I the Supreme

by Augusto Roa Bastos

  With regard to the trial and execution of the conspirators of the year ’20 (the majority of them military leaders, many of whom had distinguished themselves in the battle against Belgrano’s expedition), Wisner de Morgenstern states: “The atmosphere was heated, and there is no doubt that the storm was gathering, for all those who did not share power were against the Dictatorship. The Dictator had received several anonymous letters warning him to be careful, and he had redoubled his vigilance. On the night of the second day of Holy Week, five individuals were arrested and subjected to rigorous interrogation. Another one, who had managed to escape the dragnet, a certain Bogarín, a fearful and timid man, went to confession and revealed everything he knew about the plan that had been drawn up to eliminate the Dictator. Good Friday was the day chosen to finish him off, on the street, during his usual afternoon outing. Captain Montiel was the officer designated to do the deed. Once the Dictator had disappeared, General Fulgencio Yegros, his kinsman, would take over the government, and Majors Cavallero and Montiel would assume command of the troops, among whom were a number of sergeants in on the plot. The contrite Bogarín was enjoined by the priest to go to the Dictator that very day and reveal the plan, since as a good Christian, and in view of the fact that a crime was about to be committed, it was his duty not to have any part in it.” (The Dictator of Paraguay, chap. XVII.)

  Over the years, the case was “tried” in the basements of the Truth Chamber, which Wisner more cautiously calls the Trial Room. The Guaykurú torturers of Bejarano and Patiño had their work cut out for them in this laborious inquiry. In the end the confessions wrested from them by the “lizard-tail” whips left not a shadow of a doubt. On July 17, 1821, the sixty-eight men accused of conspiracy and high treason were executed. Following this, the Supreme Dictator guided the ship of State without further complications until his death. In one of his notes we read this placid reflection: “The problems of political meteorology were resolved once and for all in less than a week by the firing squads.” (Compiler’s Note.)

  “The Dictator’s greatest pleasure was talking about his Ministry of War. The armorer once entered with three or four repaired muskets. The Great Man raised them one by one to his shoulder, and aiming at me, as though to shoot, squeezed the trigger several times, striking sparks from the flint. Delighted, roaring with laughter, he asked me:—What did you think, Mister Robertson? I wasn’t going to shoot a friend! My muskets will send a bullet through the heart of my enemies!

  “Another time the tailor presented himself with a jacket for a newly recruited grenadier. He ordered the conscript to be brought in. He made him get undressed to try it on. After superhuman efforts, since it was evident that he had never worn garments with sleeves, the poor lad managed to get it on. The jacket was utterly ridiculous. Yet it had been made after a passing fancy and a design of the Dictator himself. He praised the tailor and threatened the recruit with terrible punishments if the uniform was stained in any way whatsoever through carelessness. The tailor and the soldier left the room trembling. Then, winking an eye at me, he said to me:—C’est un calembour, Monsieur Robertson, qu’ils ne comprendent pas!

  “I never saw a little girl dress her doll with more seriousness and delight than this man displayed as he went about dressing and equipping each one of his grenadiers.” (Robertson, Letters.)

  If unimpeachable testimony were still needed as regards the Supreme Dictator’s preoccupation, his constant concern for his armed forces, that provided by Father Pérez in the eulogy at his obsequies would more than suffice:

  “What steps did His Excellency not take to preserve the peace of the Republic, to bring it to a respectable state with respect to other States? Supplying arms, training soldiers provided with the most dazzling uniforms ever seen in the armies of these Republics and even those in the kingdoms of the Old World.

  “I am amazed when I contemplate this Great Man devoting so much time to these matters! He buries himself in the study of militia, and very shortly thereafter is commanding military drills and evolutions as though he were the most experienced veteran. How many times I have seen His Excellency stand behind a recruit to show him how to aim straight at the target! What Paraguayan would neglect to carry his rifle in precisely the proper way when his own Dictator showed him how to handle it, use it, clean it and repair even its smallest pieces? He appeared in person at the head of the cavalry squadrons and led them with such energy and skill that he transmitted his living spirit to those following after. His voice rang out more powerfully than the bugle on marches and in the hand-to-hand engagements of mock combats. And even more than that! It was a great marvel to see the Dictator himself, after these epic practice maneuvers, minutely review each and every man, one by one, and find not the slightest stain on any of those spotless, immaculate white uniforms!”

