by Yann Martel
He came upon Father Ulisses' diary mere weeks after his life was irretrievably blighted. The discovery was a happenstance related to his work at the National Museum of Ancient Art, where he works as assistant curator. The Cardinal-Patriarch of Lisbon, Jose Sebastiao de Almeida Neto, had just made a donation to the museum of ecclesiastical and non-ecclesiastical objects accumulated over the centuries from across the Portuguese empire. With Cardinal Neto's permission, Tomas was sent by the museum to do research in the Episcopal archives on Rua Serpa Pinto to establish the exact provenance of these beautiful artifacts, the story whereby an altar, chalice, crucifix or psalter, a painting or a book, had come into the hands of the Lisbon diocese.
What he found were not exemplary archives. Succeeding secretaries of the various archbishops of Lisbon clearly did not dwell overmuch on the earthly matter of organizing thousands of papers and documents. It was on one of the open shelves devoted to the patriarchate of Cardinal Jose Francisco de Mendoca Valdereis, Patriarch of Lisbon between 1788 and 1808, in a stuff-all section given the breezy title Miudezas--Odds and Ends--that he spotted the hand-stitched volume with the brown leather cover, the handwritten title legible despite the splotchy discolourations.
What life was this, what gift? he had wondered. What were the instructions? Who was this Father Ulisses? When he pried open the volume, the spine made the sound of small bones breaking. Handwriting burst out with startling freshness, the black ink standing in high contrast to the ivory paper. The italic, quill-penned script was from another age. The pages were faintly rimmed with sunny yellow, indicating that they had seen very little light since the day they were written upon. He doubted that Cardinal Valdereis had ever read the volume; in fact, given that there was no archival note attached to the cover or anywhere inside--no catalogue number, no date, no comment--and no reference to the book in the index, he had the distinct impression that no one had ever read it.
He studied the first page, noticing an entry with a date and a place name above it: September 17, 1631, Luanda. He turned the pages with care. Other dates appeared. The last year recorded, though without a day or month, was 1635. A diary, then. Here, there, he noted geographic references: "the mountains of Bailundu...the mountains of Pungo Ndongo...the old Benguela route," locales that all appeared to be in Portuguese Angola. On June 2, 1633, there was a new place name: Sao Tome, the small island colony in the Gulf of Guinea, "that fleck of dandruff off the head of Africa, long days north along the damp coast of this pestilential continent." His eyes came upon a sentence written a few weeks later: Isso e minha casa. "This is home." But it wasn't written just once. The words covered the page. A whole page of the same short sentence, closely written, the repeated lines wavering up and down slightly: "This is home. This is home. This is home." Then they stopped, replaced by prose that was more normally discursive, only to appear again some pages later, covering half a page: "This is home. This is home. This is home." Then once more, further on, for a page and a quarter: "This is home. This is home. This is home."
What did it mean? Why the manic repetition? He eventually found a possible answer on a page where the reiteration was the same as in every other instance, covering nearly two pages this time, with one difference, a spillage at the end, a clue that the phrase on the page was an ellipsis that the author completed in his mind every time: "This is home. This is home. This is home where the Lord has put me until He takes me to His Breast." Father Ulisses evidently had been racked by acute homesickness.
On one page Tomas found a curious sketch, a drawing of a face. The features were hastily outlined except for the mournful eyes, which were meticulously drawn. He studied those eyes for many minutes. He plunged into their sadness. Memories of his recently lost son swirled in his mind. When he left the archives that day, he hid the diary among innocuous papers in his briefcase. He was honest to himself about his purpose. This was no informal loan--it was plain theft. The Episcopal archives of Lisbon, having neglected Father Ulisses' diary for over two hundred and fifty years, would not miss it now, and he wanted the leisure to examine it properly.
He began reading and transcribing the diary as soon as he found the time. He proceeded slowly. The penmanship went from the easily readable to skeins of calligraphy that required him to work out that this scribble represented that syllable, while that squiggle represented this syllable. What was striking was how the writing was poised in the early sections, then grew markedly worse. The final pages were barely decipherable. A number of words he could not make out, no matter how hard he tried.
