Renaldo (24 page)

Setas were sitting. Confused and upset, Renaldo started to cry for his mother.

All the assurances in the world by his father and older brother did nothing to

calm him, nor did they stop the nearby brawling in the stands. Peter finally left

the stadium at halftime, determined not to return with his youngest until the

boy had matured considerably.

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Young Renaldo did have one startling attribute concerning football,

however. When playing in the garden with his brother or father, he seemed to

have the uncanny ability to be able to make the ball do exactly whatever he

wanted it to do. If Peter was in the goal and told Renaldo to shoot for the top

left corner of the net . . . zip, the ball was there.

When the boys played alone with the ball, Renaldo could always dribble

it away from his older brother and keep it in his possession. This usually lasted

until Lonnie became frustrated and tackled his younger sibling, thus gaining

title to the prized sphere. Peter would often watch his offspring play from a

concealed vantage point. The moves that his youngest son displayed filled his

mind with visions of Renaldo De Seta scoring the winning goal for Boca Juniors

in the Argentine National Championship. Such are the dreams of fathers who

have sport for their passion.

This same passion would ultimately be Peter’s undoing. In July of 1966, the

World Cup of soccer, the Holy Grail of the football world, was being contested

in several cities in England. The Argentine National Team had qualified for the

tournament and there was great anticipation and excitement in the streets of

Buenos Aires, and, indeed, throughout the entire country.

Tours to England were being organized, with airfare, hotel accommodations,

and tickets to Argentina’s first three games as part of the package. A group of

Peter’s colleagues from the hospital had secured a number of places on one of

the more deluxe tours, and they didn’t have a great deal of difficulty persuading

Peter to join them.

The subject was broached at dinner the next evening, and Peter was

surprised to find little or no opposition from either Florencia or Lydia. His

wife did not share Peter’s passion for football, and, therefore, had no interest

whatsoever in accompanying him. Lydia was enthused that he might be able

to visit some of her relatives at Lowliam, which had remained in the family all

these years. He would be gone from ten days to two weeks, depending on the

fate of the National Team, but he promised to call home on a regular basis.

The tour was staying in Birmingham, an industrial city several hours by

train northwest of London. It was here that the Argentine National side played

two of their first round fixtures.

So it came to pass that Peter De Seta departed Buenos Aires on July 10,

1966, on the overnight flight to London. He had promised to bring back many

souvenirs and gifts for the whole family as they hugged and kissed him good-

bye at the airport. He was gone with a wave of a hand and a broad smile, and

Florencia caught herself yelling out to him after he had disappeared from view,

“Look out for yourself. Be careful!”

She found these words unsettling and was aware of a knot in her stomach.

What did all this mean? Why was she shaking? Her sons, age eleven and seven,

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wanted to go for the ice cream that she had promised them once their father

departed, and they quickly brought her focus back to the matters at hand. She

tried to put the strange feeling out of her mind.

Peter called home for the first time on the night of July thirteenth. He

was in high spirits, as that afternoon, Argentina had defeated Spain 2-1 in an

exciting match played in a heavy downpour.

Florencia complained that Peter had been drinking, but his rebuttal was

that he needed the brandy to ward off the chill that he had obtained at the

match.

“Besides,” Peter exclaimed, “it was a great victory that almost certainly

assures us a passage through to the quarter finals. The whole tour is celebrating

enthusiastically, but we are also watching our manners.”

He bid his wife good-night, and told her that he would call again on the

sixteenth, after the next game.

It was a different Peter on the end of the receiver the next time he called

home. His voice had an edge to it that Florencia had never heard before. He

sounded stone-cold sober.

“We had some trouble today at the stadium. Nothing serious, just

unpleasant. We are not a very popular group here in England right now. The

game today against West Germany was very rough. Many yellow cards and one

ejection from the game to our side. The English fans started to taunt us about

the rough play. Luckily, they hate the Germans much more than they hate

us. It must be leftover from the war, but they are crazy, those English! In any

event, we managed a draw with the Germans, which puts us in a good position

to advance. I am fine, don’t worry about a thing. I have been keeping my eyes

open for any trouble. I will call on the nineteenth, after our next game against

Switzerland up in Sheffield. Give the boys a kiss for me. Everything alright

there? I’ll call, must run. Love you.”

The receiver went dead. Florencia had not said one word after “hello.” The

feeling from the airport returned, and this time it stayed long enough to give

her a sleepless night.

The evening of the nineteenth came and went without word from England.

Florencia passed another sleepless night, comforted only by Lydia’s insistence

that the Argentine victory that the ladies had watched on television that day

must have sent Peter and his friends out on a giant bender.

Argentina had beaten the Swiss 2-0 and had advanced to the second

round quarter-finals. Horns, drums, and fireworks could be heard everywhere

in Buenos Aires that evening.

“So just imagine what it must be like to have witnessed the victory in

person,” Lydia said. “Peter was probably too drunk to find a telephone, and even

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if he did, he probably would be too intoxicated to give the dialing instructions

to the overseas operator!”

The call Florencia had agonized over came early on the morning of the

twentieth. Peter was warm and enthusiastic, although somewhat sheepish about

not calling the previous evening. Lydia’s assumption had been correct.

