Part One
THE CUSTOMS* OF THE COUNTRY
Buenos Aires, decked out for spring, was looking her* best. The tall and elegant buildings seemed to gleam like icebergs in the sun, and the broad avenues were lined with jacaranda trees* covered with a mist of mauve blue flowers, or
"De hand…* de hand…" Josefina said suddenly and loudly. I stuck my arm out of the window, and the speeding line of traffic behind us screeched to a shuddering halt* as Josefina swung the Land-Rover into the side turning… The shouts of rage mingled with cries of "
"Well, it helps you know. It gives us a chance to prepare to meet our Maker."*
"I'ave never crash you yet, no?" she asked. "No, but I feel it's only a matter of time." We swept majestically across an intersection at forty miles an hour, and a taxi coming from the opposite direction had to apply all its brakes to avoid hitting us amidships.*
"Blurry* Bastard," said Josefina tranquilly.
"Josefina! You must not use phrases like that," I remonstrated.
"Why not?" asked Josefina innocently. "You do."
"That is not the point," I said severely.
"But it is nice to say, no?" she said with satisfaction. "And I 'ave learn more; I know Blurry Bastard and…"
"All right, all right," I said hastily. "I believe you. But for Heaven's sake don't use them in front of your mother, otherwise she'll stop you driving for me."
There were, I reflected, certain drawbacks to having beautiful young women to help you in your work. True, they could charm the birds out of the trees, but I found that they also had tenacious memories when it came to the shorter, crisper Anglo-Saxon expletives* which I was occasionally driven to using in moments of stress.
"De hand… de hand," said Josefina again, and we swept across the road, leaving a tangle of infuriated traffic behind us, and drew up outside the massive and gloomy facade of the Aduana.
Three hours later we emerged, our brains numb, our feet aching, and threw ourselves into the Land-Rover.
"Where we go to now?" inquired Josefina listlessly.
"A bar," I said, "any bar where I can have a brandy and a couple of aspirins."
"O. K.," said Josefina, letting in the clutch.
"I think tomorrow we will have success," said Mercedes, in an effort to revive our flagging spirits.
"Listen," I said with some asperity, "Senor Garcia, God bless his blue chin and eau-de-cologne-encrusted brow,* was about as much use as a beetle in a bottle. And you know it."
"No, no, Gerry. He has promised tomorrow to take me to see one of the high-up men in the Aduana." What's
Josefina drew up outside a bar, and we assembled at a table on the edge of the pavement and sipped our drinks in depressed silence. Presently I managed to shake my mind free of the numbing effect* that the Aduana always had on it, and turn my attention to other problems.