The News from Paraguay

by Lily Tuck

  “Death is too good for the Saguier brothers,” Rafaela said, agreeing with her sister. Despite their show of outrage, both Inocencia and Rafaela were delighted. They felt their brother’s action was justified—and foreigners were not to be trusted. William Atherton had got what he deserved.

  In August, Ella gave birth to a second son, Enrique Venancio—named after her new friend, the colonel. Enrique’s birth was long and difficult and Dr. Henry Kennedy, who was away tending to a sick farmer in the country or-so-he-said, arrived only after Rosaria delivered the baby. At the last moment, Rosaria had reached inside Ella’s womb with her hand and turned the baby around. Dr. Kennedy arrived in time to give his hand—the hand, he noticed, was shaking again—to Doña Iñes, who was on her knees, outside Ella’s bedroom, and help her back on her own unsteady feet.

  2 AUGUST 1858

  Everyone says how one forgets the pain of childbirth but I swear on the head of little Enrique himself that I will not forget. The closest I can come to describing it is two huge horses setting their enormous weight on my belly and pulling me asunder—

  Exhausted, Ella briefly noted in her diary that night.

  Outside the rain fell in sheets, the road from Obispo Cue to Asunción would soon be a slippery river of mud. Every few seconds the sky was illuminated by a flash of lightning, the accompanying roll of thunder was almost continuous. Ella’s bedroom was damp and moldy and the smell of ozone filled the air; Ella shut her eyes and tried to sleep.

  “Fencing,” Colonel von Wisner explained to Ella, “is chess with muscles. Like chess, fencing has a limited number of moves and an almost infinite number of combinations.”

  “Foil, epée or sabre?” At the start of the lesson, the colonel had asked her.

  “Sabre.”

  With the foil and epée, Ella could score with the point; since the sabre has a point and two cutting edges (the full length of the blade on one side, a third the length of the blade on the other) Ella could score by both thrusting and cutting.

  “Stand in first position with your heels together and your right foot pointing toward your opponent.” The colonel demonstrated for Ella. “From first position, move your back foot eighteen inches and bend your knees. Your weight should be evenly distributed on each foot—pretend you are sitting on a stool. Raise both your arms, your fighting hand should be about chest high, the other hand slightly higher, elbows are pointing downward—” The colonel adjusted Ella’s elbow slightly. “Hold your sabre hand flat, palm upward, your wrist should be like this. Now you are in what is called the second stance: guarding/inviting Sixte. If you move your sabre hand to the height of your elbow, you are in guarding/inviting Octave.”

  Slender, coordinated, with strong thighs from horseback riding, Ella learned the basic moves of fencing quickly. Fifty times a day, her arms folded behind her back, she practiced advancing, retreating, lunging, recovering, hopping forward and hopping backward, advance-lunging, retreat-lunging, hop-lunging and appel-lunging—tapping the ball of her foot on the floor so that the lunge was done in two parts.

  Only one thing troubled Colonel von Wisner: Ella fought left-handed.

  ASUNCIÓN

  12 June 1859

  Ma chère Princesse,

  At long last my beautiful new house is completed and I am happily settled. How I wish you could see the fruits of my labor: the mirrors, the wall hangings, the furnishings, the fabrics, the wall clocks; I saw to every detail and you cannot imagine some of the difficulties I encountered. The workers—mere children some of them!—were neither experienced nor skilled but they tried nevertheless to follow my instructions (a case in point was my bedroom, which had to be repainted three times before the proper color, the palest of pinks imaginable, was found!). How I wish, dear friend, you were not so far away and we could exchange ideas on decoration and painting and gardening (Dr. Mora, a Chilean gentleman of my acquaintance, is assisting me with the garden) and I could benefit more easily from your good taste—could you perhaps send me a picture of Saint-Gratien?

