Invisible Country

by Annamaria Alfieri

  César skirted a bañado, a low spot where the smooth mud was treacherous. She turned him to the left and down a steep rocky hill, almost like steps. He walked down the incline as sure-footed as a mule, rocking her like a mother rocking a baby. She moved with him, tightening the grip of her thighs. She pushed away a branch wreathed in purple orchids, her mother’s favorite flower. Before the war, people used to bring each other flowers. It was what they had most of, but it was what they offered one another, because the flowers were beautiful and gifts were not a contest to impress. Flowers brought a smile and could be kept in the house to remind everyone of the warmth of a visit. There were no visits anymore, not like in the old days of impromptu dances and laughter. None of the old friendliness—only heat too hot to bear and cold fear that froze the brain.

  She would pick some orchids for her mother. Little things to cheer her, she who never lamented, as so many other women did who had suffered less. Sometimes she hated that strength so intensely, yet all she wanted was to have such steel herself.

  The conversation she had with her father yesterday about the war was the first since he came home. Xandra had imagined he had drawn away from her because of the loss of her brothers. He was a man, and even though he had never shown it, everyone said fathers prized sons more than daughters. But there was something else, something bothering him that he felt he had to hide. He spoke but seldom, and when he did the look in his eyes hardly ever matched his words. Since Yotté’s death, he was more disturbed than ever—as if he were somehow guilty. Unimaginable that her gentle father could have anything to do with murder. But in the war he must have killed enemies. Her heart refused even to imagine it. “I do not believe it,” she said to a green and yellow parrot perched on a swaying liana vine.

  When César reached the clearing, she dismounted, took off his saddle, and pulled the bridle over his head so he could eat some of the luxuriant grass outside the makeshift corral, for he had long since gobbled up every blade within.

  In the dense growth of the forest, a protected clearing like this was rare. Her brothers Juan and Aleixo had found it and called it the secret castle. They played here at being conquistadores who came in their armor looking for silver and gold in 1536. Strong and gentle Aleixo took the part of the Guarani; she and Juan were the Spanish. They pretended to ally themselves to fight against the hostile Agace tribes from across the big river in the Chaco.

  Now, because she was too much of a coward to follow Tomás, she came here every chance she could to imagine him still here and speaking soft-accented Spanish. Although, like most Paraguayans, she spoke both Spanish and Guarani, she felt more comfortable in Guarani. But when she came to the clearing, she tried to think only in Spanish, as if Tomás could read her mind and would not understand if she thought in Guarani. She longed for his love, but he had run away. She was stupid.

  She put the horse back in the corral and sat in the shade of the lean-to where Tomás had lain the day she found him. She should hate him for fighting with the invaders who had killed her brothers. They were gone forever. And so was Tomás.

  What kind of person was she that she did not miss her brothers more than she desired him? She was like a liana vine that grew from tree to tree and did not put down roots. She should renounce Tomás out of loyalty to her family. But instead of thinking of her brothers, she came here and longed for him.

  She lay down in the place where he had lain and looked out at the sky, feeling delicious desire, and tried to recall the smoky, musky scent of his hair that first day when she bathed him in cool water to drive away the fever. She felt hungry, hungry to touch him, and hungry for food.

  She soon fell so fast asleep she did not hear César’s neigh as someone approached.

  * * *

  When the landau arrived in the main square of Santa Caterina late the same morning, the threat of a storm had passed and the sun had come out. Alberta Gamara, leaning against the jamb of the open door of her café, did not notice that the Arms of the Republic emblazoned on the carriage door were faded and scratched, or that the wheels and the undercarriage were splattered with red mud. The faded glory of the vehicle did not diminish the excitement and fear created by the arrival of the personage everyone knew must be inside. Two guards, from the dictator’s elite Monkey Tails—so called because tails of howler monkeys hung from their brass helmets—guarded the carriage but spoke to no one.

