Where Tigers Are at Home (94 page)

From time to time Uncle Zé came to see how Moéma was doing and offer her a lemonade bottle filled with
cachaça
. He was content; the girl was radiant on her throne, she seemed happy. Since Nelson still hadn’t turned up, he questioned the people around with growing concern. When his back was turned Moéma took
little pinches of powder out of her bag and inhaled them as she pretended to blow her nose. With a slightly bitter taste at the back of her throat, she didn’t tire of observing the mass of humanity, of sensing a sort of nervousness arise, an infectious carnal tension. Dadá Cotinha blessed her followers by making them pass under her shoulder; a young man—decked out in a yellow satin shirt and a maharajah’s turban surmounted by an incredible ostrich feather—was dancing on the spot, swaying convulsively. Arms outstretched, palms upward, he was showing the whites of his eyes, like a martyr in ecstasy. A good-luck ribbon tied round their foreheads, their long hair open to the wind, tall women were whirling round, oblivious to everything. Superb bathing beauties displayed thighs smooth and tanned like a Vienna loaf, their minimal bikinis glistening in the sun. Fishermen with faded locks got majestically drunk, old people passed by, their donkey or bicycle at their side, one was praying standing up, head in his hands, in the grip of a vague headache. People fell into trances, like fires breaking out unexpectedly, a Saint George in a red cloak decorated with stars and spangles was trying to see something in the distance, shading his eyes with his hand. A skinny woman was shaking large, two-colored maracas, kids were bathing, playing in the rollers. Languid bodies were getting carried away by the rhythm of the sambas, blacks were stumbling along …

This flood of humanity gave off a pungent stench of wild beast and cheap eau de cologne.

Moéma was suddenly afraid she might see her attackers in the crowd. The thought had not occurred to her when she went back to the favela the previous day, so urgent was her need for coke. Now the possibility filled her with dread. What should she do if it happened? Hand them over to Uncle Zé and the lynching that would probably ensue? That would solve nothing, as she was very well aware. But her desire for vengeance was still there, insistent;
despite herself, something inside her was demanding justice and the paradox disturbed her.

The heat had become intolerable, Moéma was dripping with sweat underneath her wig and her costume. Not seeing Uncle Zé, she waved over a man he’d been talking to only a few minutes ago: “Have you seen Zé?”

“He’s just gone.”

“Where to?”

“Don’t really know. Perhaps to the rally with the governor, at the other end of the beach. I told him I’d seen Nelson, this morning. He was hitching a lift to get down there. Senhor Zé said he’d go and look for the lad and that he’d come back.”

Moéma knew all the terms of the problem, but not for a moment could she establish the connection between them that had precipitated Uncle Zé’s departure. She was simply glad she’d see her guardian angel again soon.

Coming from no-one-knows-where, a flotilla of jangadas had started to glide along a parallel course close to the shore. Regularly one of them would detach itself from the group and ride the surf in masterly fashion to land on the beach. The great moment of the festival had arrived. The samba orchestras and
violeiros
redoubled their efforts on their instruments; corridors opened in the middle of the throng for the procession of the
filhas-do-santo
carrying the baskets of offerings onto the sailing boats. Escaping from a horrendous crush, Dadá Cotinha managed to clamber aboard the boat she desired: like all the spiritual leaders on the beach, she had to stay with the basket from her
terreiro
to the very end. Without the signal they were obeying being obvious, all the jangadas set out to sea again as one, accompanied by a delirious crowd in the waves; they were heading for the open sea to meet Yemanjá. There, far out in the swell, they would deposit the pitiful offerings of her followers; if none of them was found on the
beach the next morning, they would deduce that they had been accepted by the Princess of the Sea and their wishes would be granted.

