Findesferas Part 7
The marshal was squatted on a wooden crate, haunches flat and swollen like pancakes on the wood, and he was gnawing on a large chicken leg. Juan was sat in front of him, legs together and back straight, sitting like a soldier might, muscles strained to keep him from his usual slouch. Not that he had wanted to before, but suddenly Juan felt that he couldn’t turn around, and was tensing his muscles not to spin his torso in the opposite direction and mess up, finding his brother and watching the war end and sorting everything out; a stack of thoughts was forcing his grey matter into a large marble. The background noise of laughing men in feigned revelry might as well have been the churning of a piston, the hiss of an engine. They were the well-oiled force of the marshal’s, not men. The incessant piston-churn of laughter increased the silence between the marshal and his new guest, as they struggled to forge a conversation. The marshal smiled and his cheeks distended from their regular soft ovals to meaty apples.
'Look at my men. Are they not impressive in number? I'd wager you haven't seen such a large army in quite a while. How have we managed to stay so many? Because we started off even larger. There must be two hundred of us left, but before we met you we were twenty thousand at Humaitá.'
Juan rested his hands in his lap and tilted his head as the marshal settled into a story.
'Dear Humaitá, soft vernal leaves shaking in the breeze, familiar heat, feet pressing into the warm and yielding earth, and yet the air was soaked with dread. Still, we were well positioned, back to the river, wonderful place to be at such a time, Rio Paraguay, the very home of the country. Surely you know the story of the foreign explorer, the first outsider to meet the natives of this great land? They told him it the river was Paraguay in their native tongue, and so Paraguay it became: “The river flowing to the ocean”. With turmoil all around, where better to reside than the very site that your homeland came to be?
'Never once all those years ago when the war began did I think I would see my men so starved with hunger that they voraciously drank gun oil, ate poisonous berries and claim it the greatest delicacy they had ever consumed before dropping dead in front of my eyes; that I would not see them dare to kill and eat their horses until, tears running down my sunken cheeks, I had given them the order to do so. And yet, where else would we have rather been? We knew that place like nowhere else on the earth, nowhere else would we rather starve. You see my soldiers much better fed now: they have a much greater hope of surviving. No, it doesn't say much, but I know them to be saddened to leave Humaitá. Maybe we brought a curse on Paraguay when we left, humiliated, and with half the country no longer ours- yes, half is gone.'
Juan leaned in, eyebrows raising to a point in the centre of his face, hope slowly sapping away.
'The Brazilians were the first to try it, back when my men had more than an ounce of fat between them, when the supplies from the raid of Mato Grosso kept us sated and I made myself that charming necklace of ears. News was brought to us from Encarnación that they had entered the country, when it was still ours, mind. When Encarnación was Paraguay's, No! don't think… don't think it. We scoffed, nudged each other, Brazilians take Humaitá? Never! I posted men by the marshes, had bags of sugar sat at their side, and so they stayed for days on end at the edges of the land, their new home. It was so pleasant to see the soldiers joking with each other on the frontline, tossing chunks of sticky sugar into their mouths, and even sleeping there, not fearing the eventual attack of the Brazilians. And when they finally arrived we wanted to welcome them, with such good humour did we meet those twenty thousand monkey eyes, dared them to approach our earthy haven, running playfully through the trees, and they all but throwing themselves into the thick marshland and to their deaths, how we laughed then.
'No! It wasn't the Argentinians that broke us. I will kill anyone who says so! It was time. The resources dwindling, and we, ashamed to grow weary of the town that was our home for two years, the salutes became slower, the skin cracked and the lines deeper, the teeth fewer, the uniforms tattered, so when we heard there was an Argentine camp to the south we rejoiced, given purpose once again to our inhabitance of that great town. These silly men, Argentinians, Brazilians all, and please, I could have batted off the assault of the Uruguayans with one hand. What did they know of our land? How dare they, how dare they think they could take it but they did take it and…'
The marshal looked up to dancing embers and scratched at his beard, losing track of his ramble.
