What he said seemed logical and carefully worked out. He seemed to know what he was talking about. We ate our dinner in silence after he spoke. Later, over dessert, he said that his own son would be part of the air force attack if the British should get too close, and he was deeply proud of this, as was his son. It was not often that you got a chance to fight for your country, he said, and there was agreement about this. I thought about his son, dressed in his uniform, as solemn as his father, but the idea made no sense to me. Later, as Jorge drove me to the railway station, I asked him if he was interested in fighting for the Malvinas. He laughed and said that he liked sleeping in his own bed and hated polishing his shoes. He believed that the islands were ours and would have to be defended now, he said, but someone else, like the ex-general’s son, who was a nice guy, could do it. He asked me which side was I really on. I told him I was for Argentina. I wanted Argentina to win.

Over the next few weeks as diplomacy failed and the British forces made their slow journey south, I often went to the Canettos’. At first they telephoned to invite me and then they made it clear that I could drop in for dinner any time I liked. Most of the men who came to the house were Peronists of one sort or another; all of them had been in the army. Most of them were rich. Some of them brought their sons, including the ex-general, whose son was much younger than I had expected and sat looking slightly stunned at the table as his father talked about logistics. During the meal itself only the older men spoke; neither Jorge nor I ever spoke. Then afterward we would break up into smaller groups. Señor Canetto and his friends were indignant about the editorial line taken by the Buenos Aires Herald, and each evening I came there I translated articles for them. They were outraged by the references to the human rights record of the government. What choice did the government have, one of them asked, when faced by a Marxist threat? He began to shout at me as I translated an article attacking the invasion of the Malvinas as an illegal act. Señor Canetto had to tell him that I hadn’t written the article, I was merely translating it for them.