Where Tigers Are at Home

by Jean-Marie Blas de Robles

  We all automatically turned to look at Chus; leaning on the windowsill, he had lost interest in us and was looking at the sky, apparently sad to see nothing but leaden clouds announcing a storm.

  Kircher picked up the phonetic translation I had made while Chus was reading out what he had written. He spent a long time going through it, then underlined some words that seemed to have attracted his attention. “Could it be …” he murmured to himself. “Everything is possible. I am in your hands, my Lord.”

  “Have you perhaps discovered what language the man is speaking?” Gibbs asked.

  “Perhaps, but it is such a crazy hypothesis that first of all I’d like to show you what suggested it to me. Please take a look at the words I’ve underlined here: if I break up bonôru, I get bonô & ru, that is, the adjective “good” in Italian & the word for “breath” or “spirit” as it appears in Hebrew. Which I would be tempted to translate as “the good spirit” or, even better, “the holy spirit.”

  “By my truth, that’s true,” Calixtus said admiringly. “This language appears to consist of a marvelous mixture of all the others & it took your unique and multifarious knowledge to see that so quickly. But what deductions do you make from that?”

  “I deduce its origins, sir, or at least I assume them, with a clarity that seems more likely with every second. Since it appears logically impossible for this language to have been formed through contact with all the others, which would suppose that the tribe had gone all over the earth without being able to speak, that compels us to presume its preexistence: could it not be the first language from which the angels took the substance of the five languages instilled in mankind after the fall of the Tower of Babel?”

  “Are you suggesting this man speaks the Lingua Adamica?”

  “Yes, Professor Calixtus, the Adamic language itself, which God gave to the first man & which was spoken all over the world until the collapse of the foolish presumptions of humanity—”

  Kircher’s explanation was interrupted by a terrible thunderclap; it was so sudden that we could not prevent ourselves from seeing it as a sign of divine assent. Staying by the window, Chus turned his eyes away from the curtain of rain-darkening the day. “Diyan dan fusude,” he said sadly, “doï, doï.”16

  And even though it was only three in the afternoon, Kircher had the chandeliers lit.

  “It will take several weeks’ work before I can be absolutely sure, but what I can tell you now is that this man’s language, even if it doesn’t turn out to be the matrix of all others, is older even than Chinese, which itself is the oldest development of the language of Ham. And it would not surprise me if we should subsequently discover a direct correlation between those two idioms.”

  Seeing my master put his hand to his forehead & close his eyes for a moment, I realized that his headaches—more and more frequent during these last few months—had returned. I therefore urged our visitors to cut short the discussion to allow him to rest. But while admitting he was very weary & apologizing to Gibbs & Calixtus for that, Kircher was determined to try one final experiment. Picking up the second volume of his Œdipus Ægyptiacus, he opened it at a certain page marked in advance by a strip of paper.

  “This figure in the shape of the sun,” he said to Calixtus, “contains the seventy-two names of God, which I have arranged according to the principles of the Cabbala, that is, the different ways seventy-two nations have of naming the divinity. And even if not all the languages of the world are represented in this wheel, it at least contains the essential roots outside of which the name of God cannot be expressed.”

  After having said that, my master went slowly over to Chus. He seemed fascinated by the storm, which was showing no sign of abating, but he turned around when Kircher came up to him. His white eyes were gleaming in the half-light & his silhouette, outlined against a sky streaked with lightning, seemed to me like that of a giant straight from the Book of Genesis.

  “Ko hondu fâlâ dâ?”17 he asked sternly.