'I sent my men down to Tuyuty in the night. It gave me great pleasure when I thought of accompanying them but some of my generals rightly advised me otherwise. I heard that the two trenches were taken with such swiftness and precision that the camp didn't even wake, that when the men strode towards the tents and threw open the flaps, that the allies ran off with such a start that they left their guns, horses, meat and salt. How I clapped my hands together joyfully with a force that jarred my bones when I saw the parade back to our soft town, weary men struggling with sacks of food. And there were prisoners too! Oh yes, our pleasure multiplied while they watched, we danced and sang. A soldier died in ecstasy head plunged ostrich-deep into a sack of salt. And could you believe what they brought with them! Copper pots, cigars, gold watches, rifles, horses, silver lighters, carpets, handkerchiefs…
'Perhaps I do not even need to recount what happened next, for I think you could deduce it with some accuracy. With no stable way to keep ourselves supplied with food and medication, our morale, health and all the rest that make a man went into decline. The moaning, day and night, was unbroken when dysentery struck down my soldiers. With no vegetables and no salt, the recovery, if it was not replaced with death, was slow and agonising. All we had was horse meat, which the men were not yet used to, and turned out to be the worst thing for them but the alternative was nothing. I tried to send out a group of my men on horseback for more supplies, but it seemed that the horses were sick to the nerves, and could not travel far. I never saw those men again, but they threw themselves screaming into my thoughts ever after.
'Humaitá was all we had, and we defended her with what pitiful strength we had amongst us. I had batteries of guns stretched across the river, but our weaponry was lacking and we could only defend such small stretches of the Rio Paraguay that we could easily take out any boat that would be small enough to reach the guns before they had the chance to get there. I sent my men out at night in canoes, to find enemy camps and see if they could not find more of those monstrous sacks of sugar. The men were tired, hungry, feverish, paranoid, and they travelled far from the camp, or so they thought, slipping around on the water in wide circles until one boat would pass another, and both men would jump madly into the river, so afraid that they had crossed canoes with an ally.
'Soon again we welcomed the attack of another wave of Argentinians, but the second time was not so rewarding. My soldiers were desperate, arms bobbing up and down with the weight of their weapons. The fight was done in a veil of smoke, shells spiralling through the air and I raised my arms up like some conductor in the sweetest passage of a symphony as the smoke danced through the sky and made the air thick, this my finest moment, so beautiful a sight that I did then kneel upon one knee and thought it would be a great honour to be crowned by a percussive smash of those majestic shells. I was not quite so fortunate as you can see, but still very lucky that I lost so few of my soldiers in that second battle, and invited the generals back to my private quarters where we spent the night drinking champagne, smoking cigars and singing songs of joy that we were all still alive. That could have been a mistake. Rumours spread through the camp, and as I passed the soldiers the bows became much more slovenly- they thought me an idiot, a poor leader when it was thanks to my leadership that they were still alive! So I started shooting them, son, every one in ten, you know, for sake of appearances, and that sure straightened their backs. One of my dear generals did not take kindly to my new style, tried to shoot himself in the head, twice. Luckily for me he did not die and I had the pleasure of executing him. Then I heard that a deserter fled the camp, and collapsed at a village a few miles from our position so I sent another man after him, to travel the same distance, on foot, a good lad, didn't dare disobey, told him to find the offending soldier and wish him a speedy recovery so that I may shoot him myself.
'After all that, even I couldn't handle that same town, those same dreary broken men day after day, and with a sorrow in my heart, after two fruitless years of tiresome waiting and vicious battle, I gave the order to abandon Humaitá. I cried for the poor lost town that day. My troops knew I was making the right decision, told me so with a look of resignation on their hollow faces. We crossed the Rio Paraguay, more than six thousand less than when we arrived at the town, uniforms bleached and ragged, red of the shirt, if it was still intact, now a sorry tired pink. The carpets became rigid ponchos, leather boots of the allies were cut up for makeshift loincloths, anything to guard from the relentless beating of the sun, crueller than the battles and the hunger, and I lost many more men before we made it to Atyrá.
