Where Tigers Are at Home

by Jean-Marie Blas de Robles

  Wearing a faded dressing gown—the one she preferred, as if out of revenge because he couldn’t stand it—a cheap, pastel pink, padded nylon dressing gown that parted at every step to reveal her fat thighs, his wife came toward him, a glass of whiskey in each hand. “I ran into Imelda on the stairs and I thought I might as well serve the drinks myself.”

  “And took the opportunity to get one for yourself … You drink too much, Carlotta, it’s bad for you, the doctor told you. You ought to make an effort, at least for your health.”

  Putting her husband’s glass on a little low table, Carlotta flopped down on the other end of the sofa, spilling some of her drink on her chest. Without seeming at all concerned, she took a handkerchief out of her sleeve and wiped herself nonchalantly, revealing a flaccid breast, pitifully neglected.

  “I’ve already told you not to walk around dressed like that,” Moreira said irritably. “It’s … it’s indecent, for God’s sake! If you won’t do it for me, at least do it for the servants. What are they going to think of you? Not to mention the chapel. Since it seems you’ve become pious … I don’t think it’s really appropriate to pray half naked.”

  “You can go to hell,” she said calmly. “Countess Carlotta de Souza’s telling you to go to hell, Governor.”

  A look of dismay on his face, her husband shrugged his shoulders. “Just look at yourself, darling, the state you’re in. You don’t know what you’re saying anymore.”

  “You wanted to speak to me,” she said in an aggressive tone, “so get on with it, I’m listening. Come on, out with it.”

  “I don’t think it’s the right moment, you’re in no state to listen to anything.”

  “Get on with it, I said … or I’ll start screaming.”

  Startled by the raised voice, the jaguar started to growl, trying to escape from its master’s grip.

  “Quiet! Calm down, my beauty!” Then, in a lower voice, to Carlotta: “You’re mad! I don’t believe it! Do you want to get eaten up or what?”

  “I warned you,” she said, apparently unconcerned at the jaguar’s growing agitation.

  “I’m having a reception here, in a fortnight,” the governor said. “Fifty people. It all has to be perfect, it’s important for business. I’m counting on you to organize it. I’ll give Ediwaldo the guest list … and we’ll talk about it tomorrow, when you’re sober. And now, with your permission, I’m going to take a shower. I advise you to do the same and to make yourself presentable for dinner, you look like … like an old whore, querida, an old whore!” He came so close to her he was breathing over her face. “You understand? You understand that I’m starting to get fed up with your whims? I’ve had it up to here, caralho!”

  Carlotta watched him leave the room, followed by his lousy jaguar. She was going to finish her drink but irrepressible sobs, all the more convulsive for being silent, made her double up with grief on the sofa.

  CHAPTER 6

  Continuation of the journey through Italy: in which Kircher examines the central fire & vies with Archimedes

  WE MADE RAPID progress toward the frightful fireworks in front of us. After we had been walking for half an hour the vegetation, already sparse, disappeared completely & we were faced with a desert landscape of black and ochre rocks, porous like pumice stone. It had become extremely hot, we were sweating under our clothes, while from time to time brief gusts of wind enveloped us in stinking fumes. The continuous rumbling of the volcano made it impossible to utter a word without having to shout oneself hoarse; the polluted air was full of ash and sulphur …

  All the time I was praying to God that Athanasius would decide to turn back, but he kept going on, imperturbable, using his hands to climb the warm slopes & jumping from rock to rock like a kid goat, untroubled by the weight of baggage he was carrying. At the time when dawn should have been breaking, it was still night, with that kind of darkness that properly comes with a total eclipse.

