I did not look surprised, from the first moment I saw them together I pretended that this was normal, to be expected, no big deal. I did not say: what are you two doing here? I did not exclaim: what a surprise! I sat down and told them in English how insistent the hotel people had been that I should drop my bag and come here now. Susan looked at me and smiled as if she were deeply amused by what I was saying. Jorge looked at me blankly. Susan asked what I wanted to drink, and when I said a dry martini she raised her right hand to attract the waiter’s attention and then she touched Jorge’s elbow with her left hand. She held it there, almost gripping him, offering me a token of their intimacy, letting me know that touching him was natural, something she did without thinking. I opened the menu, and asked if they had made friends with Carlos Menem yet. I realized when I said “made friends” that I had begun to circle them and their newfound friendship, that I had suggested that they “made friends” easily with the most unlikely and strange people.

“The meeting is on at ten,” Susan said. “There’s going to be a torchlight parade.”

I was going to ask Susan if Jorge still took ages to come. I could not sit with them without imagining them in bed. I said nothing. I realized that I was not just jealous of them, but irritated that they had connived behind my back, had not allowed me to make the connections for them. How had they started? I was sure that they had met for the first time at Jorge’s father’s party. How had they met for the second time? Who had taken the initiative? Had they met by accident? I did not think that was possible as I ordered a steak and a salad and commented on the feeling I had that the city of La Rioja would not last long.

Susan remarked about the hotel, how old-fashioned it was, how there was an enormous ledger with names and dates and future bookings like something from a Victorian hotel in the nineteenth century. Jorge spoke in Spanish, saying this was one of the places in Argentina he knew nothing about, but it had a bad reputation for bully boys and corrupt political leaders. I said nothing. I realized that I blamed Susan for this, that she had decided to have him, since she could not have me. He was flattered by her attention; he had probably, just like myself, never turned down a sexual opportunity in his life. He looked at the world through the eye of his dick, and she had noticed this when she met him and now she was parading him in front of me, like an owner walking a sleek dog.