Brasyl (6 page)

The slave rerurned, smoldering cigar in hand. With pure God-granted
delight Luis Quinn drew on the leaf and felt the rich, spicy smoke
curl down inside him.

Alleluias echoed from the host of trumpets and psalteries that
flocked and perched around the roof beams. Luis Quinn walked at the
rear of the choir. The recessional was a piece unfamiliar to him,
accompanied by a consort of viols, theorbos, and a metronome bass
drum, pagan almost to his European sense, unsettling in harmony and
discord; yet the steady beat was a memory of the dance tunes of his
childhood, harpers and fluters by the fire in the hall, fingers
bright in the light. Spiritual and at the same time profane. Like
this frenetic carbuncle of rococo: masters and patrons lifted on the
twisted, crudely carved bodies of their slaves to turn hearts and
hands and faces to the saints. And God, his Christ, his descending
dove? Crouching, cowed among the colonels and donatories, the trade
feitores and senhores de engenhos in the host of their wives and
children and wealth: carved and painted negro slaves cutting cane;
ships, the proud banners of exploring bandeiras; cattle; slaves
coffled together by wire of purest gold threaded through their
earlobes. New panels were being installed, old ones updated with new
triumphs. The west end of the church was a wall of bamboo scaffolds
and canvas sheeting.

"I noticed that you seemed moved during the Ave."
Provincial João Alves de Magalhães removed his stole
and pressed it perfunctorily to his lips before handing it to his
altar boy, an oily-skinned youth, son of a feitor of the elite
Misericordia lay order. "Are you a man much affected by music?"

"I recognize in it a reflection of divine perfection." Luis
Quinn raised his arms for his attendants to remove his lace surplice.
"Much like mathematics in that respect. Like number, music is a
thing entirely of itself, that makes no representation of any
reality."

"And yet the physical motions of objects, the very act of
navigation of that ship on which you came in, find their most
accurate descriptions in mathematics. "

Altar boys carried Father de Magalhães' heavy, gold-worked
cope to the fan-shaped press. In Coimbra such display would have been
considered affectation, even worldliness. Sober black and white was
all the uniform the soldiers of Christ Militant required.

"Or is it that these physical effects are the gross
manifestations of an underlying mathematical truth?"

"Hah! Coimbra sends me a Platonist!" Father de Magalhães
laughed. "But I am pleased you enjoyed the choir; our Mestre de
Capela's liturgical pieces are performed as far afield as Potosi. He
studied with the late Zipoli in the Parana missions. Striking, isn't
it? That combination of indio voices for the higher parts and negroes
for the tenor and bass. An uncanny sound." He washed his hands
in the spout from a gold ewer and let an indio servant towel them
dry. Father de Magalhães clapped Luis Quinn on the back. "Now,
small coffee in the cloister before supper while I instruct you."

The walled garden behind the college was returning the heat of the
day to the evening, the air thick with the strangely stimulating
damps and musks of heavy foliaged plants. Birds and bats dashed
through the gloaming. What divine law is it, Luis Quinn wondered,
that where the birds are fantastical in color and plumage their song
offends the ear, yet at home the dowdy blackbird could wring the
heart? In the time it took the boy to bring coffee the sky had
changed from purple-streaked aquamarine to starflecked indigo. On the
ship the swift sunset of the tropics had been ameliorated by the
breadth of the horizon; in this walled, private place night seemed to
drop like a banner. The boy lit lanterns. Stars fallen to earth. His
face was uncannily beautiful. Father de Magalhães dismissed
him with a wave of his hand, stirred two spoons of sugar into his
coffee, sipped, winced, and held his hand to his jaw.

"I sometimes think God needs no other hell than an eternity of
toothache. Tell me, Father Quinn, what do you make of this Brazil?"

"Father, I only stepped off the ship this afternoon. I can
hardly have an opinion."

"You can be in a place five minutes and be entitled to an
opinion. Commence by telling me what you have seen."

From childhood Luis Quinn had been able to vividly recall scenes in
his memory and mentally walk through them, re-creating the finest
details—the color of a dress, the position of a bottle on a
table, a bird in a tree—by the strength of his visual memory.
In his mind he left the soft, lush college garden and traced in
reverse the short walk from the Colegio across the Praça de Sé
winding down the thronged ladeira to the harbor, back along the jetty
to the ship warping in to land. The image that faced him at every
turn was of the mule's face, eyes wide, nostrils bursting bubbles,
going down into the green water of the Bay.

