“The Paraguayan will realize his mistake,” Clóvis said, breaking his silence, “but it may take longer than we think to bring him to his senses.”
“López?”
“The Guarani soldier, Senhor Ulisses. He’s been taught absolute obedience to his dictator.”
“They will be matched, Clóvis, man for man, by the voluntários.”
Ulisses Tavares was too old for the battlefields of Paraguay, but he was doing all within his power to recruit a company of volunteers to be sent from Tiberica. As he walked with Clóvis da Silva, holding his arm again, he steered him toward an open doorway, through which they saw Firmino Dantas and Carlinda waltzing across the ballroom.
“In two weeks, Lieutenant Firmino Dantas and the voluntários of Tiberica leave for the Plata,” Ulisses Tavares said. “Three months, Clóvis, and I believe they’ll march into Asunción.”
Firmino smiled at Carlinda, but his thoughts were far away. He had no argument with Brazil’s cause, especially since the invasion of Mato Grosso, though he recognized López as provocateur and felt no particular hatred toward the Paraguayan people. And he was not without experience of the parade ground, having served with Tiberica’s Guarda Nacional. But the prospect of combat sickened him.
The day word of the decree calling for voluntários da patria reached Itatinga, Ulisses Tavares had come to the fazenda’s workshop in search of Firmino, whom he found standing on a platform at the second level of bins and ventilators of the coffee engenho. When Firmino waved a greeting to his grandfather, a slave misinterpreted the signal and flung open a valve to power the engine. With a tremendous clatter and grinding, the engenho came alive, making the barão jump back in fright. Shouting for the mill to be shut off, Firmino quickly scrambled down the platform.
One glance at the expression on the baron’s face told Firmino that the old man’s patience was exhausted, and he understood why: He had only to look at his own hands, ingrained with dirt, his knuckles grazed, his fingers cut and scratched. Ulisses Tavares’s generation (and not a few senhores acadêmicos, too) was blinded by love of the past and faithful to ideas compatible with those of the lord donatários who had come to Terra de Santa Cruz in the sixteenth century: Progress was the extent of lands they owned; honor was the degree of royal approval they earned; dignity was the scorn of all useful labor.
Firmino lamented Brazil’s backwardness compared with what he had seen in Europe. During those three years, 1860-1863, Firmino had found Paris being rebuilt to the grand designs of Emperor Napoleon III and his master planner, Georges Haussmann. “The broad boulevards, underground sewers, parks — gigantic works giving the city a new face! Glorious open vistas of air and light! Paris is in the midst of a revolution as dramatic a break with the past as the upheaval of 1789!” Firmino had enthused back at Itatinga.
He had also crossed the Channel to England, where he had marveled at the 22.000-ton Great Eastern: At Liverpool, he had roamed through the cavernous ship and stood in silent awe before engines capable of eleven thousand horsepower. How could he not consider positively medieval four iron-shod pestles serving to process six hundred tons of coffee beans!
He wondered if his grandfather would ever understand. But that day in the workshop, Ulisses Tavares had said nothing about Firmino’s invention.
“Grandfather? There’s something you wish me to do?” he had asked as he followed the old man outside.
“Yes, Firmino,” Ulisses Tavares had replied gravely. “Francisco Solano López must be taught respect for the empire. A decree from the Corte asks for volunteers to crush the tyrant and his Guarani rabble.” And then Ulisses Tavares had seized Firmino’s hands: “My son” — his voice broke — “may God grant a swift, bold campaign.” His grip on Firmino’s hands tightened. “You will lead the voluntários of Tiberica, Firmino Dantas!”
Firmino knew that he would obey Ulisses Tavares, though he wanted nothing more than to continue the work on the coffee engenho. Three years away from Itatinga should have strengthened his independence, but back at the fazenda, he was one of several hundred people, slave and free, over whom the barão exercised absolute control.
In the ballroom at Itatinga, as Firmino danced past the barão and Captain Clóvis da Silva, his smile belied the deep concern he felt over his impending departure for Paraguay. Firmino had not shared his fears with Carlinda — perhaps because it was his mind and not his heart that guided him in accepting his coming marriage with this charming girl. This lack of ardor on her fiancée’s part was not something Carlinda hadn’t noticed. In fact, she had expressed some concern to her sister.
