Where Tigers Are at Home

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Where Tigers Are at Home Page 46

by Jean-Marie Blas de Robles


  The reason’s just the despair I’m in.

  … José Costa Leite, the real one, with his little piggy eyes and his baseball cap stiff with grease.

  No need to tell me what you think,

  … me neither, thought Roetgen, nor João, nor anyone else either. Fill that up, will you?

  Drinking isn’t such a sin.

  … definitely not, eh João? Anything you want, but not a sin. A duty, a moral law, even. A categorical imperative!

  No job, no dough, I’m on the street,

  Nothing in my bag to eat …

  … my God, the poor guys! To be listening to that while millions of others are getting all worked up over the Montignac diet or liposuction …

  Why not make your home the inn?

  Drinking isn’t such a sin.

  … a medieval minstrel’s voice, a Sardinian voice, an Andalusian voice, a lonesome voice on the Blues railroad …

  Alcohol soaks up the sadness,

  Drown your memories in gin,

  That’ll shut out all the badness —

  Drinking isn’t such a sin …

  … mass for the downtrodden, and educational! Verses poured forth at top speed and without taking a breath, the last line descending to the quavering line of the refrain. “Hell!” João suddenly says, his eyes glassy, his face ashen, “Come on, cantador, what about hell?”

  Sozzled kidneys or a stroke?

  Drunk or sober, you’ll still croak.

  ’s my own choice, this hell I’m in —

  Drinking isn’t such a sin …

  … an African song, the song of a visionary praise singer. The lament without joy of the man without hope. “Freedom!” Roetgen says, and he says it again because he feels as if he’s got a hot potato in his mouth, and he’s annoyed with himself because all at once the word seems as strange, as devoid of meaning as methoxypsoralen or retinol mononitrate … Two chords and the improvisation starts up again:

  Freedom to which a donkey’s bred?

  Endless traipsing ’round its shed.

  … José Costa Leita looks at the wall, his singing gets hoarse, akin to a cry, finds new paths …

  The rich man’s lapdog gets to guzzle,

  The poor Brazilian gets a muzzle—

  Your heart is free to pound and race

  When the cops take up the chase …

  So I maintain, through thick and thin:

  Drinking isn’t such a sin …

  … whistles round the bar, appreciation expressed in grunts and spitting … “Que bom! Where does he find these things?” the barman says. “A cachaça for the poet, and well filled!” Then suddenly there are two angels, two apparitions suffused with light against the darkness of the doorway. My word, it’s enough to make you believe in God! Prince-Valiant-style hair, sides and crown glittering with gold powder, long satin robes, pink for one, azure for the other, two young angels, wide-eyed, hands clasped high on their chests in a gesture of prayer. They’ve stopped to have a glance at hell, just as two real little girls might have done, letting their curiosity get the better of them on the way to church. Roetgen, however, didn’t think the angels had that grave look, the look of an entomologist intrigued by the sudden, inexplicable turmoil in an anthill. He waved them in—and they were gone: it was as if a stultifying wind had blown its peace over the bar. Costa Leite picked up his guitar again …

  The factory bosses, in the main,

  Have got a nice, poetic vein;

  The workers veins are varicose

  And they shit worms, to add to their woes.

  I’ll sell my soul to the devil too,

  If it’ll save some pretty girl’s

  Let God save all the filthy curs

  Since he has nothing better to do.

  My only friend’s the pot I piss in—

  Drinking isn’t such a sin.

  … another cachaça, and another, to the very confines of this night. “You mustn’t hold it against her,” João says, his eyes fixed on a packet of Omo, “it’s not her fault. A mulher e capaz de quase tudo, o homem de resto …” Ready to drop from drunkenness and fatigue, they cling to each other, shoulders together, arms groping the bar, each holding the other up on the edge of the abyss.

