“It’s difficult to prove,” Loredana said reflectively, “but it’s an interesting idea. Kircher as the unwitting initiator of Romanticism. It’s close to heresy, isn’t it?”
“To bring in Romanticism is going a bit too far, but I really think that by providing, for the first time, an overall image of China and not a simple traveler’s tale, he determined the string of prejudices and errors under which that country continues to suffer.”
“Poor Kircher, it sounds as if you really do have it in for him,” Loredana said with a smile.
Eléazard was surprised by this remark. He had never seen his relationship with Kircher from that angle and even as he was collecting his thoughts to deny it, he realized that this way of formulating the problem opened up disturbing prospects. Looking at it more closely, there was certainly a touch of resentment in his constant denigration of the Jesuit. Something like the hatred with which a discarded lover reacts or a disciple unable to fill his master’s shoes.
“I don’t know,” he said earnestly, “I find your question disturbing … I’ll have to think about it.”
The rain was still pouring down on the patio. Lost in thought, Eléazard peered at the candle flame as if the light would provide him with an answer to his questions. Amused by his attitude, the unusual importance he seemed to accord the meanings of words, Loredana felt her prejudice against him crumble away a little more. It was perhaps because of the wine, but she found her defensive reaction just now—when she had reprimanded herself for lowering her guard, even just a little—exaggerated. One ought to be able to confide in him without being afraid of his pity or a lesson in morality. It was good to know that.
“I think I have it in for him for having been a Christian,” Eléazard suddenly said, without noticing how the few minutes of silence made his statement sound absurd. “For having betrayed … I can’t say what exactly at the moment, it’s the dominant impression despite my sympathy for him. His whole life’s work’s such a mess!”
“But who would have dared to be an atheist at the time he lived? Do you really think that was possible, or merely thinkable, even for a layman? Not out of fear of the Inquisition but because of the lack of the appropriate mind-set, because of an intellectual inability to imagine a world without God. Don’t forget it was three more centuries before Nietzsche managed to express that denial.”
“I agree with all that,” Eléazard said, shrugging his shoulders, “but no one is going to persuade me that Descartes, Leibniz or even Spinoza had not already got rid of God, that in their writings the word is nothing but a term for a mathematical void. Beside them Kircher looks like a diplodocus.”
“I don’t think it’s that simple,” Loredana said with a doubtful look. “Anyway, I’d quite like to read this biography if you could lend me a copy.”
“Can you read French?”
“Well enough, I think.”
“No problem, then. I have a duplicate of my working copy, though you won’t be able to see my notes, I’ve only got a rough draft of those. You could come round to my place, tomorrow morning, for example. It’s not far: 3, Pelourinho Square.”
“OK. My God, just look at that rain … I’ve never seen it like that. I feel all clammy, it’s very unpleasant. I hope Alfredo’s managed to get the water working, I’m dying to have a shower.”
“I’ve no idea what he’s doing, but he must have some problem. With the pump or with his wife.”
“Oh, I hope not,” said Loredana with a smile. “I wouldn’t like to be responsible for a domestic squabble.”
Something about the corners of her smile, or perhaps it was just the ironic glint in her eyes, convinced Eléazard that, on the contrary, she was flattered to have aroused Eunice’s jealousy despite herself. This coquettishness suddenly made her seem desirable. Fixing his eyes on hers, he found he was imagining her in his arms, then devising various strategies to produce that result: suggesting she came to collect the Kircher biography that evening; taking her hand without a word; just telling her straight out that he wanted her. Each of these ploys generated a fragmentary scenario, hazy and with infinite ramifications that led nowhere except back to the acknowledgment of his desire, the image of their two bodies coming together, the urgent, suddenly vital need to touch her skin, to smell her hair …
“The answer’s no,” Loredana whispered with a hint of sadness in her voice. “I’m sorry.”
“What are you talking about?” Eléazard said, realizing she had read him like an open book.
“You know perfectly well,” she told him with a mild reprimand.
She had turned her head away to look at the rain. Without appearing nervous, she was rolling little balls of warm wax in her fingers and then putting them on the table, a faraway look in her eyes and the sulky expression of a little girl disheartened by an unwarranted reproof on her face.
“And may one ask why?” Eléazard went on, in the conciliatory tone of one who accepts defeat.
“Please … Don’t ask anymore. It’s not possible, that’s all.”
“Forgive me,” he said, moved by the sincere note. “I … It’s not something that happens to me every day, you know … That is, I mean … I meant it seriously.”
When she saw him getting himself into such an awkward situation, she was a whisker away from telling him the truth. It did her good to see his desire for her in his eyes; two years ago she would already have dragged him off to her room and they would have made love while listening to the rain. But why should she, she told herself, since her openness—and it wasn’t something she wanted to try again—disconcerted people more than it brought them closer.
“It’s too soon,” she said to give herself one last chance. “You need to give me time.”