“My dear, be prudent and patient,” Teodora Rita had counseled when Carlinda expressed dismay at Firmino’s preoccupation with his invention. “The poor thing doesn’t know love. An inventor. Be especially careful, Carlinda. Say not a word against his obsession with this machine. Your love is a prisoner in another shrine — the temple of learning. Show understanding. Keep him in good humor. He will bless the day he chose you!”
Restrained and chaste at the age of twenty-five, Firmino had not given those coaxing him into Carlinda’s arms the slightest cause for doubting the success of their mission. Not until this night of the grand ball.
As midnight approached, Firmino remained on the dance floor under close scrutiny from his family, and especially Teodora Rita. Her pretty face was placid, but her dark, fiery eyes followed Firmino Dantas and the partner with whom he was dancing. The elation evident on Firmino’s face made the baronesa regret having invited this girl and her father, August Laubner.
Laubner was a Swiss, a big, quiet man with drooping whiskers in the English “Piccadilly Weeper” style. He and his family had emigrated to the province of São Paulo from Graubünden, the easternmost canton, nine years ago with a group of two hundred people desperate to escape the hard, cold winters and the harder bite of poverty in the lonely valley of the Prätigau.
August Laubner had been a foundling. An apothecary, Jeremias Laubner, had found the infant in his barn, or so he said; rumor had it that Laubner had agreed to care for the bastard of a member of a family of old nobility who lived beyond Davos. August had been raised by the Laubners, who had one child, Matthäus, five years older than August.
From his fourteenth year, August had worked in the apothecary’s shop. The Laubners had treated him kindly, if not with the love they were able to give only their own flesh and blood. Ultimately, he married and had two children. Then, in the winter of 1854, tragedy struck. Jeremias Laubner froze to death in a snowdrift into which he’d been thrown by his horse while riding back to Klosters from neighboring Davos, and six weeks later, Jeremias’s wife had died of pneumonia.
Matthäus and his wife, as mean-spirited as her husband and expecting her first child, had given notice to August, who occupied two rooms at the back of the house with his family, demanding that they leave. “Find your own place, August, and find it soon,” Matthäus had said, “for my wife’s time is near, and there isn’t room enough for two families.”
At the time Matthäus ordered August to leave the house, recruiting agents for a group of Paulista fazendeiros had been active in the Prätigau valley seeking indentured workers for the coffee plantations, a free-labor alternative prompted by the ending of the slave trade from Africa to Brazil in 1850. At his brother-in-law’s house, August had attended a meeting addressed by one of these agents, who offered passage money, transport from Santos to the north of São Paulo province, a subsistence allowance for the first year.
That same night, August Laubner decided to seek a new life for himself and his family in Brazil. A few harvests and his family would be free of debt. As soon as he had the means, he would establish himself as an apothecary.
After the long voyage from Europe and the trek over the Serra do Mar, August had come to a crude wattle-and-daub hut, with holes for windows and a thatched roof. Such was the home offered his family and five others whose contracts had been assigned to Alfredo Pontes, a fazendeiro who coul
d scarcely distinguish between his colonos, as the share-wage earners were known, and his sixty slaves.
The colonos discovered that if Senhor Pontes was dissatisfied with their work, he could cancel their contracts and demand immediate payment of all monies due him. Failure to reimburse him resulted in two years in jail with hard labor or the same period at public works.
Senhor Pontes was, of course, only striving to instill in his colonos those virtues of obedience and subservience that fazendeiros expected from their agregados, the associates they permitted to live on their land under varying conditions of tenure. But the Swiss did not understand. After the first harvest, they complained that the prices quoted by their fazendeiros were far below market value for coffee beans at Santos, and many went on strike.
This confrontation had led to an investigation by a Swiss commissioner from the consulate at Rio de Janeiro, and the grievances of the colonos had mostly been confirmed. The imperial government had also sought to mollify the colonos, for the Corte was eager to attract European settlers. Several thousand German colonists were established on Crown lands in Rio Grande do Sul and prospering; the São Paulo indentured labor experiment with Portuguese, Germans, and Swiss was a private venture. Though both sides had calmed down and relations had improved, the effect of the “uprising,” as Senhor Pontes and others saw it, was disastrous for Brazil: When the complaints of the colonos became known in Europe, Prussia forbade the recruiting of further migrants, and the Swiss cantons discouraged their poor from leaving for Brazil.
