CANOA QUEBRADA: An astronomer’s dream of a barbarous, devastated planet …
Every time Roetgen felt overtaken by circumstances he would, as he put it himself, “go cataleptic.” After a period of intense concentration he would manage, without great difficulty, to paralyze his faculty of judgment and keep himself in a state close to complete detachment. Having put himself, by his own decree, in a position where anything could happen without him consenting to appear affected by it, nothing did actually affect him anymore. The worst worries simply slid off the invisible walls of his apparent serenity. He could have been in a Boeing in free fall or facing a raging lunatic armed with a gun and not a muscle in his body would have twitched; he would have died, if that should happen, with a lemming-like indifference.
Standing in the aisle, toward the back of the bus, his arms fused in a cross to the tarnished steel bars, squashed on all sides by the passengers clustering around him, jostled and jolted, dazed by the heat and the noise, Roetgen held his course like a sailing ship heading into a storm. Each time the driver was forced to suddenly slow down to avoid animals, kids or objects that appeared in front of his vehicle, as if on the screen of a video game, he sent a battering ram of the flesh and sweat of fifty people thumping into Roetgen. The desert landscape of the Sertão, occasionally glimpsed through the heaving mass, filled him with a sense of its desolation.
He felt a gentle tug on his shirt. “Are you OK? You wouldn’t like to sit down a bit in my seat?” Moéma managed to say, craning her neck to see him.
“No problem,” he said in resigned tones. “I can last a good five minutes before I collapse.”
“It’s almost over,” she said with a sweet smile, “we get there in half an hour.”
When Moéma had arrived at the German Cultural Institute she had appeared surprised to see Roetgen helping Andreas and a few other lecturers putting the chairs away.
“But what time is it?” she’d asked Roetgen when he came over to her.
“One o’clock. I’d given you up. So had a certain Virgilio. He left just ten minutes ago.”
“Damn! I’m hopeless, really. I just wasn’t aware of the time passing. She seemed stranger than when she’d been coming out of the bank, her breath smelled of alcohol.
“Would you like a drink? Andreas always has a bottle of whiskey in his desk.”
“No thanks, I can’t,” she replied after a brief moment of hesitation. With a glance at the little group of women lecturers bustling about under the mango tree, she went on, “They’d have a fit, it would be very bad for your reputation. In Brazil the teaching staff aren’t in the habit of having a drink with their students, especially not their female students.”
“I couldn’t care less about my reputation, so if that’s all it is …”
“No, no, it’s not possible,” she said. “Anyway, I don’t … Tell me, what do you do on weekends? In general, I mean?”
Roetgen had resisted smiling at the young girl’s obvious embarrassment. Was she getting in a tangle at the last moment as she was about to go on to something she’d prepared in advance or was this first step that defied the conventions an improvisation. He had already been drawn to her by her wild side, the glint of revolt and irony in her look when he met her eye at the back of the class, everything that calls attention to a person to the point where they intrude on our dreams, our thoughts, infiltrating them, casting a mysteriously persistent light on them; he was beside himself with joy at this stumbling approach.
“On weekends? Not much. I read, play chess. And then there’s Andreas, you know him, we often go for walks together with his two children.”
“Where?”
“More or less everywhere. In the “Interior,” as you call it here, more often to Porto das Dunas. We have a glass of wine, we talk … Nothing very original, as you can see.”
“Do you know Canoa Quebrada?”
“I’ve heard of it.”
“It’s a little fishing village, completely isolated in the dunes, about two hundred miles from here. It’s preserved, you know … cool. No hotels, no tourists, no electricity even. The most beautiful spot in the Nordeste in my opinion. I’m going there with a girlfriend tomorrow, d’you feel like coming with us?”
He’d grabbed the chance. Moéma had arranged a rendezvous, advising him to bring a hammock, then slipped off into the fragrant darkness of the campus.
