I collected the newspapers from her desk and whatever mail there was and went into my sanctuary and closed the door behind me. I realized that I felt just as bored and disconcerted as I had when I was teaching; I felt tired and unhappy until I reminded myself that I had no reason to be tired and less reason to be unhappy. I sat up straight as though a change in posture would help me to face the rest of the day.

When the phone rang I picked it up. Luisa had put Susan straight through. Susan was in one of her serious moods.

“Do you think a real outsider could win this election?”

“Yes, I do. I told you that.”

“I have someone,” she said.

“I hope you didn’t make him give a garden party.”

“I’m serious. We’ve been watching him for some time. I’d like you to look at him.”

“What’s his name?”

“He’s the governor of La Rioja province. He’s called Menem. He’s originally Lebanese or Syrian or something. He looks like a cowboy, but he’s dead serious.”

“It sounds unlikely,” I said. “La Rioja is very remote and very strange. But if he’s governor, at least he has a machine. And he’s an outsider, and even here in Buenos Aires, people hate the capital, and they’d love to vote for a man from hicksville, they hate themselves, I can see it in their faces. My secretary hates herself. Even I hate myself.”

“Have you finished?” She was trying to sound exasperated.

“Let’s find out more about this guy,” I said.

“There’s a rally on Saturday in La Rioja,” she said. “Have you been there?”

“No.”

“I don’t quite understand the reason for it, something about a new Argentina, and he’s speaking and there’s a sort of dinner afterward. I think they cook a cow in a field and we all sit around eating it being good Argentinians. Anyway, I want us to go to the rally and I have tickets for the asado afterward. I’m going up on Friday and maybe you could fly up on Saturday. There are two flights that day and you could come up on either of them and then we’ll travel back together on Sunday. Maybe this will come to nothing, but it’s time we started to look at anyone who’s got a chance.”