Like any other morning I sat next to my friend who was quietly finishing her homework. When we arrived at school that morning there were teachers on the street frantically waving their arms in the air and instructing the drivers to take the children back home. The traffic was chaotic as everyone turned right back to leave the school in a hurry. Evita had died at 8:25 the previous night and the news had not traveled fast enough to let parents know that schools would be closed the next day and for several days after that. School officials were afraid that her death would bring the political unrest that was brewing and was evident in the city. Children needed to be returned to their safe homes. The ride back was somber and we all felt in danger somehow although there was no visible sign of violence. But then, it was my first taste of how events unfold in my country. The most gruesome things can happen in a cloak of civility.
The exact time of her death was broadcast by radio for years after that and I believe that there is not one Argentine alive who does not know that seemingly trivial detail. Every television and radio station interrupted normal broadcasting at that hour with the somber announcement “at 8.25 Eva Duarte de Peron, spiritual leader of our nation has passed into immortality.” In the weeks and months that followed, Argentine schoolchildren in public schools wore black armbands on their white school uniforms and had to draw a black stripe on each one of the pages of their workbooks in her memory. At precisely 8.25 pm the country remembered, and it was paralyzed. Nobody could escape it.
Eva’s worst fear was to be forgotten but she should not have worried. Peron summoned Dr. Ara, a Spanish pathologist who was commissioned to preserve her lifeless body forever. After the funeral the good doctor was able to continue perfecting his still life creation and took two additional years to fine-tune his macabre work. She was his masterpiece and there were malicious rumors that he had fallen deeply in love with her. He demanded to be left alone with Evita - his duties were performed in splendid isolation surrounded by strict security.
She lay in state at the Ministry of Labor while four soldiers guarded her coffin. My brother-in-law was doing his military service at the time and was one of them. The young men kept fainting and being replaced because of the intensity of the atmosphere and the strong smell of the funeral flowers which covered every inch of the room. Throngs of Argentines passed by her coffin. The line that led to the viewing wound around thirty city blocks. Calla lilies are the funeral flowers of Argentina and thousands of flower shops and stands in all of the city of Buenos Aires were left bare. The delicate blossoms as well as mountains of gardenias had all been bought to place in homage of the woman who had so captivated their collective imagination.
People were devastated by her death. They did not want to let go of everything that she represented to them. There was the saintly Evita, sweet and pious who made their wishes come true piling money from her famous foundation into their meager lives and compromised living conditions. There was the glamorous Evita who blew into their lives like a cool breeze wearing strapless silk gowns, mink wraps and sparkling jewels and titillated Argentines in the same was as Jackie Kennedy’s style seduced the world many years later. Then there was Evita the earnest union leader who called herself a true “trabajadora,” worker for the people, and made heartfelt speeches wearing military tailored suits with broad shoulder pads counteracting her tiny waist and ethereal persona. As always, with her golden locks tamed tightly into her signature bun above her neck. And then there was Evita the faithful wife standing beside her man through thick and thin and the barren Evita, who was viewed as the mother of all Argentine children. In their eyes, she was a saint and many demanded that the Vatican acknowledge her and wanted above all else to have their own Santa Evita. The Vatican’s reply was negative. Her involvement with Peron who among other faults, had been married before and her own shady past, prevented her the honors that her people desperately wanted.
She was not considered a saint by everyone. My family like most Argentines was, and is divided into the Peron admirers and the Peron haters. Peron was criticized in whispers and murmurs. People were in fear of the consequences of speaking their minds and my family was no exception. I must confess that the woman captured my fantasies as well. I never tired of looking at the photographs on her book La Razon de Mi Vida, literally translated “My Mission in Life,” where she appears resplendent in sumptuous gowns and dazzling diamond jewelry. I was 8 at the time and would sneak into the library at home and sit occupying an eighth of my father’s Chesterfield chair with my spaghetti legs not yet long enough to reach the floor and furtively leafed through the book to find the photographs which showed her in her splendor. I knew that my parents hated the Perons and I rarely shared my incursions into her book with anyone, perhaps only with a friend who also found the pictures fascinating. Years later sitting in a Broadway theater I remember the murmur and my own goosebumps when Lloyd Webber’s Evita comes out to greet her people from the balcony in the same white strapless dress captured in that book from so long ago. For me it was a heart stopping moment. I remembered it so well.
Two years after her death and in what were times of unrest and unhappiness in my country, father decided to move our family to New York. It was walking to school in Forest Hills that I heard that there had been a coup d’etat in Argentina and Peron was on his way to his first stop of exile in Panama. He later traveled to Spain, a country which owed him much and whose own dictator granted him asylum. He lived in a sumptuous villa known as Puerta de Hierro, Iron Gate with his new wife Isabel, an Argentine chorus girl whom he met in Panama. They were visited daily by union leaders and politicians from Argentina eager to make nice with a man who could support their causes and help them to get elected back home with his endorsement. Every president since then, including the present one, has called himself a “Peronista” in the hope of furthering their political careers. His power had not gone into exile with him.
