by Lily Tuck
Delirious, Marie called out: “Yvonne! Yvonne!”
“Ivan? Who is Ivan?” Ella bent close to Marie to hear. “Is Ivan Russian?” Ella thought of Dimitri, but Marie never answered.
On the fourth day, Marie was much weaker, she no longer recognized Ella or anyone.
“Look, Marie!” Ella told her. “Here is Ivan. Here is Ivan’s hand,” she whispered, giving Marie her own hand to hold.
When finally they got back to Villa Franca and their homes, the pretty thatched cottages on the bank of the Paraguay River, Gaspar and Fulgencio—without speaking or discussing it first with each other—never said a word to their wives, who likewise were sisters, about the foreign woman whom they had had to hold down while her arm was being amputated and who afterward died; nor did Gaspar and Fulgencio ever speak of the big manguruzu they had caught the next day with the hairy, long-tailed, blue-eyed monkey inside it.
When Commandant Gomez returned, he looked in vain for the large-assed village girl. Maria Oliva, he was told, had left Villa Franca in search of work—or so she had said. She had gone to Asunción, the capital.
Five
ASUNCIÓN
ASUNCIÓN 4 December 1855
Ma chère Princesse,
I cannot properly express the joy I felt when I received your letter and want to quickly reassure you that I am finally settled here in the capital after a rather difficult journey (I won’t tire you with the details), and I hardly know where to begin or how to describe my adopted country. Perhaps I should start by answering your questions since you were kind enough to show such an interest, although I just lately have become acquainted with these matters myself. As you correctly surmised, the first surprise was the weather, which is most agreeable and warm at this time of year (it is our summer) and I need wear only my lightest cashmere shawl when I go out in the evening. The second pleasant surprise, and what immediately impressed me, is the bucolic and peaceful nature of the countryside. (To be truthful, I had imagined something quite different, indeed like the unmapped and wild area across the river from us known as the Gran Chaco, which is made up principally of swamps and marshes, large parts of which are quite impenetrable.) Instead we are surrounded by gentle rolling hills, meadows dotted with orange and mimosa trees, now in bloom, spreading their perfume in the air and affording us with welcome shade. The cultivated land one sees is tidily fenced and divided into fields where maize, manioc and sugarcane are grown. Everything grows quickly and there is a great abundance of flowers, the variety and the colors are quite extraordinary. How I wish I could paint you a picture—is there not a Chinese proverb that says one picture is worth more than ten thousand words?
Franco and I are in the habit of riding in the afternoons (one of my greatest pleasures, as you know, dear friend, is horseback riding) and we ride down long grassy lanes that stretch perfectly straight for miles—again I wish you could see how green and lovely these lanes are! One would almost think we were riding in an English park! And everyone we meet along the way is very polite and takes off his hat and bows to us because—and this may amuse you!—during the reign of the dictator Francia, Franco’s father’s predecessor, everyone, on pain of death, was required to take off his hat to a superior, so that even the poorest country boy who had no clothes and went naked was forced to wear a hat for the sole purpose of taking it off! So far my impression of the Paraguayan people is that they are quite friendly and a bit childish in their habits and pleasures. The men are content to spend the day (and the evening) swinging in their hammocks, drinking tea. The women are more active and not unattractive to look at; they are slender and cut their dark hair short. They wear white cotton dresses called tupois, the petticoats are flounced with yards and yards of lace—they make the lace themselves (lace quite different from Valenciennes or Chantilly lace but nevertheless quite well made)—then the outfit is completed with a bright red sash tied around the waist. And did I mention this?—all the women smoke cigars! Guaraní is the local language (Juan Francisco’s wet nurse speaks only Guaraní), which is hard to understand and full of words with many syllables, as for example: “che oroipotáité cheribéricora,” which means “I should like you very much for my wife!” Thanks to my teacher, however, my Spanish is progressing splendidly and you would be quite pleased with my accent and how I roll my Rs.