"I saw a mad mule destroy itself in the harbor," he said
simply.

"The plague, yes. Insanity comes on them as sudden as a colic,
and if they do not run themselves to death then they wreak such
insane destruction that they must be destroyed there and then."

"It is a universal plague?"

"It seems so. Already it is spreading to draft-oxen. You have
heard our latest fantasy as to its origin? Dueling angels in
Pelourinho?"

"And I also saw men in horses' harness. These are not
unconnected, I think."

"The letter from Coimbra said you were a perceptive man, Father.
I heard someone caused a commotion on the ladeira. Of course, since
the time of Father Antonio Vieira we have maintained a consistent
moral position regarding slavery. However, of late we find that
position challenged."

Luis Quinn sipped his coffee, rapidly achieving equilibrium with the
general environment. An unrelenting climate; no release in the dark
of the night. A cigar would be a fine thing. After months of enforced
chastity aboard Cristo Redentor, he found his appetite for smoke had
returned redoubled. The beginning of attachment, of indiscipline?

"I am not quite certain what you mean, Father."

"The Society is little loved in Brazil. We are seen to be
meddlers, dogooders. We offend against a natural order of races: the
white, the black, the red. We have the ear of the Conselho
Ultramarino still; but Silva Nunes continues his attacks in the heart
of the viceroyalty, and general society—in parrticular the
property holders—mistrusts us. There will be a new treaty soon
between Portugal and Spain, a repartition of Brazil. The Amazon
frontier is Portuguese almost by default. When it comes, the
destruction of our teduciones along the valley of the Paraná
will be nothing compared to what the entradas will unleash on the
Amazonian aldeias. Our enemies are already seeking proofs against
us."

"Have they cause?"

"They have. Father Quinn, in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ,
I task you with this mission: to proceed with all haste by ship to
Belém do Pará, then by the Amazon to São José
Tarumás on the Rio Negro where, as an admonitory of the
Society, you will locate Father Diego Gonçalves and restore
him to the discipline of the Order."

"What is the nature of Father Diego's offense?"

"I fear that a fine strong priest's zeal has led him into great
transgression. Tell me, Father Luis, since you landed how many people
have told you that Brazil is not like anywhere else!"

"Only a few dozen, it seems. And more while I was still on the
ship."

"Well, I shall not add to their number, but I will say that the
Rio Negro is not like anywhere else in Brazil. Beyond São José
Tarumás they say there is no faith, law, or royalty. Bur there
is Father Diego Gonçalves. Reports are few and far between,
and those there are are more legend than truth: monstrous vanities
involving the labor and resources of entire aldeias, an empire
claimed in the name of God and of his Order over a thousand miles of
the Rio Negro. The Lord's vineyard is rich and ready there, but my
reports suggest that he reaps more than the souls of the red men."

Father Luis said, "I know that as little as a fallen crucifix
may be grounds for Just War against a native village. I had thought
it entirely a trick of the Franciscans."

"If Father Diego Gonçalves' transgressive soul has fallen
into vanity and barbarism—and I pray Jesus and His Mother it is
not—then you must act immediately. Word cannot be permitted to
return to the Reconçavo; it could be the splitting-wedge our
enemies need to destroy our order. I have drafted letters patent
investing you with full executive authority. It is important that you
understand this, Father; full power of admonition."

"Father, you cannot . . . "

A rectangle of yellow light suddenly appeared in the
indigo-on-indigo, insect-loud wall. A shadow filled it, spilled
across the flagged court, became a face.

"Fathers, the visitor for the admonitory."

The first shadow gave way to a second, taller, more flamboyantly
outlined in hat and wig, coat and sword. Provincial de Magalhães
said under his breath, "As if God did not ask enough, Caesar now
requires his percentage."

Luis Quinn smelled the man's perfume and the sweat it scant
concealed, read his mild swagger and faint stoop, and knew him for a
government man before the tall, still flames of the lanterns
disclosed his face. The visitor made leg.

