At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig

by John Gimlette

  The Francos’ house was in an advanced state of subtlety. It had been so quietly tiptoed into its square of jungle that now I can remember nothing about it, except that it was newish and that all the portraits were of cows. As always, José only ever said half of what he might have said and his children said even less. But they were kind and solicitous and observed me very closely before submitting their reports to Virginia: ‘John hasn’t had any breakfast yet’ or ‘John has just fallen down the stairs with all his luggage.’ It was like finding myself among miniature pyragüés, now mysteriously copper-coloured and benign. The only member of the household to produce any volume was the parrot, who sang the national anthem all through dinner.

  ‘Here’s something that’ll please you,’ said Virginia, and gave me a newspaper cutting. It was Pastor Coronel, oozed across a slab of marble. ‘He died whilst you were in the Chaco. Heart attack.’

  The Grand Inquisitor was dead. Virginia was right; I did feel a certain satisfaction. I thought of her parents’ maid and Leon Cadogan who’d been unravelled by his cruelty. And Chase Sardi who’d lost his eardrum and the union man who was sawn into pieces. There were plenty of others. Coronel, by comparison, had enjoyed a comfortable retirement. Though he’d never left his air-conditioned oubliette, he died among his suitcases, still packed with dollars.

  ‘Everyone was at the funeral.’

  ‘You didn’t go, did you?’

  José and Virginia looked at each other, puzzled.

  ‘This is a village,’ said Virginia. ‘He was part of our life. That’s how it is.’

  Afterword

  LINO OVIEDO was released from prison in Brazil in December 2001 after the Brazilians wearied of his extradition proceedings. He has started his own party which will inevitably tear the Colorados apart after fifty-four years of rule. Right now, he hovers on the Paraguayan frontier, threatening the country with his own peculiar brand of redemption.

  My friend, JAKOB UNGER, gave in to his nomadic instincts and, in late 2001, he left Paraguay forever. He now works in a furniture factory in Winnipeg, Canada.

  The BRAUNS decided that they could no longer cope in their little cabin and they moved closer to the Krankenhaus in Loma Plata. They are now back in the heart of the colony that they helped to found seventy-four years ago.

  NURSE BAKER wrote with news of terrible floods in the Chaco. After that, her letters stopped.

  Things looked better on the football field. During the toughest World Cup 2002 qualifiers, Paraguay's goalkeeper-who-would-be-king, CHILAVERT, somehow scored four extraordinary goals and the Guaranís advanced on Japan. They eventually lost to the finalist, Germany.

  Meanwhile, ex-President RAUL CUBAS decided that he couldn't stand another moment in exile and, in February 2002, he returned to Paraguay in a taxi. He was immediately arrested and faces up to twenty-five years in prison for conspiracy to murder Vice-President Argaña.

  Two months later, another ex-president finally received his deserts, at least in part. After years of convoluted litigation, JUAN WASMOSY was convicted of defrauding the state of $6 million. Although he is the first president to have been convicted in modern times, no one is seriously predicting the beginnings of change. He was sentenced to four years imprisonment.

  At about the same time, Paraguayans were given a grisly view of their past. A TV crew picked up two left-wing politicians outside a covert police house, both men naked and lavishly tortured. Although the police protested that the men were dangerous kidnappers, Paraguayans would not fall for this one again. Cabinet ministers resigned in droves and in panic. President MACCHI responded as he always did, with unnerving sloth.

  VIRGINIA FRANCO still writes. Jose has decided on action and has thrown his weight behind a new political party, Paraguayan Solidarity. Though Virginia still sees her country in glorious ochre and vermilion, her letters are ever more threaded with anxiety. The future, as much as the past, is riven with uncertainty.