Now to return to your questions—yerba maté (also known as Paraguay tea) is the principal export and you will no doubt be surprised to hear that I too, despite the bitter taste, have grown quite fond of it. Here, the people drink at least five or six gourds a day. Next, I believe, comes tobacco, then—I must ask Franco—although I do remember his saying that certain plant fibers used to make the dyes, such as indigo, are sent abroad. However, in my next letter, I promise you I shall be better informed.
Meanwhile Franco has many plans for the modernization of his country and the beautification of the capital. He has already begun to build a railroad, a telegraph line—the first one in all of South America—a new cathedral, a customs house, a library, a post office, an opera house modeled on La Scala in Italy—I can hardly wait for the first opera to be performed—and also a lovely palace for me!
I try to keep up my practice on the piano but the days are full and there is little time. The baby, Juan Francisco, is thriving; he has started to crawl and his nurse predicts that he will be walking in no time.
I hope this letter finds you in good health, and please be so kind as to give my best regards to Monsieur le Comte.
Your most affectionate friend,
Ella
P.S. Along with the lace, as a Christmas gift (or more realistically a new year’s gift), knowing how fond you are of animals, I am sending you a pair of parrots. According to Dr. Eberhardt, a naturalist who has lived in Paraguay for many years, these parrots (Psittacus passerinus is their Latin name) are among the smallest and rarest species. M. Bernard, the captain of the Flambard, which is due to sail from Asunción next week, has promised me that he will do his best to make sure the parrots survive the journey (even if, he has also promised me, it requires bringing the parrots inside his own cabin). One last favor I beg of you—in an earlier letter I believe I mentioned this—do you have any word yet of Dimitri? Or perhaps the Czar, your cousin, has news of him—you remember my friend, the handsome young count, who left for the Crimea?
The first time they met, Inocencia and Rafaela, Franco’s fat sisters, would not speak to Ella. They turned their broad backs to her and would not shake her hand.
“Puta,” Inocencia had muttered loud enough for Ella to hear; Rafaela had giggled.
Both sisters, however, took note of everything Ella wore.
“A lavender silk dress cut to here.” At lunch later that day—Inocencia and Rafaela lived next door to each other and they regularly ate their meals together—Inocencia pointed to her own heavy bosom and added, “With black satin trim on the sleeves and on the hem. Who but a woman of that sort would wear such an outfit?” Inocencia helped herself to more of the puchero—a beef stew with rice.
“Did you notice her shoes? The pointed toes? The high heels?” Rafaela asked as she spooned sopa paraguaya—manioc soup the consistency of pudding—into her mouth. “How can the woman walk?”
“And such an ugly hat—with the dangling colored ribbons. She looked like a parakeet.” Inocencia smirked. Finished with the stew, she reached across the table for the dulce, guavas drowned in a sugary syrup.
Asunción was built on a hill that rose steeply from the Paraguay River. From afar, the city, with its red-tiled roofs and buff and violet-colored houses decorated with pilasters and colonnades, its streets lined with orange trees, looked nearly pretty. However, a lot of the plaster pilasters and colonnades were crumbling, the streets were unpaved and made of sand, and, in the winter when it rained, they turned into ravines through which torrents of water flowed and became impassable. Most of the city’s population lived in miserable mud hovels. There were two main squares, one was where Franco was bui
lding his palace, the other, Plaza de Gobierno, was where at Christmas and during holidays circuses, fireworks and bullfights were held; it was also next to Town Hall, where congress met occasionally. One of the few two-storied buildings in the city, Town Hall bore two carved medallions on its façade: the one inscribed with the words República de Paraguay, under which were crossed branches of yerba and tobacco; the other medallion was inscribed with Paz and Justiza. Town Hall also housed the dungeons. The principal and only marketplace in Asunción was built on a marsh and was flooded most of the year; the women who came in from the country to sell their produce had to hike up their tupois not to get them soiled or wet.
When the dictator Don José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia died at the age of eighty-four, news of his death, Franco told Ella, was kept secret from the people for three whole days, in case the announcement was a ruse.
“How do you mean a ruse?” Ella asked. “A prank?”
