Our Lives Are the Rivers Read online

  By far the happiest part of being in Lima was that my brother was stationed there as captain of the Numancia Regiment. To be reunited with José María, after not seeing him during the years in Panama, brought some joy into my life. Though I strongly disapproved of my brother’s Royalist politics, my love for him overcame our political differences. He often came to the house for dinner, and I was pleased to see that José María and James got along well.

  IT BECAME CLEAR to me that I would never grow to love my husband. To my relief, he was often away, either in the countryside visiting his mistress, or tending to the affairs of the hacienda, or at sea, looking after his shipping concerns. I did make an effort to become his friend. However, James’s past was a mystery to me, as well as to most people who knew him. He told me he was born in Aylesbury, a town in Buckingham-shire County in England, yet he was reluctant to talk about his family, whom he referred to as “landed gentry.” Why he came to South America, and how he came to acquire his fleet of commercial ships and amass great expanses of land, were a subject he chose not to discuss. Perhaps it was his discretion that helped him thrive in Lima, where Englishmen were generally not welcomed by the Spanish authorities. But the Spanish Empire was in such disarray by the early 1800s that its once formidable maritime powers were reduced to a small fleet of outdated ships. Thus James, with his fine commercial English vessels, provided a valuable service to the government by importing goods from Europe and exporting Peruvian products.

  I SPENT MOST mornings with Natán and Jonotás, embroidering and gossiping on the balcony of my sitting room overlooking the street. The balconies of Lima’s great houses were closed in, so that people could sit in them without being seen. If you wished to call to someone from your balcony, all you had to do was open a window and show your head. Balconies were an excellent vantage point from which to keep up with the lives of limeños.

  Well into the evening, Lima’s streets were populated by people selling their wares. It was a lively entertainment. By nine in the morning, when the sun was out in full force, the Indian ice cream vendors appeared, singing, “Ice cream, dulce de leche…” Next came the sellers of pastries and breads, crying, “Mouth-watering Guatemaaaaala bread!” They were followed by the high-pitched song of the tisaneras publicizing their juices: “The tisanera has delicious and cold pineapple juice!” Around ten came Negro women who marched down the streets balancing baskets on their heads. In these baskets they carried pots heaped with rice and beans, and they sang: “Rice and beans, white rice and black beans!” On weekends and during religious holidays, old African women transited the streets on burros loaded with huge baskets full of tamales. Their singsong voices always brought a smile to my lips: “Tamales, tamales from the sierra, steaming-hot!”

  The sellers of fruits, offering oranges, tangerines, apples, chirimoyas, and melons, came at noon, along with the fortune-tellers, who claimed they could read your future, interpret your past, and decipher your present. Cries of “Needles,” “Thimbles,” “Little buttons of mother-of-pearl” rang out all day long. The salesmen of silver objects and china went from door to door, offering Cuzco’s beautiful gold-leafed mirrors. In the early afternoon the streets belonged to the candy men, and to the women selling spicy ajíaco and sweet humitas.

  As evening fell, families sat on their balconies to take in the fragrant breezes that blew down from the sierra. The air was suffused with the aromas of steaming maize cakes, buttery biscuits fresh from the oven, and the sensuous scents of the flower-sellers offering their bouquets of violets and jasmine. All day long the street under my balcony was alive with a chorus of voices and songs. Some days it was enough to make me forget I was the wife of a man I did not love and remember that I could delight in a city where people seemed bent upon enjoying the pleasures of life.

  I LEAPED WITH delight when I found out that my good friend Rosita Campusano was living in Lima. We had been out of touch since I ran away with D’Elhuyar.

  We had our joyful reunion after the audiencia in which I was formally introduced at court to the viceroy and vicereine. I immediately invited her to my home the following day for an afternoon cup of chocolate. I sent my coach to pick her up and ran to the door to greet her when she arrived. Rosita had blossomed into a great beauty, though still diminutive in stature.

