by Lily Tuck
Doña Iñes had become more and more reclusive, more silent and secretive; some days she hardly left her room. Other days she prowled up and down the corridors of Obispo Cue or she worked quietly in the garden. Sometimes, she walked over to the stables. (If it were not for the noisy thump, thump of the wooden sole of her shoe, she could have been a ghost.) In the stables, the grooms ignored Doña Iñes or gave her a just perceptible nod as they continued mucking out the stalls, raking up straw, polishing leather. They paid no attention to her as she limped from stall to stall handing out sugar cubes to the children’s ponies, to Pancho’s horse, to Ella’s Mathilde; even as she grew more confident and stopped to rub a nose or let a pony nuzzle her hand with his lips. However, the ponies and horses were always attentive to her. Pricking up their sensitive ears, they could hear Doña Iñes coming from a distance, they could even hear her as she crossed the garden, as she walked through the orange grove and up the path to the stable courtyard, and, when they did, the ponies and horses went and hung their heads out of their stall doors, and neighing softly, pawed the ground with their hooves, in anticipation of Doña Iñes and her sugar cubes.
16 JUNE 1865
The children and I went to watch Franco embark on the Tacuari. What a splendid sight! The sun was just going down, the band was playing and the riverbanks were lined with people—all of Asunción must have been there. Before setting sail for Humaitá, Franco made a speech in which he spoke about the holiness of the cause and how the God of armies will watch over our fate! Never in my life have I heard such cheering. It brought tears to my eyes and the children could hardly contain themselves they were so excited. Four other steamers filled with soldiers sailed right after Franco and then, as if on cue, the moon came out and shone down on us. A good omen, I believe.
The one thing that distresses me greatly is that Pancho insisted on going with his father. Nothing I said to him—the danger, the discomfort of camp life, the lack of companionship—could dissuade him. He was determined. He is such a strong-willed child! And since Franco did not disallow it and Pancho took his father’s silence as a form of consent, there was nothing more I could say. But Pancho is only ten years old!
On account of all these events I forgot to mention that Maria Oliva, the children’s young wet nurse, died of the measles a few weeks ago. Dr. Stewart, who examined her, asked me if she had been ill for a long time and I told him that I did not know but that Maria Oliva was always complaining and that, frankly, I thought she was lazy. Poor Federico—it was he who found her lying naked in a tub of water. He was quite upset, now all he talks about is death. Children are so impressionable. I have asked Baron von Fischer-Truenfeld to dine with me tomorrow evening.
The entire Paraguayan fleet, the Tacuari, the Paraguari, the Ygurei, the Ypora, the Marquez de Olinda (the Brazilian steamer the Paraguayans had overhauled), the Jejui, the Salto-Oriental, the Pirabebé, the Yberá (the Yberá lost its screw and was obliged to stop at Tres-Bocas), and six flat-bottomed boats called chatas, under the command of Captain Mesa, set out to capture the Brazilian fleet. The ships got off to a late start—the plan was to sail at night—to Riachuelo, nine miles south of Corrientes, where the Paraná River is two miles wide and divides around an island, then to sail past Riachuelo and turn the ships around. Only it was morning and bright daylight when the Paraguayan fleet arrived at Riachuelo and the Brazilians saw the ships and had plenty of time to get ready and take action.
Mr. Gibson, an English engineer on board the Paraguari, watched as the Brazilians shot through the Jejui’s and the Marquez de Olinda’s boilers—the Brazilian ships were screw-propelled and more maneuverable while the Paraguayan ships (except for the Tacuari and the Yberá, which was out of commission) were merchant vessels and carried their boilers above the waterline, which made them more vulnerable and more exposed to enemy fire. Mr. Gibson also watched as the Marquez de Olinda drifted downstream and as a large number of the crew were scalded to death—he could hear the poor men’s screams. (A few days later, when the Brazilians went to pick up the survivors, the captain of the Marquez de Olinda, who had lost his arm in the battle, ripped off the bandage and said that, rather than be captured, he preferred to bleed to death and die.) Meanwhile, Captain Mesa was hit in the chest by a rifle bullet and Captain Cabral, his second, had to take over the command. Next the Salto-Oriental’s boiler was knocked off and all the crew was shot and killed; finally, the Paraguari was struck broadside and the ship ran aground. A Brazilian steamer came alongside and ordered Mr. Gibson, the only remaining officer on board, to take down the flag or else he would be fired upon. Mr. Gibson complied but then, rather than be taken prisoner, with what remained of his crew he jumped overboard and swam to shore.
