Susan came to the office one day to talk about a report on the privatization of the oil industry, one of many such confidential reports commissioned by the new regime. I had been suggested as someone who could work with the commission to represent the views of the North American oil companies, and she wanted to make sure that I would accept membership if it were offered. She and Donald were busy trying to use their influence to confine the membership to economists and academics rather than politicians, who might have a hidden anti-American agenda. The administration was aware, she said, of how easy it would be to stir people up about outside interests gaining control of the oil industry. There were already two academics in the university who had written a paper on the oil industry worldwide and the need for each state to maintain control over its industry. They believed that Argentina handing over its oil to the outside world would result in a loss of sovereignty and less investment in new technology and smaller oilfields. They agreed that there was corruption, but insisted that this was the last chance Argentina had to reform itself.

Susan drew on her cigarette and asked me what I thought. I said that I would like to study the reports of various privatizations in Britain, while I realized that we had to be careful not to use any British experts. It would be good, I said, if we could find an American, or even an Australian, who knew how the British had handled privatization. She nodded. I said that I would make phone calls and find the right person. It would be easier to do so from my office than from any official quarter.

Afterward, we had lunch in the dining room of the Sheraton. She had a way of coming into these public places with a look of self-importance, almost of belligerence, choosing the table she wanted to sit at rather than allowing the waiter to lead her to a table of his choice, telling the waiter to give her more time to decide, and then calling for the bill, explaining that she wanted it now as she did not have much time. When I knew her first I was always uncomfortable with her when there were servants or waiters or paid assistants close by, but I had taught myself to be amused by her, to let her bully and boss everybody without my sitting opposite her wincing. This time she looked at the menu as if it were a letter of resignation from someone troublesome. The waiter stood there. Then she folded it and left it down and spoke to him in English.

“We’ll just have drinks to start with. We’ll order later. I’ll have a dry martini.”

“I’ll have a gin and tonic,” I said in English. I wondered if the waiter thought I was her henpecked husband.

“What if I wanted to eat now?”