Where Tigers Are at Home

by Jean-Marie Blas de Robles

  His last banknotes were hardly enough to wipe away his anguish.

  When he was able to get up, he wiped his sticky hands with sand and went back to the road, guided by a twinkling light that was in more or less the right direction. He came to a little window and stopped for a moment: gilded by the chiaroscuro of her lamp, an old black woman was slowly doing a piece of embroidery on a large frame of dark wood. Seeing Roetgen, she gave him a timid smile, pausing in her work. This snapshot of Flemish painting encapsulated the infinite gentleness of mothers and, with that, the sole bastion against the madness of the world.

  THE TOWN OF PACATUBA: The VASP airplane

  When Zé had offered to take him to visit his sister in the little house she had in the mountains, not far from Fortaleza, Nelson had been so dead drunk that he couldn’t remember either his friend carrying him out to his truck, or having traveled through the whole night. So when he woke in the middle of a forest of banana trees, he thought it was a dream, one of the most calm and beautiful ones he’d had for a long time. Since he felt a bit cold, he pulled his hammock over him and went back to sleep.

  “Come on, up you get, lazybones,” he heard an hour later. “There’s no point in coming to the mountains if you spend all the time sleeping.”

  Emerging from his hammock as if from a chrysalis, Nelson saw the smiling face of Uncle Zé. “Just have a look at this paradise,” he said, pointing out of the window. “A bit of a change from Fortaleza, isn’t it?”

  Outside there were indeed the banana trees of his dream, a clear sky and the croaking of the buffalo frogs.

  “Where are we?” Nelson asked, rubbing his eyes.

  “At my sister’s place, for God’s sake! In the Serra de Aratanha. You were in some state last night.”

  “I must have been, my head feels like a watermelon.”

  “The mountain air’ll sort that out in no time at all, you’ll see. Get up, Firmina’s made us a real country breakfast.”

  After a mingau of tapioca—a thick porridge of sweetened milk and flour—a good slice of sweet-potato omelette and two bowls of coffee, Nelson felt much better. Then Zé carried him piggyback to a large pond down below where they went fishing. Despite his lack of experience, the aleijadinho proved to be more skillful than his teacher and caught two catfish that looked monstrous to him.

  When they went back for lunch, around one, it had clouded over, suggesting there would be a heavy shower during the afternoon. They hadn’t finished eating when the storm broke, keeping them inside for the rest of the day. After the siesta, they stayed in their hammocks on the veranda, watching the rain. Then Zé sang from memory the adventures of Prince Roldão, which they’d gotten from a recent cordel by João Martins de Athayde. A naive mixture of the Iliad and Orlando furioso, the story told how the nephew of Charlemagne had managed to rescue his Angelica from the clutches of Abdul Rahman, king of Turkey and thoroughgoing infidel, by hiding, together with his weapons, in a gold lion designed by Richard of Normandy …

  When the sun set, the rain finally stopped, leaving a frayed veil of mist. Nelson and Zé went inside to escape the evening humidity and opened a bottle of cachaça while old Firmina put the fish they’d brought back a few hours earlier on to stew.

  They were in the middle of the meal and—remembering it later, Firmina saw it as a coincidence pregnant with meaning—laughing much too loud, when the sound of jet engines made the glasses on the table tremble, getting louder and louder until they had to draw their heads down into their shoulders, and finishing in an explosion that blew out all the windows in the house: the VASP Boeing 727, coming from Congonhas, had crashed spectacularly in the Serra de Aratanha.

  The only one to react, Zé rushed outside. A little farther up the mountain, in the light of trees transformed into torches, a huge plume of black smoke was rising from a new gap in the forest.

  “Meu Deus!” he said, realizing what had happened, “it almost fell on us.” Then, turning to Nelson and his sister, who had followed him out onto the veranda, “You wait here, I’ll go and see if I can do anything.”

  With that, he started to run toward the place where the disaster had happened.

