“DO THAT & YOU will be lost,” this new Potiphar’s wife said calmly. “I will say you tried to violate me & I can assure you that you will feel the whole weight of my husband’s fury.”Containing the conclusion, ad majorem Dei gloriam, to the story of the Villa Palagonia
“DO THAT & YOU will be lost,” this new Potiphar’s wife said calmly. “I will say you tried to violate me & I can assure you that you will feel the whole weight of my husband’s fury.”
I was stunned, realizing the truth of what she said. For a moment I almost rang despite everything, preferring scandal, disgrace & even death to this shameful temptation; recalling in extremis my promise to Kircher, I knelt down, face to the wall, & begged God to grant me His aid.
I felt the Princess come over and wrap her arms around me tenderly. “Now don’t be silly. You haven’t taken your final vows yet & there’s no sin in yielding under duress …”
Having said that, she pulled me down onto the carpet. My sight became blurred & my heart was pounding, obliterating any attempt at resistance, & I pressed my body against hers while repeating the name of Jesus like a man possessed.
Even today I blush at the memory of our unbridled lasciviousness; but I will drain this bitter cup to the last drop & confess the full extent of a sin that I am not sure I have expiated by my subsequent conduct. For, not content with abandoning myself to debauchery with the Princess, I did not refuse the perverted embellishments she taught me that night … Lingua mea in nobilissimae os adacta, spiculum usque ad cor illi penetravit. Membra nostra humoribus rorabant, atque concinebant quasi sugentia. Modo intus macerabam, modo cito retrahebam lubricum caulem. Scrotum meum ultro citroque iactabatur. Nobilis mulier cum crura trementia attolleret, suavissime olebat. Novenis ictibus alte penetrantibus singulos breves inserui.1 The Princess’s chignon had become undone, long locks half concealed her imploring looks … Pectoribus anhelantibus ambo gemebamus.2 I was doing everything I could with my hands and my legs & semen meum ad imam vaginam penetravit.3 But the Princess was insatiable, I soon had to start again. Tum pedes eius sublevandi ac sustinendi fuerunt humeris meis. Pene ad posticum admoto, in reconditas ac fervidas latebras intimas impetum feci. Deinde cuniculum illius diu linxi, dum irrumo. Mingere autem volui: “O Caspar mi, voluptas mea, inquit, quantumcumque meies, tantum ore accipiam!”4 Which it did, as liquore meo faciem eius perfundi …5
She taught me other depraved acts that were equally abominable; by now I was indulging in them with pleasure without thinking for a moment that we were wallowing in mortal sin. However, the Princess, even while enjoying licentiousness such as had never appeared even in my worst nightmares, kept insisting I should take care not to brush against her navel or her stomach for fear of breaking the glass harpsichord she imagined was in there. It was a request I had some difficulty complying with, given my frenzied state.
When we were satiated, which was only after two hours of unbridled lust, she showed me an unobtrusive passage by which I could return to my room without being seen. Once there, I immediately fell asleep, drunk on wine & sensual pleasure. It was the early morning of December 25, 1637.
When I woke, feeling sick and bloated from my night of debauchery, it was to suffer the most excruciating torments of guilty conscience. There was no hope of redemption for my sin & already I was burning in the fires of a hell as terrible as the real one. Such were my sufferings and my self-hatred, such the sting of shame, that all I wanted was to confess my sins to my master & then bury myself in some hideous desert.
I had reached that stage of my torment when a lackey came to ask me to join Kircher in the library. I followed him like a man being taken to suffer the pain of martyrdom.
Athanasius was alone among the books & an expression of profound compassion appeared on his face when he saw me. I immediately threw myself down at his feet, incapable of uttering a word, mumbling my desire for confession between sobs.
“That is not necessary, Caspar,” he said, helping me up. “Whatever you have done, you are already pardoned. Look …”
He took a weighty folio tome down from the shelves & opened it in the middle at two blank pages. He placed the book, open, on a tall lectern facing the place from which it had been taken down, then asked me to put out the two candelabra lighting this windowless room.
“Pluck up your courage, Caspar, & look.”
I went over to him to see, to my amazement, that the book now showed a luminous picture in color, as clear as the reflection in a mirror. But my astonishment at this piece of magic was as nothing compared with my stupefaction when I recognized the alcove where I had condemned myself to eternal torment the previous night. Crying out, I fainted.
I regained consciousness soon after, Kircher having applied some smelling salts he always carried with him. In the meantime he had relit the candelabra & I could see that the pages of the book were blank again.
