Timote: A Novel

9

 It all seemed strange to Aramburu. They’re kidnapping him? Is it so easy to kidnap him? Don’t these youngsters realize the gravity of what they are doing? He is who he is, Pedro Eugenio Aramburu. He’s not a politician, he’s not a civilian. He is not a military man of insignificant rank and little importance. The country will explode if something happens to him. A lot of people owe him a lot. The country owes him a lot. And the country also expects a lot of him. He overthrew Perón. Everything was complicated after that. But now he’s the one that can put things back in order. I’m the military man who best understands the way out this country needs. I’m the one most prepared. The one who managed to overcome the hatred that so many keep alive. The one important person who can talk man to man with Perón. I overthrew him and I will rescue him for the country. Whether he likes it or not. We need that old man, who’s an authoritarian, a fascist. He changed. I changed. He did too. What’s more, I can lead him away from the temptations of the left. If we don’t bring him back into the country’s military, the Marxists are going to seduce him. Perón’s only interested in power. He’ll do anything to get it. If it has to be Marxism, which deep down he hates just as I do as a member of the Argentine military, then it will be Marxism, which is getting stronger day by day in Latin America. He could turn Argentina into t i m o t e| | 79 another Cuba. All the workers are with him. Not only that, but he is gaining support from the most unlikely quarters: priests, young Catholics, students, guerrillas, not to mention all his followers, who always stayed with him. The union people, for example. We could even buy them, despite how they live happy, sunk in corruption up to their necks. They’re Peronistas. Either we claim them or they’ll go over to international Marxism. Who else but me can prevent such an atrocity? Is that why I’m here? Are these kids the paid assassins of Onganía, of Imaz? Because in order for me to persuade the West to retain Perón, I have to get rid of Onganía, who probably studied at the School of the Americas, but who is laughable as a soldier of the West. Does he have the courage to have me kidnapped? He’s stupid, but not completely. And what if these young men are from the army? That’s the other side of the coin. You want to steal Perón from us. We want him for Marxism, and you want him for the West. And he’s the only one who can do it. Forget about continuing to live, General . We’re struggling for a cause. And our cause requires your death. At this point, Aramburu shudders. For the first time he’s found a motive for his death. The word cause makes him shake. He knows men will do anything for it. They die and kill for it. He knows there’s nothing more dangerous than a man with a cause. He takes a look at his kidnappers. He’s bothered by the fact they don’t hide their faces. He can recognize them later. Something, however, worries him more: one can see the pig-headedness of a cause written on their faces. Those young men have a cause. If that cause requires his death, he’s a goner. He can only hope it doesn’t. Or convince them it doesn’t. He continues to maintain that they’re military men. There is a certain disdain in that belief. In the end he believes, as do josé pablo feinmann 80 | | all military men, that civilians are a bunch of cowards. Violence frightens them. Nevertheless, what kind of military men? How did he miss it? Or hadn’t any of his men told him that a new group, nationalist or Peronista or tied to Onganía’s plans, had sprung up? An action group. Capable of such a thing. But every action requires the element of surprise. If they had detected them, this would not be happening. This...