  At a turn in the path we suddenly found ourselves before one of the most monstrous spectacles it has been my lot to observe: three hundred paces to the right, below the spot where we were standing, a broad torrent of incandescent matter was pouring down, ravaging the ground as it swept by & appearing to dissolve everything it met in its bubbling stream. As for the source of this dazzling river, it was surmounted by gigantic flames, as if coming from hell itself, & produced an immense plume of smoke rising up into the sky until it was lost to sight. I was begging Kircher to go back down when a more violent explosion made the whole mountain shake; we saw a large number of molten rocks thrown up into the air, very high in the sky, before raining down around us. Since we were still far enough away from the diabolical furnace only the tiniest of these particles hit us & we were peppered with glowing embers. Believing my moment of death had come, I fell to my knees to beseech the Lord to have mercy on me but Kircher pulled me up, slapping me vigorously all over to put out my cassock. Then he dragged me to up a higher place, under a sort of rocky overhang where we were finally sheltered from the projectiles. Once there, he saw to his own cassock, which was burning in places, without, however, taking his eye off the marvelous scene before us. Then he took out his chronometer to measure the intervals between eruptions, calmly dictating figures and comments to me. The heat was almost unbearable and we were finding it difficult to breathe when dozens of crawling things suddenly started to pour through our refuge: all sorts of snakes, salamanders, scorpions and spiders scuttled between our legs for a few moments that seemed close to an eternity to me. Flabbergasted by this phenomenon, we did not think of using our equipment to collect some specimens. Kircher, who had observed the process with his usual concentration, immediately drew the most unusual of these creatures in his notebook.

  “As you see, Caspar,” he said when he had finished, “we have not wasted our time coming here. Now we know from the evidence of our own eyes that certain creatures are born of the fire itself, just as flies are engendered by manure & worms by putrefaction. Those there had been created practically before our very eyes & we can, or at least you can bear witness to it to the world at large, since, for my own part, I have decided to take a closer view of this original matter. Make sure you note down everything you hear & if anything should happen to me you must go back down to deliver to the world the posthumous fruits of my sacrifice.”

  I begged Kircher not to do anything so foolish, but he half covered himself up with his cape, poured our supply of water over himself &, carrying his bag & his instruments, set off at the same moment as a further explosion shook Etna.

  “Be with me, Empedocles! And do thou hear me, Caspar, son of wise Anchites,” he cried, rushing toward the stream of lava. I watched him, under a blazing deluge, approach the fiery matter, gesticulating & skipping about like a whole litter of mice; he looked like a man possessed suffering the torments of hell & I crossed myself several times to ward off this evil omen. From where I was standing, my master appeared to be enveloped in embers & his clothes were giving off white steam & I yelled at him to make him come back …

  God finally answered my prayers: Kircher was coming back. However, his feet seemed to be so itching to get back that his biretta fell off as he ran & it was bare-headed that my master rejoined me, safe & sound, in the shelter of the rock. His cassock was in tatters & scorched by the fire, his boots were sizzling, which partly explained the capers I had seen him perform & I had to put out his hair, patches of which were burning, with the skirt of my cassock.

  After having thanked me with a fraternal pat on the shoulder, Athanasius borrowed my chronometer to continue his observations. When he established that the interval between each eruption was increasing regularly, he finally decided to quit the pandemonium.

  We returned without any major difficulties to the town where we had left most of our luggage. Kircher, whose feet, hands & face had some nasty burns, was in a pitiful state, so we granted ourselves several days’ rest, which my master used to copy out his notes.

  As soon as Athanasi
us’s injuries had healed, we set off for Syracuse. Our program included a study of the ancient monuments of the city as well as visits to the Dominican libraries in Noto & Ragusa, but, without informing me, Kircher had concocted other plans: Syracuse being the town where Archimedes was born, I should have realized my master would not waste the opportunity of measuring his genius against that of the famous mathematician.

  We walked on the ramparts of Ortygia, above the sea, for several hours without my being able to understand the point of the measurements Athanasius was constantly making with the astrolabe, or of the sketches that were filling his notebook. Then he locked himself in his room for two days & one night, forbidding anyone to disturb him. When he came out, radiant with joy, he immediately went to see various craftsmen, who were given very precise tasks to carry out without delay. During the next two weeks we did our planned tour of the libraries of the area.

  In Ragusa my master bought various books in Hebrew on the Cabbala from the Jew, Samuel Cohen, & from the musician, Masudi Yusuf, a manuscript containing the first Pythian Ode by Pindar, accompanied by a system of transcription that made it possible to reproduce the original melody! After having studied it, he made a present of this inestimable work to the Monastery of San Salvatore in Messina.