  Despite Firmina’s loud cries and without really thinking about what he was doing, Nelson followed, hauling himself along the ground.

  When, exhausted and covered from head to toe in red mud from sliding along the path, he reached the place where the plane had crashed, Nelson was petrified at what is generally called an “apocalyptic scene” but of which the horror for him was contained in the simple sight of a woman’s torso still attached by her belt but now apparently sitting on her abundant entrails. All around, scattered over a very large area and highlighted by the fluorescent yellow of the life jackets, the smoking debris of the plane, disembowelled suitcases, an unrecognizable jumble could be seen. And then things that held a grisly fascination: horribly mangled bodies, scraps of flesh hanging from the trees like Tibetan prayers, limbs or organs scattered haphazardly over the soaked ground, obscene in their unaccustomed solitude … a feast of human flesh suddenly delivered to the hungry beasts of the forest. It was as if it had been raining blood, steak and offal, Nelson thought.

  Woken by the sudden blaze, the vultures were already fluttering over this manna, nibbling at bared stomachs with their beaks, pecking at the eyes, fighting over the most appetizing carcasses with shrill cries. Nelson was hardly surprised at the number of silhouettes—some armed with torches—who were already busying themselves about the site of the tragedy: with little room for pity for those whom death had released from all need, these poor mountain folk were searching through the remains meticulously, picking out anything of value, with no sense of disgust: money, rings and jewelry but also clothes red with blood, odd shoes and even some pieces of the machine, of which it was impossible to say what use they intended to make.

  For a brief moment he had been taken with the prospect of finding a well-filled wallet, but Nelson refused to join those robbing the corpses. Looking around for Uncle Zé, he made his way through the debris, The ground was nauseating, saturated with secretions and dubious matter. Crawling around a thicket, he came across what was left of a policeman, a decapitated cop who, absurdly, was still wearing his belt and holster with its pistol.

  “You don’t look too clever like that,” Nelson muttered. “Fuck you, son of a bitch.”

  Like a divine response to this blasphemy, he felt two hands grasp his shoulders and rolled over, screaming.

  “What the hell are you doing here, for God’s sake? What the hell are you doing here?” Uncle Zé bellowed at the shock. “My God, have you seen yourself? You … you … I thought you were a survivor.”

  “I followed you …” Nelson stammered, he too trembling.

  “I can see you followed me. I told you to stay in the house.”

  “Are there any injured?”

  Uncle Zé shook his head sadly. “They’re all dead. It’s not possible after a crash like that. I’ll keep looking until the rescue party arrives. And you’re going straight back to the house, understood? I’ll come as soon as I can.”

  Nelson stayed by the corpse for a few more minutes, surprised at the perfection of the plan that had formed in his mind. That was the way it would be, that and no other way. There was no other way it could be …

  Back at the house, while Firmina, horrified at the state he was in, was heating some water to wash him, Nelson took the loaded gun out of his T-shirt and quickly stowed it in the bottom of his bag.

  A little later, in the washtub where Dona Firmina was scrubbing his back while mumbling prayers for the victims, he had an amazing erection, the first hard-on he’d had since his father died.

  1 Phallus.

  2 (…) started to caress her chest voluptuously. Her nipples became erect and I felt my member swell under my cassock.

  3 (…) spread her legs and hitched up her dress until I could see the moist flesh of her thighs.

  CHAPTER 11

  Cont
aining the conclusion, ad majorem Dei gloriam, to the story of the Villa Palagonia

  “DO THAT & YOU will be lost,” this new Potiphar’s wife said calmly. “I will say you tried to violate me & I can assure you that you will feel the whole weight of my husband’s fury.”

  I was stunned, realizing the truth of what she said. For a moment I almost rang despite everything, preferring scandal, disgrace & even death to this shameful temptation; recalling in extremis my promise to Kircher, I knelt down, face to the wall, & begged God to grant me His aid.