  When Thaïs found him, late in the evening, Roetgen was asleep on the billiard table, a nasty gash on his forehead, dried blood over his face. The barman told her he’d had to smash a bottle over his head, he was a decent guy and there was no real harm done, neither to his skull—just a bit of a cut on his scalp, nothing serious—nor in the damage he’d caused. João had been forcibly taken home a little earlier, griping about his wife at the top of his voice.

  FORTALEZA, FAVELA DE PIRAMBÚ: Angicos, 1938 …

  Nelson had been filing down his iron bar for hours. His mind released by the repetitive nature of the work, he was once more reliving the death of Lampião. There was something that bothered him about the way it had happened, his end was too prosaic, at odds with the qualities of cunning and intelligence attributed to his hero. Angicos, 1938 … The tragic end of the famous cangaceiro was well known: proud of their deed, the men of the flying squad commanded by Lieutenant João Bezerra had reported every last detail.

  When the pale light of dawn rose over that part of Brazil on July 28, 1938, the police were so close to the cangaceiros that they could hear them talking or watch those already stretching in the doorway of their shack. Dressed in the only uniform the caatinga allowed, the men on both sides looked disconcertingly similar: a leather jerkin held tight over the chest by the crossed cartridge belts, gaiters, leggings jointed at the knees, a wide cocked hat in fawn leather, stuck with stars and gilded rosettes—a bit like the hats of the dandies of the Directoire period but with a headband and chin strap. Designed to resist the thorny vegetation, this bronze armor united hunters and hunted like knights and their reflection. Dull sounds emerged from time to time beneath the patter of the driving rain: the clatter of mess tins, a horse snorting, a dry cough … They were only to open fire on Bezerra’s command, but the lieutenant’s jaws were welded so tightly together by fear that his pulse was visible on his cheek; far from being ready to pounce, he was trying to disappear into the puddle where he was crouching. The sudden rattle of a sewing machine sent the coward’s face plunging into the mud … A sudden movement in the scrub? The metallic glint of a carbine? An unusually deep silence round the encampment? Without anyone being able to say why, one of the cangaceiros gave the alarm. A second later Maria Bonita thought she saw her sewing machine spitting bullets.

  Rushing out when his companion called, Lampião was one of the first to fall under the hail of machine-gun fire. While a good number of the cangaceiros scattered into the hills, Maria Bonita, Luís Pedro and the most faithful of the outlaws entrenched themselves in the huts. The attack only lasted about twenty minutes, but long after the last rifle facing them had fallen silent, the machine guns continued to pepper the shelters of canvas and branches.

  Thus the battle was turned into a pigeon shoot. The machine guns had given the cangaceiros no chance at all. And how could such a rout be justified? Why should Bezerra, the well-known coward, have prevailed over intelligence and bravery on that morning rather than any other? Lampião and his faithful followers had died without fighting. They had simply been executed.

  Moved by the scene he was visualizing, Nelson had increased the speed of his file over the iron bar. No, he thought, Lampião would never have allowed himself to get caught so easily on a field of battle, even if he’d been taken by surprise. The story just didn’t stand up. The other version, though, the one that had been rumored abroad almost immediately after the tragedy of Angicos, was much more convincing: fuelled by the revelations of Father José Kehrle and confirmed by the brothers João and David Jurubeba, it declared that Lampião and the ten cangaceiros who had been martyred along with him had been poisoned.

  CHAPTER 20

  In which Kircher finds himself obliged to tell Queen Christina a sc
abrous story he wanted to keep to himself …

  ON THE NEXT day, December 24, 1655, Queen Christina honored us with her presence, as arranged. Kircher was experienced as a guide; speaking without interruption to his guest, he quickly & amusingly presented large sections of his museum to her, only pausing over objects worthy of the royal interest. Here a robe from China, embroidered with gold and dragons, there an Egyptian intaglio of the most beautiful jasper or an abraxas engraved on jade & mounted on a revolving ring; further on a series of distorting mirrors. One of these made an extraordinary impression on Queen Christina; when you looked at yourself in it, you saw your head stretch more & more into a cone, then four, three, five & eight eyes appeared; at the same time your mouth became like a cave, with your teeth rising up like precipitous rocks. Widthwise you first of all saw yourself without a forehead, then getting donkey’s ears without your mouth & nostrils being modified at all. But I cannot find words to describe the whole variety of these hideous apparitions. My master tirelessly explained the catoptric principles involved in these inventions & in those far more interesting ones that he had worked out in his mind, should some patron one day enable them to be realized.

