by Lily Tuck
It is mainly owing to the exertions of this handful of Englishmen that Paraguay, reduced to its own limited resources, has, under the direction of President Lopez, thus far been enabled to prolong the desperate struggle in which it has been engaged for upward of two years. Hence the natural reluctance of His Excellency to part with men whose services are invaluable to him and whom he cannot possibly hope to replace under present circumstances.
In the end, Mr. Gould had to be satisfied with taking the three widows of English mechanics and their five children back with him to Buenos Ayres.
“Idiota!” Benigno shouted at his brother Venancio. “Are you so blind! Didn’t you see what I discarded?”
Venancio and Benigno Lopez—at long last Benigno had been allowed to return to Asunción from his exile at his estancia in San Pedro—played whist nearly every afternoon at the quinta of their mother, Doña Juaña, in Campo Grande. Saturnino Bedoya, their brother-in-law who was minister of the treasury, played with them; the fourth player varied according to the day. Gumesmindo Benítez, the editor of El Semanario, played on Monday, Wednesday and Friday; the American envoy, Charles Washburn, on Tuesday and Thursday; Matias Sanabria, the chief of police, on Saturday (sometimes, if for some reason one of the players became unavailable, Rafaela was brought in to play with her husband and brothers). An avid and avaricious gambler—few people would play with him, it was too dangerous—Benigno kept raising the stakes during the game. Venancio, who worried about his health, coughed into his handkerchief but did not dare complain. His younger brother had a terrible temper and Venancio felt too unwell to risk provoking him.
“I, I—” Red in the face, Venancio could not stop coughing.
“Rafaela!” Saturnino called. “Fetch Venancio some water before he chokes to death.”
“So tell me, Saturnino, what have you heard?” Benigno turned to him.
Saturnino shook his head. “Not good news. Franco’s victory at Curupayty was short-lived. He left Humaitá three days ago, the Allies have the fort surrounded. Franco has crossed the river with his troops into the Chaco.”
“The Chaco?” Rafaela had returned with a glass of water, with her free hand she crossed herself. “Good Lord! He’ll be eaten by tigres.”
“Be quiet, Rafaela,” Saturnino said.
“Franco has been forced to retreat. If I could, I swear I would leave the country right now,” Benigno said, ignoring his sister and brother-in-law. “Better to leave everything behind. Better to save one’s life.”
“Ah, if only I had my health,” Venancio sighed—he had stopped coughing at last. The minister of war and marine, Venancio was the least intelligent of the three brothers but the best liked; he would have preferred a life of quiet ease, with no responsibilities, on one of his estancias.
“And have you heard any news, Don Venancio?” Charles Washburn—it was a Thursday afternoon—who was sitting across from Saturnino Bedoya, turned and asked.
“Non sé nada.” Venancio cleared his throat. He hoped he would not start up again.
“That’s what you always say.” Benigno made a face at his brother.
“I saw Monsieur Cuberville, the new French minister, the other day,” Charles Washburn continued, looking intently at his cards and not at Benigno. “He told me that he had spoken to you, Don Benigno. He told me that you had speculated on who could replace your brother, the president.”
“Tomorrow, I must see the doctor about my cough,” Venancio said to no one in particular.
“Bah!” Benigno shouted. “Cuberville drinks too much wine. He is a drunk and a liar! Do you think I’ve gone mad? Franco would have my head if he heard such talk.”
“No doubt, he already has,” Charles Washburn said as he trumped the last card, which had been laid down by Venancio.
“Imbécil!” Benigno got up from his chair so brusquely that he upset the card table.
A partial list of the names of the women who offered to take up arms for Paraguay:
Juaña Tomas Frutos
Brigida Chaves
Carmencita Chaves
Doña Carolina Gill
Isabella Carreras
Dolores Bérges
Maria Incarnación Rodriguez
Juliana Mañuela Sanchez
Maria Fernandez
Juaña Pura Mendoza
Rosaria was tired. The children seemed too big and noisy all of a sudden. She had no patience and she shouted at them—and how many times had she told Carlos Honorio to keep his dirty little animal in a cage? Also, her eyesight was no longer what it used to be and she had a hard time threading her bobbins to make lace. From time to time, she still made chipa. Kneading the manioc with the melted new cheese, the fat, the salt, the coriander seeds, soothed the stiffness in her fingers, and she got pleasure from braiding the bread into fanciful shapes. On an impulse one day, she baked a loaf of chipa with a particularly artful design and gave it to Doña Iñes.
