Where Tigers Are at Home

by Jean-Marie Blas de Robles

  “At least we have to get a copy of the project,” Eléazard said with a frown, “otherwise there’s nothing I can do. You can’t write things without proof, you know, especially when you’re exposing someone.”

  Alfredo shook his head as he angrily filled the glasses with vinho verde. It was clear he didn’t see things the same way. “What about his wife? There’s no way of getting her in on it?”

  “Not at the moment,” Loredana replied. “According to Dr. Euclides it’s personal with her. It’s her money so she can intervene.”

  “Didn’t she suggest you give her some Italian classes?” Eléazard asked. “Has nothing come of that?”

  “On the contrary, she’s to ring me back on your phone in the next few days. That’ll give me a chance to sound her out a little.”

  “Right …” said Alfredo sulkily. “If I can sum up: there’s an American base going to be established here on the quiet, a shit of a governor who’s using that information for some quiet speculation and three stupid bastards sitting here twiddling their thumbs just waiting for it to happen.”

  “Give it a rest, Alfredo,” Eléazard said. “They’re not going to have it that easy, I promise you, but it’s too soon to act. If they get wind that we’re on to them before we can take effective action, they’ll clamp down on everything and that’ll be that.”

  “He’s right,” Loredana said. “Trust us.”

  “Trust us,” Alfredo repeated, parodying her soothing tones. “I’m very fond of you both, but it’s my country, my region, so I don’t trust anyone and I can promise you that …” He broke off, distracted by the appearance of the hotel’s three American guests.

  “I can’t stand them any longer,” he said after the couple and their daughter had walked past the little group as if their table were invisible. “They don’t leave their room except to order Socorró around or hang out in the bars. You should see the state they’ll be in, all three of them, when they come back.”

  When he’d come to the hotel that morning, Eléazard had tried to talk to the old servant, but she refused to accept any wages that did not come from her work. All labor, she said, has its share of ingratitude, God had arranged things that way. She still preferred the humiliation of fanning these Americans to that of begging. She was, nonetheless, grateful for his interest but politely asked him to mind his own business.

  “Poor old Alfredo,” Eléazard said when he and Loredana were back at his house, “he’s taking this business very much to heart.”

  “And you’re not?” she asked, an aggressive note in her voice.

  “Of course I am,” he immediately agreed, “but I really can’t see what can be done at the moment. And even later, if you think about it. Despite our advice, Alfredo will inform his friends in the PC do Brazil, their rag will publish a model accusation à la Zola, and then what? Moreira will have a good laugh and arrange to have them silenced. And he will make them pay for their noble indignation, believe me. As for me: assuming dear Carlotta suddenly turns into a martyr of the revolution—and you’ll allow me to have my doubts about that—and brings me the material I need for an article, do you think that’ll make one iota of difference? Millions of dollars and the Pentagon against Eléazard von Wogau, on German police files as a sympathizer with all that was worst in the left-wing splinter groups twenty years ago … You get the picture?”

  Loredana looked him straight in the eye, as if she were wondering about his ability to hear what she was going to say. “You have to beat the grass to flush out the snake. When you’re a little less pessimistic I’ll talk to you about the Thirty-Six Stratagems, OK?”

  It was Eléazard’s turn to size her up with an odd look. “Why not?” he said in a tone that expressed his lack of interest in the book.

  “You look like your parrot when you make a face like that,” she said, switching on the computer. “You know what they say back home? Chi non s’avventura non ha ventura! Right, I’ll let you get on with your ‘work’.…”

  Funny girl, he thought, when Loredana went off to see Soledade in her room. He was, he admitted openly to himself, attracted by her nonconformism, by her constant mixture of affection and unfailing clearheadedness to the point where she was beginning to obscure the image of Elaine on his high altar, where he endeavored to keep it. He couldn’t get over her attitude at the governor’s party. The way she’d schemed with the sole intention of being able to slap him! Very clever, but it left him unsure; seeing others so deftly manipulated, he couldn’t prevent himself from wondering if he was in danger himself. Wasn’t she behaving in the same way toward him? Even Euclides had succumbed to her spell. Having said that, she had given the Americans in the hotel a hard stare that still sent shivers down his spine. If there was one thing Eléazard was certain of in all this, it was that she was capable of anything.

