“He reminds me of someone,” Donald said.

“He reminds me of Spiro Agnew,” Susan said. “In fact, I think that’s who he is. Imagine Spiro coming all the way down here and setting up in business. It’s just like him. Never give up. Dear old Spiro.”

I was not certain who Spiro Agnew was, but I knew that he had something to do with Nixon. I watched Susan draw on her cigarette and look harshly about her. Plates of ice cream and glasses of champagne arrived at our table. A woman in a red dress began to sing a jazz song in Portuguese and all the faces at all the tables close to us looked over at the bandstand, which was bright with lights. She was cool, the woman in the red dress, she closed her eyes and whispered the song into the microphone. Susan looked around, and I could see her wondering what to make of this; she had no idea who these people were. No one from the government was here, and that seemed reasonable: Señor Canetto was opposed to the government. No one from the opposition was here either, and that was reasonable too: the opposition was fragmented and in disarray. No one from the military was here, and that was reasonable too: the military was in everyone’s bad book. These men here tonight, I thought, could easily be waiting in the wings to take over power. I whispered something like this to Susan, but she shook her head.

“There’s something missing. I don’t know what it is, but it is missing,” she said and drew on her cigarette.

Just then, the singer stopped and everyone applauded. I went into the house to go to the toilet. The toilet on the ground floor was occupied, so I went upstairs and walked along the corridor. I wondered where Pablo was now. Could he be in one of these rooms? I wondered which room he was sleeping in. A picture came into my mind of a tossed bed and a suitcase on a chair lying half-unpacked. When I came back to the garden a middle-aged man in a suit was speaking into the microphone. He was talking about the crisis now in Argentina, the levels of inflation, the lack of confidence, the low morale. He talked about the need for a strong and independent government, for new men to take over who were untainted by the past. There were cheers and shouts from some of the men in the crowd. I asked Susan if she understood; she whispered that she understood perfectly.