Colonel Enrique von Wisner, Franco’s military advisor, could report only what Franco wanted to hear and Franco did not want to hear that the Allied forces numbered over 48,000 men—40,000 were Brazilians, 7,000 Argentines and 1,000 Orientals—while the Paraguayan forces numbered only 20,000 men. Franco did not want to hear that most of the 20,000 were either old men or twelve-year-old boys, that most of the men were either sick or wounded and that the rest of the men were worn out from fatigue and malnutrition. Franco did not want to hear that his soldiers were half starved and half naked—they wore bits of tanned leather and ragged shirts sewn from the fibers of the wild pineapple and when it got cold they made ponchos out of dried hides, hides so stiff they could not move their arms. Franco did not want to hear that paper was scarce and ink had to be made from a black bean paste. Franco did not want to hear that very little drugs or medicine were left in the hospitals and that cholera and smallpox were spreading. And last but not least, Franco did not want to hear that most of the few hundred horses that remained were so weak and emaciated, they could barely carry their riders; the cattle, too, were in a terrible state and dying for lack of pasture.
Ella was watching her children play in the garden; a short distance away, Doña Iñes was kneeling in the zinnia bed. Doña Iñes wore a straw hat and one leg—the injured leg—stuck out awkwardly from under her brown skirt. Ella could see the thick wooden-soled shoe.
Carlos Honorio was shouting, “Tira le! Tira le!”
“Matar los macacos!” Enrique shouted back.
Leopoldo yelled, “Aiii! Una bala me hirió en el brazo!”
Why, Ella wondered, couldn’t the children play something more pacific for a change?
“Doña Iñes, how are you today?” Walking over to her, Ella began, “I see you like to garden.”
Doña Iñes pulled up a dandelion green. “When I was a child I used to pick these for my father’s rabbits. Before my father was killed at the battle of Vicalváro, my father raised rabbits.” Then, looking up, Doña Iñes asked, “How is Mathilde?”
“Princess Mathilde?” Ella could not hide her surprise. “It has been several months since I have received a letter from her. Why do you ask?”
“I was speaking about your horse.”
“Oh.”
After a moment Ella started to say something else, “Doña Iñes, as you must realize the country is at war and I worry for your safety. Battles are being fought not far from us and each day becomes more dangerous—” But she was interrupted by one of the children’s cries.
Once Ella had tended to Carlos Honorio’s wound, a bloody nose, and scolded Enrique, she turned back to Doña Iñes, but Doña Iñes was gone. Still later, when Ella returned to her bedroom, she found a vase filled with bright zinnias on her dressing table.
Héctor Varela, the handsome journalist from Buenos Ayres, no longer traveled to Paraguay; there were no more balls or theater performances in Asunción for him to report. Instead he had to report on the battles and revolutions closer to home. One such revolution forced Bartolemé Mitre to retur
n to Argentina (actually that proved to be a good thing, for Mitre survived the war to write a history of the emancipation of his country); another revolution in the Banda Oriental forced Venancio Flores to go back home as well, but he was not as fortunate. He was stabbed in the throat by a Blanco and bled to death in the streets of Montevideo while his wife, Maria, who was with him at the time, tried in vain—an artery had been severed—to stop the bleeding by putting her bare hands on her husband’s neck and applying pressure.
His beloved Maria!
A poem published in the Lambarè, a popular Guaraní newspaper, that praised Franco and ridiculed the enemy—the Duke de Caxias, Bartolemé Mitre, Venancio Flores (although he had died) and Dom Pedro of Brazil—became so popular, it was set to music. Pancho learned the verses by heart.
Where is Caxias
With all his tortoises?
Why does he not come
With his troop of monkeys?
Pancho was nearly thirteen and, at times, although he would never admit to it, he missed his mother. He missed his brothers and missed playing games with them. At other times, he did not mind so much. He read his books, he did his jigsaw puzzles, he strung up his necklace of ears.
What has Bartolo done,
And that thieving ass
Whom they call Flores,
Those sons of the devil?
