“The only reason Paraguay has lasted this long is because your men are fearless. The generals on both sides are shit.”
“My brothers.” She finally said it aloud.
He took her in his arms. “I am so sorry,” he said. “We were shocked, after the battle at Estero Bellaco, to find children among the dead. López could have surrendered, gotten terms, saved them.”
“My father says maybe the mariscal means to outlast the Allies. That if we do not give up, you will get tired and go home.”
“Not my uncle,” Tomás said. “He will never give up.
* * *
In that midnight hour, a mule-drawn wagon stole into Santa Caterina and approached the casa Yotté by moonlight. Señora Lynch had instructed the driver that no one but the ladies of the house should suspect what they were doing. As they approached, the driver prayed that the squeals of the wagon wheels would not wake the populace. Martita Yotté awaited them at her front door.
11
When the padre came to the door of Maria Claudia’s house well before dawn the next morning, his hair was tousled, not neatly brushed and pomaded as when he prayed. The sight of those brown curls in the blue light of the moon confused Maria Claudia’s mind and alerted her body. She held the door open only a few inches. Something told her to close it, but she could not move.
He did not take his eyes from hers. “I love you,” he said.
She opened the door and let it swing closed behind him. “You have forgotten your hat,” some numb part of her brain caused her to say.
He laughed in a youthful way she had never heard before.
She pulled her shawl around her nightdress and laughed too. “That was a stupid thing to say.”
He moved toward her, put his hand on her shoulder. “You are never stupid.” He leaned over as if to kiss her.
She turned her face away from his blue eyes bright with reflected moonlight and desire. “I am, at this moment.”
“I cannot live another day without you.” He took her hand and kissed it with passion, breathing in, as if he wanted to take her essence into his body.
He wore black trousers and a plain shirt, not his cassock. He looked like an ordinary young man, and she wanted him in the way of those fantasies she worked so hard to banish in the night. Fantasies that, if entertained, would be a sin and have to be confessed. He was her confessor.
“I have given up trying to resist,” he said.
“All those harsh dismissals of everything I said?” It sounded like a condition. She had not meant it that way.
“I wanted to keep you away from me, as if making you dislike me could stop me from loving you. I wanted to show God I could resist you.” He dropped her hand, and it fell to her side. “There was no use to it.”
“I am afraid,” she said.
“Of what people will say? Of the—of the sin?”
“Of losing you. If I let you love me, I will become your sin. One day you will repent and hate me as you will hate your sin. I love much more than your body. I cannot risk that your guilt will turn your love into loathing.”
They stood there, frozen for what seemed like several minutes. When she could not stand the silence any longer, she took a tiny step away from him.
He let out his breath, like a soundless groan, opened the door, and disappeared into the shadows.
“I love you,” she whispered to the night as it enveloped him.
* * *
At first light the following morning, Francisco Solano López drank his habitual brandy to stop the pain in his teeth and took up his pen to write new orders to Comandante Luis Menenez.
At that same hour, the comandante sought out Manuela. Her forge was under a flimsy roof next to her house of mud brick and thatch, on the outskirts of town on the pretty tree-lined road that led past the casa Yotté.
The blacksmith was a handsome, determined, quiet woman of the same short stature as most of the women in the town, although her strength made her seem taller. Her arms and legs were muscular and lithe from her work in the smithy: pumping the foot bellows and wielding the hammers. Not that there was much iron for her to work, apart from the occasional repair of a cook pot or fire grate. She had no metal to make anything new.
The comandante found her sitting on a bench next to her front door, using pliers to pull nails out of an old piece of wood. At the sight of him approaching, she quickly scooped up the nails and thrust them into the pocket of her heavy leather apron, as if she expected him to confiscate them.
“Hola,” he said as pleasantly as he could, trying to take a leaf from Gilda’s book about charming rather than beating information out of people. He had no idea what Manuela’s thoughts were on any subject. Her mother had died long ago in childbirth. She had lost everyone else in the war—her father, her brothers. But she had gone willingly to join the women lancers. Not that any of those bitches actually fought in battle.
“Buen día, Señor Comandante,” she said. She glanced in his eyes and then stared at the ground.
At least she was respectful. “I have come to ask what you might have seen.”
“Seen?” Her eyes were wide. He had never noticed before how round and pretty they were.
“I am investigating Ricardo Yotté’s death. You are the closest neighbor. You must have seen something to help me discover what happened.”
“I thought he died in the belfry. People say he was murdered, but I thought he climbed the bell tower to watch for the enemy and fell.”
“No, he was murdered.” He did not explain.
She offered nothing more.
“Did you see Ricardo come or go from his house on the day he died?”
“No,” she said as if apologizing. “I left home early to go to the cemetery before mass.”
“Did you see anything unusual in the days before his death?”
“No, señor. Before his death? No, nothing before he died.”
“But since?”
“Well, yes.” She sounded surprised that he did not know. “Señora Lynch came to console Martita and Estella, in a beautiful carriage with a tall man in a beautiful green jacket. They had lovely gray horses. Matched, they were. We have not seen such horses since—”
“Yes, yes,” he cut her off. They were all so enamored of López’s glamorous Irish whore and her fancy possessions.
