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

Tired of going around in circles, he went to find Soledade to ask her. She was sitting on the floor in the farthest corner of the veranda, her legs hanging down outside, through the bars. She replied to his call but didn’t turn around. From the sound of her voice, he could tell she was crying.

“What’s wrong?” he said, sitting down beside her. “You know? It’s about Loredana?” From the side he could see her wipe her eyes with the back of her hand and try to control her breathing.

“I know,” she finally said. “Alfredo told me when he went up to see you.”

“And that’s why you’re crying?”

She shook her head and stuck her face between the bars. “Why, then?” Eléazard said. “What’s making you unhappy? Don’t you like it here?”

“I’m going to leave as well …”

“What’s all this nonsense? You’re not going to leave me all by myself, are you?”

Eléazard was used to these fits of depression. Soledade never carried out her threats, so he never really took them seriously.

“Brazil lost,” she said, making a face. “I’d promised to go if they didn’t reach the final … So I’m going back to Quixadá, to my parents. Say, could I … could I take the TV?”

“Stop it, Soledade. You can take whatever you like, that’s not the problem. What I’m asking is for you to stay with me, you understand?”

“Oh yes,” she said, imitating his accent, “Who’s going to do the washing, the shopping, bring me my caipirinhas ? That’s all I’m any use for. She’s the one you love …” She started crying again.

“But what difference does it make? She’s gone now, so … nothing’s changed, everything’s as it was before.”

Soledade started crying again. “Except that she loves you as well,” she managed to say between two sobs. “She told me so.”

“I don’t believe it,” he said, unsure whether that revelation assuaged his sadness a little or actually made it worse. “It’s absurd. What did she say exactly?”

“That you were a filthy exploitative frog, that … that she hated you!” Her pitiful expression contradicted the lie.

“Seriously, Soledade, it’s important for me.”

“She said she loved you, but she was going to die and that there was no point getting worked up about it.” The tears came pouring out as she went on, “And I … I just said that we’re all going to die. But that was just because I was jealous, you see. And now she’s gone and it’s all because of me.”

“No, no,” he said, trying to comfort her, “we never know what’s going on inside other people’s heads: she was afraid of making us suffer”—as he spoke, Eléazard felt he was getting close to the truth at last—“afraid of infecting us with her suffering. She realized she’d tried to negotiate with her illness and then she pulled herself together, out of pride, the better to fight …”

“It’s my fault,” Soledade sobbed. “I took her to the terreiro … The parrot wasn’t afraid of her, you see, it was a sign … And Omulú chose her, her and not me …”

Eléazard had no idea what she was talking about. “What’s all this about a terreiro ?”

Soledade put her hand over her mouth, rolling her eyes in fright.

“Tell me,” Eléazard insisted, “please.”

Soledade’s only answer was to stand up swiftly and run off to her room.

Eléazard would have liked to be able to cry like her, to wash out his mind. He stayed on the terrace, dry-eyed, the bottle within reach. A little later he heard, without moving, the telephone ring then the message spoken in a brusque voice by Dr. Euclides on his answering machine.

When the mosquitos appeared he took refuge in the living room; he walked crabwise, with the occasional lurch, which made him snigger to himself.

THE FOLLOWING DAY he woke up much earlier than necessary. The cachaça made his head feel as if it were clamped in a vise and the prospect of having to go to San Luís in response to Dr. Euclides’s appeal was not an attractive one at all. But the old man was unforgiving in such matters: no one who had broken faith with him, even just once, could boast of having seen him again.

He stayed up on deck during the crossing, allowing the sea breeze to relieve his splitting headache a little. Once he arrived in San Luís he bought the Maranhão Courier and treated himself to a coffee. The Carneiro affair was still taking up a good part of page three; a journalist well known for his reactionary views was giving free rein to his venomous pen. The authorities, he wrote, had definite proof that it was a plot intended to blacken the Partido Democratico Social . Waldemar de Oliveira had gone beyond the limits of his jurisdiction: since the matter had taken place in Alcântara, it fell within the competence of the San Luís state prosecutor’s office and not that of the municipality of Santa Inês. The gentleman’s communist sympathies were well known, not to mention his notorious homosexual habits … Certain leaks, from official sources, mentioned a transfer for disciplinary reasons and even a possible indictment for child abuse. The Governor had been vilified in a manner made all the more despicable by the fact that his son had been reported missing in the Mato Grosso, probably having died for the glory of science and his country!

Moreira must have paid a juicy sum, the article was convincing, it would have the expected result. That was that, Eléazard told himself, the whole business would peter out, once again. Moreira would even benefit from it at the elections. When it came to the crunch, the stratagems so dear to Loredana hadn’t worked out that well. The way things were turning out, the sophora was getting ready not only to clear the mulberry tree, but to crush as many silkworms as it could find while it went about it.

“WELL, WELL, YOU’VE been getting up to some fine tricks,” were Dr. Euclides’s welcoming words when he arrived.

Eléazard smelled Carlotta’s perfume even before he saw her in the corner of the drawing room. He bowed and sat down opposite her.

“Have you told him?” he asked. When she nodded, he went on, “For all the effect it’s going to have … Have you read today’s paper? He’s going to manage to hush up the whole business, you can see that a mile off.”

“Defeatist as ever, aren’t we?” Euclides said, pulling at his beard. “Nothing’s been decided yet, believe me. He’s pulling out all the stops, that’s fair enough. But if Carlotta herself accuses him, his career’s finished.”

“But that wouldn’t get us anywhere in court, would it? It’d just be her word against his?”

“Doubtless, but he’d certainly lose the election. His political allies would drop him one after the other.”

“You’d be prepared to do that?” Eléazard asked, turning to the Countess.

Carlotta seemed close to exhaustion, but the firmness of her voice showed her unshakable resolve. “If necessary I will indict him personally. I’ve nothing much left to lose, you know …”

“Still no news of the expedition?” Eléazard asked with a detachment that surprised himself.

“They’re alive,” Euclides explained. “The helicopter flew over their boat — they obviously ran it aground after it was damaged. They think they must have gone into the forest, that’s all we know at the moment. It’ll take weeks to get a search party together.”

“And to think I said you could trust Dietlev. But it’s good news all the same, isn’t it?”

“If you insist,” Carlotta said. “No one can explain why they didn’t stay by the boat and I can’t stop myself seeing the dark side of things. But I’d rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind.”