Invisible Country

by Annamaria Alfieri

  They pulled on dressing gowns and ran to answer. Hector Mompó stood on their doorstep, wearing one of Ricardo Yotté’s French shirts, his leather apron, and nothing else but his silver spurs. He held up a string of small fish. “I have been over toward Valenzuela,” he said breathlessly, “to find food for the mothers of my children.” He gave them a rakish grin, but his weathered old face quickly turned serious. “A man there told me the Brazilians are only a few miles away and moving in this direction.”

  The comandante held his face neutral. “Did he say how large a force?”

  Mompó shook his head. “An army,” he said.

  “Traveling how fast?”

  He raised his bony shoulders. “He said some of them were mounted. An hour or two away? I ran to you as soon as I heard.”

  “This is good information.” The comandante forced the words to come out evenly.

  “What will we do to defend our women and our food from the invaders?” Mompó asked, as if such a thing were possible.

  “I will decide. For now, go home and wait for your orders. Do not spread this news and frighten people before we have a plan. Do you understand?”

  Mompó nodded. The comandante handed him a few small coins.

  “This does not change our plans,” the comandante told Gilda when the old man had gone. “We will end this war in possession of the estancia. I will arrest your brother. In the meantime, we cannot let panicked villagers prevent me from doing what I must. Go and calmly tell those fools to take whatever they have and hide in the forest. They should move toward the northeast, toward San José.”

  Gilda donned her bonnet and shawl before she went out, as if she were some proper English lady going out for a morning stroll in Regent’s Park.

  * * *

  By eight that morning, the plaza buzzed with news of the impending invasion. The señora comandante did her best to control the villagers’ reactions, but to no avail. Once people heard that the original source of the news was Hector Mompó, they went to him for the full story. Each time he told it, the number of invaders became greater, the swiftness of their arrival increased, and the devastation they were likely to wreck grew larger.

  At the door of the church, a group of eight or ten women wept and demanded advice of their priest. Having spent the last two hours sitting on the edge of his bed contemplating how he would abandon his priesthood and take Maria Claudia out of the country, the padre was totally unprepared to counsel them. When Gilda came to the church steps, she could not shout loud enough to be heard over the clamoring women.

  Mompó appeared with his things slung over his stooped shoulders. “Come. I know a good place. Go get your things. Meet me in the plaza in five minutes.”

  He turned and ran to knock on the doors of the houses on the other side of the cemetery. Gilda marched toward the forge.

  “Yes,” the padre said to the women on the steps. “Hector’s plan seems wise. Bring what food you have and blankets.”

  As they turned to go, the priest stopped Fidelia, a girl of about eleven. “Go to Maria Claudia’s house. Ask her to come to the church. I need her help.”

  He watched long enough to be sure that child would obey him. Then he went into his house to pack his own meager belongings.

  * * *

  As Salvador approached the clearing, he thought he heard Xandra speaking to the horse. He felt a pang for his poor, lonely daughter. He stopped to rest from the pain of walking and heard another voice, soft but masculine. He moved slowly, silently, like a hunter stalking a peccary, until he was close enough to hear their words. “But sometimes they get better,” the man’s voice said. He had an accent. Brazilian. Were there others in the area? Was this a single enemy? What was he doing with his daughter? Salvador had no weapon but his machete. He moved forward as quickly as he could without drawing their attention.

  “I want to see my brother.” Xandra’s voice was angry but not fearful, as if she were talking to a friend. “They say they are afraid he will be discovered. But they are afraid for me too.”

  Salvador sidled to the edge of the clearing. He saw no one. The horse neighed, Salvador quickly slipped behind a tree.

  “Whatever happened to your brother—”

  “Wait, I heard something,” Xandra interrupted.

  Salvador held his breath.

  “Birds in the underbrush,” whispered that Brazilian voice. He went on talking.