“Sit down & listen, without asking any questions. I have a lot more to confess than you. First of all you must know that there is no sorcery in what you have just seen. It is just one of my inventions, a camera obscura, which I would have preferred to reveal to you under better circumstances. But God, for it can only be Him, has decided otherwise. I was here, with the Prince, when you went into that alcove with his wife yesterday evening; I spied on you until I was sure you would obey my orders without fail. I don’t know what you did with the Princess, that Devil’s spawn, & I don’t want to know; it is the price that had to be paid for an enterprise in which we are both nothing but blind instruments. Your submission to my orders, far from sending you to eternal damnation, allows you to enter Paradise; by your sin, Caspar, you have quite simply saved the Church!
“I knew about this volume,” he went on, grasping a thick roll of parchment, “even before I came to this house, but the horror of reading it surpassed everything I had been told.”
Constituting as it did an inestimable piece of good fortune for the enemies of the Christian religion, the very existence of that work was a catastrophe in the troubled times in which we lived …
“This morning the Prince, in accordance with the pact I made with him, gave me this book, which could be such a dangerous weapon in the hands of our adversaries. I will have no regrets about burning it, Caspar. May your sins & mine be consumed in the same fire.”
With these words Kircher cast the volume into the hearth & gave me absolution as the parchment buckled and twisted in the flames. He poked the fire until the manuscript of Flavius Josephus had been completely rendered to ashes, then looked me straight in the eye. I had never seen him so earnest & so moved. “Come,” he said gently, “let us go and leave this lair of the Fiend as quickly as possible. Everything has been accomplished, we have done our duty.”
We left the Prince’s residence without taking our leave of him & I had the consolation of not having to see again the woman who had taken me so far into the labyrinth of lust.
In the hired carriage that was taking us back to Palermo, Athanasius went into more detail on the adventure of which I had been the willing victim. Our hosts were unmitigated libertines, so confirmed in their vice that they were only aroused by lascivious refinements. The Prince was almost impotent from all the Spanish fly he had taken & the Princess half-crazy since a miscarriage the previous year had deprived her of the child she had so longed for, which explained her idée fixe about the glass harpsichord she believed she had in her womb. She was a willing participant in her husband’s lecherous schemes & knew very well when we were together in the alcove that her husband was spying on us. Although intelligent & cultured, these people were a prime example of the moral chaos resulting from skepticism; deprived of the support of faith, they sank a little deeper into depravity every day without concerning themselves with a future judgment of their actions. God’s pity being infinite, sincere repentance could save them from Gehenna, but that, alas, was very unlikely. The manuscript of Flavius Josephus had been the sole reason for our presence in the Villa Palagonia. A knight of the Order of Malta had had it in his hands during an audience there & had taken it upon himself to tell Kircher about it & had supplied all kinds of useful details about the habits of the Prince & Princess.
My master continued to try & persuade me that I merited the plenary indulgence attached to the holy cause, which my unwitting efforts had supported. He kept repeating that I was, if not a martyr, then at least a hero of the Church; nevertheless, the delight I had felt while I disported myself with the Princess, the unreserved pleasure I had taken in the sin, precluded me from accepting that justification. What is more, my pride was hurt & I suffered less from having left the path of virtue than from having been a mere pawn in the vile schemes of those two libertines. But for Athanasius all this seemed to belong to the past already …
Once back in Palermo, in the studious calm of the Jesuit college, I helped my master file his notes & materials, after which we started to construct, for the Duke of Hesse, a new machine on the principles of the camera obscura, the first model of which I had unwittingly tested out. It was a wooden cube with arms, as on a sedan chair, & enough room for two people inside. We made an aperture in each of the sides in which a lens was later fitted. In this perfectly dark box we placed a second, smaller cube made of translucent paper fitted to a frame. It was so arranged that this screen was sufficiently far from the lenses to show a clear image of the world outside. An opening at the bottom of the machine allowed one to slip inside the framework & thus observe, by means of the transparent paper, the images of things or people that were outside.
Once the machine had been constructed, we had ourselves carried through the city & its surroundings by four servants. We saw city streets & country landscapes, people, objects, hunting scenes & the most fantastic sights, all reproduced with such maestria that no pictorial art could have matched their perfection. Everything appeared on the sides of our little compartment, flights of birds, gestures, looks, teeth moving, even words themselves, & in a way that was so vivid & natural that I cannot remember having seen anything so wonderful in all my life.
Duke Frederick of Hesse, who became acquainted with this portable chamber a few days later, was full of enthusiasm. Paying out of his own pocket, he asked us to construct a much larger one so that he could take his friends in it. Kircher set to work &, with the help of several craftsmen, had the new model ready for February 1, 1638. It was in the form of a galleon on carriage wheels & looked as imposing as a real ship. Magnificently decorated with stucco nereids covered in gold leaf, it contained inside all the comforts of a luxurious drawing room. Numerous lenses placed in the portholes created a magical spectacle on the white silk walls. Pulled by twelve piebald geldings, this magnificent vessel, the fruit of my master’s art & ingeniousness, traveled up & down the avenues of Palermo for days on end without the Duke and those who intrigued to have the honor of accompanying him tiring of this marvel. Believing it to be a new style of procession, the citizens followed these outings with cries of delight. The favor Kircher enjoyed knew no bounds.