Three days later, after walking forty miles through the Chaco, barefoot—his boots had been swept away in the current—and without food or clean water, Mr. Gibson and three sailors, the only men left from the Paraguari (one man drowned trying to swim across the river, a second, who had tried to help the first man, was attacked and dragged underwater by a crocodile, a third man ate a mio-mio, a poisonous mushroom, and after suffering severe stomach cramps, died) arrived back at Humaitá. When Mr. Gibson was brought to Franco, instead of congratulating him on his escape and survival, Franco ordered him and the three sailors put in prison for a week.
The handsome and arrogant Colonel Antonio Estigarribia and his 12,000 men crossed the Paraná River to Uruguayana to wait for General Wenceslao Robles and his troop of 25,000 soldiers to arrive. Together, the two forces would invade the Brazilian province of Río Grande do Sul and destroy the Allied army at the Brazilian–Banda Oriental border, but General Robles never arrived. Instead, when General Robles got word of the defeat at Riachuelo, without informing anyone, he decided to return to Corrientes; and Colonel Estigarribia, while waiting in vain for Robles, made the mistake of dividing his troops on either side of the Paraná. Immediately, the Allied forces took advantage and massacred the troops on one side of the river as the rest of Estigarribia’s soldiers, who were outnumbered as well as starving to death, watched helplessly from the other. Refusing to surrender, Estigarribia, who in addition to being arrogant was well read, wrote the Allies long pompous letters justifying himself:
If Your Excellencies open any history, you will learn from the records of that great book of humanity, that the great captains, whom the world still remembers with pride, counted neither the number of their enemies, nor the elements…
And another saying:
Recollect that Leonidas, when he was keeping the pass of Thermopylae with 300 Spartans, would not listen to the propositions of the King of Persia, and when a soldier told him that his enemies were so numerous that their arrows darkened the sun, he answered, “So much the better—we will fight in the shade.”
Only in the end Colonel Estigarribia did surrender; and, in Corrientes, General Robles was arrested and put in prison on charges of insubordination and treachery.
For propriety’s sake, Ella asked a lady-in-waiting to join her for dinner. First she asked Señora Juliana, but Señora Juliana had a migraine; next Ella asked Doña Isidora, but Doña Isidora was away visiting her mother. In the end Ella had to ask silly, plump Doña Dolores. Wearing a red dress that revealed too much of her breasts, Doña Dolores arrived late—too late to help Ella dress, to lace up her stays and do up her hooks—and Ella was irritated. Also, during the meal, Doña Dolores hardly said a word. Instead, in between mouthfuls of the French food Ella had chosen especially—vol-au-vent, soupe à l’oignon, coq au vin, sorbet, Camembert cheese, and for dessert, poires belle-Hélène—and in between sips of Ella’s good French wines—Château Margaux, Château Yquem, champagne—she giggled. No matter what Baron von Fischer-Truenfeld talked about—the disastrous defeat at Riachuelo; the thousands dead at Uruguayana under the command of Colonel Estigarribia—Doña Dolores giggled, and each time her breasts inside her red dress jiggled. Across from her, Ella frowned at her—the baron was looking down at his plate, e
ating—Ella shook her head at her, Ella even tried to kick Doña Dolores under the table, but whatever she did made no impression. Oblivious, Doña Dolores continued to laugh and giggle. When dinner was finished, unable to bear it any longer, Ella sent Doña Dolores home. Then, after offering Baron von Fischer-Truenfeld some Armagnac she had brought with her from France, Ella went and sat down next to him on the sofa, where she let Baron von Fischer-Truenfeld put his arms around her and pull her closer to him.
All night, Mr. Gibson, the English engineer, remained awake; he could hear the prisoner in the next cell screaming. The prisoner, Mr. Gibson guessed, was being tortured. Shutting his eyes, he could well imagine the sort of ordeal the man was going through.
“Is it not true that General Robles agreed to sell the Paraguayan Army to the enemy?” Mr. Gibson heard the interrogator ask.
“No!” screamed the prisoner.
No doubt the prisoner was sitting on the ground, his legs and arms bound together, with a musket barrel tied behind his knees and with several more bound in a bundle on his shoulders so that his face was forced down against his knees.
