A Quiet Flame Read Online Free PDF

Montalbán to their mutual admiration.”
    I watched her go. I was glad to see the back of her. More important, I was glad to see her behind. Even under the president’s eye it demanded attention. I didn’t know any Argentine tango tunes, but watching her closely sheathed tail as she stalked gracefully out of her husband’s office, I felt like humming one. In a different room and wearing a clean shirt, I might have tried slapping it. Some men liked slapping a guitar or a set of dominoes. With me it was a woman’s ass. It wasn’t exactly a hobby. But I was good at it. A man ought to be good at something.
    When she was gone, the president climbed back into the front seat and took over the steering wheel. I wondered how much he would let her get away with before he slapped her himself. Quite a bit, probably. It’s a common failing with older dictators when they have younger wives.
    In German, Perón said, “Don’t mind my wife, Herr Gunther. She doesn’t understand that you spoke from”—he slapped his stomach with the flat of his hand—“down here. You spoke as you felt you had to speak. And I’m flattered that you did so. We see something in each other, perhaps. Something important. Obeying other people is one thing. Any fool can do that. But obeying oneself, submitting oneself to the most rigid and implacable of disciplines, that is what is important. Is it not?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Perón nodded. “So you are not a doctor. Therefore we cannot help you practice medicine. Is there anything else we can do for you?”
    “There is one thing, sir,” I said. “Maybe I’m not much of a sailor. Or maybe I’m just getting old. But lately I’ve not been feeling myself, sir. I’d like to see a doctor, if I could. A real one. Find out if there’s anything actually wrong with me, or if I’m just homesick. Although right now that does seem a little unlikely.”

4
    BUENOS AIRES, 1950
    S EVERAL WEEKS PASSED. I got my cédula and moved out of the safe house on Calle Monasterio into a nice little hotel called the San Martín, in the Florida district. The place was owned and managed by an English couple, the Lloyds, who treated me with such courtesy that it was hard to believe our two countries had ever been at war. It’s only after a war that you actually find out how much you have in common with your enemies. I discovered the English were just like us Germans, with one major advantage: they were not German.
    The San Martín was full of Old World charm, with glass cupolas and comfortable furniture, and good home cooking if you enjoyed steak and chips. It was just around the corner from the more expensive Richmond Hotel, which had a café I liked enough to make it a regular port of call.
    The Richmond was a clubby sort of place. There was a long room with wood panels and pillars and mirrored ceilings and English hunting prints and leather armchairs. A small orchestra played tangos and Mozart and, for all I knew, a few Mozart tangos. The smoke-filled basement was a home to men playing billiards, men playing dominoes, and, most important of all, men playing chess. Women were not welcome in the basement at the Richmond. Argentine men took women very seriously. Too seriously to have them around while they were playing billiards or chess. Either that or Argentine women were just very good at billiards and chess.
    Back in Berlin, during the dog days of the Weimar Republic, I’d been a regular chess player at the Romanisches Café. Once or twice I had even had a lesson from the great Lasker, who was a regular there, too. It hadn’t made me a better player, just better able to appreciate being beaten by someone as good as Lasker.
    It was in the Richmond basement that Colonel Montalbán found me, locked in an end game with a diminutive, rat-faced Scotsman called Melville. I might have forced a draw if I’d had the patience of a Philidor. But then Philidor never had to play chess under the eye of the secret police. Although he