Very early the next morning Roetgen had met the two girls at the Radoviária, the huge bus station in Oswaldo Studart Street. Thaïs had seen to the tickets, so all he’d had to do was get on the Fortaleza-Mossoró bus that was sputtering in the square. Even before leaving the town, the bus had filled up with a boisterous motley crowd whose one topic of conversation was the airplane accident on the front page of the newspapers. Just a quarter hour into the journey Roetgen had given up his seat to an old lady—he would have put her at sixty until Moéma convinced him she was pregnant!—and for three hours now he’d been trying to ignore his nagging regret at his own courtesy.
Iguape, Caponga, Cascavel, Beberibe, Sucatinga, Prarjuru … presumably Moéma had told the driver, for shortly after Aracati the bus stopped out in the middle of the countryside, where the road crossed a little track, rutted but dead straight, which rose imperceptibly toward a horizon of scrub and gaunt carnaúba palms.
“So that’s that,” said Moéma when the bus had left in a cloud of dust. “An hour’s walk, and we’ll be there.”
“An hour’s walk?!” Roetgen protested. “You didn’t mention that.”
“I thought it might put you off,” said Moéma, putting her sunglasses on. Then, with her most disarming smile, “I did warn you that it was off the beaten track. You have to earn paradise.”
“Off we go to paradise, then. I hope at least we can bathe when we get there.”
“And how! You’ll see, it’s the best beach in the Nordeste. But first of all we’ve got to prepare ourselves for the walk. You …” she hesitated, then went over to the familiar second person, “you’ve nothing against a little joint, I assume. You must excuse me, but I’m fed up with addressing you so formally. Here we’re on my territory, too bad if I’ve got it wrong.”
“Vixe Maria!” Thaïs exclaimed, stunned by her friend’s brazenness. “Have you gone completely bonkers, it’s not possible …”
“Don’t worry,” Roetgen hastened to assure her, excited all the same by Moéma’s cockiness. “I’m perfectly capable of differentiating between the university and the rest. The proof is that I came with you, isn’t it?”
“If I’d had the least doubt, I’d never have suggested it,” Moéma said without looking up from the cigarette she was carefully pulling to pieces, collecting the tobacco on the top of her rucksack.
Roetgen watched her make up the joint. Despite what he said and his studied nonchalance he was sufficiently disturbed by the procedure to feel out of place. Uncomfortable with the drug—he’d smoked only once or twice, without enjoying it and without being able to understand how his generation could have developed such a taste for bouts of nausea—it was with apprehension that he saw the moment approaching when he’d have to either cross the threshold or look ridiculous. However, it did help him understand the girl’s occasional vacant air during his classes, her dark spectacles and her characteristic way of jumping from one subject to another or bursting out laughing for no obvious reason. Believing he had fathomed the obscure mechanism of his liking for her, he abruptly felt a kind of disapproval.
“You first,” said Moéma, handing him the joint she’d just rolled, still damp with her saliva.
Roetgen lit it, trying to inhale as little as possible. He could already see himself getting dizzy, about to throw up, a human wreck abandoned to the filth of the gutter. At the same time he was worried the girls might accuse him of pretending, or of wasting precious puffs through his inexperience. He was angry with Moéma for having put him in this embarrassing situation.
He came out of it unexposed, either becau
se he’d managed to fool them or because they were intelligent enough not to make a fuss about his faking it.
“Off we go, then,” said Moéma when the joint came back to her, “the worst is yet to come.”
As they set off, the sun blazing down on them, Roetgen tried to get to know Thaïs, but she didn’t seem interested in making conversation. Discouraged by her monosyllabic answers, he let silence return. Ten minutes later he was pouring with sweat. “Isn’t it hot,” he said, wiping his face with his handkerchief.
“You should have worn sandals,” Moéma said, glancing at his shoes. It’s the first time I’ve seen anyone going to the beach in shoes and socks.”
“It’s unbelievable,” said Thaïs, suddenly livening up at this heresy. “I hadn’t noticed. Meu Deus, it must really be smelly in there!”
“Worse than that,” said Roetgen, laughing as well. “But I would beg you to show my feet a little more respect. I am, after all, one of your teachers.”
