Where Tigers Are at Home

by Jean-Marie Blas de Robles

  Eléazard pushed open the door of the Caravela Hotel—Clean and comfortable. Seven well-appointed rooms—making the lengths of bamboo hanging from the ceiling clatter against each other. A young creole immediately came to greet him, arms stretched out toward him, his face radiant with a broad, happy smile.

  “Lazardinho! What a lovely surprise … Tudo bem?”

  “Tudo bom.”

  Eléazard felt real enjoyment offering these ritual words of welcome; afterward, as if soothed by their magic, life immediately seemed more attractive.

  “So how’s things?” Alfredo asked after having given him a friendly embrace. “If you want to stay and eat I’ve got some fresh prawns. I went to get them from the boat myself.”

  “Prawns are OK …”

  “Take a seat. I’ll tell Socorró.”

  Eléazard went into the interior courtyard of the hotel. A few tables spread around under the vast roof of the veranda constituted the restaurant. Three immense banana trees and an unknown bush on the patio partly concealed the stairs to the rooms. A naked bulb was already lit, casting a yellow glow over the bare courtyard.

  Once he had sat down, Eléazard checked the brief typed menu lying on the table; unchanged for months, it was very simple:

  Filé de pescada, Camarão empanado,

  Peixadas, Tortas, Saladas.

  Preço p/pessoa: O melhor possível

  FAVOR FAZER RESERVA

  Alfredo’s whole charm was contained in the basic level of catering. Three dishes with fish or prawns, tarts and salads. Even the plural was a harmless exaggeration since apart from exceptional cases booking advised! there was nothing but the plat du jour, that is, what Alfredo himself and his young wife were having. As for the prices—The best, the cheapest possible—they simply depended on inflation (300 percent per year) and what Alfredo felt about the customer.

  After a meager inheritance had left them with this dilapidated house, Alfredo and Eunice had decided to transform it into a hotel. They were motivated not so much by the idea of making a fortune, though that was an illusion they had harbored during the first euphoric days, than by the love of a simple way of life and a desire to bring back some life to Alcântara. Proponents of an alternative solution—the word came to their lips frequently as a panacea for bourgeois self-interest and American imperialism’s hold on the planet—they managed to get by in their haven of peace and humanity. During the season a few tourists, whose passion for colonial architecture was such that they forgot the time of the last boat, would end up in their hotel, the only one in Alcântara, and that brought in enough to allow Eunice and Alfredo to struggle through with the restaurant for the rest of the year. Out of the goodness of their hearts rather than necessity, this likeable couple employed old Socorró as cook and to help do the rooms.

  Alfredo reappeared carrying two glasses and two large bottles of beer. “Ice-cold! Just the way you like it,” he said, joining him at the table. He cautiously filled the glasses then raised his to Eléazard:

  “Saúde.”

  “Santé,” Eléazard replied, clinking glasses with him.

  “By the way, have you heard the news? We’ve let a room!”

  It was remarkable enough, right in the middle of the rainy season, for Eléazard to show his surprise.

  “It’s true, I swear it is,” Alfredo assured him. “An Italian woman. She’s a journalist like you, and …”

  “I’m not a journalist,” Eléazard insisted, “I’m a correspondent. It’s not the same thing.” To his mind, at least, it was different, but he was annoyed with himself for instinctively putting on this air and immediately qualified it. “Although both are a similar species of vulture …”

  “You’re too hard on yourself,” Alfredo went on, “and on your profession. Without you, without journalists, who would know what’s going on here? Anyway, she’s called Loredana, and she’s quite a girl, I can assure you. If I wasn’t married … phew.” This was accompanied by a wink and a burst of finger-clicking.

  “You’ll have to teach me how you do that one day.”

  “You just have to get the knack,” Alfredo replied. “Look: you let your hand go quite limp—that’s the secret—then shake it as if you wanted to get rid of it. Your fingers knock against each other and that’s what makes the noise of castanets.”

  As Alfredo looked on with an amused air, Eléazard tried to imitate him without success. He admitted defeat when Eunice appeared with a tray.