  I felt the Princess come over and wrap her arms around me tenderly. “Now don’t be silly. You haven’t taken your final vows yet & there’s no sin in yielding under duress …”

  Having said that, she pulled me down onto the carpet. My sight became blurred & my heart was pounding, obliterating any attempt at resistance, & I pressed my body against hers while repeating the name of Jesus like a man possessed.

  Even today I blush at the memory of our unbridled lasciviousness; but I will drain this bitter cup to the last drop & confess the full extent of a sin that I am not sure I have expiated by my subsequent conduct. For, not content with abandoning myself to debauchery with the Princess, I did not refuse the perverted embellishments she taught me that night … Lingua mea in nobilissimae os adacta, spiculum usque ad cor illi penetravit. Membra nostra humoribus rorabant, atque concinebant quasi sugentia. Modo intus macerabam, modo cito retrahebam lubricum caulem. Scrotum meum ultro citroque iactabatur. Nobilis mulier cum crura trementia attolleret, suavissime olebat. Novenis ictibus alte penetrantibus singulos breves inserui.1 The Princess’s chignon had become undone, long locks half concealed her imploring looks … Pectoribus anhelantibus ambo gemebamus.2 I was doing everything I could with my hands and my legs & semen meum ad imam vaginam penetravit.3 But the Princess was insatiable, I soon had to start again. Tum pedes eius sublevandi ac sustinendi fuerunt humeris meis. Pene ad posticum admoto, in reconditas ac fervidas latebras intimas impetum feci. Deinde cuniculum illius diu linxi, dum irrumo. Mingere autem volui: “O Caspar mi, voluptas mea, inquit, quantumcumque meies, tantum ore accipiam!”4 Which it did, as liquore meo faciem eius perfundi …5

  She taught me other depraved acts that were equally abominable; by now I was indulging in them with pleasure without thinking for a moment that we were wallowing in mortal sin. However, the Princess, even while enjoying licentiousness such as had never appeared even in my worst nightmares, kept insisting I should take care not to brush against her navel or her stomach for fear of breaking the glass harpsichord she imagined was in there. It was a request I had some difficulty complying with, given my frenzied state.

  When we were satiated, which was only after two hours of unbridled lust, she showed me an unobtrusive passage by which I could return to my room without being seen. Once there, I immediately fell asleep, drunk on wine & sensual pleasure. It was the early morning of December 25, 1637.

  When I woke, feeling sick and bloated from my night of debauchery, it was to suffer the most excruciating torments of guilty conscience. There was no hope of redemption for my sin & already I was burning in the fires of a hell as terrible as the real one. Such were my sufferings and my self-hatred, such the sting of shame, that all I wanted was to confess my sins to my master & then bury myself in some hideous desert.

  I had reached that stage of my torment when a lackey came to ask me to join Kircher in the library. I followed him like a man being taken to suffer the pain of martyrdom.

  Athanasius was alone among the books & an expression of profound compassion appeared on his face when he saw me. I immediately threw myself down at his feet, incapable of uttering a word, mumbling my desire for confession between sobs.

  “That is not necessary, Caspar,” he said, helping me up. “Whatever you have done, you are already pardoned. Look …”

  He took a weighty folio tome down from the shelves & opened it in the middle at two blank pages. He placed the book, open, on a tall lectern facing the place from which it had been taken down, then asked me to put out the two candelabra lighting this windowless room.

  “Pluck up your courage, Caspar, & look.”

  I went over to him to see, to my amazement, that the book now showed a luminous picture in color, as clear as the reflection in a mirror. But my astonishment at this piece of magic was as nothing compared with my stupefaction when I recognized the alcove where I had condemned myself to eternal torment the previous night. Crying out, I fainted.

  I regained consciousness soon after, Kircher having applied some smelling salts he always carried with him. In the meantime he had relit the candelabra & I could see that the pages of the book were blank again.

