LITMIR.BIZ

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and were granted political asylum in September of the same year…that was quick,’ he interrupted himself, glancing up at her again.

      ‘It didn’t seem so,’ she said, though she knew her father’s money had somehow smoothed the path for her. She had friends and acquaintances who were still, seven years later, living in fear of being sent back to the torturers.

      He grunted and moved on. ‘Since your arrival you have completed a further degree at the London School of Economics and had a succession of jobs, all of which you have left voluntarily.’ He glanced up at her, as if in wonderment at someone who could happily throw jobs away in such difficult times. ‘I presume you have a private source of income from your parents?’

      ‘Not any more.’ Her father had died four years ago, and her mother had cut all contact since marrying some high-ranking naval bureaucrat. ‘I live within my means,’ she said curtly.

      He shrugged. ‘Currently you have two part-time jobs, one with a travel agency specializing in Latin-American destinations, the other in an Italian restaurant in Islington.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Before you left Argentina you were an active member of the ERP – the Popular Revolutionary Army, correct? – from October 1973 until the time of your departure from Argentina. You admitted being involved in two kidnappings and one bank robbery.’

      ‘“Admitted” sounds like a confession of guilt. I did not feel guilty.’

      ‘Of course…’ he said patiently.

      ‘It is a grey area, perhaps,’ she said.

      He smiled again. ‘You are not on trial here,’ he said. ‘Now, am I correct in thinking that the ERP was a group with internationalist leanings, unlike those who regarded themselves as nationalist Peronistas?’

      ‘You have done your homework well,’ she said, wondering what all this could be leading to. ‘I suppose it would do no good to ask who I am talking to?’

      ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘my name is Baldwin, Phillip Baldwin.’

      ‘And you work for?’

      ‘Oh, the Foreign Office, of course.’

      ‘And what is this all about? Is the Foreign Office worried that the exile community is going to undertake a campaign of sabotage against the war effort?’

      This time he did not smile. ‘How do you view your government’s invasion of the Falkland Islands, Ms Fuentes?’

      ‘As just one more attempt to divert the attention of my country’s people from their rulers’ cruelty and incompetence.’

      ‘Ah,’ he said, twiddling his pen and looking out of the window. ‘In that case, would you consider returning to your country to work for us?’

      She was momentarily stunned. ‘You mean as a…as a spy?’

      ‘Yes, I suppose you could call it that.’

      She half-laughed: the idea seemed so ludicrous.

      Balwin seemed to take slight offence. ‘Is it such a surprising request? You opposed that government once by force of arms. And it must have crossed your mind that defeat in this matter would probably finish the military as a political force for years.’

      That at least was probably true. As was the reverse: victory would keep the beasts in power for the rest of the century. She looked across the desk at the Englishman, still idly twirling his pen. He was just going through the motions, she realized. He did not expect any Argentinian exile to agree to such a proposal, but someone somewhere in the bureaucratic labyrinth had decreed that they all had to be asked. As far as he was concerned, she would soon be walking away across the yard and another of her compatriots would be sitting in the chair answering the same questions.

      ‘To spy on what?’ she asked.

      ‘That would depend,’ Baldwin said slowly, stirring slightly in his chair. ‘For the moment we are more interested in establishing a willingness in principle.’

      ‘Are you offering anything in return for my services?’ she asked.

      His eyes narrowed. ‘I think it would be hard to establish a real basis of mutual trust if remuneration was involved,’ he said piously.

      ‘Success would be its own reward,’ she suggested sweetly.

      ‘Something like that,’ he agreed, with the faintest of grins.

      ‘And if I wanted something other than money, like, for example, permanent residency visas for several friends?’

      ‘That could probably be arranged.’

      ‘I will consider it,’ she said. The idea still seemed ludicrous, but…

      Looking pleasantly surprised, Baldwin wrote down a number on his notepad, tore the sheet off and handed it to her. ‘You can reach me on this number,’ he said. ‘Day or night.’

      Isabel walked back to Piccadilly, phoned the travel agency with the news that she would not be back that day, and took a 19 bus to Highbury Corner. It was almost five o’clock. Her flatmate would probably not yet be home, but Isabel felt reluctant to risk having her thoughts interrupted by more instalments of the endless romantic soap opera which Rowan passed off as a life. She bought a cup of tea at the outdoor café in Highbury Fields and carried it across to one of the seats in the area barred to dogs.

      For a while she just sat there and watched the world go by. Or rather, watched England go by. Since the meeting in Baldwin’s office she had felt like she was living in an alien country. Which, of course, she was. It was just that most of the time the feeling was buried somewhere at the back of her mind.

      ‘You must miss the heat,’ people used to say to her when she first arrived. She had tried to explain that her birthplace in the far south of Argentina was just as cold and a lot windier than most of Scotland, let alone England, but nobody really listened. South America was jungle and gauchos and Pele and the carnival in Rio. It had to be hot.

      She conjured up a picture of ice floes in the Beagle Channel, the wind like a knife, a beach full of penguins, the aurora australis shimmering in the southern sky. That was her home.

      It was the one line, she realized, which had got to her. ‘Would you consider returning to your country?’ That simple question had somehow brought it all back. She had not been really unhappy in the prison of exile, not since the year or more of grieving for Francisco and of learning to live with what they had done to her. But she had not really been happy either, just endlessly marking time. The line from that Bob Dylan album of Michael’s said it better than she ever could: ‘And I’ve never gotten used to it, I’ve just learned to turn it off.’

      That was her life – turned off. Friends, a lover, but no real comradeship, no real love. No purpose.

      But could she really work for the English?

      ‘My enemy’s enemy is my friend,’ she said softly to herself. ‘Sometimes,’ she added. Surely the Junta would lose this war anyway, without her putting her own life at risk?

      ‘If no one else will fight, then all the more reason for us to.’ She could hear Francisco saying it, in the candlelit lodgings in Córdoba. They had just made love, and as usual he had been lying on his back, blowing smoke rings at the ceiling, surveying the world situation.

      They had tortured and killed him, and maybe this was fate’s way of giving her the chance to even the score. Maybe the wretched Malvinas had finally found a use for themselves, as a grave for the military’s prestige. Defeat would bring a new government in Buenos Aires, one with untainted hands, one that could admit to what had been done to all those tens of thousands. Such honesty might bring the hope of redemption for her country. And for her.

      ‘Don’t cry for me, Argentina,’ she muttered ironically.

      She got up and walked slowly across the park to the flat she shared.

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