The Secret History of Costaguana Read Free

banners that hung all over Bogotá with the slogan VIVA LÓPEZ, TERROR OF THE CONSERVATIVES; he was one of those who gathered outside Congress to intimidate (successfully) the men who were going to elect a new president; once López, candidate of the young revolutionaries, was elected, he was one of those who demanded from the columns of the newspaper of the moment—I don’t remember which one it was at the time, whether The Martyr or The Struggle —the expulsion of the Jesuits. Reaction of the reactionary society: eighty little girls dressed in white with flowers in their hands assembled in front of the Palace to oppose the measure; in his newspaper, my father called them “Instruments of Obscurantism.” Two hundred ladies of unquestionable lineage repeated the demonstration, and my father distributed a pamphlet entitled Hell Hath No Fury Like a Jesuit Scorned . The priests of that New Granada, deprived of authority and privileges, hardened their positions as the months went by, and the sensation of harassment increased. My father, in response, joined the Estrella del Tequendama Masonic lodge: the secret meetings gave him a sense of conspiring (ergo of being alive), and the fact that the elders exempted him from the initiation trials made him think that Freemasonry was a sort of natural habitat. Through his efforts the temple managed to catechize two young priests; his patrons recognized these achievements with advanced promotions. And at some point in that brief process, my father, young soldier in search of battles, found one that appeared minor at first glance, almost trivial, but which would, albeit indirectly, change his life.
     
    In September 1852, while it seemed to rain for forty days and forty nights all over New Granada, my father heard from an old friend from the Faculty of Medicine, liberal like him but less quarrelsome, of the Most Recent Outrage Against the God of Progress: Father Eustorgio Valenzuela, who had declared himself the spiritual guardian of the University of Bogotá, had unofficially banned the use of human cadavers for pedagogical, anatomical, and academic purposes. Surgical apprentices could practice on frogs or mice or rabbits, said the priest, but the human body, creation of divine hand and will, sacred receptacle of the soul, was inviolable and should be respected.
    “Medieval!” shouted my father from some printed page or other. “Rancid Papist!” But to no avail: Father Valenzuela’s network of loyalties was solid, and soon the parishioners from neighboring towns, Chía and Bosa and Zipaquirá, did what they could to prevent the students from the sinful capital having recourse to other morgues. The university’s civil authorities came under pressure from the heads of (good) families, and before anyone realized, they had yielded before the blackmail. Upon the university dissection tables crowded the open frogs—the white, porous bellies slit by the scalpel in a violet line—and in the kitchen half the chickens were destined for the stew pot and the other half for the operating room. The Embargo on Bodies became a topic of conversation in the salons and in a matter of weeks was taking up significant space in the newspapers. My father declared the foundation of the New Materialism, and in several manifestos quoted conversations with different authorities: “On the dissection table,” said one, “the tip of my scalpel has never encountered a soul.” Others, more daring (and often anonymous): “The Holy Trinity is something else now: the Holy Spirit has been replaced by Laplace.” The followers, whether voluntary or not, of Father Valenzuela founded in their turn the Old Spiritualism, and produced their own share of witnesses and publicity phrases. They were able to release one accurate and convincing fact: Pascal and Newton had been faithful and practicing Christians. They were able to release a slogan, cheap but no less effective for it: TWO CUPS OF SCIENCE LEAD TO ATHEISM,