Beginnings

Allow me the privilege of setting the scene. The Portuguese coast, Summer, nineteen hundred and forty seven. I had just sat down to a pleasant enough lunch with Ernest Hemmingway and George Marchand…oh I remember it as if it were 1975 (which sadly is as far forward as I can remember owing to a piece of shrap-nel lodged in my cerebellum during some advance-guard action in the Luxemborg Rebellion of the same year)….forgive me, I am rambling.
As I was saying, I was sitting down to an early afternoon lunch with dear Ernest and Msr. Marchand… a lovely seared scallop and crusted salmon with a wild green salad and the native holiba-moscolo sauce. Just lovely. Well, the enjoyment of our meal was interrupted by a very inconveniently delivered telegram. The boy from the Western Union was clearly impressed and even a bit… overwhelmed to be in the presence (as it were) of the great Snr. Hemmingway, but with a few additional pesos thrown his way, we were assured of his discretion. Ha! That fool Marchand was so gauche as to get the boy’s address, perhaps for some future indiscretion. I did not dare ask.
The content of the telegram, although murderous to our appetite was nonetheless enthralling to our natural curiosity. It seemed that a certain Mr. Pelagius had in fact uncovered evidence of a plot to exhume the remains of the hated Generalissimo Franco, with the overt intent to use his corpse as some form of gross symbol or figurehead to a potential rebirth of the fasciste movement in our beloved Portugal. Naturally Hemmingway and I needed to set this to rights immediately. We dropped our forks, retrieved our rapiers and set out post-haste to find this Mr. Pelagius immediately to review his evidence, and perhaps uncover the rest of this most devious scheme. Marchand wandered off, perhaps to a certain young man’s home. Again, I didn’t ask.