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

“But what does that matter?” Mauro replied. “The important thing is that they’re taking us somewhere; the actual place doesn’t really matter as long as there’s some means of contacting the emergency services.”

“Northwest, you said?” Elaine asked.

“Yes, senhora . And not deviating by even a hair’s breadth.”

Elaine vainly tried to visualize the map. Only Dietlev could have said what there might be in that direction. “And have you any idea what we might find going in that direction?” she asked.

“Not the least,” Herman said with a shrug. “The farther we go to the northwest, the deeper we go into the jungle, full stop. There’s never been anything up there, never will be. A blank space on the map, there’s quite a lot of that round here.”

Elaine did indeed recall those gaps, so attractive that she’d had dreams about them during the preparations for the expedition. And now that she was near them, they brought tears to her eyes.

Mauro was making every effort to fight off a sense of discouragement. “Assuming you’re right,” he said a little less aggressively, “why would they take us with them in the jungle? It’s a question of logic: they surely won’t have left the village just for fun, will they? What you’re saying just doesn’t stand up …”

“And Yurupig?” Petersen asked. “What was that for? You know what goes on inside their heads, do you? If I had a compass I swear I’d try to give them the slip — and as soon as possible!”

“What’s stopping you, since you know exactly where we’re heading? Off you go, don’t worry about us.”

Petersen ignored his mockery. Apart from the fact that it was impossible to make headway through the jungle without a machete and other equipment, he was exhausted. His body was cracking up all over. If the cocaine had allowed him to look as if he were taking it all in his stride during the first few days, now it was making him suffer rather than helping him. As its effects wore off he was prey to such weakness and depression that he had to take another dose, with increasing frequency and in greater and greater quantities.

“We’ll discuss it later,” he said eventually, “but I’ll be damned if we see even the shadow of a white man in that area.”

Elaine knew that she would not be able to just set off for the river. Whatever destination the Indians had in mind, they had to trust them — or see themselves, she suddenly realized, as their prisoners. Despite what they’d done to Yurupig, she found it impossible to feel in danger with them. The whole tribe continued to treat them with perfect consideration; there were even men or women coming up to them to touch Dietlev’s stretcher in a gesture that was clearly compassionate. Each time she tried to say a friendly word, to put on an inviting look, but the Indians were too overawed, just one little girl had returned her smile.

THEY FINALLY STOPPED at around four in the afternoon. The whole tribe seemed to have great fun searching the undergrowth for a place to camp for the night. Lean-tos of a sort were erected with amazing rapidity — four poles supporting a crude roof of palm leaves beneath which each family quickly spread out their mats and hammocks. Blowing on the embers, the men lit fires in the middle of these shelters. By a stroke of luck three howler monkeys and a coati were shot; a worm-eaten tree trunk provided an abundance of big grubs; the girls brought back some honeypot ants, some honey and the pith of young palm trees cut up by the adults. Wild oranges appeared as if by magic.

Dietlev still hadn’t woken; Elaine cleaned up the stump of his leg as best she could then gave in to her weariness. Mauro and Petersen slumped down beside the fire as well, they too exhausted by the day’s walk. Plagued by insects that the smoke hadn’t yet managed to drive off, they nibbled on some beans from a tin they’d opened, not being able to bring themselves to eat the food the shaman had sent to them. Mauro tried the oranges, but they were so bitter they were sickening. As for the honey, it was used to thicken a kind of porridge which, seething with grubs, produced the same effect.

The Indians observed them with a discreetness that was in inverse proportion to their curiosity: the more marvels they showed — tins of food, knives or matches, fantastic objects that flew across their field of vision like breathtaking comets — the more they pretended not to be interested. They were not intimidated by those-who-had-come-out-of-the-night, but basic politeness toward the newcomers — even if they were supernatural beings — demanded this friendly reserve. To look a woman in the eye was to sleep with her, to stare at a man made him a mortal enemy; between seduction and combat there was no room left to follow impulse without jeopardizing the whole social order.

Elaine noticed this feigned indifference without understanding its motivation. Too tired to think and uneasy at the feeling of being spied on, she drifted off into memories, mingling vague images of Eléazard with those of Moéma. With Caetano Veloso filling his ears, Mauro watched her daydreaming; the splashes of mud on her face, her damp, dirty, tangled hair, the weariness visible under her eyes made her more beautiful, more desirable than ever. He envied Dietlev for having held this woman in his arms, while wondering what could have attracted her to a man with such an ungainly physique. Not being able to imagine them in the same bed in a way that wasn’t ugly made him irritated with her, despite having a clear sense that it was just an expression of resentment, both puerile and unwarranted.

Petersen was already asleep, or pretending to be.

In the last shafts of daylight between the trees a flight of parakeets splashed the space above them with blood.

A little boy had come up to them, fascinated by Mauro’s Walkman. Very gently he put the phones over the head of the boy, who initially reacted with alarm then, very quickly, with a joyful smile. His father came to tell him to stop pestering the strangers but, overcome with curiosity, he acquiesced when the boy wanted to share his discovery with him, Hardly had he clumsily put the headphones to his ears, however, than he threw them to the ground, punched the child on the head and was seized by a fit of rage. Dumbfounded by the violence of this response, Mauro curled up: the Indian was threatening to bludgeon him with his bow and would certainly have done so if the shaman, alerted by his furious cries, had not quickly caught his arm. The old man must have found the right words to explain the magic, for the Indian calmed down almost immediately. His wife had run over and soothed him by massaging his neck and shoulders while he continued to clean out his ears with his little finger to rid them of the voices contaminating his memory with their verminous parasites.

ELAINE WOKE DURING the night. There was hardly any glow at all from the fire but there was a halo of cold light shimmering beside her: unrecognizable under the phosphorescent nimbus it was giving off, Dietlev’s body was shining like a mirror struck by the sun!

Despite its improbable, dreamlike quality, the vision seemed so real that Elaine stretched out her hand toward the brightness. A cloud of fireflies flew up from the corpse, riddling the darkness with thousands of slivers of glass.

LOREDANA talking about Moreira: “He’s got a head you could stick in a pair of trousers …” Chuang-tzu lives!

KIRCHER associated with Poussin, Rubens, Bernini … Could someone these exceptional artists regarded as their master and their friend be fundamentally narrow-minded or a simple mediocrity?

NEWTON practised alchemy, Kepler speculated on the music of the spheres …