Evita ... My Argentina

EVITA … My Argentina

Evita Perón tells her own spectacular story.

Tracing her life back to her humble beginnings, when she is abandoned by her father, Evita takes the reader on her journey to become an actress and later, to the pivotal moment when she meets Colonel Juan Perón. Never content to stay in her husband’s shadow, Evita reveals how she shares his belief that Peronism will help the working class. Eventually she begins doing work on her own as the president of the Society of Benevolence, helping the poor and winning the peoples’ trust.

As the times change and women get the vote, Evita becomes even more powerful, running the Ministries of Labor and Health, starting a foundation, and organizing the first female party, The Female Peronist Party.

A larger-than-life story, told in her own fictional words, the powerful novel is as educational as it is entertaining.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Helen R. Davis was born in Marion, Ohio and currently resides in Casper, Wyoming. She was educated at Ohio Northern University where she discovered her passion for foreign languages and leading ladies of other nations. Her first novel, Cleopatra Unconquered is the first in a series of books that imagines an alternate timeline where Cleopatra VII, the final queen of Egypt, and her second husband, Marc Antony, where they do not lose but instead are the victors at the Battle of Actium. The Author is currently publishing a fantasy novel, Athena, The Warrior Queen of Yavdolo.

Copyright © 2017 Helen R. Davis

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EVITA

… My Argentina

by

HELEN R. DAVIS

AUTHORS NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

EVITA is the result of a long interest in Eva Perón, Argentina’s legendary First Lady. The Author first heard of Evita, not through the musical or the movie, but through a collective biography of 20 famous women in history known as Lives of Famous Women; Rulers, Rebels and What the Neighbors Thought. Intrigued by the short biography given on Eva Perón, Davis began her own research on this enigmatic woman, which resulted in, of course, watching the famous musical and movie, but also involved reading many biographies, both in English and Spanish, about Eva and her husband, Juan Perón, three times president of Argentina. To culminate her research, she traveled both to Spain and Argentina, and while in Spain, stayed in an apartment near where Eva’s husband, Juan, stayed in his long exile in that country. Her two trips to Argentina brought her into contact with real people who had known Eva Perón and a linguist who translated her English manuscript into Spanish.  An Argentine colleague even presented the Spanish version of the manuscript to someone who had known the Perón’s. He was impressed, commenting that the story was substantially correct.

This novel was previously published in 2009 as Evita …My Life in English and in Spanish, Evita, una vida apasionada

PROLOGUE

Midnight, 26 July 1952

I do not want to sleep. I am in too much pain. The agonizing pains in my abdomen are harsher than they’ve ever been and I’ve lost so much weight that I’ve become a skeleton – and not myself. I’m no longer me. I’m no longer Evita. Only my eyes live.

Perón has abandoned me. He only comes to my room occasionally, and when he does, he wears a mask so as not to inhale what he claims are ‘bad odors’. Just the other night I dragged myself from this room, from my deathbed, to his room and he cried ‘Get out!’

How can he leave me like this, after all I’ve done for him? After I’ve demanded that the descamisados give their lives for him? I would willingly give my life for him and for Peronism. Is it true he believes I’ll serve him better in death than in life? I have served Perón willingly and with all my heart and soul. Is this how he repays me for a life of love and devotion? So be it, I have served him and my God the best I knew how.

If that’s the case, then I would prefer to die. I believe I have committed enough good deeds to get into Heaven. I was not a bad person. Perhaps I was a bit too vengeful at times, but all of us are angry. No one is completely good except God and the Blessed Virgin.

I kissed lepers. I worked in the Foundation and I suffered willingly for the poor, even sacrificing my health. And if God were to give me back my health, I would never wear my jewels again; just the plainest of clothing. But as it is, I know I will not live through this day. I will do nothing today except remember my life and how I came to this bed; alone, abandoned, and forgotten by all except my descamisados. Who, who now is going to take care of my poor?