  After the catoptric museum, the finest & most complete in the world, Kircher showed Christina the great python of Brazil & the elephant seal, gigantic animals his fame alone had brought into his possession. After the Queen had gone into raptures at the size of these giants of creation, my master showed her an engraving & asked if she could identify the animal it represented.

  “What strange monster is that?!” Christina exclaimed with a laugh. “It looks like a dromedary sitting on a branch.”

  “It’s a flea, Your Highness, & its perch a human hair, which the power of my microscope has enlarged like that to offend the eye—& delight the mind. Take a look yourself …”

  At once Athanasius handed her one of these instruments & several specimens he had prepared for that purpose. Christina, bending over the eyepiece, gave little cries of astonishment at the sight of these insects transformed into frightening chimeras simply by virtue of the lenses, while my master in his imperturbable way, continued to expound upon the infinitely great & the infinitely small.

  From there we went on to the winged dragon Cardinal Barberini had parted with for our museum & that was made to inspire men with terror. But Queen Christina was made of sterner stuff & true to her reputation for subtlety. “A few months ago,” she said, “some German Jesuits told me they had seen dragons priapos suos immanes, in os feminarum intromittentes, ibique urinam fudentes.1 I really gave them a piece of my mind,” she added, “for having permitted such offensive behavior, but they just laughed.”

  “I hadn’t heard of that,” Kircher replied, “nevertheless I am disappointed at their thoughtlessness. I wouldn’t have left without capturing these beasts or … ‘converting’ them if you prefer …”

  Following this skirmish, there was the lamb with two heads, the bird of paradise with three legs & the stuffed crocodile apparently sleeping under a reconstructed palm tree.

  “The crocodile,” my master explained, “is the symbol of divine omniscience, since only its eyes emerge from the water &, although seeing everything, it remains invisible to our mortal senses. It has no tongue and divine reason has no need of words to make itself manifest. And as Plutarch points out, it lays sixty eggs that take that many days to hatch; it also lives for sixty years at the longest. Now sixty is the first number astronomers use in their calculations, so that it was not without reason that the priests of ancient Egypt dedicated a town to them, Crocodilopolis, & that the inhabitants of Nîmes still have this emblem on the walls of their town.”

  We were making our way through the rest of the Egyptian section of the museum, heading for the curio with which a visit usually ended—a stone of 10 ounces removed from the gallbladder of Father Leo Sanctius, who unfortunately died during the operation—when Queen Christina stopped by a statuette to which I had never paid much attention: a rather plump figure wearing a hat in the form of a scarab, the rear legs of which hung down like ribbons well below the back of its neck & that appeared to be squatting down while holding its sides.

  “And that, Reverend Father?” Christina asked.

  “An unimportant Egyptian idol,” Kircher replied, making as if to continue walking.

  “I must say it seems extremely odd to me,” the Queen insisted. “What strange deity is it?”

  Being perfectly familiar with the least of Athanasius’s expressions, I could tell he would have preferred to talk about something else & his reaction aroused my own curiosity.

  “I’m afraid, Your Highness,” my master said, embarrassed, “that it is not something for delicate ears & I would most humbly beg you to permit me, with due reverence for your rank & your sex, to draw a veil over this exhibit.”

  “But if I did not permit you …” Christina said, smiling with feigned ingenuousness. “You must realize that my rank allows me to do things that are denied other women & even the majority of men. Do not be misled by my dress; it is not their sex that makes a king or a queen, it is their rule, & that alone, that is decisive.”

