Our Lives Are the Rivers

by Jaime Manrique

  The general had made many new enemies by dividing Peru to create Bolívia. Soon after he left Lima, on the night of January 25, 1827, the troops in Lima, led by Colonel José Bustamante, led a coup that overthrew Bolívar’s government. Manuela’s protectors fled or were incarcerated. Her life was in danger. There were many in Lima who would have loved to see her hanged. All mail going in and out of the city was censored; there was no way to send word to Bolívar of the danger she was in.

  Manuela chose to act rather than wait for Bustamante to strike first. Many soldiers in Lima, still loyal to Bolívar, had not forgotten how she had fought alongside them, dressed their wounds, and raised money to make them uniforms. So Manuela donned her colonel’s uniform, and pinned the Order of the Sun medal on her breast. Jonotás and I also dressed in military garb and followed Manuela on horseback to the Lima barracks. Addressing the soldiers from her horse, she incited them to start an insurrection and get rid of the usurper Bustamante. The soldiers cheered her and the Liberator and swore they would fight to protect his legacy. That night, around midnight, Bustamante’s cadre burst into La Casona, dragged Manuela from the house, and locked her up in a cell at the Convent of the Nazarenas. The nuns received orders to withhold pen and paper from her.

  Jonotás was taken to Casa Matas, a prison for female criminals, where she was surrounded by murderers and women who tried to pass themselves off as men. I was so afraid for her. And for myself, too. The only reason I escaped the same fate was that the night they were arrested I was staying at Mariano’s.

  I had to do something to help Manuela. Although Mariano tried to dissuade me, I told him I had to act as my heart demanded. I could not abandon Jonotás and Manuela when they needed me. I acquired a nun’s habit and disguised myself as a sister of charity of Santa Rosa of Lima. Then I went to the convent where Manuela was being held. I guess I had not lived with Jonotás and Manuela in vain—their recklessness was contagious.

  I found Manuela in a small cell, with just a cot, a chair, and a bucket to relieve herself. She was dirty and smelled bad, her face was puffy, her eyes red, as if she had not slept for days. She smiled when she saw me. Her first question was about Jonotás. Did I have any news about her? Manuela became enraged when I told her Jonotás was locked up in Casa Matas. She wanted to know what people in the streets were saying about the Liberator—had he made it to Bogotá?

  “I don’t live for myself anymore, but for Bolívar,” she said. “Natán, he needs me. I must escape and go to him.”

  We discussed schemes to help her do this. I suggested that I could come back with a nun’s habit hidden under my skirt and she could leave with me wearing that disguise.

  “Natán, I can’t let you do that,” Manuela said. “If you’re caught helping me, they will hang you without mercy.” It was true. Slaves were forgiven little in Gran Colombia.

  “No,” she said, “we must wait. If you can come to see me again, bring me pen and paper to write letters. In the meantime, get word to Jonotás not to despair. Tell her I will not abandon her. We will leave Peru together. I promise you. We’ll get out of this land of swine and never return.”

  I did not want to leave Peru. I was tired of following Manuela from country to country, and I was sick of war. What I wanted was to marry Mariano, and live in one place, under one roof. And yet, in the last two years I had come to see Manuela as a great woman, one who would be remembered in South American history. This was not the time to tell her how I really felt. Manuela had been a kind mistress, a sister, a friend, and now she needed me. I would not desert her, even if that meant I would have to postpone my own life with Mariano. After all, this was not the first time I had asked Mariano to wait for me.

  15

  The door of my cell opened and James Thorne walked in. I was stunned. I rose from my cot, smoothed my hair and my dress, and offered him my hand. When his lips brushed my skin I did not feel the usual revulsion. In the time I’d been living with Bolívar, my resentment toward James had begun to wane. I pointed to the only chair in the cell. He took it and I sat on the edge of the cot.

  “How are they treating you, Manuela?” His tone of concern, not reproach, was unexpected.

  “At least the nuns can’t make me get on my knees and say the rosary in this convent.”

