Gringo

XXXIII

THE TRIBE

HE took Rani's hand. They had journeyed together through so many times and countries — perhaps on other planets too; they had loved, sought, suffered, knocked on so many doors, passed through pyres and prisons, laughed and begun again; and each time a light wind erased the wrinkles and the memories: it was always new, it was always the same — in brown or fair skin, with laughter, tears, a tunic or no tunic, blue jeans or a solitary king's crown; the same gaze on red sands carried off in a fiery wind, or on that small pool of white sand; the same glimmering of sky here and there on that great river of all lives, all countries , as on that small igapó where the crickets' song rose. And what is it that gazes? What is the story of all these stories — sad or joyful, bare or colorful — what is the thread? And what has not been found, that we always begin again with other sorrows and the same gaze at the bottom, like a child's gaze, on that beach or another, listening to the cry of a seagull in the surf, or out there behind the mists, the cry of the geese — always a cry, always a gaze. What is it that cries? What is simply not there when we will have invented everything, un-invented everything, re-invented everything, run on the wall with the little cat or plunged into the swell with all the seagulls in the world — ah! what is missing?

For Gringo was the insatiable one.

It was perhaps the earth's cry for its absolute joy. What good is an earth, if it does not lead to joy?

He took the white corridor with Rani, while the student on a pavement strummed his flute — searching for a note, another note, as if groping through a meadow of dreams, searching for the note that would suddenly spring out, irrefutable, and sow a dawn of tiny enchanted flames in his heart and over the world. He was searching for the song of the new world.

Gringo arrived with the dawn in the high shrill forest. 

He was holding that white hand with its small violet lines.

She had her eyes wide open in that hammock — like a boat. She was watching him without a word, without an expression, so motionless — and from the depths of those lake-like eyes rose great centuries of flame and silence. It was almost unbearable. Gringo felt a similar flame rising in his heart, and it rose and rose, swelling with gold, flooding his body with a bath of massive fire as if everything was about to burst. Something was about to tip over; he had the impression he was about to exit through every pore of his skin, or flatten suddenly — crushed by that frightening density. She did not move; nothing moved. It was not a being that gazed — it was what? Perhaps eternities of gazing that had passed through all the flames, all the sorrows, all the deaths — deserts and winds of night and spaces, more spaces — and which were now caught suddenly in a freeze of light and fire, gazing still further at the heavy, inscrutable door of the future. She was pushing a door in the heart of Gringo, or of the world. He thought he was going to faint.

She smiled. Everything stopped.

The unbearable marvel had come to an end. 

Gringo remained at the edge of the Mystery.

It was like a formidable golden carillon behind a door.

Then the jacouis resumed their plaintive two-note melody, always two notes: the old mortal grip reclaimed the clearing once more with the cry of the macaws and the murmur of men.

— I'll come back tonight, he said.

She shook her head gently.

Gringo's heart sank; he wanted so much to say something, to seize this moment forever.

— Ma...

He kissed that small hand with its violet lines, and went out.

Brujos started screaming. Gringo ran straight across the clearing without looking. Vrittru leaped on him and seized him by the throat. Gringo stared blankly. Vrittru's arms went limp as if struck powerless. Rani came running with a machete in her hand. She stopped. The entire tribe watched in silence.

— Cowards! cried Rani. 

No one moved. 

Psilla came forward with her toucan feather in her hair.

— But we are telling you she is dead, Gringo. Come now — be reasonable.

Gringo watched uncomprehendingly. Rani stood hesitating: if she moved, they would kill Ma and kill him.

— Do you want to take Ma's place? Psilla continued in her cold tone. Do you want to rule?

— Come now, Gringo, said a voice in the crowd — they tell you she is dead; the healer said so. Do you want to confuse everyone?

— Call her, said Psilla.

Gringo looked right and left; he was like a cornered animal in the middle of that crowd that wanted death and believed only in death. No words came out of his mouth.

Vrittru took a step forward, thumbs tucked in his belt:

— We have tolerated this foreigner and rebel long enough, he said. I propose that we bring Ma's body out so that everyone can see — then we will dig a big hole in the clearing and honor her befittingly.

There was a silence in the clearing.

— But She is not dead! said Gringo in a muffled voice.

— Well then, let her come out! Ah! enough of this, Gringo. I propose that this lying, subversive mosquito who wants to disturb the spirits and violate the Law be banished from the tribe.

Brujos approached from behind Psilla:

— Perhaps he wants to divide us — to form a new tribe? Steal our territory, our resources?

No one said anything.

Everything was false, and everything had become true. 

One of the tribe's elders came forward:

— Do not lament. Curupira is great — he will save us. He has taken our mother to his home. 

Gringo looked around him. He looked once more at the small hut behind the violet-wood. An eagle began to screech overhead.

He turned his back to them and walked into the forest.