by Lily Tuck
Although nearly spring, it was snowing by the time Franco left the Tuileries and was walking back to his lodgings; the city streets were covered in a luminous white film. Snow was strange to Franco and he had no idea that it was not seasonal. Tilting his head back to the sky, Franco stuck out his tongue and let the snowflakes fall and melt on it.
22 MARCH 1854
Am I imagining this or is the man following me? I see him everywhere—at the Louvre, in the Bois de Boulogne, the other day at the Tuileries. When he speaks French, no one understands him. Worse when he speaks English. He wears the most outlandish costumes—and the way he walks in his fancy high-heeled boots as if he were not used to wearing shoes. But there is something curious about him as well, he seems oblivious of what people think, he seems not to notice they are making fun of him. Perhaps he does not care. Princess Mathilde says he is American and the Americas, she says, are full of gold. One only needs to dig in the ground a little. Gold and silver. How I wish I could get my hands on just a bit of it! I had to put Marie off for the third time by telling her I would pay her next week for certain. (How?) This morning when she was brushing my hair she was brushing it so hard I swear she meant to pull it all out. Much, much worse—a hundred, a thousand times worse—Dimitri leaves tomorrow. I weep for him already. My handsome, unreliable Dimitri! Please, please, I’ll do anything, Dimitri, stay—
“Ella, my love, open the door.”
On the day he left for the Crimean front, Dimitri had knocked repeatedly on Ella’s bedroom door.
“Ella, my darling, I am leaving now. I’ve come to say good-bye,” he continued, knocking louder, harder. “Please, Ella, one little kiss good-bye. One little kiss for good luck,” he added.
Too proud to beg and too vain to let him see her with her eyes swollen and red, Ella was lying on her bed, a pillow over her head, and she barely heard Dimitri’s entreaties.
In the end, Dimitri had gone; his face expressionless, Pierre, the valet de chambre, had opened the front door for him.
Weeping, Ella stayed locked up in her bedroom for three days. When Marie, the maid, knocked, she yelled at her to go away. When Marie left trays outside her door, Ella threw the food on the floor. When finally Ella emerged from her room, she had lost two kilos and had resolved never again to lose her heart or a man.
But, at heart, Ella was a gambler. As a child in Ireland, she loved playing games. Her favorite was called Wanderers in the Wilderness, a board game that consisted of maps of exotic countries with numbered tracks printed on them. Each player had to move his marker in correspondence with the throw of the dice, and each number represented a site. Ella could still remember how vividly and alarmingly the sites on the map of South America were described:
Site 10—Look at the large creature swimming up the river! It is a water-serpent, 40 feet long at least.
Site 17—What cry was that? So much like a man. O! there is an opossum with a crab he has jerked out of the water, pinching his tail in self-defense.
Site 22—Hark at the horrid sounds which proceed from the forest! It is the death roar of the Jaguar which an immense Boa-Constrictor is in the act of crushing to a jelly.
Site 66 was more dangerous still:
I see the track of CAYMEN in the mud. Ah! there is one. He plunges in the stream with an unhappy negro whom he has surprised in his tremendous jaws. Now the shrieks of his struggling victim are stifled beneath the waves.
In Paris, games were fashionable; at parties, Ella often had to wear a mask. Now her favorite game was one in which each person was given a piece of paper with half a saying written on it: L’amour est l’histoire de la vie des femmes and the object of the game was to find the person who had the piece of paper with the rest of the saying on it that matched hers: C’est un épisode dans celle des hommes.
How she finally met Franco.
On his way to Ella’s house, Franco was holding a large bouquet of roses when he saw a young woman on rue du Bac wearing the poncho made from samahu that he had sent Ella.
“But Mademoiselle—” Franco put out his hand to stop her—he was still holding the bouquet of roses—and the young woman reached up and took the bouquet. Franco started to protest—to tell the young woman that the poncho and the roses were not for her—instead he started to laugh—he understood that Ella was worth more.
The young woman turned and ran.
C’est un fou!
When Ella next went to the Bois de Boulogne, the gray mare she rode was gone. Furious, she waved her whip at the groom.
