“Four years it lasted,” Arnaldo said. “Four long years. Every time I saw him he’d rub it in my face.”

“And then she divorced him?”

“No. She stuck with the bastard until 1990. The nineteenth of July. I’ll never forget the date. Soon as I heard about the breakup, I went out to celebrate. It was one of the worst hangovers I ever had, but it was worth it.”

“So what’s with the four years? We didn’t win in ’82. Italy won in ’82.”

Arnaldo looked at him. “You don’t remember what else happened in 1982?”

“Do you know how old I was back then?”

“You knew about ’78. And you knew who won the Cup in ’82.”

“That’s different. That’s futebol.”

“The Malvinas happened.”

“Oh, yeah, right. The Malvinas.”

In early April of 1982, General Leopoldo Galtieri, the head of Argentina’s military junta, gave the order to annex the Malvinas, that small group of South Atlantic islands the inhabitants insisted in calling the Falklands. Argentina had long coveted the archipelago, and long claimed sovereignty over it.

Galtieri launched the invasion in an attempt to draw attention from a declining economy at home and to unite the nation in a common cause. In both of those things, he was initially successful.

Margaret Thatcher, the English Prime Minister, first tried diplomacy to oust the invaders. When that failed, she ordered the assembly of a naval task force, and it set out on a stately 8,000-mile voyage of liberation.

“I read about that,” Goncalves said. “The English kicked the shit out of the Argentineans, right?”

“The English did,” Arnaldo said.

“So that shut your brother-in-law up, I suppose. Come on. Let’s go in there and talk to those people.”

He unfastened his seat belt and opened the door of the car.