As the date of our departure was approaching, we concentrated on making all the new curiosities the government of the island had given my master in return for his services ready for the journey. When we set off, at the beginning of March 1638, the Grand Duke’s baggage train had been increased by five wagons solely for the carriage of all the various finds & samples we were bringing back from Malta and Sicily.
When we reached Messina, we had to wait three days for the weather to improve, the storm being so great no pilot was prepared to take us across to Calabria. When we got under way the wind & the sea were still so unfavorable the sailors themselves were frightened by the crossing. At Kircher’s request we had to make a detour toward the rocks of Scylla & Charybdis to see what it was that made them so dangerous, but the captain refused to approach close enough. By way of compensation, my master was delighted to see Mount Stromboli throwing its plume of smoke and lava debris up into the stormy sky.
We resumed our journey north &, after several days of forced march, caught up with the equipage of the Duke of Hesse in the little village of Tropea, on the banks of the Tyrrhenian Sea.
“I’ve seen quite a few things in my life, but that … It’s nauseating! It’s disgraceful!”
He had never seen Loredana in such a state. Lips pursed, white with anger, she gave vent to her indignation:
“An American couple with a seventeen-year-old daughter. They arrived at the hotel this morning, with the first boat. I was having breakfast downstairs with Socorró. Three monsters, I can tell you! Fat as pigs, badly brought up, swaggering, a caricature of all that’s worst in that type. Neither a good morning nor a smile, nothing, not even making the effort to say a couple of words in Portuguese. Poor Socorró was petrified. I had to translate what they wanted: “Two rooms and some beer,” just like that. She had to make several journeys to take up their cases without any of them lifting a finger. They started to get sloshed right away, all three of them, father, mother and daughter. You can just see it. When I left they’d already knocked back three cans each. They may be thick, ugly, impolite and like a drink, OK, but Socorró told me how it went on. They spent all the morning there, doing nothing but drinking and pissing; after lunch the two women went upstairs for a siesta but the guy insisted on having a mattress put down under the veranda and—you’ll never believe it—ordered Socorró to fan him while he was asleep.”
“Surely she didn’t agree?” Eléazard said, eyes wide.
“Of course not, at least at the beginning. But he offered her ten then twenty dollars to do it and since she has a grandson at boarding school in São Luís and she’s the one who looks after him …”
“I don’t believe it! And what was Alfredo doing? You can’t let that kind of thing go on!”
“He and his wife had gone to São Luís for the day. I can’t tell you how angry he was when he heard all about it. He wanted to get rid of them right away, kick them out, literally, but Socorró begged him not to make a scene and to let her earn a bit more money this month. To cap it all, the guy’s armed, he’s got a revolver stuck between his trousers and his skin, Socorró saw it when he unbuttoned his shirt. Alfredo couldn’t get over it. It really cooled him down, especially since they pay well, the bastards.”
“We can’t have this,” said Eléazard coolly. “I’ll talk to Socorró. I’ll pay her what she would have got from fanning him, if necessary, but we can’t allow that.”
“If you’d seen her. She can hardly move her arms this evening.”
“I’ll speak to her tomorrow,” said Eléazard, “but just now we’ll have to hurry if we don’t want to miss the boat.”
SITTING IN THE back seat of the vehicle—an old Ford convertible that hadn’t been driven for decades but that looked as if it were straight out of the showroom—Loredana enjoyed the close of the day. Driven smoothly by Eléazard, the car seemed to be heading for the red glow of the setting sun as if to merge with it in a gaudy apotheosis. Hair all disheveled, Dr. Euclides kept turning to her to chat about this and that or to comment, by guesswork, on a landscape he apologized for not being able to see. Though following the dictates of an out-of-date code of behavior, his attentions nevertheless had the unaffected charm of a long habit of courtesy.