“A teacher who smokes maconcha with his pupils. That could set tongues a-wagging!” said Moéma in insinuating tones.
Roetgen realized how thoughtless he’d been. Of course Moéma was joking, but if she should decide, for one reason or another, to reveal the episode, that would be the end of his position at the university. For a second a look of panic flitted across his face.
“There’s no need to worry,” she said, in a serious voice once more, “I’d never do that, whatever happens. And then you could always say it wasn’t true and we’d be the ones who were accused of lying, not you.”
“I should hope so,” he said earnestly. “And to change the subject—there’s not a lot of people on this track. We haven’t seen a soul for the last half hour.”
“Wait till we get to the coast and you’ll soon see why.”
When they reached the top of the rise, Roetgen was surprised to see a completely different landscape: still dead straight, the track sloped gently down to a barrier of high dunes where it quite simply disappeared.
“It was the road to Majorlândia,” Moéma said, “the dunes covered it three years ago. They shift a lot around here. But we wouldn’t have been following it for long, that’s not where we’re heading.”
“It’s crazy!” Roetgen said. “You’d think we were in the middle of the Sahara. You’re sure the sea’s at the other end of it?”
“Of course I am.”
They went on to the point where the road became invisible. From close up it looked even more astounding, as if the mountains of sand had been deliberately dumped on the road.
“What now?” Roetgen asked at a loss at the dead end they’d reached.
“We keep straight on,” said Moéma, pointing at the dunes. And with a hint of irony in her smile: “You think you can manage it?”
“I’m going to have to, aren’t I?”
The two girls set off up the slope ahead of him. Outlined briefly against the cloth of their baggy shorts, their rumps bobbed up and down in front of him before moving off. Using their hands, Thaïs and Moéma climbed with disconcerting ease, setting off avalanches of loose sand that hid the ground before him. Encumbered by his shoulder bag, which kept slipping, blinded by sweat, sinking in then suddenly sliding down several yards, Roetgen reached the top long after the girls, who were highly amused at his comically exhausting efforts.
But the vision awaiting him took all the mockery out of their laughter, transforming it into a chorus, a joyous celebration of the beauty of the world. The Atlantic had appeared, turquoise blue, shining like Mozarabic pottery. As far as the eye could see along the crescent of the coast, an interminable plateau of dunes curved gently down toward a shore edged by a broad white expanse of waves. Not one tree, no insects or birds, nothing to suggest the presence of men: an astronomer’s dream of a barbarous, devastated planet, forever motionless beneath the searing heat of the sun.
Roegten gave a soft whistle of admiration.
“Not bad, eh?” said Moéma. There was a touch of pride in her voice. “I was sure you’d like it. Look, the village is immediately below.”
In the direction she was pointing there was just a sweep of rocks that looked like ruins, their ochre making a slight contrast with the surrounding fawn color. Looking more closely, Roetgen could make out the sails of five or six jangadas merging with the white horses of the sea. Hurrying up, they soon caught sight of some straw huts that had so far been concealed by a patch of dunes. A scrawny dog started to come toward them; it gave a feeble bark, as if in a fit of conscience, then a donkey loaded with blocks of ice passed in front of them. Led by a little girl, it left a long trail of dark drops behind it.
They had reached Canoa Quebrada.
BUILT IN AN elevated position, directly on the sand of the dunes, the village was merely a collection of rudimentary houses facing each other across the slope and forming a single lane running down to the sea. Mostly built of clay and straw, crudely whitewashed and supported on thin props of faded wood, twisted and knotted, reflecting the niggardly vegetation of the Sertão, they were embellished with improvised awnings bristling with twigs and dried palms. The poorest of them were nothing but huts imitating the shape of more permanent structures, simple shelters where one went straight from the sand of the lane to the sand of the single room made even smaller by the crooked interweaving of the framework. None of the windows had frames or glass, the people there were apparently happy enough with simple, poorly fitting shutters. Standing lopsided in the middle of the lane, ten or so worm-eaten poles still carried a flimsy network of slack electric wires and bulbs with tin shades; the generator had been broken down for so long they had given up hope of it ever being repaired. Here and there a few stunted palms and slightly more tamarisks, which seemed to resist the salt-laden wind better, rustled in the sea breeze. Hens and pigs were running free, scouring the piles of rubbish that had accumulated here and there behind the shacks in their search for food.
