Invisible Country

by Annamaria Alfieri

  Padre Gregorio Perez. He had told her years ago that, growing up alone with his mother, all he had ever wanted to be was a priest. When he was only five, his father had been killed, run down by a speeding horse cart, on their own street in Buenos Aires—Avenida San Martín, where all the houses had glass in the windows.

  She was a wanton. Her grandfather would curse her from the grave if he knew she had seduced a priest and wanted nothing so much as to bear his bastard. If she had a son, he would be barred from becoming a priest like his father.

  As she cantered on, the sun burning the back of her hands as she held the reins, she worried again that riding like this would ruin her chances of a baby. Did the padre know? Did he know that her loving him had become as much about his child as it was about him?

  The air changed around her as she neared the river, from the clearer mountain air in the hills to an atmosphere infused with moisture and light. Here people jammed the road. A few had carts with household belongings stacked up. A burro plodded along, his back piled high with firewood, led by three women, thin and pale, dressed only in tattered white tupois, moving like wraiths toward the water. Another younger woman about Maria Claudia’s age, also pitifully thin, clad only in a poncho cut from an old blanket, puffed on a cigar. She did not look up as Maria Claudia trotted by.

  An old man with a pockmarked face waved a battered straw hat. “You, boy,” he called from the side of the road. His chest bore a large wooden cross on a string around his neck. It took a moment for her to realize that he called to her. She waved and kicked the horse to press on, but they were slowed by the gathering throng.

  “Stop, boy,” the old man called. “Where did you get that horse? It has a sword. I see it.”

  She turned the animal to the other side of the road, out of the crowd, and kicked its flanks until she got up to a gallop.

  When the road turned south along the riverfront, her eyes followed the flight of a tujujú, a crane so large it seemed impossible it could fly. Suddenly she spotted the wagon lumbering along ahead of her. Martita and Estella sat inelegantly in the back on the trunks, and held gauzy white parasols over their heads.

  She trotted up behind the wagon, keeping her face shaded by her big straw hat. Next to the driver sat the handsome, slender man who seemed always to have been at Señora Lynch’s side. He held a huge tan umbrella over his head and mopped his brow with a lace-trimmed handkerchief.

  Estella looked half asleep, swaying with the movement of the cart. Martita wore a glove on one hand and bit the cuticle of her bare thumb. “You are sure the boat will not leave without us, señor?” she asked of the man under his tan umbrella.

  “Do not worry,” he said in elegantly pronounced Spanish. “Madame Lynch gave strict instructions. Monsieur Cuberville and Dr. Stewart will not let the boat leave without you.” He patted the box on which she sat as if he were patting her shoulder to reassure her. Then he said something to the driver of the wagon, which Maria Claudia could not hear.

  She nudged the horse to walk up beside them the better to listen. As she did, the driver slapped the reins on the mules that pulled the wagon and the elegant man pulled a pistol from the sleeve of his beautiful green jacket and pointed it at Maria Claudia.

  * * *

  Xandra looked over at her brother riding César in front of their father. Besides being bound at the waist, Salvador’s arms were around Aleixo and their four wrists were bound together with Salvador’s hands holding the reins. In that position, they would have to move as one person. Alé’s gaunt face was hardly recognizable. His arms, once muscular and lithe, had thinned so that the bones of his elbows were more prominent than his upper arms. Of all of them, César had come through the war the best off.

  The comandante’s pistol was now stuck into her back. Any wrong move on her part would mean her life. But César could certainly outrun Marengo. If the horses got into a race, the rope that bound her uncle to her father and brother might break. The comandante was heavy enough that perhaps, if the rope held, he would hold the saddle and Salvador and Aleixo would be dragged off. What would the comandante do in such a case? Shoot her? But what good would that do him? Her father and brother might get away, while he found himself bound at the waist to a dead woman. Not even her Uncle Luis would be stupid enough to put himself in that position.

  She had to do something. Her father would never risk harming her. If no one made a move they would all wind up in the moving prison the mariscal dragged around in his wake. Tortured. Dead, anyway. Better to die fighting.