“You will see,” he said as they approached the fazenda, “Countess Carlotta is a very refined, very cultured person … quite the opposite of her boor of a husband. I’m still wondering what it was about him that could have attracted her. God knows what chemistry presides over the mystery of affinities, especially in their case! Have you read Goethe’s little book, Elective Affinities? No? It’s worth making the effort, believe me …”
Dr. Euclides da Cunha took off his glasses. As he wiped them mechanically, he turned even farther around toward Loredana:
“Es wandelt niemand ungestraft unter Palmen,” he declaimed in a quiet voice, “und die Gesinnungen ändern sich gewiß in einem Lande, wo Elefanten und Tiger zu Hause sind! No one can walk beneath palm trees with impunity, one might translate it, and ideas are sure to change in a land where elephants and tigers are at home. We have here, as I’m sure you’ll agree, a good number of those males who combine the heaviness of a pachyderm with the ferocity of a big cat …”
Eléazard broke in: “You’re embroidering, as always, Doctor.” He fell silent for a few seconds, suddenly occupied with the demands of the road. “I would go even farther: you’re misrepresenting what Goethe meant. If I remember rightly, poor Ottilie only writes that to encourage the men to concern themselves with the world around them. To her mind, it is a matter of condemning the unhealthy attractions of the exotic. Or am I wrong?”
“You will never stop amazing me, my friend,” the doctor said, raising his voice in order to be heard. “I should have realized you would have your Goethe at your fingertips. It was only a little quip, but I’m standing by it. No one’s going to stop me making words say a bit more than they appear to allow. But since it’s cropped up, you must remember the whole of the passage in question, and you’ll see that far from misrepresenting, I’m remaining absolutely faithful to it. It all starts out from a reflection on the relationship between man and nature: we ought to know, or seek to know only those living things in our immediate environment. To surround ourselves with monkeys and parrots in a land where they are mere curiosities is to prevent us from seeing our true compatriots, the familiar trees, the animals or persons who have made us what we are. The tree that stops us from seeing the forest, in a way … and the symptom of a serious disturbance. Uprooted from their natural environment, these foreign creatures are carriers of anxiety, of a distress they will transmit to us, as if by infection, and that will transform us profoundly: It takes a gaudy and boisterous life, Goethe says, to be able to put up with monkeys, parrots and Moors around one.”
“He says ‘Moors’?” Loredana broke in.
“Yes, but without racist undertones, as far as I’m aware. Don’t forget that it was very common at the time to have black slaves as servants. He writes about them in the manner of Rousseau, if you see what I mean.”
Loredana smiled tenderly; Dr. Euclides had won her over from his very first words of welcome two hours previously; his hair and goatee flattened by the slipstream, he looked like a terrier, its pointed nose sniffing the wind …
“And the converse is equally true. It’s the precise meaning of the passage I was quoting just now. Removed from his native land and cast, willingly or not, on a foreign shore, a man becomes different. However much he mixes with parrots, monkeys and … let’s say the native population, he still remains someone who doesn’t belong, whose only alternatives are either the despair resulting from his lack of points of reference or complete integration in this new world. In either case, he becomes the ‘Moor’ of whom we were talking: a poor soul incapable of becoming acclimatized to this world where everything is beyond him and, soon, a cripple incapable of renewing his ties with his native land, at best a traitor who will spend his whole life aping a culture that even his children will have difficulty acquiring.”
“If you insist,” said Eléazard, in a tone that contradicted his agreement. “Though you could hear that opinion from the lips of a fanatical nationalist or a fascist opposed in principle to the horrors of interbreeding. Times have changed, nowadays we can move from one end of the world to another much more easily than from Weimar to Leipzig in Goethe’s day; whether we deplore it or see it as an achievement, the fact is that cultural differences are becoming less marked, eventually they will give way to a blend hitherto unknown in the history of the world … But what’s the connection with Moreira?”
“None whatsoever, my friend,” said the doctor, bursting into a little silent laugh. “And why should there be? After all”—once again he turned to Loredana—“I’m not the one who lives with a parrot.”
“One-nil to you,” said Loredana, laughing too.
“You’re lucky we’re there,” said Eléazard, turning into the main drive of the fazenda, “or I’d have shown you what I’m made of.” He gave the old man an affectionate smile, but Loredana saw a flush on the back of his neck that hadn’t been there a few seconds before.
“DO COME IN,” said Countess Carlotta after the doctor had introduced them. “Follow me, we’ll try and find José. After that you can do as you please.” She took Euclides by the arm and firmly pushed her way through the groups crowding the hall right up to the stairs.
… six-four, six-love! He was never in the game. So I’m in the quarterfinals. I must admit I didn’t think I could do it … If you’d seen the look on his face! Getting beaten by a veteran, he couldn’t get over it …
The rustle of silk, the swirl of cigarettes, slow, grudging sidesteps to allow them through.
… Carlotta, darling, your lobster’s quite simply sublime! You must tell me where you get them, the telephone number itself’s worth it’s weight in gold!