  Chronology

  Further Reading

  Jesuits

  Abou, Selim – The Jesuit Republic of the Guaranis (1609–1768) (Crossroad Herder, New York, 1997)

  Cunninghame Graham, R.B. – A Vanished Arcadia (William Heinemann, London, 1901; Century Classics, London, 1988)

  Cunninghame Graham, R.B. – Brought Forward (Duckworth, London, 1916)

  Hochwaelder, Fritz – Sur la Terre comme au Ciel (or The Strong are Lonely), (Samuel French, Inc., New York, 1954)

  Voltaire – Candide, Chapter xiv (trans. Prof. John Butt, Penguin, London, 1947)

  FDr Francia

  Rengger, J.R. and Longchamp – The Reign of Dr Francia (London, 1827, a translation of the French translation of the German original)

  White, Edward Lucas – El Supremo (Dutton, New York, 1934)

  The War of The Triple Alliance

  Baillie, Alexander, FRGS – A Paraguayan Treasure (Simpkin Marshall, London, 1887)

  Bourgarde La Dardye, Dr E. de – Paraguay: The Land and the People (George Philip & Son, London, 1892)

  Burton, Richard – Letters from the Battlefields of Paraguay (London, 1870)

  Cunninghame Graham, R.B. – Portrait of a Dictator (William Heinemann, London, 1933)

  Masterman, George Frederick – Seven Eventful Years in Paraguay (London, 1869)

  McLynn, Frank – From the Sierras to the Pampas (Century, London, 1991)

  Robertson J.P. and W.P. – Letters on Paraguay (London, 1839, 2 vols.)

  Thompson, G – The War in Paraguay (London, 1869)

  Washburn, Charles Ames – The History of Paraguay (Boston, 1871, 2 vols.)

  Eliza Lynch

  Barret, William E. – Woman on Horseback (Modern Literary Editions Publishing Company, New York, 1938; Peter Davies, London, 1938)

  Brodsky, Alan – Madame Lynch and Friend (Harper and Row, New York, 1975; Cassell, London, 1976)

  Varela, Hector – Eliza Lynch (Editorial Tor, Buenos Aires, 1933)

  Law Reports: IX Macpherson 860, Stewart-v-Anthony Gelot and William Mason

  Young, H.L. – Eliza Lynch: The Regent of Paraguay (Anthony Blond, London, 1966)

  The Mennonites

  Redekop, Calvin – Strangers Become Neighbors (Herald Press, Ontario, 1980)

  Stoesz, Edgar and Stackley, Muriel – Garden in the Wilderness (CMBC, Manitoba, 1999)

  Warkentin, Abe – Strangers and Pilgrims (Die Monnonitische Post, Manitoba, 1987)

  Utopians, Immigrants and Colonists

  MacDonald, A.K. – Picturesque Paraguay (Kelly, 1912)

  MacIntyre, Ben – Forgotten Fatherland (Farrar Strauss Giroux, New York, 1992)

  Mulhall – Handbook of the River Plate Republics, 1875 (p.400, ‘Lincolnshire farmers’)

  Plá, Josefina – The British in Paraguay 1850 to 1870 (Richmond Publishing, 1976)

  Thompson, R.W. – Germans and Japs in South America (Faber, 1940)

  Whitehead, Anne – Paradise Mislaid (University of Queensland Press, 1997)

  Chaco War

  Farcau, Bruce – The Chaco War, Bolivia and Paraguay 1932–35 (Praeger, 1996)

  Hagedorn, D. and Sapienza, A.L. – Aircraft of the Chaco War 1928–1935 (Schiffer, 1997)

  Thompson, R.W. – An Echo of Trumpets (George Allen and Unwin, 1964)

  Wewege-Smith, Thomas – War, Planes and Women, the Enthralling Story of an Airman’s Adventures in Love and War (Hutchinson, London, 1938)

  Zook, David H. – The Conduct of the Chaco War (Bookman Associates, New Haven, 1961)

  The Stroessner Years

  Alegria, C. and Flakoll, D. – Death of Samoza (Curbstone Press, 1966)

  Aren, Richard – Genocide in Paraguay (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1976)

  Chippindale, P. and Harriman, E. – Juntas United (Quartet, 1978)

  English, Adrian – Regional Defence Profile Latin America (Jane’s, 1988)

  Hilton, Isabel – The General (Granta No. 31, 1990)

  Lewis, Paul – Paraguay Under Stroessner (University of No
rth Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1980)

