I wanted to play fair
With home and wife, with children too
And all of that was thanks to you
But the Colonel came, and so, adieu!
Conscription was my share.
Army life was rough and hard,
An estancia we had to build,
Ploughing here and fencing there
A moment’s rest was very rare
No chance of sneaking in caña there
Or they’d stake you out to be grilled!
Scores of lashes, little bread
No wages on the cards.
The foreman kept them stashed away
He’d rather not give us our pay
Instead he bought some meat each day
For the chimangos who were his guards.
China, I was lean and sore
That life of a dog was grim,
‘Progress’, said he, ‘we shan’t obstruct
And Argentina we’ll construct!’
Forget all that! We’re damn well fucked
Building an estancia for him.
So sad and worn was I, my love
That I sat me down to sing
My old guitar was still my friend
Its strings still with my voice did blend
To the tired men my songs I’d lend
Round the campfire in a ring.
So things weren’t quite so bad with me;
The thousand gaucho men –
Who conscripts were – admired my song,
But though its words to me belong
That thief Hernández did me wrong
By taking up his pen.
He made a book from songs of mine
And signed it with his name:
My words he changed – as if I’d say
‘Become the judge’s friend this day!’
A judge your warmth will ne’er repay
He plays the Colonel’s game.
I flew to the Colonel in a rage
My verses to defend:
‘You scoundrel! You stole my songs!’ I said.
They staked me out, I wasn’t fed
For three whole days – near left for dead –
And that was not the end.
He came and asked me straight to say
If it was my belief
That all those songs were mine alone;
I swore they were, and did bemoan
Hernández calling them his own
The swindling, song-grabbing thief!
Well then they whipped and flayed me sore
Till my back was raw and red:
My blood flowed out as once my song
Had flowed like springs, so sweet and strong,
The Colonel wished me dead ere long
And on the ground I bled.
But as I lay a-dying there
One night came Cruz to me,
A haloed light shone round his head
My bonds he cut, as one we fled
And as the rays of dawn were shed
We rode together, free.
In a hovel rough we hid,
Our bed the horses shared
So no one would our hide-out spy.
At night Cruz hunted, by and by
The kill he’d cook, his food I’d try
For me like a mother he cared.
He fed me cuy, vizcacha, rat,
He made me soup from bones,
Ñandú eggs, leaves of ombú,
Wild fox and beef he’d stew,
Chimango flesh he had me chew
Cooked over heated stones.
Like Jesus rising from the tomb
In two days I was well:
The third day dawned, he kissed my lips
His salt-sweet mouth mine did eclipse
He mounted me, he held my hips
To heaven I came from hell.
The sun shone on my arse that hour.
My spurs I cast away,
A moment more I couldn’t wait
To suck him dry and with him sate
My lust for him, then lie prostrate;
Such freedom I knew that day.
To you in words I can’t explain
The pleasure that I felt
To have his prick come into me
In paradise I seemed to be
Through flesh was God revealed to me
And at his feet I knelt.
I thanked him that I had been born
Such pleasure to partake,
To be beloved so well as this
To be pinned down with utter bliss
Sweet Jesus, what a marvel ‘tis –
What fools those straight men make!
When we two came upon this place
We made ourselves a tent
As others do, with cattle skin,
With space to do our cooking in
And I was here with Cruz my dear
And we were well content.
But little did it please our God
Our livelihood to bless:
The smallpox came upon us all
Our friends around us ill did fall
‘Gainst fate I railed. Cruz’s dying call
Destroyed my happiness.
Thus kneeling at his deathbed cold
To God I Cruz commend.
The light went hither from my eyes
I fainted then, as if the skies
A bolt had sent to cease my cries
At seeing his life end.
So, China, now you understand
How in my life I’ve paid
For wrongs I did you years ago,
I’ve paid in full, and you should know
That for our children I did go
And with me they have stayed.
Will you forgive me, Josephine?
The Indians had pressed close around us and were very persuasive: they made us reach out and embrace each other a while. When I said yes, I would forgive him, they whooped and began belting out those high-pitched songs, with wailing choruses to different tunes that were all their own. It took me a while to understand their music. From shouting they moved to dancing. We danced, and it was from the peak of one of my flamenco leaps, frolicking like a tararira fish, that I saw Liz kissing a gringo who had to be none other than Oscar. I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself because Kauka led me back to the lake where I plunged in once again and learnt to swim underwater, breathing through a hollow reed in my mouth. I learnt to get in a canoe, paddle, and then moor it among the reeds, letting the wind rock us gently like little girls. I learnt to see the dawn from inside, that’s the view from a canoe in Kutral-Có. I slept with Kauka, in her ruka, in an animal-skin hammock that swung to the rhythm of her body and mine, everything rocked me gently in her arms. The Indians are creatures of Mewlen, the wind. That first night in the tent I learnt to fly, I started becoming Indian, writhing against Kauka’s body on the deep pink, almost red, feathers, letting her warrior fingers touch me inside as they did her bow and arrows, she is strong and beautiful and I want her beside me, and I soon became one of her tribe, almost as quickly as I had become one of the family with Liz, Estreya and Rosa; there amongst the Indians my family grew with my own sons, Juan and Martín, with Kauka and her daughters, Nahuela and Kauka, who are also my daughters now, and – most unlikely of all – with Fierro and Oscar. Our families are large, linked by more than bloodlines. This is my family now.
