Jean-Marie Blas De Robles - Where Tigers Are at Home

“You never spoke a truer word, amigo ,” Petersen said, interrupting his whistling.

“At least we can’t say you’re exhausted by all the walking,” Elaine said, slightly surprised at the German’s verve.

“Matter of being used to it,” he said after sniffing noisily.

“Have you caught a cold?” Elaine asked. “I must have something for it in the medicines.”

“Don’t bother.”

“I wanted to say …” Mauro paused, then went on, “I’ve been a bit hard on you, I misjudged you. It was a good idea to send Yurupig on ahead.”

Petersen made a gesture to say no need for any more apologies.

“You trust him, don’t you, despite the way you treat him?”

“Not at all. He’s doing it for you, not for me. That’s why he’ll come back. He’d have left me to die without giving it a second thought. And I’d have done the same. It’s normal.”

“I’m sure you don’t think the way you talk,” Dietlev said in a tone of mild reproach. “You can’t live without other people, as you perfectly well know —”

“Live? Don’t make me laugh. Staying alive, that’s all that counts, the rest’s not worth bothering with. And I have to say I’d rather be in my place than yours.”

In the ensuing silence, the humidity enveloped them like a blanket that hadn’t been wrung dry. The mosquitos were buzzing around like mad.

“I think we’d best get under shelter before the rain,” Mauro said.

The following day they dragged themselves out of their hammocks feeling they were even more exhausted than the previous evening. While Petersen and Mauro got the fire going again, Elaine went through their rucksacks to prepare breakfast. Since she couldn’t find the one with the pan, she turned to the two men: “There’s a rucksack missing,” she said.

“Are you sure?” Mauro asked, examining the spot where they they put all their luggage together in the evening. “That’s impossible, it must be there somewhere … Perhaps a monkey’s taken it,” he added after having convinced himself it wasn’t there.

“At night the monkeys do the same as us,” Petersen said. “They go to sleep, or at least they try to. What was in it?”

“The coffee, the mess tins, the whetstone …” Elaine said, trying to visualize the contents. “A few tins of food … It was yours, Mauro.”

“The fossil samples,” he went on, “the cutlery … I don’t really know. We’ll have to search around the camp.”

“Search as much as you like,” Petersen said with an air of indifference, “but you’ve no chance of finding anything.”

Despite that, Mauro examined the area around the camp while Herman, on his knees by the fire, was carefully blowing on the twigs.

“I don’t believe it,” Mauro said coming back empty-handed from his search. “What kind of animal could be interested in our mess tins?”

“If there was no food in them,” Petersen said, screwing up his face because of the smoke, “it can’t have been an animal.”

“So who then?” Mauro asked skeptically. “There’s only us in this stinking jungle.”

“You’re forgetting Yurupig, sonny.”

“Yurupig!” Elaine exclaimed. “He’s certainly got better things to do than come back to steal things from us. Anyway, what d’you think he’d do with a bag of mess tins?”

“You never know what’s going on inside an Indian’s head,” Herman replied with a shrug of the shoulders. “Whatever, we’re going to have to find something to heat the water in if we’re going to drink coffee.”

They heard Dietlev’s irritated voice. “Just open a tin. And come and get me out of here, I’m chilled to the bone.”

Elaine could tell at a glance that his condition had worsened. He was sweating copiously again and incapable of making the least effort as they lifted him onto the stretcher. He was stinking of urine.

“I’ll change your dressing,” Elaine said. “It doesn’t look too good this morning — but it’s the same for all of us, believe me. Did you hear all that about the rucksack? What do you think?”

“Not much. I don’t think it could be Yurupig. There are much better ways if he wanted to land us in the shit. Anyway, we’ll just have to manage with what’s left.”

He looked at his leg as Elaine gently washed the stump. “I think the gangrene’s come back.”

“No, no,” she lied, “it’s just a normal reaction after what you’ve been through.”

“Elaine …” he said in a low voice. “If I don’t make it …”

“Stop going on about it, please.”

“I’m not a little boy, as you well know, Elaine. If ever I don’t make it, I want you to know …”

He closed his eyes to concentrate better. After such a clumsy start, how could he say what he felt without sounding silly or sentimental? The words jostling each other in his mind obviously wouldn’t express anything of the veneration he had for this woman, of his desire for her ever since the time when she’d landed, almost by mistake, in his arms. She would take his solemn — too solemn — avowal of love as merely an expression of his fear of dying, and she would doubtless be right …

“Dietlev?”

“Too late,” he said with a feigned smile. “I’m exhausted. Just forget it, will you?”

THEY SET OFF again along the trail marked by Yurupig. Elaine was walking like a machine, every stride had to be torn from the suction of the soil. Her mind was wandering far from the jungle and the little group she was leading. Like a driver fighting against tiredness, she took flight in daydreams that grew longer and longer and revolved around her return to Brazilia. She imagined herself replying to questions from her colleagues, from journalists. The first thing to do would be to telephone Moéma to reassure her, perhaps Eléazard as well, using the pretext of asking how he was getting on … No, it was he who would call her, or there’d be a message on her answering machine. A few concerned words, an invitation to start all over again. Without knowing why, she was convinced nothing would be the same as it was before, that all this — not just what she’d been through during the last few days, but all the rest, her sufferings, her disappointments, her divorce — that all this mess had a hidden meaning, a positive charge that would burst into life sooner or later. What had gone wrong with Eléazard? At what precise moment? Where had it started, where was the point after which they had begun to go their separate ways? She had to get back to that bifurcation in order to deliberately choose the other path, to wind the film back to their initial happiness, back to the still that would repudiate their failure, make it impossible. Once more she saw the terrace of the old house where they had lived, some fifteen years ago, when they were staying in France. The wooden table under the arbor, the wasps around the wine, the splendid torpor of a siesta in the warm shade of the plane tree—

Her fall woke her up without bringing her back to the present. Something heavy on her back was holding her to the ground; she had a cramp and the pain made her want to scream.

Mauro rushed over to her. “Are you hurt?” he asked, taking off her rucksack so she could sit up.

“It’s nothing … I’m worn out … I …”

He pushed her hair back to clean the mud off her face. “Just rest, we’ll have a break. I’m exhausted too.”

Mauro went back to help Petersen with the stretcher. Dietlev still had a high temperature, despite the aspirin he’d been swallowing. The haggard look on Elaine’s face filled him with concern: “Is there something wrong. What happened?”

“It’s stupid,” Elaine replied, blushing. “I think I must have fallen asleep while I was walking. I’ll suck a couple of sugar lumps, then it’ll be OK.” There were tears in her eyes and she was making a visible effort to look all right.