Where Tigers Are at Home

by Jean-Marie Blas de Robles

  Dietlev looked at them apologetically. “You’re wasting your strength for no reason. We have a break because I’m tired, because I need a pee and because this stretcher makes me seasick.”

  Petersen fumbled in one of his pockets, took out a film container and tossed it to Elaine. “There you are,” he said, “take a bit, it’ll perk you up no end.”

  “What is it?” she asked as she caught the container.

  “Cocaína. It’s better than sugar, I can assure you.”

  Elaine suddenly understood why Herman sniffed so often. And she had offered to give him something for his cold! Without giving it further thought, she tossed the little container back to him. “Thanks, but I prefer sugar, if that’s all right by you.”

  For a brief moment Mauro thought there’d be no harm in trying; the Peruvians of the high plateaus chewed coca leaves to help them keep going … He met Dietlev’s reproving look and kept quiet.

  HER SHIRT STICKING to her skin, sweat dripping from her hair, Elaine focused her attention entirely on the jungle. Annoyed at her fall, she determined to anticipate Yurupig’s waymarks so as not to hold up the two struggling along with the stretcher. She had no idea how long they’d been trudging along like that when a movement in the foliage made her stop in her tracks; for the first time since they’d been trekking through the forest, it was the sign not of something fleeing but approaching, so that she instinctively curled her fingers round the short handle of her machete. At the same moment a man appeared in front of her, a naked Indian, with a black hole instead of a mouth; a feathered mummy that silently split into two.

  “Don’t move!” It was Petersen who spoke as she stepped back, struck dumb with fear. “Keep facing them.”

  Around twenty Indians armed with bows and blowpipes had assembled in front of them. They just stood there waiting, unmoving gods, aware of their power.

  “Friends!” said Elaine, stretching out her arms to show her good will. “We’re lost. Do you understand? Lost.”

  The simple sound of her voice seemed to disconcert them. Some cries rang out, immediately followed by impressive intimidatory moves. One of them started stamping on the spot while pointing to Elaine’s arm.

  “The gun,” Herman said urgently, “give me the gun. Quick!”

  “Drop your machete,” Dietlev ordered from his stretcher, “slowly. Friends! Yaudé marangatù, we’re harmless.”

  The Indians reacted solely to the dropping of the machete. The one who seemed to be their chief uttered a few words. The one nearest to him picked up the coveted object at Elaine’s feet. Then he took one step forward to speak to Dietlev.

  “What’s he saying?” Mauro asked.

  “No idea,” Dietlev admitted without ceasing to smile obviously at the man who had spoken. “It sounds a bit like the Guarani I’ve learned, but I can’t understand a blind word of what he’s saying. It could be a variant, but at least they seem to have calmed down. Ma-rupi?” he tried, pointing to the path made by Yurupig. “The river? Where? The white men?”

  The Indian put his head on one side, then scratched his thigh to give the impression of composure. Since nothing happened, he gave a brief order and two of them came to pick up the stretcher.

  “I think they’ve understood,” Mauro said with relief.

  “Fucking savages,” was Petersen’s response. “I don’t know what they’ve understood, but we’ve no choice but to stick to their tail.”

  Eléazard’s Notebooks

  TO HEAR those who are silent from having screamed too much …

  AT THE BAR: “Women are like matches, as soon as they get hot they lose their heads.” Mulher é como fósforo: quando esquenta, perda a cabeza.

  “WHY do we foresee only catastrophes?” Hervé Le Bras asks. “Why not see that certain consequences of human activities could protect instead of threatening us?” If it is true that we are heading for a new, fairly harsh and brutal ice age, our efforts ought to be directed toward increasing the greenhouse effect with the utmost urgency, instead of trying to reduce it.

  THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY will take precise account of our disillusionments; it will be obscurantist.

