The Truce

In the form of a diary, Benedetti follows Martín Santomé, a widowed Montevideo office clerk approaching retirement, through an unexpected late love for a young co-worker, Laura Avellaneda, a brief truce of happiness against the grey routine of his life. The real city is its quiet stage: the downtown office where he counts out his last months of work, the main avenue of 18 de Julio, the waterfront Rambla along the river, and the rented room where the truce is kept.

Martín Santomé

The office

The diary

At his ledgers in the downtown office, the widowed Martín marks the grey days toward a retirement he half-dreads, until the arrival of the young clerk Laura Avellaneda quietly changes everything. The dull accountancy office, with its routines and small hierarchies, is the ordinary Montevideo life against which the sudden late love flares.

The diary

inferred Martín Santomé keeps the books at a firm in downtown Montevideo, counting down to retirement; the office is invented and sited in the real business centre of the city.

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