“Is it not true that General Robles was sending his family, his household possessions, all his belongings, to Argentina?”
“No!”
First the poor man’s feet would go to sleep, then his legs and arms, next his torso, until the blood had no place to go and the pressure became intolerable.
“Is it not true that General Robles put all his money in a bank in Buenos Ayres?”
Since there was no answer, Mr. Gibson guessed that the prisoner had either passed out or had died.
Even in the sudden silence, Mr. Gibson could not go to sleep.
18 SEPTEMBER 1865
If only Franco had listened to the colonel! He should have marched directly to Buenos Ayres and taken advantage of the situation in Argentina, the state of revolutionary chaos and their complete lack of preparedness for war, and then Urquiza would have joined him. Instead Franco sent that fool Robles to cross the Paraná and that arrogant double fool Estigarribia to Río Grande do Sol, where he immediately surrendered! How many men were lost? Colonel von Wisner says at least 20,000 and our Paraguayan soldiers, he also says, fought like wolves! Franco is furious. I am told he refuses to see or to speak to anyone—nor will he listen to dear Dr. Stewart—and he has not eaten in several days (each time his servant brings him food on a tray, Franco throws the tray back at Mañuel along with several empty bottles of brandy!). No one will go near Franco; not even little Pancho. Must I then go to Humaitá?
In bed with Baron von Fischer-Truenfeld, Doña Dolores was giggling again. They had been lovers for only a few weeks and only since Doña Dolores had received the news that her husband, a lieutenant in Colonel Estigarribia’s army, had drowned when his canoe tipped over in the Paraná River. But time enough for Baron von Fischer-Truenfeld to have stopped trying to comfort her—when Doña Dolores received the news she had been inconsolable—or to have stopped trying to please Doña Dolores in the usual way. Instead, Baron von Fischer-Truenfeld put Doña Dolores over his knee, hiked up her dress and several layers of petticoats, unlaced her corset, pulled up her chemise and spanked her. When he was finished, Baron von Fischer-Truenfeld handed Doña Dolores his riding crop and she in turn had to whip him.
Dressed in a diminutive version of the same uniform—a crimson cape with a stiff lace collar bordered in gold—and wearing the same shiny patent leather boots, ten-year-old Pancho had followed Franco to Humaitá. Like a small shadow, Pancho never left his father’s side: he sat next to him while he ate supper, knelt beside him during mass, rode abreast of him while Franco inspected the troops—he copied just how his father ordered, yelled, joked (when Franco lit up a cigar, so did Pancho). Like his father too, the little boy could be arrogant and cruel or, at other times, kind and generous. Always he was unpredictable. The Paraguayan officers were careful with Pancho: they spoiled him; they deferred to the little boy; they brought him presents. Colonel Fernandez gave him a new chess set, Major Hermosa a handmade jigsaw puzzle, Major Sayas a picture book of wild animals. When word got around that Pancho collected them, several soldiers brought him enemy ears. Pancho strung the ears on a rawhide string, like a necklace, and kept them under his bed inside a wooden toy chest.
Ta dum ta dum ta dum dum dum, wherever Franco went, the band followed him and played the same tune. Each day, as Franco reviewed his troops, ta dum ta dum ta dum dum dum, and as Franco made a special point of addressing each soldier personally and by name, ta dum ta dum ta dum, and while he told the soldiers jokes—off-color, racist jokes, the butt of the jokes was always the Brazilians, whom he called “macacos”—Justo José never stopped playing ta dum ta dum dum dum.
Since his return from abroad, Justo José had married and had fathered four daughters—one daughter, the youngest, was born with arms that looked like wings, and the chances she would marry were slim. Nevertheless Justo José felt he was fortunate. Each time he thought about his trip to France, the awful journey on board the Tacuari, the bloodlike substance he drank that made him sick to his stomach, the woman who had lain motionless on her back on the bed and whose hair was the same color as the feathers on a parakeet—what was her name, Eeyon?—Justo José crossed himself and thanked his lucky stars. Also he had managed to save enough money to buy himself a brand-new thirty-six-string cedar-wood harp so that he could continue playing in Franco’s private band.