  Niedergang, Marcel – The Twenty Latin Americas, Vol. 1 (Penguin, London, 1971)

  Nazis

  Astor, Gerald – The Last Nazi (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1985)

  Posner, Gerald – Mengele (Cooper Square Publications, 1999)

  Seiferheld, Alfredo – Nazismo y fascismo en el Paraguay (Asunción, Editorial Histórica, 1986)

  Thomas, H. – Doppelgängers (Fourth Estate, London, 1995)

  Natural History

  Attenborough, David – Zoo Quest in Paraguay (Lutterworth, 1959)

  Durrell, Gerald – The Drunken Forest (Penguin, London, 1956)

  Kerr, Sir John Graham – A Naturalist in The Gran Chaco (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1950)

  Travel and Exploration

  Clastres, Pierre – Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians (Faber, 1998)

  Dobrizhoffer, Martin – An Account of the Abipones: an Equestrian People of Paraguay (London, 1784)

  Gibson, Sir Christopher – Enchanted Trails (Museum Press, London, 1948)

  Grubb, W. Barbrooke – A Church in the Wilds (Seeley Service and Co. Ltd, 1914)

  Hunt, R.J. – The Livingstone of South America. The life of W. Barbrooke Grubb (Seeley Service and Co., 1932)

  Iyer, Pico – Falling off the Map: Some Lonely Places of the World (Black Swan, London, 1944)

  Knight, E.F. – The Cruise of the Falcon (Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, London, 1887)

  Mansfield, C.B. – Paraguay, Brazil and The Plate (1856)

  Meyer, Gordon – The River and the People (Methuen, 1965)

  Tolten, Hans – Enchanting Wilderness, Adventures in Darkest South America (Selwyn and Blount, 1936)

  Walker, J. – South American sketches of RBC Graham (University of Oklahoma Press, 1978)

  Paraguayan Literature

  Roa Bastos, Augusto – Son of Man (Monthly Review Press, 1988)

  Roa Bastos, Augusto – I the Supreme (Faber, London, 1986)

  English Literature

  Conrad, Joseph – Nostromo (Penguin Popular Classics, London, 1994)

  Greene, Graham – Travels With My Aunt (The Bodley Head, London, 1969)

  Greene, Graham – Ways of Escape (Vintage, London, 1999)

  Kingsley, Charles – Westward Ho! (Macmillan & Co., 1889)

  Southey, Richard – A Tale of Paraguay (Longman & Co., 1825)

  General

  Kirkpatrick, F.A. – Latin America (1938)

  Lambert, P. and Nickson, A. – The Transition to Democracy in Paraguay (Macmillan, London, 1997)

  Las Amigas Norteamericanas – The Land of Lace and Legend (6th ed., 1983)

  Pendle, George – A History of Latin America (Penguin, London, 1963)

  Zago, Manrique – Paraguay, Land of Marvels (Asunción, Zago, 1997)

  Madame Lynch, the Irish courtesan who would be Empress of Paraguay. The Guaranís remember her in her ball-gown, armed, bloodied and erotic.

  Dr Gaspar Francia, ‘The Supreme One’ (1766–1840), whose brand of absolute power was much admired in Europe. He ruled with savagery, genius, madness and extreme probity (even returning his unused salary to the Treasury).

  Carlos Antonio López (1790–1862) who scared off all opposition by the sheer monstrosity of his appearance. Despite personal engorgement, his presidency brought wealth and European sophistication to the isolated republic.

  Francisco Solano López. Obesity and toothache brought out his less attractive side but diplomacy and warfare would reveal ‘The Monster’.

  The grave of Madame Lynch’s daughter, Corinne, today. She is buried in Recoleta cemetery, among those who – in life – had spurned her mother.

  Captain Richard Burton, whose bestseller brought the world news of ‘The Sebastapol of South America’.

  Robert Cunninghame Graham (1862–1936), explorer, rebel, gaucho and co-founder of the Scottish Labour Party.

  Wilfrid Barbrooke Grubb (1864–1929), the ‘Livingstone of South America’. He rode deep into the Chaco, introducing the Indians to God and vicarage teas, and was almost butchered for his efforts.