Moéma took out the syringe she had prepared that morning: a dose of coke, the last, but a stiff one to celebrate giving up. She couldn’t have chosen a better moment, the crowd had its back to her, watching the jangadas leave. The beach looked like the banks of the Ganges during a ritual period; the sea, the people themselves, nothing had ever been so ablaze with holy energy. To be in agreement with the world, she thought, injecting the contents of the syringe. It must happen, Yemanjá, I must regain my taste for simple things, rediscover the pleasure of just being alive …

She hardly had time to register the impression of plunging naked into a mountain stream, of feeling her veins freeze. The images started to flutter, like an old film with faded colors. A man was drinking seawater and laughing. The waves were rolling up wedding dresses, there were gleams of orange along the edges. Then the film suddenly broke and all she could see was a kind of white sky swarming with swallows more and more quickly streaked by the opening frames of a reel. Nothing was passing through her mind, not a word, not a vision, not a memory, simply the feeling of having missed the boat. For a brief moment she knew she needed help, but an iron fist gripped her jaw tight enough to make it crack.

Something horribly specific came down on her.

Nelson had passed the afternoon at the Bar—the marshy estuary of the River Ceará—on the bank of a lagoon where the women of Pirambú went to do any washing people were prepared to give
them. With the water halfway up their thighs, the washerwomen were beating red linen with heavy blows of their paddles. Their bottoms were sticking out toward him, their damp dresses clinging to them. A little farther away naked children were playing football with a tin can. Nelson saw neither the dead pig, swollen to bursting-point on the sand a few yards away from the other women getting water for the kitchen, nor the flies, nor the desolate appearance of the pool teeming with death in all its infinitesimal forms. It was life such as he had always known it and he was sad to have to leave it behind, however worthless it might seem. He was moved, too, by the memory of Moéma. He was madly in love with his Princess who had come from nowhere and never ceased imagining the moment when he would see her again.

When he went back home, at sunset, a word from Uncle Zé or Moéma would have been enough for him to give up the idea. He felt alone and spoke to the soap and the iron bar, hoping for a sign that would tip the scales once and for all. With nothing better to do and to help him weigh up the two sides of his dilemma, he dug up the plastic bag.

The loss of his savings left him cold. Not for one moment did he think who might have taken them; he was looking for a sign, now he had it. Someone had made the decision for him and sealed his fate to that of Moreira. The possibility of recovering his money never occurred to him. The extreme weariness that had crept into the farthest recesses of his being told him it would be too hard to start all over again. It was as if the Colonel had come in person to take away his wheelchair, depriving him—after his father—of the only reason he had left for living. He would go to the rally, do his duty as a son and that would be that.

Check the hammer was working while it was unloaded, clean the bullets again and again … His night was like a vigil of arms dedicated to the thousand deaths of the governor.

THE NEXT MORNING
Nelson headed off for the
beira-mar
. Standing by the roadside, he got a lift on a truck that dropped him on the first part of the beach. That was where he met Lauro, who had climbed up the dunes to wait for Dadá Cotinha. Fortunately no one had arrived yet. The very thought of meeting Uncle Zé or Moéma made him break out in a cold sweat. He was afraid the old man’s look would make him lose his nerve, afraid of seeing in Moéma’s the confession he dreaded. He gave evasive answers to Lauro’s questions and found another vehicle for the next part of his journey.

When he reached the placards announcing the governor’s rally he was still a half mile away from the platform. Making his way toward it, he didn’t take his eyes off it so as to make his route as short as possible. Then it was the crowd and the jungle of legs blocking his view. He pushed his way through slowly, all the time asking people to let him through, out of fear of being trodden on. One or two would move aside and then he’d have to go through the process again. The most difficult part was not to yield to the temptation to warn people by touching their calves; that provoked an instinctive reaction of alarm that resulted in an immediate kick. Nelson took his direction from the powerful loudspeakers playing sambas before the party leaders made their speeches. He had let his football shirt hang loose,
à la Platini
, to avoid arousing suspicion that he might have a gun. Stuck in between his skin and the elastic of his shorts, the pistol bit into his flesh every time he crawled a bit farther forward. The coldness of the metal, its weight, like a tumescent organ, anesthetised even the pain of being alive.

The crowd around him started to dance, threatening to crush him. Never having been in such a throng, Nelson panicked. The music seemed to be coming from all sides at once, legs bumped into him, he was breathing in sand. Stepping back, a fat woman tumbled down on his chest, almost crushing his ribs.
“Where are you off to like that?” said a swaggering black man with biceps the size of his head.