*****

Chapter One

I wasn’t always a great woman. I wasn’t always the Mother of the Poor, the wife of the Great General Perón, the First Lady of Argentina. No, I, too, was once as the poor are always, underfed, poorly clothed, and despised by their ‘betters’. My journey began in Los Toldos, at La Union ranch. Or at least, that’s what my mother tells me. She tells me I was born on May Seventh, 1919, at five in the morning, and that the woman who delivered me was an Indian. My mother also claimed that she was upset that I was yet another girl, but when the Indian woman assured her that I was very beautiful, my mother told me that she was resigned.

My mother was not beautiful – she had a very dark complexion with piercing black eyes and a plump figure, but she made herself beautiful by wearing elegant clothing and the use of too much perfume. She, too, was illegitimate. Her mother had been Petronia Nuñez, and she had been the mistress of a carter named Ibarguren, and she took his name for her own. But my mother called herself Juana Duarte, for my father.

My father was important. He came from Chivilcoy and worked as an estate manager in Los Toldos. My father even owned an automobile. Mama used to tell me about how when she had been younger, Father took her for rides in the automobile, which had truly thrilled her. They would ride throughout the dusty pampas, looking at the gauchos on their ranches tending their cattle and inhaling the country air. My mother was only sixteen years old when they met, and she bore him four other children besides me – Blanca, the eldest had been born in 1910, Elisa had been born in 1913, my only brother Juan, in 1914, and my closest sister, Erminda, was born one year before me, in 1918. My sisters were all dark haired and dark eyed like me, but they had a sort of passive look in their eyes that spoke of sadness, something no man wanted. Men wanted happy wives, not sad ones.

I do not remember much about my first childhood home. I was only one when I left it. I had been baptized on November Twenty-First 1919, at the Church of Nuestra Señora Pilar as Eva Maria Ibarguren, a record I would later expunge because of my shame at being born illegitimate.

My mother later told me of the fight she had had with my father about using his surname. ‘You’ll let her use your name, won’t you?’ my mother insisted.

‘What? No,’ my father said.

‘Why won’t you?’ my mother insisted.

‘Because she doesn’t mean anything to me and I want my name to remain clean. You were the one who insisted on having her, not me. All she can hope for is a job and a husband, if anyone will take her, that is!’ my father spat.

‘Oh, Juan, that’s so cruel of you to say!’ my mother cried.

‘No, it’s not cruel, Juana, it’s the truth. These bastards of ours have no future. They’re ridiculed, they’re ostracized, and they’re doomed to spend their lives on the wrong side of the tracks, as you are.’

‘Oh Juan, please, no! You’re being cruel!’

‘I’m telling you the truth, Juana. Eva will not be allowed to have use of my surname.’

My father and my mother continued to argue, but after six months, I was finally baptized. My father reached an agreement! I would be allowed to use his name but I was baptized as Eva Ibarguren. But the ultimate cost of this compromise was high. In the early months of 1920, my father abandoned me, my mother and my four siblings. He would never see us again and we would only see him once more, at his funeral.

He never told us why; he had no reason. Papa was the man and Mama was the woman, and she had to accept his decision. He was a man; he had the right to do whatever he pleased. This was the natural way of things. Men did whatever they pleased, and women were to submit to their decisions. I learned this from an early age. I never questioned it, until I was the object of this injustice, but that would come years later.

I may have been baptized Maria Eva Ibarguren, but Mama introduced me to the world as Eva Maria Duarte. All her other children used Duarte’s name, why shouldn’t I? she reasoned.

In any manner, my father’s departure left us in poor conditions. We had no choice but to move out of La Union. I did not remember this, but my sister Elisa tells me that we moved into the vacant Calle Francia 1021, a brick house with two rooms, a shed, and a yard.

It was a humiliating home, even for Los Toldos.

But my mother was resourceful. She still owned a sewing machine from her days of working at La Union ranch, and she put that sewing machine to her advantage. The general store in Los Toldos sent her patterns and fabric, and she would spend her days hunched over the sewing machines, stitching pantaloons. Blanca and Elisa would help her, with Blanca cutting out the fabric and Elisa pressing out the seams.