  But the day came when, all the pieces ordered by him having been delivered, Athanasius condescended to explain the purpose of these mysterious preparations. When Syracuse was besieged by the Consul Marcellus, in 214 before the birth of Our Lord, Archimedes’s inventions delayed the Roman victory for a long time. According to Antioch of Ascalon & Diodorus of Sicily this admirable scholar even managed to set enemy vessels on fire by shooting the rays of the sun at them from a burning mirror. Declaring it physically impossible to construct such a powerful mirror, most of the commentators & scholars of the present age had declared the story a legend; contrary to this general opinion, Kircher intended to rehabilitate Archimedes in the very place where, almost two thousand years ago, he had proved the incomparable power of his genius.

  “You see, Caspar, all these ignoramuses, for example Monsieur Descartes, to quote but one, all these asses are quite right when they claim it would be impossible to light a fire from so far away with mirrors: a flat mirror would not concentrate enough of the sun’s light since it sends the rays back perpendicularly to its surface. Circular or parabolic mirrors are certainly capable of setting combustible material on fire, but only from very short distances, that is, at the point of convergence of the rays. Given this problem, the first task was to work out precisely where Marcellus’s ships were. Given the configuration of the town ramparts, the depth of water at their perimeter and the closeness necessary to besiege the town effectively, factors that I calculated with you recently, the Roman galleys must have been operating at thirty or forty paces from the walls. Now to satisfy these conditions, a parabolic mirror would have to be a league in diameter, which is indeed scarcely conceivable, even today. But the resources of the human mind are are boundless &, thanks be to Heaven, I conceived the idea of an elliptical mirror which, I am sure, will succeed where the others have always failed! The Duke of Hesse will be here in three days’ time. I have informed him of my project & he has invited the most notable personages of Sicily to witness the occasion. They will, therefore, have first sight of this new speculum ustor, which we are going to construct together, my dear Caspar, if you will agree to assist me …”

  We set to work without delay & after two days of uninterrupted labor, during which we glued, nailed & pinned numerous pieces of wood, a cart came to transport our machine to the place on the harbor where the demonstration was to take place. Once there, we installed it & covered it with a cloth in the colors of the Grand Duke & His Majesty the Viceroy of Sicily. Then we waited.

  Once all the guests were assembled, Athanasius Kircher—who was pacing up and down the rampart in a fever of anxiety about a result that would make or break his reputation—gave a review of the historical facts, explained his theory at length & elaborated a little on possible uses of his machine, if it should work; he pretended to have his doubts about that, given the limited means at his disposal & the aging of the sun, which must necessarily have lost some of its power in the 1848 years since Archimedes’s feat. At the agreed time, eleven o’clock in the morning, a large fishing boat, purchased with the help of Frederick of Hesse, anchored at forty paces from the place where we were. A Roman she-wolf had been painted on the stern to serve as a target. After having placed some model—but perfectly copied—legionnaires here & there on the deck, the sailors left the ship. Kircher raised the cloth & uncovered his machine to a general murmur of astonishment.

  It consisted of a wide truncated cone, open at either end, the interior of which had been made into a mirror; a fairly simple system of wheels & gears allowed it to be deployed precisely in all directions. Turning several handles one after the other, Athanasius focused the mirror so that the patch of light it produced struck the center of the target. Then came the wait. There was absolute silence and one could hear the lapping of the waves below. A quarter of an hour and still nothing had happened. The guests started to whisper among themselves. Kircher was sweating profusely, constantly adjusting his ray, his eye fixed on the roman she-wolf. Attracted by the unusual spectacle, the common people had gathered behind the cordon of guards & were commenting out loud on what they could see, laughing & joking as is the custom among these people of the south when faced with something that is beyond their understanding. A half hour had already passed with no result & even the guests were beginning to grow impatient at the time it was taking when a seagull, doubtless attracted by the brightness of the mirror, let go a dropping which splattered on the machine, only just missing my master. It was all that was needed to set off general hilarity. Lazzi directed at Athanasius came from all sides & I heard a Sicilian noble comment in a tone of profound contempt:

  “La merda tira la merda!”