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  “All Paraguayans enter service as privates, and the Dictator does not commission them as officers for many years, and then only after they have gone through all the lower ranks. The general uniform is a blue jacket with ruffles and edgings, whose color varies according to the branch of service, white trousers, and a round hat; aiguillettes on the seams of the shoulder distinguish the cavalry from the infantry. The one exception is the corps of mulatto lancers; their uniform consists of a white jacket without buttons, a red waistcoat, white trousers, and a cap, also red. In order to make these waistcoats and other uniform items, the damasks from the ornaments that were still to be found in the confiscated temples and convents were used. It is true that the Dictator had several hundred dress uniforms made for the mounted dragoons and grenadiers, but they are worn only on parade days and to mount guard at Government House on the occasion of the visit of a foreign envoy. Outside of these two cases, the uniforms are carefully stowed away in the State storehouses.” (Rengger and Longchamp, ibid.)

  When I asked you to sign receipts for the uniforms issued the troops, one of you came up with a ridiculous question concerning a few scraps of worn-out shoe leather, as though I had any reason to concern myself with such rubbish, though naturally I am not going to throw it out in the street. The measure of a soldier is his capacity, not the clothes he wears. In the viceroyalty of New Granada, most of the army of patriots had only chiripás and blouses; most of the time they were naked, marching for days on end, dying continually in frequent battles with the Europeans. The austere words of the Liberator San Martín, born in the Paraguayan Yapeyú, confirm this. In a General Order of the year ’19, the Liberator harangues his men: Comrades: We must make war as best we can. Though we have no money, we still have meat and a plug of tobacco. When our clothes wear out, we will dress in the lowly homespun that our women weave for us, and if we don’t have that, we will go about bare naked like our compatriots the Indians. Let us be free, for the rest matters not at all.

  This was what a great, distinguished general proclaimed in the midst of the campaign for liberation. Here, my elegallant officers want to strut about in dress uniforms as their troops muster on the drill field or in the Plaza at reveille or retreat, so as to dazzle the populace. As though they were superior beings. No, gentlemen. The military must make sobriety and austerity their habit. To be a good soldier, luxury is not only not necessary but positively harmful. Don’t ask me for any more red waistcoats of satin, damask, heavy silk, brocade, embossed leather, andaripola cotton, or chambray. I ordered them made only once, for the mulatto lancers. The high-buttoned passementerie tunics worn by the white officers who commanded the corps of coloreds no longer exist. The cloth of the ornaments confiscated from the Church was only enough for the wardrobe of the battalions of grenadiers, dragoons, and hussars. All the ecclesiastical adornments have rotted away. Waistcoats, jackets, baldrics edged with silver. High-crested velvet helmets adorned with white edging, with yellow taffeta ribbons fluttering in the wind of the marches, all nothing but tatters now. There are no more ornaments to confiscate. I beg your pardon, Ex
cellency. I just wanted to remind you that in the State Stores there are still twenty bundles of those fabrics that were seized in the churches of the Indian villages. Silence! You are not to speak unless you’re spoken to. Don’t contradict what I dictate. Be content with a suit of punteví, of satin-finish duck or drill. Dressed leather trousers. Brabant blouses for officers. Striped cotton ones for the men, made from remnants. Schoolmasters dress even more modestly than soldiers of the line. It is only in the last two years that they have been provided with somewhat more decent undergarments; inferior nonetheless to those issued the troops. Twill trousers; linsey-woolsey shirts. Jacket of whatever cloth is available. Nankeen waistcoat. Poncho, a felt hat, a neckerchief. Before that, they wore garments made of cloth that they themselves learned to make out of cotton, karaguatá, pindó fibers. They have no need of any fancier apparel to fulfill their duties as teachers in front of a classroom of naked children, clothed in nothing but their innocence. The only garments I myself have left these days are a much-mended frock coat and two pairs of breeches, one for formal occasions, and the other for riding. And two waistcoats that have waged a thirty years’ war against moths, cockroaches, termites.

