The following few days (until the end of October, at which point I could no longer pay attention to what was happening around me) were filled with jubilation, with all manner of activity, with busy preparations for the war into which Cochabamba had flung itself. I will only recount the main events here; or rather, whether they were the main ones or not, those that especially called my attention.
On the 16th or 17th of September—please forgive this lack of precision—the enthusiastic volunteers from the Valley of Sacaba arrived under the leadership of Don José Rojas. They were not as tall or as robust as the ones from Cliza, nor were they better equipped, but they were more alert, and rowdier.
On the 23rd of September there was a public ceremony in recognition of the Honorable Junta of Buenos Aires, which was followed by a solemn mass in the Church of the Matriz, “to give thanks to Don Francisco del Rivero, Intendant and Quartermaster General of the province.” Before the groups from the Junta of War, the Cabildo, the Justice, and the Regiment headed to the church, Don Juan Bautista Oquendo pronounced the celebrated speech that has been recorded by historians (and which I will shortly recount in my own manner). He spoke from the gallery of the Cabildo to the entire town, which had gathered in the main plaza in complete silence.
On the 10th of October, the Junta of War arranged to send an armed dispatch to Oruro, led by Don Esteban Arze, in order to protect, as it claimed, “threatened public interests.” But in reality, as my teacher assured me, it was to spread the spirit of Independence—an objective that would become clearer in future dispatches.
On the 16th of that same October, I heard they had named Don Francisco Javier de Orihuela as the representative to attend the Congress that was to meet in Buenos Aires. This seemed to transform my teacher and to fill his heart with happiness.
“When the representatives of the people of Upper Perú and the Río de la Plata meet in the Congress,” he said to me, “the world will see that the Independence of America and the birth of our nation are unavoidable decrees that are willed by Divine Providence.”
On the following day, the 17th, the false news—in the Church of the Recollect itself—that an enemy troop led by the old Commander in Chief Don Jerónimo Marrón de Lombera had appeared just outside the town caused such confusion, created such a tumultuous gathering of people in the main plaza, that I dare not try to describe it, even after I just attempted to give a brief idea of the uprising of the 14th of September. The call to arms that rang in all the church bells, which the governor was unable to stop, brought men and women, old and young, running to join forces, armed with whatever they could find: slings, sticks, hoes, plow-staffs, knives, frying pan handles, cobblestones pulled from the streets—any object that could stab, wound, or bruise the enemy from near or afar. The screams, curses, and howls must have literally caused the birds to fall from the sky. The news spread through the Valleys of Carza, Cliza, and Sacaba in a nearly miraculous short amount of time; today it could be explained, but only through the marvelous invention of the telegraph. An infinite number of volunteers arrived from a six-league radius, running desperately by foot and overriding their horses; they did not want to miss the occasion to prove their strength against the chapetones and to show their love for the emerging homeland. Suffice it to say that one could have carefully chosen, from those present, all the young, robust men, those fully fit for service, and formed an army of forty thousand soldiers who never would have demanded any payment for their services. Don Francisco del Rivero hurried to communicate this fact, as proof of the enthusiastic delirium with which Cochabamba challenged the secular oppression of the Spaniards, to the General who was leading his troops from Buenos Aires in our direction.
I received permission from my mother to go see some of these things in the company of Brother Justo. It surprised me very much not to find among the multitudes the individual who would have caused the biggest racket and the most confusion, the idler and vagabond per excellence—in short, my friend El Overo. I saw him only once, and from a distance. He looked very clean and was decently dressed, and he was standing next to a tall, fat man, who was blonder than him. A woman, speaking to another woman on her way out of church, referred to this man as the “Gringo,”1 and they both crossed themselves as if they had seen the Devil.
Amusing scenes took place in our little house on the border of the Barrio de los Ricos—scenes of laughter and tranquil happiness, the memory of which moves me to the point of tears. I will relay just one to serve as an example of all of them, although this particular one did not end in the same manner as it begun.
The room described at the beginning of these memoirs also contains, in front of the dais, a small bedstead with tall columns and white curtains that were pulled back during the day and tied together with strips of blue silk ribbons. Do not ask me why we had such luxury in the middle of our poverty. You would give me the sorrow of believing that I have not been able to portray Rosita’s soul, her affection and delicate attentions toward me—your humble servant who used to sleep in that bedstead like a prince in a soft, golden bed of feathers.
