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

Kircher’s eyes were sparkling with excitement. He had never held a genuine example of this mysterious writing in his hands & could not stop himself immediately starting to study it. Peiresc asked him as a special favor to think out loud & Kircher obliged without batting an eyelid. Thus it was that once more I had the opportunity to observe my revered master’s singular genius & his wealth of knowledge.

It was at this juncture that we heard the news of the condemnation of Galileo Galilei by the Holy Office. Peiresc, who was a close friend of the astronomer & had sure information from his contacts in Rome, asked Kircher to come & see him in Aix to discuss the matter. We went at once, though my master remained so silent and seemed so morose that it was impossible for me to tell what he thought about it.

Peiresc was aghast at all this; he was foaming with rage & railing against the horrendous ignorance of the inquisitors. In the argument that followed, Athanasius employed all his rhetorical skill to defend the verdict of the Holy Office & to advocate blind obedience to its authority, especially during that grievous period of schism & religious discord.

However, given Pereisc’s manifest disappointment & the proofs cited in support of the movement of the Earth, Kircher eventually admitted that he regarded the opinion of Galileo & Copernicus as true, as, moreover, did Galileo’s accusers, Fathers Malapertuis, Clavius & Scheiner, though they had been put under pressure & compelled to write in support of Aristotle’s assumptions & were only following the Church’s directions by force & out of obedience.

When he heard him express these views, Peiresc embraced my master, overjoyed to see him return to the path of reason. As for myself, until then educated to respect Aristotle absolutely, I did not conceal my disagreement with the result that the two of them made great efforts to show me where the infallible philosopher was mistaken. I was easily convinced — young people are malleable — but this abjuration left me with the uncomfortable feeling of belonging to a secret brotherhood that favored heresy. On the way back I was quaking in my shoes, so convinced I was that people would recognize my seditious opinions & deliver me up to the Inquisition. Kircher was amused at my disquiet, but calmed me a little by suggesting I outwardly adopt, as he did himself, the system of Tycho Brahe, which was recognized by the Church & was intellectually satisfying insofar as it constituted a neat compromise between the unmoving paradise of Aristotle & the universal movement of the Italian.

A few days later an order came that we were to go immediately to Vienna & we had to make hasty preparation to leave Avignon.

Dietlev and Milton were there to meet them when their train arrived at Corumbá station. Elaine was glad to see the cheerful face of her German colleague. Small and tubby, he sported a bushy salt-and-pepper beard, as if to compensate for the sparse crown of hair that was still resisting the encroachment of baldness. Known for his good nature, his hearty appetite and his love of puns, he hardly ever seemed to lose his infectious good humor. He laughed so easily that Elaine could not imagine him without seeing the gleam of his teeth behind his tousled mustache. His scalp, badly burned by the sun and brick red, proved that he had not been inactive while waiting for them.

Much more reserved than Dietlev and therefore less accessible, Milton’s severity was legendary and made him an imposing figure. Despite his lack of experience of the terrain, or more probably because of that, he made a point of showing reserve and punctilious formality in all things. His political connections and the great favor in which he was held in the upper echelons of the university gave him hope of being appointed rector the following year. Anxious to show how much he merited the position, he was already cultivating a cold and pretentious façade. All in all he was something of a pain in the neck and Dietlev would have been happy to do without him but had been forced to yield to his prerogative as head of department and his power as a member of the commission allocating research funds.

During the taxi ride Mauro was the object of much solicitous attention on the part of Milton. Questioned more assiduously than Elaine about the events of their journey, he was forced to recount the episode of the wallet-thief in detail, which he did with a light, humorous touch.

Once they reached the Beira Rio Hotel, Dietlev left the new arrivals to settle in, arranging to meet on the terrace for lunch. Elaine’s first concern was to take a shower. She was exhausted from the train journey and felt dirty from head to toe. She had never realized there were still steam locomotives in the country, even less that the smoke was so grimy! Brand new when she had left Campo Grande eight hours previously, her clothes were ready for a thorough cleaning.

She was just coming out of the shower when there was a knock at the door. It was Dietlev. Since she was on familiar terms with him, she just wrapped the bath towel around her before going to open the door. He seemed worried.

“You’re not ashamed to let someone into your room when you’re half-naked?” he joked.

“Not if it’s an old friend,” she replied with a laugh, “and one who’s seen me without a stitch more than once, if I remember rightly.”

“You just be careful, my girl. One day the devil slumbering inside me might well wake up. Especially when lured by such charms …”

“What is it you want, you nincompoop?”

“I wanted to see you alone. Without Milton, that is. You know that he gets shit-scared as soon as he feels obliged to leave his office. He’s only come with us so he can reap the glory of my discovery and flatter Mauro’s father by looking after his son personally. If he hears what I’ve got to tell you he’d be quite capable of cancelling everything on the spot.”

“There’s a problem?”

“There is. The simple fact is that the guy I’d made an agreement with to go upriver has changed his mind. He won’t hear of hiring out his boat to us anymore. And do you know why? You’ll never guess. They say there’s some crazy guys blocking the river above Cuiabá. Even the police won’t go there — they fire machine guns at anything that moves …”

“But that’s ridiculous!”

“Traffic in crocodile skins, it appears. A whole gang of them from Paraguay. They’ve even got a little landing-strip in the forest. And since it’s a pretty lucrative business, they don’t hesitate to use any means to make sure they’re left in peace.”

“You believe all this, do you?”

“I don’t know. Everything’s possible out here.”

“But the police, dammit?”

“Simple — they’ll get a slice of the cake.”

“And there’s no way of going around the area? Really, it’s beyond belief.”

“None at all. I’ve studied the maps with Ayrton, the fisherman who brought me the fossil last year. The arm of the river with the deposit starts twelve miles higher up and it doesn’t connect with anything negotiable. The only way of getting there would be to disembark downstream and walk through the jungle for forty or forty-five miles … It’s out of the question.”

Elaine was devastated. Knowing Milton, it would be the next plane back to Brazilia. “What are we going to do, then?” she asked, stunned.

“For the moment nothing. But we keep quiet. Not a word to Milton; nor to Mauro, either. You never know. I’ve made some other contacts and I’ll have a reply this afternoon. OK?”

“OK,” Elaine said with a disappointed expression.

“Go and get dressed. We’re meeting on the terrace in ten minutes.”