… I recognized it right away. Just imagine, a Vasco Prado by itself, in the middle of a pile of rubbish! And this imbecile who didn’t even know what it was … I even haggled! It’s not a masterpiece, of course, but it’s a first edition, it’s got something …
… he’s a bastard, there’s no two ways about it. I lost my temper, I know, but if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s lies. A promise is a promise, and nothing will persuade me otherwise …
Women’s bare arms, immaculate shirt collars with damp necks trying to wriggle out of them, sighs at the heat, shining skin, a sudden surplus of Dior or Guerlain under an armpit blue from the razor. Like a priesthood, blacks in white suits were strolling around gravely, magi offering their gifts of crystal and salmon canapes to the gods.
“Ah, there he is,” said Carlotta, going toward the large mirror beneath which her husband was strutting, champagne glass in one hand, the other placed in a familiar gesture on the shoulder of a surly old man with whom he was conversing in a low voice. “José, if you please …”
The governor turned around automatically, looking annoyed. But when he saw Loredana his face lit up. “Good evening, Doctor, how are you? It’s good of you to come.”
“Very well, thank you. Don’t let us interrupt, I just wanted to introduce the friends I told you about: Loredana Rizzuto, an Italian who happens to be visiting our region—”
“A pleasure,” said the governor, bending over Loredana’s hand.
“—and Eléazard von Wogau, Reuters correspondent …”
“Delighted to meet you. I’ve been hearing a lot about you.”
“Only good things, I hope,” said Eléazard, shaking his hand.
“Don’t worry, our dear Euclides is unrivaled as a doctor but he is also an excellent advocate. And of course your articles, which I read regularly, speak for themselves …”
“Really?” said Eléazard, unable to keep a slight touch of irony out of his voice. No signed article by him had appeared for a year; the man must be either a hypocrite or a fool. Both, probably …
“Every time I come across one, anyway. My work hardly leaves me any time for decent reading. But if you will forgive me”—this with a glance at the old man behind him who was making no attempt to conceal his impatience—“we can continue our conversation a little later. Show them the buffet, darling, they must be thirsty in this heat.” And as one of the waiters was just passing he took a glass of champagne off his tray and handed it to Loredana. “See you soon,” he said, addressing her alone and with a smile that made her feel uneasy.
The smile of a man, she thought, who spends a fortune on his dentist.
“That was Alvarez Neto, the Minister for Industry,” Euclides whispered to Eléazard as they went away.
“That antique! How did you manage to recognize him?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“From his smell, my friend. That gentleman stinks of money as others do of excrement.”
Led by Carlotta, they weaved their way between the dinner jackets and evening dresses that the gilded decoration on that floor—or was it just the presence of the governor?—seemed to have attracted to that spot. Seeing Loredana, the women’s looks sprayed her with a toxic cloud of contemptuous rivalry; the men’s, beneath an affectation of indifference, were meant to be eloquent. Wearing tight jeans and a crocheted crossover top, her hair hurriedly done up in a chignon that was threatening to fall apart, she made her sinuous way between them without deigning to notice the fissures caused by her passing.
“I’m going to deprive you of the doctor for a few moments,” the Countess said, “make sure you get a few nibbles before these greedy pigs clear the buffet. It’s always the same,” she said to Euclides, watching the crowd obstinately gather in one corner of the room, “to see them, you’d think they hadn’t eaten for days …”
In a hurry to get out in the open air, Eléazard and Loredana went back down to the ground floor. A servant took them to the French window leading out onto the patio: enclosed by the walls of the chapel, the fazenda and its outbuildings, was a huge garden with trees and grass. Concealing the sky behind a shimmering veil, a profusion of torches set the shadows dancing beneath the massive daturas and frangipanis skillfully arranged in sparse disorder.
“Can you tell me what the hell we’re doing here?” Loredana asked reproachfully.
“What a load of cretins,” Eléazard said, wiping his neck with his handkerchief. “It’s unbelievable! If it was up to me, we’d leave straightaway.”
“What is there to stop us?”
“I promised Euclides I’d make an effort. Anyway, it’s his car so we’ll have to wait to take him home.”
Loredana seemed to hesitate a moment, frowning.
“Please,” Eléazard said gently, as if he had heard her sharp words of objection.
She gave him a searching look and eventually smiled, twisting her lips in a comic manner to show how much she was having to force herself. “OK, But I warn you, I’m going to need champagne, lots of champagne.”
Eléazard had been prepared for the worst. “No problem,” he said, relieved, “I’ll see to it.”
He sat Loredana down at one of the little rattan tables scattered around under the trees and strode off toward the buffet.