We also learnt to belong to Mewlen, to build our rukas so that they provide us with shelter and rest without being cumbersome, and can be taken down and put up again without much trouble whenever we need to. We learnt to ask forgiveness of the lambs we slaughtered, promising that no part of them would be sacrificed in vain, and drinking their blood still warm, while holding them tight and speaking slowly in their ears – poor little things – so that they should die loved. We learnt to sing in choruses that to the uninitiated seem like shouting but which take months to learn. And we learnt to swim in the lake and make clothes out of feathers and
shoot with a bow and arrow.
I woke up in Kauka’s ruka and she offered me a corncob and peppermint tea, laughing at me with smiling eyes as she gave me my breakfast and kissed me. Her daughters came along and the four of us all ate together. Afterwards, when we were onto our second cob, one of the girls’ fathers arrived and he joined us for the rest of breakfast before taking the girls off to teach them to paddle and fish from the canoe. The fine art of spear fishing is something that my two have picked up as if they had always done it, skilful as diving birds since they were five or six years old. Kauka had to go, she was on sentry duty: we the Iñchiñ people, a name we gave ourselves, take turns doing jobs. I watched her set off, in the rag-tag army clothes, shining bronze and riding bareback on her white mare.
I started walking between the rukas looking for Fierro’s and I found it. The inside was all hung with feathers, my two boys and all his other children were fast asleep in hammocks that looked like wings. The kids were like little chicks in Fierro’s tent, and he was sleeping on a kind of cloud, a white feather mattress, dressed in a tunic of the same colour. I stood there looking at him like a dumb animal, lost for words; I’d never imagined I would see the beast looking so angelic. I had breakfast again with all his family, which is also mine now, with all the children of this person who’d once been my husband and was now a loving mother to a whole string of little ones. He asked my forgiveness again and told me the whole story, his great love for Cruz, and his deep sadness at the death of that most beautiful warrior: our lives will always be intertwined, Josefina. He told me about all the new things he’d learnt to do: the Colonel’s gymnastics that he still did every morning because that really was a good thing, Jo, like learning to read and write, the clothes he was designing out of all different coloured feathers ready for next summer, rainbow dresses, China, can you imagine? And how much he wanted to look after all the Iñchiñ children, he didn’t see any reason why he couldn’t. They sat happily on his lap, pulled his braids, said I want chocolate Mama, played with his guitar, let the dogs into the tent. Estreya was beside himself, he was smiling so much his mouth reached his ears, even though the kids were pulling his tail and climbing onto him as if he were a horse. I said to Fierro I’ve got to go. You’re off to see the English woman, but you don’t fool me, you’re sleeping with Kauka too. Take the two boys, they’ll help you out. So I went off to my wagon, the one that had been mine, along with my boys and with the dog, as I was scared to go alone; I found Liz and Oscar holding hands and drinking tea, happily reunited. This is Josephine, Liz introduced me to Oscar, and he stood up and embraced me, thanking me warmly for taking care of his beloved wife. He motioned for me to sit down and gave me a cup of tea. The kids clung to my legs and Estreya couldn’t stop wagging his tail, he was so happy at being with us, a full Iñchiñ too from that day onwards. Rosa, who was no fool, turned up as well and joined in the tea ceremony. And Oscar told us part of his story: he’d met Hernández too. He’d gone to a neighbouring estancia, not to Hernández’s fort, but the Colonel had been to visit, as he always loved speaking English and didn’t get much chance to do so out in the pampas, so Oscar listened to him and gave him a whisky to make him feel at home. Oscar really did listen, and Hernández invited him to come and work with him as foreman on his estancia. Hernández talked to him about rural industry, progress in the pampas, the railways that ‘you and your fellow Britons’ would bring to the furthest corners of Argentina. He talked about the concert of nations, an end to world hunger which would begin here, right there where the two of them were sitting, he emphasised this to Oscar, stamping his foot, and Oscar looked confused; since arriving in the country he’d seen nothing but emaciated gauchos with swollen bellies and their ribs sticking out. He also told Oscar that his English employer had been deceived: the land marked on his map was still in Indian Territory. It wouldn’t be easy trying to set up an estancia there, and anyway it wouldn’t be good for anything but rearing goats, the Colonel said, snorting with laughter. However, he also said, Oscar was a free man, could do what he liked, the Argentine Nation wasn’t going to hold one of the Queen’s subjects hostage. He himself was heading back to his own estancia at dawn and Oscar could go with him or do as he pleased. They embraced like brothers and agreed they’d set off together the next day. But when Oscar approached the Colonel’s carriage the following morning, he saw him there snoring away, and had to shout to wake him up. The old man looked at him, and not remembering either him or their conversation nor, most probably, anything of what had gone on the previous night, rewarded him with a day of staking out for having rudely awoken him. Oscar knew then that he had to escape and he began to make preparations. He gave himself a week to recover from the hangover and the spread-eagling, to stash away a couple of shotguns and some beef jerky and plan his getaway: then he cut through the fence that kept the