Where Tigers Are at Home (77 page)

“Bottoms up!” I was slightly surprised to hear myself saying. “To liquid excrement & to the wonderful virtues of diarrhea!”

“Bottoms up!” My companions replied before emptying their glasses.

“Now what would you say,” Father Grueber went on, “to looking at bone disease? A little concentrated urine from a three-year-old girl will get rid of it instantly. Diabetes? Make your patient drink a full cup of the same liquid from a public urinal! Loss of blood? The same, but eight pints! A dead fetus
to be expelled? Two pints will suffice. Body odor? Apply to the armpits, several times a day.”

“Good Lord!” said Kircher, pinching his nose.

“Everything can be used, I tell you. And you’ve heard nothing yet. You should know that the Emperor T’ou Tsung used to cut his own whiskers to treat his dear Li Hsün, the ‘Great Scholar for the Exaltation of Poetic Writing,’ for their ashes are good for abscesses … A snake has bitten you & you have no snakestone, what can you do? Do not fear, twelve pubic hairs sucked for a long time will prevent the venom from spreading through your entrails. A wife is having a difficult birth? No matter, make her swallow fourteen other hairs mixed with bacon fat and she will have a swift delivery—”

“What’s all this you’re trying to tell us!” Kircher exclaimed, wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes. “If you didn’t inspire me with absolute confidence, I wouldn’t believe a single word of what you’re saying.”

“And you would be wrong, for all I am doing here is repeating things that are common knowledge among all Chinese physicians.”

“If Father Roth could hear you!” Kircher chuckled. Then, putting on an angry look, he pointed a threatening finger at Bernini, he said, “Oh, how wise those pagans were who had a law forbidding a man of fifty to consult a doctor, saying it showed too great an attachment to life! Among the Chinese, as among the Christians, you will find some men of eighty who won’t hear a word of the other world, as if they hadn’t had a moment’s leisure to see this one. Do you not know that life was given to Cain, the most evil man that ever there was, as punishment for his crime? And you want it to be a reward for you?!”

“But one has to live, see the world,” Bernini replied, joining in the playacting, like a character who already knew his defense was weak.

“What is living, apart from getting dressed & undressed, getting up, going to bed, drinking, eating & sleeping, playing, jesting, haggling, selling, buying, masoning, joinering, quarreling, quibbling, traveling & roaming in a labyrinth of actions that are constantly retracing their steps & always being the prisoner of a body, be it a child’s, an invalid’s, a madman’s?”

“You’re forgetting something important, Father, something that would on its own justify my existence …”

“
Vade retro, Satanas!
” Kircher bellowed, his eyes sparkling with laughter. “One must see the world, you say, & live among the living. But if you should spend your whole life locked up in a prison & only observe this world through a little grille, you would have seen enough of it! What can one see in the streets apart from men, houses, horses, mules, carriages—”

“And women, Reverend Father … Fine-looking girls, nice little chickens that revive your appetite for meat.”

“Little hussies who stink of rotten fish! And courtesans who walk the streets like drunken fish and whose only virtue is often the pox, which sends you to the other world. O God, how empty our lives are! Is it for this that we are unfaithful to & break with the Lord, that we try to live for all those years that consist of nothing but foolishness, work & misery? Oh, my fellow Christians, be not like those babes that cry when they emerge from the blood and excrement to see the daylight & despite that do not want to return to the place whence they came!”

“Although—” Bernini murmured in ribald tones.

“Please!” I begged, red with embarrassment.

My three companions gave me mocking but affectionate looks. “Come on, Caspar,” my master said, “we’re only joking & I can assure you there’s nothing wrong in that. If we scoff at everything, poor Scarron said, it’s because there’s another side to everything. Laugh in the devil’s face & you’ll see him turn tail at
once, for he knows very well he has no hold over those who can see the grotesque side of his nature.”

