Where Tigers Are at Home by Jean-Marie Blas de Robles Page A

you!” Alfredo said in disgust. “People are starving to death in the streets, the national debt’s strangling the country to such an extent that we’re only working for the bloodsuckers of the IMF—and they want to send rockets into space! It’s the Americans again. But we’ll fight, you can be sure of that. If not, it’s the end of Alcântara …”
    Eléazard loved the ease with which Alfredo fell into a rebellious attitude. He appreciated it in his daughter as well, although secretly and in a more selective way, without managing to find the core of innocence that would have allowed him to embrace their optimism. True, he shared the sense of the absurdity of the project that had brought a quiver to the Brazilian’s voice, he approved of his anger and his determination, but not for one moment did he feel able to believe in the possibility of holding up the course of events in any way. Not that he had become fatalistic, at least not in his own eyes, nor reactionary or conservative; he had simply lost the hope that alone can move mountains, or at least let you believe it’s worth trying. Even if he didn’t see it as such, his outward resignation worried him. But how can we call into question our feeling of being clear-sighted when, unfortunately, we are so taken with it? Humanity, he believed, was an indifferent species and anyone unfortunate enough to have sensed that obvious fact can do nothing about the innumerable mass of those who provide the evidence. Alfredo wasn’t a friend and would probably never become one, with the result that Eléazard kept to himself that extreme and contagious despair that must only—can only—be acknowledged within the protective sanctuary of friendship.
    To get back to the “rockets,” Alfredo didn’t know whether they were talking about strategic missiles or a civilian base for launching satellites. Not that it mattered much for in either case the forest would be destroyed, the inhabitants expelled from their homes, the ecosystem endangered; this vague project had provided a focus for all his disapproval, as if it were an imminent threat to the world, and that, in its very excessiveness, was admirable.
    The veranda bulb suddenly started to flicker and crackle. “The storm won’t be long coming,” Alfredo said. “I’d better go and find some candles.”
    STRETCHED OUT ON her bed in bra and panties, Loredana watched the unsettling fluctuations of the electric light on the ceiling medallion. She found its slow and constantly postponed death fascinating. In the humid, stifling atmosphere of the room, her hair was releasing the water of her body drop by drop. She wondered how long it would take before she liquefied completely, leaving nothing below the death rattle of the bulb but a large dark patch on the sheets.
    Tormented by an increasing irritation in her crotch, she got off the bed and undressed. As they fell to the floor, her underclothes almost captured a large, honey-colored cockroach, which scuttled behind the skirting board. The folds in her groin were smarting in a very unpleasant way. One foot on the washbasin, she rinsed herself down with her facecloth, taking great care and grimacing with pain, before smearing cream over her raw skin. Standing in front of the mirror, she spent a long time fondling her breasts while she waited for the burning sensation, which was forcing her to maintain that uncomfortable posture, to subside. God knows how long she would have to spend moldering away here … Moldering, that was the word, she thought, broodingover the fungal infection that was starting. And could she trust her go-between? Nothing was less certain. The guy had seemed odd to her, those sidelong glances he’d been giving her all the time she’d been negotiating with him. That he’d wanted to be paid in advance was understandable, but what she found difficult to accept was the fact that he’d revealed so little of the process that was under way, simply making