Where Tigers Are at Home (67 page)

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.

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.”

“Why didn’t she go to São Luís?”

“Her parents are in the middle of a divorce, it could well be that it’s already gone through. As I understand it, the girl’s taking it rather badly. The mother’s a Brazilian, a lecturer at Brazilia; she’s making a name for herself in palaeontology, always on the move. She’s the one who left. As for her father, I quite like him but he can be unbearable. The kind of guy who’s always preoccupied with the world and with himself and despite that not very perceptive about other people. For all that, a brilliant guy. I’ve never understood why he was so determined to ruin his life. And from what you say, the girl’s got problems too …”

“You can say that again,” Roetgen agreed.

With this verdict he was back in the comfort zone of a dominant position and ready to forgive Moéma her infatuation with the Indian. The fact that she had ‘problems’ changed everything; from a nympho she became a child who needed help.

That same evening, after turning it over in his mind again and again in the little attic flat he rented in a modern block, Roetgen decided to go and see Thaïs. She’d given him her address on the bus journey back. Three days had passed since then.

Having knocked on the little door in Bolivar Street with no response, he was about to leave when Thaïs’s head popped through the bead curtain over the window. “Oh, it’s you!” she said cheerfully. “Come in, just give me a few seconds.”

Roetgen noted the dark red blotches on her cheeks and the top of her chest. He must have surprised her in the middle of her frolics with a new lover. She’s consoled herself pretty quickly, he thought with a touch of disdain. He was then all the more astounded to see her reappear, knotting an extravagant kimono with a multicolored floral pattern round her buxom figure and leading in a young man with a large blond mustache, very thin, who did not seem the least embarrassed by his scanty attire—just a pair of boxer shorts.

“This is Xavier,” Thaïs said, pronouncing the “x” aspirated in the Portuguese manner. “He disembarked yesterday. You can talk French with him; if I’ve understood correctly he made the crossing from Toulon in a sailing boat. I think he’s going to stay here for a few days …”

They were both wearing rather inane smiles. The room was stinking of grass. Roetgen introduced himself coolly to his compatriot.

“Anything new?” Thaïs asked, rolling a joint.

“Nothing. Lectures, the university, routine …”

He looked her in the eye and took the plunge: ‘Heard anything of Moéma?”

Immediately Thaïs’s face darkened. “Nothing at all. She must be in Canoa with that goddamn Indian. You wouldn’t believe she’d pull a trick like that on us.”

Roetgen was surprised but flattered to see himself included in their relationship. “These things happen,” he said.

“You’re in love with her as well, eh? I mean, it’s serious, I haven’t got it wrong, have I?”

“More than anything,” Roetgen replied, alarmed. It is often our lips that decide between truth and falsehood. Roetgen couldn’t say whether he was lying in order to attract sympathy and take center stage in the matter or whether his unconsidered reply was more of a revelation of the truth. He detected overexcitement in it, the kind that goads us, when we’re in a confession situation, into going for the full pathos rather than some banal, inglorious suffering.

“At least, I think so,” he said, trying to collect his thoughts. “She … How should I put it? I miss her.”

“I knew it,” Thaïs said, passing him the
maconha
joint. “It’s the same with me. We’re up the creek,
cara
. Up shit creek. I’ve never seen her like that before. It’s as if the bastard had put a spell on her.”

Xavier couldn’t understand a word of what was being said and looked as if he couldn’t care less. Sprawled out on the cushions, unruffled, his face wreathed in smiles, he puffed at his joint, scrutinizing the walls of the little room.

“It’s not normal,” Roetgen went on, “I can’t stop thinking about her, ever since I got back to Fortaleza. About you too, be it said. It’s extraordinary the things we went through together down there.” Against all expectation, he found Thaïs much more alluring than at Canoa. A gleam in her eye—and perhaps also the fact that she hadn’t fastened the top of her kimono, revealing a little more than she should have of her ample bosom—assured him that the attraction was indubitably shared.

That was the point their mutual titillation had reached when the curtain over the front door was pushed aside. It was Moéma. Puffy-eyed, holding back her tears, she fixed a look of mute entreaty on her friend. Thaïs immediately stood up and, ignoring the two men, drew the prodigal into her room.

“Some great girls round here,” Xavier said as soon as Thaïs had closed the door. Then, with a wink, “I’ve a feeling it’s some time since you had any French mustard, am I right? But I’ve got some whiskey as well, if you prefer, Johnnie Walker Black Label. It’s no great shakes, but it’s all they had at Cape Verde.”

MOÉMA HAD GREAT
difficulty recounting the sequence of events that had led to her hasty return. One scene kept coming back to mind insistently and tormented her like anything: Aynoré making love to Josefa, the girl with the gold beach buggy. She happened upon them, after her siesta, hardly hidden in the dunes behind the beach. The little tart was jigging about on him, clinging onto his shoulders.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Josefa spat out, “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

Moéma was struck dumb, all she could do was give the Indian an imploring look. If he had come to her at that moment, she would have forgiven him, such was her infatuation. He looked her up and down, as if everything was perfectly normal: “Don’t get all uptight like that, girl. Let me finish, will you.”

It was as if the whole of Amazonia were disintegrating before her very eyes. She started crying, frozen in a stupor at the wreckage of her dream. Just before turning away, she released her fury in an insult she had regretted ever since: “Oh, fuck yourself, you fat slut!”

The reply caught her off guard as she set off running to the beach: “Hey, lezzie! Believe it or not, that’s just what I’m doing!”

Then laughter. The laughter of two people that still tormented her.

SHE FOUND MARLENE
on the beach. Seeing the state she was in, the transvestite made her sit down on the sand. With caresses and comforting words, he managed to get her to tell him what was wrong.

“I told you to be careful,” he said, “he’s a dangerous guy, a real wolf in sheep’s clothing. I bet he gave you his shaman spiel?”

She gave him a questioning look, dreading what she was going to hear.

“It’s his trick for getting off with girls, a book he found: Indian legends, shamanic rituals, the flood … everything’s in it. A load of rot, girl. He’s hardly Indian at all and no more a shaman than you or me. His mother was a hostess in a Manaus bar and as for his father, she never knew which one it was of all the drunks she’d slept with …”

“It’s not true,” Moéma sobbed, “you’re lying.”

“Don’t believe me if you don’t want to, but it’s the simple truth. You just have to have a look at the book, I’ll lend it you, if you like:
Antes o mundo não existia
; it’s a guy with a real tongue-twister of a name telling the mythology of his tribe. Aynoré’s got nothing to do with the Indians, he told me so himself. His get-up’s just for selling his junk to tourists at the
beira-mar
. He’s a little bastard, a little shit dealer. He’s not worth crying over, not for a girl like you, Moéma.”

SHE ONLY DRIED
her tears after having been forgiven by Thaïs and confirmed her worst fears about Aynoré’s honesty. The book mentioned by Marlene—the first entirely written by a Brazilian Indian—had appeared some twenty years ago; Roetgen remembered it clearly from having studied it to prepare a lecture: everything from the birth of the world and the first cataclysm of fire, right down to details about shamanism was in the book used by the con man.