“That’s her,” said Fuldner. “Evita. The president’s wife.”

“Somehow I didn’t think she was the cleaning lady. Not with all the mints she’s wearing.”

We walked up the stairway into a richly furnished hall where several women were milling about. Despite the fact Peron’s was a military dictatorship, nobody up here was wearing a uniform. When I remarked on this, Fuldner told me that Peron didn’t care for uniforms, preferring a degree of informality that people sometimes found surprising. I might also have remarked that the women in the hall were very beautiful and that perhaps he preferred them to uglier ones, in which case he was a dictator after my own heart. The kind of dictator I would have been myself if a highly developed sense of social justice and democracy had not hindered my own will to power and autocracy.

Contrary to what Fuldner had told me, it seemed that the president had not yet arrived at his desk. And while we awaited his much anticipated arrival, one of the secretaries fetched us coffee on a little silver tray. Then we smoked. The secretaries smoked, too. Everyone in Buenos Aires smoked. For all I knew, even the cats and dogs had a twenty-a-day habit. Then, outside the high windows, I heard a noise like a lawn mower. I put down my coffee cup and went to take a look. I was just in time to see a tall man climbing off a motor scooter. It was the president, although I would hardly have known that from his modest means of transport or his casual appearance. I kept comparing Peron with Hitler and trying to imagine the Fuhrer dressed for golf and riding a lime-green scooter down the Wilhelmstrasse.

The president parked the scooter and came up the stairs two at a time, his thick English brogues hitting the marble steps like the sound of someone working the heavy bag in the gym. He may have looked more like a golfer in his flat cap, tan-colored zip-up cardigan, brown plus-fours, and thick woolen socks, but he had a boxer’s grace and build. Not quite six feet tall, with dark hair brushed back on his head and a nose more Roman than the Colosseum, he reminded me of Primo Carnera, the Italian heavyweight. They would have been about the same age, too. I figured Peron to be in his early fifties. The dark hair looked as if it got blacked and polished every day when the grenadiers cleaned their riding boots.

One of the secretaries handed him some papers while another threw open the double doors of his office. In there, the look was more conventionally autocratic. There were lots of equestrian bronzes, oak paneling, portraits that were still wet, expensive rugs, and Corinthian columns. He waved us to a couple of leather armchairs, tossed the papers onto a desk the size of a trebuchet, and flung his cap and jacket to another secretary, who hugged them to her not-insubstantial bosom in a way that made me think she wished he was still wearing them.

Someone else brought him a little demitasse of coffee, a glass of water, a gold pen, and a gold holder with a cigarette already lit. He took a loud sip of coffee, put the holder in his mouth, picked up the pen, and started to add his signature to the documents presented earlier. I was close enough to pay attention to his signature style: the flourishing, egoistic capital J; the aggressive, showy final downward stroke of the n of “Peron.” On the basis of his handwriting, I made a quick psychological evaluation of the man and concluded that he was the neurotic, anal-retentive type who preferred people to be able to read what he had actually written. Not like a doctor at all, I told myself with relief.

Apologizing in almost fluent German for keeping us waiting, Peron carried a silver cigarette box to our fingers. Then we shook hands and I felt the heavy knob of bone at the base of his thumb that made me think yet again of him as a boxer. That and the broken veins under the thin skin that covered his high cheekbones, and the dental plate that was revealed by his easy smile. In a country where no one has a sense of humor, the smiling man is king. I smiled back, thanked him for his hospitality, and then complimented the president on his German, in Spanish.

“No, please,” Peron answered, in German. “I very much enjoy speaking German. It’s good practice for me. When I was a young cadet at our military school, all of our instructors were Germans. This was before the Great War, in 1911. We had to learn German because our weapons were German and all of our technical manuals were in German. We even learned to goose-step. Every day at six p.m., my grenadiers goose-step onto the Plaza de Mayo to take the flag down from the pole. The next time you visit, you must make sure it’s at that time so that you can see for yourself.”

“I will, sir.” I let him light my cigarette. “But I think my own goose-stepping days are over. These days it’s as much as I can do to climb a set of stairs without running out of breath.”

“Me, too.” Peron grinned. “But I try to keep fit. I like to ride and to ski when I have the chance. In 1939, I went skiing in the Alps. In Austria and Germany. Germany was wonderful then. A well-oiled machine. It was like being inside one of those great big Mercedes-Benz motorcars. Smooth and powerful and exciting. Yes, it was an important time in my life.”

“Yes, sir.” I kept on smiling at him, as though I agreed with every word he said. The fact was, I hated the sight of goose-stepping soldiers. To me it was one of the most unpleasant sights in the world; something both terrifying and ridiculous that defied you to laugh at it. And as for 1939, it had been an important time in everyone’s life. Especially if you happened to be Polish, or French, or British, or even German. Who in Europe would ever forget 1939?

“How are things in Germany right now?” he asked.

“For the ordinary fellow, they’re pretty tough,” I said. “But it really depends on whose zone you’re in. Worst of all is the Soviet zone of occupation. Things are hardest of all where the Ivans are in charge. Even for the Ivans. Most people just want to put the war behind them and get on with the reconstruction.”

“It’s amazing what has been achieved in such a short period of time,” said Peron.

“Oh, I don’t just mean reconstruction of our cities, sir. Although of course that is important. No, I mean the reconstruction of our most fundamental beliefs and institutions. Freedom, justice, democracy. A parliament. A fair-minded police force. An independent judiciary. Eventually, when all of that has been recovered, we might regain some self-respect.”

Peron’s eyes narrowed. “I must say you don’t sound very much like a Nazi,” he said.

“It has been five years, sir,” I said. “Since we lost the war. There’s no point in thinking about what’s gone. Germany needs to look to the future.”

“That’s what we need in Argentina,” said Peron. “Some forward thinking. A bit of the German can-do, eh, Fuldner?”

“Absolutely, sir.”

“If you don’t mind me saying so, sir,” I said, “but from what I’ve seen so far, there’s nothing Germany can teach Argentina.”

“This is a very Catholic country, Dr. Hausner,” he told me. “It’s very set in its ways. We need modern thinking. We need scientists. Good managers. Technicians. Doctors like yourself.” He clapped me on the shoulder.

Two little poodles ambled in, accompanied by a strong smell of expensive perfume, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw that the blonde with the Ku-damm hairdo and the diamonds had entered the room. With her were two men. One was of medium height, with fair hair and a mustache, and a quiet, unassuming way about him. The other looked older, about forty, and was taller and physically more powerful; he was gray-haired and wore thick-framed, tinted glasses and a small beard and mustache. Something about him made me think he might be a cop.

“Will you practice medicine again?” Peron asked me. “I’m sure we can make that possible. Rodolfo?”