furnaces below. Without the collective effort of the group, they wouldn’t get anywhere.

From that night on, Max became one of them. On an honorary basis, it went without saying. As if all he needed to graduate was to learn to deliver electric shocks with the right intensity. Or familiarize himself with the use of paddles, hot irons, water-boarding, and the parrot’s perch, not to mention the police dogs, specially trained to seize the testicles of reticent prisoners without crushing them. Prisoners who arrived at the torture chambers wearing black hoods imbued, as one of them would later recall, with the smell of fear. The episode, meanwhile, had
ramifications of another kind, which had led Major Vaz to take Max aside for a chat during the customary sandwich break.

“Max,” he’d begun, giving the impression of walking on eggshells, “we know that you have the ambassador’s complete trust. And on our end, we’ve heard great things about your work. Insightful investigative work, which has helped us enormously in our sphere of operation — if you know what I mean.”

“Thank you, Major.”

“Max, for the love of God! Call me Vaz, the way everyone else here does.”

“Okay, Vaz. Anyway, thanks for the compliment.”

“Right … I was thinking that you might be able to provide us with a little extra help. After checking with the ambassador, of course. But we’ll talk some other time. If you have a spare minute, I’ll come by your office tomorrow for coffee. How about it?”

“It would be my pleasure, Vaz.”

“I have a proposal that might be of interest. As I said, it would be a big help to us. For you, it could represent …” He was at a loss for the right word, and Max had no way of coming to his aid because he knew exactly what the major was getting at. He needed a better connection with the embassy. For some particular reason. “… a departure from your usual activities,” concluded the major, returning to the game table.

In the residence library, the ambassador was seated in an armchair, supervising the packing of his books by several uniformed men from the moving company. Max, who had asked to be seen for a few minutes, waited at the entrance while his boss finished giving instructions to the manager of the firm.

When the two men were through, Max went over and greeted the ambassador. He then announced, “Major Vaz came to see me in my office this morning. So the two of us could talk.”

The ambassador was silently sorting the books and magazines he wished to donate to the Uruguay-Brazil Cultural Institute from those he planned to discard. With his index finger he pointed to the bookcase in front of him, which held the complete works of Goethe, Hermann Hesse, and Nietzsche. “All in their original versions,” he said with obvious pride.

Then he invited his colleague to take a seat beside him. He let out a deep sigh, as though having a hard time leaving the realm of literature to step into the far duller real world. “Good old Vaz,” he murmured. Then, shifting gears, as though just waking up, he asked, “How is he? And what did he want with you?” Max glanced at the movers coming and going with boxes. With a discreet gesture, the ambassador instructed him to proceed.

“What he wants,” Max then replied, “is to transfer one of their agenda items to us. Or rather, to me.”

“
One of their …
,” and here the ambassador couldn’t help but laugh. “Since when does that group work with an
agenda
,
Marcílio? They work with their hands! And their feet! At most, with pliers and other implements!” The ambassador had a lovehate relationship with the attachés. One minute, he’d express his admiration, even gratitude; the next, he’d reduce them to dust. He made use of their information but resented having to depend on them to get it.