  Kircher simply looked down at his book. “Deus!” he said firmly &, leaving a pause between each word, went on, “Yahvé! Theos! Gott! Boog! Dieu! God! Adad! Zimi! Dio! Amadu!—”

  At this last name an extraordinary thing happened: letting out a howl that made my blood freeze, Chus raised his hands to heaven before dropping to his knees. “Mi gnâgima, Ahmadu!”18 he said, prostrating himself with all the marks of the most intense veneration, “kala dyidu gôn yèso hisnoyé. Mi yarnè diyan bégédyi makko, mi hurtinè hümpâwo gillèdyi ha-amadâ!”19

  After kissing the ground three times, he stood up & gave my master a look of contempt, shaking his head from side to side. Kircher came back to us, a smile of triumph on his face gaunt with fatigue.

  “Amadu or Amida—that is the name by which the Japanese worship the god Poussah. This becomes Amitâbha among the Indians & is, however, none other than the Fo-hi the Chinese have made into their deity, unaware that it is the same as Hermes & Osiris. If we remember that ‘China’ is called Shen shou, that is ‘the kingdom of God,’ it becomes clear that our Chus worships one of the closest avatars of Yahve—or Jehovah; & I am not without hope of discovering that those sacred names are not only known to him, but even more precious than that of Amida. And it is for that reason, that I would ask you to be good enough to come back tomorrow, at the same time if that is convenient. I will undertake a detailed study of this language &, with God’s help, we will open up new routes toward the beginnings.”

  Once we were alone, Athanasius withdrew to his study, taking with him the notes of his conversation with Chus. Despite their paleness, his eyes were sparkling with excitement & I did not need to ask him to know what hopes he was pinning on these future meetings.

  Unfortunately our expectations were thwarted by a disastrous event & if, dear reader, you want to know what became of the negro, Chus, it will be related in the next chapter.

  FORTALEZA: As in an old film with faded colors

  Opening the door of her flat, Moéma found the little note Thaïs and Roetgen had composed together. She just read the signatures and dropped it in the garbage can. Her resentment toward them had become all the more bitter now that it seemed it was unjustified. They had stayed behind, a long way behind, much too far behind what she had been through these last few days. She wouldn’t see them again.

  The first thing she did was to run a bath. As she put the clothes Nelson had bought her in the washing machine, she decided to keep them as a souvenir of Pirambú: the ‘Gloria’ T-shirt had taken on the status of a relic, it bore witness to a complete change of outlook that was going to transform her life. She’d buy some new things for the boy then she’d ask her father to give him the wheelchair he dreamed of. It was the least she could do to thank him for everything he’d done for her.

  Immersed up to the chin in the foam, she saw herself go to the orthopaedics shop with Nelson. She’d see that he wasn’t there when she paid so that it’d be a surprise for him to be able to drive off in it. She definitely wouldn’t abandon him, she was going to look after him. Eléazard would do everything he could to find him a job, perhaps even take him to Alcântara.

  The more Moéma clung to these images of happiness, the more she felt the darkness inside her rise up again. Those bastards might have given me a disease, she thought with a vague feeling of disquiet. And what if I got pregnant? It had crossed her mind to report the men to the police but she had rejected the idea, paralyzed by the thought of what she would have to go through at the trial and by the certainty that no verdict could lessen the sense of her own degradation. However, she would still go and see a doctor; later on, at the slightest suspicious sign.

  In her bathrobe and with her hair twisted up in a white towel, she stretched out on her bed. Tomorrow was the Feast of Yemanjá. Uncle Zé had told her how to get to the terreiro, that was no problem. With a bit of luck the money her father sent her every month would arrive next Monday or Tuesday. She hardly had enough to last until then; after that it was all
settled: the bus to São Luís! She’d be there in three days, perhaps less. There was no point in writing, she’d arrive before her letter.

