Where Tigers Are at Home

by Jean-Marie Blas de Robles

  “The deceitful artifices of Typhon have been broken, thus reserving the life of innocent things; to which the pentacles and amulets below lead because of the mystical foundations on which they are built. That is why they are powerful to obtain all the good things of an enchanting life …”

  “God’s blood!” Bernini exclaimed. “I would have understood just as much if you’d been speaking Iroquois. Your Egyptian priests were better than anyone at jumbling up their little homilies …”

  “There were two good reasons for that, the first being the profundity of the mysteries they were expressing, the second as a precaution against heedlessly giving away such sought-after knowledge to ignoramuses. Simple arts, such as music & painting, require a long initiation; much longer & more arduous is that required by knowledge. Pythagoras, remember, enjoined his disciples to silence so that they would not divulge the sacred mysteries, because one can only learn by meditating, not by speaking.…”

  “As for me,” said Bernini, slightly piqued, “I’ll stick to the arts without trying to decipher such recondite allegories …”

  “Come now, my friend, don’t misunderstand me. Knowledge requires application alone & you make wonderful use of yours in a field in which you excel. Life is too short, alas, to consider devoting oneself fully to more than a single art. Socrates was a poor sculptor before becoming Socrates; as for Phidias, that maker of divine images, he could well have been dumb for all we know of his philosophy. One acted as a midwife to minds, the other to stones, that’s all!”

  “Capital!” Bernini said with a laugh. “How could I fail to be convinced when you compare me to such a master?!”

  “I didn’t forget myself, either,” Kircher said in the same tone, “but that was only for the purposes of the analogy, since I would have great difficulty competing with Socrates. If you are incontestably the greatest sculptor of the age, I am nothing but an honest laborer in the field of knowledge. I have nothing else to do, all my time is my own, so that I can concentrate on things for long periods without interruption. That is the only way in which I may call myself a genius. I have learned by long experience how much time such an intellectual task can take & to what extent the mind must be free of all distraction to complete it successfully … But let us return to our obelisk. As I’m sure you will have realized, despite your protestations at its apparent obscurity, this text contains a summary of the Egyptian doctrine regarding the supreme principles governing the world. Replace Mophta by God, Osiris by the Sun and the seven towers of the heavens by the planets & you will see that this doctrine only differs from that of the Church in points of detail. You will therefore, I hope, agree that the tortoise & the armadillo are hardly suitable symbols for such a complex system.”

  “I’m happy to grant you that,” Bernini said with a frown, “but I’m sure you will have some other beast to suggest …”

  “To tell you the truth, I haven’t thought about it. However, it seems to me that the ox or the rhinoceros would be perfectly suitable: the ox because it warmed Our Savior with its breath, but also because in it the Greeks venerated the Sun & the Moon under the name of Epaphus & the Egyptians the souls of Osiris & of Mophta, under the name of Apis. The rhinoceros, for its part—”

  “Out of the question,” Bernini broke in shaking his head, “the French have already used it in that way for the entry of Catherine de Medici to Paris. As for the ox, it’s an interesting symbol, but I can already hear the comments of the good citizens of Rome on such a statue: they’d make a thousand smutty jokes about its horns and its genitals I very much doubt the Supreme Pontiff would appreciate …”

  “You are right there. We mustn’t neglect that aspect of the problem.”

  Grueber, who until then had listened in respectful silence, suddenly joined in: “What would you say to an elephant, gentlemen?”

  “An elephant?!” Bernini said.

  “But of course!” my master exclaimed, grasping the sculptor by the shoulders. “Cerebrum in capite! The brain is in the head! Don’t you see, Lorenzo? The Hypnerotomachia & its obsidian enigma. Why didn’t I think of that sooner? We’ve got our symbol for, in truth, no other beast is as knowledgeable as the elephant!”

  Bernini looked as shamefaced as a tomcat being castrated. Caught out, his only comment was, “Huh!”