What Father Ulisses wrote when he was in Angola was no more than a dutiful account and of modest interest. He was merely another minion of the Bishop of Luanda, who "sat in the shade on the pier upon his marble throne" while he worked himself to a listless stupor, running around baptizing batches of slaves. But on Sao Tome a desperate force took hold of him. He began to work on an object, the gift of the title. Its making consumed his mind and took all his energy. He mentioned seeking the "most perfect wood" and "adequate tools" and recalled training in his uncle's shop when he was young. He describes oiling his gift several times to help in its preservation, "my glistening hands artisans of devoted love." Towards the end of the diary, Tomas found these odd words, extolling the imposing character of his creation:
It shines, it shrieks, it barks, it roars. Truly the Son of God giving a loud cry & breathing his last as the curtain of the temple is torn from top to bottom. It is finished.
What did Father Ulisses train in, and what did his uncle's shop produce? What did he oil with his hands? What was shining and shrieking, barking and roaring? Tomas could not find a clear answer in Father Ulisses' diary, only hints. When did the Son of God give a loud cry and breathe his last? On the Cross. Could the object in question be a crucifix, then, Tomas wondered. It was certainly a sculpture of some sort. But there was more to it than that. It was, by Father Ulisses' account, a most peculiar work. The moth in Tomas's soul stirred. He remembered Dora's last hours. Once she was bedridden, she held on to a crucifix with both hands, and no matter how much she tossed and turned, no matter how much she cried out, she didn't let go of it. It was a cheap brass effigy that glinted dully, smallish in size, the type that might hang on a wall. She died clasping it to her chest in her small, bare room, with only Tomas present, in a chair by her bed. When the final moment came, signaled to him by the dramatic stoppage of her loud, rasping breathing (whereas their son had departed so quietly, like the petals of a flower falling off), he felt like a sheet of ice being rushed along a river.
In the hours that followed, as the long night ended and the new day stretched on, as he waited for the undertaker, who kept failing to show up, he fled and returned to Dora's room repeatedly, pushed away by horror, drawn back by compulsion. "How will I survive without you?" he pleaded to her at one point. His attention fell on the crucifix. Until then he had floated along religiously, observant on the outside, indifferent on the inside. Now he realized that this matter of faith was either radically to be taken seriously or radically not to be taken seriously. He stared at the crucifix, balancing between utter belief and utter disbelief. Before he had cast his lot one way or the other, he thought to keep the crucifix as a memento. But Dora, or rather Dora's body, would not let go. Her hands and arms clutched the object with unyielding might, even as he practically lifted her body off the bed trying to wrench it from her. (Gaspar, by comparison, had been so soft in death, like a large stuffed doll.) In a sobbing rage, he gave up. At that moment, a resolution--more a threat--came to his mind. He glared at the crucifix and hissed, "You! You! I will deal with you, just you wait!"
The undertaker arrived at last and took Dora and her cursed crucifix away.
If the object that Father Ulisses had created was what Tomas inferred it was from the priest's wild scribblings, then it was a striking and unusual artifact, something quite extraordinary. It would do nothing less than turn Christianity upside down. It would make good his threat. But did it survi
ve? That was the question that gripped Tomas from the moment he finished reading the diary in his flat after he had smuggled it out of the Episcopal archives. After all, the object might have been burned or hacked to pieces. But in a pre-industrial age, when goods were crafted one by one and distributed slowly, they shone with a value that has faded with the rise of modern industry. Even clothing was not thrown away. Christ's scanty clothing was shared by Roman soldiers who believed he was nothing more than a lowly Jewish rabble-rouser. If ordinary clothes were passed on, then surely a large sculpted object would be preserved, all the more so if it was religious in nature.
How to determine its fate? There were two options: Either the object had stayed on Sao Tome, or it had left Sao Tome. Since the island was poor and given over to commerce, he guessed that it had made its way off the island. He hoped it had gone to Portugal, to the mother country, but it could also have gone to one of the many trading posts and cities along the coast of Africa. In both cases, it would have travelled by ship.