  Her head pounded like the hooves of the horses on the road. Get him to drop César’s reins. Maybe she could do that. And save her father and her brother. And herself too, if she was what her brothers had called her—Afortunada. She took a deep breath and held it. “Help me, blessed Mother,” she whispered in her heart. Then she threw her weight sideways onto the reins that stretched from César to her uncle’s hands as she shouted, “Go, César! Go!”

  César charged. She and Menenez fell on to the rope. It broke. The gun went off. Marengo stumbled and crashed to the ground. She and her uncle, still bound together, lay sprawled half on, half off the horse.

  “Bitch,” her uncle barked. “I will kill them and you.” The gun went off again. On top of her uncle, she turned her head and sunk her teeth into his arm through his shirt. He yelped. “You miserable puta,” he growled. She butted him in the nose. He started to bleed and soon there was blood everywhere, coming from her uncle’s nose and from the horse. One of the shots had gone into the Marengo’s head. She twisted again and bit Menenez on the hand. He tasted as bitter as he was.

  “Mierda!” He dropped the pistol. She rolled and twisted and butted any part of his body her head could reach, keeping him from retrieving the gun.

  “Cunt,” he grunted and grabbed at her face.

  The disgusting taste of him still in her mouth, she bit him again.

  From a few yards ahead, her father shouted, “Halt, César!” The beast’s hoofbeats stopped and then came back toward them.

  “Son of a bitch.” The comandante tried again to reach the pistol lying a few feet away. She strained with all her weight on the ropes to pull him back. He rolled on top of her.

  Marengo shuddered beneath her. The big stallion was dying. Her uncle’s hands closed around her throat. She struggled, tried to gasp for air. Nothing. Her chest ached for breath. She stopped struggling.

  A shot rang and whizzed past her ear. The hands fell away from her throat. She choked and retched. The comandante’s eyes stared in shock as his last breath left his body.

  The pistol was in Alé’s hand. He and her father were still bound together. Aleixo looked into her eyes. “Bastardo.” He mouthed the word more than said it.

  She looked down at herself. She was covered in blood. But she did not hurt.

  “Querida?” Her father’s voice shook.

  “I am okay, Papa.”

  Her father managed to untie her hands and unbind her from her uncle’s body. She was freeing the rope around his and Aleixo’s wrists when they heard several horses galloping toward them.

  Around a curve of the road, she saw her mother riding with Tomás. They both shouted. Her mother jumped from the horse and ran to her. “My darling?” She touched the blood.

  “It is not mine,” she said and wept. “It is not my blood,” she told Tomás.

  * * *

  Maria Claudia threw off her hat. “No. Stop. It is Maria Claudia.” The driver reined in his mules; she did the same with her horse. Estella shouted her name. Martita hid her face in her hands and doubled over.

  “Do you know her?” the elegant man with the pistol asked. Estella nodded. The man pointed the pistol at Maria Claudia again. “Get down and get in the back,” he ordered. Her body, numb with fear, obeyed.

  He took the sword off the horse’s saddle and put it under the front seat and then tied the horse to the back of the wagon. He waved the gun in the direction of the port. “Keep going,” he o
rdered the driver. “They will not be happy if we delay them further.”

  Maria Claudia sat on a trunk, gripping its leather strap to steady herself as the wagon rumbled forward. Her legs and back were stiff from riding the horse such a distance. The box had the words “Stewart” and “Scotland” painted on it, and some other words that Maria Claudia could not understand.

  “What are you doing in boy’s clothing?” Estella asked. She and her sister were dressed in white lawn dresses, gripping their pretty parasols, as if they were going to an elegant picnic or a tea dance.

  “The Brazilians were invading Santa Caterina when I left.”

  The man in green put his pistol away and said, “You see. It is as I said. We did not have a second to spare. We were lucky we got away.” Maria Claudia was not sure if he was talking to the driver or to the Yotté sisters.

  Martita lifted her head and leaned toward Estella. “I told you she knew it was us,” she said, barely audibly to her sister. She put her face back into her hands.

