Where Tigers Are at Home (71 page)

When she did finally manage to sit up in bed, the images of the previous night all had a grotesque look. She had thought there would be nothing for her in the experience and now realized, from her heightened feeling of anguish, that she had been wrong. Despite a short loss of consciousness that she put down to the drugs and alcohol, the consolation she had hoped for from the world of the
orixas
remained inaccessible. This new defeat overwhelmed her; her temples were moist with sweat that was running down her back in hostile trickles. Rather death, she told herself in her feeling of helplessness, than the uncertainty of still being alive, the horror of a constantly renewed reprieve.

A little later she went down to have something to eat. To her great relief, Alfredo was nowhere to be seen. After having grumbled
that it wasn’t the right time for lunch, Socorró agreed to give her a plateful of the
feijoada
that was simmering in the kitchen. She had hardly turned her back than Loredana spat out the first mouthful into her hand. The very idea of having to swallow something made her feel sick. Fearing the worst after a first spasm, she stood up, having decided to go back to her room, when Socorró came back to put a letter on the table. Before even opening it, Loredana knew what it contained.

“It’s not good?” Socorró asked, an inscrutable look on her face as she pointed at the plate.

“It’s not that …” she managed to reply, “but I’m not well. I have to go and lie down … But don’t throw it away, I’ll eat it all this evening. I assure you it’s very good.”

“How can you know? You haven’t even tasted it.”

“I’m sorry Socorró. I have to go upstairs. I feel ill …”

Feeling dizzy, she gripped the back of her chair, making a great effort not to faint.

“You mustn’t play with the god of the cemetery,” the old woman murmured as she took her arm, “it wasn’t a good idea to go down there. Alfredo!” she called out then, “Come over here, the lady’s unwell.”

“It’ll be all right, there’s no need to bother,” Loredana begged, unable to move a step. “It’ll soon pass …”

She let them carry her up to her room. Alfredo looked drawn, but nothing in his attitude or his speech suggested he was embarrassed to see her. He came back to bring her an Alka-Seltzer and behaved toward her as usual. Loredana was convinced he couldn’t remember anything.

Stretched out on her bed, she was still hesitating to open the letter. She mustn’t let herself be influenced, must weigh the pros and cons again until the moment when she was absolutely sure she would not call her decision into question. Scraps of her
conversation with Soledade came back to her, images over the surface of which her own death poured a black flood of raw fear.

“Countess?” said Eléazard, looking up from his computer, “I’m delighted to see you.”

“Please, call me Carlotta. I apologize for bursting in on you like this, but the girl insisted I should come up unannounced.”

Eléazard went over to shake the hand she held out to him. “She was quite right. What can I get you? Fruit juice? Tea? Coffee?”

“Nothing, thank you.”

For a brief moment Eléazard had assumed she had come to see Loredana, but her weary expression and the way her fingers gripped her document case suggested she had something else in mind.

“You must be concerned about your son,” he said offering her a seat. “Euclides told me there was no news of the expedition to the Mato Grosso.”

“Concerned is putting it mildly, I’m sick with anxiety. They’ve been officially reported missing. An army helicopter is setting out to search for them first thing tomorrow morning.”

“I can understand your worry, but I have great confidence in Professor Walde. I’ve met him several times and he gave me the impression he wasn’t a man to be involved in that kind of undertaking without thinking the matter through. He’s anything but an adventurer, you know. There must have been some kind of hitch, you can imagine all sorts of things happening in that area. Walde will be furious when he learns they’ve started the search so soon.”

“I pray God that you’re right, Monsieur Von Wogau, but that’s not the reason why I’m here. I …” She bit her lip, seeming to hesitate before taking the irrevocable step. “Journalists have a duty of confidentiality, do they not?”

“Just like doctors,” Eléazard replied, his mind suddenly on the alert. “Or priests, if you like.”

“Have you read the papers this morning?”

“Not yet, I spent the morning in São Luís, with Dr. Euclides, and I started work as soon as I got back.”

