Mask of the Andes

‘If you think I look elegant, you’re either astigmatic or you have no taste,’ said Taber with a grin. ‘When I approach Savile Row back home, they throw up the barricades. I’m on their black list.’

McKenna introduced him to Dolores Schiller, who said, ‘I’ve heard about you, Senor Taber, from Hernando Ruiz. He admired your remark the other day, about the Indians’ patient tolerance of us criollos.’

‘I’m surprised he did,’ said Taber. ‘It was an unintentional insult to all the Ruiz. Fact is, I’m surprised I was asked to come this evening.’

‘The Ruiz have a certain tolerance of their own. Mainly because of Senora Romola.’

An elderly couple drifted by, the man tall and straight-backed, white-haired and with a military moustache, the woman with blue-rinsed grey hair and an expression of such superiority that Carmel wondered if she spoke even to her husband. They bowed to Dolores Schiller, who put out a hand to them.

‘Doctor and Senora Partridge—’ She introduced them to the McKennas and Taber.

‘Howdyoudo.’ It was all one word the way Dr Partridge said it. ‘Absolutely splendid party, what? Lots of dashed pretty gels. Always make for a jolly show.’

I’m hearing things, thought Carmel.

‘My husband is always looking at the gels,’ said Senora Partridge. ‘Still thinks he is a medical student, you know. Silly old dear, aren’t you, Bunty?’

They can’t be real, Carmel thought. These were people right out of those old British movies of the nineteen thirties that one saw on the Late Late Late Show; the Partridges belonged with Clive Brook and Constance Collier and the country cottage in the Home Counties. ‘Have you been out here long?’ she said.

The Partridges looked offended. ‘We belong here. Well, not here, actually. We came up here – when was it, old gel?’

‘Never remember years,’ said Senora Partridge, and laughed a horse’s laugh straight out of the pages of The Tatler: Dr and Senora Partridge enjoy a gay joke at the Hunt Ball. ‘Never pays at my age, you know.’

They moved on, vice-regally, and Carmel, slightly stupefied, looked at her brother. ‘Are they for real?’

‘They’re Anglo-Brazilians. They’ve never seen England, except for a three weeks’ honeymoon God knows how long ago. They still talk about the Royal garden party that they went to and how King George the Fifth shook hands with the doc.’

‘They’re more British than the British!’

‘You find them all over South America,’ said Taber. ‘Still whistling Land of Hope and Glory in the bathroom, celebrating the Queen’s Birthday, cursing Harold Wilson and the Socialists – you can’t laugh at them, you have to feel sorry for them. They are born here, they live here all their lives, yet they can never bring themselves to call it home. Home is where their father or their grandfather came from.’

‘Oh, my God, how sad!’

McKenna said to Taber, ‘I want to thank you for getting Carmel out of that trouble this morning. You’re making a habit of helping out the McKennas.’

‘What trouble was that?’ said Dolores Schiller. ‘When the guerrillas blew up the bank?’

‘We were just across the plaza,’ said Carmel; then glanced at Taber, looking at him with a new eye tonight. ‘Did your friend the police chief come back?’

‘He’s coming back now,’ said Taber. ‘Who’s the bloke with him, Terry?’

McKenna had only time to say, ‘Karl Obermaier. He’s an ex-Nazi. Or maybe not so ex.’

Condoris, the police chief, and the short muscular man with him paused in front of Dolores Schiller, both bowing and clicking their heels. This is an unreal, three-o’clock-in-the-morning night, Carmel thought: where is Conrad Veidt?

‘Senorita Schiller, how was the ski-ing?’ Condoris asked in Spanish, ignoring the three foreigners.

‘I go ski-ing in Chile every winter,’ Dolores explained to Carmel; then still speaking English she introduced Carmel and Taber to the German. Her snub of the police chief was as blunt as a blow to his long sharp nose. But he did not flush or blink an eye; he was obviously accustomed to being snubbed in company like this. But he must know how necessary he is, to put up with it, thought Taber; and looked with sharper interest at Condoris. The man knew where the bodies were buried; or, worse still, knew where they were going to be buried.

Obermaier, having bowed and clicked his heels, now stood with his hands behind his back. He had a strong emperor’s face, the sort one saw on Roman coins; Taber wondered what empire he ran here. Obermaier was not the first ex-Nazi he had met in South America, but he was certainly the cockiest. He looked Taber up and down like a Storm Trooper colonel inspecting a new recruit.

‘Captain Condoris tells me you were almost shot by the terrorists, Senor Taber.’

Well, I’m glad he didn’t call me Herr Taber. ‘I think it was a threat more than a real intention.’

‘Their intentions are real enough, Senor Taber. We have to stamp them out – ruthlessly.’

Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil. Hold on, mate, this isn’t Europe in the thirties. ‘We, Herr Obermaier?’

‘It is the task of everyone who lives here in Bolivia. Or anywhere in South America.’

‘Does Herr Bormann believe that, too?’

There was just a faint stiffening of Obermaier’s face. ‘Herr Bormann?’

‘Martin Bormann. I understand he lives in Paraguay, on the Bolivian border.’

‘You should not believe the propaganda, Senor Taber. Martin Bormann died in Berlin at the end of the war.’

Dolores Schiller broke up the tension. Her voice faintly mocking, she said, ‘Senor Obermaier escaped from Berlin just at that time. He came here and helped train our army up till the revolution occurred. You were a panzer commander, weren’t you, Karl? He follows in an old tradition – Germans have always been popular here in Bolivia. Except Socialist ones, of course,’ she said with a tiny smile. ‘Captain Ernst Roehm trained our army before he went back to Germany and led the SS for Hitler.’

‘A panzer commander?’ said Carmel, thinking the baiting of Obermaier had gone too far. After what she had seen this morning she had become afraid of violence, knowing she would no longer be surprised where it broke out.

Obermaier waved a deprecating hand, but even that gesture looked cocky. He’s cocky, not arrogant, thought Taber. There’s a difference; and saw the difference when he looked around the room at Alejandro Ruiz and some of the older criollos. ‘What do you do now, Herr Obermaier?’

‘I run the brewery,’ said Obermaier. ‘I come from Munich. Naturally, I understand beer.’

‘Naturally,’ said Taber; but Obermaier was another man who did not understand irony.

‘Will the terrorists blow up the brewery?’ Carmel asked.

‘That could be one of their prime targets,’ said Taber.

‘Why should it be that, Senor Taber?’ demanded Obermaier.

Taber shrugged, looking innocent. ‘I don’t know. But one can never be sure what terrorists will blow up. I have had more experience of them than you, Herr Obermaier.’

He knew he had said the wrong thing as soon as he saw Captain Condoris look hard at him; he had thought the police chief did not understand English. ‘What experience have you had, Senor Taber?’

‘Only indirectly, Captain. I have worked in countries where some of my projects have been blown up.’

‘What countries were they?’

‘I never speak ill of old clients,’ said Taber.

McKenna got him off the hook. ‘The raid on the bank this morning was pretty stupid. I understand they didn’t even try to heist any of the money. Is that right, Captain?’

‘Heist?’ Condoris did not understand American slang.