  LOREDANA KNOCKED ON Soledade’s door; she went in without waiting for a reply. Sprawled out on her unmade bed, an open packet of cookies beside her, she was watching a soccer match on TV.

  “Brazil versus the Soviet Union,” she said without taking her eyes off the screen for a moment. “One all, it’s almost over. Quick, come and sit down.”

  Loredana took a step then pulled up abruptly: large, damp letters could still be seen on the white walls. Turning a full circle, she read one sentence repeated all round the room up to the fly spray left on the dressing table: Eléazard, te quero …

  “So that’s it,” she said with a smile, “you’re in love with him.”

  Soledade looked up, eyes wide. Seeing the message she thought she’d wiped off, she screwed up her eyes in comic fashion, then covered her face with the sheet to avoid Loredana’s look.

  She went to sit down beside Soledade. “Don’t be silly,” she told her gently, “I won’t say anything. It’s none of my business.”

  She managed to pull aside part of the sheet Soledade was clinging to. “You won’t say anything to him? Promise?”

  “Promise. Cross my heart and hope to die,” Loredana said, taking her in her arms. “But tell me, have you slept together yet?”

  “No,” she replied, visibly embarrassed by so direct a question. “Well, almost … Just once he took me into his bed, but he was so drunk he fell asleep without touching me. I’m sure he won’t even remember,” she added with a touch of pique. “You’re not jealous, are you?”

  “Of course I am,” said Loredana, joking. “He hasn’t even tried to kiss me.”

  “But you’re the one he’s in love with. I know him well, I see the way he looks at you.”

  “I know,” said Loredana. She was staring into space. “I love him too. But that’s nothing to worry about, there’ll never be anything between us.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because … A secret for a secret, isn’t that it? You won’t say anything either, OK?”

  At that moment the commentator speeded up his delivery, to keep up with play where things were getting exciting: Dangerous free kick, forty yards from the opposing goal … Serginho’s lining it up and … it’s Falcão who shoots! The ball swerves round the wall, Junior heads it … against the bar! But it’s not over yet, Eder’s got the ball. A lovely dribble, he kicks the ball through the defender’s legs and passes to Zico …

  “Quick, look!” Soledade said. “They’re going to score!”

  At the same moment the commentator let out a lupine howl: “Goa a a a a a a a a a al! Ziiiiico! Viva Brazil, meu Deus! Dois a um!

  Fascinated by the slow-motion action replays on the screen, screaming and clapping her hands, Soledade gave free rein to her delight.

  A magnificent volley, the commentator’s hoarse voice said, a classic goal that will be all the more remembered because it was scored in the last seconds of play … The referee’s looking at his watch … No, that’s impossible, the game’s going on! A corner for the Soviet Union. All the players have gone up for this last chance to equalize … And … It’s over! The referee’s blown for time, in the ninety-second minut
e! Two-one, goals from Socrates and Zico for Brazil, and they’re in the second round of the World Cup. Viva Brazil! “Brasiou u u u u u u!” Soledade repeated, in raptures. “We’re going to win the cup, we’re going to win it!”

  “I’m going to die,” said Loredana.

  The way she said it, she could have been expressing her disappointment that it was about to rain or that she’d remembered there was no sugar in the kitchen cupboard.

  DURING THE FEW minutes in which she was alone with these terrible words, her admission delayed by Soledade’s innocent passion for football, the memory of a similar gap had taken her back to her distant past, to the time when she was twelve. It was the day before her first communion, night was falling on the almond trees in blossom. She was going to the village priest for confession.