'Juan, I fear that the war will be lost. I am humiliated to bear the news, and a conspiracy has been brewing against me for quite some time, such that my expulsion from this life eclipses whatever trivial fate may wait for you. Still, so long as I live, so shall Paraguay, for I… I am Paraguay.
Yes, I am Paraguay and I am cursed. Do not think I would dare lead these men to their deaths without reason, for my fate would be much worse. Since I have existed, I have felt every death. Every screaming loss of a soul from this land that left without redemption did not travel so far, but entered my mind and there resided for as long as I have had thoughts. They plague me, cruel angry spirits make me claw at my skull to desperately give them peace, give myself peace. So many unsatisfied souls swimming around, such a volume of rage and grief that you should certainly not think it strange if my skull imploded. I know what they want: retribution, vengeance, what is rightfully theirs. I am Paraguay, cursed and forgotten. Were someone to spin a globe and absentmindedly stop it with their finger on the very site we know Paraguay to be, finding an empty space, to suddenly know that Paraguay was not a land of culture, love, but now nothing, that someone might at best shrug their shoulders and walk away. But I am Paraguay and while we both are alive I will make us live, live hard and fight and love and exist so hard that the world will know that we were Paraguay once, shake in fear that we were Paraguay, and with our lives we will defend.
'I'm sorry, son, I don't bore each and every one of my soldiers with rhetoric when first I meet them, but… there's a memory of mine in your eyes. When I look at you, I think about playing chess with Venancio in the back garden. We had these large, painted wooden pieces that my father made for us that we placed on the grass, marking out the squares with string. Venancio taught me how to play and in that first game I lost so terribly that I would not let him leave all day. We kept playing chess, sometimes I won and sometimes I lost, but each victory or loss had no effect on me anymore, nothing took away that bitter taste of failure. We came back day after day. Sometimes I broke the wooden pieces in anger, throwing them out into the street for which I would be punished but my father always made more so we could play again and again until I completely wore my brother out and he would never play. What is it I see in you that takes me back to that garden?
'Well we made it to Atyrá, and here we've staked our claim. The citizens don't bother us, and we don't bother them in turn- no, we don't. We constructed this nice sooty convoy of ours. Let me tell you, those blasted little microbes could eat through all the coal we've hoarded too but keep the coal dry and they sure as hell don't like that. As long as we've got coal, we've got power my good man, and if we've got power so do you. What chance that you came here! Well, you won't slip away from us as easily, I mean that.'
There was a fire in the marshal’s eyes. Juan laughed to fill the silence and drank deeply, the sipping giving him the opportunity to think of a way to keep the conversation going.
'So, what's the plan? Are we going to camp out in Atyrá until everything dies down?' That sounded more like Juan's plan than the marshal's.
'No no, don't worry, nothing as dull as that, not at all. As we've stayed put for a good while, we've managed to relay messages back and forth to a battalion at the Rio del Plata. They promise us that the route from Atyrá to the coast is mostly secure.'
'Mostly?' said Juan, timidly.
'Yes, son, have to expect a bit of a lark these days, you know that. You've joined us just in time to go and meet the battalion. Why, a week later and there would have been almost no one here.'
'So what do you plan to do when we reach this battalion?' said Juan to keep him talking while off daydreaming about how horrible the journey would be, 'and what's there?'
'The end, Juan. The end of the war. Our last chance.' That got him listening again.
'Are we really enough people?'
'War's been long: you can streamline the manpower needed quite nicely.'
No, surely not. This would be tough, but with one final big uncomfortable push from Juan, maybe it could be over, maybe they could survive. Depending on how long the battles lasted, perhaps he and Matías could be back in Asunción with their favourite women in a matter of weeks. Juan inhaled deeply, his head rolling gently from side to side in thought.
'Okay. I want this to end.' Juan looked on with a weird, nervous conviction.
‘Pues vamos a luchar en la puta Guerra hasta la ultima!’
Matías
The balloon was small, and took little effort at first for Matías to trail it behind him, but as the miles wore on he had to clip both his hands onto the basket and marched forth with his remaining might in a triangle of effort. He wasn’t sure from what distance he would be able to light up the metal colander of coal, but no distance was an option in the night, the Brazilians would instantly spot the fire, and he needed at least a head start to get the blouses filled and billowing. Day it was then.