After Argentina’s victory over the Swiss, the South American supporters

had let their collective hair down and partied until dawn in any watering hole

that would have them in Sheffield. It was now afternoon in England, and Peter

had needed that extra time to get his feet back on the ground, in other words,

rid himself of one giant hangover.

The good news was that he would now be able to visit Lowliam on his way

south to London. He and the rest of the tour would be staying on until after

Argentina’s game against England at Wembley Stadium on the twenty-third.

Once they were settled in London, he would seek a means of heading out to

High Wycombe to see his many relatives that still resided in the area.

He was extremely excited about spending some time in and about London,

but Florencia felt that unfamiliar edge creep into his voice when he briefly

discussed the upcoming match with England.

“The British press have been very uncomplimentary to our football team.

We were warned by FIFA, the world body that governs international soccer,

for rough play against the Germans, and the English fans were heavily for

Switzerland in our match against the Swiss. Hopefully, our team will rise to

the occasion and play good, clean, football against the English. Heaven help us

if they don’t! Give my love to mother and the boys. Tell them that I will call

again at the same time, two days from now. I love you very much. Adios.”

The words ‘heaven help us if they don’t,’ stuck in Florencia’s mind. She

cradled the receiver for several moments before putting it down.
Well, I shouldn’t

get worked up about some silly soccer game
, she thought to herself.
After all, Lydia

had been right about the other night’s festivities in Sheffield, hadn’t she?

It was Lydia who picked up the receiver on the first ring two mornings

later. She was overjoyed that her son was going back to visit her birthplace, but

the surprise he had for her was beyond expectation. The call had been placed

from Lowliam itself, and huddled around the receiver were a score of Lydia’s

relatives, ranging in age from seventy years to seventy days.

The transAtlantic connection was surprisingly good, and the conversation

lasted over an hour. Florencia was becoming impatient with her mother-in-

law’s silly questions to an endless list of people she had never heard of before.

She wanted to talk to her husband, to make sure he was alright! Finally, the

opportunity came.

“Peter, please, promise me you will be careful tomorrow. Stay with the

group wherever you go. Keep your eyes open and stay out of trouble! I love you,

my dear one. Come home to me safely.”

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He was nonchalant with her about his safety this time. Perhaps it was

because he was in a room full of people and taking considerable ribbing from

his English relatives about the thrashing that England was going to lay on

his team in tomorrow’s match. He seemed happy and confident that all would

work out for the best.

Peter told her that he loved her and mentioned the great shopping that

he intended to do for her before the tour departed for home. That was the last

conversation they would ever have.

The whole family sat glued to the television screen at Casa San Marco

the evening of the game. Wembley Stadium, the national shrine of football in

Great Britain, was full to its one hundred thousand capacity and basking in

glorious sunshine. The constant singing of the English fans all but drowned out

the Spanish-speaking television commentators, and the sea of Union Jack flags

made one feel that there was only one team contesting the match.

Television viewers in Argentina had to be content with the British

video feed of the game, consequently there were little or no shots of the small

Argentine faction that had been relegated to seats in one end zone corner, high

up under the roof.

The game was a disaster from the outset for the South Americans. The

British press had vilified the Argentines for their late tackling and cheap shots

after the whistle during their previous matches. The visitors from across the

Atlantic seemed to make a point of not letting anyone, the press, the fans, the

referee, or the English players, intimidate them!

Right from the opening whistle, their overzealous tackling sent a succession

of English players writhing to the green carpet. Warnings went unheeded,

and the West German referee kept up a constant dialogue with the Argentine

captain. Finally, in the thirty-sixth minute of play, having been pushed to his

limit, the referee showed the South American’s leader the red card, meaning

expulsion from the match!

Howls of glee could be heard rolling down from the giant terraces filled

with delighted Englishmen. The Argentine, however, refused to leave the pitch

and carried on an animated discussion with several English players, the referee,

and lastly, FIFA officials, who were forced to take to the field to escort him to

the showers. This incident served to fan the flames of contempt and hatred that

the British fans at Wembley harbored for their opponents, and the hostile mood

of the spectators could be felt right across the Atlantic Ocean.

The knot returned to Florencia’s stomach as she sat in stunned silence,

watching these events unfold. Her countrymen seemed incensed at their

captain’s ejection and became even more physical and hotheaded once play

resumed. The game remained scoreless through the seventy-eighth minute,

when a substitute destined for stardom, Geoff Hurst, glanced in a header from

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winger Martin Peters. Pandemonium erupted throughout Wembley Stadium,

and in the spacious living room of Casa San Marco several thousand miles away,

Florencia De Seta felt a sense of relief surge through her.

Please let the English win. Please let them win! Then my Peter will come home

to me safely.
While she sat repeating her plea silently over and over, young

Lonfranco suddenly smashed his cola bottle on the marble floor.

“Goddamned English, they have no balls! They are just a bunch of

crybabies. They must have paid that referee off! If I were there, I’d show them.

Goddamned English!” With that, he stomped out into the garden before his

mother could say a word.

Lonnie was the least of Florencia’s worries at the moment. She called for

Oli, the housekeeper, to clean up the broken glass, and turned her attention

back to the last twelve minutes of the game.