“To the rally,” Nelson managed to reply, panting. “I want to go to the rally.”

“Up you get, then. I’ll take you there, to the rally.”

The man lifted Nelson up and held him in his arms as easily as if he were a shirt he’d picked up from the dry cleaner’s. “And what are you going to do over there? Don’t you know all politicians are liars? Surely you’re not going to vote for those bastards?”

“No,” Nelson protested, “I just want a T-shirt … They also said there’d be something to eat.”

“I’ll see to it,” the negro said, shaking his head with a sympathetic look. “You’ll get your T-shirt, as sure as I’m called Walmir da Silva.”

Using his elbows and shoulders, Walmir quickly got to the foot of the platform. It was huge and they’d put up one of those marquees the well-to-do hire for their wedding receptions on it. Placed on either side, gigantic speakers were vibrating with the pounding of the music. There was also a microphone on a stand, flowers and banners repeating the name of the governor. In the tent a group of campaign organizers were busying themselves round a pile of cardboard boxes. They were all dressed in white and sported T-shirts bearing the name of Edson Barbosa, Jr. At the front of the podium four strapping men forming the security team were keeping an eye on the area round the platform and the wooden stairs leading up to it. You could tell they were uneasy, already sensing the flood of the destitute, who were demanding that the things they’d been promised should be distributed, might be too much for them.

With his body strength, Walmir elbowed his way to the stairs and ran up with a few lithe steps. Putting Nelson down behind him, he turned to face the security guards who had dashed over to confront him.

“It’s forbidden to come up here. Come on, clear off. We’ll tell you when it’s time.”

“The kid wants a T-shirt and his share of the grub,” Walmir said calmly. “If he stays down there he’ll get crushed.”

Walmir was a good eight inches taller than the others; his hand was resting negligently on a long knife stuck through his belt.

“Go and tell the boss,” one of the guards said, foreseeing a fight in which he wasn’t sure the security team would come out on top. “Be reasonable,
compadre
. Just go down from the platform or there’ll be trouble.”

“Leave it,” Nelson said, “I just want to watch. I’ll wait at the bottom, no problem.”

“You going to do as you’re told?” another guard said, going up to Walmir in a threatening manner.

The negro just let out a terrible cry, a real roar that stopped the other in his tracks.

“Now let’s all calm down, please, let’s all calm down. What’s going on?” said the half-pint who came over with swift little steps, a bald-headed man in a suit and vest with the clammy skin and flushed look of a pizza cook when his pizzas are about to burn.

It took the boss just a second, while Walmir was succinctly explaining again what he wanted, to size up the situation: he saw the knife, his men’s anxious looks, and realized that the cripple could help his employer’s image. “We can sort this out,” he said in friendly tones and one of those smiles that experience can make almost believable. “Tonho, go and get two T-shirts … What’s your name, son?”

“Nelson.”

“Right, now listen to me, Nelson: I can’t touch the food baskets just at the moment. If you got one and all the rest didn’t, there’s be a riot. You can see that, can’t you? But I give you my word that you’ll get one. I’ll put it on one side—per-son-all-y … No, better
than that,” he said, his face lighting up at the idea that had just occurred to him, “it’s the governor himself who’ll give it to you. What about that, eh? The governor himself!”

Tonho had returned with the T-shirts. “Look, here’s your T-shirt. Put it on and sit over there, by the loudspeakers. If you promise to stay still, no one’ll bother you and you’ll be in the front row.”

“As for you,” he said giving the other T-shirt to Walmir, “there’s two hundred cruzeiros in it for you if you stay here and stop people climbing up onto the platform. Is it a deal?”

Without even bothering to reply, Walmir placed the second T-shirt at Nelson’s feet and ruffled his hair. “So long, kid, see you around.”

The campaign manager shrugged his shoulders as he went down the stairs and was lost in the crowd. “Come on then, come on then! Back to work,” he said angrily to his hired men. “And if another of these assholes gets up on this rostrum, you can say goodbye to your money, I can tell you!”