sewage and slag from the river, and eddies of sweet decay from landfills; ooze of meat from the slaughterhouse district; the complex admixtures of blossoms and bleach, baked bread and dog shit, mown grass and motor oil. And always, intermingled, the slick and slippery undertow of the collective human scent. Only when it is full-on dark—when the sun has dissolved like a tablet into the Pilcomayo, draining the colors from dusk—only then do they descend from the highest point of the property. Until first light, when they know to return to the kennel before the gates swing shut, the dogs have the run of this cañón . For the next eight or so hours they are free to romp and ramble and hunt and kill.
Guinea pigs are abundant year-round, as are lizards and toads. In summer, animals foraging for food and water come out of the jungle and down from the highlands. They breach the fence, attracted to the mulch of fallen fruit beneath the lime and papaya trees. Armadillos, capybaras, anacondas, a feral cat or two. Once, a tapir, far from its range, a two-hundred-pound calf that broke through and in a panic could not find its way out. It took them all night to chase it down. And once, there was a man, the greasy stink of him coming at them in torrents—the hot scent of prey like a desperate itching in the middle of the brain.
Once a week the master comes. He sweeps out the kennel, refreshes their bedding and their water trough. He brushes each of them, massages their hindquarters. Always Cerbero first. Paladino—patient—waits his turn. The master looks into their ears, checks their teeth, tends the occasional wound. He examines their droppings. He runs them through their commands. Sit! Stay! Catch! Hold! Tear! Finish! Good boy! When they are done, he kisses each of them. He is not afraid. The dogs know this. The scent of the master is neither of predator nor prey, of friend nor foe. He is simply the master. Before he leaves, he reaches into a waxed bag and throws a slab of round steak before each of them. The dogs watch him, mouths shut, eyes steady. On his command, they fall on the meat. They take food from no other.
But there is one other they are drawn to. She is redolent of blood, and deep in the fissures of canine memory lies a trace of what the tang of her blood once meant. (For Cerbero and Paladino are neutered males, and while the madness of the rut is absent, the absence is always present in them—dogs know their balls have been cut off.) It is this trace—the faint and fleeting residues of estrus and the mount—that brings them running. But they take food from her because it is the scent of the master that prevails. He whelms her, and she is steeped in him, and but for that, they would not come to her and gift her with their gentle mouthings. But for that, they would instead do all they could to clamp down on her hands and pull her in chunks through the cañón fence.
* * *
The Presidente-in-Exile is bleeding.
He holds a blood-dappled monogrammed hankie to his head. The cut is above the hairline, a tiny wound, but a real bleeder. He has just gotten home, flung his coat off, kicked off his pee-splashed Berluti mocs. He stands in front of the portable Sony in the kitchen, looking at a documentary—a history of the War of the Triple Alliance. In 1864, Francisco Solano López, third president of the Republic, invaded Brazil, then declared war on Argentina and Uruguay, engaging in a doomed six-year campaign that wiped out two-thirds of the population; by 1870 there were only thirty thousand men left in all of Paraguay. The debacle is rendered in history as a glorious act of national pride and will, and the ten-part documentary about it is aired on state television again and again. Aside from World Cup soccer in the summer and Miss Universe and the Oscars in the spring, television in Paraguay is a tedious déjà vu zone, awash in reruns of Stroessner’s inaugural addresses and cooking shows from Argentina (
Guinea pigs are abundant year-round, as are lizards and toads. In summer, animals foraging for food and water come out of the jungle and down from the highlands. They breach the fence, attracted to the mulch of fallen fruit beneath the lime and papaya trees. Armadillos, capybaras, anacondas, a feral cat or two. Once, a tapir, far from its range, a two-hundred-pound calf that broke through and in a panic could not find its way out. It took them all night to chase it down. And once, there was a man, the greasy stink of him coming at them in torrents—the hot scent of prey like a desperate itching in the middle of the brain.
Once a week the master comes. He sweeps out the kennel, refreshes their bedding and their water trough. He brushes each of them, massages their hindquarters. Always Cerbero first. Paladino—patient—waits his turn. The master looks into their ears, checks their teeth, tends the occasional wound. He examines their droppings. He runs them through their commands. Sit! Stay! Catch! Hold! Tear! Finish! Good boy! When they are done, he kisses each of them. He is not afraid. The dogs know this. The scent of the master is neither of predator nor prey, of friend nor foe. He is simply the master. Before he leaves, he reaches into a waxed bag and throws a slab of round steak before each of them. The dogs watch him, mouths shut, eyes steady. On his command, they fall on the meat. They take food from no other.
But there is one other they are drawn to. She is redolent of blood, and deep in the fissures of canine memory lies a trace of what the tang of her blood once meant. (For Cerbero and Paladino are neutered males, and while the madness of the rut is absent, the absence is always present in them—dogs know their balls have been cut off.) It is this trace—the faint and fleeting residues of estrus and the mount—that brings them running. But they take food from her because it is the scent of the master that prevails. He whelms her, and she is steeped in him, and but for that, they would not come to her and gift her with their gentle mouthings. But for that, they would instead do all they could to clamp down on her hands and pull her in chunks through the cañón fence.
* * *
The Presidente-in-Exile is bleeding.
He holds a blood-dappled monogrammed hankie to his head. The cut is above the hairline, a tiny wound, but a real bleeder. He has just gotten home, flung his coat off, kicked off his pee-splashed Berluti mocs. He stands in front of the portable Sony in the kitchen, looking at a documentary—a history of the War of the Triple Alliance. In 1864, Francisco Solano López, third president of the Republic, invaded Brazil, then declared war on Argentina and Uruguay, engaging in a doomed six-year campaign that wiped out two-thirds of the population; by 1870 there were only thirty thousand men left in all of Paraguay. The debacle is rendered in history as a glorious act of national pride and will, and the ten-part documentary about it is aired on state television again and again. Aside from World Cup soccer in the summer and Miss Universe and the Oscars in the spring, television in Paraguay is a tedious déjà vu zone, awash in reruns of Stroessner’s inaugural addresses and cooking shows from Argentina (
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