He sat down on the lip of the basket and leaned his head back looking up at the cool night. He placed his hand, fingers spread, palm flat on front of his neck and dragged it downwards, feeling the bristles of his maturing pointy stubble and sighing with agitation, running his hand around to the nape and noting the rubbery friction of dry skin on dry skin. He collapsed into a rather pleasant heap on the basket floor, there to rest until morning.
His dreams were plagued with Octavia. Juan had always mentioned how crazy his dreams were. ‘No less crazy than those thoughts of yours when you’re awake’, said Matías. Matías’ dreams were firmly rooted in truth, and his steely exterior during the day was often a function of how exhausted this made him. Any of this, any of what was going on was less painful, but Octavia no… He was entering withdrawal from the thing he still was, the reason free from passion to Juan and Octavia’s passion free from reason: they were a singular operational unit like no three people should be, split apart, aching to be together, cursed with the lack of ability to live as individuals.
During the end, when they were fighting every day, snapping at each other and mental faculties empty, couldn’t remember one from the other, somehow… she never lost her beauty to him. That smirk of hers, there was a truth behind it, a tangible secret of the Universe that she kept not in her or in him, just around them, that smirk had grown with both of them, it was theirs, together. Curation was scraping the bills and Matías couldn’t find a job that he didn’t hate and seemed to think that was a decent reason not to have one. Octavia had earned the right to stay at home with their child, what child? Matías clearly couldn’t have any, not that they ever checked, nor was Octavia pregnant after two years. Who knew for sure which one of them it was but finding out would only have added fuel to the arguments. The notion that one of them could be superior to the other was the problem and they knew it and hated themselves for it but it didn’t go away that nagging feeling that they could do better than one another, deserved better people, better lives. They spent so many years together that they couldn’t differentiate the big problems of adult life with the big problems that they as individuals brought to each other, and the effect was caustic.
She was flirty, drank a little too much, talked a little too much about herself. He wasn’t fun, didn’t share, a walking heat sink draining the fun out of every situation and if they dared to change, not change habits, no these were not habits, but deep facets of who they were they had decided, if they changed as people wouldn’t that be terrible! A loss of dignity as if the daily humiliations of being together were any kind of a victory. The anger was addictive like a magnet drawing them back to the same discussions time and again. Part of them thought they were having fun, using each other as a vent for all the frustrations of everything else going on in their lives.
Now that she was far away, not geographically but in time between now and the end of the war, God! He couldn’t wait to get back, he would sort it all he promised, forget those years of silliness. Now they were behind them they could stay there. He could forgive it all, be the best husband but no more of this.
Anything could be chasing him here ready to attack but one thing disturbed his sleep. He awkwardly pulled out Octavia’s letter. It was too dark to read but it didn’t matter; he had a picture perfect image of all the words:
My dear husband,
I can still call you that, can I not? I am still your wife.
Are we really so terrible at being honest with each other that this is what it takes to keep us apart? We tried desperately to survive off of one another, sucking out all the spiritual nutrients that we needed until we were both left hollow while the world blossomed outside without us. And we had more than enough opportunities to step back but we were worn down. I don’t know what more can be said about it.
Is it any use finally writing all of this down? Am I communicating anything to you that you didn’t already know? I guess not.
So please bear that in mind, please, when I tell you that Juan and I slept together.
He was so sad, alone, vacant after her death and I went to visit him to take him for a walk, see if we could name some flowers, sit in the park, look at the sky and wonder why, try to get him to see the world like a child again after what happened, but he needed some deeper level of comfort, so I offered him my body and I did not enjoy it and I cried because just like in our marriage I realised that I had learned to sacrifice too much of myself, too much of who I am and I was not the person I was before, and he cried because I was not his wife and that passion was gone forever and it was hideous and disgusting and pathetic and irreparable and I cannot tell you the morbid list of things that ran through my head that I would rather have done. Our child is no miracle.