  James smiled and his face relaxed. He had always enjoyed my sense of humor, and apparently still did. It was admirable of him to come see me when I was so helpless and friendless. I suspected that Rosita had tried to visit and the nuns had turned her away.

  “Manuela, I have come to offer you help,” he whispered.

  It was clear to me how difficult it must be for him to do this. I had made him a cuckold, a laughingstock. There was probably no other man in the Andes who would come to the aid of an adulterous wife. “James, I am sorry for—”

  “That’s the past,” he said, stopping me. “I came to talk about the present, Manuela. Perhaps you know that the talk in Lima is that you will be hanged. I am here to say that this will not happen.” He placed his chair closer to me until our knees almost touched, then leaned forward. “As you know, I am held in high regard by the Church, even though it is not my own. I have been extremely generous with the bishopric of Lima for many years. I can manage your escape. I am confident that I can negotiate with the new government. They need my ships. I can bribe government officials. I promise you I won’t give up until I succeed.”

  I was trembling with the effort not to cry. “And what do you want in return?”

  “I was wounded when you left me for Bolívar, I won’t deny it. But over the years, as my admiration for you has grown, so has my love. With you gone, that big house is the loneliest place on earth. If you wish, we could settle in Panama or Chile. I—”

  “I’ve underestimated the kind of man you are, James. And I am grateful,” I said. “But I can’t return to you. I don’t love you. Nothing has changed in that respect in the years we’ve been apart. Even if I were never to see Bolívar again…”

  “Fine,” he said, briskly. “Fine. So let’s get back to the matter at hand. We must move quickly to arrange your release and book passage for you for Ecuador.”

  “I can’t leave without my girls, James,” I said, even though I knew he disliked them. “I made a promise I would never abandon them. They must accompany me.”

  James gathered his hat and walking stick. “As you wish. I will arrange that, too. Now I must go. We must move quickly.”

  I rose from my cot to say good-bye, offering my hand. “Thank you, James.”

  “I made a pledge to be your husband in sickness and in health, Manuela. As long as I live, I will do everything in my power to protect you. Never forget this.”

  TWO DAYS LATER, accompanied by Jonotás and Natán, I sailed from Callao in an English frigate. Guayaquil was my destination. As the arid mountains behind Lima began to fade in the distance, I said a silent good-bye to Peru. I was of two minds about leaving Lima. The city represented my unhappy marriage, but it was also the place where I became a heroine of independence and the soldier I had longed to be since my schooldays in Quito. Most important, I became one with Bolívar in Lima, happy for the first time. In Lima my love for Bolívar had ripened, and he had become more than a lover—a true husband. My destiny was to share his life. In Ecuador, I would be closer to Colombia, where, I hoped, I would join Bolívar as soon as he wrote to me asking me to meet him in Bogotá.

  I was twenty-eight years old and I had seen much of the treachery and cruelty of men and become acquainted with the arbitrary nature of life. In the eight years since I arrived in Lima to wed James Thorne, I had become another woman: weary, hardened, but not disillusioned. I had Bolívar and the future glory of Gran Colombia to live for.