“You know perfectly well I always ride her,” she shouted at him. “I have hired her for the season and just because I have been indisposed for a few days, you take advantage of me.”
“I’m sorry, Madame, but Madame has not paid us and—” the groom tried to explain.
“Of course I will pay you!” Ella’s voice was shrill. “But meantime I don’t want anyone else riding her—is that understood? She is a sweet-tempered young horse and a bad rider could do her a lot of damage.” Ella was close to tears. “Who did you say took her out?”
The groom shrugged. “A foreign gentleman.”
“A foreign gentleman! You fool! No doubt you will tell me an American who is used to riding in the desert and chasing after cattle and has no idea how to ride a thoroughbred. Oh, how stupid, how unjust, how, how—”
Ella began to cry.
Franco had hired out the gray mare. He had bribed the groom. He trotted back to the stables, posting lightly, his reins loose and easy; he was not wearing his heavy silver spurs. The mare looked calm; she was not sweating or nervously bobbing her head up and down. “What a nice horse,” Franco said, dismounting. “I think I’ll buy her.”
“My horse—” Ella tried to speak.
“Ah, your horse.” Smiling, Franco turned to the groom. “Go ask your employer how much he will sell this horse for?”
Right away, the owner of the stables came out and named a price, a price higher than the mare was worth, and, without another word, Franco counted out the money and gave it to him. Then taking the mare’s reins from the groom, he handed them to Ella.
Naked, Franco looked better than he did dressed. His big-barreled, hairy chest and his short arms and legs were strong and powerful; the rest of his skin dark and smooth. Also, he seemed more at ease. He was graceful in his movements and he was not self-conscious about his body; right away, too, without Ella having to move or touch him, he was aroused. And, it was clear too that Franco did not trouble himself greatly over his affairs with women. He was used to women. They were like bread or water for Franco. Not special but necessary. The thought of it, for a reason Ella did not try to understand, was a relief to her. It also made it easier.
Afterward, Ella did not toss and turn and worry about how to pay the rent, the servants, pay for her dresses; she slept better than she had in months. In the morning when she woke up, Franco was next to her. He was snoring lightly; his hand lay on top of one of Ella’s breasts as if the breast belonged to him. It was Sunday and outside Ella heard a strange noise. A kind of music. Still dozing she listened to it for a while, then, quietly, without disturbing him, she removed Franco’s hand and got out of bed. A small crowd had gathered in the street outside her house; the crowd was listening to Franco’s Paraguayan band. This time the band was playing a native tune on their wooden harps and the music sounded both shrill and sweet.
A man in the band was singing:
Tovena Tupa~tachepytyvo~
ha’emi hag~ua che py’arasy,
ymaiteguivema an~andu
heta ara nachmongevei
Standing at the window, Ella listened.
Later, when Marie made up the bed, the sheets were covered with dark hairs. If she had not already known, Marie would have said a dog or an animal with fur had slept in Ella’s bed. But Marie kept her mouth shut; she had been paid finally.
That spring Paris had never seemed more beautiful; the chestnut trees that bordered the boulevards and avenu
es were in full white bloom; from the flower stalls along the banks of the Seine the scent of lilacs and lilies of the valley filled the air. In the parks, elegant ladies wearing huge crinolines—the latest fashion—under their dresses strolled arm in arm with handsome young men. No word from Dimitri but for once Ella was not troubled. She was ready for a change. “‘Europe’s decrepitude is increasing; everything here is the same, everything repeats itself,’” Ella told her friend, Princess Mathilde—she was quoting Lord Byron for more authority. “‘There, the people are as fresh as their New World, and as violent as their earthquakes.’”
Even while her music teacher played a new sonata on the piano, Ella, restless, fingered the gold earrings Franco had given her and tried to conceal a yawn.
