Paradise With Serpents

by Robert Carver

  ‘A fool and his money are easily parted’ has its military equivalent with a dictator and his armies. In a democratic system, even a limited aristocratic democracy such as Georgian England, the generals were subject to political restraint and economic discipline. If they made serious errors or overstepped their authority they were removed and replaced. Under the dictatorship, pleasing the dictator is all that matters; courtiers, flatterers and time servers surrounded López, Hitler and Napoleon alike, feeding their illusions: at the end, when disaster loomed, these all jumped ship and abandoned their masters, whom they had only followed for self-advancement. There is also perhaps a religio-cultural element in this equation. Perón, Hitler, Napoleon and López had all grown out of a Roman Catholic society, born and brought up where women, mothers and nurses all spoiled, petted and pampered boys, making much of them, and not breaking their wills. The authoritarian macho attitude in Catholic culture has been traced directly back to child-rearing differences between Catholics and Protestants. Traditionally, in Protestant countries the male child, perceived as sinful and wicked, was slapped down, his ego tamed, trammelled and trained to obedience. He was made to subordinate himself to authority and hierarchy, forced to co-operate with his peers for the good of the group. In Catholic countries the male child was indulged, spoiled and encouraged to be unreasonable, autocratic and uncompromising, expecting to subordinate others to his will as an adult, basking always under the sun of the Queen of Heaven’s approval – whether the Virgin, his mother or his nurses. All the modern team sports – football, cricket, rugby, baseball, basketball, tennis doubles, etc. – are the products of Protestant Anglo-Scottish-American culture. They have been taken up universally, and played with great success in many Latin countries, such as Brazil, Argentina and France. Yet the brilliance of Latin sport is that of individuals dominating the group – the racing driver, the airplane pilot, the outstanding prima donna footballer. It is the individualist, passionate, egotistical, selfish; Pelé or Maradona are the Napoleons of the football field. They succeed because they exceed and tower over their own team by sheer virtuosity. They win like this for a while, but it is always a flash in the pan. Their talent fades, their squad is relegated after time. Coaches in all Latin countries face the same problem – attempting to get their players to operate as a team rather than as competing individuals.

  All the problems of places like Paraguay can be traced back to what the Spanish called ‘Yo-ismo’ – ‘Me-ism’. The individual always considers himself first, second and last, even when it is evidently counter-productive. The qualities Latins most admire in Anglo-Saxons are self-restraint, self-discipline, sang-froid, reliability and punctuality, in Argentina ‘la hora inglesa’ – ‘the English time’ – was a synonym for being bang on time, something they themselves rarely ever were. Although these qualities were admired they were not widely emulated. Style, elegance, brio, bravura (even to the point of arrogance), vanity, egoism and selfishness, were the qualities that were widespread in Latin countries. Honesty or criminality had nothing to do with it, the successful thief was admired, the unsuccessful honest man was not. In England or the USA financial impropriety always led to commissions of inquiry, scandals and forced resignations, in Latin America never. The cry of the descamisados in Argentina – ‘the shirtless ones’, as the poor were called – ‘Ladrón o no, queremos Perón (‘thief or not, we want Perón’) expressed the Latin-American reality. Perón was a successful thief, that was his popularity with the poor. So why not then falsify the receipts, pilfer the stores, put your brother in office and abstract millions from the state and transfer it abroad, abroad to a banking system run by Protestants who would not, it was assumed, steal it again? Everyone else was doing it. ‘The wealth of the state is an Ocean – he who does not avail himself of it is a pig,’ went the old Ottoman proverb. Spain, it should be recalled, was ruled and occupied by Moors and Arabs from North Africa for over 700 years, and the oriental way of doing things has deep Hispanic roots.

  What looked like folly – the offering of endless loans to these bankrupt regimes by the largely Protestant-run, capitalist West – was in fact a policy of cynical cruelty. The debtor nations had to keep servicing their debts or they would get no more loans. ‘Rich countries don’t like to lend money to poor countries,’ Hugo had complained to me, self-pity in his voice, when the topic of the stalled IMF loan to Paraguay had come up in conversation. In fact, the very opposite was true. The capitalist system battened on to the feckless poor, the permanently indebted, who were charged outrageous interest rates on each new loan, whether to individual spendthrift proletariat or bankrupt Third World governments. The rich West loved to lend to poor, profligate, corrupt countries. These were the only ones which would sign up for the disadvantageous terms, not quibble over the onerous conditions, and strap themselves to high repayment interest rates. Catch the USA or Switzerland borrowing from the IMF? Not likely. Capitalism in its loan-shark mode works best when you have hopelessly improvident borrowers sitting on countries full of rich natural resources which can be used to service debt. Paraguay was not in reality a ‘poor’ country – it was potentially very rich. If it were owned and run by the Swiss, or the Singaporeans, instead of the Paraguayans, it would be one of the two or three richest per capita countries in the world.