“What about Salvador León? He walks along this road almost every day.” It occurred to the comandante that his brother-in-law might be coming to fuck this young woman with the sweet face and soot under her nails. Her lovely eyes betrayed something between confusion and fear. “He goes into the forest,” she said. “He must be foraging. I heard there is a tree there with honey in it, but I have not been able to find it. Perhaps Salvador has.”
“I will ask him,” he said, knowing she was being disingenuous. One did not visit a honey tree every day. One took the honey and left. Menenez walked away convinced that hers was the honeypot his sanctimonious brother-in-law was dipping into.
* * *
Maria Claudia left the bed where she had found no rest, washed her face, brushed her hair, and left her house. Agitation drove away any thoughts of the breakfast she could not eat because she had no food. She crossed the plaza toward the church that had been her refuge since childhood, but her steps dragged as she trod on the fallen jacaranda blossoms. The church was his province and not her refuge anymore. I want him, dear Mother, she thought, not knowing if she meant the Virgin or the vague memory of a pale, sickly woman who died along with her baby sister, when Maria Claudia was only six years old. She turned toward the cemetery and the graves of her parents and that infant she had seen only once, but could not forget.
She knelt and talked to her mother’s spirit, the way she used to when she was a little child. “Mama, why does my love have to be a sin? I want him. I love him. It does not feel sinful in my soul.” She could not say aloud, even to a ghost, her terrible fear: he would hate her now for rejecting him.
She lea
ned her head against the pink stucco tomb that held all that remained of her little family. Her father, who had loved and cared for her, but who also died before she had finished needing him. A white butterfly alighted on a flower before the grave; its wings had red and black tracings, like the pages of her missal.
A noise startled her into consciousness. She had dozed. She did not know how long. Estella Yotté was walking toward her family’s grave nearer the church. Maria Claudia rose quietly, but Estella jumped anyway. The pale, distracted girl gave her an accusing look.
“I am so sorry to have frightened you,” Maria Claudia said. “I was saying a prayer for my mother.”
Estella nodded. “You are so good at praying,” she said. “Please say one for Ricardo.” Her request was diffident, like a little girl who had no friends asking someone to play with her.
“Yes, of course.” Maria Claudia knelt at the Yotté grave and said a silent Ave, but she thought more of Martita and Estella’s parents than of their brother. Their stern father, Don Cecilio, who had sung so beautifully in church, his deep baritone filling up the space over their heads and sounding to them when they were children like the voice of God. Their mother, Doña Antonia, who painted watercolors of flowers in the garden and smiled benignly at the little girls as they played. An elegant mother beloved by a little girl who had no mother of her own. But Ricardo? He mortified her, treated her with disdain, making fun of her plain homespun dresses. When she won an essay contest at school, he gave her a sharp pat on her cheek—a gesture just short of a slap that stung enough for her to see that he meant to put her in her place. When she developed into a woman, he looked at her breasts one day and then into her eyes, and with his superior smile said, “Don’t get any ideas about me.”
“Holy Mary,” Maria Claudia said, “receive the soul of our brother Ricardo into your mercy.” She stood and brushed off her knees.
“I have tried to pray,” Estella said, “but I cannot stop thinking about the things he did.”
The iron taboo against speaking ill of the dead stopped Maria Claudia from agreeing. A few people were entering the church for early mass. The padre would be in the vestry, putting on the chasuble with the lace she had made. His hair would be neatly brushed and slicked down, two shades darker than she had seen it in the moonlight. How did he cleanse his soul to say mass? Everyone in the village went to him for solace and absolution. But he was like her. He had no one.
“Have you eaten?” Hunger had become what the weather used to be, what everyone shared and talked about.
Estella shook her head.
“Let’s go foraging. Maybe we can find some pipit eggs.”
Estella gave her a sheepish smile. “We have maize and manioc from the señora comandante. I will give you some.” She said it apologetically, as if it were a sin to have food.
Maria Claudia had said she would visit the Yotté sisters today, to find out what she could about Señora Lynch’s missing valuables and what Ricardo might have been doing just before he died. She had promised everyone at the casa León, before everything changed in the middle of the night. The bell rang inside the church. He was coming out of the vestry now, bowing to the altar and turning to the small congregation that came to daily mass. He would notice she was not in her accustomed place in the second pew on his right, near the statue of Saint Joseph. She wanted to see him, to look into his eyes and apologize again for sending him away. But how could she send such a message to a priest? He would be beginning the kyrie at this moment. Her stomach begged her to go with Estella.
“Thank you,” she said. “That would be very kind. Just a little boiled maize.” She linked arms with Estella and walked with her back across the plaza.
When they arrived, they found Martita in the kitchen ironing a frock as if she were preparing for a party. “What are you doing here?” she said to Maria Claudia. “We are very busy. We have no time for visits.”
* * *
Alivia kissed her husband good-bye. He was going to feed their son. She let her lips linger on his. He was hers again.
“On my way back,” he said, “I will go to talk to Manuela.”
