Findesferas Part 10: The last part!
It took a day for the Brazilians to courteously escort the remaining soldiers and the marshal’s family back to Asunción on horseback. Matías thought he would dread the journey, but he had already lost enough, and barely felt anything at all. Guns were raised and pointed at the enemy soldiers once they had reached the gates of the city, but Matías hopped down from his horse, said ‘Give it up guys, war’s over.’
It was two jittery young men who were granted the task of protecting the entrance to the city, where his wife had been all this time.
'What do you mean, over?' Said one of them, expecting some Trojan trickery, 'While we're here the spirit of Paraguay-'
'The marshal's dead.'
'H-he is? Prove it, or we won't let you…'
Matías kept walking, but forgetting his manners, turned around to the Brazilians, ‘Thank you so much for escorting me back here. I won’t forget your kindness,’ and smiled, turned his eyes to the soldiers at the gates, saying ‘these guys are coming in too.’
The shining sun suggested life and liveliness in the city that he grew up in, but the streets were palpably empty. Matías gave no thought to this. It didn’t matter what had changed since he left, as long as one person was still here.
He walked in a straight line across streets, gardens, over fences, never breaking his path, until he arrived at the rear of his mother’s house.
Through the screen door he saw that she was inside, sitting in the dark like an abandoned factory mannequin, but there was some movement. She turned to a side table to pick up a glass of water, take a sip, press it to her forehead and tilt her head back in relief.
He walked up the steps and saw her look in surprise to the door, hunching her knees closer to her body, he opened the screen door.
'You're back? Oh, Matías! Are you okay? Where have you come from? What happened to you? What about the war?'
He looked blankly at her, ‘Over’, walking closer still she shimmied back as far as she could on the couch, then thinking how silly she was being, braced her back to stand up and face him, but he motioned with his hand ‘No, no.’
'Your mother…'
'I know.'
'But how?'
'Later.'
'And… and Juan?'
Matías took a deep breath, shook his head.
The room stopped. They looked away from each other, anywhere but each other’s eyes. He surveyed this room where he’d spent so many hours watching cartoons with his brother, his mother would come in from the kitchen with glasses of juice, ‘tsk’ at them for not playing outside, ruffle their hair and go to sit in the garden. His grandmother too, may she… may they both rest in peace, would sit in the room with them and read silly magazines all day. But even today there was life in this room.
'Are you hungry? I hope you've been taking care of yourself', said Matías.
'Yes I… I could use something to eat.'
He walked into the kitchen, saw a stack of tinfoil packets, each labelled with a different dried food, tin cans, bottles of water.
He raised his voice so she could hear from the living room ‘What will we do this evening?’
She paused, considered her words. ‘There’s not much to do around here.’
He tore open a packet of dried biscuits and placed them on a plate in a neat circle, poured a bottle of water into two fancy glasses, and brought it all in on a tray.
He smiled at his wife, ‘Sounds good.’
Octavia tensed up.
'Did you… want to talk about…'
Food on the table, he sat beside her, turned to her and reached a hand out, she flinched a little and tried to hide it, he put his hand behind her head and brought his head forward, closing his eyes and pressing his forehead to hers. He breathed in her scent, God she smelled good! How did she still have more of that perfume left… She gingerly placed a hand on his shoulder, felt the crumbling dirt of his uniform come off in her hand, but didn’t brush it away, only stayed with him, eyes open until she was sure this was all he wanted to do, then closed her eyes. Who knows how long they stayed like that? Nothing in the house ticked.
He let go and slid down her, embracing her stomach and lying on the couch.
A small figure crawled into the room. Two curious molten eyes of honey peered up at Matías from the floor.
'Hello, son.'
'Hello.'
'What's your name?'