  THEY CAN ALWAYS TURN OUT TO BE USEFUL: bits of string, wood, plastic or rubber, small metal components, broken engines, odd parts, the scattered pieces of a whole, of a dismembered Osiris that can be used to repair, to restore a whole in the universe of things. But they can also create new, unexpected and previously unseen wholes that the reuse brings to life and to which it gives a history. Accumulation and reclamation as the foundations of creativity, the rag-and-bone man as the demiurge of a possible world; the attic as the natural refuge for poetry. And even if these things will never be used, as happens most of the time, it is the perhaps that is important, the acceptance of the potentiality of a possible advent or at the very least of the restoration of a lost unity.

  THE DAY WHEN WE TIRE OF HEARING OUR FAVORITE STORY, of demanding, as most children do, a strict word-for-word retelling, is the day we enter the age of desecration. Our astonishment at the mystery is no longer triggered by its repetition, but by its ever-renewed transgression.

  “AMONG MAMMALS,” A. Villiers writes, “it is dogs to which crocodiles seem particularly partial. Rose cites the case of a cayman, the stomach of which contained, apart from a woman’s diamond ring, 32 dogs’ ID tags, which, taking the dogs without ID tags into account, represents a considerable figure.”

  SCIENCE has this in common with religion, that most of the time it only produces impressions of truth, but it alone has the ability to produce the thing that will dispel them. Where nothing is falsifiable, nothing is provable either.

  HIGH ON LSD? Without realising it, Kircher must have ingested some rye ergot (Claviceps purpurea). His ecstatic journey was nothing but a bad trip. That is what Dr. Euclides maintains after analyzing his reactions when he took the tonic sent by Yves d’Évreux. This minuscule fungus, a parasite on rye and rich in lysergic acid, caused communal poisoning when it was inadvertently mixed with flour made from that grain. What used to be called “holy fire” or “St. Anthony’s fire.” Euclides argues very persuasively that partaking of rye ergot was at the basis of the Mysteries of Eleusis.

  THE ART OF LIGHT AND SHADE contains a whole chapter on the manufacture of marbled paper. In his Natural Magic (Magia universalis naturæ et artis, sive recondita naturalium et artificalium rerum scientia, Würzburg, 1657) Caspar Schott declares that he learned the method of “painting paper with varied colors in the manner of the Turks” while watching Athanasius Kircher at work: “He made all sorts of designs on paper—people, animals, trees, towns and regions—now as breaking waves, now as various marbles, now as birds’ feathers and as all sorts of other figures.” Specialists in this matter, in particular Einen Miura, recognize Kircher as the first to introduce the art of marbled paper into Europe.

  DATES of C. Schott?

  ATHANASIUS KIRCHER did not take part in any of the religious controversies by which his times were rocked. An attitude of reserve that can be counted in his favor. He seems to have adopted the exhortation of Muto Vitelleschi, Father General of the Society during the Thirty Years’ War: “Let us not say: my country. Let us stop speaking a barbarous language. Let us not glorify the day on which prayer becomes nationalized …”

  FROM GOETHE, in his Theory of Colours: “Thanks to Kircher, the natural sciences present themselves to us in a much livelier and brighter manner than with any of his predecessors. They have left the study and the lecture theatre for a comfortably appointed monastery with ecclesiastics who are in communication with the whole world, have influence on the whole world, who want to teach people, but also to entertain and amuse them. Even if Kircher solves very few problems, at least he brings them up and examines them in his own way. He demonstrates an ease of understanding, facility and unruffled calm in his communications.”

  FROM GOETHE, again: “Each one of us has something hidden inside himself, a feeling, a memory, which, if it were known, wo
uld make the man hated.” Doubtless the worst of men also has, even more profoundly hidden, something that would make him loved.

  THE SUBCONSCIOUS is but one possible strategy of dishonesty.

  1 (…) to princes alone, great men and friends.

  CHAPTER 22

  In which the episode of the coffins with a tube is reported

  ATHANASIUS KIRCHER COULD not hear the story of Count Karnice without shuddering. The horror of his wife’s awakening in the darkness of the tomb, which he could clearly imagine, spurred on his genius to such an extent that only two days after that terrible event, he showed me his designs for a “tactile recaller,” a machine to prevent such dreadful mistakes ever happening again.