Senhor Alfredo Pontes had sold the contracts of the Laubner family and the others to another coffee grower, whose fazenda was twenty-four miles from Tiberica. This new employer, a Mineiro from Vila Rica, was scrupulously honest. Within three years, August and his family had paid off what they owed for their passage and subsistence allowance; at the beginning of 1862, August had been released from his contract and had come to Tiberica with his wife, Heloise, and two children, a boy and a girl, then aged eleven and fifteen. In March that year, in the front room of a small house, August Laubner had opened his apothecary shop, the first at Tiberica.
The barão de Itatinga himself was a customer of apothecary Laubner, and regularly used his dyspepsia powders for heartburn, and a tonic of beef extract, iron, and sherry as a flesh builder and blood purifier. Ulisses Tavares had heard only good reports about the Swiss and his family. Still, Ulisses Tavares had been disturbed when Teodora Rita told him that she had asked Senhor Laubner, his wife, and daughter to the ball.
“He will be uncomfortable among our friends,” the barão had suggested. “They seek his professional help, yes. They value his advice, but they wouldn’t want to see him in our ballroom.”
“It’s true, Senhor Barão,” Teodora Rita had agreed.
“Then, why did you invite him?”
“Forgive me, Barão, but there were several who asked.”
“What, my girl?”
“The senhor barão, my love, has eyes only for Teodora Rita. He doesn’t see that Tiberica’s bachelors, young men of our best families, besiege the house of August Laubner.”
“Ah, yes, indeed!” the barão said as it dawned on him. “Such a lovely girl!”
“Three hearts” — she had mentioned the names of three young men — “beating with one purpose: Oh, Senhor Barão, could I reject their lovelorn appeals that she be present at our ball?”
Renata Laubner was eighteen, a long-limbed girl with round blue eyes and a crown of blond hair parted in the center and pulled back to side ringlets, the golden tresses on the right adorned with small blue flowers. Renata’s dress was a delicate blue, quite plain compared with the elaborate gowns of Teodora Rita and the others, but perfectly suited to her fair features. This girl who was so different from the sultry maidens of the tropics smote the bachelors of Tiberica who saw the flash of gold in her hair and the glorious blue of her eyes.
Firmino Dantas had met Renata Laubner for the first time this night. The apothecary had settled in Tiberica when Firmino was in Paris. After being introduced to August Laubner and Renata, Firmino had listened to the apothecary tell of a recent field trip to contact a group of semi-wild Tupi whose medicines August wanted to investigate.
“Truly, senhorita, you went with them into the sertão?” Firmino declared when August Laubner had finished his account.
“Why ever not, Senhor Firmino?” A smile, with a hint of impudence.
“Renata has a mind of her own, Doutor Firmino,” Laubner said, looking fondly at his daughter.
“I wasn’t afraid, Senhor Firmino,” Renata said. “It was a wonderful journey. Beyond the last fazenda, we spent three days on a trail through the forest. Every step was like walking through Eden. The flowers! The birds! A paradise, Senhor Firmino!”
Firmino had a feeling that this senhorita who so daringly walked beside her father on his quest for knowledge would also understand his passion to launch Itatinga into the present.
But Firmino had shown characteristic restraint, pursuing serious topics of conversation for quite a while before asking permission for a dance. And then, when he’d taken Renata in his arms, he felt an exhilarating nervousness. He had had to wait almost an hour before he could politely approach her for a second dance, and had seen the three young men of Tiberica take turns throwing themselves at the feet of their idol.
When Firmino had been granted another dance, he was unable to hide his pleasure. He clasped Renata tightly round the waist as they glided swiftly along the floor.
When Firmino had escorted Renata back to her seat, Teodora Rita took her future brother-in-law aside. “The Swiss is lively,” she said. “Such a fragile beauty blazing through the polka!”
Firmino at first did not sense the baronesa’s concern. “Fragile, Teodora Rita?” He laughed. “A girl who spent ten days in the sertão on a journey with her father?”
Teodora Rita looked shocked. “Whatever for?”
“Apothecary Laubner wanted to study the old remedies of the pagés. Senhorita Renata went with him. Wasn’t it marvelous?”
“It was silly,” Teodora Rita said. “The girl belongs at home with her mother.”
“Ah, but, Baronesa, Renata Laubner is different.”
“Different?” Teodora Rita raised one eyebrow.