“But since the subject has cropped up,” Grueber whispered, turning to Bernini, “I will make no secret of the fact that there is a proven method of combating old age, at least from what my Chinese informant said. Man is in the air, he told me, & the air is in man, thus expressing the prime importance of the breath of life. Since this principle dwindles with age, it is, according to him, advisable to regenerate it by the addition of breath that is still young. To that end he regularly hired the services of a maiden or a youth to insufflate their surplus vitality into his nostrils, navel and male organ!”

“Good Lord!” Bernini exclaimed, highly amused, “if that’s all that’s needed, I can assure you that I have been obeying his prescription for a long time & without having noticed any other effect than an excess of weakness …”

The conversation between Grueber & Bernini continued in that tone, but I paid less attention; my master had a faraway look in his eye & appeared to be gathering his thoughts. I presumed he was a little weary, which would have been quite natural at that late hour. His attitude seemed to confirm this, since he soon left the table and went to a neighboring room. After some time, since he did not return, I went to him, walking with care so as not to give way to the dizziness that had seized me as I stood up. My master was standing by a bookshelf, apparently putting some books away, but when I came closer, I saw that he was aligning the spines meticulously. Despite my own confused state, it was something so unusual in him that I was immediately worried; a quick glance around the room only served to confirm my concern: in the grip of a strange obsession, Kircher had carefully grouped in decreasing order of size all the objects amenable to that kind of classification. Goose feathers,
inkwells, sticks of wax, manuscripts—in a word, everything that could be found in a study—had been arranged in that order, an oddity that caused me profound uneasiness. You will understand my real anxiety, dear reader, when I tell you that my master, turning round slowly, looked at me glassy-eyed!

“The mind, Caspar,” he said in a toneless, faraway voice, “will always be superior to matter. That has to be the way things are, whether we like it or not, until the end of the world. You do understand, don’t you? Tell me you understand …”

To be honest, I was in such a state I would have understood much more difficult statements, so I hastened to reassure Kircher, while encouraging him to get some sleep. He allowed himself to be put to bed without resisting & I went back to join our two visitors in the other room.

“… that the Incas, the emperors of Peru,” I heard Grueber saying, “conferred the order of knighthood by piercing the men’s ears. I will say nothing of the women’s, since at all times & in all places that has been one of their greatest vanities. Which explains Seneca’s complaint that they had two or three times their inheritance hanging from each ear. But what invective would he have aimed at the Lolo women of Yunnan province, who pierce the extremities of their most intimate parts to attach gold rings, which they can remove or replace as they see fit?! And the truth is that the men do not show greater modesty, for they wear little bells, made of different metals, tied to their male organ or stuck between the flesh and the foreskin, and make them ring in the streets when they see a woman they like. Some take this invention as cure for sodomy, which is common in all areas, but I fail to see how it could prevent them from indulging in it.”

I took advantage of the pause to inform Cavaliere Bernini & his drinking companion of what had happened to my master.
Grueber was not surprised for one moment; with a smile on his lips, he explained that the
Quey
herb sometimes produced this kind of confused state, but that it was not at all serious, it would have disappeared by the next day. The two of them apologized for having kept me up so late and left, wishing me a good night.

Their wishes, alas, had no effect. I had such nightmares that the harshness of my hair shirt was powerless to stop the succubae from paying me their shameful visits.

The next day, as Grueber had predicted, my master woke refreshed & full of energy. Mentioning the
Quey
herb, he assured me it had had no effect on him. Anyway, he told me, this remedy & those like it dispelled less our low spirits than our reason; that being the case, he could see no excuse for using them, neither for healthy minds, which ought to endeavor to increase the divine clarity within themselves rather than to reduce it, nor for madmen who already lacked it. Recalling the hellish dreams of the night that had just passed, I concurred in this condemnation with all my heart.

We returned to our studies while continuing to see fathers Roth & Grueber in order to collect their thoughts about China.

In the appearance of the comet, which we observed with the astronomers Lana-Terzi & Riccioli, we had cause to see an auspicious sign for the destiny of my master’s works and an ill omen for the infidels & other peoples of the Levant: the
Mundus Subterraneus
had just arrived from Amsterdam. This book, which scholars had been waiting for with as much impatience as they had in the past his
Œdipus Ægyptiacus
, prompted an extraordinarily enthusiastic response.