  book THREE

  Bolívar’s Liberator

  16

  SANTA FE DE BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA

  1828–1834

  I had little to do in Quito except daydream about Bolívar and about what our life would be like whe
n we would be reunited. To keep my mind from going dormant, I read aloud to Jonotás and Natán the same books I’d read to Bolívar at night in Lima—the Roman historians he loved, and Don Quixote. The adventures of the mad knight and Sancho made us laugh hard, leaving us breathless, teary-eyed. I began to think of Bolívar as the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance, and of myself as his Sancho Panza. Since meeting Bolívar, I, like Sancho, had spent most of my life on the road. From each expedition on which we sallied forth, I returned battered, like Sancho. But Sancho dreamed of a high rank for himself and his children, and to govern a rich island, a kingdom that he could place in the hands of his minions so he could loll about. What did I want? I followed Bolívar because I loved him, and I loved him because by following him, I could live for an ideal, something greater than myself. After I had tasted a measure of the Liberator’s greatness, I could not go back to living the aimless life of a wealthy woman. My desire to be at his side was my chief reason for living. Apart from el Libertador, I felt useless, like a limb severed from a body. When I was with him, he made me feel I was at the center of his world. I loved the way he called my name. When he said “Manuelita,” I felt as though he were not only naming me, but listing all my attributes, and even my foolishness. I loved the way he lingered on each vowel, prolonging the sounds, as though naming me were a kind of foreplay and my name was a charm used to cast a spell. When he said my name with so much feeling, I was certain of the powerful bond of our intimacy. I recognized it as the true language of lovers, a language understood only by the two of us, and from which everyone else was excluded. Almost two years had gone by since I had heard his voice calling me across the room, or across the bed, or whispering in my ear. It was his voice, with the warmth and sonority of the way people spoke in Caracas, that I missed most of all. What gave me the fortitude to wait for him was the knowledge that no matter how many women threw themselves at him, they were not part of his destiny. I was. I alone had captured Bolívar’s heart.

  IN THE BEGINNING I waited patiently, trusting that we’d be reunited soon. But as the months passed, I became angry. Had I fallen in love with a man whose true mistress was war? I sat down and wrote:

  Sir,

  How can you claim to still love me and be so oblivious to my predicament? I am starting to believe that you have forgotten your Manuelita, that another woman has replaced her in your affections.

  I did not want to appear pathetic: I wanted the general’s passion, not his pity. I could not in seriousness allow myself to contemplate the possibility that he had fallen in love with someone else and no longer wanted me as his lover. I did not want Bolívar to call me to his side because he felt guilty, but I had no choice.

  “I left my husband,” I continued, “to follow you, to fight by your side in battles. Need I remind you, with all the respect that you deserve, that I did not end my marriage to spend the rest of my life waiting for you. My general, I am not a woman made for waiting.” If this letter sounded like an ultimatum, I had to risk it. I signed it, “Your loving Manuelita.”

  The world seemed to be running out of air for two months, when, at last, I received his reply.

  Your kindness and your charms awaken my frozen heart, Manuela. Your love returns to life one who was close to death. I cannot be without you, I cannot of my free will deprive myself of my Manuela. I am not as strong as you; I need to see you: the distance that lies between us is unbearably cruel. You are with me, even though you’re far away. Come to me, come soon, come sooner.

  I SLIPPED OUT of Quito late one night. As Bolívar’s enemies were watching my every move and might try to assassinate me once I was on the road, I took every precaution to elude them. A few days earlier, a cadre of loyal lancers from Bolívar’s army left for a farm in the vicinity of Cotopaxi to wait for me. Then, late one night, Natán left in a carriage with my trunks to join the lancers. The following night, dressed as laborers, donning hats, ruanas, and the woven sandals the Indians wore, Jonotás and I left my father’s house by horse at midnight.

  In Lima, I’d lived in mansions and palaces filled with beautiful things. Now my possessions were packed in half a dozen trunks, but they included what I prized most in the world—Bolívar’s letters to me, as well as the letters his secretary and aides-de-camp wrote to me when Bolívar was too busy to answer my missives himself. These letters were the only tangible proof I had of his love.

  After more than two months of traveling on roads bordering terrifying precipices, we arrived in Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. It was summer, a late afternoon in January of 1828; the air that welcomed us, wafting across the savanna, was dry and balmy. As we emerged from the woods of oak trees at the edge of the plateau, my excitement grew when I spotted, miles off, the spires of the city’s churches. I spurred my exhausted horse, Jonotás and Natán close behind. I felt light-headed, both from the altitude and my proximity to Bolívar. As I rode toward him, my hair loose in the breeze, I forgot the hideous months of the trip, the hardships, the exhaustion that had overcome me so many times. Just the day before, my back and buttocks had ached so much I wondered whether I would arrive in Bogotá in one piece.