With trembling hands, Carlotta unfolded the paper she’d brought with her, then pointed to one of the headlines on the front page:

TRIPLE MURDER IN ALCÂNTARA

Eléazard ran his eye over the article, then turned to look at Carlotta.

“It was my husband,” she said, the tears welling up in her eyes. “I overheard him speaking to one of his lawyers on the phone.”

Eléazard let her tell her story then asked a few questions, insisting she try to recall as accurately as possible the words used. Any doubts he may have had vanished when she showed him photocopies of a file devoted to the governor’s land purchases; the name Carneiro was there, with a question mark followed by a handwritten note:
to be settled as a matter of urgency!
For a moment he had the feeling he had a time bomb in his hands … Links between the projected military base and Moreira’s speculation gradually formed in his mind.

“What do you want me to do?” he eventually asked after thinking it over.

“I have already started divorce proceedings,” she replied, trying to recover her composure. “I know him well, he didn’t intend that, he can’t have intended it … But there comes a moment
when one has to answer for one’s actions before men, so that one can answer for them before God. This crime must not go unpunished … I want justice to be done, Monsieur Von Wogau, by any means you judge necessary to bring that about.”

“I will see to it,” Eléazard said gently. “It’s very courageous of you.”

“That’s not the word,” Carlotta protested, eyebrows raised. “No, I don’t think that’s the right word …”

WITH HIS EXPERIENCED
eye, Alban Gibbs noticed at once his friend’s worried appearance. Kircher made no attempt to deceive him; this affair with the secret message was threatening his own reputation but also risked undermining the Society’s standing, which was much more important. Explaining the details of the mystery to him, he eventually showed him the note with the text &, since Alban Gibbs did not know French at all, translated it:

“
Jade on lea sense at char ladder cracky
,” he said in lugubrious tones, “
chaff ale yea daw maze horde hey amber sad heard France arum
 …”

I saw Gibbs repress a slight smile: my master’s knowledge of English was perfect, but he had never succeeded—because he
had never tried—to get rid of his strong German accent, which people regularly made fun of. This did not bother Kircher & he concentrated on his translation. Far from refining his pronunciation it seemed to me that he was actually trying to distort it even more.

“
Dove ray have heck tout lard her wreck ease pour rape Harry lens salt fate of Rancé parley gar deck horse dupe ape
 …”

He stopped, looking thoughtful, as if he were going through the words he had just spoken in his mind. Then he repeated, “
parley gar deck horse dupe ape
,” & his face lit up. “
Danke, mein Gott!’
¹
he suddenly exclaimed &, with a little dance step (something I had never seen him do before), “
Parley gar deck horse dupe ape!
Ho, ho! I’ve got it, my friends, I’ve got it! And it’s all thanks to you, Alban.”

Gibbs gave me a worried look & I felt a shiver of fear myself at the idea that my master might have gone beyond the borders of his mind.

“
Parma pare hole
,” Kircher went on, increasingly exultant, “
jape rove, rat if ye egg hare anti toss kill aura dace heyday invert hew dupe recent mess age!
It works, my friends!
Fetter sin germ hen, lave ant see doubt mill sea scent sauce end do …
And it’s already 3 October!
Sign yellow ye Eyck rid sap rope main …
My God, Louis XIV! We must hurry, we’ve wasted too much time already!”

Kircher seemed to wake from a dream. Becoming aware of our presence & our dumbfounded expressions, he gave us the explanation of his agitation while he dressed to go out: “You must excuse my haste, but this is a most serious matter. It is essential I communicate the contents of this letter to the Supreme Pontiff.”

“But … the code,” I ventured to ask.

“Nothing simpler & nothing more ingenious. Listen to what I’m saying as if I were speaking French:
parley gar deck horse dupe ape
. What do you hear but:
par les gardes corses du Pape
? That is the way the whole message works, you can reconstitute the meaning easily. Wait for me here, I’ll be back before long.”