  MATO GROSSO: Like arrows fledged with dreams …

  Elaine had been worried about Mauro every second while he was away. Still under the shock of the horrible vision, he burst out sobbing as he told them what had happened; she was happy to console him when he buried his face in her breast. As well as the genuine sorrow she felt, she was in the grip of a fear that kept her stuck to the bench. Inside her head a compass needle was spinning round and round wildly.

  As night fell, the mosquitos arrived.

  “When I think that he threw the magazine clip away …” Petersen muttered. He was thinking out loud and, since they expressed the impasse they found themselves in, the odd phrases they didn’t want to hear seemed to deepen the darkness even more.

  Dietlev regained consciousness with the name of Elaine on his lips and she immediately replied. As she cleaned his wound, more to give her something to make her forget her fear than out of necessity, she decided to keep the death of Yurupig from him; the infection was taking an alarming turn and he’d need all his strength to cope with it. The Indians had brought the rucksack back … They’d leave in the morning … He just had to hold on … As she talked to him, these white lies turned into their opposite inside her head so that what she heard as she spoke them was the strict truth: Dietlev wouldn’t hold out much longer, they’d perhaps never leave this clearing. Fear and uncertainty condensed in a nasty sweat under her armpits.

  “Was there anything missing from the rucksack?” Dietlev asked in a low voice.

  “No,” Elaine replied. “That is, yes, there was. The fossil samples have gone. They must have thought they were ordinary stones and chucked them away.”

  They heard Petersen sniff noisily in the darkness.

  “Him and his coke,” Dietlev said irritatedly.

  “Just ignore him, try to sleep.”

  The Indians had lit their bonfire. Gleams from the flames turned the interior of their hut red, casting fanciful ideograms over their faces. A strident, repetitive threnody suddenly swelled up with the light; shrill flutes accompanied a plaintive chant: the whole tribe was groaning in rhythm, softly, with unpredictable variations, sudden occlusive surges in which their throats grew hoarse.

  The mat over the entrance was raised; the same Indians who had brought them food invited the strangers to leave the hut. Without having time to discuss it, they were led toward the huge bonfire crackling in the middle of the village. Little benches to sit on, platters loaded with food, large calabashes filled with beer … they were being treated as distinguished guests, with the result that Elaine started to hope again.

  Still daubed with red, shining like swimmers who had just come out of the water, several Indians were already turning around the blaze. Long macaw tails stuck out of the yellow plumes they wore around their arms, just under their shoulders. Their hair speckled with white down, kingfisher feathers in the lobes of their ears, they were miming something animal or organic. Elaine started back slightly: the shaman had suddenly appeared in front of the little group of strangers. Black snot was dribbling down from his nostrils in two syrupy trickles; it was splattered all over his scrawny chest. Having wiped his nose on himself, he appeared older, more deranged. More savage, Elaine thought, filled with repugnance as he began a long, strangely melodious speech.

  It was a celebration in honor of Qüyririche, a celebration in which they had prepared all the food they possessed for the Messenger and his divine relatives. The manioc beer was ready, they would blow a lot of epena, clouds of magic powder, again and again, until they went up into the invisible clouds where the destiny of the worlds was woven. He, Raypoty, had been able to interpret the signs: he knew the source of the fish-
stones! For many years he had searched for the opening of the universe elsewhere, the secret fissure through which his people could finally escape, like an asshole suddenly relaxed in the mortal belly of the forest. But now the god himself had come to open his eyes. There was no need to plant nor to hunt anymore, they would depart at dawn, leaving behind everything that might weigh them down and prevent their final take-off for the Land-with-no-evil.

  He finished with a few occult words designed to attract the favors of the Messenger so that he would continue to guide him and his people.

  “Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi,” Mauro immediately translated, “miserere nobis. It’s crazy! If we ever get out of here I’m going to spend the rest of my life inventing a universal language. It’s as if he’s decided not to understand a word of what we’re saying. If he won’t make an effort, all our attempts to communicate with him will get us nowhere. It’s just too stupid!”