“The announcement of his death could have been a test to see who rejoiced and who mourned him,” Franco answered. “Francia was obsessed with the idea that everyone wanted to kill him, to murder him. He refused to eat unless someone first tasted the food; when he rode through the streets, people had to go inside their houses, shut the doors and windows, otherwise they were beaten. No one was allowed to look at him, no one was allowed to touch him. To this day, people are still afraid to mention him by name; they refer to him as El Difunto.”
“The deceased,” Ella said.
“The jails were full of innocent people; he imprisoned and tortured them for no reason, according to his whim. Francia kept Paraguay isolated. No one was allowed to leave or to come into the country. Monsieur Aimé Bonpland, the famous French naturalist who lived in Corrientes, is an example. Francia destroyed all of Bonpland’s specimens and experiments, he killed Bonpland’s servants and kept Bonpland prisoner for several years before he finally allowed Bonpland to go back to France. Curiously, however, in the end, Bonpland did not want to return to France.”
“He liked Paraguay,” Ella offered.
“In a way, Paraguay’s isolation was not such a bad thing. It made Paraguay self-sufficient. Paraguay had to produce enough food for its people, enough homes, enough clothing. More important, it kept Paraguay out of wars, out of both foreign and domestic wars. It made Paraguay strong.”
4 JUNE 1856
Each day I learn a little bit more about this country. I read the other day that one of the first governors of Paraguay was a man named Carlos Morphi, which stands for Murphy—an Irishman! The country is full of surprises and is as unpredictable as Franco! One day Franco is as docile as a child, the next he is as unreasonable as a wild animal. But I have learned to be careful with him and not to show him that I am afraid. He hates people who act timid or frightened, “cowering dogs” he calls them; he has no respect for them. And he does not like people to complain. I have made it a rule never to complain—not about his ignorant sisters, his arrogant brothers, the stupid servants, the flooded dirty streets, the manioc stews, the guava puddings (which I have actually grown to like!), the heat, the flies—nada. For him, no matter how I feel, I always—
Pen in hand, Ella paused. She raised her head from her diary and looked at herself in the dressing room mirror. She smiled at her reflection. She was now twenty-one.
“Ella!” Franco was waiting for her. “Come to bed.”
Franco kissed Ella’s mouth, her neck, he slipped the sleeves of her nightdress from her shoulders.
“Such lovely skin,” he said.
Franco liked women and he liked to please them. If he had not drunk too many glasses of brandy, he was an attentive lover. More attentive than the Russian count, Dimitri, Ella had to admit.
While the baby, Juan Francisco, slept, Rosaria, his wet nurse, sat next to him with her lace pillow on her lap and a thick cigar in her mouth. In spite of its rough appearance, the cigar, a brand named pety-hobi, was mild and the lace pillow, packed stiff with straw, was filled with straight pins and bobbins made from bone. Wound around the bobbins was a linen thread so pale and fine it was nearly invisible; from time to time the thread broke. Except for those times—and then Rosaria had to stop and make a slipknot in the bobbin thread and hang it over a pin and bring the new thread next to the broken thread and fasten the two together with a half-hitch knot—Rosaria’s hands never stopped moving. Her hands went from one pair of bobbins to the next: crossing right, twisting left and crossing right again, as the braid of lace pinned to the pillow lengthened and dropped neatly into a little cloth pouch pinned to Rosaria’s skirt at the level of her knees. All the time too, as she made the lace, Rosaria was puffing on her cigar.
Bishop Basilio Lopez, President Carlos Antonio Lopez’s brother, refused to baptize Juan Francisco in Asunción’s Catedral de la Encarnación or, for that matter, in any church. In addition, Bishop Basilio threatened that any priest who performed the rite of baptism would be excommunicated. Franco appealed to his father, but Carlos Antonio was indifferent to Ella and did not want to get involved in his son’s affairs; also he had been influenced by his wife and daughters, who did not want Franco’s bastard son to be officially recognized and he sided with Bishop Basilio, his brother. Franco then sought out one of his schoolmates, Padre Fidel Maiz, but Padre Fidel was Inocencia and Rafaela’s confessor. Already he had heard enough about Ella.