  What is more, I don’t understand why you want, why you keep pestering me for luxurious wardrobes if you keep leaving your finery lying about wherever you toss it. I am indignant enough as it is, having learned that officers on duty strut about dressed in the most outlandish manner, in Irish linen dressing gowns, bombazine balloon pants, nightcaps like mine, imitating my intimate apparel, instead of wearing the regulation uniform corresponding to their rank and duty. What sort of arrant nonsense is this? For a leader of men, I do not want a popinjay proud of his curly locks and the clocks on his socks, hiding his shamelessness behind the shameful antics of a puppet. I prefer one who looks like a little bowlegged banty but takes a firm stand, at precisely the right spot and exactly the right moment. A bold heart in the service of the republic. Able to fulfill his duties to the hilt, without ostentation and without disgracing himself. Everything has two handles. Mind you don’t grasp the wrong one.

  Those in command must also keep an eye on the discipline and the good health of their men. Paraguayan troops look like a bunch of weaklings. Our army isn’t destroyed by its enemies, as happens in other countries. It renders itself unfit, wipes itself out whole squares at a time, what with the men’s excesses: leading Indian girls and half-breeds a merry dance, getting drunk on the brandy that foreigners smuggle in to them to bribe them, or worse still, to make degenerates of them, to bring about their ruin even sooner.

  I order you to punish these crimes ruthlessly. Extremely summary trials. The guilty parties must be put to death on the very spot where you catch them committing such heinous crimes. If this is not done, their commandant will be brought before a court-martial to answer for his indolence in the face of such abuses.

  The Indian population, the wives of the natives in particular, deserve special protection. They too are Paraguayans. With all the more reason and natural rights of far longer standing than those who inhabit the country today. You must allow them and their customs, their languages, their ceremonies, to go on living in the lands, the forests that have been theirs since the beginning. Remember that exacting slave labor from Indians is absolutely forbidden. The rule to apply to them is the same as with free peasants, since they are no more and no less than they.

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  I don’t know how another one of you, who is regarded as a great chief, dared ask me, without so much as blushing, to allow him to transfer a soldier to his office to act as his secretary, maintaining that he needs him to draft his dispatches properly. This is as much as to admit that the soldier can discharge the duties of office chief, or even commandant, better than he. Unless this business of getting off reports conceals some unavowable duty. Which would be twice as bad.

  Is it possible that many of you do not even know how to draw up a bad report, scribble a message, milk the udder of your intelligence by scrawling words on a page? This is a sad state of affairs for the Government.

  When I receive bunches of paperwork from commandants, the first thing I do is study the handwriting, the style of writing. One and the same thing can be said in different ways with different applications that may have different meanings. Hence both the commandant who doesn’t know how to write and the clerk that writes what he doesn’t know end up talking about things that can’t be understood no matter how they’re read, backwards or forwards, upside down or right side up, front side to or hind side around. If something bad happens on account of a badly written report, the commandant can always evade responsibility by saying he wasn’t the one who wrote it; it was the clerk, who misinterpreted what was misdictated. Moreover, when it is a question of sending out a confidential order, the Government is placed in an embarrassing position, suspecting that the commander won’t understand it. In his reply he’ll no doubt come out with some sort of balderdash or fiddle-faddle, as frequently happens. Shouldn’t I promote the clerk to commandant and demote the likes of the illiterate commandant to the ranks?