  From the left: the naturalist Graham Kerr with his rescuer, Chimaki, and another great survivor, the wily Dr William Stewart.

  Paraguayan soldiers with a jaguar in the Chaco, at around the time of the war of 1932–35.

  Present-day Chilupí Indians of the Chaco, wearing European clothes but living in another world.

  The Braun family, skinning a pig, the Menno colony, circa 1930.

  Support for Hitler in the German Kolonies of the 1930s. The Reich sent schoolbooks and flags and, after 1945, some 300 Nazis sought refuge in Paraguay.

  Dr Josef Mengele in about 1948. Never happy in Paraguay, the ‘Angel of Auschwitz’ was soon on the run again.

  Martin Bormann, Hitler’s Reichsminister. According to the Paraguayan secret police, Paraguay was his last stop – at least in life.

  General Andrés Rodríguez (1924–1997), smuggler-in-chief and usurper of the throne, he lived in a miniature of Versailles, and became unnervingly saintly.

  Pastor Coronel, Chief of the Secret Police and Chief Torturer. He re-introduced music to the art of interrogation.

  General Alfredo Stroessner, described by Graham Greene as looking like ‘the amiable well-fed host of a Bavarian bierstube’. His dictatorship lasted 34 years, outlasted only by Kim Il Sung. Stroessner took a 15-year-old mistress and called himself ‘The Lighthouse’.

  The monument to the Spanish conquista of 1537. In the background, the legislature, chewed by gunfire.

  The Pantheon of Heroes, Asunción. Based on Les Invalides in Paris, it took 60 years to finish. Each of the heroes entombed there met a violent death – or endures a restless afterlife.

  The President’s Palace, Asunción. Conceived by a builder from Chelsea, Captain Burton described it as ‘an utter absurdity’. It was completed in 1869 by slaves and children.

  Stroessner’s statue, safely encased in concrete.

  Lino Oviedo, ‘The Bonsai Horseman’. He threatens to tear the Colorado Party apart and return Paraguay to the army. ‘Slightly mad’ is the sober assessment.

  The empty plinth. With Stroessner gone, an enduring leader has yet to emerge. To date, democracy has brought only chancers, tricksters and plenty of anger.

  Loaded with logs, an Asunción steam train awaits its orders. The railway expends millions of dollars a year and yet not a cog moves. Nowadays it employs moonlighters, Donald Ducks and other ghosts of the Paraguayan economy.

  López’s navy, preserved in the slime of Vapor Cué. The Piravevé once served the Royal Navy as HMS Ranger. It was decommissioned by fire in 1869.

  Cowboys, or peóns, on the battlefield at Humaitá. Almost every Paraguayan has an ancestor buried in its sand.

  The ruins of the Jesuit church at Humaitá. The Brazilian ironclads pounded Humaitá at the rate of 4,000 shells a day at the height of the siege.

  The ‘Micawbers’ Shop’ at Humaitá. The chain across the door once kept the Brazilian ironclads out of Paraguay.

  An Aché woman breast-feeding a monkey. Early Europeans were quick to accuse the ‘rabid rats’ of bestiality. However, the full horror of their society was yet to emerge.

  The Aché chief with a bow and monkey arrow.

  Nurse Baker, providing the only help available to over 18,000 Chaco Indians.

  Maria and Hein Braun, Loma Plata.

  Jorge Halke of Neuva Germania, with his family and his ancestors from Berlin.

  Dr Enrique Wood, survivor of the Australian Utopia, founded in 1893.

  ‘Don Nigel’ Kennedy, last of the British Socialists of New London, and a veteran of the Chaco War

  Guaranís being led into slavery by the Mamelucos. By 1638, over 300,000 captives had been forced into the Sao Paulo plantations.

  The Basilica, Trinidad.

  From the reducción of Trinidad, views over the Jesuit Republic. The arts were encouraged but not originality.

  The
trencito, now abandoned in Puerto Casado.

  Between 1932–35, the little trains carried over 100,000 soldiers off to the brutal ‘War of Thirst’.