  “That’s not the problem,” Dietlev said, his voice affected by his fever. “I think he believes we can understand him. We need to try and talk to someone else in the tribe.”

  “We’ve got to get out of here, that’s what,” Petersen growled. “I’ve an uneasy feeling about these loonies.”

  The shaman took a long tube of bark as thin as a blowpipe, put a pinch of black powder in one of the ends which he handed to an Indian squatting down. Squatting down himself, he put the other end to his nostrils. Holding the tube between his index and middle fingers, the Indian breathed in and blew the dose of epena high up into the shaman’s mucous membrane.

  “See, I’m not the only one!” Petersen gloated. He’d already observed the same practice among the Yanomami and knew they were witnessing a ritual taking of drugs.

  Eyes closed, his face screwed up in pain, the shaman prepared the tube then blew the powder into the nostrils of the one who had just helped him. The Indian stayed on his heels, transfixed, prey to what looked like insupportable pain. He nose began to drip black fluid onto his chin, sinuous trails of snot, which the Indian suddenly made spray out with an abrupt exhalation. Thus he was splashed with the blood of the true world, drawing on his chest a horoscope that the shaman alone could interpret.

  It was like a signal; all the Indians in the tribe started to breathe in the magic substance. Between each pinch they quenched their thirst with beer and greedily dug into any food within reach. After the third or fourth inhalation, a man would start howling, waving his arms, then he would stand up for an unmoving dance that made him shake on the spot like a soul in torment. Eventually he would faint and collapse, overcome by the visions. The women would then drag him off a little way, while the one who had blown the drug into his nostrils had it done to himself by someone else.

  One hour later most of the men were lying on the ground alongside each other, like corpses waiting to be dealt with.

  “Guardians of the dream,” the shaman was saying as he deciphered the symbols on the torsos, “living shelters of the true soul, your hearts do not lie. On them I can see the anaconda and the jaguar, the terrapin and the hummingbird. You are like arrows fledged with dreams, great birds who are consumed in the sky by their wings of fire. The end of all your woes is near, for soon the Messenger will guide us to that mountain where visions cascade down uninterruptedly. Your torsos tell me much: they tell of the return to the land of our birth, to the smiling happiness of newborn babes …”

  The shaman walked along between the bodies, releasing their penises, swollen by the sensual wanderings of the sleepers’ minds, from their thin shackles, spitting magic arrows at invisible enemies swirling round them like flies. Agitated, close to trance, he came back and stood in front of Dietlev. Petersen was the first to understand his gesticulations: “He wants to get you to sniff his rubbish,” he said in mocking tones. “No way out of it, old chap …”

  Elaine turned to Dietlev, full of concern: “Don’t do it,” she begged. “You’ve seen what it does to them.”

  “Given the state I’ve reached … and then we don’t know what’ll happen if I refuse. It’s the best way of keeping in their good books. So long, Carter—won’t see you again …”

  He stuck the wax tip of the tube in one of his nostrils; when the shaman blew down it, he was immediately thrown back on the stretcher. After a few seconds of an intense burning sensation spreading through his sinuses, Dietlev had the very clear impression that the right side of his brain had frozen with no hope of it ever unfreezing. Opening his eyes, he was alarmed to see the sepia tones of the forest: the harmony of an old photo abruptly torn apart by sudden flashes of lightning, revealing incredible perspectives in which amber and mauve shaded into infinity. A Piranesian delirium, architectural tumors ceaselessly proliferating. He could hear the slow grinding of icebergs, the overthrust of continental plates. Distant whirlwinds started to stir up space with their spirals, cracks appeared all over the earth, which opened up like a round loaf under the irresistible force of the mountains. Stones rose in the air! Before he lost consciousness Dietlev was aware he was witnessing something grandiose, an event mingling the beginning of worlds and their apocalypse.

  VERY EARLY THE next morning Elaine was woken by the sound of voices punctuated by crying children. First of all she had a quick look at Dietlev—he was still sleeping and appeared to be breathing normally. Then she got our of her hammock to have a look outside the hut. The whole tribe was packing its bags … Woken by Elaine, Mauro and Petersen went to the mat over the entrance.

