Where Tigers Are at Home (35 page)

As the date of our departure was approaching, we concentrated on making all the new curiosities the government of the island had given my master in return for his services ready for the journey. When we set off, at the beginning of March 1638, the Grand Duke’s baggage train had been increased by five wagons solely for the carriage of all the various finds & samples we were bringing back from Malta and Sicily.

When we reached Messina, we had to wait three days for the weather to improve, the storm being so great no pilot was prepared to take us across to Calabria. When we got under way the wind & the sea were still so unfavorable the sailors themselves were frightened by the crossing. At Kircher’s request we had to make a detour toward the rocks of Scylla & Charybdis to see what it was that made them so dangerous, but the captain refused to approach close enough. By way of compensation, my master was delighted to see Mount Stromboli throwing its plume of smoke and lava debris up into the stormy sky.

We resumed our journey north &, after several days of forced march, caught up with the equipage of the Duke of Hesse in the little village of Tropea, on the banks of the Tyrrhenian Sea.

“I’ve seen quite a few things in my life, but that … It’s nauseating! It’s disgraceful!”

He had never seen Loredana in such a state. Lips pursed, white with anger, she gave vent to her indignation:

“An American couple with a seventeen-year-old daughter. They arrived at the hotel this morning, with the first boat. I was having breakfast downstairs with Socorró. Three monsters, I can tell you! Fat as pigs, badly brought up, swaggering, a caricature of all that’s worst in that type. Neither a good morning nor a smile, nothing, not even making the effort to say a couple of words in Portuguese. Poor Socorró was petrified. I had to translate what they wanted: “Two rooms and some beer,” just like that. She had to make several journeys to take up their cases without any of them lifting a finger. They started to get sloshed right away, all three of them, father, mother and daughter. You can just see it. When I left they’d already knocked back three cans each. They may be thick, ugly, impolite and like a drink, OK, but Socorró told me how it went on. They spent all the morning there, doing nothing but drinking and pissing; after lunch the two women went upstairs for a siesta but the guy insisted on having a mattress put down under the veranda and—you’ll never believe it—ordered Socorró to fan him while he was asleep.”

“Surely she didn’t agree?” Eléazard said, eyes wide.

“Of course not, at least at the beginning. But he offered her ten then twenty dollars to do it and since she has a grandson at boarding school in São Luís and she’s the one who looks after him …”

“I don’t believe it! And what was Alfredo doing? You can’t let that kind of thing go on!”

“He and his wife had gone to São Luís for the day. I can’t tell you how angry he was when he heard all about it. He wanted to get rid of them right away, kick them out, literally, but Socorró begged him not to make a scene and to let her earn a bit more money this month. To cap it all, the guy’s armed, he’s got a revolver stuck between his trousers and his skin, Socorró saw it when he unbuttoned his shirt. Alfredo couldn’t get over it. It really cooled him down, especially since they pay well, the bastards.”

“We can’t have this,” said Eléazard coolly. “I’ll talk to Socorró. I’ll pay her what she would have got from fanning him, if necessary, but we can’t allow that.”

“If you’d seen her. She can hardly move her arms this evening.”

“I’ll speak to her tomorrow,” said Eléazard, “but just now we’ll have to hurry if we don’t want to miss the boat.”

SITTING IN THE
back seat of the vehicle—an old Ford convertible that hadn’t been driven for decades but that looked as if it were straight out of the showroom—Loredana enjoyed the close of the day. Driven smoothly by Eléazard, the car seemed to be heading for the red glow of the setting sun as if to merge with it in a gaudy apotheosis. Hair all disheveled, Dr. Euclides kept turning to her to chat about this and that or to comment, by guesswork, on a landscape he apologized for not being able to see. Though following the dictates of an out-of-date code of behavior, his attentions nevertheless had the unaffected charm of a long habit of courtesy.