  “Good evening, Lazardinho,” she said, putting a plate of breaded prawns on the table. She leaned down and gave him a friendly embrace on both cheeks. “It’s ages since we saw you, you rascal.”

  “Two weeks,” said Eléazard in his defense, “not even that, twelve days, to be precise.”

  “Love doesn’t count the days. But you’re forgiven. Now tell me what you think of these little beauties,” she said, pointing at the prawns.

  “Succulent, as usual,” said Eléazard, his mouth full.

  “Good. I’ll let you get on with it.”

  “Me too,” said Alfredo, getting up at a brief sign from his wife.

  “No, no, you stay. Go on, keep me company. Eunice, bring us another plate of prawns, please, and a bottle of white wine.”

  Alfredo sat down again with an evident air of satisfaction and he didn’t need to be asked twice when Eléazard offered to share his prawns. Peeled and fried in breadcrumbs with just the tail fin sticking out, you could use your fingers to dip them in a kind of very spicy red mayonnaise then pop them in your mouth. They were delicious.

  At Alfredo’s instigation the conversation soon came around to the government project of setting up a rocket-launching site somewhere in the surrounding forest. So far the information they had was sketchy, gleaned with difficulty by a Communist newspaper in São Luís, Defense of Maranhão, but it looked as if Brazil was preparing to sacrifice the Alcântara peninsula to the higher interests of the nation, as the newspaper editorial put it with a forest of ironic quotation marks.

  “Rockets! I ask you!” Alfredo said in disgust. “People are starving to death in the streets, the national debt’s strangling the country to such an extent that we’re only working for the bloodsuckers of the IMF—and they want to send rockets into space! It’s the Americans again. But we’ll fight, you can be sure of that. If not, it’s the end of Alcântara …”

  Eléazard loved the ease with which Alfredo fell into a rebellious attitude. He appreciated it in his daughter as well, although secretly and in a more selective way, without managing to find the core of innocence that would have allowed him to embrace their optimism. True, he shared the sense of the absurdity of the project that had brought a quiver to the Brazilian’s voice, he approved of his anger and his determination, but not for one moment did he feel able to believe in the possibility of holding up the course of events in any way. Not that he had become fatalistic, at least not in his own eyes, nor reactionary or conservative; he had simply lost the hope that alone can move mountains, or at least let you believe it’s worth trying. Even if he didn’t see it as such, his outward resignation worried him. But how can we call into question our feeling of being clear-sighted when, unfortunately, we are so taken with it? Humanity, he believed, was an indifferent species and anyone unfortunate enough to have sensed that obvious fact can do nothing about the innumerable mass of those who provide the evidence. Alfredo wasn’t a friend and would probably never become one, with the result that Eléazard kept to himself that extreme and contagious despair that must only—can only—be acknowledged within the protective sanctuary of friendship.

  To get back to the “rockets,” Alfredo didn’t know whether they were talking about strategic missiles or a civilian base for launching satellites. Not that it mattered much for in either case the forest would be destroyed, the inhabitants expelled from their homes, the ecosystem endangered; this vague project had provided a focus for all his disapproval, as if it were an imminent threat to the world, and that, in its very exces
siveness, was admirable.

  The veranda bulb suddenly started to flicker and crackle. “The storm won’t be long coming,” Alfredo said. “I’d better go and find some candles.”

  STRETCHED OUT ON her bed in bra and panties, Loredana watched the unsettling fluctuations of the electric light on the ceiling medallion. She found its slow and constantly postponed death fascinating. In the humid, stifling atmosphere of the room, her hair was releasing the water of her body drop by drop. She wondered how long it would take before she liquefied completely, leaving nothing below the death rattle of the bulb but a large dark patch on the sheets.