As soon as my master had left, I pounced on the letter & unravelled the text following his indication:

Alexander VII was delighted with Kircher’s success; he immediately had the two guards who had molested the Duke hanged & made dispositions to keep the French in Rome under surveillance.

The days that followed this episode, which Athanasius had merely seen as an occasion to exercise his skill, took on a different aspect. Kircher realized that a secret language was as useful as a universal language & was related to it as darkness is to light. In this my master was not for one moment thinking
of serving kings or other persons who wanted to hide their correspondence, but simply of serving the truth. For if it was good to reveal knowledge & propagate it, it was not less necessary, sometimes, to restrict certain information to those wise enough to make proper use of it. Which the priests of ancient Egypt had done by inventing the hieroglyphs, as had a number of other nations such as the Hebrews with their Cabbala, the Chaldaeans or even the Incas of the New World. Accordingly my master decided to invent a language that was truly indecipherable & while I put the finishing touches to his
Polygraphia
, he devoted himself entirely to that project.

The year 1664 was marked by the return to Rome of Father Johann Grueber. When, eight years previously, he had been about to go to China, he had promised Kircher, at his request, to be his eyes there and to observe everything he could, down to the least details that might serve to satisfy his curiosity about that country.

Aged forty-one, Johann Grueber looked much younger, despite the strain of the journey. He was a sturdy man with a massive but well-proportioned head, a flowing beard & fairly long black hair, which he threw back over his shoulders. His skin had been tanned by the desert sun, his gestures were slow & measured. His gray eyes, slanting as if from his long stay in China, had a slightly timid, almost dreamy look that still seemed to be fixed on those marvelous countries that he admitted he had only left with great regret. Of a jovial disposition, great courtesy & a very pleasant German frankness, he was such a gentleman that even if he had not been a Jesuit he would have enjoyed the esteem of everyone he encountered.

Father Henry Roth was a striking contrast with Grueber: small & puny with sparse white hair, he compensated for his apparent constitutional weakness with a moral rigor and authority in dogma that impressed us all.

After the effusive welcome home & a few days rest, the two travelers came to recount to Kircher everything they had observed during their peregrinations. Aware that my master was working on a major book about China, they humbly decided that there was no point in publishing their own writings on the subject; however, unwilling to allow the spiders & worms to eat away at this precious material in a corner of the library, they happily entrusted it to Kircher so that he could incorporate their observations in his book, which, in truth, was the best way of making them known to the widest number of people.

The first news we heard from Grueber’s lips was the death of our dear Michal Boym, which affected my master more than I can say …

After leaving Lisbon at the beginning of 1656, Father Boym had arrived in Goa one year later. Held up in that town for various reasons, later besieged by the Dutch, he had only reached the kingdom of Siam in 1658. Once he was in Macau & still bearing letters from Pope Alexander VII for the Chinese Empress Helena & the eunuch general Pan Achilles, he found that the Portuguese authorities refused him permission to return to China out of fear of reprisals against them from the Tartars. Determined to face any danger to accomplish his mission, Father Boym embarked in a junk, accompanied by the convert Xiao Cheng, & reached Tonkin, from where he reckoned he could cross unseen into China. In 1659, after further delays while looking for guides capable of helping them to cross the frontier, the two men finally succeeded in entering the Celestial Empire by the province of Kwangsi. It was, alas, only to find all the passes blocked by the Tartar army. Seeing that it was impossible to continue by that route, Boym decided to return to Tonkin to try another way, but the government of that country would not authorize this. Trapped in the jungle,
where he was hiding from the Tartars & depressed by the failure of his mission, Boym was struck down with the “Vomito negro” & called on his Maker after suffering terrible agonies. Faithful to his master even in those extremely distressing moments, Xiao Cheng buried the good father beside the road, together with the missives for which the unfortunate man had given his life, then planted a tree on his grave and escaped through the mountains. One year later he reached Canton, which Grueber happened to be visiting, & recounted the sad end of that excellent man to him.