Eyes half closed, Loredana watched him heading for the other end of the garden: his linen suit too big for him, his way of walking a touch too lithe, too nonchalant … this strange guy was pleasantly out of place in this milieu. Blotchy-faced apes, irritating females with flabby arms, décolletés marked with liver spots; out-of-breath divers only deigning to plunge into the night out of physiological necessity, for a breath of fresh air, and manifestly concerned to return to the glories of the center of the fazenda as quickly as possible; wizened corpses of first communicants, mummies in christening dresses, a velvety nightmare from a painting by Goya … It was crazy to be out here, in the middle of the Sertão, in the ostentatious, antiquated luxury of this grotesque house of the dead! And all because a fairly good-looking Frenchman had taken her under his wing and she’d gone along with it, because she had nothing better to do rather than out of weakness. Still no news from the lawyer. Yesterday morning, on the telephone, his secretary had sworn to her that he was actively pursuing “her affair,” but she was beginning to have her doubts, wondering about the steps he was taking, suspecting they were just another way of getting out of it, of disguising the fear that had taken his breath away in the blazing sun, in Rome, only a few yards from the hospital exit.
Eléazard reappeared with two glasses and a bottle of champagne. He was accompanied by an amused waiter carrying a tray with enough to satisfy their appetite and more.
“Ah, there you are, ‘the beautiful Italian who’s dying of thirst,’ ” he said putting the plates on the table. “Help yourself, miss, there’s everything you need,” adding, with a wink in the direction of the bottle, “I’ve put three others on the side, just in case …”
“Thanks again, rapaz. And don’t let them push you around,” said Eléazard, slipping a banknote into the boy’s pocket. “They’re white, but it’s because they’re shit-scared.”
“You’re one of a kind,” said the waiter, bursting out laughing. “I’ve never seen any like you before.” With conspiratorial look, he pretended to sew up his mouth, gave them another wink and went back to the buffet.
“You know him?” Loredana asked, surprised and amused by the little scene.
“For all of ten minutes. I got to know him behind the buffet table.”
“And what did you say to him to get all this?”
“Oh, not much. A lot of good things about you, and a load of obscene things about the old fogeys around us. But I was preaching to the converted, he and his pals had already noticed you; if you must know, they think you’ve got curves in all the right places, you’re something else and not the least bit of a prude …”
“You’re making it up.”
“Not at all. They don’t miss a thing, you know. It’s a matter of practice. Those are the people—I mean the assistants, the café waiters, barmaids—for a psychological assessment of our world, they know more about it than anyone else.”
“You can add the check-out women in the big stores, hairdressers, grocers, doctors, priests … it all adds up to quite a few ‘experts’ at the end of the day. A few too many, perhaps?”
“Not at all,” Eléazard objected with a smile. “I agree about the doctors; they even have one advantage over barmen in that they don’t just lay bare their patients’ secrets but actually strip them naked. Ask Euclides and you’ll see. Nudity has the same effect as alcohol, it produces a state of intoxication that encourages confession, a mental and linguistic brazenness analogous to the body’s lack of modesty. The priests have missed the boat; if they’d compelled their flock to enter the confessional drunk and naked, they wouldn’t have had to yield their prerogatives. The dimmest of waiters or doctors know more about their fellow citizens than the most charismatic of confessors. The psychoanalysts have got the right idea, but they stopped halfway. They put their clients on a couch to encourage them to speak, but they really ought to make them strip.”
“Come on,” Loredana broke in, “open the bottle instead of talking rubbish.”
“It’s not rubbish,” Eléazard said, doing as she asked. “Just think about it and you’ll see that I’m right.”
“I’m not saying you’re wrong. It just that I simply believe no one ever knows anything about anyone. There’s no mathematics of the human brain; it’s not an area with true or false, just masks and fancy dress. Anyone who can look at others believing, honestly or dishonestly, he can escape manipulation is putting on an act; anyone who lets others look at him is putting on an act as well. There’s no way out of it …”
“It seems to me you’re pretty much a pessimist.” He poured the champagne, careful to check the flow as the foam rose. “Anyway, it’s not something that can be proved either way. But there is at least one thing I know about you, you’re even more beautiful in the torchlight.” As if to stop her replying, he stood up on tiptoe, fiddled with a branch above him and placed a stalk with three long, blood-colored flowers in front of Loredana.
She was very close to thinking him corny. However, she decided to assume the compliment was naive and merely shrugged her shoulders, as if to say “isn’t that just typical of you” and clinked her glass lightly against his.
“To Brazil,” she said, without much conviction. Then, briefly looking him in the eye, “And to Father Kircher.”
“To Brazil,” Eléazard repeated, a shadow suddenly passing over his expression. Without really knowing why, though fully aware how absurd his insistence was, he refused to toast the poor Jesuit.
Loredana made no comment and he was grateful for her show of tact. Elaine wouldn’t have hesitated to rub salt in the wound, putting forward all sorts of explanations, going on at him until she made him say something or other, anything just to get rid of her obstinate determination to find a reason for his silence.
