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

“One of us — I mean Petersen or me—” he went on, “could perhaps go on alone?”

“Without Yurupig to guide you? You haven’t a hope in hell.”

Mauro’s face darkened. “You really think that … that they’ve …”

“I sincerely hope not — and not just for our sakes. He was a decent guy and I wouldn’t want anything to happen to him. At the moment there’s no way of knowing.”

The mat over the entrance was lifted and two Indians slipped in. As if hypnotized by Elaine, they put a bowl of fruit down in front of her, another filled with an indefinable brown broth and a waterskin. One of them spoke rapidly, pointing to the food, while the other put the rucksack they’d stolen from them on the floor with the rest. He grabbed the arm of his companion, who seemed rooted to the spot by the sight of the strangers, and dragged him out.

“It looks as if they like us,” Petersen said, having been roused from his somnolence by the appearance of the Indians.

“It’s obvious,” said Elaine, quickly opening the rucksack to check the contents. “They’ve taken nothing … apart from the fossils. Now that is odd.”

Mauro had knelt down at the entrance to the hut. He peered out through the gaps in the mat for a moment.

“What are they doing?” Elaine asked.

“They’re very busy. Some are sweeping, others building a kind of pyre … The women are pounding something for all they’re worth. It’s as if they were preparing a celebration or something like that.”

“You can’t see the cooking pot where they’re going to boil us, by any chance?” Herman joked. As the only response was a reproachful silence, he turned over muttering, “You all piss me off. If you only knew … Youpissmeoff!”

THE INDIANS WERE painting each other; each painted on the other’s face a blood-red variant of motifs that had probably come down through the ages. Bowls of urucu paste were passing from hand to hand; squatting down in a long line, the children were delousing each other, eager to nibble the tidbits taken from their neighbor’s head. They decorated their shoulders with macaw or toucan feathers, white down was dribbled on their their mud-smeared hair, all the men seemed to dress up as quickly as possible as birds of the forest. However closely Mauro observed them, he could see no sign of contact with civilization. The women and children were completely naked; as for the men and adolescent boys, a simple bark strap around their hips kept their foreskin tight against their belly. Apart from the two machetes from the expedition, there was no other metal object to be seen: stone axes, knives made of bamboo cut to a point, gourds or crude pottery of clay coils. Preserved by some historical or geographical chance, this tribe had never known anything other than the solitude of the forest and it was as moving as seeing a live coelacanth. Mauro was in the same situation as the first explorers of the New World, the mercenaries fascinated by Eldorado. Or, rather, in that of the first white men to make the effort of approaching the Indians — for other purposes than to massacre them. How had the Westerners managed to communicate with them? How did they make a start?

“Elaine,” he said all at once, an earnest look on his face, “I’m going to see the village chief. I must get him to understand what we want. You stay here with Dietlev.” With that he walked out without giving her time to get a word in.

His appearance brought all the tribe’s activity to an immediate halt. His forehead beaded with sweat, Mauro set off for the hut from which they’d seen the shaman emerge an hour ago. While the women and children stayed where they were, the men came over to him, gradually surrounding him as he progressed. The silence must have alerted the shaman, for Mauro was still twenty yards away from the hut when he slipped out under the mat and came to meet him.

“I’m called Mauro,” he said, pointing to himself. “And you?” he added, pointing to him.

“ Aymacalado maro? Andu? ” the old man repeated, raising his eyebrows. The young god obviously wanted to teach him some new words of power; he concentrated to engrave them on his memory.

Mauro tried once more, instinctively simplifying his language: “Mauro,” he said with the same gesture, forcing himself to enunciate clearly. “You?”

“ Maro-uu! ” the shaman immediately exclaimed.

Mauro gave a weary sigh. Perhaps they had to start with something simpler. He looked round for something basic to name, and with sudden inspiration, pointed to his own nose: ‘My nose,” he said, placing his finger on the said organ, “My nose.”

“ Mainos! ” The shaman repeated as best he could. He was wondering why it was suddenly so important to smell, and which smell would be meaningful.

Mauro repeated his gesture, this time without saying a word.

“ Mainos? ” the shaman said again, sniffing the air around. “ Mainos, mainos, mainos? ”

The result was scarcely conclusive. Mauro gnawed his lip in irritation. Seeing a mat with unknown fruits piled up on it, he went over to it, followed by the shaman and the crowd of Indians. He picked up one of the fruits and simply held it out to the shaman without saying a word.

“ Jamacaru Nde ,” the shaman said gravely, “This jamacaru is yours.”

“ Jamacaruende? ” Mauro repeated, trying as hard as he could to reproduce the sounds he had just heard precisely.

“ Naàni! Jamacaru Nde! ” No, it’s yours, the old man insisted. If the young god wanted the fruit, he was welcome to it, it belonged to him, just as did everything that belonged to him and to the people of the tribe.

“ Nana, jamcaruende ,” Mauro repeated automatically, though realising that it didn’t get him any farther. Was the fruit called jamacaruende or nani ? Not to mention that they could also mean yellow, ripe, eat … or something else that hadn’t occurred to him.

The shaman shook his head at such insistence. Disconcerted, he accepted the fruit Mauro was holding out to him, but hastily handed him two or three others. “I’m sorry, old chap, but I’m fed up with this,” Mauro said in friendly tones, aware he’d got nowhere. “ Ciao! I think I’ll just go and have a sleep.”

He was turning round when he saw, quite close to him, one of the Indians with a machete. As he stopped to check that it was indeed one of the expedition’s implements, he notice the gleaming object round his neck: the compass! The compass they’d given Yurupig before he set off …

“Where did you get that?” he exclaimed, grabbing the object on the chest of the dumbfounded Indian. “Our compass, for fuck’s sake!”

There was movement in the crowd and murmurs of indignation, but the shaman calmed them with a word. Nambipaia had behaved wrongly, he explained. He should not have taken that thing; the young god regarded it unfavorably. It had to be returned to its owner immediately.

Pushing the Indian by his shoulder, he invited Mauro to follow them. They all trooped to the edge of the village and gathered round a post stuck in the ground. On the top of the post was Yurupig’s head, mouth open, eyes closed, like someone taking communion.

At a brief command from the shaman, Nambipaia took the compass from round his neck and pushed it into the dead mouth.

AN ARABIC PROVERB used by Kircher as an epigraph to his Polygraphia: “If you have a secret, hide it, if not, reveal it.” ( Si secretum tibi sit, tege illud, vel revela .)

VILLIERS DE L’ISLE ADAM, like an echo: “And none among them is capable, in advance, of reaching the thought that a secret, however terrible it might be, is the same as nothing if it is never told.”