  ‘Derby Club’ cigarettes were made by Anglo-American Tobacco in Paraguay. It was alleged in the press that five times as many ‘Derby Club’ cigarettes were manufactured than were consumed here, yet there were no legal exports. So where did they go? That they were being smuggled into Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina was a reasonable supposition. Money could be made in Paraguay, and was being made, but it did not stay in the country, nor was it taxed there. Nor did the international loans stay in the country either – these went straight back abroad again into numbered accounts in tax havens in the West. Foreign aid had accurately been called a system whereby the poor in rich countries were taxed to send money to rich people in poor countries, who then sent it back to rich people in rich countries to look after for them. The ultimate beneficiaries of foreign aid were banks in the West, which got the money back again, and the interest as well. ‘If you see a Swiss banker jump out of a fifth-storey window, jump after him – there will be 5% in it,’ observed Voltaire, who lived at Verney, within easy reach of Swiss territory, to where he could flee if the King of France decided to arrest him. An updated version of this saying would probably increase the profit to 15% or more. The scandal of Swiss Bank money laundering, particularly of Nazi loot stolen in World War II has been amply chronicled: no one does anything about it because all governments find it useful to have such bolt-holes for their own dubious transactions.

  In a sense, Paraguay, which was an extreme example of the traditional Third World kleptocracy, was still fighting the War of the Triple Alliance, though now through economic means. Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil were the targets of Paraguayan smuggling, dope and gun-running, Customs evasion, brazen theft and armed robbery, just as they had been in the 1860s when Solano López was trying to conquer them by force of arms. You could buy anything you wanted in Paraguay, and cheaply. Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay had high tariffs and protectionist taxes to preserve their industries and so employ their working classes. Paraguay didn’t. The rich in Paraguay wanted for nothing, except national infrastructure and a sense of security. The poor got closer to starvation every day in a land with ample water and thousands of acres of fertile land which no one could be bothered to cultivate, in which vast herds of cattle roamed which were rendered down into Oxo cubes or killed merely for their hides and tallow. With its small population and favourable climate Paraguay ought to have been immensely prosperous instead of bankrupt and on the edge of dissolution as a country.

  After far too many beers with Alejandro, pondering on these and other matters, I staggered off to bed in the still, warm tropical night, fragrant with the scent of jasmine and rose.

  Ten

  Up River

 
Dawn was the best time. While it was still dark I would rise, the slight chill delightful on my skin, and go out on to the terrace to sit and breathe in the fresh, dew-laden air. The whole of the city was silent, the traffic stilled at last. The heat and noise of the day was a memory, that of the day to come hours away yet. From the damp, ochre soil in the courtyard garden still rose the night scents from plants and flowers. I sat on an old white-painted wicker chair, and sipped a glass of iced water. All the charm of the tropics – the lush fecundity of the vegetation, the sense of bursting, thrusting life seemed suspended for an instant in time, that no man’s land between night and day which is the dawn. First faint traces of pink etched themselves in from the east over the dark mass of the roman tiled roof. Around me, if I kept still, the birds fluttered and twittered, a last bat lurching and looping away through the air, fleeing the approach of day. At my right, by my shoulder, a tiny hummingbird, smaller than my thumb, was just visible, thrusting its beak into the nest of petals in a hibiscus, sipping nectar or dew. Paraguay at this time truly was a paradise, and without any serpents – they were asleep or otherwise engaged. There was nothing here that brought to mind this century or the last. This is how Madame Lynch, Dr Francia, Irala, all the personages of history would have known the land, its pristine magic intact. At such a moment it was easy to see how people could have dreamt not of silver or gold, but of perfecting mankind in a Utopia amid a benign Nature. Everything was so perfect, so beautiful, so exactly right. The problem as ever was the human element. E. M. Cioran, the Roumanian philosopher, remarked on the tragedy of having been born after man arrived on the scene – and now so many, so pointlessly many of our dreadful species. The world had supported half a billion before the advent of carbon-fuel technology; now it suffered six billion, and rising remorselessly. After he became bored in Italy and before he engaged in the crusade for Greek independence, Lord Byron had built a schooner called the Bolivar and had thought seriously of sailing to South America to buy a province in Peru. This, surely, was the dream of tropical America that had seduced Europeans since the Conquest; it was not a dream, but alas it only lasted a few minutes every day. I always stayed as long as I could on the covered terrace, watching the first rays of the sun, pale and vapid, striking the large banana plant across the patio courtyard, its light spreading through the leaves like veins of energy. The chill departed from the air; it vibrated with warmth. The birds were visible now, hopping and fluttering, crying more loudly in the light. It is worth coming to South America for the birdlife alone. It was like an illustration from a French medieval Book of Hours, Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, trees, plants, bushes were alive with birds of all sorts. One simple truth about the Southern Hemisphere is that there is less land, more water, and far fewer people than in the Northern Hemisphere. The south is simply less ruined, less used up, less degraded by the constant crush and press of an overnumerous humanity. Chateaubriand’s observation that ‘forests precede civilizations, deserts succeed them’ is amply evidenced in South America, where, in spite of all the threats, there is still more forest than anywhere else on Earth.