  Maria Claudia looked at the man in green, but he was facing ahead again and talking to the driver in Spanish. She switched to Guarani and whispered, “I did not know until this morning.”

  Martita’s body sagged. Estella took Maria Claudia’s hands. “I didn’t mean to do it,” she said.

  “Why did you?” Maria Claudia asked.

  “We were in the garden early that morning,” Estella said. “He had told us the night before that he was leaving Paraguay. That the war was lost and our country would never recover. He was going ahead to Buenos Aires and then to Paris, to prepare for Señora Lynch. He made it sound as if they were going to live together.”

  Martita let out a sigh that turned to a growl. “He was a fool. What could a woman like La Lynch have wanted with a man like him? She seduced wealth and power. He had neither, except for what was connected to López. She used him.”

  Estella looked imploringly into her sister’s eyes and said, “I did not sleep all night. At first light, I went out to try and plant some beans. His leaving us meant we would starve. He came out and made fun of me. I begged him to take us too, or we would die. He said we would be a burden, that he needed to take care of the señora and her children.

  “He turned to walk away. I went crazy. I was holding a spade. I crashed it into the back of his head. It was awful.” Fat tears ran down her cheeks. “As soon as I did it, I screamed and screamed how sorry I was, but he just lay there. The blood was everywhere. He never got up. Martita and Josefina tried to wake him up, but he was dead.” She grabbed Maria Claudia’s hand and squeezed until pain seared into her joints.

  Maria Claudia untangled her fingers and moved next to Estella on her trunk and put her arm around her. Estella buried her face in Maria Claudia’s neck and sobbed.

  Maria Claudia looked into Martita’s eyes. “What about the stab wounds?”

  “I did that,” Martita said, “with a knife from the box of garden tools. Though he was already dead. To show Estella that I was killing him too. He deserved to die.” Her eyes hardened. “It was him, you know, who betrayed our father to López. He endeared himself to the mariscal by betraying his own father to prove his loyalty. They took our father and shot him. Our father wanted to go to Buenos Aires where our uncles had taken their families. But Ricardo would not go, and Papa would not leave without him. Instead of obeying, our brother reported our father as a traitor. When they shot Papa, Mama died of a broken heart. I stabbed him for that.” There was not a shred of remorse in her voice.

  Maria Claudia prayed in her heart for all of them. This was the family she had envied as a child.

  Martita’s eyes challenged her. “If you figured it out just this morning, why did you come after us? Surely you do not hope to bring us back to justice.”

  “I wanted to know why.” It seemed a silly reason. “And I had to get away from the Brazilians,” she added. Maybe she needed to run away from the padre and nothing more. “Why did you take his body to the belfry?”

  Estella lifted her head. “We hoped the padre might still be able to save his soul. He was mean to us, but we wanted to save his soul from hell.”

  Mean, she called him. Not evil. As the wagon creaked along, they sat in silence, Maria Claudia and Estella holding on to each other; Martita stiff and grim-faced.

  They reached the quay. A paddle wheel steamboat flying an American flag was anchored at the pier. It had two tall smokestacks in front and two decks surrounded by white railings. The words “Southern Cross” were painted on a two-story circular enclosure at the rear. Behind the charming American boat, a three-masted frigate and four ironclads, all flying the Brazilian flag, floated at anchor. The river had a dank, foreign smell.

  Señora Lynch’s elegant friend hailed four men who waited at the gangplank. Six American soldiers stood guard on either side. The driver brought the wagon to where they stood.

  “May I help you down, ladies?” one of the men asked in a pleasant American accent. He wore gray and black striped trousers and a black frockcoat. His elaborate whiskers hid his face, but his handsome eyes were bright blue, the color of the padre’s. He lifted Estella and Martita to the ground and bowed to each of them as he placed her on her feet. He looked Maria Claudia over. “Your maid has chosen a very practical outfit for the journey,” he said and winked at her.

  “She is not—” Estella started to say, but Maria Claudia handed her her parasol with a curtsy and cut her off. “No need to apologize, my lady. I am sure the gentleman did not mean it as a criticism.”