  “And your reign, Your Majesty, was great & remarkable, one of the most notable. I therefore bow to your wishes & beg you to pardon my untimely reticence. This idol represents the deus Crepitus, the Fart god, of the Egyptians, & that in the comical posture appropriate to his nature.”

  Queen Christina remained perfectly impassive, proving that she fully merited her reputation as an enlightened monarch, more interested in increasing her knowledge, even in such a scabrous area, than in making puerile jokes about it. When some of her suite giggled & made ironic comments on the fetid side of this deity, she silenced them with a look that indicated the authority this masterful woman had over them.

  “Please go on, Reverend Father. How is it that the builders of the pyramids & the library of Alexandria, the inventors of the hieroglyphs & so many other marvelous secrets, could lower themselves to this shameless cult? I must admit that my curiosity has been aroused by something that, on the face of it, has neither rhyme nor reason.”

  “So you wish me to explain to Your Majesty the deified fart of the Egyptians? But would it not be to go against people’s rights to publish abroad the apparently ridiculous side of that wise & learned nation?

  “Among those nations that have granted divine rights to sentient creatures I see none more excusable than those who worshipped the winds; they are invisible, like the grand master of the universe, & their source is unknown, like that of the deity. We should, therefore, not be surprised if the winds have been worshipped by the majority of nations as terrible & unfathomable forces, as marvelous workers of the storms & of the calm of the world & as the masters of nature; you will know what Petronius said: primus in orbe Deos fecit timor …2 The Phoenicians, as vouched for by Eusebius, who gives an account of the theology of these nations, dedicated a temple to the winds. The Persians followed their example: Sacrificant persæ, Herodotus says, soli & lunae & telluri & aquæ & ventis.3 Strabo confirms that in almost the same words.

  “The Greeks imitated one or the other of the nations I have just cited. When Greece was threatened by the expedition of Xerxes, they consulted the oracle at Delphi, who replied that they needed to make the winds favorable to them to get their aid, so they made sacrifice on an altar dedicated to them & Xerxes’s fleet was scattered by a furious storm. Plato, in the Phaedrus, reports that in his day there was an altar consecrated to the wind Boreas in Athens. And Pausanias tells us that there was an altar at Sycion for the sacrifices that were made to soothe the anger of the winds.

  “The Romans fell into the same dreams, according to Virgil they sacrificed a black sheep to the winter winds & a white one to the Zephyrs. And the Emperor Augustus, despite his enlightened outlook, being in Gallia Narbonensis & dismayed at the violence of the Circius wind, which is still called the wind of Cers in Narbonne & which blew down houses & the biggest trees & yet made the air
marvelously salubrious, made a vow to consecrate a temple to it & did indeed build it. It is Seneca who tells us that in his Naturales Quaestiones.

  “Finally the Scythians, according to Lucian, swore by the wind & by their sword, which they thus recognized as their god.

  “And man, who has always been regarded as a microcosm, that is, as a small world, has his winds like the great world. And these winds, in the three regions of our body as if in three different climates, set off tempests and storms when they are too abundant & too swift, & give refreshment to the blood, to our animal spirits & to our solid parts, & health to our whole body when they are gentle and regular in their movements; but it only takes a pressing abundance of these enclosed winds to create an incurable colic, a windy dropsy or a knotting of the bowels, all of which are fatal ailments. The Egyptians, therefore, awarded divine status to these winds of the small world as the originators of sickness & health in the human body. And Job seems to confirm their view when he says, O remember my life is wind … However, they prefer the fart to all the other winds of this small world, perhaps because it is the cleanest of all or because it makes a loud noise as it escapes from its prison, thus imitating the sound of thunder & this meant that it could be regarded by that nation as a small Jupiter the Thunderer who deserved their worship.

  “Let us, however, thank the Lord for rescuing us from all these aberrations by the light of faith; whatever the power we admire in these natural agencies to do us good or ill, let us regard them solely as steps on a mysterious ladder by which we must ascend to the adoration of the Creator who afflicts or favors us by the ministrations of the greatest or least of his creatures, following the unfathomable commands of His providence.”

 

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