They drank at the same time and as Loredana seemed resolved to empty her glass in one gulp, Eléazard did the same, after a brief moment of hesitation.
“Ancóra,” she said, wiping her lips with the back of her fingers. “That was just for the thirst.”
AN HOUR PASSED, devoted entirely to knocking back champagne and running down others. Then they talked about Socorró again and her dealings with the unsavory family of Americans who had just moved into the hotel, wondering what would be the best way of putting an end to such an awkward situation. The second bottle of champagne was almost empty when Loredana held the flowers up to look at them against the light.
“You know what they are?” she asked, her thoughts elsewhere.
“No,” Eléazard admitted, “but they’re not grown for their fragrance, that’s for sure.”
“Brugmansia sanguinea, a tropical species of datura. It’s hallucinogenic, fatal in large doses. Some Indians still use it to communicate with their ancestors; in the past they also used to employ it to drug the women who were to be burned alive on their husband’s funeral pyre …”
“You mean all I managed to give you was some poison?” Eléazard joked, putting on a look of annoyance. “And may one hear how you come to know such things?”
Their conversation was cut short by the Countess’s voice behind them: ‘Here I am again. You must excuse me for having monopolized Euclides for so long … He’s waiting for you in the garage.” With a grimace of contempt and looking up at the heavens, she explained, “My husband absolutely insists on showing his collection of cars to anyone who hasn’t seen it before. It’s tedious, but he does it every time. I’ll take you there, if you don’t mind.”
As they stood up to follow her, Carlotta gave the bottle of champagne a quick glance and smiled at Eléazard. “You’re French, I believe?”
While congratulating himself on having hidden the first bottle in the bushes, Eléazard felt a sudden itching sensation in his scalp.
“Don’t worry,” she assured him, taking his arm, “the champagne’s there to be drunk. I’m just glad it’s appreciated.” Her breath stank of alcohol, showing that she, like them, had drunk more than was sensible.
“Tell me, Monsieur Von … Wogau—I hope I’ve got it right?” And after he had confirmed she had not mispronounced his name, she went on, “Would you be related to Elaine von Wogau, a professor at the University of Brazilia?”
Eléazard felt his heart start to pound. A sour taste came up into his mouth. Making an effort to control his voice, he replied in an offhand way, “We’re in the middle of a divorce. If we ever were a ‘family’ it’s in a pretty bad way now.”
He saw the amused look in Loredana’s eyes.
“Oh, do forgive me,” the Countess said looking seriously embarrassed. “It’s … I just thought … Oh my God, I really am sorry.”
“No harm done, I assure you,” he said, smiling at her consternation as if it had surprised him. “It’s ancient history by now, or at least well on its way. You know her?”
“Not personally, no. It’s my son who spoke about her, he works with her, at the university. But if I’d known, really …”
“There’s no need to apologize, it’s not important, believe me. So you’ve a son who’s a geologist?”
“Yes, and a brilliant one, from what people say. He was chosen to take part in an expedition to the Mato Grosso with your … I mean with his professor—Oh, God, I really am confused!—and we’ve had no news from him since they left. I know there’s nothing to fear, but you know how it is, you can’t stop yourself worrying.”
“I hadn’t heard about it. My daughter doesn’t tell me anything about her mother. Doubtless she thinks she’s being diplomatic, at least that’s what I tell myself. But there’s no need to worry, my wife—after all, she is still my wife—” he added in a bantering tone, “my wife is very competent, your boy’s in safe hands with her …”
Loredana observed all this as if she were watching a drawing room comedy. She followed in their wake as a path opened up for the Countess and Eléazard through the crowd of guests. The atmosphere had relaxed: stimulated by the wine, the penguins of both sexes—she clearly recalled their affected airs behind the misted glass in Milan Zoo—seemed less stiff. Having established a sort of territory, they cackled and prattled away with gay abandon, chests puffed out, beaks half-open. They strutted around, they choked with laughter, subject to quiverings and sudden flushes, they confronted each other, crop against crop; under the impassive gaze of the waiters, they revealed important penguin secrets, enjoying a delightful feeling, a mixture of the sense of their own superiority and the pleasure of cornering others in the sad servility of gratitude. The ladies were talking breeding, hatching and nestlings, preening their feathers with knowing looks. A glass accidentally dropped opened up a crater in the throng from which shrill cries flew out but which closed up again almost immediately, like a viscous bubble on the surface of the magma. They discussed strategies for the ice floes, while quaking at the thought of the invisible proximity of killer whales, they worked themselves up into fears as great as the hole in the ozone layer, as torrid as the greenhouse effect, as drenching as global warming. Some were up in arms against the policies of the bears, others, flapping their wings in argument-clinching fashion, denounced the fishes’ unreasonable demands or expressed paternal sympathy with the distant and pathetic caricature of the species on the other pole. But they were unanimous in their admiration for the gulls’ fantastic ability to fly, not without hinting that there was no doubt that with a little more order, morality and conscientiousness the penguins themselves would have taken flight … Everywhere there was the glint of little stupid eyes inside dark rings.