  “Sit down & listen, without asking any questions. I have a lot more to confess than you. First of all you must know that there is no sorcery in what you have just seen. It is just one of my inventions, a camera obscura, which I would have preferred to reveal to you under better circumstances. But God, for it can only be Him, has decided otherwise. I was here, with the Prince, when you went into that alcove with his wife yesterday evening; I spied on you until I was sure you would obey my orders without fail. I don’t know what you did with the Princess, that Devil’s spawn, & I don’t want to know; it is the price that had to be paid for an enterprise in which we are both nothing but blind instruments. Your submission to my orders, far from sending you to eternal damnation, allows you to enter Paradise; by your sin, Caspar, you have quite simply saved the Church!

  “I knew about this volume,” he went on, grasping a thick roll of parchment, “even before I came to this house, but the horror of reading it surpassed everything I had been told.”

  Constituting as it did an inestimable piece of good fortune for the enemies of the Christian religion, the very existence of that work was a catastrophe in the troubled times in which we lived …

  “This morning the Prince, in accordance with the pact I made with him, gave me this book, which could be such a dangerous weapon in the hands of our adversaries. I will have no regrets about burning it, Caspar. May your sins & mine be consumed in the same fire.”

  With these words Kircher cast the volume into the hearth & gave me absolution as the parchment buckled and twisted in the flames. He poked the fire until the manuscript of Flavius Josephus had been completely rendered to ashes, then looked me straight in the eye. I had never seen him so earnest & so moved. “Come,” he said gently, “let us go and leave this lair of the Fiend as quickly as possible. Everything has been accomplished, we have done our duty.”

  We left the Prince’s residence without taking our leave of him & I had the consolation of not having to see again the woman who had taken me so far into the labyrinth of lust.

  In the hired carriage that was taking us back to Palermo, Athanasius went into more detail on the adventure of which I had been the willing victim. Our hosts were unmitigated libertines, so confirmed in their vice that they were only aroused by lascivious refinements. The Prince was almost impotent from all the Spanish fly he had taken & the Princess half-crazy since a miscarriage the previous year had deprived her of the child she had so longed for, which explained her idée fixe about the glass harpsichord she believed she had in her womb. She was a willing participant in her husband’s lecherous schemes & knew very well when we were together in the alcove that her husband was spying on us. Although intelligent & cultured, these people were a prime example of the moral chaos resulting from skepticism; deprived of the support of faith, they sank a little deeper into depravity every day without concerning themselves with a future judgment of their actions. God’s pity being infinite, sincere repentance could save them from Gehenna, but that, alas, was very unlikely. The manuscript of Flavius Josephus had been the sole reason for our presence in the Villa Palagonia. A knight of the Order of Malta had had it in his hands during an audience there & had taken it upon himself to tell Kircher about it & had supplied all kinds of useful details about the habits of the Prince & Princess.

 
My master continued to try & persuade me that I merited the plenary indulgence attached to the holy cause, which my unwitting efforts had supported. He kept repeating that I was, if not a martyr, then at least a hero of the Church; nevertheless, the delight I had felt while I disported myself with the Princess, the unreserved pleasure I had taken in the sin, precluded me from accepting that justification. What is more, my pride was hurt & I suffered less from having left the path of virtue than from having been a mere pawn in the vile schemes of those two libertines. But for Athanasius all this seemed to belong to the past already …

  Once back in Palermo, in the studious calm of the Jesuit college, I helped my master file his notes & materials, after which we started to construct, for the Duke of Hesse, a new machine on the principles of the camera obscura, the first model of which I had unwittingly tested out. It was a wooden cube with arms, as on a sedan chair, & enough room for two people inside. We made an aperture in each of the sides in which a lens was later fitted. In this perfectly dark box we placed a second, smaller cube made of translucent paper fitted to a frame. It was so arranged that this screen was sufficiently far from the lenses to show a clear image of the world outside. An opening at the bottom of the machine allowed one to slip inside the framework & thus observe, by means of the transparent paper, the images of things or people that were outside.