Although never in his wildest dreams—and Justo José often dreamt strange dreams like the one where he was swimming in the ocean while, in fact, in his whole life Justo José had never stepped foot in any water, even bathwater, that reached above his knees—would he say this out loud nor did he dare even think it in case the woman Ella Lynch, like the woman in his village who was thought to be a witch, could read his thoughts, nevertheless she with her blond hair the same color as a yellow parakeet reminded Justo José of the woman whose name he could not pronounce properly—Eeyon—whom he had had to give the ten francs to.
Worse, the woman wanted the band to learn foreign tunes: tunes by composers Justo José had never heard of and whose names he was never able to say: Stross, Bisay and Waldtoofil.
Again and again Franco told Ella how, when he got home, he would transform Paraguay into a country exactly like France. “I will build an opera house, a library, a theater, wide avenues with paved streets, parks with tall trees. In addition,” he said, “I will make Paraguay the most important, the most powerful country in all of South America.
“One day, you’ll see, my dear,” Franco continued, “I, Francisco Solano Lopez, will be so well-known, so popular, so celebrated and famous that I will be able to do anything I want.”
“Anything?” Ella started to laugh. She was remembering how, according to Jules de Goncourt, Monsieur Balzac had wished for the same thing, only he had been more specific.
“You don’t believe me!” Frowning, Franco raised his voice.
Monsieur Balzac had said that he wanted to be so well-known, so popular, so celebrated and famous that it would permit him to break wind in society and society would think it the most natural thing.
Still laughing, Ella went over and kissed Franco.
“Of course, I believe you, chéri.”
26 SEPTEMBER 1854
In any event if I am not happy there I can always come back to Paris. It is not “good-bye,” it is merely “au revoir!”
Two
TACUARI
On a rainy day in November, Ella set sail with Franco for Buenos Ayres on his five-hundred-ton steamer, the Tacuari. The other passengers on board consisted of Franco’s retinue, his servants and his private band; the cargo included all the things Franco had acquired as well as all of Ella’s belongings: her Pleyel piano, her furniture, her paintings, her carpets, several sets of Limoges and Sèvres china, her silverware, her household linens and dozens of trunks filled with her clothes. Also the gray mare—a gift from Franco—whose soft mouth and comfortable gaits Ella had admired, was in a box stall filled with straw in the ship’s hold. In addition to her maid, Marie, Ella had engaged another woman, a woman to teach her Spanish during the voyage.
Doña Iñes Ordoñez came from the city of Toledo. However, the way she explained it, after her father, a cavalry officer and a member of the Progresista party, died saving the life of Colonel Garrigo—a fact she never ceased talking about—at the battle of Vicalváro, she and her mother had to flee Spain for France. Doña Iñes spoke español with the classic Castilian lisp. She had large dark eyes, an elegant long neck, and she walked with a pronounced limp—a childhood accident—even though she wore a bulky black shoe with a four-inch wooden sole. When a sailor tried to help Doña Iñes walk up the steep gangplank—she was carrying a heavy suitcase—she ignored his proffered hand and crossed herself.
When Ella first engaged Doña Iñes she asked her how old she was.
“I am twenty-eight years old,” Doña Iñes answered.
At the time, Ella thought Doña Iñes was older.
“Have you ever been married?” Before Ella asked the question, she knew the answer.
The voyage across the Atlantic was to take approximately three weeks.
The first week the wind blew steadily from the northeast, the sea stayed a uniform gray color and was not high; most days it rained and the deck of the ship was slippery and wet. At night, colder, the rain turned into sleet. Except for the sailors, no one ventured out. Also there was a bad smell on deck—a mixture of burning coal, bilge water, and cooking odors from the galley; worse still, when the forecastle hatch was left open, the odor of burning fat from the forecastle lamp.