Rosita is sitting on her comfortable little stool. Since she is once again allowed to do a moderate amount of work, about two or three hours a day, she is embroidering in gold a red velvet baldric that a few of the notable ladies want to give to the new governor. Alejo, who has come by to say goodbye before leaving as a volunteer to Oruro with Don Esteban Arze’s men, is leaning back against one of the panels of the door. Brother Justo, in his chair, with his hood over his eyes, seems more jovial than usual. I stand at attention in front of him like a recruit, ready to undertake my lesson. The dialogue between him and I begins:
“Have you learned Oquendo’s beautiful words yet?”
“Yes, sir. And flawlessly, I believe.”
“Can you repeat them like he spoke them from the heights of the gallery of the Cabildo?”
“Not quite; but … who knows!”
“Alejo, put this young man on the table for me.”
The summoned man approaches silently with a smile that reveals all thirty-two of his teeth. He crouches back on his heels and offers me his open hand, barely an inch above the ground. I am not sure what I am supposed to do, but I place my right foot on his hand, straighten up like a cane, and feel myself being lifted almost to the ceiling, and immediately deposited on the table.
We all laugh; Alejo returns to his spot, and the conversation continues:
“Let’s go, begin.”
“‘Brave citizens of Cochabamba; residents of the most fertile, beautiful, and delightful country in the world; most faithful subjects of …’”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha…! We know this part; go on to the next.”
“‘Might they judge in the distant provinces that Cochabamba has caused additional harm upon the King’s wounded chest. . . .’”
“Just like Don Juan Bautista! Let’s get to the peroration. That’s where the crux of the speech is, my son; the historians that speak of it will do well to transcribe it as the most beautiful example of the lofty feelings with which our country has cried its shout of Independence.”
“‘I see that you aspire to greater glories. Your strength will overcome the apparatus that the enemies of the State and your homeland still maintain in your region. The vigilance with which you amass your troops, the unity of feeling—in spite of the picture that Cañete2 paints of Americans—with which you loath selfishness and strive to maintain with astonishing rivalry the rights of your homeland and of the State, is the most convincing argument that a single thought and a single sense of duty dictates your actions. But what most elevates your homeland is the piety and devotion with which you have proceeded; from them springs forth the peace and tranquility that your homeland enjoys even in the presence of disorder and chaos. Nevertheless, even though this very honorable trait elicits my applause, I want to, thirdly, entrust upon you that from now on you must proceed in accordance with the same saintly law that you profess: that our European brothers, who you commonly call chapetones, far from having to endure any offense, be the first recipients of our affection. This is the time for the American character to shine. Do not ever bring harm upon your neighbor; do not avenge personal affronts. Demonstrate your temperament, the nobility of your souls, and the generosity of your hearts in everything: do not stain your hands with the blood of your brothers. Put aside your rancor: as you foster the most just of wars against your enemies, confer the sweetest peace upon your strong and brave homeland.’”
“Good. Wonderful!”
Then Alejo, who cannot contain himself, begins to yell:
“Long live Donjuán! And I’m not talking about Don Oquendo, but about you, young man! Long live Don Juan of—”
“Of nowhere, nor of anyone,” my mother concludes with a loud and seemingly irate voice.
Alejo becomes as absolutely quiet and motionless as a statue. We all remain silent. I do not know what the others might be thinking, but I ask myself: what word was about to come out of the locksmith’s mouth?
The following morning, on the day of the false alarm of the 17th of October, I awoke when I heard a cavernous voice in our room that sounded like a pig’s raucous snorts. I sat up silently and very carefully opened my curtains just slightly. At first, all I could see was an enormous white mass, which I finally recognized as the Reverend Father Robustiano Arredondo. Sitting in one of the chairs, jammed between its armrests, he was talking with my mother, who was standing before him with the small Imitation of Christ closed in one hand. That strange, early morning visitor had arrived while she had been partaking of Brother Justo’s prescription, probably not satisfied with only taking the nightly dosage.
I believe that there is not a single man more deserving of his last name anywhere on the entirety of our round earth than this Reverend Father Arredondo,3 the Prelate of the Church of Our Lady of Mercy. His obesity in the town was proverbial. His entire body and each one of its composing parts aspired toward a spherical shape as much as possible: his swollen head, bald and shiny; his ruddy cheeks; his nose, red as a tomato; his shoulders; his hands; and, more than any other, his enormous abdomen. Morally, as he himself will reveal in the course of this story, where he will reappear several times in interesting occasions, he was also a well-rounded fool.
The first words I heard distinctly piqued my curiosity to such a degree that nothing in the world would have consoled me had I not been able to hear the conversation to its end. In order to prevent them from realizing that I was awake, I decided to lie back down on my bed, and to cover my head with the sheets; I even tried to restrain my breathing as much as possible without suffocating.