One of the women who had offered to take up arms for Paraguay was young and pretty. Her name was Juliana Mañuela Sanchez. Juliana Mañuela Sanchez worked digging trenches and Pancho liked to watch how her small breasts moved inside her blouse when she dug into the ground with her shovel. He thought about how it would feel to touch her breasts and he thought he might give her his necklace of ears if she let him.
To the old monkey Peter
Both have sold themselves;
And have brought to be killed
Very many of their countrymen.
One day, as Juliana Mañuela Sanchez was shoveling earth, Pancho got up the courage to speak to her. He asked Juliana Mañuela Sanchez if she would like to hear him sing. Without looking up at him, Juliana Mañuela Sanchez said she did.
With these creatures like tapirs,
Whom the fierce lion pursues.
Health to our Commander,
And we will go on fighting!
At the American Legation, Ella sat waiting in the drawing room while Mrs. Washburn got dressed and came downstairs—after her difficult labor, Mrs. Washburn was often tired and she spent a great deal of time in bed. Ella also had to listen to James Manlove, the American, who sat across from her with one long booted leg crossed over the other, describe his role in a Confederate battle.
“Fawt Pillow ova’looked the Mississippi on the Tennessee side about fowty miles north of Memphis and was defended by Negro soldiers. We captured most of them and kilt the remainder. Som’a the Negro tried to escape by runnin’ into the rivah—you shud’ve seen them, ma’am, I swear they looked just like a drove of hogs—and either we picked them off”—Manlove placed an imaginary rifle up to his shoulder and made as if to shoot—“or else they drowned. By the time the moon came up, the rivah was dyed red with Negro blood.”
For once, Ella felt nervous. She had heard how James Manlove had arrived in Paraguay with neither passport nor papers but with a scheme to capture Brazilian and Argentine ships. He might be mad. She shook her head at him. “Mr. Manlove, I’m afraid I haven’t understood a word you’ve said.”
But, as if he too had not understood Ella, James Manlove went on, “We’d bin ordered to fight everythin’ blue bewtixt wind and wahter and until their flag was hauled down which I don’t mind tellin’ you, as sure as I can see you sittin’ there, Missus Lynch, we did. From where I was positioned I made sure to shoot ev’ry Negro that made his appearance wearin’ a federal uniform—”
The door opened and Mrs. Washburn came into the drawing room.
She was holding her baby, she looked fragile and pale. Walking stiff-legged, her dog was at her heels.
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting. My husband, Mr. Washburn, is out riding and Mr. Masterman was called away this morning to attend to Monsieur Lasserre, who was suddenly taken ill—” Mrs. Washburn was holding the baby so tightly the baby began to fuss. “Mr. Masterman says it is cholera. I pray the baby—” Mrs. Washburn bit her lip. “May I offer you some refreshment?” She was close to tears.
“No, thank you. I won’t stay but a few minutes. I merely stopped by to see your baby. What’s her name?” Ella said.
“Hester.”
Mrs. Washburn held out the baby to Ella and Ella, instinctively, took the baby in her arms.
“Oh, she’s beautiful!” Again, Ella was thinking of Corinna Adelaida.
Just then the dog began to bark.
From his headquarters at Humaitá, Franco crossed the Paraguay River. Two Payaguá Indians paddled him across in a canoe; one Indian was sitting in the bow, the other in the stern. The Payaguás wore long pieces of wood through their pierced lips and bird wings through their ear lobes; the Payaguá in the bow was wearing a European-style hat—a canvas sun hat. Briefly curious about the sun hat, Franco leaned forward in the canoe and pointed to it—he meant to ask the Payaguá Indian where the hat had come from. Not understanding, the Payaguá took off the hat and handed it to Franco. Franco started to shake his head but he changed his mind; he smiled and thanked the Payaguá Indian instead. He could not refuse the generous offer of the sun hat without offending him.