Her skin prickled. She tried to tell herself she would not care if he was making love to the blacksmith. Salvador still wanted her. He had proved it last night.
“Where are you going, Papa?” Xandra asked.
“Foraging,” they both answered too quickly. The girl looked suspicious.
“Come.” Alivia took her daughter’s hand and walked out too. “If we are going to get the information about Yotté, we need to start this morning. Come with me to the village.”
Xandra readily agreed. “I want to visit my uncle while he is still at breakfast,” she said. “I want to force him to give me a bite of his morning chipa.”
“No, you will not!” Alivia said. “You will ask for him and wait in the plaza for him to come out. The padre said you should not go into that house, and so do I.”
“I know.”
As they started along the road to town, Alivia took her by the chin and looked at her face. “You are different.”
Xandra pulled away. “I am the same, only hungrier.”
Alivia did not believe her. If there was a man in the village the girl would have taken, she would have sworn Xandra had been with him. This sudden maturity did not come to girls out of the blue. Xandra had always been bolder than was seemly for a young lady, but her father had liked his daughter’s spirited ways. She had gained it playing boys’ games with her brothers. But the quality of her confidence had changed.
“Who do you think killed Ricardo?” the girl suddenly asked.
Alivia thought only of the mad boy. “There is talk in the village of men who came to the casa Yotté looking for those valuables. Maybe they killed him because he would not give them what they wanted.”
Xandra stared at her. “You cannot believe that.”
Alivia looked away. “Why not?”
“Because no one who wanted to know a secret would kill the only person able to tell it.” She nodded emphatically, satisfied with herself.
Her mother said nothing.
“Besides, if anyone wanted to get a secret out of Ricardo, all they would have had to do is threaten to break his pretty nose. He was not what anyone would call brave.”
“You are right about that.”
They crossed the stream, sparkling in the early sunlight, reflecting the flowering vines and trees overhead. The hills in the distance were a smoky shade of green. Everything around them was beautiful, except their lives. “This used to be such a happy place,” Alivia said.
Her daughter took her hand. “It will be once again, Mama.”
They walked hand in hand until they had to separate, Alivia to go to Alberta’s café, and Xandra toward the comandante’s house on the square.
Alivia kissed her daughter’s cheek. “Remember. You are not to go in.” The girl’s skin exuded a spicy scent. Her mother watched her walk away. She showed no sign of fever. There was no use asking what was happening with her. Alivia knew her. The more interest her mother showed, the less likely she was to offer information. Alivia turned toward the café and called out “Hola, Alberta!” as she approached the open door.
In the street before the Menenez house, cross-eyed Gaspár Otazú listlessly scraped a broom at some fallen blossoms. He stared at Xandra’s chest as he greeted her. “Buen día, Señorita León. What can I do for you?”
She stood perfectly still and waited for him to look up at her face. When their eyes finally met, she said, “Please ask my uncle to come speak with me.”
“He has already left,” the old man said with a sly smile. “He is a very busy man. And I am too.”
“Tell him that I came,” Xandra said. “I will return after siesta.”
“Do you want to take a siesta with me?” The old man fondled the handle of his broom. “Hector Mompó is not the only one capable of getting a girl with child. I may not have Ricardo Yotté’s clothes, but
I have my uniform.” He touched his lopsided epaulettes and fingered the single brass button on his shirt.
Xandra was about to say something about vomiting when she saw Maria Claudia walking faster than the heat of the morning warranted from the direction of the casa Yotté. She ran to intercept her.
“You look upset,” Xandra said.
Maria Claudia eyed old Gaspár and pulled Xandra out of his earshot to a bench under the trees. “I was with Martita and Estella. Martita acted as if I was intruding. She has never been rude to me before.”
“Did Estella tell you anything?”
“I had no chance to ask. I met her in the cemetery this morning. She offered me something to eat. When we got to their house, Martita gave me some maize porridge but hardly spoke to me. I felt like a beggar.”
“You found out nothing?”
“Just that Ricardo had been away the entire week before he died. He came home in the middle of the night.”
“On a horse?” Xandra asked.
Maria Claudia was shocked. None of them had thought of this before. If Ricardo had ridden his chestnut stallion home, where was it? The stable was at the back of the garden. She had not noticed a horse in it, nor smelled one. “I will find out,” she said.
“Did you see anything suspicious?”
“No. Martita seemed wary, as if she knew what I wanted.”
Xandra bit at her cuticle. “Maybe they will talk to me.”
Maria Claudia pursed her lips and shook her head. “You could try, but I doubt she would tell you anything. Except for Estella, I am Martita’s oldest friend. Why would she suddenly shun me?”
Xandra’s own thoughts chilled her. She looked around. Gaspár was still in front of the comandante’s house, looking at them. She leaned closer and whispered, “Maybe I should sneak into their house and see?”
“No!” Maria Claudia shouted.
Gaspár started to sweep in their direction. Xandra jumped to her feet, took Maria Claudia’s arm, and pulled her up. “Walk with me.” By the time they were out of earshot, she was hatching a plan. “I can go in at night.”
Invisible Country Page 15