The Butler

Chapter 1

The moment the plane touched down at Ministro Pistarini de Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires, Joachim von Hartmann knew in every fiber of his being that he was home. It was almost as if his heart and soul, and even his body, knew it. He had left as a boy of seventeen, twenty-­five years before, when he d moved to France with his mother and new French stepfather. Eight years later, he went to England on a lark, which turned into a worthy career for the past seventeen years. His roots were now firmly planted in Europe, but Joachim realized as he breathed the air of Buenos Aires that his heart had remained here. He had never fully cut the cord that bound him to Argentina. There was a magic to it that was still in his blood.

This was a long-­awaited pilgrimage to the place where he had been born. All his boyhood memories were here, and what he had been too young to remember, his mother had told him again and again as he grew up. He felt as though he had never left as he came off the plane, like an old childhood friendship, or a great love.

Both his name and his tall, thin, aristocratic looks, with blond hair and blue eyes, were familiar in Argentina. With the influx of Irish, English, and German immigrants over the years, Argentines with German and Anglo-­Saxon surnames and looks were not unusual. On his mother s side, all of Joachim s ancestors were German, originally from Bavaria and later from Berlin. His father, whom he never knew, had been from a distinguished banking family in Argentina. He had died when Joachim was less than a year old, and the rest of his father s family had died within a few years, so Joachim never knew them either. The mainstays of Joachim s life growing up had been his mother, Liese, and his identical twin brother, Javier. Joachim had a special relationship with his brother because they were twins. He felt at times as though they were two halves of the same person.

Danielle Steel