“I can wait, I’m good at that,” Eléazard said with a smile. “It’s one of my rare qualities, apart from …” (with a look of surprise he took the ping-pong ball that had just appeared in his mouth and put it in his pocket) “a certain acquaintance with Athanasius Kircher, Esq …” (a second ball, like an egg that insisted on being regurgitated) “… a modicum of intelligence and, of course …” (as a last ball was expelled more slowly, his eyes wide, like someone preparing to spew out the whole contents of his gut) “my natural modesty …”
Loredana had burst out laughing as soon as the first ball appeared: “Meraviglioso!” she said, applauding. “How do you do that?!”
“Secret,” Eléazard whispered, putting his finger to his lips.
“How stupid of me—it’s the same one each time, isn’t it?”
“What d’you mean, the same one each time? You can count them if you want,” he said, taking out of his pocket the three balls he always carried with him to practice with.
Loredana was still astonished. “Well I’m flabbergasted! With a trick like that you’d be made king of the Papuans.”
Now it was Eléazard’s turn to burst out laughing. She had never seemed so attractive as in her artless amazement.
“If you tell me how you do it, I’ll read your future,” she offered in mysterious tones.
“From the lines of my hand?”
“Not at all, caro … That’s a load of bullshit. I read the I Ching, now that’s something else, isn’t it?”
“That’s debatable, but OK,” said Eléazard, delighted at having managed to revive her spirits.
“So?”
“So what?”
“The trick. That’s our deal: you tell me how you do it …”
When she knew how to conjure the balls away—the trick was all the more deceptive for being simple, once you knew—Loredana took a booklet out of her bag and three little orange pottery discs. “The sticks are too much of a bother to carry round, so I use these things …”
“What is it?” Eléazard asked, picking up one of the discs.
“It’s called a St. Lucia’s eye, a little plate that covers the entrance to some seashell, but I don’t know its real name. Have you seen the spiral? It’s almost the sign of
the Tao. Right. Now you have to ask me a question.”
“A precise question?”
“That’s up to you. A precise question gets a precise answer, a vague one, a vague answer. That’s the rule. But take it seriously or it’s not worth the effort.”
Eléazard took a sip of wine. Elaine had immediately appeared in his mind’s eye. Elaine as a question. Not surprising, given the circumstances, but the contradictory questions that almost immediately clamored to be asked made him think: Was there a chance she might come back and everything would be as it was before? If she came back, would I be able to love her again? Will I know love with another woman? Does something else start once something has finished, or is that just an illusion to ensure the survival of the species? All this, he realized sadly, could be summed up in the one question: When will I be free of her?
“Come on. Is it so difficult?” she said, growing impatient.
“The two of us …” said Eléazard, looking up at her.
“What do you mean, the two of us?”
“The two of us. What will be the consequences of our meeting?”
“Clever,” said Loredana with a smile. “But that could well make the answer complicated. Shall we start? OK. You’ve to throw the shells six times while concentrating on your question. That’s the ‘heads or tails’ that allows me to determine the nature of the lines, but I imagine you know that.”
Having tried to concentrate but having produced nothing but Elaine’s distorted face, Eléazard threw the discs. After each throw, Loredana noted down the result, said some numbers and marked the lines of the hexagram with whole matches or ones that had been broken in half, as necessary.
“This first Gua,” she said when the figure had finally been completed, “represents the current possibilities of your question. From that I will derive a second one, which will give you some elements of a reply for the future. You will know that there are some ‘old’ and some ‘new’ lines; an ‘old’ line always remains itself, while a ‘young’ line can become the opposing ‘old’ line. Thus a young yin changes into an old yang and a young yang into an old yin …”
“Aha … It’s not exactly straightforward then, is it?” Eléazard mocked, amused by the earnestness with which she explained these distinctions.
“It’s even more complicated than you think. I’ll spare you the details. According to the numbers you have thrown, your hexagram has three ‘young’ lines, so I will transform them into their opposite, which gives us …” She opened the booklet, looking for the first of the two diagrams. “Ah, here we are: Gou, the Meeting. Below: the wind; above: the sky. In the meeting the woman is strong. Do not marry the woman.”
“Well now!” said Eléazard, genuinely surprised.
“I’m not making anything up. You can read it yourself, if you like. Put in everyday terms it says you will meet again something you had expelled from your mind. Which means a big surprise …” Loredana continued to read, wrapped in thought, then said, “That’s incredible! Listen: The meeting is an assault, it is the flexible one who takes the firm one by assault. ‘Do not marry the woman’ means that a long-term association would be pointless …”
“Not very encouraging by the sound of it,” said Eléazard scornfully.
“Wait, that’s the overall sense of the hexagram. Now we have to interpret the lines that are susceptible to change and compare their meaning to that of the second hexagram. It’s only after that that we can get a resolution. And the first one says … Just a moment. Yes: In the presence of a fish in the net, the duty implied by this presence does not extend to visitors at all.”
“And the fish is me?”
“Wait, I tell you. For the second we have: A melon wrapped in branches of a weeping willow. It contains a brilliance that indicates the descent of celestial influences to the terrestrial plane …”
“Aha! That’s you! An angel come down from heaven …”
“And the third,” Loredana added, as if replying to Eléazard’s mischievous comment, “specifies that: To meet a horn, that is something humiliating. But you incur no blame in this.”