And what I heard is exactly the following:
“The noble lady wants to fulfill her husband’s wishes, but with one condition, which she even told him in his last moments, and of which he approved.”
“And what is that condition?”
“That your separation from the boy be definitive, that you do not set foot in her house, nor that he come to see you under any situation.”
“Oh, the noble lady is so very generous!”
“You accept, then?”
“Can Your Reverence truly believe so?”
“You refuse, then. How ungrateful!”
“No, I do not think that either.”
“I don’t understand you. . . . But I have thought of something! In order to keep yourself from wanting to see him, why don’t you cloister yourself in one of the convents for nuns. . . . Go to St. Claire, my daughter!”
“I do not believe that this will be necessary; no, Reverend Father. God shall arrange it elsewise!”
“Amen. So be it.”
“I need to think about it. If Your Reverence could return in eightdays. . . .”
“Yes, I will return, my daughter. But try to send your response to me before then. I do not leave the confessional at noon, and I even tend to take my siesta right there, so as to be available to hear the sinners. Uff! Uff! It seems like this small chair wants to hold me here forever.”
“God be with you, Your Reverence.”
“And may He accompany you and light your way, my daughter. Uff! Uff!”
As soon as Father Arredondo had left, I jumped from my bed and ran as I was, in my undershirt, to kneel at my mother’s feet. She, meanwhile, had collapsed into her little stool, pale as a corpse.
“No, mother,” I told her, “I will never leave your side. . . . I despise that noble lady, whatever she may want from me!”
My mother gave me a fixed look with those eyes of hers that seemed even more beautiful because they were filled with tears. With a blood-curdling scream, she yelled out the word “son,” which was so difficult for her to utter, and she held me tightly against her heart as she continued crying uncontrollably. She did not listen to my pleas, nor respond to my affectionate words, nor feel the kisses with which I persisted on trying to dry her profuse weeping. I believe hours on end transpired in this way. Finally, leaning on my shoulders with shaking hands, she stood up in order to go throw herself on the bed I had left, as if she had been broken by a long, physical torture on the rack.
That same fateful day the most alarming symptoms of her illness reappeared. At a moment in which I thought that my presence was not that necessary, for I was leaving the Aragonese Father, María Francisca, and two other women in care of our patient, I ran to the Church of St. Augustine to tell my dear teacher everything that had occurred. Listening to me, he began to shake with a nervous trembling. I saw him fall onto his bench and heard him murmur, in a muffled voice filled with infinite sorrow and unusual rage:
“They have murdered her!”
And effectively, there was nothing that could be done to save her. Despite the most solicitous care that once again surrounded her, she was dying, and quickly. And I believe—my God!—that she actually wanted to die before having to give Father Arredondo her answer. She received the viaticum and the extreme unction from Brother Justo on the day that Father Arredondo was to return. My teacher seemed to be in much greater pain than the dying woman whom he was aiding. When the Prelate of Our Lady of Mercy arrived, the victim was lying back on her pillows. He entered panting from fatigue after having walked, at a slow pace, the three blocks from his church to the dwelling where, one week before, he had unsuspectingly left that sentence of death. She did not see him, but she heard his loud breathing and the heavy noise of his steps.
“Your Reverence can take him,” she said to him, “for I will not see him again on this earth, nor he me!”
Her eyes clouded over immediately; she looked at Brother Justo, standing at the head of the bed, and at me, kneeling at her feet. She wanted to convey her last farewell to me.
“I can no longer go with you; I am leaving. . . . I am being called!”
Having pronounced these words in the sweetest and most tender of voices, she raised her right arm slowly and pointed to the heavens with her index finger.
Who managed, by brute force, to tear me away from the arms of that stiff and frozen corpse that I would not stop embracing, as I asked to exchange my life for hers, or else be buried with her? What took place there? How did the time elapse until they nailed the black coffin shut and insisted on taking it away? What did I see, what did I hear—dumbfounded—during those moments in which I ran out of tears and was unable to hear my own painful screams?
I do not know when nor how, but I am aware that at some point I found myself at the door of our small house, between Brother Justo, blocking the entrance, and Father Arredondo, dragging me away by the hand. I remember that the former said to me:
“Follow him; it is what your mother wished.”
I remember, also, that he made the following request of me:
“For your mother who is in Heaven and for the love of your teacher and friend who will still watch over you here on earth, do not give these people with whom you must live any cause to complain.”