Where Tigers Are at Home (97 page)

WE HAVE PRECISELY THE WORLD that we deserve, or at least that our cosmology deserves. What could we hope of a universe abounding in black holes, antimatter, catastrophes?

TO SERVE AS a television, a pocket calculator, a desk diary, an account book, a commercial catalog, an alarm system, a telephone or a driving simulator is the worst that could happen to a computer. However, Ernst Jünger had warned us: “The importance of robots,” he wrote in 1945, “will increase as the number of pedants multiplies, that is, in enormous proportions.”

LIFTING UP the bird-eating spider to clean it, I freed its disconcerting progeny. Myriad minuscule spiders that disappeared in the house before I realized what domestic hell their escape was exposing me to. Soledade is packing her bags …

“Are you asleep, Governor?” Santos asked, leaning over the back of the seat in front of him. “Can I have a word?”

Moreira turned his tired eyes toward his assistant. He looked worried but ready to grant him a few minutes to talk.

“The program for the next couple of days … Would you like to check it over?”

“Of course. Come and sit next to me.”

Santos changed places, pulled down the tabletop and opened the file with his notes. “ETA at Fortaleza half past ten,” he said, adjusting the little pair of round glasses on his nose, “then transfer to the Colonial Hotel. One o’clock: dinner in the town hall with the mayor—here’s the summary of the index cards you asked me
for. Four o’clock: presentation of an honorary doctorate to Jorge Amado, in the presence of Edson Barbosa, Jr., then a reception in the education offices. I’ve prepared a little speech for you, but it’s up to you to …”

“What’s it about, your speech?”

“Literature and popular realism. Something simple but fairly punchy. Intellectuals and politicians ought to work together to get the country out of the mess it’s in, that kind of thing.”

“I’ve every confidence in you, Santos. You do that kind of talk very well. Will the television be there?”

“Only regional.”

“Doesn’t matter, I’ll say a few words to them anyway. You never know, they might put the ceremony on the news.”

“OK, I’ve got that. To continue: tomorrow, around seven, working breakfast with the minister followed by a meeting with the Social Democratic Party councillors and some local employers. Subject: investment and the northeast. You’re speaking at ten. TV channels, journalists, the lot.”

The Governor nodded with the expression of a man perfectly aware of his responsibilities.

“Following that, lunch in the Palacio Estudial with the minister and the junior minister of education. Then you go off together to fire the starting gun for a jangada regatta and you all stay together until the election rally. It will be outdoors, from what the head of protocol says. Since the television will be there, they’ve arranged for the whole works: walkabout, handout to the crowd, the lot—but there will be appropriate security.”

“My speech is ready?”

“Jodinha’s just putting the finishing touches to it, you’ll have it by this evening. After the rally, a dinner-dance at the sailing club with the crème de la crème of Fortaleza, return to São Luís the next morning at 8:05—”

“Has the flight been confirmed? You know I’ve a very important meeting at eleven.”

“Everything’s OK, Governor. I rang VASP myself.”

“Well, then,” he sighed, “I’m not going to be sitting round twiddling my thumbs …”

“Not at all, no,” Santos said with a smile. “I’d rather be in my shoes than yours.”

Moreira turned his eyes heavenward, simply out of habit. He was good at making people feel sorry for him from time to time, to tighten the ties with his subordinates. “I’m sorry to bother you with this,” he said, “but I’d prefer to go back the same evening. The time doesn’t matter, but I don’t want to risk being late in São Luís. Could you take care of it?”

“I’ll see to it,” Santos said obligingly, “don’t worry.”

A stewardess stopped by their seats, sent specially to Moreira before the other passengers were served. She was indubitably the prettiest of the crew. “A drink, Governor?” she said with a smile like a model on the front cover of a magazine. “Coffee, fruit juice, an aperitif?”

“A glass of water, please,” he replied, taking the hot napkin she handed him with a pair of tongs. “And you, sir?”

“The same please,” Santos muttered with a touch of pique. To fly first class and drink water, only the rich could afford that kind of whim.

Moreira tilted his seat back and wiped his face with the napkin. “I’m going to try and get some rest.”

“In that case,” said Santos, going back to his seat, “I’ll call you five minutes before we land.”

“Thank you, Santos, thank you.”

The red sign at eye level sent him plunging back into the mire of remorse:
Life jacket is under your seat
. What he was going to do on
Monday morning was heartbreaking but it was a question of survival, the only thing left that could save him from certain disaster. Just as he was repairing the damage caused by the murder of the Carneiros, another breach had opened that was threatening to engulf him. The Americans were starting to become concerned: pressure from the Brazilian ecologists—manipulated by those idiots of the Workers’ Party, that was patently obvious—murders, riots on the site, rumors of land speculation … the situation no longer seemed that favorable for their projects. A commission was preparing to send a hostile report to Washington. “I smell trouble,” his contact at the Defense Ministry had told him. “It won’t take much more and they’ll be choosing another site, you know. Chile’s putting itself forward, it could all happen very quickly. You’ve got to keep your nose clean: there’s a small fortune hanging on this, the President hasn’t calmed down yet …” It was the worst that could happen, an eventuality he had never envisaged, even in his nightmares. Ruin, his personal ruin. Even if he were reelected that would do nothing to solve the problem; without the profits he was counting on, the whole arrangement would collapse. The foreign banks would fall on him like piranhas so they could pull out. His own assets would never be sufficient to cover his debts …

“Everything will go,” Wagner had told him, lowering his eyes, “the
fazenda
, the furniture, the cars—unless you can continue to manage your wife’s fortune, of course. But for that, unfortunately, we’d have to … no, it’s unthinkable.”