  Salvador moved slowly around the tree, making not one sound. They were inside the chicken coop. It was larger than it had been the last time Salvador was here—that day when the padre told the women to get pregnant. Alivia believed Xandra was with child. Salvador’s blood flashed hot. By this Brazilian bastard!

  He abandoned his cane, unwrapped his bundle, and grasped the machete. He rushed the lean-to, brandishing the weapon.

  “Papa!” Xandra screamed.

  A tall, lithe figure of a man clad in white breeches and a loose white shirt flashed past him. Salvador swung the machete but missed. The man vaulted the corral fence and leaped onto the horse.

  Xandra ran to her father and blocked his arm as he raised it to throw the machete. “Stop!” she shouted.

  The Brazilian kicked the horse with his bare heels. César charged forward.

  “Halt, César!” Salvador shouted, still holding the machete over his head.

  “Run, César! Go, go!” the girl screamed.

  The horse hesitated but obeyed the girl.

  “I am not your enemy!” the man shouted over his shoulder as the horse jumped the fence and galloped off.

  Gasping for breath, Salvador lowered the weapon and glared at his half-naked daughter. “Cover yourself,” he growled.

  She did the one thing he could not stand for her to do. She burst into tears.

  17

  Gilda left off warning the villagers. A few sentences to three or four of them had set off a wildfire of words. Women with bundles small or large on their heads, a few with young children by the hand, were already marching toward the woods north of town.

  Gilda glanced over her shoulder to be sure Luis was not watching and turned her determined step toward the casa Yotté. In addition to threatening him with death if he did not bring in Yotté’s murderer by the end of the day, López’s latest communiqué reiterated that the comandante must not disturb the Yotté sisters. Why? It could only be to protect the treasure that still must be there. Unlike her husband, she was brave enough to ignore López and go after it.

  “Oh, Luis,” she mumbled to herself. She had begun their engagement by imagining that his ambition would carry them to glory. Now he would be lucky if he saved his own pathetic life.

  She had a bolder plan. Paraguay’s gold must be in those trunks, which no one would have found if she had not told them where to look. “Oh, Ricardo,” she whispered. “If only you had loved me more than La Lynch.” More than any man, she wanted that gold.

  She opened her parasol as she left the shade of the plaza and took the road to the Yotté house. She froze in her own footprints. A wagon stood at the front door. Two trunks already weighed it down. Two men struggled down the broad front steps with a third, obviously very heavy, box.

  * * *

  The little girl awakened Maria Claudia by pounding on the door with her sandal. “The padre wants you,” the breathless child said. “We are running from the Brazilians. I think the padre wants you to run away with him.” She sped off.

  In the street, several neighbors hurried toward the plaza with bundles on their heads. She rushed to her bedroom and quickly threw on a tupoi, a blouse, and skirt. She rolled her mirror, her mother’s tortoiseshell comb, and her father’s Bible into a poncho. She took her old patched linen sheet that still smelled of their love and folded it in too. Her mind immediately went, as it always had, to prayer. She should ask God for forgiveness. She felt no contrition. Only joy. She placed her hand on her belly. Whatever magic was happening there, she prayed it would bring her his baby. If God was as good
as she had always been taught, he would give her a child.

  * * *

  Salvador hobbled along as quickly as he could toward the cabin where Aleixo was hidden. They would have to walk out. Without the horse, they would be lucky if they got six leagues before the comandante caught up and killed them both.

  He had left Xandra waiting for her lover to return. As if he would. Brazilian bastard. She had told Salvador of the soldier’s promise—the promise all men made when all they wanted was for a girl to open her legs. He wanted to kill the man who had done that to his daughter. And stolen his horse. The girl, of course, would not see sense, and Salvador had no time to convince her. He had to take his son away before the comandante discovered him.

  As he clumped through the forest, he began to hear people coming from the direction of the village. Foragers, he thought. But then he realized they moved too fast to be hunting wild pineapples. They were coming directly toward him. Had the comandante enlisted them to find him? He tried to outrun them, though a child of three could move faster than he.

