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

“And how! You’ll see, it’s the best beach in the Nordeste . But first of all we’ve got to prepare ourselves for the walk. You …” she hesitated, then went over to the familiar second person, “you’ve nothing against a little joint, I assume. You must excuse me, but I’m fed up with addressing you so formally. Here we’re on my territory, too bad if I’ve got it wrong.”

“ Vixe Maria! ” Thaïs exclaimed, stunned by her friend’s brazenness. “Have you gone completely bonkers, it’s not possible …”

“Don’t worry,” Roetgen hastened to assure her, excited all the same by Moéma’s cockiness. “I’m perfectly capable of differentiating between the university and the rest. The proof is that I came with you, isn’t it?”

“If I’d had the least doubt, I’d never have suggested it,” Moéma said without looking up from the cigarette she was carefully pulling to pieces, collecting the tobacco on the top of her rucksack.

Roetgen watched her make up the joint. Despite what he said and his studied nonchalance he was sufficiently disturbed by the procedure to feel out of place. Uncomfortable with the drug — he’d smoked only once or twice, without enjoying it and without being able to understand how his generation could have developed such a taste for bouts of nausea — it was with apprehension that he saw the moment approaching when he’d have to either cross the threshold or look ridiculous. However, it did help him understand the girl’s occasional vacant air during his classes, her dark spectacles and her characteristic way of jumping from one subject to another or bursting out laughing for no obvious reason. Believing he had fathomed the obscure mechanism of his liking for her, he abruptly felt a kind of disapproval.

“You first,” said Moéma, handing him the joint she’d just rolled, still damp with her saliva.

Roetgen lit it, trying to inhale as little as possible. He could already see himself getting dizzy, about to throw up, a human wreck abandoned to the filth of the gutter. At the same time he was worried the girls might accuse him of pretending, or of wasting precious puffs through his inexperience. He was angry with Moéma for having put him in this embarrassing situation.

He came out of it unexposed, either because he’d managed to fool them or because they were intelligent enough not to make a fuss about his faking it.

“Off we go, then,” said Moéma when the joint came back to her, “the worst is yet to come.”

As they set off, the sun blazing down on them, Roetgen tried to get to know Thaïs, but she didn’t seem interested in making conversation. Discouraged by her monosyllabic answers, he let silence return. Ten minutes later he was pouring with sweat. “Isn’t it hot,” he said, wiping his face with his handkerchief.

“You should have worn sandals,” Moéma said, glancing at his shoes. It’s the first time I’ve seen anyone going to the beach in shoes and socks.”

“It’s unbelievable,” said Thaïs, suddenly livening up at this heresy. “I hadn’t noticed. Meu Deus , it must really be smelly in there!”

“Worse than that,” said Roetgen, laughing as well. “But I would beg you to show my feet a little more respect. I am, after all, one of your teachers.”

“A teacher who smokes maconcha with his pupils. That could set tongues a-wagging!” said Moéma in insinuating tones.

Roetgen realized how thoughtless he’d been. Of course Moéma was joking, but if she should decide, for one reason or another, to reveal the episode, that would be the end of his position at the university. For a second a look of panic flitted across his face.

“There’s no need to worry,” she said, in a serious voice once more, “I’d never do that, whatever happens. And then you could always say it wasn’t true and we’d be the ones who were accused of lying, not you.”

“I should hope so,” he said earnestly. “And to change the subject — there’s not a lot of people on this track. We haven’t seen a soul for the last half hour.”

“Wait till we get to the coast and you’ll soon see why.”

When they reached the top of the rise, Roetgen was surprised to see a completely different landscape: still dead straight, the track sloped gently down to a barrier of high dunes where it quite simply disappeared.

“It was the road to Majorlândia,” Moéma said, “the dunes covered it three years ago. They shift a lot around here. But we wouldn’t have been following it for long, that’s not where we’re heading.”

“It’s crazy!” Roetgen said. “You’d think we were in the middle of the Sahara. You’re sure the sea’s at the other end of it?”

“Of course I am.”

They went on to the point where the road became invisible. From close up it looked even more astounding, as if the mountains of sand had been deliberately dumped on the road.

“What now?” Roetgen asked at a loss at the dead end they’d reached.

“We keep straight on,” said Moéma, pointing at the dunes. And with a hint of irony in her smile: “You think you can manage it?”

“I’m going to have to, aren’t I?”

The two girls set off up the slope ahead of him. Outlined briefly against the cloth of their baggy shorts, their rumps bobbed up and down in front of him before moving off. Using their hands, Thaïs and Moéma climbed with disconcerting ease, setting off avalanches of loose sand that hid the ground before him. Encumbered by his shoulder bag, which kept slipping, blinded by sweat, sinking in then suddenly sliding down several yards, Roetgen reached the top long after the girls, who were highly amused at his comically exhausting efforts.

But the vision awaiting him took all the mockery out of their laughter, transforming it into a chorus, a joyous celebration of the beauty of the world. The Atlantic had appeared, turquoise blue, shining like Mozarabic pottery. As far as the eye could see along the crescent of the coast, an interminable plateau of dunes curved gently down toward a shore edged by a broad white expanse of waves. Not one tree, no insects or birds, nothing to suggest the presence of men: an astronomer’s dream of a barbarous, devastated planet, forever motionless beneath the searing heat of the sun.

Roegten gave a soft whistle of admiration.

“Not bad, eh?” said Moéma. There was a touch of pride in her voice. “I was sure you’d like it. Look, the village is immediately below.”

In the direction she was pointing there was just a sweep of rocks that looked like ruins, their ochre making a slight contrast with the surrounding fawn color. Looking more closely, Roetgen could make out the sails of five or six jangadas merging with the white horses of the sea. Hurrying up, they soon caught sight of some straw huts that had so far been concealed by a patch of dunes. A scrawny dog started to come toward them; it gave a feeble bark, as if in a fit of conscience, then a donkey loaded with blocks of ice passed in front of them. Led by a little girl, it left a long trail of dark drops behind it.

They had reached Canoa Quebrada.

BUILT IN AN elevated position, directly on the sand of the dunes, the village was merely a collection of rudimentary houses facing each other across the slope and forming a single lane running down to the sea. Mostly built of clay and straw, crudely whitewashed and supported on thin props of faded wood, twisted and knotted, reflecting the niggardly vegetation of the Sertão, they were embellished with improvised awnings bristling with twigs and dried palms. The poorest of them were nothing but huts imitating the shape of more permanent structures, simple shelters where one went straight from the sand of the lane to the sand of the single room made even smaller by the crooked interweaving of the framework. None of the windows had frames or glass, the people there were apparently happy enough with simple, poorly fitting shutters. Standing lopsided in the middle of the lane, ten or so worm-eaten poles still carried a flimsy network of slack electric wires and bulbs with tin shades; the generator had been broken down for so long they had given up hope of it ever being repaired. Here and there a few stunted palms and slightly more tamarisks, which seemed to resist the salt-laden wind better, rustled in the sea breeze. Hens and pigs were running free, scouring the piles of rubbish that had accumulated here and there behind the shacks in their search for food.