  “You can show me the house later,” Rosita said as we exchanged kisses and embraced. “Let’s go where we can be by ourselves and talk.”

  We went directly to a small sitting room and sat in a corner overlooking the garden. After chocolate and pastries were served, I asked Jonotás to close the door and not to interrupt us until I called for her.

  Rosita’s father had secured a place for her at the court of Viceroy Pezuela y la Serna, where she had been lady-in-waiting for over two years. “It’s an exciting place to be. There’s never a dull moment,” she said. “But tell me about you. I’m eager to know everything about your life since you left the convent in…well…such a hurry.”

  We both laughed. Although she wanted every detail, I gave her a brief account of the fiasco with D’Elhuyar. It simply was not something I wanted to think about anymore. “And you?” I asked. “Is there a love interest in your life?”

  “No, there’s no room for love in my life right now,” she replied, without any trace of regret.

  It was hard to believe my romantic friend had changed that much. “Being a lady-in-waiting keeps you too busy for love?”

  “That, and other things,” she said mysteriously.

  “I envy you, Rosita,” I said sincerely. “As you can see, I lack for nothing. But you know me, I can’t be content just being a society woman. I long for—” I halted, not quite sure what it was I longed for. “Sometimes,” I admitted, “I am bored.”

  “That will change when you have children, Manuela.”

  “I’m going to tell you something I have told no one. After I eloped with D’Elhuyar, my father had me examined to see if I was pregnant. The doctor told him I would never have children.” I paused, remembering that painful day. “In Panama, I was examined again by eminent doctors who corroborated the opinion of the doctor in Quito.” I sighed. “Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. I don’t know why, but I’ve never desired to have children.”

  Rosita took both my hands in hers. “You seem to have made a good marriage. Señor Thorne is handsome. The viceroy is so fond of him.”

  “My father arranged the marriage, Rosita. And James is content with the child he has with his mistress.”

  “Oh, I see,” she sighed, and we left it at that.

  LATER THAT AFTERNOON, as she was leaving, Rosita pulled from her purse an envelope and handed it to me. “Read this when you have a free minute.”

  “Love letters?” I asked in jest.

  “Nothing of the sort. Read it, and then we’ll talk about it. Just make sure,” she added, lowering her voice to a whisper, “that the contents of the envelope fall into no other hands.”

  I was excited. This surely broke the predictable routine of my days. I took the envelope and we made plans to see each other the coming Sunday at the bullfight. After Rosita left, I eagerly opened the envelope. To my surprise, it contained a proclamation by Simón Bolívar. Years had gone by since my days at the convent school when I was obsessed with Bolívar and the wars of independence. Now I lived in a world full of Royalists, and although revolution was in the air and I read about repressive measures in the controlled press, I didn’t have anyone to discuss new political developments with. Yet I had never forgotten Bolívar. He was now in Nueva Granada, where he had dealt crushing losses to the Spanish forces in a series of recent battles. It was just a matter of time before that country was liberated. Lima’s Royalists feared that after Nueva Granada Bolívar would next turn his attention to Ecuador and Peru.

  I held in my hands the Liberator’s announcement of the creation of the Republic of Gran Colombia. I memorized the words of his conclusion: “I contemplate with inexpressible joy this glorious period i
n which the shadows of oppression will be dispersed so that we may enjoy the splendors of liberty!” Bolívar’s words filled me with hope for the future. Perhaps there was something I could do, after all, to lend meaning to my life.

  THE FOLLOWING SUNDAY, Rosita and I went to the Circo de Acho, where, bedecked in our finest mantillas and combs, we sat in the first row of one of the eighty-four balconies reserved by subscription for the notables of Lima. Shortly after our wedding, James had said to me, “I’ll go with you anywhere, dear, but never ask me to witness one of those barbaric bullfights.” Sitting next to Rosita, waiting for the first corrida to begin, memories of my childhood flooded back to me—when Jonotás, Natán, and I would enact bullfights with the tame milk cows in the corral at Catahuango. One day Aunt Ignacia caught us in this game, and she forbade me to play it ever again, because it was for boys, not girls. “Someday you won’t be able to stop me,” I replied. “I will be the first toreadora the world has ever seen.”