  Father Montefiascone’s cadaverous complexion and the way he whined when showing his slides—wishy-washy pictures with no life, nothing cheerful about them at all—had put her off religion from the very first catechism class. For several weeks Loredana, without thinking she was doing anything wrong or feeling the least bit guilty, had replaced this stupid farce with delightful daydreams in the surrounding countryside. The very idea of having to “make her first communion” seemed ridiculous to her. Her mother attached such importance to this bizarre event that she had accepted its inevitability: it was something everyone went through, a requirement to which you had to submit without bothering to understand what the point of it was, a bit like getting dressed up on Sundays or speaking in a low voice in church. This communion … For days on end now they’d been going on at her about it! Her cousins, aunts and uncles who would be coming, the candle she’d have to hold straight to avoid burning herself with the wax, the pounds and pounds of pasta and gnocchi to be prepared for the big family meal after the ceremony, the famous torta a più piani ordered from the cake shop—a huge cake with several tiers that Loredana imagined leaning slightly, like the Tower of Pisa. They were constantly checking when it would be delivered, as if the fate of the whole world somehow depended on this mysterious precision. And that afternoon, while she was once more trying on the immaculate alb she would be wearing the next day—it had been Ariana’s, her big cousin’s, which explained the incessant alterations—her mother had asked her how confession had gone. What confession? Loredana had asked in naive astonishment. What? She hadn’t been to confession? her mother had screamed, almost swallowing all her pins. The curtain had gone up on the most grotesque of melodramas. What did she think she was doing? How was she going to make her communion if she hadn’t been to confession? She had been to catechism, hadn’t she? Madre di Dio! A stinging slap, tears, wailing … “Giuseppe! This little … this shameless little hussy’s missed all the catechism classes! And, yes, it is serious, you heathen! You Communist! And how many times have I told you not to smoke in the bedroom?! With all the family coming!” And the communion cake that had cost a fortune. There was nothing left for her but to die of shame.

  Contacted by telephone, the priest had merely added to their shame. Loredana Rizzuto? Sorry, he didn’t know a child of that name … Although … Could they be talking of that brazen hussy who always turned off toward the hills before she reached the church? Unfortunately, and this was certainly going to cause her parents a lot of trouble, it would naturally be impossible for her to make communion the next day. It was unthinkable, it would be a mortal sin to offer the body of Christ to that child, he told her mother emphatically. Oh, dear old Father Montefiascone. He had taken a long time persuading before he had agreed to take the little lost sheep back into his flock. Perhaps the matter could be reconsidered, but she would have to come to confession right away. No, not in the church, in his house, on the other side of the street. He was making an exception, of which he hoped Signora Rizzuto was fully aware, he was doing this out of pure charity … The Lord could not be bought, Signora Rizzuto, but the poor of the parish would be grateful to her for this unexpected offering …

  So Loredana was walking toward her fate, three steps forward, one step back, never stepping on the abyss of the gap between the paving stones, jumping over the manhole covers without a runup, as if the village had been transformed into a gigantic game of hopscotch. The closer she came, the more pressing the tricky question of her “sins” became; never having been to confession, she only knew by hearsay that you had to confess your sins, the more horrible, the better, and obtain forgiveness in return for a varying number of prayers. However hard she racked her brains, nothing admissible came to mind. To her, petty misdemeanors such as “I disobeyed my parents” or “I missed catechism” seemed insipid and unworthy of confession, and she exhausted herself declining verbs whose nefarious reputation she was aware of without, for all that, having any clear idea of the crimes behind them: to have, to sleep, to rape, to touch, to touch oneself …

  Night was falling when she finally rang the priest’s bell. An old woman came to the door and, muttering about the lateness of the hour, pushed her to the stairs up to the first floor. Loredana remembered the prints of all the stations of the cross and the sound of gunfire that accompanied her as she climbed the stairs. Guided by the shots, she found Father Montefiascone sitting watching a large television set with gold knobs and a Formica case on which Davy Crockett, alias John Wayne, was organizing the defense of a besieged fort. Cassock, doilies, engravings of Saint Ignatius and the Virgin Mary … as if intoxicated by the television, reality itself was projected all around her in black and white. Irritated at being interrupted while watching his film, Father Montefiascone hardly acknowledged her arrival. Without even standing up, he made her kneel down on the carpet, beside his armchair, facing the television and told her to recite the confiteor. Loredana was forced to admit she didn’t know it then suffer the old man’s vituperation before repeating after him the words he grudgingly spoke.