“You will see,” he said as they approached the
fazenda
, “Countess Carlotta is a very refined, very cultured person … quite the opposite of her boor of a husband. I’m still wondering what it was about him that could have attracted her. God knows what chemistry presides over the mystery of affinities, especially in their case! Have you read Goethe’s little book,
Elective Affinities
? No? It’s worth making the effort, believe me …”

Dr. Euclides da Cunha took off his glasses. As he wiped them mechanically, he turned even farther around toward Loredana:

“
Es wandelt niemand ungestraft unter Palmen
,” he declaimed in a quiet voice, “
und die Gesinnungen ändern sich gewiß in einem Lande, wo Elefanten und Tiger zu Hause sind!
No one can walk beneath palm trees with impunity, one might translate it, and ideas are sure to change in a land where elephants and tigers are
at home. We have here, as I’m sure you’ll agree, a good number of those males who combine the heaviness of a pachyderm with the ferocity of a big cat …”

Eléazard broke in: “You’re embroidering, as always, Doctor.” He fell silent for a few seconds, suddenly occupied with the demands of the road. “I would go even farther: you’re misrepresenting what Goethe meant. If I remember rightly, poor Ottilie only writes that to encourage the men to concern themselves with the world around them. To her mind, it is a matter of condemning the unhealthy attractions of the exotic. Or am I wrong?”

“You will never stop amazing me, my friend,” the doctor said, raising his voice in order to be heard. “I should have realized you would have your Goethe at your fingertips. It was only a little quip, but I’m standing by it. No one’s going to stop me making words say a bit more than they appear to allow. But since it’s cropped up, you must remember the whole of the passage in question, and you’ll see that far from misrepresenting, I’m remaining absolutely faithful to it. It all starts out from a reflection on the relationship between man and nature: we ought to know, or seek to know only those living things in our immediate environment. To surround ourselves with monkeys and parrots in a land where they are mere curiosities is to prevent us from seeing our true
compatriots
, the familiar trees, the animals or persons who have made us what we are. The tree that stops us from seeing the forest, in a way … and the symptom of a serious disturbance. Uprooted from their natural environment, these foreign creatures are carriers of anxiety, of a distress they will transmit to us, as if by infection, and that will transform us profoundly:
It takes a gaudy and boisterous life
, Goethe says,
to be able to put up with monkeys, parrots and Moors around one
.”

“He says ‘Moors’?” Loredana broke in.

“Yes, but without racist undertones, as far as I’m aware. Don’t forget that it was very common at the time to have black slaves as servants. He writes about them in the manner of Rousseau, if you see what I mean.”

Loredana smiled tenderly; Dr. Euclides had won her over from his very first words of welcome two hours previously; his hair and goatee flattened by the slipstream, he looked like a terrier, its pointed nose sniffing the wind …

“And the converse is equally true. It’s the precise meaning of the passage I was quoting just now. Removed from his native land and cast, willingly or not, on a foreign shore, a man becomes different. However much he mixes with parrots, monkeys and … let’s say the native population, he still remains someone who doesn’t belong, whose only alternatives are either the despair resulting from his lack of points of reference or complete integration in this new world. In either case, he becomes the ‘Moor’ of whom we were talking: a poor soul incapable of becoming acclimatized to this world where everything is beyond him and, soon, a cripple incapable of renewing his ties with his native land, at best a traitor who will spend his whole life aping a culture that even his children will have difficulty acquiring.”

“If you insist,” said Eléazard, in a tone that contradicted his agreement. “Though you could hear that opinion from the lips of a fanatical nationalist or a fascist opposed in principle to the horrors of interbreeding. Times have changed, nowadays we can move from one end of the world to another much more easily than from Weimar to Leipzig in Goethe’s day; whether we deplore it or see it as an achievement, the fact is that cultural differences are becoming less marked, eventually they will give way to a blend hitherto unknown in the history of the world … But what’s the connection with Moreira?”

“None whatsoever, my friend,” said the doctor, bursting into a little silent laugh. “And why should there be? After all”—once again he turned to Loredana—“I’m not the one who lives with a parrot.”

“One-nil to you,” said Loredana, laughing too.

“You’re lucky we’re there,” said Eléazard, turning into the main drive of the
fazenda
, “or I’d have shown you what I’m made of.” He gave the old man an affectionate smile, but Loredana saw a flush on the back of his neck that hadn’t been there a few seconds before.

“
DO COME IN
,” said Countess Carlotta after the doctor had introduced them. “Follow me, we’ll try and find José. After that you can do as you please.” She took Euclides by the arm and firmly pushed her way through the groups crowding the hall right up to the stairs.