Father, forgive me for I have sinned, on her knees, Inocencia confessed, I wished that a tiger might tear her limb from limb.
Father, forgive me for I have sinned, Rafaela bowed her head and said, I prayed that a crocodile might devour her.
Instead of a baptism, to satisfy Ella, Franco commanded a 101-gun salute in honor of his son. The reverberations from the guns were so powerful that they caused several buildings under construction in Asunción to collapse; also one of the imported English field artillery pieces had not been cleaned properly and it backfired. The battery landed on the hospital and killed and injured a large number of the patients in their sickbeds.
Far from satisfied, Ella vowed to seek revenge: May Inocencia and Rafaela break their stupid necks!
After Marie’s death, Doña Iñes found it harder and harder to pray. The difficulty appeared to be a physical one—something wrong with her mouth, with her tongue. On her knees, Doña Iñes would begin in the usual way, Hail Mary, full of grace, but heard herself say instead: Hell Mary, full of lace.
In the pocket of her dress, she kept a letter to Marie, written by someone who had answered for her sister, Yvonne. In the letter, Yvonne claimed to envy her sister: the unique opportunities, the adventures, the interesting people she was sure to meet. In an added postscript, Yvonne had asked Marie, please, to be certain to remember in her next letter to describe the taste of every fruit she had eaten in Paraguay. Doña Iñes had neither the heart nor the courage to write back to Yvonne.
Your Holiness—
When his brother died, President Carlos Antonio Lopez, an astute and clever lawyer, who ruled Paraguay efficiently and who usually got his way, wrote Pope Pius IX in Rome, asking him to name a totally subservient and ineffectual priest, Juan Gregorio Urbieta, as Basilio’s successor. Pope Pius IX refused and he was so outraged by the request that he accused Carlos Antonio of not paying the church tithes. The accusation was true, the tithes had not been paid in fifty years! Pope Pius also wrote Carlos Antonio that the new bishop would not be a man from Paraguay but a man of his own choosing. Finally, if these conditions were not met, Pope Pius IX threatened in his letter, he would excommunicate the entire Paraguayan population.
Your Holiness [Carlos Antonio wrote Pope Pius IX again],
I am quite confident that your holiness would not deem it necessary to close the Gates of Heaven to your dutiful and loving Christian children across the sea. However, should you feel compelled to do so, I am equally confident that our Great Lord, Merciful and Just as He is, would find the means and the space to allow His dutiful and loving Christian children across the sea a bit of room
in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Before he left France, Franco had invited a group of agriculturalists to colonize and to plant vineyards in the Gran Chaco, the large unmapped and trackless area of forests, plains and marshes that lay west of the Paraguay River. The group consisted of a few agronomists, a handful of viniculturists, but was comprised mainly of displaced farmers and unemployed laborers. The settlement was to be called Nuevo Burdeos, in honor of their native Bordeaux. According to the agreement, Franco was to provide each colonist with a house, as much land as he could cultivate and the necessary provisions for the first eight months in the Chaco.
When, after a particularly rough ocean crossing, the two hundred French colonists and their families finally reached Asunción, they were treated with great fanfare. Balls and receptions were given in their honor; Ella invited the entire diplomatic corps, including, of course, the French envoy, Monsieur Cochelet, and his wife, to a fête champêtre—the last good meal, no doubt, the colonists were to enjoy—on the banks of the Paraguay River to celebrate the official opening of Nuevo Burdeos.
At the time of their arrival, the area designated Nuevo Burdeos was completely flooded. For the first three months, the colonists and their families were forced to live up in trees. Later, when the waters from the Río Pilcomayo—the water from the Río Pilcomayo was salty, and because of a juniperlike shrub that grew on its banks, foul—and its tributaries had receded and the burning sun shone day after day without respite, there was no water to be had at all—not a single drop or enough for a bird, one of the colonists complained. To make matters more difficult, there were armies of ants, gnats and flies; there were poisonous snakes, crocodiles, wild pigs, tigers, a whole host of animals none of them had ever heard of or imagined; and far more dangerous still, there were the inhabitants of the Chaco, the fierce, cannibal Guaycurú Indians.