  Tormented by an increasing irritation in her crotch, she got off the bed and undressed. As they fell to the floor, her underclothes almost captured a large, honey-colored cockroach, which scuttled behind the skirting board. The folds in her groin were smarting in a very unpleasant way. One foot on the washbasin, she rinsed herself down with her facecloth, taking great care and grimacing with pain, before smearing cream over her raw skin. Standing in front of the mirror, she spent a long time fondling her breasts while she waited for the burning sensation, which was forcing her to maintain that uncomfortable posture, to subside. God knows how long she would have to spend moldering away here … Moldering, that was the word, she thought, brooding over the fungal infection that was starting. And could she trust her go-between? Nothing was less certain. The guy had seemed odd to her, those sidelong glances he’d been giving her all the time she’d been negotiating with him. That he’d wanted to be paid in advance was understandable, but what she found difficult to accept was the fact that he’d revealed so little of the process that was under way, simply making her wait in this hotel. Two to three weeks, he’d said, perhaps a bit longer, but it would all be done by the end of the month. She might as well go and have something to eat, it would take her mind off things. Having failed to find any clean underwear in her suitcase, with sigh of exasperation she put on a skirt and T-shirt over her bare skin.

  When she appeared on the veranda, emerging from the gloom, Alfredo broke off. “There she is,” he whispered. “I’ll be back in a minute …”

  Eléazard watched him dash over to the Italian woman who had had such an effect on him. She must be about thirty-five or forty, to go by certain signs that stopped him putting her age at less, but without showing the beginnings of biological decline one would expect at that age. Eléazard’s experienced eye noted her firm breasts, unconfined under her T-shirt, long, slender legs and a slim, elegant figure. Having said that, she was far from being as beautiful as that rogue Alfredo had suggested. As far as Eléazard could tell, her almond-shaped eyes and her mouth were a little too big for her emaciated face; and her excessively long and pointed nose added to the lack of proportion.

  When, led by Alfredo to a nearby table, she passed him, he gave her a smile of welcome; her sole response was a slight nod of the head. Ignoring that, he added a delightfully rounded pair of buttocks to her assets. “An intelligent piece of ass,” he told himself, slightly annoyed at her indifference, “a very intelligent piece of ass.”

  In fact Loredana had not been as uninterested in him as he assumed. Of course, it was impossible for her not to notice the presence of a person in the otherwise deserted restaurant. Even before he had become aware of her, she had observed him for several seconds and judged him attractive, that is to say dangerous, which explained her wariness toward him and her reserve when he greeted her with a smile. Not that he was physically especially attractive—in that respect Alfredo came out an easy winner—but she had seen in him, in his look and his way of moving, an unusual “depth of field,” an expression that to her mind defined the sum total of criteria that made a human being more or less worthy of interest. Even though she was still susceptible to the physical charm of a person, be it a man or a woman, it came a long way behind a quality of being, or at least its probability, that she believed she was capable of perceiving at first glance.

  Sitting two tables away from Eléazard and placed so that she was looking at him in profile, she examined him at leisure: the self-confidence of a forty-year-old, black hair, just a touch of silver at the temples but high on his forehead in a way that promised some nasty surprises in the future; what was most striking was his nose: a hook nose, not really ugly, but one she had never seen before except in Verrocchio’s condottiere in Venice. Without being exactly delicate, the stranger showed no other of the statue’s warlike aspects. He simply seemed sure of himself and cursed with rigorous and redoubtable intelligence. Dante seen by Doré, if she had to choose another artistic resemblance. Moreover, he could even be Italian; Loredana didn’t speak Portuguese very well, but well enough to have noticed a strong foreign accent when she heard him talking to Alfredo.

  Suddenly sensing the persistent look directed at him, Eléazard turned toward her. He silently raised his glass to her before putting it to his lips. This time Loredana could not repress a smile, but it was to excuse her unrelenting stare.

  Alfredo had just served the food when the light went out. After having lit several candles, he came to sit with Eléazard again to open a second bottle. It was the moment the mosquitos chose to emerge. As if there were a link between their appearance and the power-cut, they invaded the veranda in invisible clouds and attacked the diners, irritating Eléazard, who was very sensitive to their bites.

  “Pernilongos,” said Alfredo as he saw him squash one of the insects on his neck. “They don’t worry me but I’ll go and get an incense coil. They’re supposed to drive them away.”