In 1974 Peron returned to Argentina and as luck would have it, bought the house next to my parents in law. The new Mrs. Peron had made a house hunting trip a few months prior and had visited the sumptuous white Mediterranean house with the lush and peaceful garden. The homeowner, Mrs. Bauer, was a family friend and showed her around her beautiful home, the garden of which met my in-law’s garden in the back. In fact, my husband and Mrs. Bauer’s son were close friends and would spend summers jumping the fence that separated them to swim at one pool or the other. She did not recognize Mrs. Peron. The real estate agent introduced her as Maria Estela Martinez which is her maiden name and she remembered her saying that she did not have children that the house would be only for her and her husband. Mrs. Bauer asked her if she didn’t feel that her home was far too big for only two people to which she replied “we like a lot of space,” and left it at that. The next morning Mrs. Bauer found out in the newspaper that she had agreed to sell her house to General Peron. There went the neighborhood.
His arrival at Ezeiza International Airport was tumultuous and the caravan which escorted him to his new home consisted of thousands of people with horns and bombos, a native drum that is played in folk music and used for big demonstrations because of its intense sound. The quiet neighborhood which was blocks away from where the sitting president of Argentina lives and had been where he lived before he was ousted was in total chaos. When Peron finally entered the house and one would have thought that the celebration was over as people started dispersing, many remained sleeping where they could, some on the streets and others in the neighbors’ front lawns. The quiet suburban neighborhood was converted into a gypsy camp where swarms of people needed to stay to be close to their idol. When things finally got back to relative order after a few days, my father in law got a handwritten letter from Peron inviting the family to an asado at his home to thank the neighbors for their benevolent patience and goodwill with all the supporters who had created such a ruckus. My father-in-law refused politely, something which I never forgave him for – I would have loved to meet Peron but by then I had left Argentina so his attendance at the barbecue would have only given me the chance to live a vicarious encounter with the general. He did not want to be part of the circus he explained. For me, Peron has remained one of those famous dead or alive people I would like to invite to an imaginary dinner party. A true missed opportunity to do it in life.
During her husband’s exile, Evita’s beautiful corpse had no place to rest in Argentina. She was still such a strong symbol to so many people that she had to be banished and was taken to an undisclosed location in Italy and was transferred to many other mystery sites. Her body had to be kept away from Argentina until she was returned to her homeland when her husband made a comeback and given her rightful place in history. The folklore that surrounds the years the coffin was missing has filled many pages and imaginations. Her husband was voted back into office with Isabel as his vice president in 1973 and she assumed his job as president when he died. The poor soul tried hard to emulate Evita, even in her appearance. Her mousy brown hair turned blonder and she would attempt a half hearted stab at stardom, but those of us who knew Evita, knew that she was no Evita. With her presidency a joke and the country in shambles, she followed her husband’s footsteps and returned to Madrid and has not been a significant part of Argentine politics since.
I recently visited Evita at Recoleta, the Arlington of Argentina’s aristrocracy. The cemetery is located in a very privileged neighborhood and houses a city of the dead within the bustling city of Buenos Aires where only the very rich and very powerful can bury their dead. There are no ground burials there. The mausoleums resemble a very quiet city of elegant if somewhat garish structures where coffins are placed in marble slabs covered with fine old Belgian lace and can be seen through the glass or iron doors. Outside its walls are trendy restaurants and charming cafes where one can sip an espresso or have afternoon tea and watch the fashionable world go by. Most of the tourists and even some of the locals cross over to find Evita’s resting place and while the place is full of fascinating memorials to fallen heroes and the bronzes read like a who’s who of Argentina’s most significant citizens. As soon as I entered the gates, the guard at the door pointed me and other visitors towards where he knew we wanted to go before we even asked. I crossed paths along the way with a multitude of alley cats which have made a home for themselves among the rich and famous. I reached her tomb which was overflowing with the fresh flowers that her visitors leave daily. Cameras clicked away as everyone posed next to her likeness in bronze to show the folks back home. The very elaborate resting places are tended to by families who visit their dead as if they were visiting them in their apartments while outside those structures and over the wall that separates them from the city of the living, people enjoy the outdoor markets, the fine shops and restaurants and just plain being alive.
I could not help feeling sorry for Evita as I made my way out of the cemetery. A woman who prided herself to come from the people and worked for the people now sleeps forever among the aristocracy who shunned her and she despised. I cannot imagine that she’s resting in peace, but she has definitely met her objective. She has not been forgotten. I never asked my parents how that book made its way into their library. Could it be perhaps that I was not the only one in the family who was more than a little seduced by Evita’s power and charm?
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