  On the bedside table were the two syringes she’d used with Thaïs the day before they’d all met up at Andreas’s place. They rekindled her feeling of distress. At the same time she knew, with the obviousness that goes with easy solutions—the kind that make a problem worse rather than helping to solve it—that a little line of coke or simply a joint would calm her down. Psychological dependence, she told herself with a snigger. She wasn’t ill, she had none of the physical torment that went with genuine withdrawal symptoms; she was suddenly aware—and forcibly so—of the absence of the feeling of being on top of things, in perfect control of her body and her mind. Every time this urgent need had appeared, she had obeyed it immediately, just as you satisfy the desire for a cigarette or some chocolate without thinking; at worst she would go and see Paco and everything sorted itself out. Today it was all much less simple. She got up to search every place where she was in the habit of hiding her drugs. She knew that there were none left, but something was pushing her to pretend the shortage didn’t exist, as if the mere fact of looking would make a bit of hashish appear or a few forgotten strands of maconha. In desperation and with the nervousness that goes with the hunch that you’ve found the right key, she took apart the frame of the mirror she used to divide up the coke; there was only a fine dusting of crystals left, just enough to rub on her gums and make her even more impatient. At once her need intensified: she had to get the substance her body was demanding so insistently, she simply had to. It was no use reasoning with herself, the urge for satisfaction had her in its grip. There was no question of asking Roetgen, the only one of her acquaintances who would be able to lend her the money. Ask Paco to give her credit? That was even less of a possibility, he knew too well the kind of people he was dealing with. Moéma had reached a state where she was considering the most absurd deals when Nelson’s savings came to mind. She was sure he wouldn’t refuse to do this for her. She had to get out of this, clear her head of this shit, never mind how.

  She put on some jeans, a blouse she chose less for its elegance that for the opacity of the material, then rummaged round in the jumble in the drawer until she found the little teargas spray her father forced on her. She put it in one of her pockets and hurried out of the building.

  It took her almost an hour on the bus to get back to Pirambú. When she reached Nelson’s shack, she knocked several times without reply then went in to wait for him to come back. The soap and towel lying in the hammock, the tattered photos, the sand covered in furrows as if a boa had been writhing all over the room seemed unhealthy, though the only effect of that was to increase her feverishness. The first five minutes seemed interminable and her irritation did the rest. Hardly bothered by the idea that Nelson might catch her doing it, she dug at the spot he himself had shown her and unearthed the plastic bag. She was surprised to find the gun in it but she left it there, just taking the wad of notes she was desperate to have, then filled in the hole, quickly smoothed out the sand and cleared off.

  She’d pay him back as soon as she’d cashed her father’s check. Until then there was little chance of Nelson discovering she’d borrowed it. It was a loan, OK? Not a theft. It had to be done. Anyway, he wouldn’t need the money since she’d decided to give him the wheelchair.

  Despite all these excuses her guilty conscience made up, Moéma didn’t calm down until she was out of Pirambú. If Nelson had been telling the truth, she was carrying a hundred and fifty thousand cruzeiros, enough to finance a fitting end to her old life and she could come off drugs once and for all. After the Feast of Yemanjá she wouldn’t touch them again, whatever happened. If her father insisted, she’d even agree to a course of treatment for addicts. But that wouldn’t be necessary, she felt strong, in control of her future and of her willpower. She would go as far as coke would take her, to the very limits, to show that she’d hit rock bottom, then she’d resurface, fresh, new, cleansed of a lapse that would remain forever buried in the dark night of her youth.

  On the way back she called in on Paco to place her order. One hour later a first injection was finally sealing up the widest fissures of her ill-being.

  After dark she heard a knock at the door. “Carinha! It’s us.” It was Thaïs. “Open up, we know you’re there.”

  Moéma felt she was caught in a trap. Don’t move, play dead. One word and that was it, she’d end up letting them in.

  “Open up, please,” Roetgen said in reasonable-sounding tones. “We saw your light. We have to talk, the three of us, it’s stupid to leave things like this …”

  The light. She should have realized they’d see it. Them or someone else. She didn’t want to hear about it, not anymore. It was her night, her solitary vigil before her forthcoming wedding with life. Was it not enough for them to have betrayed her, to have abandoned her to the filth of the embankments?