  I took you all out of nowhere, back in the days when you were nobodies and I was out gathering wildflowers that were still nothing but little nubbins of buds. I want new people, I said to myself. I want a golden harvest in the grain. I want to enlist the best of the best in the service of the Country. And so it was that I discovered those who seemed to me to be the best. I wasn’t about to search out the secret hidden in the wombs of our women with Jehovah’s candle. I simply took what I found at hand. It was enough for me if each one of you spoke of himself as a stranger; someone who was not master even of his own person. I asked each of you: Is this your house? No, Sire, this house belongs to everyone. Is this dog yours? No, Sire, I don’t have a dog of my own. Are your body, your life at least your own? No, Sire, they have just been lent me till our Supreme Government wishes to make use of them. Such a lack of a sense of private property was a sign of incalculable strength. You had nothing. Yet you possessed everything, since each of you was all. I said: These are people born with their feet on the ground. They are what I need to put the country on its feet. That, for example, was how I found José León Ramírez. A quick mind. An eagle eye. Faster than lightning. Back before he started. Far sooner done than said. Always a little bit ahead of everything. He was one of my best men, till he turned into the very worst. Neither a bootlicker nor a pander. José León Ramírez obeyed any and every command, yet remained himself. As the years went by, I considered promoting him to captain, making him my Minister of War. For a time, I even thought of naming him my successor. He had his chance. I gave him his opportunity. He leapt straight at it, taut as an arrow. And lost it out his drooping trousers fly.

  Another high flier who had a bad fall: Rolón, ex captain Rolón. Rose to the highest rank. Descended to the lowest. For five years I personally instructed him in the art of war. Artillery was where his natural talents lay. He would go up to a cannon. Run his hand along it, stroke it like a gentle mount. As he hitched it to the gun carriage, he would talk to it, telling it in a low voice what it was supposed to do. As he lit the fuse, he would trace a parabolic curve with his finger and point to the target, the way an expert equestrian indicates to his mount the barrier it is to jump over. A little click of his tongue, and the cannon would go off. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the shell landed right on target, no matter how far away.

  Ah, Rolón, Rolón! I taught you a whole bag of tricks to vanquish any enemy, to demolish any citadel, even that of your own soul. We held terrible practice battles, on land and sea. In one of these mock encounters, you scored a hundred points. You almost beat me. Promoted from private to captain. The highest-ranking officer in the army of the Republic at the time. An impressive captain of artillery. A rammer. A hammerer. Matchless. Irreplaceable. Unique.

  Do you remember what he looked like, Patiño? I can see him now, Sire. Tall, head grazing the cei
ling. Solid as a rock. Long hair, moustaches down to his waist. Just seeing him made one feel awed by him, Excellency. Yes, that was Rolón, just the way you picture him. That was Rolón, first captain of the Republic.

  In a skirmish with the Correntinos I ordered him to bombard their stronghold so as to teach them a lesson. I placed four good men-of-war at his disposal, armed with twenty-some cannons. Rolón put them to no use whatsoever save to put on a ridiculous free show for the enemy. He made a laughingstock out of me by the madcap way he led the expedition. Where was his love of country? His honor and his pride, his respect for the government? His own self-esteem?

  At the confluence of the Paraná and the Paraguay, the four warships began to dance about in the eddies of the seven streams that meet in front of the fort of Corrientes. Without firing a single cannon. Not knowing which way to turn; whether to sink or to fly.

  The townspeople and the troops improvised a burlesque carnival in honor of the invading vessels. They began a dance contest with them. And if the Correntinos failed to capture them simply by reaching out their hands, it was only because they were so drunk they keeled over, just as Rolón and his men did, from fear. On his return from his heroic exploit, he presented himself, brazen as you please, spouting all sorts of nonsense to excuse his failure. That’s what happens when one entrusts an undertaking to insolent incompetents. I freely admit I ordered that expedition only as a test, which didn’t turn out very well for me. That was the only reason I didn’t have Rolón executed. His death sentence was commuted, and he was condemned instead to rowing in perpetuity. What’s happened to him? He’s still rowing his boat, Sire. The latest reports from the garrisons along the river state that he’s nothing but skin and bones now. Others, that he’s nothing but a great shock of hair with a pigtail more than ten feet long that trails in the current as he rows. The people who live along the Guarnipitán have started strange rumors. Some have it that the man sitting in the stern isn’t the one condemned for life, but his shade. According to others, it’s death in person rowing the black, rotted boat. And that must be so, because for years now it hasn’t been picking up the supplies left in the places set forth in his sentence, between Villa del Pilar and the Guarnipitán.