  On the screen the final battle has started. Davy Crockett starts to retreat under the number of attackers, his companions falling one by one around him. In the burning fort the last barricade gives way under the repeated charges of the cavalry. “Adelante!” With fixed bayonets, a mass of hussars, a white cross on their chests, advances inch by inch, making the screen bristle. “Does that mean what I think it does?” a man gasps as he collapses onto a wounded soldier with a fur hat. “It sure does,” the other replies, looking the man who’s about to finish them off straight in the eye. Leaving the rampart, where he was firing the last cannon, Davy Crockett starts to run toward the powder magazine, his torch in his hand. Before going in, he turns round and a hussar takes advantage of his movement to nail him to the door with his bayonet. He pulls himself free, staggers for a moment … Despite his screams, you can still believe in a miracle, but there’s a large dark patch on his back, identical to the one on the wood of the door, just at the place where he had been. You see him make one last effort and throw his torch on the powder kegs then disappear in the magazine. Everything explodes, but you know very well that John Wayne has died for nothing.

  Without being capable of appreciating the ridiculous nature of the situation, Loredana sensed its absurdity: it was like a nightmare, one of those you get after eating too much or bringing home a bad report. Insidious and hostile, Father Montefiascone’s voice mingled with the tumult of the battle.

  Jim Bowie, stiff leg stretched out on his bed in the ruined chapel where the wounded are sheltering. Watching over him is his old black slave, given his freedom before the attack and whose first gesture as a free man was to face death to defend his liberty. A wave of Mexicans; the two men fire their guns: rifle, blunderbuss and pistols. The bayonets approach Jim Bowie, they’re going to run him through … No! The old slave has thrown himself over his master, the blades sink into this last shield. Body on body … His knife! Entangled with the corpse as he is, Bowie still manages to cut the throat of one more assailant. His face in close-up: the bayonets are stuck in the adobe either side of him. We see those that miss the hero, but we hear those that kill him: the cry
of a stuck pig, a gurgling noise, retching, mouth open … Naked death, in all its ugliness.

  The world wasn’t full of sunshine anymore, it was gray, unjust, evil-smelling … a huge conspiracy since the beginning of time to bring about the death of Davy Crockett and his faithful companions. When the time came, Loredana heard herself confessing to a few venial sins then, in a toneless voice, in a silence broken only by the flapping of the flags, to having slept with her father.

  The whole Mexican army standing to attention to salute the two survivors of the massacre: a mother and her little daughter riding on a mule, like Mary on the road to Bethlehem. They leave, defeated, pale images of misfortune and reproach, while stupid trumpets are sounding in their honor. When they pass General Santana—despite his cocked hat he’s the spitting image of Father Montefiascone—the mother cannot resist giving him a defiant look. The little girl’s stronger, she ignores him, him and his world. She’s beyond hatred and scorn. Ready for the Red Brigades …

  “With your father!” the priest exclaims, turning toward her for the first time. Yes, with my father. Above all, don’t flinch, stand up to the interrogation with grandeur and dignity, ready to die like John Wayne and Richard Widmark. Yes, in his bed … That night when the village policeman’s house was struck by lightning. Yes, my mother was there as well … You’re too big to sleep in your parents’ bed, Father Montefiascone said, reassured by this willing extension of the sin. Dominus, abracadabrum sanctus, te absolvo, it was over. “Sleeping” with your father, and even with your mother was allowed, for all the consequences it had: three Ave Marias, so why not, you left washed clean of the worst atrocities, without a glance at the bodies of Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie.

  That evening Loredana had learned that man is a creature without shelter, exposed to injustice, suffering and decay. Having died for the first time at the Alamo, she had never afterward seen a monk or a soldier without mentally spitting in his face.