 … six-four, six-love! He was never in the game. So I’m in the quarterfinals. I must admit I didn’t think I could do it … If you’d seen the look on his face! Getting beaten by a veteran, he couldn’t get over it …

The rustle of silk, the swirl of cigarettes, slow, grudging sidesteps to allow them through.

 … Carlotta, darling, your lobster’s quite simply sublime! You must tell me where you get them, the telephone number itself’s worth it’s weight in gold!

 … I recognized it right away. Just imagine, a Vasco Prado by itself, in the middle of a pile of rubbish! And this imbecile who didn’t even know what it was … I even haggled! It’s not a masterpiece, of course, but it’s a first edition, it’s got something …

 … he’s a bastard, there’s no two ways about it. I lost my temper, I know, but if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s lies. A promise is a promise, and nothing will persuade me otherwise …

Women’s bare arms, immaculate shirt collars with damp necks trying to wriggle out of them, sighs at the heat, shining skin, a sudden surplus of Dior or Guerlain under an armpit blue from the razor. Like a priesthood, blacks in white suits were strolling around gravely, magi offering their gifts of crystal and salmon canapes to the gods.

“Ah, there he is,” said Carlotta, going toward the large mirror beneath which her husband was strutting, champagne glass in one hand, the other placed in a familiar gesture on the shoulder of a surly old man with whom he was conversing in a low voice. “José, if you please …”

The governor turned around automatically, looking annoyed. But when he saw Loredana his face lit up. “Good evening, Doctor, how are you? It’s good of you to come.”

“Very well, thank you. Don’t let us interrupt, I just wanted to introduce the friends I told you about: Loredana Rizzuto, an Italian who happens to be visiting our region—”

“A pleasure,” said the governor, bending over Loredana’s hand.

“—and Eléazard von Wogau, Reuters correspondent …”

“Delighted to meet you. I’ve been hearing a lot about you.”

“Only good things, I hope,” said Eléazard, shaking his hand.

“Don’t worry, our dear Euclides is unrivaled as a doctor but he is also an excellent advocate. And of course your articles, which I read regularly, speak for themselves …”

“Really?” said Eléazard, unable to keep a slight touch of irony out of his voice. No signed article by him had appeared for a year; the man must be either a hypocrite or a fool. Both, probably …

“Every time I come across one, anyway. My work hardly leaves me any time for decent reading. But if you will forgive me”—this with a glance at the old man behind him who was making no attempt to conceal his impatience—“we can continue our conversation a little later. Show them the buffet, darling, they must be
thirsty in this heat.” And as one of the waiters was just passing he took a glass of champagne off his tray and handed it to Loredana. “See you soon,” he said, addressing her alone and with a smile that made her feel uneasy.

The smile of a man, she thought, who spends a fortune on his dentist.

“That was Alvarez Neto, the Minister for Industry,” Euclides whispered to Eléazard as they went away.

“That antique! How did you manage to recognize him?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“From his smell, my friend. That gentleman stinks of money as others do of excrement.”

Led by Carlotta, they weaved their way between the dinner jackets and evening dresses that the gilded decoration on that floor—or was it just the presence of the governor?—seemed to have attracted to that spot. Seeing Loredana, the women’s looks sprayed her with a toxic cloud of contemptuous rivalry; the men’s, beneath an affectation of indifference, were meant to be eloquent. Wearing tight jeans and a crocheted crossover top, her hair hurriedly done up in a chignon that was threatening to fall apart, she made her sinuous way between them without deigning to notice the fissures caused by her passing.

“I’m going to deprive you of the doctor for a few moments,” the Countess said, “make sure you get a few nibbles before these greedy pigs clear the buffet. It’s always the same,” she said to Euclides, watching the crowd obstinately gather in one corner of the room, “to see them, you’d think they hadn’t eaten for days …”

In a hurry to get out in the open air, Eléazard and Loredana went back down to the ground floor. A servant took them to the French window leading out onto the patio: enclosed by the walls of the chapel, the
fazenda
and its outbuildings, was a huge garden
with trees and grass. Concealing the sky behind a shimmering veil, a profusion of torches set the shadows dancing beneath the massive daturas and frangipanis skillfully arranged in sparse disorder.