  Only twice before had Señora Eliza Lynch herself traveled the more than three hours from the capital to their village. Once, those many years ago, she had come to Alivia, desperate for help for her dying daughter. The other time she took from their miraculous statue of the Virgin—well, it was best not to think about what she did with the Virgin’s jewels.

  By the time La Lynch’s tall, elegant escort alighted and helped the lady descend, a small group had already gathered under the mottled shade of the blooming jacarandas. That day, all of Eliza Lynch’s clothing—her dress, bonnet, gloves, boots, parasol—exactly matched the pale violet shade of the blossoms over their heads. Her hair was the color of setting sunlight and her eyes matched the sky.

  At the sight of her, Gaspár Otazú, in the midst of a knot of gaping villagers, grasped the lapels of his quasi-military shirt and shouted out, “Viva Francisco Solano López, great mariscal, hero of the Corrientes! Victory to our leader!” He might have continued, but no one else in the crowd joined in his paean to the dictator.

  The smile La Lynch flashed at them was genuine. She enjoyed showing herself to the people, even ones such as these. An old woman at the front of the crowd stared at her over a cigar she held between her teeth. The crone grasped the empty sleeve of a boy of about thirteen—wan and thin, with large, vacant dark eyes and bandaged legs.

  Into Eliza’s mind flashed the image of her own dear Juan Francisco, about the same age as this shell of a child. Her son, so handsome in his cadet’s uniform, insisted on going to the battlefront at his father’s side. Would her child end up like this half-dead boy? God forbid! There was no hope for the war. She would never become the empress of South America. But she was determined to find the treasure she came here to retrieve and with it take her sons back to France to live like the princes they were born to be.

  She turned to the man at her side: Colonel von Wisner de Morgenstern, a true Hungarian nobleman. He would have made a perfect lord chamberlain for her imperial court, if she had gotten to have one. “Find out where the house is, please, François. Tell them I have come to condole with Ricardo’s sisters.” While he went to inquire of the fat woman in the doorway of the café, Eliza let the people under the trees bask in her elegance.

  Von Wisner gave the directions to the driver and helped her back into the landau. This carriage had come up the river on the Esmeralda from Buenos Aires at the beginning of the war, with the last of her muslin and Paraguay’s gold, which their agent Ejusquiza had withdrawn from the Argentine bank. Now the Brazilian warships blocked any luxuries from coming in and her from escaping. Knowing that their days were numbered, she had entrusted her only ticket out—that same gold and more—to Ricardo Yotté, because she knew only he had the cunning and courage to help her get out of this backwater.

  She had first spotted Ricardo coming along the reception line at the inaugural ball in Asunción, when Francisco Solano López became president. Was that only six years ago? She had looked into Ricardo’s intense, dark eyes and knew he was already in love with her and would champion any cause she offered him. She had observed other women assessing a new man—his height, physique, hands, hair, crotch. She cared nothing about such details. She watched men’s eyes to see what part of her they feasted their gaze on, assessed how powerful the attraction was and what sparked it—her breasts, her eyes, her ass. For Ricardo, there was no such venal exchange. He drank in everything about her, and she saw hunger, not unlike what she had seen in the mariscal at their first meeting in Paris. Clearly, Ricardo Yotté wanted not just her sex, but her essence: her style, her grace, the Italian
fabric and the French cut of her gown. He wanted not only her, but to be like her, to be admired for having the sorts of things she had—her taste, her sophistication. And Yotté would give her everything of himself in return. Now, despite all her careful cultivation of his absolute loyalty, she had been robbed of her champion and perhaps of all she had entrusted to him.

  As they drove out of the square toward the casa Yotté, she waved her violet glove out the window at the peasants under the trees.

  “Those people love you. You are a goddess to them. I saw it in their eyes,” von Wisner said.

  “They are savages,” she said. “All the Paraguayans are. At the beginning of the war, when we won the battle for the Mato Grosso, they hung a necklace of Brazilian ears around López’s neck, actual human ears!”