My earliest memory is of my mother hunched over her sewing machine, sewing by the dim light of the shed. I must have been about three years old, and I remember my two oldest sisters, Elisa and Blanca lifting her by the armpits to help her get to the sewing machine every morning. ‘Why are you doing that?’ I asked Elisa.

‘I do it because it hurts Mama to sew for us so much.’

‘Why does she do it then?’

‘She does it to feed us,’ Elisa said.

‘Why don’t we have a father to take care of us?’ I asked. All the other children in my village had fathers, and I didn’t understand why I did not. I had been asked where my father was in mean tones of voice, but I didn’t know how to answer, because I didn’t know where he was – or why he wasn’t there, so I had just ignored them.

Elisa seemed to hesitate at that question. I was only three years old, and she didn’t know how to answer it. Finally, she said, ‘Because our father has left us.’

‘Where did he go?’

‘Back to his real home, Eva,’ Mama said.

‘Why?’

‘Because he had business to tend to. He’ll be back one day.’

But I always wondered; what would it be like to have a father? All the other children in the village had fathers, why couldn’t I have one? Why had my father left us? I knew my father had no reason to explain why he had left us since he was the man, but this saddened me. The children made fun of me for having no father, and I didn’t recognize the words they used until later, but I knew that they wouldn’t play with me because of it. Wouldn’t having a papa change all of this? Wouldn’t having a papa make me loved, accepted? Wouldn’t the other children play with me then? For then, I had to be content with playing outside with Erminda and our dog, León. We would run across the village, and play in the plaza, and I would always wonder – what would it be like to have a papa?

On one fateful morning in 1923, a horrible accident happened – an accident that would change my looks forever. I remember it very well. Mama had been cooking some beef outside in the family shed, and I had been playing near the fire. I was attracted by the smell of the beef and I was impatient for the meal.

‘He never even said goodbye…’ I heard my mother say sadly.

I wondered if she was talking about my papa, and I didn’t like to see my mother sad, so I walked over to her and stupidly touched the pot. Suddenly, I felt as though I were covered in the heat of a thousand fires. I had tipped the entire boiling pot of beef over my body and was now covered completely in fire! I thought I was going to die.

I do not remember much about the next few months except for what seemed like an eternity of pain. After what my mother told me was a week, my bandages were removed and I was covered in scabs – and then came the itches.

‘Mama, it itches, it itches!’ I cried. I would scratch myself horribly, scratching the scabs off, until I drew blood. The itching kept me from sleeping at night, and I continued to cry out and to scratch. Mama had to tie my hands, and I stayed that way, bound in bed, spinning myself around while I simply endured the torture.

Finally, the itching stopped. My scabs had fallen off. I awoke to the sound of rain, got up out of bed, and left the shack. I suddenly heard my mama’s voice.

‘Oh, Thank God! Eva, come here!’

‘I don’t want to, Mama. I like the rain,’ I said.

‘But you’ll get sicker!’

Sighing and pouting, I walked back into the shack and Mama embraced me.

‘You look so beautiful now! Your skin is so beautiful! There’s not a single scar! And your skin is so white! Oh, you’ll have no problem catching a husband now! All the men will flock to you!’

‘That’s good, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, of course it is good, Eva! I’m so happy for you!’

I was small, thin, and quiet during those days of my youth. I was closest to my sister, Erminda. I had become fond of playing a game where she and I were both princesses, and we dressed in fairy costumes made of chiffon that my mother had made for us, playing outside in the village on a piece of land with a willow and mulberry tree.

The trees were our ‘kingdom’ and we hid behind them to stay away from Juan who played both a fire breathing dragon and a knight in shining armor, who came to rescue us.

One of our neighbors called León, and Juan would pretend to ride him to save us. ‘Princess Isabel, fear not! The dragon shall not harm you!’ Juan would cry

‘But he’s so big and scary and ugly! His skin looks like vomit!’ I cried.

