Gringo

IV

THE GREAT BREATH

The Hunger.

Gringo did not want to be hungry — it was humiliating. It was disgusting. But all the same...

The tiny sunbirds¹ were not hungry: they fluttered and fluttered as if dancing in place, and then — ploc! — they kissed the flower's calyx in one swift move, as if by stealth, as one laughs, because it was pretty, and besides a lone flower needs company. But the salted pirarucu²... from father to son. Besides, he had no father. So he wasn't a son — what was he? Neither crocodile, nor sunbird, nor Tucanoan Indian. In short, a nonexistent bastard. But still...

— Will you get the hell out of here! Good for nothing...

A man's voice grumbled behind the carbet. A wisp of blue smoke rose in the sky.

¹ Sunbird: hummingbird.

² Pirarucu: a fish.

— Can't hunt, can't weave, can't fish... huh?

If Gringo was even alive today, it was through the grace of the Elder Woman; otherwise he would have been dead long ago, along with his whole tribe, in some hole on the Rio Xingu. "That one is mine," she had said, and no one argued with the Elder Woman — though... grumblings had been heard about it for some time.

Gringo walked away at a slow pace, dignified, nonchalant, the ever-present bark-cloth hanging around his neck like a stole. He was slender with long muscles, as if he hid them. He knew very well how to climb trees, but he never said so. And besides, what use is it?

He leapt over a dead log in a precise bound, like a marsh deer, hesitated a moment at the igapó path: a turtle egg wouldn't be bad. "The igapó is mine."

Mine, mine... me and you. It was a strange world, all the same. Was the sunbird "me", was the jacuaru, the big pamba?¹ Where did "me" begin? — Gringo, he was terribly "me" from time to time — that was what made the pain.

— Psst!

He stopped dead. A small laugh burst from the undergrowth.

¹ Jacuaru: a large lizard. Pamba: a serpent.

It was Rani, Quiño's sister, of course — with her almond eyes slanted like a bird's feather in the middle of her brown cheeks.

Without a word, she held out a machete to him and disappeared in a crackling of dead twigs.

A man without a machete isn't a man, is he — or what is he? In any case, not a Tucanoan. He shrugged and walked on a little, looked toward the east, toward the north... the savannas or the serra? No — it was the waterfall he wanted, that his feet wanted. Strangely, in these moments, it was always Gringo's feet that decided. His feet knew better than he did. This morning his feet had decided on the waterfall, but there was something else behind it — he wasn't quite sure what — something drawing him.

He tied his bark-cloth around his waist and began to walk... and then suddenly there was no more Gringo.

There were long, serpentine roots, like a pipeline — he knew exactly where to cut, and clac! clac! - a juicy piece of stump in his hands, his head thrown back, he drank eagerly: it was fresh as life itself, it flowed through his body like a sparkling little stream, aah! more, more... He felt himself swelling visibly like the stem of the water lily in the igapo.

The forest began to become an immense igapó where one flowed, pumped sap, touched everything a little through a thousand tiny delicate fibers and membranes — a savory and light forest. Gringo walked, but it was a strange thing that walked, as if his legs had taken possession of him, faster and faster, faster and faster: his shell bracelet clattered. There were long sipos¹ hanging across the path, and hop! Dead wood, treacherous fresh-cut roots already covered with a bouquet of leaves, and hop! One sensed the forest through a thousand small pores, one wasn't quite sure whether they belonged to the liana, the wood, or the mossy rock, nor whether it was the serpent saying "Watch out" or the foot simply stepping over — a big thing, all coiled, motionless and perfectly dull-colored, and hop! One was already far off, among other stems and brambles... quick-quick, it was a flash of sensation, a strange precision, everything responded. Gringo was panting a little, and then it was bothersome, this breath still making a Gringo in there with a little rattle of shells. There, that was the last move: "Go." — Go, that was the Sesame. Then he leaned a little forward, one last time his muscles tensed... like a threshold to cross. And then came the great breath. That was so amusing!

¹ Sipo: a liana.

The whole forest breathed through him, or he through the forest, and there was no more him, no more trunks, no more stumps or rocks: it walked on its own — it was a single thing that was the leg and the stone and the little serpent the color of dead wood and a multitude of things everywhere, and so full of joy in the legs and in the stone — and hop! — one didn't know what passed over what: it barely touched the ground. Then something seized in the lungs, like a gust of delight or laughter — oh! a joy, a joy to close the eyes over, a breath, a rhythm, one could see nothing anymore, one could recognize nothing — it was an immense, light plunge into a great exhalation that was like laughter; a fizzing of laughter, immense, countless, everywhere, exhilarating, rustling like sap and waterfall, flowing like the serpent, trembling with the leaf... Then one lifted off — feet no longer touching the ground — the world opened — one entered the dance.

A light breath that was like the very breath of the world. 

Splash!

He let himself fall to the ground: She was there.