  Saturnino Fermín, the plume on his battered hat bouncing wildly, ran by, followed closely by three women, one carrying a little boy on her shoulders. “Brazilians. They are invading Santa Caterina. Run away!” they called out as they kept going.

  Fools. They must have seen Xandra’s one Brazilian soldier and imagined a regiment was attacking. He continued, but in a few seconds another group came through. Had they all gone mad? “It is only one soldier,” he tried to tell them.

  “No, Señor León,” one said. “The comandante told us to hide.”

  “Come with us,” said another. “You have a machete. We may need that.”

  “I will have to tell my family,” Salvador said. He pretended to turn toward home until they were out of sight. Then he made for the boy. The closest way would take him near the road past the forge. He would risk being seen, but he could not move fast enough to go around. He prayed the comandante was too busy organizing the evacuation to come after him and his son. But he doubted the comandante would ever put the villagers ahead of his own ends.

  * * *

  Luis Menenez loaded his pistol and saddled his horse. He shoved food into a gunnysack with his pitiful store of six shotgun shells. He took their table silver and what was left of his wife’s jewelry in case he needed to bribe someone up north. He slipped the shotgun into the holster attached to his saddle and grabbed a coil of rawhide rope with which to bind up that son of a bitch Salvador. López wanted Yotté’s murderer today. The comandante’s first problem was where to look for his bastard brother-in-law. If León knew about the Brazilians coming, he might save his juicy whore of a blacksmith before he took care of his old, dry wife. No, he was too good of a man for that. He would do the right thing and protect his wife. The estancia was the place to look.

  * * *

  While Xandra waited in the lean-to and began to despair, Maria Claudia hurried toward the church. In the middle of the plaza, she came upon Rosaria, Alberta Gamara’s three-year-old granddaughter, sitting under a tree alone and crying.

  She picked up the girl and ran with her toward the priest’s—toward Gregorio’s house. The child’s dress was damp, and when Maria Claudia put her down to knock on the door, she saw a stain on the back of the child’s white homespun dress. The baby had peed herself while sitting on the ground. The mud made a stain, like a stain Maria Claudia had sometimes gotten on her petticoats when her period came during school. Wait. Wait. Her mind flashed with the answer. That was it. The red mud. It looked like blood.

  When the padre came to the door, she thrust the child into his arms. “We have to go to Alivia,” she said.

  He agreed. “Perhaps the news of the invasion has not reached the estancia.”

  “Not that,” Maria Claudia said. “It’s the mud. It looks like blood.”

  18

  Gilda pretended to visit the forge to warn Manuela about the invasion, but in reality her eyes focused on the cart drawn by two strong bullocks now leaving the casa Yotté by the north road. Four heavy trunks, trussed-up with leather straps, trundled off with her hopes.

  After warning Manuela away, she hurried to find Luis and make him overtake the wagon and steal back the treasure of Paraguay from that Irish whore.

  To her consternation, her house was deserted. Fear froze the skin of her back when she found the secret drawer in her desk open and her jewelry gone.

  * * *

  Alivia León examined her shelves of herbs, leaves, and gums: vanilla beans, polo de vivar, polo de barracho, içea roots, but nothing among them could help her. She now needed the cure so many had come seeking, an elixir she knew did not exist in this world—a cure for a broken heart. In her mind, old love songs warred with rage. Over and over in these last hours she had told herself Salvador had a right to beget a new son, but her black jealousy would not lift. When he announced he would take Alé away, her heart hollowed with a miserable conviction that her husband and son would disappear forever.

  When she heard hoofbeats approaching the house, she pasted a smile on her face for the husband she had been imagining she would never see again, whom she loved and desired, but who did not love and desire her. She moved quickly to the front door but instead of Salvador astride César, she saw Luis Menenez slide from his horse. Her bowels quaked at the sight of the shotgun on his saddle and the pistol in the holster at his hip.