Justo José played when Franco withdrew his troops from Corrientes and when he had General Robles executed, ta dum ta dum ta dum dum dum (if Captain Mesa—lucky for him—had not died first of his chest wound, Franco would have had him executed as well, ta dum ta dum). Although the colonel was safe in Brazil, after he had surrendered, ta dum ta dum, Franco made sure that Estigarribia’s entire family was punished; his sons—the youngest was ten, Pancho’s age exactly—were imprisoned, tortured and shot, ta dum ta dum, his wife and daughters were robbed of all their possessions—including the little girls’ freshwater pearl earrings—then beaten and sent out to perish in the jungle, ta dum.
Ta dum, Justo José did indeed feel fortunate.
The day after Franco promoted Frederick Masterman from apothecary general to assistant military surgeon, Frederick Masterman, for the first time in his career, had to amputate. In fact, he had to amputate the soldier’s leg twice, first the foot, then since the gangrene had spread, the leg. Both times, Frederick Masterman was able to amputate quickly, the soldier was so emaciated there was little flesh on his bones to cut through.
The hospital had had three hundred beds but now that number had grown to a thousand beds, makeshift beds made out of strips of rawhide, beds made out of sacking filled with moss, that were jammed side by side in a single ward. Sent to Asunción from the front by steamer—a journey of at least two or three days—the sick and wounded soldiers received neither food nor medical care. Most of them died on the way and their bodies were thrown overboard before they reached their destination. When those who were still alive arrived, they were naked and famished but they rarely complained or cried out. They suffered in silence.
Already Frederick Masterman had counted 50,000 dead; after he had finished amputating the soldier’s leg a second time, Frederick Masterman counted 50,001.
ASUNCIÓN
20 October 1865
Ma chère Princesse,
Thank you for your letter of July 28, which I only now received—the mail has been unusually slow these past months—I am delighted to have your news. I especially enjoyed your description of your friend Monsieur Sainte-Beuve, whom you brought most vividly to life. In my mind’s eye I can see you both conversing in his “nest” full of books, papers and pens. How fortunate you are! I confess Monsieur Sainte-Beuve has always been a great favorite of mine. I vividly recall how I looked forward to Les Causeries du lundi and how I read Portraits de femme with the greatest of pleasure. In particular, I remember how moved I was by Monsieur Sainte-Beuve’s description of Madame de S
évigné’s love for her daughter, and how their separation only deepened this love. Now, of course, I cannot help but think of my own little Corinna Adelaida, who would be nearly ten years old if she were alive today. (In my head, I write her letters as well, however instead of addressing them to Provence, I address the letters to Paradise!)
Every day I thank the Lord for my good fortune and for my family and my friends. You no doubt would be surprised at the number of foreigners who now reside in Paraguay—engineers, architects, physicians, all eager to make their fortunes in this rich new world. Recently, I made the acquaintance of a Prussian baron who is most charming and who has taught me a great deal about this new telegraph system that he is installing in Paraguay; another new acquaintance is a distinguished and well-regarded journalist—he and Franco have the most lively conversations! His appreciation of music is a source of great pleasure to me and I particularly value his suggestions, such as La forza del destino, by Giuseppe Verdi—do you know it?—which will be performed during our next opera season; in the coming week, a Paraguayan lady whom I am quite certain you would like as much as I do—she is very lively and speaks half a dozen languages fluently and is married to a eminent Scottish physician who has made his home in Asunción—will accompany me to a ball in Buenos Ayres. So you see, dear friend, I hardly lack good company or entertainment! (I also look forward to receiving the books you so kindly promised to send me. I am particularly curious since Madame Cochelet, the wife of the French minister here, is of the opinion that Salammbô is vastly superior to Madame Bovary, which she found quite shocking and upsetting. Naturally I am much more inclined to share your opinion than hers!)
I must also tell you of my surprise and joy last week when I went to Humaitá (a fort south of the capital, which is beautifully located on a bend of the Paraguay River where Franco is presently stationed with his troops), and on my arrival—I barely had time to remove my hat and cloak—Franco greeted me with the news that he had managed to obtain a new piano for me! (The Pleyel I brought with me from France is over ten years old and is perpetually out of tune.) And you can imagine my further surprise and joy when I saw the piano—no ordinary piano, but a Bechstein! (The Bechstein belonged to a Mr. Delphino who, on leaving Corrientes, had to abandon his possessions.) More than ever, I feel inspired to practice, practice, practice…. Also, rather rashly, I have promised to give a few piano lessons to the daughter of the architect who designed my palace, a lovely and gifted young English girl.