  I fell in love that day with Lima’s bullfights: the trumpet blaring at half past three, when the sun was warmest and brightest, to announce the start of the bullfight; the military marches and festive music of the orchestra; the trilled cries of the aguardienteros selling their potent firewater; the cheers and applause of the drunken populace; the fierce light in the bulls’ black eyes; the bulls’ brute strength; the reckless lancers; the balletic twirls and leaps of the long-limbed banderilleros; the valor of the matadors in their suit of lights woven with threads of silver and gold; the tragic but thrilling ending, when the noble dead bulls were dragged from the ring by horses, leaving behind a trail of scarlet liquid in the steaming sand, which moved me to tears.

  I WAS STILL feeling giddy from the bullfight when my coach stopped to drop off Rosita at the entrance of the viceroy’s palace. Before she stepped down, she took my hand. “Did you get an opportunity to read what I gave you?”

  “Yes, and I don’t know how to thank you, Rosita. It brought back the days when Bolívar was our hero. His proclamation made me wish I could do something to further the cause of independence.”

  “That proclamation is banned in Peru,” Rosita said, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Please destroy it as soon as you can. You could get in trouble just for owning a copy of it.”

  All thoughts of the bullfight vanished. “I had no idea…”

  “Manuela, are you really serious about wanting to do something for the cause of independence?”

  “If there were a way,” I said, surprised at the conviction in my voice.

  She leaned close and put her lips to my ear. “There’s a way, Manuela. And we need women like you.”

  Rosita gathered her things and covered her head and face with her mantilla. “I’ll come to see you later this week. We’ll talk more then. In the meantime, you must not breathe a word about our conversation to anyone. Not even to your girls.”

  THE NEXT TIME Rosita came to visit, we talked about politics and nothing else. I hadn’t realized how starved I was for meaningful conversation. In Panama, a city of merchants with the mentality of pirates, every conversation was about commerce. Since my arrival in Lima, the world in which I lived was populated by Royalists and enemies of independence.

  Rosita informed me that she was working as a spy for the independentistas. “Bolívar is a long way from Peru right now. It’ll be a couple of years, at least, before he gets here.” Then she added, “The information I gather, mostly by eavesdropping, or by just plain playing stupid, I send to General San Martín’s contacts here in Lima. San Martín will arrive here long before Bolívar does. He will march from Argentina, over the Andes, to liberate Peru.”

  This was indeed news to me. Rosita’s revelations made my head spin. “Isn’t it dangerous, what you’re doing?”

  “Of course it is,” she said, giving me a quizzical look. “But somebody has to do it. What’s the worst they can do to me?”

  “They can shoot you.”

  “Exactly,” Rosita said. “What a small price to pay for the freedom of our nations. Countless people have already given their lives for the struggle. “I’d be honored to join their numbers.”

  The light in her eyes frightened, and excited, me.

  “Listen, Manuela. Our current viceroy and his officials—a pack of wild donkeys would do a better job governing Peru.”

  I laughed.

  “And from what I hear about the Spanish court,” she continued, “King Ferdinand sounds as degenerate as Caligula. He’s surrounded by greedy, brutal, corrupt, and ignorant men. Are these the people you want to decide how we should live our lives? Look at the chaos they’ve created in Spain. The country is bankrupt, the masses are starving and wracked with illness, the Inquisition is back.” She paused. “We missed a great opportunity to achieve our independence when Bonaparte sent his brother to rule Spain. We must not do that again. This is the time to overthrow the Spaniards. If not now, we’ll have to wait God know’s how long before another propitious moment comes along. They are so weakened, their army so demoralized, that it won’t take much of an effort to get rid of them once and for all.”

  That day I pledged my total allegiance to the cause. My old dreams of a free South America returned as if they had never left. I became immersed in conspiracy.