3 NOVEMBER 1854
I have been feeling ill from the moment I stepped aboard this stinking ship [Ella wrote in her diary at the beginning of the voyage]. And reading out loud for two interminable hours with Doña Iñes hardly helps matters. The basin is never far out of my reach. And how I wish she had chosen to read a book such as Don Quijote de la Mancha, instead of the dreary tomes on religion and mysticism that she keeps producing—and never mind that I’ve told her repeatedly that being Irish does not necessarily make me devout. The hope to convert me, I suppose, springs eternal in her breast—what there is of it, poor woman! To make matters worse, Doña Iñes never smiles or laughs the way Marie does, and if I have to hear about her father one more time, I will personally throw her into the sea! What do I care about the Progresistas and the Moderados! All in all, however, things could be a great deal worse; I have hardly given Paris a thought and I don’t miss the balls, the receptions, the dinners—on the contrary, what a relief to do something different (although who knows what the outcome of this will be!)—and Franco is being most attentive—too attentive, I daresay! (I don’t allow him to smoke his dreadful cigars inside my cabin.)
Housed underneath the ship’s galley were a dozen bleating sheep, a sty full of pigs and several poultry coops. In the mornings, Gonzalo, the cook, a large, violent-looking man who wore a red knit stocking cap, sat by the door of the galley, peeling vegetables or plucking chickens. Regardless of the weather, he prepared huge meals for Franco. At a single sitting there was roast fowl, boiled pork, mutton, cheese, potatoes, turnips, which Franco washed down with wine, sherry, Madeira, beer and ale; Ella, on the other hand, picked at her plate and drank only a little arrowroot. At night, still wearing his red stocking cap, his greasy shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, Gonzalo sat by the galley door and smoked his pipe. He regarded everything and everyone—the sea, the sky, stars, women—with the same surly suspicion.
“Hola,” he called out to Marie. “Hola, chica!”
Franco was not a good sailor. The truth was Franco was afraid of the water and he did not know how to swim; at home the current of the Paraguay River was strong and the river was full of crocodiles. Nevertheless, despite the bad smells and the rain, he was more comfortable on the open deck than in his stuffy cabin. Wrapped in his cloak, Franco paced from stern to bow and back to keep warm and to forget the rumblings inside his stomach. Also he was restless, which made him bad-tempered. He shouted instructions at his servants, then, still shouting, he reversed them. He gave the boy in charge of shining his boots a bloody nose, he slapped a waiter for spilling gravy, he threw Justo José’s wooden harp overboard. Only in Ella’s cabin did Franco sit still for longer than a few minutes.
When Franco knocked on Ella’s door, the maid and the Spanish woman with the short leg left immediately. The Spanish woman was always mumbling to herself: Nuestras vidas son los rios, que van a dar en la mar, que es el morir.
Marie and Doña Iñes shared a cabin but the cabin was so small only one person could stand and dress in it a
t one time. Because of Doña Iñes’s leg, Marie slept in the upper berth and each time the ship pitched or rolled, she was afraid she would fall out. Worse, each time Marie sat up in bed, she hit her head on the ceiling. And Marie disliked Doña Iñes. Her superior airs; the oily lotion she put on her hair; her heavy suitcase, which took up too much space; her endless kneeling and reciting of prayers. First chance she got when she was alone, Marie went through Doña Iñes’s suitcase. Not sure what she was looking for, Marie found books. Books whose titles she could not read: La perfecta casada, Los nombres de Cristos, Camino de perfección, Libro de las fundaciónes, Moradas del castillo interior, Obras espirituales que encaminan a una alma a la perfecta unión con Dios.
“Tell me the truth, are you a virgin?” Marie one time asked Doña Iñes, although, like Ella, she knew the answer.
From the deck of the Tacuari, Ella watched the Peak of Tenerife gradually appear on the horizon, it looked like a mirage as, for the first time since they had set sail, the sun came out. The ship was making steady progress through the waves, occasionally some spray hit Ella in the face. Instead of wiping off the spray, she licked it. She liked the taste of salt, also the salt settled her stomach. Leaning against the ship’s railing, she watched a school of flying fish; the fish seemed to be following the ship. Their wings shone silver in the sunlight and, without thinking about it, Ella reached out to touch one. At that moment, abruptly, the wind died and, unable to change its course in time, one of the flying fish flew onto the deck. Stunned, the flying fish lay with its silver wings spread out like transparent sails. Before Ella could move or say anything, Gonzalo, the cook, was standing next to her, a knife in his hand. With one swift and expert motion, Gonzalo chopped the fish’s head off.