Matías, you are a beautiful man, a sensitive, fantastic, passionate, enduring, understanding person that I have had the pleasure of spending time with, laughing with, feeling at peace and completely safe with, and in those best moments we shared together I felt that I finally understood everything, if for a few brief seconds I was staring at the reason to be then it was normal again like an experience we passed through put behind us and carried on, and beyond that snapshot of pure beauty it was crushingly mundane. But that experience is not like time, forever in the past, it is something we can have again, and if we hold the memories of when we looked in each other’s eyes and saw that reason to live, we can remember why we were ever together.
The choice to be made is not completely yours. You are not alone in this decision. I want you to know that if you want, we can try and repair this marriage, and I will support us in doing so. I have the greatest respect for you and I will hear any way you want this to go ahead.
Please return.
With all the love I can give you,
Your wife, Octavia
X
After some subconscious adjustment he slept curled up in the basket, cradling the coal like a pet dog, contorted into a jagged C.
Octavia
Octavia hadn’t seen Ana all day. It could have been longer. They couldn’t look at each other without that reflection of what they both knew had to happen. Octavia almost caught herself praying for Juan and Matías to die in the war, sure that she couldn’t live with the guilt if the Pombero came to take them. Yet these wild wiry thoughts of hers spun around in her head ever fiercer without company, and so she found herself forced to spend time with Ana.
Octavia crept up the staircase, old dried beams creaking even under her delicate weight, trembling hand tickling the banister. She looked at the crack under Ana’s closed door, devoid of the strong sunlight outside, a dim flittering grey movement. She reached the upper floor and turned the handle, finding more dim within, and the hazy outline of Ana’s shadow by the closed blinds.
Ana turned around, her dark watery eyes filled with fear. Octavia felt the need to offer an explanation for her intrusion.
'It's that I hadn't seen you all day, I wondered…'
'Were you about to leave for the rations?'
'Of course, I hadn't forgotten-'
'Well don't, we have plenty here.'
'What? It's no problem, the whole thing with Paulo…'
'It's not about that: don't leave the house.'
'But if I don't leave we won't have enough food.'
'I've only been eating half of my share. We have more than enough for a few days.'
Octavia moved towards the window and sure enough, a gaunt shadow filled Ana’s hollow cheeks. Octavia folded her arms tightly across her chest.
'But I don't understand.'
'Then I'll show you.'
Ana took Octavia forcefully by the arm, drawing up the blinds. She winced, trying to work out what she was supposed to see. Ana looked at the margin of her book, turned shiny grey by endless tally marks in pencil. She ran a finger down the page.
'There's a soldier about six foot tall with dark curly hair, walking to the left.'
'Yeah, how did you know that?'
'I've been here watching them. I figured it out.'
'But why? Ana, come downstairs, let me get you something to eat.'
'They know what you tried to do and now they're planning something.'
Octavia moved her head away from the window to look Ana squarely in the eyes.
'Do you think they believe all that ancient bullshit? If Paulo was stupid enough to tell the other soldiers that he came here, they'll think I'm some sad old housewife driven mad with loneliness. Stop this and come downstairs to eat while I'm out.'
Ana clutched her head, ‘No! You can’t.’
'Stay focused.'
'You're the only two that I have now and I can't let you be in danger. I've lost two sons, Octavia, I've lost them.'
A loud thud, followed by a child crying. Octavia flew down the stairs and out the front door and found the source of the screaming in a little heap in the tall, dry grass. She kneeled down beside him and checked the red, grassy knee he was clutching. Well, he hadn’t broken anything. She sat cross-legged on the ground, picked him up and brushed his hair with her closed hand, whispering ‘Shh, shh.’ The passing guard moved towards her but she shook her head, embarrassed and holding her son with crushing love, rocking back and forth. She heard ‘I need you alive, I need you alive, I need you alive’, but what she didn’t know was why: her son would be worth much less as a spiritual bargaining tool if he were dead. Octavia, unable to bear her own thoughts, started crying with greater volume and much more furiously than her surprised little son, whose own emotional rapture began to drown out.