Leaving the entrance hall by a side door, they walked along under the arcades of a gallery covered in the pink effervescence of bougainvillea. With the servants keeping people out, this part of the fazenda was deserted and hardly lit, so that the Southern Cross could be clearly seen, isolated amid myriads of less bright stars.
The Countess stopped for a moment to look at the sky. “All these people make me feel sick,” she said to Loredana, taking a deep breath of the night air, as if to clear her mind and body of the fumes of the party. “I wouldn’t mind a glass of champagne … I don’t imagine you’re in a hurry to see those bloody cars?”
Eléazard offered to go and get a glass and the two women sat on the little wall between the columns. “He’s nice,” the Countess said when they were alone. “I’m annoyed with myself for saying the wrong thing back there.”
“Don’t worry, I don’t think he was offended. Having said that, he never talks about it, which shows it must still touch a raw nerve.”
“Are you an item?”
Surprised by such a direct question, Loredana put her head on one side slightly. “You don’t beat about the bush, do you?” she smiled, knitting her brows. After a short pause for thought, she went on, “No, at least not at the moment … but to tell the truth, I like him well enough for that to be conceivable …”
This declaration left her speechless. She had just expressed, out loud and to someone who was more or less a stranger, a desire she had never admitted so directly to herself yet. While recognizing the reality of her attraction to Eléazard, she was annoyed with herself for having forgotten, if only for a moment, the impossibility of a liaison with him.
“I must be more drunk than I thought to say things like that,” she admitted with an embarrassed laugh.
“Don’t worry, you’re still less drunk than I am,” the Countess said, taking her hand. “that’s one of the advantages of champagne, it loosens your tongue, or rather, it frees it from the bars imposed on it by convention. I like you, both of you, you’d make a lovely couple.”
Almost completely cloaked in the bougainvillea, the governor’s wife seemed like a pagan idol, a calm and thoughtful prophetess whose words had the force of an oracle. She must have been very beautiful, Loredana thought, scrutinizing the lines of her face.
“If you knew how weary I am, sick and tired of everything,” the Countess suddenly said in a tone of profound helplessness. “I’ve only met you this evening, but these are things one can only admit in the combined intoxication and miracle of a meeting of minds. My husband doesn’t love me anymore, or not enough to stop me from hating him, my son’s far away and I’m getting old”—she gave a smile of self-deprecation—“like a pot in a corner of the dresser.”
Guessed, other people’s distress is almost always moving, even if the emotion only results in purely formal compassion; brazenly expressed, it inevitably provokes irritation. How feeble, Loredana thought, how self-indulgent! What was the bitterness of a grand lady compared with the threat that had been hanging over her for months? Did we have to be irrevocably deprived of our freedom before we could finally see its workings, before we could discover the value of the simple fact of being alive, of still existing?
Disconcerted, she abruptly lit a cigarette in an attempt to prolong the silence rather than continue a conversation she was no longer interested in. However, Carlotta eventually managed to get her to look at her. “Please don’t get me wrong,” she said in friendly tones, “I’m not looking for your pity. If you’d said the least word along those lines, I’d have left you right away. I’m well aware that we all have to sort out our own problems.”
“What is it you want, then?” Loredana asked, somewhat brusquely.
With a smile on her lips, the Countess gave a long sigh expressing maternal patience and indulgence. “Let’s say some Italian conversation. Would that suit you?” But her look begged, “Frank, open, irreverent conversation. Young conversation, my child.”
1 I pushed my tongue into the Princess’s mouth and my lance penetrated her womb. Our limbs were dripping with our fluids, they made the same sucking noise. Sometimes I let my slippery rod macerate inside, sometimes I pulled it out quickly. My scrotum was tossed hither and thither. The princess raised her quivering legs, giving off a most sweet smell. I punctuated novenas of deep thrusts with single short ones.
2 We both groaned, our chests heaving.
3 And my semen flowed into the depths of her vagina.
4 I had to lift up her feet and place them on my shoulders, then I placed my penis on her anus and plunged into the interior of that hidden and burning retreat. Then for a long time I enjoyed fellatio as she sucked my member. I needed to urinate. “O my Caspar,” she said to me, “however much you piss, my mouth can take it!”
5 I flooded her face with my water …