  Lately Franco has been very occupied with matters of state since his father has not been in good health and much of the burden of governing has fallen onto Franco’s shoulders. Also, to much popular acclaim, Franco was able to mediate a peace in the Argentine between the two warring factions of General Mitre and General Urquiza—names probably not so familiar to you. Afterward, a Te Deum was celebrated in Buenos Ayres in Franco’s honor, banquets were held and a military march was renamed for him. In addition, Franco is engaged in many important projects of his own: railroads, a telegraph system, several new municipal buildings; one project that might be of interest to you involves the colonization of the Gran Chaco, the area across the Paraguay River from us. Although rich in many resources, the area is not yet populated or well cultivated and Franco’s goal is to encourage farmers from France to colonize and plant vineyards there. Thus, we too will be able to produce our own wine.

  I was much amused by your description in your last letter of the Duchess of Alba’s costume ball and of you dressed as a Nubian woman. How I wish I could have seen you with a blue tattoo painted on your forehead! No wonder, dear friend, you caused a sensation and I would certainly have agreed with M. Mérimée on the subject of your authenticity! Here as well, the ladies of Asunción enjoy going to balls. (Some of them last several days!) The most recent ball I attended was held at the quinta of Doña Eusebia Fernandez, a Paraguayan lady, and was in honor of her niece. The dancing, which began at sunset, lasted long into the next day, and, except for once at around midnight when supper and refreshments were served, never ceased. The orchestra consisted of half a dozen musicians with harps and guitars who performed mostly popular Spanish dances—the montenero, the media caña and a very odd dance indeed called pishèshèshè in which the right foot of the dancer is dragged across the floor making the sound the name of the dance implies. According to the custom of the country, and this will amuse you! everyone dances barefoot.

  In addition to horseback riding every day, I have taken up fencing lessons as a form of exercise; my teacher is a most distinguished and charming Hungarian colonel who is Franco’s father’s military advisor. The diplomatic community is quite large and varied and my acquaintances include the French minister’s wife, Madame Cochelet, and Mrs. Washburn, the American minister’s wife; we meet often to exchange our views on literature and the arts. We are very much looking forward to the opening night of our Teatro Nacional—the building is nearly completed—modeled on La Scala, and the performances by the well-known Argentine artists Señor Bermejo and Doña Pura. I promise to give you a full account of the evening!

  Meanwhile, my children, Pancho and Enrique, are very well indeed and I am expecting another child (I pray it is a girl!) early in the new year.

  With my most affectionate good wishes, I remain your devoted friend,

  Ella

  P.S. Looking back at your letters, I see that I neglected to write how sorry I was to hear the news of the one little parrot not surviving the journey. As soon as I am able I will send you a new mate for the other—however, you did not indicate whether it was the male or the female parrot who died. Parrots are said to live as long as we humans do!

  Ella was right, Franco kept another woman in a house in Asunción. In fact, he kept a succession of women, women with names like Juañita and Carmelita, names Franco promptly forgot. Was Carmelita the tall one who had sat on his face and Juañita the one who had knelt on the floor in between his legs? Nor did the women seem to mind what Franco called them; they giggled. If Franco had had to give a reason for the women, he would have said that Ella was always pregnant or pregnant a lot of the time. Another reason, a more truthful one, was that the women were a physical need, like eating or drinking or going to the toilet—Franco would only admit to the last crude comparison after several glasses of brandy. Women like Juañita and Carmelita did not matter to him. Rarely did he talk or make any conversation, he was not interested. If one of the women tried t
o tell Franco some fact about herself or her life—about how for instance Carmelita had a little brother who was ill or how Juañita started to tell him that she was born a twin but unfortunately the twin had—Franco right away cut her off and told her to be quiet unless she wanted to leave. Also he paid the women and, to him, it was like a business transaction.

  Federico Noel was born in 1860, Carlos Honorio was born a year later, and Rosaria had her hands full. And she did not have enough milk. To help her, Ella hired a girl from Villa Franca named Maria Oliva.

  “Are you married?” Ella asked. Something about the girl seemed familiar but Ella could not remember what.

  “Yes,” Maria Oliva lied.

  “And you have children?”

  “Yes.” Maria Oliva was telling the truth, in part.

  “Are you married?” Rosaria had also asked Maria Oliva the same question.

  “Do you have children?” Only Rosaria had asked the questions in a different tone of voice.