  He took her gloved hand and kissed it. “The mariscal says we still have a chance. The enemy forces are all sick since the great battle at Tuyutí.”

  She gave von Wisner a doubtful look. “You know better than that. Tuyutí was a bloodbath for us, and just about all of our soldiers are sick or wounded as well. Dr. Stewart says that fifty die of cholera every day, while the Allies keep pouring fresh troops into Paraguay. We have no fresh troops. We have conscripted all the boys and even women, for heaven’s sake.” He should know by now that she was a realist, even if López was mad enough to fight on.

  He squeezed her hand and looked out the window of the coach.

  “Perhaps I should have given the treasure to Dr. Stewart, instead of Yotté. He’s a Scot, practically a landsman of mine, or at least what passes for one this far from home. And he’s clever. But I thought Ricardo was the one who would never, never betray me. I never felt as confident about any of the others.”

  Von Wisner gave her an arch smile. “Not me?”

  “Oh, stop, François. You know that if you left, the mariscal would have immediately gotten suspicious. I intended to tell him Ricardo had gone after a woman.”

  He fanned himself with his hand. “And we all know I would not do that.”

  “You know very well the mariscal depends on you as much as I do. And I could manipulate Ricardo in a way I never could you.” She let a deep sigh escape her. “All these months of boredom when we were surrounded at Humaitá, and then the sudden stark terror of barely escaping the invaders. The children were in such danger, crossing the river when it was in flood. That awful trek through the Chaco—horrible. And Francisco rushed ahead of the rest of us.” He had had the only good horse. She chewed on the fingertip of her glove. “My heart abandoned him then.” She took von Wisner’s hand again. “You grew up rich and always knew money could not buy everything. I grew up on the verge of starvation. All those rich and powerful connections you have heard me claim are fabrications. There are no bishops and admirals in my family. Francisco Solano López’s wealth seemed vast enough to accomplish anything.” She gripped the edge of her seat as the carriage bumped over ruts in the road. “If I cannot recover the gold and jewels, I am going to have to tell the mariscal what I did. I am terrified, François.”

  “You can control the mariscal,” von Wisner said.

  She smiled at the Hungarian, pretending that she agreed. López used to stand in awe of her beauty and superior knowledge of the world. Now she was able to manipulate him only with sex and by playing along with his self-delusion.

  She looked into von Wisner’s green eyes. “I almost wish the Brazilians had caught us when they took Asunción.”

  “They could have if they had tried.”

  “It would have ended the war—at least for me. Suppose the next time the enemy advances on us, we are captured.”

  “If they capture you, you will captivate them.” He looked into her doubtful eyes. “The Americans are trying to negotiate peace.”

  She patted the beautiful green silk of his sleeve and pretended to be heartened. “You are the only man who has truly loved me.”

  “That is because my love is untainted by sexual desire,” he said with a self-satisfied smile. “Other men want only to throw their hairy, slobbering bodies on your alabaster skin.” He made a face that made her laugh in spite of her fear.

  “I will have to make up a story for Ricardo’s sisters. If anyone finds out how much wealth is in those boxes, there will be no protecting them without an army. And we no longer have an army.”

  * * *

  Rich, red earth, damp from rains during the night, oozed between Alivia’s bare toes. Moisture hung in the air. Huge drops of dew collected on the leaves of the bromeliads growing along the edge of the field and ran, like glistening pearls, down the high reedy grasses that grew in clumps under the tall palms. This was the first planting of maize that she and Salvador had done together, the first that might nourish their family and their neighbors rather than being taken for the army. In the old days, planting was an occasion for gatherings and celebrations, where the boys of ten and twelve dressed up as curupí, the old Guarani spirit of the crops. Not anymore. There were no more boys of that age. She clenched her teeth against the pain of loss. Today should be a moment of hope and closeness to her husband. He walked before her, leaning on the cane in his left hand and using the sharp stick in his right to poke shallow holes in the furrow. She took, one by one, kernels of precious maize and dropped them into the holes and stepped carefully on the planted seed to cover it just enough. So many of the villagers had eaten their seed corn during this past winter of want, but no matter how hungry she and Xandra had gotten, she always conserved enough to start a new crop.