  “Moéma,” Thaïs went on again, “what’s up with you? We were pissed, surely you can understand that. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. Don’t be silly, open up, come and have a drink with us at the beira-mar …”

  A whirlwind had started inside her head, sucking up everything as it went. Thaïs’s voice, Thaïs’s smile, Thaïs’s body … She was her sister, her lover, the only friend who had shared her hopes, her fears. Shouldn’t she forgive her, not make intransigence the foundation stone of her new life?

  “Come on, open up,” Roetgen begged. “We’ve been worried about you.”

  What a creep! If he hadn’t been there she would at least have opened the door a crack, just to assess the truth in Thaïs’s look. The guy made her want to puke! He’d taken advantage of them like the filthy swine he was. Tell him that! Tell him that men were all selfish bastards who could think of nothing but screwing while the world went to pieces around them … Yes, open the door, tell him to fuck off and let Thaïs in.

  She took two or three deep breaths, checked that she was presentable and opened the door, resolved to carry out the plan she’d made. No one. The cretins had gotten fed up with waiting. Fine. To hell with them, she said out loud as she felt the tears well up, to bloody hell with them!

  ON THE MORNING of the Feast of Yemanjá thousands of people started to converge on the Future Beach in honor of the goddess of the sea. Riding in trucks or carts, the terreiros of Fortaleza moved en masse, bringing all the faithful behind their spiritual leaders. Once a year this ceremony combines the fervor of all the houses of the Umbanda and Candomblé religions. To get to the appointed place, Moéma had to go in the opposite direction to the stream of traffic filling the seafront. People in their finery were already crowding the pavements, a veritable exodus—mostly faveleros—in their long walk to the festival.

  The terreiro of Dadá Cotinha was like a ship of fools. People in fancy dress, drummers trying out their drums at full pitch, mulattos in sky-blue gowns, boxes of cachaça, bouquets of roses and carnations, cries, tears, gesticulations … from top to bottom the whole building was bubbling over with party spirit. Dressed up as Prince Roland in a plumed helmet and red cloak, Uncle Zé was shouting out instructions for the loading of his truck.

  “Ah, there you are, Princess,” he said when he saw Moéma. He seemed agreeably surprised, like someone whose worst fears have turned out to be unfounded. “How’s things today? I hope you slept well, it’s going to be a tough day.”

  Moéma had spent a sleepless night entirely devoted to the pitiful miracles coke can produce. She was wearing dark glasses but was brimming over with nervous, almost painful energy.

  “Come on, come on, I’ll introduce you. It’s Dadá herself who’s going to get you ready.”

  They threaded their way into a small room where some old women were laughing as they fussed around little girls they were dolling up. Dadá Cotinha, a cheerful, buxom dame with the air of a nanny to the child of a Southern general, praised Zé’s choice then gently shooed h
im out. Time was running short, the girl had to be dressed.

  Surrendering to the flock of hands fluttering round her, Moéma allowed herself to be put into costume without flinching. She squeezed into a flesh-colored swimsuit that molded her curves perfectly. Sewn in at the right place, two rubber teats emphasized the tips of her breasts. She blushed bright red when the old women went into raptures about her ample bosom. Then there were the trousers in silver lamé that imitated scales. When her legs were pushed tight together, two triangles of the same materials made a fish-tail at her ankles.

  “You must have lovely hair,” Dadá Cotinha said in a reproachful tone, “What a pity you had it cut. If I could get my hands on the bungling idiot who gave you that pineapple head …”

  “I wanted to have a bit of a change,” Moéma said, making a face, “but I obviously didn’t go to the right person. Is it really that awful?”

  “Don’t worry, girl, we can sort that out, you’ll see.” Out of the cardboard box, from which she had fished out every element of her outfit, Dadá took a wig with very long black hair which she fitted on Moéma’s head. “It’s real hair … Fatinha’s, it came down to her heels. Quite a sacrifice she made there …”