After the death of his loved ones, Tomas spent months seeking evidence of Father Ulisses' creation. In the National Archives of Torre do Tombo, he searched and studied the logbooks of Portuguese ships that travelled the western coast of Africa in the few years after Father Ulisses' death. He worked on the assumption that the carving had left Sao Tome on a Portuguese ship. If it had departed on a foreign ship, then God only knew where it had ended up.
Finally, he came upon the logbook of one Captain Rodolfo Pereira Pacheco, whose galleon had departed Sao Tome on December 14, 1637, carrying, among other goods, "a rendition of Our Lord on the Cross, strange & marvellous." His pulse had quickened. This was the first and only reference to a religious object of any kind that he had seen in relation to the debased colony.
Written next to each item in the logbook was its point of disembarkation. A great number of goods were unloaded at one stop or another along the Slave and Gold coasts, sold or replaced by other goods for which they were traded. He read the word next to the cross in Captain Pacheco's logbook: Lisboa. It had reached the homeland! He whooped in a way unseemly for a study room in the National Archives.
He turned Torre do Tombo upside down trying to find where Father Ulisses' crucifix had gone once it reached Lisbon. He eventually found his answer not in the National Archives but back in the Episcopal archives, where he had started. The irony was more galling than that. The answer lay in the form of two letters on the very shelf of Cardinal Valdereis's archives where he had found the diary, right next to where it had rested before he filched it. If only a string had attached diary to letters, he would have been spared much work.
The first letter was from the Bishop of Braganca, Antonio Luis Cabral e Camara, dated April 9, 1804, asking if the good Cardinal Valdereis might have some gift for a parish in the High Mountains of Portugal whose church had lately suffered a fire that destroyed its chancel. It was "a fine old church," he said, though he did not name the church or give its location. In his reply, a copy of which was attached to Bishop Camara's letter, Cardinal Valdereis stated: "It is my pleasure to send on to you an object of piety that has been with the Lisbon diocese for some time, a singular portrayal of our Lord on the Cross, from the African colonies." Next to a diary that came from the African colonies, could the reference be to any other portrayal of the Lord but Father Ulisses'? Amazing that despite having it right in front of his eyes, Cardinal Valdereis could not see the thing for what it was. But the cleric did not know--and so he could not see.
An exchange of letters with the diocese of Braganca revealed that there was no trace of an African object per se going through their office during Bishop Camara's years. Tomas was vexed. A creation that was strange and marvellous at its point of origin had become singular in Lisbon and then, at the hands of provincials, mundane. That, or its nature had been deliberately ignored. Tomas had to take another tack. The crucifix was meant to go to a church that had suffered a fire. Records showed that between 1793, when Camara was consecrated bishop of Braganca, and 1804, when he wrote to Cardinal Valdereis, there had been fires of varying severity in a number of churches in the High Mountains of Portugal. Such are the dangers of illuminating churches with candles and torches and burning incense during high holidays. Camara said the crucifix was destined for "a fine old church." What church would earn that favourable description from the bishop? Tomas surmised one that was Gothic or perhaps Romanesque. Which meant a church built in the fifteenth century or earlier. The secretary of the diocese of Braganca did not prove to be a keen ecclesiastical historian. Prodding on Tomas's part yielded the guess that five of the churches blighted by fires might be worthy recipients of Bishop Camara's praise, namely the widely scattered churches of Sao Juliao de Palacios, Santalha, Mofreita, Guadramil, and Espinhosela.
Tomas wrote to the priest of each church. Their replies were inconclusive. Each priest heaped praise upon his church, extolling its age and beauty. By the sounds of it, there were copies of Saint Peter's Basilica strewn across the High Mountains of Portugal. But none of the priests had much to say that was illuminating on the crucifix at the heart of his church. Each claimed that it was a stirring work of faith, but none knew when his church had acquired it or where it had come from. Finally Tomas decided that there was nothing to do but go and determine for himself if he was right about the true character of Father Ulisses' crucifix. It was a minor annoyance that it had ended up in the High Mountains of Portugal, that remote and isolated region to the very northeast of his country. Soon enough he would have the object before his eyes.
He is startled by a voice.
"Hello, Senhor Tomas. You are coming to see us, are you not?"
It is the old groundskeeper, Afonso. He has opened the gate and is looking down at Tomas. How did he open it so quietly?