  It had an extraordinary effect. I well knew that by collaborating with the patriots I was risking my position and my life. Anyone who was accused of helping the rebels was incarcerated, hanged, or shot, his severed head impaled on tall poles in Lima’s plazas and on the main roads into the city, his eyes plucked by black turkey buzzards and other birds of carrion. The extremities of the conspirators, rotting and crawling with maggots, hung from the trees in the squares and from the balconies of government buildings.

  I realized I had lived all my life in a world where turmoil and revolution and bloodshed was the norm, yet as a woman I had been a mere spectator of history. Events taking place around me were but a faint echo by the time they reached the confines of my inane and cosseted life. The emptiness of my marriage somehow emboldened me. The atrocities committed by the Spaniards to suppress the revolution were not enough of a deterrent to stop me from acting as my reawakened conscience demanded. Liberation would not be achieved unless patriots were willing to risk everything, living the way General Bolívar lived, risking his fortune and his life to achieve a higher goal. The way Simón Bolívar had spent the last twenty years—fighting innumerable battles; never giving up, even when he was incarcerated, exiled, or handed crushing defeats; never giving up, despite the attempts on his life, despite the hardships and illnesses brought about by incessant campaigning. I told myself I would rather die young, for a cause I believed in, than to live to old age as a Spanish subject, bound to James Thorne.

  I BECAME A CONSPIRATOR. My main role, as defined by my fellow revolutionaries was to raise funds to help finance the patriot armies. To this end, I set out to cultivate the wealthy in Lima. I made social calls, gave dinner parties, and invited prominent citizens to tea to find out who supported the idea of liberation from Spain. Whenever I discerned that they sympathized with the cause of the patriots, I asked for financial support.

  My brother was in the habit of coming to dine with us on Tuesday nights. I looked forward to his visits all the more when James was at home. José María’s presence saved me from the tedium of dining alone with James. One evening after dinner, in the library, warmed by the French brandy that James favored, I saw a propitious moment to introduce the subject of the political unrest so palpable on the streets of Lima.

  I asked my brother, “Is it true, José María, that San Martín is on his way to Peru?”

  “If he is, we are ready for him. His troops will be exhausted after marching for thousands of miles. They wouldn’t stand a chance against us.”

  “But his army has a reputation for ferociousness.”

  “They’re nothing but a rabble of cowards,” James interjected.

  “You can call them anything you like, James, b
ut cowards they are not. They’re idealistic soldiers fighting for a cause they believe in.”

  “Mark my words, Manuela,” James said. “If that mob ever overthrows the monarchy, the bloodbath that follows will make the French Revolution look like a drawing-room comedy. And if they ever succeed, remember you will be among the first people whose heads will roll.”

  “Maybe your head will roll, James. You’re the Englishman. I’m a criolla. They’re fighting for people like me.”

  “What about José María? Don’t you think as an officer in the Royal Army he’ll be one of the first targets of the revolutionaries?”

  “Your husband is right, Manuela,” my brother concurred. “You have very romantic notions about the rebels. They’re a bloodthirsty mob.”

  The brandy had gone to my head. “Nothing we do will stop our countries from becoming independent from Spain. We cannot hold back the unfolding of history.” The shrillness in my voice startled me.

  James slammed his glass down on the mahogany table. “Listen to your brother, Manuela. Those romantic novels you read all the time have corrupted your judgment.”

  “I’m sure Manuela means no harm to us, James,” my brother said, coming to my defense. “You just have to accept you married a passionate woman.”

  “From now on, Manuela,” James continued undeterred, “I forbid you to ever again express in this house any sentiments of sympathy for those savages. What’s more, as your husband, I forbid you to have any contact whatsoever with anyone associated with that cause.”

  After that evening, I only broached the subject to my brother when James was not around. I knew the day would come when José María would see the cause of independence the way I saw it. As for James, he would die a staunch Royalist. And the sooner I got away from him, the better.