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

“Not even slaves, hardly human but still human beings, that’s Brazil, Princess. Not that you can see it out of your window.”

“The last time they sent in the ’dozers,” Nelson added, “everyone thought they’d come to clear up the rubbish. But the rubbish was us, if you get what I mean.”

What she had thought was the ultimate in deprivation among the fishermen of Canoa suddenly seemed an enviable situation, unattainable luxury.

THERE WERE FAINT signs of resistance, however, thanks to the work of a few visionaries — saints, Princess, veritable saints! — who had come to live in the heart of the favela and share the wretched conditions of its inhabitants. Somehow first-aid posts had been set up, embryonic health centers where people could see a doctor free, get together, talk. Organizations such as the Hole in the Sky, Our Lady of the Graces, the Guava Community taught children to read and write, distributed food to the ten families who arrived on the dunes every day, forced into exile by the drought in the Sertão or the rapacity of the landowners. They were helped to build makeshift shelters to give them a foothold in the area. Gradually the people of Pirambú were rediscovering solidarity, the strength of united action. Charitable souls donated provisions, medicine, large sheets of plastic packaging to insulate the roofs or, fastened between four posts, to make the walls of an umpteenth shack. In the favela of Cuatro-Varas, for example, there was a committee, the first of its kind, a little group of elected representatives that dealt with local problems and represented the interests of the shantytown with the authorities. All that wasn’t much but it did have the great advantage of actually existing.

“He’s the one who built the house for me. And sometimes he swipes a few tiles from the depot. Just like that, for others. He even gives Manoelzinho a tip to get him to fill my water tank every day!”

Embarrassed, Uncle Zé gave Nelson a sign to shut up and changed the subject. It was true, nevertheless. Among the crazy people who were not indifferent to what went on in the world, there were those who were committed, one way or the other, to try to change things and those who were happy to modify what they could see around them, bit by bit, in their own way. The two attitudes were probably complementary, as Moéma was realizing now; she had adopted neither the one nor the other and that was something else she would need forgiveness for one day. What had she done for all those Indians, whose genocide she so smugly condemned, apart from taking them as a pretext for her own malaise, her own moaning. Was there anything, any single thing she could point to that gave her the right to speak, to exercise that right with a minimum of justification?

“It’s just not possible,” said Uncle Zé. “We’ve reached the year 2000 and three-quarters of the world’s still starving to death! Tell me, what’s the point of this fuss about 2000? Things are just going to get worse, my girl, even worse than people think. We haven’t made the slightest progress, not the slightest. It’ll all end in tears, you mark my words.”

Now it wasn’t just the Yanomami or the Kadiweu who were screaming revolution in Moéma’s guilty conscience but the innumerable tribe of the destitute. It was obvious what she had to do: the last vestiges of humanity within us and on earth had to be preserved, at all cost, to allow a true world to develop, so that no one in the future could look back on us with contempt for not having done anything when everything was still possible.

“Even Father Leonardo was silenced by the Pope. He was a Franciscan, a real one … That cunt of a Pope — forgive me, Princess — should have his balls torn off for doing that. It’s criminal … There’s millions and millions of people who died because of him!”

MOÉMA’S EYES WERE being opened all the time, she felt guilty of nonlove, of criminal negligence. But Uncle Zé had given her a gentle reproof for indulging in self-flagellation: “When you break a glass, Princess, it’s still a broken glass, even if you stick the pieces together again. It’s best to buy a new glass, if you see what I mean.”

She saw. To repair her life, her illusion of being alive must be to set up something new, to make a complete change in the way she was with others. But how? She hadn’t got things clear in her mind yet but the first step was to go back to her father, to the house. After that she’d comes back and offer her services, in this favela or another, work for the FUNAI with the Indians, in the Xingu reservation. UNESCO, UNO, an NGO perhaps? It’s crazy the kind of shit they send us, single shoes, teddy bears, glasses that saw Christ walking on water … Anything they’ve no use for anymore! Why should we have a use for it, eh? And when it’s money, we only see the check in the papers … But there were a thousand ways of making oneself useful. And she thought: of finding forgiveness, without seeing that first of all she had to forgive herself, that her good resolutions would remain ineffective, even pointless without that essential preliminary.

Having donned the prestigious uniform of the humanitarian legion was already making her feel redeemed. Her enthusiasm intensified. Expressions such as “a new beginning” or “back to square one” were going round and round in her head as persistently as the nagging awareness of her responsibility. When Zé mentioned the Feast of Yemanjá and his difficulty finding a girl worthy of representing the goddess, Moéma immediately offered to help. Uncle Zé explained what she was getting herself into and arranged to meet her in two days’ time at the terreiro of Mata Escura.

After uncle Zé had taken Moéma back to the town center, Nelson curled up in his hammock. He should have taken advantage of the truck to go begging on the sea front, but the departure of his princess had caught him unprepared. “I’m like a werewolf at the full moon,” he told himself, somewhat bewildered, “there’s something wrong with me.” Everything in his hut reminded him of the young woman who had been there, tiny changes, objects he had deliberately not moved so as to prolong the spell her presence had cast. Frowning and staring at the ceiling, he tried to relive his past happiness, visualizing two or three specific scenes; these few days could be summed up in the feeling that for a brief moment the world had brightened up but now it was dark. It wasn’t possible his memory could be playing such tricks on him, not about that, for God’s sake! He wriggled in the canvas, changed position. And how would he manage if the police turned up to interrogate him, eh? He couldn’t just give them the shit that was left inside his loaf: the light’s gone out of my life. The cop would give him a clip on the ear right away. And then another, straight after, just to get rid of his fancy ideas …

“So has that cleared the shit out of your head, half-pint? A bit clearer about things now, are we? What the fuck was a tart like that doing here?”

“I went to see the train go past and she was there, fighting, but not with anyone. It was obvious someone had hurt her.”

“How could you tell?”

“She’d nothing on and she was crying. It was as if she was out of her mind …”

“And you, of course, tried to screw her …”

“I swear I didn’t, comandante . To me it was as if she was wearing a blue satin gown with flounces … a king’s daughter, so beautiful it knocked you over on your backside! I wouldn’t have touched her, not for anything in the world. I brought her back here to protect her from the dragon.”

Wham! Another clout. He’d done nothing to deserve that one either. The bloody cop didn’t understand that she came out of a cordel , she was the Princess of the Kingdom-where-no-one-goes. At the same time he wasn’t daft, he knew very well it wasn’t her. But he’d never for a moment thought that she came from Pirambú: even completely naked as she was, you could see she belonged to the soçaite , the crème de la crème .