Always humid and hot, the Gran Chaco was made up of impenetrable thickets of canes, thorny mimosa and jacarandas; swamps filled with dead tree trunks; and fallen branches decked with vines of dark pink trumpet flowers and fetid-smelling orchids. It was also home to tigers, tapirs, wild boar and poisonous snakes; the lagoons, which were almost impassable, were filled with crocodiles, electric eels and piranha. At sunset, clouds of mosquitos, vinchucas and midges descended, biting, pricking and burying themselves in every bit of exposed flesh—one soldier got a jigger stuck in his eyeball and Dr. Stewart had great difficulty cutting it out. Also, the night was noisy with unfamiliar and menacing sounds; the whoop of the tree frog, the cry of the peewit, the call of the turkey buzzard, sounds that disrupted the soldiers’ sleep and turned their dreams into nightmares. Nightmares in which the mboya jagwa, a thirty-foot snake with the head of a dog, raped their wives and daughters and the ow ow, a white ram with tiger claws and tiger teeth, devoured their children.
As they moved deeper into the Chaco, Franco rode the big sure-footed mule Linda. Most of the soldiers had to walk and they often sank up to their knees in mud. To cross the lagoons, the soldiers built brushwood bridges. One bridge collapsed just as Pancho rode over it and he and his horse were thrown into water. Franco, who was watching, laughed so hard he nearly choked on his cigar. Wet and humiliated, Pancho had to think hard about something else to keep from crying.
Where is Caxias
With all his tortoises?
Why does he not come
With his troop of monkeys?
Too late, later, he thought of how surprisingly soft Juliana Mañuela Sanchez’s breasts had felt and how easily they had fit in his hands.
Each night, Franco had supper with Lieutenant-Major Thompson, Colonel von Wisner and General Francisco Fernandez—he and not Venancio Lopez was the real commander of the army. Together, they ate snipe and water hens that Lieutenant-Major Thompson had flushed out of the swamps and shot, the birds were cooked over an open fire and were juicy and delicious. Franco always ate several, crunching up the beaks and the small bones, licking his fingers when he was finished and washing the meal down with brandy. While Franco ate, standing at a discreet distance, his band played. Most of the instruments had been lost or damaged and the musicians who had not been killed were forced to improvise. Justo José had been shot in the shoulder at Curupayty and, although he still had trouble lifting up his arm, he had, by some miracle, managed to hang on to his wooden harp and most of the gut strings were intact: Ta
dum ta dum ta dum dum dum, ta dum ta dum ta dum dum dum.
If there was a moon, Franco rode on until one or two o’clock in the morning. When, at last, he strung up his hammock and wrapped himself in his poncho, he slept soundly and never once dreamed of the dog-snake mboya jagwa or the tiger-ram ow ow. Franco’s dreams were pleasant—in one he was teaching Napoleon, who was wearing a canvas sun hat, how to drink maté, in another he was at a ball in Buenos Ayres, waltzing, uno, dos, tres, with Doña Dolores, Ella’s lady-in-waiting, his arms wrapped tightly around her soft, plump waist. “I’ve never slept better,” Franco boasted to his servant, Mañuel, in the morning. Then after drinking a gourd of maté and getting down on his knees to pray—since the death of the baby, Miguel Marcial, Franco had become more devout—he got back on Linda and continued on his way.
One afternoon when it was nearly too hot or humid to take a breath, a flock of parakeets flew directly overhead—there were thousands of birds and for a few seconds the parakeets nearly blotted out the sun—and Pancho, who was riding next to his father, raised his gun up in the air to fire at them. Quicker than he could speak, Franco moved to knock the gun out of Pancho’s hands and the shot fell harmlessly to the ground.
“Bad luck to kill a parrot,” Franco, who was also superstitious, told his son.
Despite all the hardships, Franco never complained; nor did he lose his confidence. He sat straight and tall in the saddle; he talked and joked with his generals as well as with his soldiers. As far as Franco was concerned, this march was not a retreat. It was a tactical move that would bring Paraguay victory.
Vencer o morir!
Fourteen
SAN FERNANDO
When fifty-four Brazilian ironclad steamers sailed up the Paraguay River to Asunción, the people panicked and fled. The streets of the city were crowded with women and children, the old and the infirm, carrying their bundles of clothes and dragging their carts filled with belongings. Fortunately, Alonzo Taylor owned a carriage. With his possessions tied to the roof, he and his wife and two daughters left Asunción and drove the twelve miles to Luque, the temporary capital, where, unable to find lodgings—Luque was just a small village of mud brick houses—they were forced to sleep inside their carriage.