  Eléazard thanked him. As Alfredo disappeared into the interior of the hotel he glanced at the other table. Better prepared than he, Loredana had taken out a little bottle of insect repellent from somewhere or other and was rubbing it over her arms and ankles. Seeing Eléazard watching her, she offered him the repellent and came over to hand it to him.

  “I bought it in Italy,” she said, “it’s very effective but it smells awful, really awful.”

  “You can speak Italian,” Eléazard said, putting on his best accent, “I’m better at that than at Portuguese. And thanks again, I was being eaten alive.”

  “You speak Italian?” the woman said in surprised tones. “I never expected that. And then, you’re French …”

  “How do you know that?”

  “When a foreigner speaks Italian, even as well as you, I can generally tell. Where did you learn it?”

  “In Rome. I lived there for a while. But please sit down,” he said, getting up to bring over a chair. “We can chat more easily like that.”

  “Why not,” she replied after the briefest hesitation. “Just a moment while I go and get my glass and plate.”

  Loredano had not sat down when Alfredo returned with his incense coil. He put it in a small dish and lit it, then quickly sat down with them. Eléazard noted his pleasure at finding the Italian woman sitting at his table. She, on the other hand, seemed annoyed at seeing him joining in the preliminaries of their encounter. For a moment he shared her unexpected vexation: Alfredo had become a nuisance. How human, he thought, to repudiate him in this way; a few words with an unknown woman were enough and a man, for whose company he had expressly come, was suddenly de trop. Feeling guilty toward Alfredo, he decided to accept the unfortunate situation.

  “Let me introduce myself,” he said to Loredana in Brazilian, “Eléazard von Wogau. I think it better to use the language that allows all three of us to join in.”

  “Of course,” Loredana replied, “but you’ll have to make allowances for me. I’m Loredana … Loredana Rizzuto,” she added, grimacing with disgust. “I’m still a bit ashamed of my name, it’s so ridiculous …”

  “But not at all,” Alfredo broke in fervently. “I think it’s very beautiful, very … Italian. I’d prefer to have a name like that instead of ‘Portela.’ Alfredo Rizzuto, God, doesn’t that sound great …”

  Eunice’s mocking voice was suddenly heard. “Alfredo Rizzuto?! What is it you’ve found now to attra
ct attention to yourself?” She had appeared behind her husband carrying a tray with a slice of tart and a few mangoes. “You must excuse him,” she said to Loredana, “but as soon as he sees a pretty girl he can’t control himself. And now, Senhor Rizzuto, stop drinking and come and help me—there’s no more water. The pump must be on the blink again.”

  “OK, OK,” said Alfredo in resigned tones. “Don’t worry, I won’t be long.”

  Once Alfredo had left, Eléazard and Loredana burst out laughing; his expression when he heard his wife address him like that had been downright comic.

  “A funny lad,” Loredana said, reverting to her mother tongue. “Nice, but a bit … clingy, no?”

  “It depends. He doesn’t often have the chance to talk to people from outside, so he takes advantage whenever the occasion arises. And then I think he was a bit intimidated by you. That said, he’s far from stupid, you know. He’s not what I’d call a friend, but I like him a lot. Will you join me?” he said, lifting up the bottle. “It’s slightly fizzy, you could swear it was Chianti …”

  “With pleasure,” Loredana said, holding out her glass. “Oh, Chianti … You’re going to make me feel nostalgic. But just a minute, let’s go back to the beginning, I’m starting to get things mixed up. How come you’re French with a name like that?”

  “Because my father was German and my mother French, so I have dual nationality. However, since I was born in Paris and studied there for the most part, my German roots don’t mean very much.”

  “And may one ask what you’re doing in this hole? Are you on holiday?”

  “Not exactly,” Eléazard replied, “although my work does leave me plenty of free time. I’m a foreign correspondent, I just have to send a report to my agency from time to time. Since no one’s interested in Brazil, it goes straight into the wastepaper basket and I still get paid. I’ve been living in Alcântara for two years now. You’re a journalist too, from what Alfredo told me …”