  The Camino Real was lined with weeping willows, and the lower slopes of the mountains that ringed the city to the east were draped with alfalfa. We passed fields planted with corn, wheat, quenopio, fields carpeted by the turquoise flowers of the potatoes, where Indians labored knee-deep in what looked like lilac lakes in the dark-blue light of late afternoon.

  The light was almost gone when we reached the city. Its streets were deserted and the windows of the houses shut. Bogotá’s Moorish architecture reminded me of Quito’s. But the natural setting was different. Crystal-clear streams raced into the streets from the cordillera. The gurgle of rushing water was everywhere, like the song of birds heard in the tropical cities of Ecuador.

  I knew that La Quinta was situated directly below Mount Monserrate. When we came to a street that seemed to run through the city directly from the belly of the mountain, I brought my horse to a halt, yanked the reins to the left, and lashed him one, two, a dozen times and raced to the house in order to make it before night fell. Close to La Quinta, I slowed when my eye caught sight of slogans crudely scrawled on the walls of the buildings. The most incendiary one said: “Death to Bolívar, Tyrant of the Andes!” A shiver ran through me, and I decided there and then I would enlist Jonotás and Natán to help me whitewash those walls tomorrow.

  SANTANA, BOLÍVAR’S SECRETARY, met me as I dismounted inside the gates of La Quinta. “The general is holding an important meeting, Señora Manuela,” he explained. “He’s left orders that you should be taken directly to your rooms.”

  I had finished bathing and put on a new gown I’d had made especially for our reunion when I heard a discreet knock on the door. “Enter,” I said, thinking it was Santana returning to take me to Bolívar. The general came in; I rose. Before I had time to say a word of greeting, he took me in his arms, pressing his mouth to my lips. I was so overcome to be finally in his presence that I began to cry.

  “Come, come, Manuelita, you don’t want me to start crying, too,” he said, kissing away the tears on my cheeks. He took my face in the palms of his hands and gazed at me with tenderness. But even as we sat on the bed and he inquired how my trip was, I sensed an impatience. Suddenly he took my hand and said, “Come with me. There are some friends I want you to meet. I want them to see how beautiful you are.” He led me to the library, where a group of officers was gathered, drinking and talking around the fire.

  After his officers left, Bolívar gave me a tour of the house: the petite salon, its walls decorated with gilded mirrors bedecked with candleholders, a room with a massive marble fireplace; the grand salon, painted dark olive, for official receptions; the red and gold room, where he played cards and distracted himself at the billiards table; and the long, narrow dining room where we would dine tonight. All the rooms of La Quinta had wooden floors carpeted with mats made of straw harvested in the lagoons
of the páramos—it was a pleasing Indian touch amid furniture in the English style and imported European objéts.

  As he showed me through the house, Bolívar peppered me with questions about his friends and acquaintances back in Ecuador, what news I had of Peru, the details of my journey. By the time we sat down to supper, it had become clear that the general was trying hard to appear spirited for me. He could not quite conceal his distraction. When the soup was served, he tasted it, then, abruptly, pushed the bowl away and snapped at the servant. “This soup is cold, damn it. Take it away.”

  He barely touched the rest of his food. The servants looked uncomfortable, as if they were afraid something unpredictable would happen next. This irascibility over small things was a side of his that I hadn’t seen before.

  His battles may have taken a toll on Bolívar. He had departed Lima a conqueror, full of vitality and confidence, and now I found him frail, weary, uneasy, his hair ashen. Equally alarming, he didn’t laugh at my jokes.

  His declining health was apparent; I did not dare introduce the subject. As if he had read my mind, he said, “I haven’t been feeling well lately, Manuelita. I know your presence will help restore my health. I’m happy to see you.”

  Later, sharing a bottle of champagne before the marble fireplace, enjoying the warmth of the fire in facing chairs, I saw, his mood brightened as we toasted our reunion. I wanted nothing so much as for him to ravish me. I still desired him. I loved both what I could see of him, pale, shrunken, and that which was invisible to the eye.