  “On the opening night of the Teatro Nacional, the high society of Asunción attended. In the box of honor, the broad-faced and corpulent dictator sat with his wife and two daughters. In the next box sat General Francisco Lopez and Colonel Venancio Lopez, sons of the dictator,” the Argentine journalist Héctor Varela was again there to report. “Madame Lynch was seated in the center box, gorgeously dressed and displaying many jewels. The gentlemen all watched her with definitely respectful admiration. The ladies gave her hostile looks, the meaning of which was perfectly obvious.”

  Varela continued:

  President Lopez is a really imposing figure. One rarely sees a more impressive sight than this great tidal wave of human flesh.

  During the entire performance, the president ostentatiously wore an enormous hat, quite appropriate to him and equally suitable either for a museum of curiosities or for the Buenos Ayres carnival.

  During the evening, which seemed an eternity, I watched Lopez for a sign of any impression produced upon him witnessing a play for the first time in his life. It was like watching a stone in the field. He is the master in the art of concealing emotions.

  At the end of the tedious proceedings, without any display of either approval or disapproval, the old monarch of the jungles glared momentarily at Madame Lynch and, with great difficulty, rose and left, ponderously followed by his wife, his daughters and the soldiers of the Praetorian Guard.

  The performance of the players can be dismissed with a line. It was as ludicrous as Lopez’s hat.

  That evening, Ella noted in her diary, in perfect agreement with Héctor Varela:

  The play was ludicrous and vulgar, and no wonder it appealed so to Inocencia and Rafaela. Frankly, I had to keep myself from laughing out loud. And never in my life have I seen such a silly sight as Doña Pura playing a maiden in love with a lion cub (the lion cub played by no other than her husband, Señor Bermejo!) I noticed that Mr. Varela, the handsome Argentine journalist, was busily taking notes. No need to ask what he wrote—shortly he will be here for supper.

  At supper, instead of discussing the play, Franco discussed the situation of the Argentine Confederation: how through his own intervention, a few years earlier, he had brought the civil war there to an end; how he had persuaded Justo José de Urquiza to retire as president and let Bartolomé Mitre become governor of Buenos Ayres.

  “You brought both stability and peace to the region,” Héctor Varela, a diplomat as well as a journalist, told Franco.

  “Doña Pura in her role as a Paraguayan maiden could stand to lose a few kilos,” Ella tried to change the subject.

  “A distinct political victory,” Héctor Varela also said.

  “Not only should Doña Pura lose a few kilos, she should learn how to act,” Ella said.

  Later, Héctor Varela could not conceal his admiration for Ella: “She was tall,” he wrote in his journal, “and of a flexible and delicate figure with beautiful and seductive curves. Her skin was alabaster.” Perhaps he was a bit in love with Ella himself and could not help exaggerating a little: “Her eyes were of a blue that seemed borrowed from the very hues of heaven and had an expression of ineffable sweetness in whose depths the light of Cupid was enthroned. Her beautiful lips were indescribably expressive of the voluptuous, moistened by an ethereal dew that God must have provided to lull the fires within her, a mouth that was like a cup of delight at the banquet table of ardent passion.” Even the smallest detail about Ella did not escape his attention: “Her hands were small with long fingers, the nails perfectly formed and delicately polished.”

  A lie, Doña Iñes knew, was a mortal sin; she wrote anyway:

  Dear Yvonne,

  Do not worry about me, I am happy and well. Since I last wrote you I have married a ranchero, his name is—

  Pen in hand, Doña Iñes paused. She was not good at making up names, then she remembered the priest, Padre Fidel Maiz.

  Fidel. We have a very nice house with a garden and I grow vegetables and flowers. In summer, instead of a bed we sleep in a hammock as it is cooler. Fidel is very strong and handsome; when he is finished with his work in the evening he takes me out horseback riding. I sit in the saddle in front of him and he holds me tightly so I am not frightened as we gallop across the fields to inspect the cattle. Every night for dinner we eat beef and corn and a bread I bake myself called chipa; afterward, if the evening is fine, we sit outside and I look at the stars while Fidel plays songs on his harp for me. If we have a child and it is a girl, I will name her Yvonne, after you.