horses in and made as if to go after them with the gauchos. He managed to heave himself bareback onto one, lassoed two others and off he went, thus stealing three horses from the Argentine National Army. Of course he wasn’t the only one to take advantage of the situation, but he reckoned he was conspicuous as the only gringo deserter, so he headed off into Indian Territory. And he was sure that Liz – he called her Liz too – would manage to make her way there; she’s not only beautiful but bright and brave, he said, kissing her again. She took my hands, and became a bit tearful. I’d found my sons, she said, she knew how much I’d missed them, she continued. She was lying, I’d hardly spoken a word about them to her; I think she was looking for an excuse to touch me while she looked at me, without having to hide her emotion in front of Oscar. I’ll give you back the ring that belonged to your grandmother, she lied again, and she grasped my hand, taking my finger – that had given her so much pleasure – and stroked it while sliding the ring on and I felt as though the brilliance of the galaxy went straight from the vastness of space into my heart. She kissed me on the lips and it was almost like when I got married, all that was missing was the priest’s blessing, though there was something of a blessing from Oscar, who kissed me too saying that his family was my family, and mine was his, and he began joking with my children in English, they already knew one another and could understand him perfectly. ‘Everything’s turned out so nicely,’ said Rosa, and I heard a collective sigh: at that point I realised that several Indians had been hiding and watching the scene, as if they knew about us. Did they know? Indians absolutely adore love stories; that same night, Liz started reading them a translation of Romeo and Juliet and they wouldn’t let her go to bed until she’d finished it. It was quite a sight, seeing those uncommonly brave and heroic warriors crying for hours over the lovers’ death.
That same day there was another ceremony with mushrooms and I slept with other women. And with several Iñchiñ men sheathed with lamb-intestine coverings: no part of the animal was wasted and anyway, if they didn’t, we’d end up with so many children we wouldn’t be able to feed them all. I managed to find my way back to Kauka’s tent while still in the form of a puma: I went in on all fours, growling, and there I stayed, roaring in the hammock until all the feathers flew off it, they whirled upwards and – when my body couldn’t bear any more bliss – I watched them float slowly down. The summer celebrations last for four months, it was now the last month and every day I experienced Iñchiñ life in all its glory. I’d already become air in the desert, as if preparing me for becoming Iñchiñ, then I’d thought I was becoming English, but no: England isn’t airy, or light; it’s the bowels of the earth, the place where iron is found and which spurs the planet’s onward motion. Among my Iñchiñ people I also became water because although we Iñchiñ are firstly wind, with that summer feast we started becoming river, threatened by Winka outsiders. We knew about the government of Argentina’s plans from what the Colonel had told us, and our brothers and sisters knew from the newspapers they got hold of every time they went to villages to exchange their feathers and hides for tobacco, caña, or little mirrors or whatever they fancied. Kauka
, for example, has a writing desk and a chair in her ruka: she sits there to write her poems and letters negotiating on behalf of the Iñchiñ people. Through the exchange of letters and messengers, and remembering what the Colonel had told us and what we’d seen in the newspapers, we were sure that the government offensive was going to be one of fire and fury. The ground would run with blood.
But We Don’t Have Any Weapons
We were on the move by autumn. My people have very small carts that can be pulled quickly by a single horse, my people travel like the wind, nimble and light; we don’t want to crush anything underfoot.
Every night, once the ground was studded with the stars of our campfires, we would discuss what to do. We could confront the Winka, the white man; courage wasn’t in short supply. Nor indeed were white people who knew how to wage war like Winkas. But we don’t have any weapons, pointed out Oscar and Liz and all the foreigners, much to the dismay of the Indian warriors and dissident Argentines, and to the delight of the old men and women who know what life is worth, because life starts to be worth more as death draws near. A decision gradually emerged: people of water we would become and take ourselves off to the green gold of the islands, to Y pa’û, which is to the North and to the East, where summers are very long and the kuarahy, the sun, shines bright but reaches the earth restless and broken by shadows, draped in leaves, almost a plant itself. The pira leap like lightning in the gentle ripples of the Paraná River, and hundreds of little channels, ysyry, come and go from its winding course, birds never leave, the ype swim with their little ducklings in a row, the guasutí deer have big hooves but are tame because hardly anyone ever hunts them, and the kapi’ybaras work ceaselessly with their little paws. We paddle around on the river and all year long we organise races and competitions for fun and to make us strong, both young and old, men and women, and two-spirits. Y pa’û lands are rich but hard to cultivate and Argentines are lazy: we counted on them leaving us more or less in peace until they discovered what could be grown easily in the marshland. We the Iñchiñ became a water-going people and we learnt to live alongside the Guaraní people on the river banks; Rosa’s sapukái made him a good ambassador, and they also loved our mushrooms and our celebrations. They call Rosa vy’aty, the happy one, and we’re starting to call him that as well. They call us Ñande.
The Adventures of China Iron Page 12