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

They continued to climb the steep slope of the mountain. The line proceeded in zigzags, as if they were ascending the ramps of a Tower of Babel. Elaine remained fascinated by the sea of vegetation spreading wider and wider below them. Truly, they were on an island in the middle of the forest, a geographical anomaly that had perhaps been located by satellite but which, she was convinced, no Westerner had ever explored.

After three exhausting hours of climb, they entered the summit jungle, which once more made them lose their bearings. Elaine felt frustrated at having enjoyed the open air and the sun for such a short time. It was Mauro who first noticed the change in the composition of the forest; the surrounding flora was unusual, a veritable botanical garden with a considerable number of strange insects and animals. Scarlet mushrooms, frogs with gaudy colors like fish in an aquarium, tree ferns with their bishop’s croziers unfurling aggressively above their heads — almost nothing of what they could see corresponded to what they had been seeing up to that point. Gathering her memories out loud, Elaine explained the curious phenomenon:

“There’s the same thing in French Guyana, a peak that’s sufficiently isolated to have its own ecosystem. The sort of thing Darwin used to confirm his theory. Natural selection has taken place, but it has developed in isolation, rather as it would on an atoll. Certain rainforest species have evolved differently in this bubble, away from the upheavals affecting the plains.”

She told them to imagine a Noah’s Ark continuing to float for thousands of years without ever reaching dry land. The species on this biological Flying Dutchman would be more or less similar to those that had gone on board at the beginning; some would have changed to adapt to life on the ship while others would not have survived …

“It’s wonderful!” said Mauro, picking up a huge beetle bristling with horns. “It’s like an earthly paradise.”

“You’re going to have plenty of time to admire all this shit,” said Petersen contemptuously. “We’ve arrived.”

INDEED, THE WHOLE tribe was settling down on the edge of the bush, on a bare plateau that was attached to one side of the sugarloaf hill and ended, on the other, in a precipitous cliff. Unlike the last few days, the Indians took great care over setting up their camp. After a supply of water had been collected and the usual harvest of grubs, palm marrow and other products of the forest gathered, the women started to soak manioc in the large oiled baskets in which the beer was brewed. A band of young men cheerfully set off to hunt; stacks of firewood piled up … Everything suggested that this stop on the summit of the inselberg was not a simple halt, but the end of the journey.

“Surely we’re not going to stay here?” Mauro asked in a tone of voice that gave a hint of his fear.

“You can go and ask them, if you like,” Petersen replied, undoing his cocaine belt.

Elaine had sat down on her hammock. One clear thought emerged from the depths of her exhaustion: nothing, not even passive expectation, was going to influence the course things would take. She couldn’t stop herself thinking of Dietlev’s body as it had appeared to her, haloed in light, in majesty. His death was gradually taking root in that part of herself where, one wound after another, life unhurriedly weaves its own disappearance. She was no longer afraid.

The shaman had waited, motionless, facing the mountain, for the Indians to build him a hut. He disappeared into it for a few minutes, just long enough to hide the instruments of his office from sight. Having done that, he gave the tribe a long sermon then set off alone toward the peak. The Indians watched him leave until he was out of sight, then returned to their various activities.

“They’re preparing another celebration for when he comes back,” Petersen said.

His remark, which later turned out to be relevant, did not elicit a single comment. Professora Von Wogau was lying down, exhausted, staring into space. As for Mauro, he couldn’t stop going into raptures about the bugs he was unearthing all over the place. Herman sniffed a pinch of powder and stretched out to think things over. A warning siren was wailing inside his head, telling him to clear off as quickly as possible, get away from these unpredictable savages; but even if he did manage to slip away during the night and to put enough distance between the Indians and himself, his chances of survival in the jungle were close to nil. The rainy season was approaching; the more time passed, the more difficult it would be to feed himself in the forest. And even allowing that he could get his bearings without a compass, it would take days, even weeks, of walking and the painful cramp in his weary legs was enough to make him scream … He was angry with himself, blaming himself for having, like the others, given way to hope; they should have made off as soon as the Indians appeared instead of counting on the cannibals to take them back to civilization. He clenched his fists in fury at the memory of Dietlev and the rifle rendered unusable.

HAVING REACHED THE highest point of the mountain, the shaman of the Apapoçuvas sat down cross-legged on a flat rock and waited. Nothing in the surroundings, neither the source of sacred stones — the womb known only to him, the secret belly in which grew the embryos of everything that would one day come into existence — nor the beauty of the panoramic view could drive away his anguish. The soul of Qüyririche was flying around him, filling the air with the heavy beat of its wings, but it obstinately refused to speak to him. I have gathered your people together where the signs commanded, I have shunned women, the flesh of the agouti and of the great anteater; every night since you left it I have kept company with your body without sparing either my chants or my saliva … Qüyririche, Qüriri cherub! Why do you deprive me of the help of your words? He had obeyed and the god with the white skin remained silent! The invisible armadillo had taken advantage of that to slip into his stomach, as if into its burrow, and now the shaman felt ill, weakened. The animal was eating him up from inside, it was freezing his blood.

Years ago, when he was just a youth, he had almost died from the same illness. His father had passed away and the invisible armadillo had gone into his son’s entrails. They had put his father in his usual place in the house, sitting up, with his bow and arrow, his beer gourd and his toucan whistle. And then the men had built a second house around him, a very close palisade of young heveas, leaving an aperture opposite his navel, after which they had pushed his father’s blowpipe in through the hole until it went into his stomach. And he, Raypoty, had stayed in the forest, all alone, without drinking, without eating, without daring to approach. In the middle of the night the invisible armadillo had bitten his heart, so hard he thought he was on the point of dying. And he had submitted. Terrified by the deep darkness, begging the mercy of the wandering souls that were breathing in his ears, he had set off toward his father’s house. He had gone into his father’s house, even though he could not see his hand in front of his face. And, by feeling his way, he had eventually found the blowpipe and had followed it until his finger touched the navel where it was stuck. At the same moment he had said, “Father, I am your son,” and his heart had started to pound, as if he had been running after a wounded jaguar, and a ball of fire had rolled into his head and the invisible armadillo had rushed out of his entrails.

After the time it takes for a bunch of bananas to ripen, the surucucu snake had bitten him on the heel without managing to take his life, proof that he himself was pajé , the heir to his father’s occult power, worthy to succeed him.