“What would we have to do, Wagner? Stop beating about the bush.”

For that, his legal adviser had told him, it would be enough to have Carlotta declared incompetent. A medical report, confinement not in a lunatic asylum, that was quite clear, but in a clinic or a convalescent home, then they’d get the divorce proceedings
canceled and he would have not simply the right, but the duty, to manage his wife’s savings until she was cured.

Eleven o’clock on Monday. He had to be there when the two psychiatrists arrived. He was dumbfounded that Wagner could find two guys like that so quickly. But he wouldn’t leave her in the hospital for long, just long enough to put his affairs in order, he told himself to get rid of the stifling feeling of self-loathing. He raised his arm to try and direct some fresh air onto his face. A little sleep therapy would do him no harm, it would give him time to think it over. Perhaps she’d even go back on her decision. It’s the only way I can get out of it, he thought, turning to look out of the window, the only way …

The plane was passing through a stream of fluffy clouds, out of place in the blue sky, like pieces of shrapnel.

As its name indicates, alas …

I KNOW TOO
well what I owe to Kircher, because after God I owe everything to him, not to dread the task incumbent on me at present, & no one can be more deeply moved that I am at this moment when I must recall the circumstances of his death. But we must bear our cross like a treasure, since by that we render ourselves worthy of Our Lord & comply with his demands.

Less than fifteen minutes after the fit my master had suffered, I was administering extreme unction with all the grief and sorrow one can imagine. Father Ramón would never admit defeat & despite his grim prognosis he took a pint & a half of blood from Kircher’s arm to relieve, as far as possible, his brain of its humors. After having placed a little ivory crucifix in his hands, I started to pray with the doctor, whilst all the priests & novices made the College resound with their prayers.

In the early morning my master’s groans gradually grew less frequent until they disappeared, then he closed his eyes, his fingers relaxed & I saw them let go of the cross they had been clutching until then. I burst out sobbing, convinced that I had witnessed his last breath; would God that it had been so … But Father Ramón, who had immediately attended to him, quickly rescued me from the abyss of despair into which I had plunged: Kircher had fallen asleep; his pulse, although slow, as is natural with old men, was no longer convulsive, which gave us grounds, against all reason, to hope he might be cured!

Our Lord desiring to make his most faithful servant undergo the worst of ordeals, Kircher did not die that time; but he did not come back to life either. As Herodian rightly says,
.
¹
When he woke from his sleep, when he opened his eyes and looked at me, I realized with horror that he was incapable of moving or even of speaking. Paralytic! My master was paralytic.

Nothing was more unbearable during the following week than my impotence in the face of that look, which was by turns anguished, furious or imploring; I felt I could see Kircher concentrating every ounce of his willpower on escaping from the terrible shackles of silence & immobility, but whatever he did & however prolonged his effort, all he managed was to utter the words, “Whoring trollop!” And hearing himself say, despite himself, such a vulgar expression, so unusual on his lips, the tears ran down his cheeks.

Since I had observed that he appeared still to be able to move his eyelids at will, I had the idea of using this as a means of conversing with my master: one blink for “yes,” two for “no” & as many as necessary to indicate the position of a letter in the alphabet. Despite the difficulty of this device and the time it took, it allowed me to establish that my master was still in control of his mind, which made his disability even more tragic. The first word he transmitted to me by this means was “jiggler.” That told me that he wished to use that machine & I had him placed in his mechanical chair. Thus it was that he forced his inert body to move, to the fury of the surgeons, who predicted the worst consequences from this exercise. Father Ramón, with the approval of the doctor Alban Gibbs, having assured me that, although such a remedy had little chance of success, it did not present any danger, I persevered with my decision to obey Athanasius’s orders come what may. And I did well to do so for only three weeks after the start of these morning exercises, my master gave me one of the greatest joys I have ever known: one afternoon, while I was reading to him without listening to the “Whoring trollop!” that flew round the room from time to time, Kircher distinctly spoke my name! He immediately repeated it several times, in every tone & louder & louder, like a sailor sighting land after a long and perilous voyage. And as if that was a magic word that broke the spell binding his lips, he held out his hand toward me:

“I’ve … thought,” he said in a trembling voice and hesitating over certain words, “I’ve thought of a … a new way of taking fown … fortified towns. You just have to soun … surround them with a wall as whoring … as high as its highest building, then to threaten the besieged that you will … will … fill them with war … water …”

At once I urged him to stop talking in order to conserve his strength, all the while silently admiring the power of a genius
that had not ceased to function at the heart of the most terrible of illnesses.

It was the first of September of the year 1679; from that moment on he never ceased to make progress in regaining his health. In October he got out of his bed & took his first steps & was soon able to get around once more as he had done previously. His faculty of speech, alas, did not recover entirely & right to the end he suffered from a trembling of the tongue that made him hesitate slightly over words or, less often, invert them. As for writing or devoting himself to some task, he was so weakened there was no question of that. But he was alive, thinking, speaking! How could I not thank God every day for having granted me that consolation?