“If you mean I’ve hit a snag, thank you for nothing, I’d already noticed that.”
Loredana shook her head regretfully. “We can stop if you’ve had enough. I really have the feeling I’m wasting my time.”
“Please go on. I won’t do it again, promise.”
She leafed through her booklet for a while to identify the second hexagram. “That one’s the Xiao Guo, the Little Excess … Below: the mountain, above: thunder. A bird takes flight, leaving its call behind it. It ought not to rise higher. It ought to come down. In that case, and in that case alone, there will be happiness.”
“It leaves its call behind it …” Eléazard repeated, taken with the sudden poetry of the image.
“Which means you are too excessive, even in things of little importance. If the bird rises higher and higher, its cry will be lost in the clouds and become inaudible. If it came down, the others would hear it. Hearing the bird’s call symbolizes listening to one’s own excesses, becoming aware of them and carrying out a prompt adjustment.”
Loredana continued to read silently. People of high society, the book said, are excessively polite in their conduct and excessively sad in their mourning … It was one of the oddest of the I Chings, one of the most explicit she’d ever read for someone, doubtless because she had been involved in the questioning. She knew very well why her meeting with Eléazard could not go beyond certain limits fixed inside her by her fear, even if that were exaggerated. This result must fit him one way or another … She decided to drive him into a corner.
“For whom or for what are you in mourning?” she asked him point-blank, aware that this unexpected question shook him.
Eléazard felt his scalp tingle. He had reached the point of seeing the previous metaphor as representing his attitude to Elaine and of trying it out at random on the thousand and one aspects of his anguish, and with one word this stranger had hit the bull’s eye.
“You’re amazing!” he said with genuine admiration.
He thought: I’m in mourning for my love, for my youth, for an unsatisfactory world. I’m in mourning for mourning itself, for its twilight and for the soothing warmth of its lamentation …
But what he said was: “I’m in mourning for everything that has not succeeded in being born, for everything we do our best to destroy, for obscure reasons, every time it puts out a shoot. How can I put it … I can’t understand why we always see beauty as a threat, happiness as degradation …”
The rain stopped, replaced by a silence spattered with drops and sudden trickles of water.
“We haven’t gotten anywhere yet,” said Loredana, screwing up her eyes.
ELÉAZARD GOT UP around eight, a little later than usual. He found his coffee being kept warm in the kitchen and his piece of toast on the table beside the bowl and some maracujá juice. Soledade never appeared before ten, the television programs having kept her awake for a good part of the night, so she made a point of preparing his breakfast before going back to bed. With a muzzy head from the excesses of the previous evening, Eléazard took two soluble aspirin. “What a strange woman,” he thought as he watched the tablets swirling round in the glass of water, “but she certainly knew how to twist me round her little finger …” To the very last moment he had hoped to finish the night with her and, thinking about it, he had come very close: at the end of the I Ching session there had been a moment, he was sure, when she’d been thinking seriously about the possibility, but that idiot Alfredo had appeared to announce his victory over the pump. Loredana had seized the opportunity and used her desire for a shower as an excuse to get away. She fled, Eléazard told himself, without understanding the motives for her escape or being able to do anything about the frustration it caused him. A little later, with the help of the aspirin, he was blaming himself for having succumbed to the lustful promptings of alcohol; mortified to think he must have cut a ridiculou
s figure, he decided to repress the memory of the evening. What a bad idea it had been to go out for dinner!
Before sitting down at his desk, he poured some sunflower seeds into the parrot’s feeding dish. Heidegger seemed to be in a good mood, rocking back and forward and making his back ripple like a plumed serpent. Eléazard picked up a seed and went up to the bird, speaking softly to it, “Heidegger, Heidi! How are you today? Still not decided to speak normally, eh? Come on, come and get the seed, my beauty.” The parrot came toward him by shuffling sideways along its perch, then let itself topple over and came to a stop head down in a bat-like pose. “Well then, what do you think of the world? You really think there’s some hope?” Eléazard was moving his hand toward the enormous beak when the bird, like a spring suddenly released, bit his index finger and drew blood. “Oh, go fuck yourself, you stupid bastard,” Eléazard yelled in pain. “You’re mad, sir, stark staring mad! One day I’ll pop you in the saucepan, d’you hear, you moron?”
Squeezing his cut finger, he was heading for the bathroom when Soledade appeared in front of him.
“Que passa?”
“What has happened is that that stupid parrot’s bitten me again! Just look at that, he almost cut my finger off. I’ll release him in the forest, then he’ll learn what suffering is …”
“If you do that, then I’ll leave as well,” Soledade said solemnly. “It’s your own fault, you don’t know how to go about it. He doesn’t bite me at all.”
“Oh, really? And could you tell me what you have to do to please him? Get down on your knees? Crawl over to give him a seed? I’m really fed up with the creature.”
“A parrot isn’t like other animals. Xangó shines like the sun, there’s fire inside him; if you don’t show him respect, he’ll burn you. It’s as simple as that.”
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