The president parked the scooter and came up the stairs two at a time, his thick English brogues hitting the marble steps like the sound of someone working the heavy bag in the gym. He may have looked more like a golfer in his flat cap, tan-colored zip-up cardigan, brown plus-fours, and thick woolen socks, but he had a boxer’s grace and build. Not quite six feet tall, with dark hair brushed back on his head and a nose more Roman than the Colosseum, he reminded me of Primo Carnera, the Italian heavyweight. They would have been about the same age, too. I figured Peron to be in his early fifties. The dark hair looked as if it got blacked and polished every day when the grenadiers cleaned their riding boots.

One of the secretaries handed him some papers while another threw open the double doors of his office. In there, the look was more conventionally autocratic. There were lots of equestrian bronzes, oak paneling, portraits that were still wet, expensive rugs, and Corinthian columns. He waved us to a couple of leather armchairs, tossed the papers onto a desk the size of a trebuchet, and flung his cap and jacket to another secretary, who hugged them to her not-insubstantial bosom in a way that made me think she wished he was still wearing them.

Someone else brought him a little demitasse of coffee, a glass of water, a gold pen, and a gold holder with a cigarette already lit. He took a loud sip of coffee, put the holder in his mouth, picked up the pen, and started to add his signature to the documents presented earlier. I was close enough to pay attention to his signature style: the flourishing, egoistic capital J; the aggressive, showy final downward stroke of the n of “Peron.” On the basis of his handwriting, I made a quick psychological evaluation of the man and concluded that he was the neurotic, anal-retentive type who preferred people to be able to read what he had actually written. Not like a doctor at all, I told myself with relief.