  It consisted of a metal tube, six foot long & about six inches in diameter, to be inserted into the casket at the time of interment through a circular opening, which carpenters would have no problem incorporating in their coffins as a standard feature. The upper section of the tube, that which would be above ground, would terminate in a hermetically sealed box containing the works necessary for the functioning of the mechanism. My master explained its ingenious simplicity with a cross-section drawing. A rod attached to a very sensitive spring went down the tube into the coffin; screwed to the end was a brass sphere, arranged in such a way as to touch the chest of the presumed corpse: the least movement, even a breath taken before recovering consciousness, & the sphere would set the rescue in motion. The box would open at once, letting air & light flood into the coffin; at the same time a flag would be raised, a loud bell would sound, while a rocket would shoot up into the sky before exploding noisily, spreading the dazzling light of the resurrection over the graveyard.

  If the box remained closed for two weeks, a sufficient lapse of time for all hope to disappear, all one had to do was to pull up the tube; a valve would automatically close the opening, so that one could finally fill in the grave. Once the “recaller,” or at least the part that had touched the corpse, had been disinfected, it was immediately ready for use in another interment.

  I warmly commended Kircher’s latest invention. As it cost only a modest sum & was a model of simplicity, it would be easy to supply the cemeteries with them to avoid the risk of premature burials.

  As I mentioned above, it was impossible to find a single coffin in Rome, but Cardinal Barberini, when he heard of this machine, put four of his own at our disposal. Working day & night, we made the tubes in less than a week. They worked perfectly & it was not long, alas, before they were put to use. Six of our Jesuit brothers were carried off by the plague in less time that it took to mourn them. Two of them, whose bodies were in such a state of decay there was no doubt they were dead, were sent to the communal grave, but the other four were interred in the College cemetery, each grave equipped with a “tactile recaller.”

  Nothing happened during the first two nights & we went to bed on the third with our minds at rest concerning the fate of our unfortunate friends—they were resting in peace. Around three in the morning, however, a terrifying explosion woke us with a start. Realising immediately what it meant, Athanasius threw on his shirt as he hurried down the stairs, calling for help. I followed him, accompanied by several fathers.

  We reached the cemetery almost as soon as he did, but he was already beside a grave with a raised flag, digging furiously with his mattock & shouting words of comfort to the one whose return to life had set off this commotion. Grasping other implements, we joined him to disinter the unfortunate man as quickly as possible.

  I was busy with my spade, working as quickly as I could, when a long whistle followed by an explosion that set the night ablaze almost made us die of shock. Another flag had gone up a few yards from where we were. The ringing from the box sounded as if it came from the very depths of Hades. Those who so far had only been watching, hurried over to that grave & started digging up that coffin.

  While they were thus occupied, a third detonation & then a fourth at almost the same time took our agitation to fever pitch. The whole College had woken. Some were praying in loud voices, others proclaiming a miracle: never did a cemetery resound with such faith & hope. Since there were more arms than implements, some started pulling up the soil with their hands; cries of encouragement mingled with thanksgivings, & the torches, a large number of which had been lit by the brother porter, gave the unusual scene the look of a phantasmagoria.

  Having started first, we were the first to disinter the coffin; using a forked lever, Athanasius opened the lid as quickly as he could. In the light of the torches, we formed a circle round him: the sight that greeted us was more repulsive that our most revolting nightmares. The murmurs that came from our lips were more ones of disgust than of disappointment. Some turned away, calling on God, & a novice, suddenly fainting, almost fell into the grave. Floating on a sea of maggots, black with gangrene, Father Le Pen seemed ready to burst so swelled up he was with gas & sanies. It was his belly, taut as a wineskin, that had moved the sphere, setting off the alarm mechanism. The same causes producing the same effects, the cemetery was soon filled with lamentation & exclamations of horror.

  Once we had gotten over the general stupor, we reinterred the four brothers, with many prayers at having disturbed their souls’ repose, then returned to our rooms, though few of us managed to get any sleep that night.