  A sudden light flooded into the courtyard, parting the dark shapes, making clear the individual plants and trees, splashing them with violent tropical colours: I was in a painting newly made by Gauguin or the Douanier Rousseau. The dew was sucked up invisibly, and vanished from the coarse grass. Now it was day, and the chatter of the first gardeners could be heard beyond the far wall, where they collected their hoes and rakes. Then – and only then – when paradise was about to be invaded by the omnivorous biped, would I abandon my reverie and my vision of what I had come to South America to discover, and go back into my room to shower and prepare to face the difficulties of the day ahead, where I knew from experience I would achieve little or nothing. Paradise in Paraguay lasted about ten minutes every dawn – after that two-footed serpents were in the ascendant.

  It was on one such morning when the patio was still grey with half-light and the birds still mute and invisible that an unwonted shape made its way purposefully and silently towards my room, muffled in shadows. As the mystery visitor approached me on silent feet he put up his finger to his lips to bid me to silence. It was Mac, now evidently back from the north-east. He beckoned that we should go into my room. He shut the door behind us, and still standing, spoke in a low urgent tone. ‘It’s happened at last, the shit has finally hit the fan. Lino Oviedo crossed the border from Brazil last night with a group of Army officer malcontents. He is marching – or rather driving – on Asunción as we speak. Two regiments in the north are said to have risen already in his support, and are moving south to join him with several tanks and armoured cars. The news has not yet got out here – he’s been cutting telephone wires and blowing up mobile phone masts I hear, and imposing a blackout on his progress. I had a call from a contact in Brazil fifteen minutes ago with the news. I came straight here. You have to get out, and fast. When the news gets out here there will be complete panic – every plane, every boat and every car is going to be heading for the border. There will be a stampede to get out before the fighting reaches here. The government will have to make a stand here. This is where the fighting will be.’ I felt a chill descend on my stomach. My mouth suddenly felt very dry. ‘Oviedo hates journalists. He has threatened to round up all he can find and shoot them all on the spot – foreigners included. There’s nothing in between him and Asunción that I know of. He’ll be here tomorrow, short of a miracle, the day after at the latest if the tanks break down, which they may. Now is the time for you to get out while you can. Delay – any delay – will be fatal.’

  I sat on the edge of the bed, a sense of hopelessness flooding over me. Trust my luck to time my visit for the long-awaited military coup attempt. The country would probably be in chaos for months if not years, travel in the interior impossible. There might be a long civil war of the sort that killed hundreds of thousands before Stroessner came to power. ‘How do I get out?’ I asked. ‘Start packing and I’ll tell you,’ Mac replied. ‘Take your money, your passport, one change of clothing, whatever medicines you have, a notebook and pens, your mosquito net – leave everything else here. You have to travel light. Just take a day pack. If all this blows over you can come back and collect the rest later. It will slow you up now though. And you need to move fast.’ This made sense. I had already arranged with the Gran Hotel to leave my belongings in my room when I went into the bush, and I had paid my bill just the day before, so I owed them nothing.

  In less than ten minutes the two of us were moving through the still silent, shadowed gardens towards the reception. Mac explained to the desk clerk that I was off to the interior for a while, and to keep my room just as it was until I returned. We got into Mac’s four-wheel drive and moved slowly – unnaturally slowly, I felt – out of the front gate and into the streets of a still slumbering Asunción.