  After the farmhands went away to fight, she and Xandra had figured out for themselves how to manage the planting. The knowledge of how to do it had marched off with the workers to the sound of the tocsin and never returned. She and Xandra had produced enough to keep themselves alive and feed the worst off of the villagers. Stay alive, she had told herself. She still said it in her mind as she worked, the way she used to say her Aves to the Virgin in the old days.

  Xandra had been so clever, had hidden the horse and chickens and sneaked eggs into the house in a water jug on her head. She had made stout leather bags, filled them with corn, and suspended them from trees in her secret forest—high up where the government would not find them and the ground animals could not get to them. Not even the black howler monkeys could get into the heavy tanned leather sacks. When Yotté and his squad of soldiers came to confiscate the food they took all they found, but thanks to Xandra, they never found everything. Much as Alivia had thought she was saving Xandra, Xandra had also been saving her.

  When Salvador returned from battle, she had imagined he would know more about how to grow food, but he had never taken an interest in the crops. He knew everything about the cattle. But they had no cattle anymore.

  He paused, took off his wide-brimmed hat and mopped his brow. The sweat, she knew, came as much from the pain of his missing foot as from the heat of this muggy day. The sun was getting high now, evaporating the dew, making it too hot for this work, but tonight would be the full moon, which everyone knew was the proper time for planting crops that ripened above the ground. Just as two weeks ago they had planted yams in the dark of the moon. Corn had to be planted today.

  Always a quiet man, Salvador had been silent since the war. His heart seemed to hold secrets and little else. What once passed between them in bed—the depth and intensity, the pure satisfaction of it—had bound them to each other in a way no words could. But this war-worn Salvador had not come to love her. She tried gently to encourage him. One of his secrets, she thought, could be a woman. Manuela, the blacksmith, perhaps. He went along the road that passed the forge nearly every time he went away from home. Yesterday she saw him in the square intently discussing something with Manuela as if they had a secret. He had said he was talking to the lady blacksmith about something he wanted her to make for him, but he would not say what it was. Alivia feared the truth too much to insist. Wives were not supposed to question husbands, but while he was gone, she had lost the habit of th
ose old ways. Back then, he had never given her reason to doubt him.

  “What do you do with the food you put into your pockets?” She looked down at the kernels in her hand, not willing to look in his face. She felt his spine stiffen.

  “I eat it. The war has made me selfish.”

  “I do not believe you.” She looked up, but he was facing away from her again, walking and poking his pointed stick into the earth. “You have always been generous,” she said to his back.

  “War changes men, Alivia.” There was an ocean of sadness in his voice.

  “It changes women too.” She thrust her hand into the bag and pulled out more seeds and tried not to think of today’s hunger that they could not be used to assuage. “The padre says Luis is looking for the murderer of Ricardo Yotté. The priest is frightened.”

  “My brother-in-law is dangerous. I am afraid of him too.” He stopped again and this time they looked into each other’s eyes. “I heard from Josefina that Señora Lynch was at the Yotté house looking for valuable government papers. Yotté’s death must have had something to do with them. Gilda complained to me that the señora did not visit her and Luis when she was here. If Yotté’s death threatens Luis’s position with López, he will do anything to hold on to his power.” He whispered the last thoughts, though there was no one near.

  “I thought the comandante was secure in López’s friendship,” she whispered as well.

  “The mariscal will not put friendship ahead of whatever Señora Lynch came all this way to find. He has executed his sisters’ husbands. He has imprisoned his own brothers.”