Firmino hesitated, becoming aware of the baronesa’s irritation. But then he smiled. “Don’t worry, Teodora Rita. Firmino Dantas hasn’t lost his head in a Swiss cloud.”
“I hope not, Firmino Dantas,” the baronesa said, eyes blazing. She saw Ulisses Tavares coming toward them. “The barão, too.” She nodded to herself. “He wouldn’t like it, Firmino.”
Early morning on June 11, 1865, nine Brazilian warships were anchored ten miles below Tres Bocas, the junction of the Paraná and Paraguay rivers, lying along a great bend of the Paraná — six hundred yards wide here — with the Riachuelo, a stream, flowing into it from the east. The squadron had a total firepower of fifty-nine guns, including Whitworth-rifled 120-and 150-pounders. The flagship was the Amazonas, a 195-foot, 370-ton wooden frigate, the only paddle wheeler among the nine ships. The others were screw-driven for greater maneuverability in the swift Paraná. Flying the blue naval ensign with stars at her mainmast, the green and gold flag of the empire at her mizzen, the black-hulled Amazonas carried a heavy ram at her bows, and strong and lofty nettings stretched above her bulwarks to protect against boarders.
This Sunday morning, the day of the Blessed Trinity, squadron commander Vice-Admiral Francisco Manoel Barroso, his officers, and 2,200 men, including 1,174 infantry of the Ninth Battalion, were turned out in dress uniform for sacred Mass, and their devotions were conducted with little concern for the enemy ashore. But, peaceful as the scene was, with the war steamers riding comfortably at anchor under a cloudless sky and the voices of men raised fervently with sacred song, on the east bank of the Paraná, just beyond range of their position, two thousand Paraguayans were encamped with a battery of twenty-two guns and Congreve rockets.
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br /> Clearly the optimism of men like the barão de Itatinga, who had predicted in February 1865 that Asunción would fall within three months, had not been justified. More than six months after the Tacuari lobbed her shot across the bows of the Marquês de Olinda, Brazilian soldiers had yet to set foot on Paraguayan soil. Worse, the war had widened: Argentina had joined in a triple alliance against Paraguay with Brazil and the victorious Colorado faction of Uruguay. This had come about after Francisco Solano López asked Buenos Aires to permit his army to cross Argentinian territory between the Upper Paraná and Uruguay rivers so that the Paraguayans could engage the Brazilians in Uruguay and drive eastward to Rio Grande do Sul. When Bartolomé Mitre, president of Argentina, refused this request, President López had gone ahead anyway, sending ten thousand men into the old Missiones district. In mid-March 1865, the Paraguayan congress had declared war against Argentina; on April 14, the Paraguayan navy had landed a force of three thousand men to capture Corrientes, a river port in the Argentine province of the same name. Corrientes had fallen without resistance, and within weeks, 25,000 Paraguayans had invaded the province with the objective of pressing south to Buenos Aires itself.
At the end of May 1865, the Brazilian squadron, under Vice-Admiral Barroso, had steamed up the Paraná carrying four thousand men to assault the Paraguayan occupiers of Corrientes. The attack had been successful, but after twenty-four hours, the Allies had reembarked their force, fearing a counterattack by units of 24,000 Paraguayans deployed within a few days’ march of Corrientes. Since then, the Brazilian squadron had taken up position six miles from Corrientes in the river bend near the mouth of the Riachuelo to blockade the Paraná and prevent its navigation by the Paraguayan fleet.
By 9:00 A.M. on June 11, the two chaplains with the Brazilian ships had completed holy services. Less than a fortnight after the squadron had begun its blockade, the men already knew the monotony of a twenty-four-hour watch, day after day, with nothing to challenge but a few small riverboats and canoes, whose crews sometimes came upon the anchorage from backwaters where even the rumor of war was still unheard. Innocently, they would ride the swift current into the great bend, where first they encountered the lead ship Belmonte, then the flagship Amazonas, the corvettes Jequitinhonha and Beberibe, four gunboats — Parnaíba, Iguatemi, Mearim, and Ipiranga — and finally the rear guardship, the Aruguari, a gunboat with 32-and 68-pounders. Most impressive to the startled rivermen was the towering size of the black-hulled Amazonas, with her high paddle boxes and great ram, which lay menacingly in the channel between sandbanks and reed-clogged islands.
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