This thunderbolt was followed in June by the printing of his
Arithmologia
, the work my master had started immediately after his
Polygraphia
. Apart from an immense historical section devoted to the significance of numbers & their use in Greece
& Egypt, it contained a clear and definitive account of the Jewish Cabbala, which he had learned from Rabbi Naphtali Herz ben Jacob, with whom he had assiduously studied the
Sefer Yetzirah
& the
Zohar
, the books containing that knowledge. His perfect knowledge of Hebrew & Aramaic had rendered easy for him a task that was well beyond my feeble abilities & I was pleased finally to understand what was concealed within that magnificent body of knowledge.

Finally, when the effect produced by those two books had not yet abated, the
Historia Eustachio Mariana
also appeared, in which my master recounted the circumstances under which we had discovered the Church of Our Lady of Mentorella & proved, step by step, that this church was indeed a place of miracles. Thanks to the contributions of numerous patrons who had interested themselves in the project, the work of restoring & refurbishing the church was completed in the same month. Desiring a worthy inauguration for this new place of pilgrimage, Kircher decided it should take place on Whitsunday with all due pomp and reverence. Pope Alexander VII having promised to go there to consecrate the church & give his blessing to the congregation, the whole of Roman society was feverishly preparing to accompany him on the journey.

If Eléazard had ever wondered whether Moreira was unworthy of the position of governor, the papers entrusted to him by his wife would have been enough to convince him. He could already feel the task he had accepted as weighing heavily on his shoulders—it’s sometimes a fine difference, he told himself, that separates a common informer from a righter of wrongs—but he had become
too involved in this country and its inhabitants, too much of a fighter against all kinds of corruption and shady deals, to refuse the challenge. He would follow his conscience, without compunction and without hesitation. To see justice was done … Yes, but how? he wondered as he strode toward the Caravela Hotel.

“There’s something new,” he said to Alfredo when he ran into him in the vestibule. “We have to talk, all three of us. Where’s Loredana?”

“In her room. She almost fainted. Socorró told me she ate nothing for lunch.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“I don’t really know but she certainly doesn’t seem too well.”

Eléazard couldn’t say what was the real reason, but he felt it was essential to let her in on the secret. He sensed that the feeling of rebellion was stronger in her than in him but, paradoxically, more controlled. So he took the risk of disturbing her, going up to her room with Alfredo.

Loredana was just finishing putting on her makeup. Happy to hear Eléazard’s voice, she invited them in at once.

“You don’t look great, you seem—”

“I overdid the
cachaça
a bit, yesterday evening,” she said, “but I feel a lot better now.”

“Well hold on tight,” Eléazard said, putting Countess Carlotta’s photocopies on the bed. “Council of war! We’ve got the means to bring Moreira down.”

Two days ago the idea would have filled Loredana with enthusiasm but her world had been so completely turned upside down that she listened dispassionately to what Eléazard had to say.

“What a shit!” Alfredo said when Eléazard had finished going through the dossier. “We’ll get him for that. But we mustn’t mess up.”

“That’s precisely why I wanted to ask you two your opinion. It’s not that simple finding the best way to proceed.”

“We just have to go to the police with all those papers,” Alfredo said, immediately realizing he’d said something stupid. “Well perhaps not the police, you never know with them … How about the newspapers? We could tell them it’s his own wife the information comes from and …”

“And what?” Loredana asked quietly. “If the business is made public, they’ll have plenty of time to cover their tracks and kick up a fuss about a smear campaign. You don’t seem to know what they’re like …”

“If we can’t get our hands on the guys who committed the murders,” Eléazard said, “anything we can do won’t add up to much.”

“That’s better,” Loredana said. “Aim at the mulberry tree to get the locust tree …”

“Sorry?”

“Stratagem number twenty-six for battles of union and annexation. It’s a Chinese ploy, but what it comes down to is that we have to get at the governor through his lawyer. We have to start with his henchmen and since we have a good idea where they are …”