"Yes, I am, Afonso."
"Are you not well?"
"I'm fine."
He works his way to his feet, slipping the book back into his pocket as he does so. The groundskeeper pulls the cord of the bell. As the bell jangles, so do Tomas's nerves. He must go in, it is so. It is not just this home, where Dora and Gaspar died, but every home that now has this effect on him. Love is a house with many rooms, this room to feed the love, this one to entertain it, this one to clean it, this one to dress it, this one to allow it to rest, and each of these rooms can also just as well be the room for laughing or the room for listening or the room for telling one's secrets or the room for sulking or the room for apologizing or the room for intimate togetherness, and, of course, there are the rooms for the new members of the household. Love is a house in which plumbing brings bubbly new emotions every morning, and sewers flush out disputes, and bright windows open up to admit the fresh air of renewed goodwill. Love is a house with an unshakable foundation and an indestructible roof. He had a house like that once, until it was demolished. Now he no longer has a home anywhere--his flat in the Alfama is as bare as a monk's cell--and to set foot in one is to be reminded of how homeless he is. He knows that is what drew him to Father Ulisses in the first place: their mutual homesickness. Tomas recalls the priest's words on the death of the governor of Sao Tome's wife. She was the only European woman on the island. The next such woman lived in Lagos, some eight hundred kilometres across the waters. Father Ulisses had not actually met the governor's wife. He had seen her on only a few occasions.
The death of a white man causes a greater breach on this pestilent island than it does in Lisbon. When it is a woman, then! Her demise is a weight that is most difficult to bear. I fear the sight of a woman of my own kind will never again comfort me. Never again beauty, gentility, grace. I do not know how much longer I can go on.
Tomas and Afonso cross the cobbled courtyard, the groundskeeper a deferential step ahead of him. Since he is advancing backwards in his usual fashion, they walk in lockstep back to back. At the foot of the steps to the main entrance, Afonso moves aside and bows. As it's a matter of climbing only a few steps, Tomas climbs them backwards. Before he ha
s even reached the door, it opens behind him and he enters the house backwards. Glancing over his shoulder, he sees Damiano, his uncle's long-time butler who has known him since he was a child, waiting for him, his hands open, a smile upon his face. Tomas pivots to face him.
"Hello, Damiano."
"Menino Tomas, what a pleasure to see you. You are well?"
"I am, thank you. How is my aunt Gabriela?"
"Splendid. She shines upon us like the sun."
Speaking of the sun, it shines through the high windows upon the bounty of objects in the entrance hall. His uncle has made his vast fortune trading in African goods, principally ivory and timber. Two enormous elephant tusks adorn one wall. Between them hangs a rich, glossy portrait of King Carlos I. His Majesty himself stood before this likeness when he honoured his uncle with his presence in the house. Other walls are decorated with zebra and lion hides, with mounted animal heads above them: lion and zebra, but also eland, hippopotamus, wildebeest, giraffe. Hides also provide the upholstery for the chairs and the couch. African handiworks are displayed in niches and on shelves: necklaces, rustic wooden busts, gris-gris, knives and spears, colourful fabrics, drums, and so on. Various paintings--landscapes, portraits of Portuguese landowners and attending natives, but also a large map of Africa, with the Portuguese possessions highlighted--set the scene and evoke some of the characters. And on the right, artfully set amidst tall grass, the stalking stuffed lion.
The hall is a curatorial mess, a cultural mishmash, every artifact ripped out of the context that gave sense to it. But it lit up Dora's eyes. She marvelled at this colonial cornucopia. It made her proud of the Portuguese empire. She touched every object she could reach, except the lion.
"I'm glad to hear my aunt is well. Is my uncle in his office?" Tomas asks.
"He's waiting for you in the courtyard. If you would be so kind as to follow me."
Tomas does an about-face and follows Damiano across the entrance hall and down a carpeted hallway lined with paintings and display cases. They turn in to another hallway. Ahead of Tomas, Damiano opens two French windows and moves aside. Tomas steps out onto a semi-circular landing. He hears his uncle's loud, exuberant voice: "Tomas, behold the Iberian rhinoceros!"