  “Where is he?” he demanded without greeting.

  “I do not know. You can search the house. He left at dawn. I swear it.” She blessed herself to show that she was telling the truth.

  Menenez smirked and astonished her by believing her. He mounted his horse and galloped off.

  She gripped her hands together as if in prayer, but no god could help her. God had abandoned Paraguay. Then she saw Maria Claudia running toward her, with the padre following several paces back and carrying Alberta’s granddaughter Rosaria.

  “Look at the back of her shift.” Maria Claudia was breathless. She took the baby from the priest and held her to show Alivia the back of her dress. “See.” She pointed to a red stain.

  “This could be very bad,” Alivia said, “a baby her age bleeding there.” Some horrible possibilities occurred to her, but she could not speak them.

  “Not blood. Mud,” Maria Claudia said, as if that were greatly significant. “They left her under a tree in the plaza. She peed herself.”

  Alivia lost her patience. “Salvador is in danger.”

  “Has he gone?” the priest asked.

  “Just a little while ago.” Tears fell from her eyes. “Did you see Menenez riding away? He is looking for Salvador. Armed with a pistol and shotgun.”

  The priest thrust the child into Maria Claudia’s arms. “Where did Salvador go to get the horse? I will go after him to warn him.”

  “The hiding place is deep in the forest. You will never find it by yourself,” she said. “I will go.” She started running in the direction where Salvador had gone when he left the house. “Find the comandante. Delay or distract him,” she said over her shoulder.

  “What about Aleixo?” the priest shouted.

  “He is safe where he is for now,” she yelled back to them without stopping, hoping that what she said was true.

  “The Brazilians are invading Santa Caterina,” Maria Claudia called after her.

  Alivia quickened her pace. Dear God! She prayed it was true and that the Brazilians would stop Menenez. And prayed she could still find her children’s secret place where she had not been since her boys were little. She stumbled over roots and fallen limbs, imploring God to get her to Salvador in time.

  * * *

  Maria Claudia began to move back toward the town. The padre hurried beside her, carrying the child. “What are you trying to tell us about the mud?”

  “I thought I saw mud on Martita’s and Estella’s clothing the day you found Ricardo’s body, but it was blood, not mud.”

  He stopped in his tracks. “What? Marti
ta and Estella killed Ricardo?”

  “I am sure of it,” she said without slowing down. “It explains everything.”

  “Two people, each too weak to carry the body alone,” he said.

  “Martita had a big round spot on the front of her skirt.”

  “All the blood from the head that Alivia spoke of.” The baby had fallen asleep on his shoulder despite bumping along as he hurried.

  “That is why Martita has been so cold to me. She is afraid I know.”

  “It does explain a lot.”

  “I want to go to them and find out,” she said.

  “We have to find the comandante first. We have to save Salvador and Aleixo if we can.”

  “And Martita and Estella?”

  “We will go to them after we deal with the comandante.”

  “Deal with him?” The hatred in his tone froze her spine.

  “Hurry,” he said. “I wish we could do something with this child.”

  Maria Claudia’s mind was in such tumult she could barely blunder along at his side. “We have no choice but to take her with us.” In her heart, his statement about Rosaria turned into one about the child that could be starting within her. She had not looked past the point of wanting it. Every sinew in her wanted the baby. But did she want him to end up with a baby he did not know what to do with? He no longer a priest?

  She did not know who she was anymore. Innocent Fidelia who had come to her door that morning had said, “I think the padre wants you to run away with him.”

  She had watched him for years, so good, so helpful to the old people, so gentle with the sick and dying, so funny and lively with the children. How could she take him away from all that? Make him into a husband. Make him into an ordinary man.

  A stitch in her side stopped her and doubled her over, breathless from running in the heat of the sun.

  In a few steps he stopped and turned to her. “Are you all right?”

  “Just winded. Go ahead without me. Leave me the child.”

  “No,” he said. “I am not going anywhere without you.”