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

Laughing all the time, we could not stop uttering exclamations of astonishment as Father Grueber, carried away by his own fluency, poured forth his inventory in one continuous stream:

“The sperm of the whale, or ambergris, drives away neurasthenia, incontinence, eczema of the scrotum & encourages sexual desire in women … China has immense resources — even if all these animals were to disappear, they would still have all the creatures of fur and feathers. Thus for domestic animals they have multiple uses for the least parts, not omitting the most revolting. As for wild beasts, they are not spared either: lions, tigers, leopards, elephants & anteaters are used to make up innumerable remedies. Rhinoceros horn prevents hallucinations, encourages the development of a robust physique, soothes migraines & bleeding from the anus. The palms of bears’ paws fortify one’s health, their parasites cure yellow fever & blindness in the newborn; hartshorn overcomes almost all diseases, including vaginal discharges from little girls; monkeys’ brains, mixed with chrysanthemum flowers, make you grow; foxes’ lips eliminate pus & the urine of the wildcat, poured into the ear, makes all insects leave it instantly —”

“Would that it could also spare us the buzzing of the innumerable bores who bombard our ears with their stupid chatter!” said Bernini, raising his glass. “A toast to the urine of the wildcat!”

“To the urine of the wildcat,” we chorused as I went to open a second bottle.

They reached Recife at nightfall, after having traveled several thousand miles. In the Rua do Bom Jesus, where Roetgen finally found a parking space, they witnessed an astonishing metamorphosis: banks and shops, housed in the decaying remains of the splendors of the colonial period, emptied with a rapidity that seemed to parallel the setting sun. The workers were in a hurry to get away, the cars to disappear. By dusk the district was deserted, evacuated. Then, from goodness-knows-where, the kings of the night appeared, sailors, thugs, male and female prostitutes, their pupils shining, knives under their shirts … a dark-skinned, gaudily dressed multitude that by daylight the city expelled to the shantytowns on the outskirts, just as in the old days it used to exclude madmen. Scraps of haggling could be heard on all sides, shady propositions came to them. Like those plastic-coated pictures that change as you tilt them, the harbor zone unveiled its secret life. One by one the brothels lit their little red lights, sambas and pasodobles filtered out through the closed shutters. Dilapidated vestibules opened onto old staircases, whose various stopping points the drunks had marked in their own inimitable manner, but which all took off toward a blaze of neon glory.

They went up to the first floor of the Attila.

The owner welcomed them, a monster with mauve sequins and a chignon larded with black down from which silvery metal tentacles emerged, appendices that terminated in little fluorescent balls. Slow by nature and by necessity — she avoided all contact so as not to spoil the arrangement of her hair — the imposing wall of flesh carefully counted the banknotes Roetgen handed her. He imagined the feverish hours that had preceded the evening, when the woman was still sitting on the third floor of the house with a throng of half-naked whores, twittering with excitement, adorning her like a queen mother before her son’s coronation. Installed in a tall chair, slavering and moaning with excitement, an ageless figure with Down’s syndrome observed the strange opera that was making his eyes boggle. Close by him, behind the counter, a young mulatto girl was swaying on the spot as she served the drinks; the whores twirled round; the 1930s one with a pageboy hairstyle, green miniskirt and reticule slung over her shoulder, the pink Andalusian with white polka dots, the one with rainbow stripes, the one with translucent skin dressed in garbage bags … Moéma danced languorously with a bewigged mummy, all gauzy frills and flounces, that desire made beautiful despite the subtle irony of her smile and her perfect mastery of a game that testified to her long experience in this field. They picked up girls that they handed on to each other, interspersing their love displays with short breaks at the bar for a glass of gin or cachaça , launched on a night of pure sensual pleasure in which they saw further proof of their rapport.

Afterward there was a long meander around the docks, chasing rats among the moorings, the squiggles of rope below the wall of cargo boats … At dawn, when its splendor dipped the cranes in scarlet, they crawled inside a huge pile of pipes, going from one to the other like bees in a cast-iron beehive, amusing themselves by setting off echoes of their Christian names, amplifying their cries.

A military patrol turned up, dumbfounded to find them in the middle of this consciousness of being. They took them back to their car, well outside the prohibited area: they had made love in the naval dockyard of Recife — it was as if they’d won a war.

BACK IN FORTALEZA the party went on. They slept through the day and went out when night had fallen to quench their thirst for intoxication: the trendy bars where Arrigo Barnabe delivered the very latest chords of a music that was so revolutionary it verged on the inaudible, languorous bossa novas in the gray light of dawn, grass and coke from Pablo. Out of his mind after some wood alcohol, Xavier dived onto the tarmac, convinced it was a swimming pool. Despite the open cut above his eye, the kid refused to go to the hospital, so they patched him up at Thaïs’s place. He only had scratches, but he still had scabs on his face and arms when he left. For he was leaving: “I set sail at eight o’clock on Sunday morning,” he announced, just like that, without giving any particular reason.

It was an irrevocable decision. They’d drunk a large part of his whiskey on board the boat, in the Yacht Club marina; as for the mustard, he hadn’t even tried to sell it, such was the laughter the idea had set off among his friends. A money order from his grandmother had arrived from somewhere or other; he’d immediately turned it into grass, for his personal use. His intention was to go to Belém, or even farther, it wasn’t very clear, not even in his own mind. But he was leaving.

The Saturday before he was due to leave, the Náutico was organizing one of its monthly festivities: a tennis tournament, swimming races, a dinner-dance with orchestra. A member of the club since his arrival in Fortaleza — he had been proposed by the vice-chancellor of the university and paid dearly for the honor of socializing with a caste he didn’t like — Roetgen suggested they go to celebrate Xavier’s despedida . A farewell evening, in a way, a fitting end to this fantastic holiday together. Except that Moéma had gotten a tab of acid from Pablo and she and Xavier had half each, which complicated matters before they even set off.

As Andreas was not coming back until the next day, they gathered in his house, by the sea. Of a common accord, though for different reasons, Thaïs and Roetgen had passed on the LSD; Thaïs because she knew the devastating effect of the drug and was determined to keep a clear head to be ready for any eventuality, and Roetgen because he had read somewhere that LSD destroyed some of your neurons and could leave you insane. He made much of his sensible stance and declared he would look after Xavier, without realizing exactly what he was getting himself into. As he was about to swallow the pink tab — it had a Donald Duck printed on it — Xavier confessed it was the first time he’d ever tried it.

“Don’t worry,” Moéma said, sitting down on one of the loungers on the veranda. It’ll be a good half hour before it takes effect. Then it’s all up to you. If you decide you’re going to have a bad trip, then you’ll have a bad trip, if you stay cool, it’ll be cool … The thing is to remain calm and force yourself to think positively.”