Juan laughed at that. ‘But we shall slay him! Come, León, and we shall rescue the fair princesses of Argestille!’

That Christmas, I had a special request. ‘Mama, I want a big doll!’ I asked my mother.

‘What, Eva? Oh, China, you know we can’t afford that!’ Mama said.

‘But I want one!’ I cried. ‘Can’t the three kings give me a doll?’

‘I will ask them for you, china,’ Mama said.

‘They’ll say yes, won’t they, Mama?’ I asked pleadingly.

‘Yes, of course, Eva. The three kings always give gifts to good little children,’ Mama said.

On January Sixth, on the Day when the three kings, Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar brought gifts to the children, I awoke to find a doll that had one broken leg lying on my espadrilles. My heart plummeted into the ground and I burst into tears, waking up my entire family.

‘Eva, China, what’s wrong?’ asked my brother Juan.

‘The doll’s leg is broken!’ I cried as I hit the dirt floor of my home with my fists.

There was silence for a long time.

‘Eva…’ said my oldest sister Elisa. ‘You got a doll, didn’t you? The big one?’

‘I didn’t want a broken one,’ I sobbed.

‘Sometimes…’ Elisa began.

‘Shhhh!’ Mama said, putting her fingers to her lips. ‘Eva, darling, the doll had an accident!’

I looked up at Mama. ‘What?’ I asked.

‘The doll had an accident, Eva. She was born without a leg. And the three kings want you to take care of her, since her mama can’t.’

I looked up at Mama, into her face. ‘Oh?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ Mama said. ‘Now, would you like to teach her to walk?’

‘Yes!’ I said.

Mama continued to have a bad reputation in the village. She had found a second protector in Don Carlos Russet, and village gossip said that he was not her only protector. There was also Eliseo Calviño, who gave us chickens so that we wouldn’t starve, Elías Tomasse, who gave us meat and so many others that I forget their names. Why were people so mean? They were just helping us survive, weren’t they? Would they have been happier if we’d died?

‘Your mother is a prostitute!’ the children said to Erminda and me. ‘And you are going to grow up to be just like her!’

‘I will not!’ I said. ‘My mother isn’t – whatever that means! My mother is a kind woman – she takes care of us!’

‘You don’t have a father! You’re nothing but trash! And your mother has so many men– are you sure you’re not one of their children?’

I couldn’t handle that remark – I ran home and cried. Why did people hate us so?

‘I’m afraid they don’t care about us one way or the other, China,’ Mama said to me. ‘If we die, they don’t care. If we live, they don’t care. No matter what I do, they’ll always shame us,’ Mama said. ‘You’d better get used to it.’

But I couldn’t get used to it. I wouldn’t get used to it! I hated the way people gossiped about my mother, and my heart ached.

The insults continued. When I went to school, they got worse. The first day of school, the teacher did not truly teach anything– instead, the students hollered at me and called me names such as ‘whore’ and ‘harlot– in–training’ and ‘ugly!’ I knew what ugly meant, but not what ‘harlot’ meant. Even the teacher joined in!

Erminda left about twenty minutes into the ‘lessons’ but I stayed all day, trying to tough it out. Finally, the humiliating day was over and I went home.

‘Mama, what’s a whore?’ I asked when I returned home.

‘Eva! Where did you learn that ugly word?’

‘I learned it at school. The boys say you are one and so do the girls. They also say that Erminda and I are whores.’

At that, Don Carlos Russet removed himself from his seat and began to talk to me.

‘Eva, don’t worry about what the other children say about your mother. Your mother is working very hard to take care of you and your siblings so don’t worry about what they say about her.’

‘But what is a whore. Is it a bad word?’ I asked.

‘Yes. It’s a very bad word, Eva. And I don’t want to hear you say it ever again!’ Mama said.

After some time, the teacher stopped joining in with the students who teased me, but the teasing did not stop. Whenever we had breaks from the lessons, the students continued.

