The word "because" was not a preposition in the 1930s, and even if it had been, Peter Fleming was too well-bred to use it as such. Thus, shortly after he and Kini Maillart commenced their epic trek from Peking to Kashmir, and their traveling companions, an exiled Russian couple named the Smigunovs, were arrested and sent back, Fleming did not say this happened "because China." But he could have. No explanation was given for this reverse, nor was any expected. If you journeyed through that cranky land, things that were both mysterious and bad happened. The Smigunovs returned, possibly in shackles, to Peking, and they drop from the pages of News From Tartary.

They reappear, however, in Duff Hart-Davis's 1974 biography of Fleming. The Smigunovs somehow made their way to Paraguay! No details are given in this book, which only briefly quotes a letter Fleming received; one gathers the passage east, then way east and way south, was not quick, and the Smigunovs envied Fleming (but in a generous way) his reaching Tibet and beyond. Which sounds reasonable, because Paraguay.

Which maybe nobody says even now in Russian. Or Spanish. But I'm interested. Why Paraguay?

In one of John Biggins's novels about the Austrian naval officer Ottokar Prohaska, this man refers, in just a sentence, to his having become I think an admiral in Paraguay's navy. That would be all riverboats, as much of Austria-Hungary's was. Biggins did not have his character belabor this, and it seemed just another amazing-yet-pathetic thing Prohaska would do, briefly, in a very long life. Indeed, maybe quite a lot of people would be grateful to do, for any length of time, if like Prohaska they were from central Europe and survived WWI. But as I say, the theme was not expanded on, and this was after all fiction, so I did not expect more.

But having now learned a little more of the Smigunovs, and recalling one detail from Biggins's excellent books, I am caused to remember yet a third Paraguay datum. I may have mentioned it on these pages before: the elderly woman who sat next to me on the one Tupolev airliner I was ever on, Kiev to Brussels in 1992. She lived in New Jersey, but that was by no means where she was from. She was from around here, I mean ex-Soviet more-or-less-south-central west Asia, was just visiting now, but during the war had left Stalingrad or close enough and crossed German lines just 17 days after one of her children was born. Her family's migration continued: Ukraine, Poland, Germany itself. At war's end they got to Paraguay, where I think they spent just 1946. She told me she still had her kids' report cards from school there. They had done well. Then, even though the U.S. does not require that immigrants speak several Slavic languages, German, Spanish, and English – or even just write a letter in Ukrainian, which is what she was doing on this flight – American officials in Asunción let the family head to the Garden State. She got a job with the phone company. "I vas alvays goot vit numbers," she said.

Now she was retired, and in my opinion no one deserved it more. I totally believe everything she told me. In the airport in Brussels she accepted modestly my praise, and I wonder what I looked like as I gave it. I have met many impressive people, but this little old lady was beyond impressive, she was awesome. Maybe all I did was stare for a moment and then croak: "You're great." Could any of us have done or said better?

Anyway, what's the pattern? Was there one? I mean: did Paraguay really collect immigrants as few other countries did? And if so, why was Paraguay at least as competitive – if competition there was – as its larger neighbors Brazil and Argentina?

Though the numbers – with which I try to be goot – are spotty, it does appear Paraguay during the 1930s and 1940s was more open to immigration than Brazil or Argentina. And if Paraguay was excelling, it may be because the country was, far more than its opponents in the War of the Triple Alliance, low on people. It needed to repopulate. Or, it thought it needed to.

Or, it still thought it needed to.

To my chagrin I find now that "scholars" are still abuzz over Paraguayan census results. I don't know why they just don't estimate and then extrapolate from 19th-century Paraguayan carbon footprint – how hard can that be? There is in any case still the pattern – people's escaping grotesque circumstances and moving to Paraguay, understandably without any sense of permanence, either because the world taught them that or because Paraguay may continue the lesson – and there is still my theory – Paraguay is OK with this, indeed may direct its consular personnel to handle potential immigrants' requests as expeditiously and as favorably as possible. This theory is vulnerable to disproof. It may not be easy. Who really knows what goes on at the highest levels of that country? Meanwhile, I can still notice things!

(2/13/21)