  ‘There is a lancha leaving upriver for Concepción right now. The capitán is both a friend of mine and an employee. I have had to move all my own plans forward because of this. It won’t be comfortable but it will only be for two days and a night, mas o menos, more or less. In Concepción you’ll be met. I’ve warned them already. They knew you were coming anyway. It’s a Liberal stronghold and the Libs may come out for Oviedo. At any rate, he won’t go there because it’s irrelevant. Lie low and see what happens. If you have to get out fast – if Oviedo starts a real bloodletting, there’ll be boats going up to Brazil and Bolivia, or you can catch a truck across the north-east border to Brazil. My guys will take you. Don’t expect to hear from me for a while. I have to go to ground.’

  We turned down to the right off Avenida España, by the old Botanical Gardens, heading for the river. We were miles from the port zone downtown.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ I asked.

  ‘I have several important consignments that I have to disperse before the mob goes out on a looting spree. Then I’ll head into the Chaco – I’ve got friends there. If the worst
comes to the worst I can head down into Argie-land until the dust settles.’

  It grew light around us. On the grass under the trees lay the bodies of sleeping Indians, huddled together for warmth. We drove down a rutted, sandy track after the road petered out, almost to the river bank. Before we got out, Mac reached into the glove compartment and pulled out an old matt black automatic pistol, a .38 Colt. He put three full magazines of bullets in a checked cloth, wrapped the whole into a bundle with the pistol, and handed it to me. ‘Don’t use it unless you have to, but if you have to shoot a guy aim for his heart and empty the whole magazine. Up where you’re going $20 should see you right with the cops afterwards. Stick a knife in the dead guy’s right hand, say it was self-defence, he attacked you. And give half of these to the capitán.’ He handed me another bundle; this contained coarse black local cheroots, which looked like bent and deformed twigs. They were tied together with a tricolour riband in a bow – the Paraguayan national colours of red, white and blue. ‘What do I do with the other half?’ I asked. ‘You’ll need them at night yourself to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Remember, don’t put your hand or even finger anywhere near the water, the river is teeming with piranha.’

  With a sinking heart I got out of the jeep and followed Mac down to the waterside. The river was still covered in a thick mist, and the placid surface looked an oily gunmetal grey. Our feet sank into the sand. There was no sign of any lancha. Perhaps it had already gone, I thought, and I could go back to my nice comfortable room, which seemed ever more inviting by the minute. Mac clapped his hands three times, slowly, not loudly. The sound carried in echoes across the water. From somewhere in the mist beyond we heard low voices, and the muffled splash of oars. Then, out of the gloom, a small tender nosed towards us. ‘It is the capitán, Don Octavio,’ Mac said to me in a low voice. We gripped the prow of the wooden rowing boat as it touched. Don Octavio was alone. He wore blue jeans, a t-shirt, with a trainer top over it. He was probably in his forties, with a thick black beard, flecked with grey, pale green eyes and European features. He might have been an Andalusian or a southern Italian, except for his slight frame, which suggested Indian blood. Mac introduced us, and then talked to the capitán in swift, quiet Jalapé. He took out a US$20 note from his wallet, gave it to Don Octavio, who folded it neatly, put it in his wallet, and bowed his thanks. Then Mac said slowly to me, in Castilian Spanish, which he and I knew Don Octavio would understand, ‘Pay Don Octavio another US$20 when you get to Concepción, de acuerdo?’ I signified in Spanish that I understood and agreed, and shook the capitán’s hand to seal the bargain. He neither smiled nor showed any emotion at all. His hand was as rough as sandpaper. ‘Your food and maté is included, cana is extra, as are cigarettes and cigars. Give the mozo a dollar in guarani if he serves you well, with attention, respect and politeness, when you get to Concepción,’ Mac added, still speaking in slow Castilian, so there would be no misunderstandings later. I wondered if the slowness was for my benefit or the capitán. Mac was a businessman and a smuggler: he knew all about making deals stick. Then he shook my hand and said to me in English: ‘He’s a trustworthy man. Show him your automatic, in conversation, naturally, unloaded, but refuse politely to sell it. He will certainly offer, but say it is mine, and a loan. In Concepción ask for Don Umberto of the Liberales, he knows you are coming. Don’t sell him my gun either – he is sure to ask, as well. If you have to go into Brazil sell gun and ammunition before you cross the border, any tienda or shop will buy it. You should get at least $150, make sure the notes are not fakes. I have got your e-mail in Europe – we can settle up later. If things go badly I may have to visit you over there …’ his voice trailed away, and he looked gloomy, hunched up all of a sudden, his fear of abroad come back.