"Your service, Fathers. José Bonafacio da Nóbrega.
I represent His Excelllency the viceroy. Please, no introduction.
Father Quinn, I was of course informed the instant of your arrival in
Salvador; a high-ranking officer of the church will always attract
our attention." He flicked out the tails of his coat, adjusted
his sword, and seated himself at the table, legs crossed at the
ankle. "The Society of Jesus, in this country at least, has long
attracted the favor of the crown. You are the confessors of viceroys
and fidalgos. However, the Third Order of St. Francis claims the
support of our captains and senhores de engenhos, as reflected in the
ornateness of their churches." He held the basket hilt of his
sword as he jerked, laughing silently at his own humor. Luis Quinn
thought,
Wear your graces and weary sophistications like your fine
coat and sharply folded hat, but you are nothing but a legman, a
runner. I have seen a dozen of you among the quintas of Porto,
English spies tasked to scent out priests waiting to be smuggled back
into Ireland.

Father de Magalhães raised a hand to summon fresh coffee.
Nóbrega waved him down. "No coffee if you please, Father.
I find it disturbs my sleep. I much prefer this of an evening."
He took a small, flat silver case from his sleeve and set it on the
table. Within were small balls of rolled leaf, each the size of the
tip of the smallest finger. Never taking his eyes from Luis Quinn,
Nóbrega produced two limes from a handkerchief with a
prestidigitatorial flourish, quartered them with a pocket knife, and
squeezed a single segment over three herb-balls. One he lifted
daintily and placed on his tongue, the other he presented to Father
de Magalhães on the silver lid. The third he offered to Luis
Quinn.

"I am unfamiliar with this . . . refreshment."

"Oh, it's the most marvelous stuff. Acculico, the Spaniards call
it. The feitores ship it across the Pantanal from Characas. The mines
at Cuiabá simply couldn't function without it. Sharpens the
mind most wonderfully, enlarges the faculties, fills body and soul
with energy and well-being. Too good for slaves."

"And excellently potent against the toothache," Father de
Magalhães added. "I do believe it could benefit
meditation on all-night vigils and stations."

"Totally the wrong climate for it here, alas," said da
Nóbrega.

"Thank you, but I will keep my old European ways," Luis
Quinn said, taking out a cigar. The boy brought fire. Quinn drew
hard, releasing slow spirals of smoke into the star-soft night.
"Senhor da Nóbrega, what do you require from me?"

"Yours is reputed to be a learned order, a scientific order."

"It's my particular call to be a linguist, but mathematics and
the natural philosophies are widely studied at Coimbra."

"In the city of Belém do Pará is a madman who
intends to take the measure of the world with a pendulum."
Nóbrega leaned toward Luis Quinn, his manner animated, his
eyes wide.

"I believe this may be connected with a heretical English theory
of gravitation," said Luis Quinn, marking the influence of the
acculico on Nobrega's body and personality. "The Society reaches
the Cartesian theory of vortices, which is a complete physical
explanation. As I understand it, the English theory is purely
mathematical."

"As you say, Father. This man—this mad scientist—is
a Dr. Robert Falcon, a geographer, from the French Academy of
Sciences in Paris."

"I understood that Brazil was closed to foreigners, save those
in the regular orders. Such as myself, by birth an English subject,
if not by inclination."

"His Excellency finds his presence expedient. He arrived with
his brother, one Jean-Baptiste, a self-taught mathematician who was
inordinately proud of some device he had invented to take all the
drudgery out of weaving. I say that's what slaves are for—it
gives them something to do—but that is your French petty
intelligentsia. Jean-Baptiste was repatriated with the bloody flux
six weeks ago, but Robert Falcon remains. He is in some desperate
race with fellow academicians to precisely measure the circumference
of the globe. It seems, like everything else in this modern world,
there is profound disagreement on the shape of our terrestrial
sphere—or rather, not quite sphere. You still have salt water
behind your ears, so you will have a keen appreciation of just how
imprecise an art navigation at sea is, and Portugal is a maritime,
mercantile empire. We have received informations that the rival
expedition, which is to measure the globe by mensuration and
trigonometry, has been granted leave of access by Spain to its
viceroyalty of Peru and will shortly embark for Cartagena. Dr. Falcon
has been cooling his heels in Belém do Pará for five
months already."