  Your loving sister,

  Marie.

  P.S. You asked me to describe the fruit in Paraguay. The oranges and pomegranates are my favorites!

  On September 10, 1862, Dr. William Stewart, Carlos Lopez’s personal physician, held the president’s wrist and studied the steady progress of the second hand of his pocket watch, while the president, a mountain of flesh, lay on his bed breathing his last rattling breaths. His eyes shut, his face the color of putty, Carlos Lopez’s heavy head was supported by his favorite son, Benigno. Sitting next to the bed, his wife, Doña Juaña Carillo Lopez, sobbed uncontrollably while, standing behind her chair, Venancio, Carlos Lopez’s middle son, shifted his weight nervously from one foot to the other. In the street, a dog could be heard barking and the priest, Padre Fidel Maiz, moved closer to the foot of the president’s bed and raised his voice louder in prayer; looking up at him, Inocencia and Rafaela, Carlos Lopez’s two daughters, murmured back the responses. The dog continued his frantic barking until someone was heard to shout, “Zorra!,” and then that person must have either thrown a stone or kicked the dog because the dog could be heard yelping. Franco was the last to arrive; he walked into the room at the exact moment that his father died.

  In her pink palace, Obispo Cue, in her palest of pinks imaginable–painted room, Ella was lying in bed as well; she was giving birth to her fifth son, Leopoldo Antonio. This time it was a bright sunny day and her labor was short. In between contractions, Ella could hear the bells tolling.

  Seven

  LAKE IPACARAÌ

  January 1, 1863

  General,

  I have been touched by your personal letter and its warm recollections of your visit to My Imperial Court. Believe me, I assure you, that I too remember them with pleasure. I have had occasion to appreciate your noble qualities which do you honor and therefore it is with that knowledge that I congratulate your country in electing you to safeguard her destiny.

  It has filled me with great pleasure to look with admiration at the remarkable progress which Paraguay made under the rule of your illustrious father, may he rest in peace, and I have no doubt that under your wise and patriotic direction, your country will continue her progress along the path of civilization.

  In expressing my cordial best wishes for your personal happiness and for the dignity of your office, it pleases me to offer you my personal esteem. Insofar as I can, I pray to Almighty God to bless and preserve you.

  Given by my hand in the Palac
e of the Tuileries,

  Your good friend,

  NAPOLEON

  Franco was unanimously elected Gefe Supremo y General de los Exercitos de la República del Paraguay by the ninety-two deputies who were too afraid to speak out or to vote against him. His first official act was to put his younger brother, Don Benigno Lopez, along with Padre Fidel Maiz and Chief Justice Pedro Lescano, on trial for conspiring against him. Padre Maiz was sent to prison; Chief Justice Lescano was tortured to death; and Benigno, the one who fared best among them, was banished to his estancia in the north.

  Benigno’s mother, Doña Juaña, tried to intervene on his behalf. “On my knees,” she begged Franco. “Please. Show your own flesh and blood a little compassion.” She started to weep. “Benigno is not strong like you. His health has always been poor. He suffers from affections of the lungs. Up north, the dampness will surely—”

  “Enough,” Franco told his mother.

  “Wait, Franco, I pray you.” Doña Juaña joined her hands together and continued to plead. “Since you were small boys, Benigno has always looked up to you—not only because you were older—but don’t you remember the day you and Benigno were swimming in the river and the current was so strong that if you had not swum after poor Benigno and pulled him in, he would have—”

  “Bah, enough of these lies! You know perfectly well I don’t know how to swim,” Franco said, turning away from his mother.

  “Franco, may you—” Doña Juaña started to call out but she changed her mind. She could not bring herself to put a curse on her eldest son.

  On the way to his exile at his estancia in San Pedro, in the carriage, loaded with trunks and all of his belongings, bumping and swaying along roads that were no more than dirt tracks and that threw up so much dust, making Benigno cough so hard he thought he would cough up his lungs, Benigno blamed Ella.