  “No, indeed, mademoiselle.” He offered each sister an arm. “It was actually very intelligent to wear boys’ clothing. Now that they are close to victory, the Allied soldiers are getting pretty raucous. But you are safe now here with us. I am, however, afraid I must hurry you along. Time and tide wait for no man. And not even for lovely ladies.”

  The three other men who met the carriage were helping the driver carry the trunks up the gangplank. A man they addressed as “doctor” directed them to a cabin on the lower deck.

  Maria Claudia followed the sisters toward the ship. If she walked up the gangplank now, this American would continue to assume she was their maid. He might let her go with them. It would mean the end of her life here. How much did she love the padre? Enough to go away? Too much to stay and ruin his priesthood? Enough to break both their hearts?

  At that moment a small, dapper man appeared on the deck of the ship and hurried toward them. He seemed so delighted that for a moment, Maria Claudia thought he was going to embrace the sisters. Instead, he rushed right past them to the man in green. “François, is everything here?”

  “Oui.” He launched into a hushed and conspiratorial French. After a few sentences, he pointed at Maria Claudia and whispered something.

  She hurried ahead to Martita, who was already halfway up the gangplank, and still holding the arm of the flirtatious American. “Please, señor,” Maria Claudia said, “may I have a word with my lady?” She pointed to Martita.

  Estella went ahead with the American.

  “Martita,” Maria Claudia said, “please take me with you.”

  Martita gave her a suspicious look. “So you can tell people what Estella and I did?”

  “Never,” Maria Claudia said with all her heart. “Everyone is starving here. I saw people along the road; you must have seen them too, just lying there, dying, maybe already dead. I just want to have a life of my own. They think I am your maid. They will let you take me. I will cause no trouble. I promise. I promise.”

  At that moment, the little, dapper Frenchman came up to them and bowed. “I am Monsieur Cuberville, the French ambassador,” he said. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.” He spoke to Martita. “I am informed by Colonel von Wisner that it is imperative that we take this person with us,” he said, pointing to Maria Claudia. “If the colonel says she must go, I cannot leave her.” He stretched out his arms and shooed them up to the deck, away from the last trunk, now coming aboard. Fr
om the way he held out his hands between them and the porters, Maria Claudia could tell it was the trunks he was protecting. At last he looked into her eyes. “I cannot let you leave, mademoiselle.” Deep inside her seething heart, she felt relief not to have a choice.

  Martita took Maria Claudia by the hand out of earshot of the others. “If you ever do anything to hurt Estella, I will kill you.”

  “I never would. You know I never would.”

  “Very well. Come then. I will give you some proper clothing. You are a disgrace dressed as you are.”

  The ship’s men had pulled up the gangplank. The man in green stood on the shore and watched as the sailors cast off and hauled anchor. The ship slipped its mooring and its engines rattled to life. Great puffs of acrid, black smoke rose from the stacks at the front. The great paddle wheel at its stern churned the water and helped the current carry them south. The men on the Brazilian vessels saluted as the big American paddle wheeler left port.

  The air grew cool as the vessel began to move. Maria Claudia stood with Martita and Estella at the rail, looking at the lush banks of the eastern shore. She had always heard people say they blinked back tears, but closing her eyes, even for a second, made hers flow. She forced her eyes to stay open to see her country as it passed in all its beauty and devastation.

  The broad and limpid river was lined with dense forest where tall palms jutted up above the line of the other treetops. Just south of Villetta, great white water lilies with bloodred hearts choked the shoreline. Their huge pads had turned up edges and looked like large serving platters at a banquet. A blue-headed jacana bird with a bright yellow beak alighted on one of them and drank from the river. Farther along, three ghostly women on the bank cast fishing nets and caught nothing, did not notice the alligator nearby with his white underbelly turned toward the sun setting over the trees of the Chaco on the western shore. Around another bend, the shore turned marshy and a chorus of animal and insect voices sang of the coming of evening. Four enormous rubicha vultures circled over a deserted village, reminding Maria Claudia that little boys and old men of Paraguay were still dying for a lost cause.