  Put away in the mechanical section of the museum, these excellent machines were never used again. Even after the plague, once the corruption of the flesh had returned to its natural limits, no one thought of using them, out of either superstition or mistrust, so profoundly disturbing had been the effect of that first trial.

  At the end of November the Draco Pestis, the insatiable hydra that had gorged on so many human lives, decided to abandon its prey. Overnight no one was dying of the plague in the streets of Rome anymore. Whether it had been set off by the Jews to avenge themselves on the Christians—as Cardinal Gastaldi maintained for no good reason since eight hundred of them had died in the ghetto—or by God himself as punishment for our sins, that still did not justify the scourge: God does not have to justify his acts, neither when He chastises us, nor when He delivers us.

  As I have already said, fifteen thousand people died in Rome in four months; but that number, huge though it might be, was much lower than that which afflicted the cities of Palermo, Milan or, later, the big city of London. All in all, the Romans should be glad to have come out of such a trial relatively lightly.

  In 1658 the Scrutinium Pestis appeared. In these two hundred pages my master examined the history of the epidemic, its possible causes, its different forms and symptoms, without omitting a single one of the remedies used to counter it. “But,” he concluded, “the best remedy for the plague is to flee very quickly & very far, & to stay away from the sources of infection for as long as possible; if, however, you cannot do that, then live in a very large, well-ventilated house situated on top of a hill, away from the drains & stagnant water; open the windows so as to purge the air & fill your dwelling with aromatic herbs; burn sulfur & myrrh & take abundant vinegar to purify the inside of your body as well …” Precious advice that subsequently saved the lives of numerous people.

  FORTALEZA: But it was a Lourdes or a Benares …

  Roetgen returned to his teaching with the uncomfortable feeling that he had only just escaped all sorts of complications. By transgressing the tacit rules associated with his status as lecturer he had exposed himself to professional problems whose seriousness he only now appreciated. Despite his hurt pride and the obsessive image of Moéma, he was astonished he had come out of it so lightly: what madness, he said to himself, to have yielded to that girl’s advances. I really was a fool. She only has to tell people half of what happened on that beach and I can pack my bags.

  Without feeling embarrassed at what he’d done—you had to take people and things as they were and not be afraid of having your senses disturbed if it was in the interest of ethnography—he saw himself in danger of stubbornly denying his mistakes
, of declaring, in outraged tones, that people shouldn’t cast slurs on his reputation simply because of malicious student gossip, that it was too easy … But the various scenarios in which he rehearsed his defense did not reassure him, so that he basked in the warmth of the flattering memory of his outing in the jangada, reducing his stay at the seaside to that exploit alone.

  Happening to meet him on campus, he told Andreas of his adventures. “You’re crazy,” was his smiling reaction, “but I don’t think I could have resisted either … Still, you’ll have to be careful, they can’t stop themselves gossiping. Not out of malice, that’s the odd thing about it, but because they have a taste for it, for the sheer enjoyment of the fofocas … Tittle-tattle, it’s almost a way of life here! You’d think they couldn’t communicate in any other way. And I have to agree that it’s quite nice: the mystery ends up giving a kind of density to human relationships. You can be sure you’ll be rumored to have done a lot more things than you would ever do, so, a bit more, a bit less, you’ve no need to worry as long as you’re not sleeping with the principal’s wife. And even then you’d have to be caught in the act!”

  He put a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Tell me, do I know the girl?”

  “She doesn’t exactly hide her light under a bushel. Moéma von something, I can’t remember what, something that sounds German.”

  “Moéma von Wogau?”

  “That’s it,” Roetgen said in amazement. “You know who she is?”

  “I know her father, an old university friend. He’s a journalist, a foreign correspondent in Alcantâra. I even palmed my parrot off on him. He stays with us when his work brings him here. He told me his daughter was coming to the university here, I was supposed to keep a bit of an eye on her, but I have to admit I’ve completely forgotten.”