  I saw Kircher flush at the insult, but he continued to busy himself with his machine as if nothing had happened. I started to pray that it might all be over quickly, this way or that, & I could already see definite signs of irritation on the Grand Duke’s face, when a bellow from my master made all the spectators jump.

  “Eureka!” he shouted again. “Look! Look, O ye of little faith!”

  Motionless & in a theatrical pose, he was pointing at the target with a vengeful finger: a thread of black smoke was coming from it, rising straight up into the blue sky.

  A hum of admiration rose from the whole audience. Simultaneously, or almost, the wolf burst into flames, crackling, & set off, as if by a trail of gunpowder, fires at several points on the boat. As I gave Kircher a look of astonishment at this development, he gave me a quick wink & I realized that he had taken care to make sure the vessel was prepared. Aware of my master’s expertise in this area I got ready for more surprises & they weren’t long in coming. As the felucca went up in flames, numerous rockets started shooting out of the hatches, exploding in the sky with great noise. Then Bengal lights turned into fountains of fire spouting up around the hull like the petals of many-colored flowers & catapults sent the blazing bodies of tailors’ dummies flying across this marvelous show. The Greek fire had not gone out when, with a piercing whistle, further rockets flew up very high to form as they exploded the three-legged symbol of Sicily, the “S” of Syracuse & the four letters of the Hebrew word for Jehovah. To finish, an uninterrupted volley of shots could be heard as the boat went straight to the bottom in a thick cloud of smoke.

  Warm applause greeted Athanasius’s success, accompanied by hurrahs & shouts of joy from the people of Syracuse. I rushed to embrace my master, who had the kindness to make a gesture including me in his success. The Duke of Hesse came to congratulate him, granting him on the spot a very large sum of ducats to fund the later publication of his labors. Then all the guests filed past us to congratulate Kircher & admire the fiery machine. The Sicilian gentleman who had had the presumption to make suc
h an insulting remark only a few minutes previously also had to pass through these Caudine Forks. When the puffy-faced tub of lard came to pay his respects, with much ridiculous posturing, Kircher spoke to him in his most flowery Italian:

  “Verily Your Lordship was speaking words of wisdom this afternoon, excrement does indeed attract excrement & for that reason you, more than any other, should take care …”

  Now it was the Sicilian’s turn to flush red as a lobster. He muttered a few words & put his hand on his sword; if the Duke of Hesse had not been there, his presence forbidding any outburst of violence, the affair would doubtless have taken an unfortunate turn for my master, even though he was a man who would defend himself & possessed of strength rare among men of the cloth. Emboldened by Kircher’s attitude, I pretended to fan myself, as if to get rid of a bad smell, which made this charming provincial braggadocio furious, so that he turned his back on us, though not without having made a sign at me with his hand & teeth, the precise meaning of which escaped me. For the first time I enjoyed a rare feeling of pleasure that follows any unexpected victory, “the joy of delayed triumph,” as Athanasius dubbed this category when we discussed the matter that same night. Nevertheless I felt guilty for having shown a lack of magnanimity toward the poor Sicilian, but my master reassured me by asserting that to have behaved in any other way would have been to demonstrate hypocrisy, which sin was worse than the—after all rather venial—one of a deserved & innocuous retort.

  CORUMBÁ: The hoarse double cry of the caymans

  The engine at half speed, the Messenger of the Faith made its way up the river with the noise and the blind obstinacy of a stubborn tractor digging up the earth. The whole team had got up at dawn to load the crates of equipment that had been sent from Brazilia, while Petersen and his deckhand saw to the food and the engine. After a last meal at the Beira Rio, washed down with plenty of wine to celebrate their departure, they had embarked without ceremony and cast off. Leaving the tiller to Yurupig, the Indian who lived on board, having accumulated the functions of mechanic, guard and cook, Petersen had flopped onto one of the benches in the saloon, where he had been snoring like a pig for hours. Milton was doing the same in his cabin; as for Dietlev and Mauro, they were leaning on the rail, discussing a point of palaeontology that seemed to preclude any other preoccupation.