‘Harlot!’

‘Bastard!’

‘Puta!’

‘Fat!’

‘Ugly!’

Erminda and I both reacted very differently. Erminda simply spent the day crying silently, while I became angry. I decided that I would find something that would prove those other children wrong about me! Eventually, I would prove to be right. I also found out that, besides being teased, I did not like the academic part of school. I enjoyed reading, but my enjoyment of reading was clouded by the fact that I hated maths. I simply could not bring myself to care about the numbers. I remember one particularly humiliating day when the teacher called upon me to give the answer to eight plus three. I erroneously gave the answer as ten, and the entire class laughed at me.

The teacher sighed. ‘No, Eva, the answer is eleven. You may sit down.’

I caught her looking at me rolling her eyes, and I could tell that she thought I was stupid. I sat down, my face flushed with shame; hot tears rolling down my cheeks.

We were taught chemistry, zoology, and mineralogy, but I also had little interest in those subjects either. It was hard to concentrate on school when I was being insulted most of the time. One day, Erminda and I walked into class and found written on the board ‘You are not a Duarte, you are an Ibarguren.’ That day, I did not attend school. Instead, Erminda burst into tears and we left school and sat outside in the plaza. I remembered Mama telling me about the fight with our father about not being able to use his name, but I used it anyway.

At school, what caught my attention was poetry. It was on those days that the teacher did not subject me to the humiliation of my classmates, as she often would when she picked on me to give the answers to math problems. I spent my free time at home memorizing poetry, since when I recited poetry, the class respected me, and so did the teacher. The teacher said the words came to life when I recited them.

*****

Chapter Two

I would never forget this day. It began like any normal day. Blanca, Elisa, Erminda and now I lifted Mama out of her bed by her armpits and helped her walk over to her sewing machine. But, one simple message from the village priest would change our lives forever.

The visit came at around nine o’clock in the morning. The priest knocked on the door of the shabby hut and asked Mama if he could come in. ‘What is it? If you’ve come to humiliate me, please go away,’ Mama said.

‘No, I have important information for you, Señora Ibarguren,’ The priest said. The priest, like most people in the village, refused to address us by the name Duarte – they considered my mother nothing more than a simple puta with no right to my father’s name. They considered my mother a harlot, a woman damned to Hell for her sins, and my sisters and I were children of adultery, condemned to follow in our mother’s footsteps as prostitutes.

‘Give me your message. I can hear you from behind these walls,’ Mama said.

‘Your lover is dead. You can now repent of your sins if you wish.’

‘What? How dare you …’ Mama cried. She crumpled into a faint.

Elisa, Blanca and Juan rushed to fetch water. She revived almost instantly and began to insist that we attend the funeral. ‘But Mama, how can we? It’s best that we forget the whole affair! You’ll cause a scandal.’

‘He was your father, Blanca!’

I had no memories of my father, having left us when I was one. My recollections were of second hand memories of my mother telling me about him. Taking her for rides in his automobile, telling me about the fight about not being able to use his name, and me being known as Ibarguren and not Duarte. I had never even seen a photograph of him, nor seen him in person, and I didn’t even know his name. I remembered hearing that he had left us when I was little, but I was very confused, dead? What did dead mean?

‘Who was my father?’ I asked.

‘What? She … she doesn’t know?’ Juan asked.

‘You had a papa,’ Elisa said bitterly. ‘But he abandoned us.’

‘What does that mean?’ I asked.

I was confused, and did not understand what was happening at all.

‘It means he left us,’ Juan said. ‘Because our mother wasn’t his wife. Don’t you remember?’

‘I remember you telling me that Papa had business to tend to. But aren’t you his wife if you’ve had children with him? Besides, I don’t remember him.’

‘China, you might as well know. Men often take what are called amantes and have a second family. They do not love their wives – wives are only for legitimate children. Often, it is their amantes that they love. But that love fades, because we are secret. We are the dirty secrets that others do not like,’ Mama