  “It looks as if they’re leaving,” Mauro said, a touch of concern in his voice.

  “And taking us with them,” Petersen added, seeing a little group of Indians approaching.

  Once in the hut the two men they already knew indicated that they were to pick up their rucksacks and follow them. With great signs of deference, they lifted up the stretcher while other Indians took the various feather ornaments down from the central pillar.

  Elaine’s face shone: at last they had understood, they were taking them to some civilized place where Dietlev could receive medical help. Cheered by this prospect, Mauro returned her smile. Petersen’s eyes were sunken, his complexion gray, his expression hard. All he did was shake his head at the other two’s silent joy.

  The whole tribe plunged into the forest. The indifference with which the Indians had abandoned their village was disconcerting. They were only taking the strict minimum with them, a monkey-skin bag, twists of chewing tobacco, bows, arrows and blowpipes. In woven baskets held on their back by a strap around their forehead, the women were carrying a few mats, hammocks and various receptacles; they were also taking embers from the hearth with them, but none had paid the least attention to the heaps of food still scattered round the smoking ashes of the bonfire. Curled up in the carrying cloths, the babies were sucking at their mother’s breasts. A population of refugees setting off on their exodus, Elaine thought without dwelling on it. She felt guilty at having allowed herself to hope: however horrible it was, however present in her thoughts, Yurupig’s death was tending to fade as the prospect of reaching safety grew more imminent. Obsessed by the vision of his tortured head, Mauro was making every effort to erase even the unfortunate Indian’s name from his mind. As for Petersen, he didn’t remember him until much later and then to blame himself for not having thought of recovering the compass.

  The shaman seemed to know exactly where he was going. The long procession made fairly good progress under the hostile cover of the jungle. Dietlev still hadn’t woken; despite all her efforts, Elaine couldn’t get him to open his eyes. His coma was worrying, though she couldn’t tell whether it was an effect of the gangrene or of the powder blown up his nose by the shaman. The Indians had recovered fairly easily, but the fact that Dietlev had never experienced it before would explain a longer period of recuperation.

  “What did he mean, yesterday evening?” Mauro asked as he met her anxious look. “He was talking about someone called Carver or Carter, wasn’t he?”

  The reminder made E
laine smile. “Carter,” she said. “It’s an old private joke. I don’t know if you’ve read ‘The Statement of Randolph Carter’ by H. P. Lovecraft? The story begins with a guy going to a cemetery, an unknown graveyard he’s discovered. He takes a friend called Carter with him. They lift a slab and discover a flight of stone steps … The guy knows he’s going to have to fight ‘the thing,’ some kind of fiendish entity from the depths of time, et cetera, et cetera—the usual Lovecraft. He leaves Carter on the surface and goes down into the tomb. As they have a field telephone with them, Carter remains in contact with his friend. He hears him panicking, then everything gets more frenzied until the moment comes when it’s clear he’ll never get back to the surface. At the end of the first chapter the guy orders Carter to replace the slab and then manages one last sentence: ‘Tão longo, Carter.’ I did think it a bit odd, but that was all. What could it be that was so long? But then you’re not surprised at anything in Lovecraft, I just accepted it as an enigma. It was Dietlev who one day pointed out to me that it was a mistake in the translation. The original English text simply said ‘So long, Carter.’ It didn’t make much difference to the rest of the story, but it ought to have been translated by something that meant ‘Goodbye, Carter’ in Portuguese, say ‘Até logo, Carter.’ You know Dietlev and his twisted sense of humor. He made me laugh at it so much, we got into the habit of using the phrase for saying goodbye. A kind of in-joke between us, at one time …”

  “I see,” said Mauro.

  AFTER THEY HAD been going for two hours, Petersen broke the sulky silence he had maintained since they left, simply saying, “There’s a snag.”

  “What’s wrong?” Elaine said.

  “What’s wrong is that we’re going away from the river; look at the moss on the tree trunks.”