A single well supplied brackish water to the population of fishermen that survived in this out-of-the-way place, turned in on itself, huddled up in its isolation like a decimated tribe.
Moéma’s first concern was to go and see Néoshina in her house at the end of the road, just where the slope down to the beach began. For a few cruzeiros they could sling their hammocks in one of the two huts her son had built not far away, solely for travelers.
“They don’t get a lot of visitors here,” she explained to Roetgen, “but there are people who come from Aracati or farther away to bathe in peace. Us, for example. Néoshina makes a little money like that, fair enough. When I’m by myself I stay with my friend João, he’s a fisherman. But with three of us it’s impossible. We’ll go and see him in a minute, he’s great, you’ll see. I’ve never met anyone so kind.”
“Oh come on,” said Thaïs, “let’s just dump our bags in the hut and go and have a swim. OK?”
“We can do the bags, OK, but then I’d like to go to João’s first. It’ll only take five minutes.”
“If you must,” said Thaïs, slightly irritated, “but I’ve had enough. I’ll see you in the water.”
They left their bags on the sand inside the hut. While Thaïs was changing, Moéma and Roetgen set off back up the lane.
“What’s the matter with her?” Roetgen asked.
“It’ll pass. She’s a bit jealous, that’s all.”
“Jealous! Really? Jealous of whom?”
“Of you, of course. She’s very possessive and you weren’t exactly on the agenda.”
Enjoying this back-handed compliment, Roetgen looked at her with raised eyebrows. A smile formed on his lips which said, “How stupid! Jealous of me when there’s never been anything between us,” but which at the same time betrayed a certain smugness and the unspoken desire to confirm Thaïs’s suspicions.
“Don’t go imagining things,” Moéma said sharply. “If I invited you yesterday it was because I felt sorry for you with your little-lost-dog look. You looked so out of place among all those stup
id lecturers. So sad. You’re not where you belong there. It’s so obvious, I’m surprised they don’t see it. I felt like taking you out and showing you something else, the real Brazil. People who’re alive.”
Roetgen fixed his eyes on her as if he were trying to unravel the true sense of this confidence. For a moment he regretted having come to Canoa.
They had stopped outside a hut like the one they were staying in, although less fresh, as if it had withered. Put out to dry on top of a tiny awning, shark fins gave off a powerful acrid smell. Squatting in the shade, a man was meticulously dismantling a piece of fishing equipment with the composure and nimble fingers of a dressmaker. He only noticed them at the same moment as Moéma hailed him in a clear voice: “Tudo bem, João?”
Frozen for a moment in a pose with the gravity of a scribe, his face lit up with a gap-toothed smile as touching as that of little girls whose exposed gums disfigure them without making them ugly.
“Miss Moéma!” he said, getting up to embrace her. “What a lovely surprise! Tudo bom, my girl, tudo bom, thanks be to God.”
“And this is …” She stopped and turned to Roetgen. “What is your first name, anyway?”
“Forget it,” he said in an odd tone. “Just Roetgen, I prefer that, if if doesn’t bother you.”
“I couldn’t care less,” said Moéma. “OK, this is Roetgen, just Roetgen … a French friend, he teaches at the university in Fortaleza.”
João tried to say the unusual name, mispronouncing it in a different way each time. “I’ll never manage it, francês, it’s too complicated,” he said with an apologetic gesture, “but hello all the same.”
Moéma handed him the plastic bag she been carrying since they’d dropped their bags in the hut. “There you are,” she said, “I’ve brought you a few things I don’t need. Also some aspirin and antibiotics.”
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