The Complete Collection of Travel Literature

by Tahir Shah

  Twelve figures were seated in a circle on the dark floorboards. Each was dressed as I now was, in a bluish cloth. No one moved, but sat with crossed legs and closed eyes. Alfonso and I assumed our place in the circle. I noticed that four of the twelve were women, they were covered by tunics made from the same blue material as the men wore.

  The chamber was lit by several dozen candles, which too seemed blue in color. They had been placed randomly, and illuminated almost every part of the room. Only one corner was shrouded in darkness.

  Shadows flickered about the room like phantoms. They were distorted where the low ceiling met each wall. A large frieze, which seemed to be of some Biblical scene, was half-consumed by the shadows. It was if the saints depicted had been possessed by the roaming spirits.

  One corner was more decorated and illuminated than any other part of the room. Seven statues had been arranged on a raised platform; and in the candlelight I noticed that each had been painted with intricate detail. Four of these forms were familiar. One was the Virgin Mary, and beside her was Saint Christopher, then Christ on the Cross, and what seemed to be Saint Peter. The other three figurines did not look like Catholic saints. Although they were finely crafted, their features were harder and rougher than those of the angelic-looking Catholic saints which I knew.

  The largest of these non-Catholic statues had been painted with concentric blue circles. His bare chest had the broadest design. On his face the features were almost completely obscured by the arrangement of circles: which were centred about each eye. His left hand clutched what I made out to be a rock; the fingers of his right hand were locked around a bow.

  Alfonso stood up and went over to the dark corner, returning a moment later with a hide-covered drum. Two of the other men did the same. Then, sitting once again, they beat out a rhythm in unison. The palms of their hands struck the drums with a force the sound of which sent shivers down my back. Each hand was raised up to eye-level and then thundered down on the hide. The blows grew faster and more powerful. Sweat streamed from Alfonso’s face, and I could almost feel the energy pour out though his arms and the palms of his hands.

  The other members of the circle began to clap their hands as one. I was the only person not creating noise. As I wondered what to do, a giant figure appeared from the dark corner. I realized later that a small antechamber led off from the corner.

  As soon as the huge man showed himself to those gathered, they stiffened. The chamber was suddenly plunged into silence, as the giant took his place in the centre of our circle. He knelt on the floor in an odd posture. His knees dug into the boards and his feet splayed outwards.

  Alfonso began to thump at his drum gently. They were slow, solid beats, that acted as some kind of introduction for the priest. For this was, without doubt, the Babalawo: and he was about to speak.

  A man of some fifty years, his dark skin had been painted elaborately. Blue circles, similar to yet smaller than those of the deity on the altar, covered him. Each eye was encircled by five concentric rings. But strangest of all were the tattoos on the back of each hand. They depicted a kind of spider’s web which had trapped all manner of creatures. In the candlelight it was not possible to make out much of the detail. As I tried to focus on these designs, the hands moved around each other and clapped together slowly. It was then that the members of the circle began to sing.

  Alfonso and one of the women hummed to the words of the group. The sound that they created was like that of a dragonfly, a buzzing sound, made by humming while pressing the tongue onto the roof of the mouth.

  As I listened to these droning tones and the rhythmic song of the group, and saw the shadows play about the chamber’s walls, I began to fall into a stupor.

  The Babalawo squatted and turned round and around. As he revolved, pivoted to one spot, he cried out the words: “Dai-umba! Dai-umba!”. Then, rising to his feet, he went over to the altar, spread his arms out, and repeated the cry, over and over again: “Dai-umba! Dai-umba!”

  One of the group made for the antechamber, returning a few moments later with a live chicken in each hand. The birds were held by the feet and hung upside-down. They made no effort to escape. The drumming began once more; soft taps to the hides generated a dull thudding sound. The Babalawo lit one last candle at the altar. He placed it in the centre of the ring of devotees, who had started to produce buzzing sounds again.

  The man sitting on the other side of Alfonso stood up and joined the priest in the centre of the ring. His head had been shaven, except for about two inches of hair at the back, above the collar. He sat obediently next to the Babalawo, who reached for a bag tied to his waist. I watched in silence as a small quantity of the pouch’s ointment was applied to the crown of the shaven man’s head. This man was about to undergo part of his formal initiation.

  Various dark dried leaves were rubbed into the chest of the neophyte, who sat upright with his eyes tightly closed. The drumming continued and was accompanied by the dragonfly sounds of the rest of the group. I sensed Alfonso close to me. Although we had only just met, it was reassuring that he was there. Yet a single image of the fish market kept springing to mind: Alfonso and his workmates standing before me, drenched in blood.

  The candidate began to writhe about. His body squirmed and twisted as he entered a state of silent convulsion. The ring of followers seethed forward, their shadows roaming the walls as they moved. One of the chickens’ heads was suddenly torn off by the priest’s hands. A long spurt of blood gushed and the Babalawo directed it towards the neophyte’s lips. He lapped at the blood which covered his face, chest and loins. As Alfonso explained later, it was not the man himself drinking, but the spirit which had possessed him.

  The Babalawo changed his tone towards the new initiate, addressing him with great veneration. He welcomed the Orisha to our world, and into the body of the neophyte. Then, as we sat now silent and transfixed, the priest began a conversation with the spirit. The words he uttered were not Portuguese, the usual language of Brazil; indeed, they did not even sound like Yoruba words. For it was an Amerindian deity who had been invoked, and it was his language that the Babalawo now used.

  The initiate’s eyes were wide open, but the eyeballs had rolled upwards. He crawled about in the centre of our circle, murmuring through the voice of the god.

  The other chicken was decapitated and offered as refreshment. The initiate sucked up the blood with a crazed ecstasy. Blood dripped from his face onto his belly.

  Then, as the humming began again, the neophyte leapt to his feet and spun in circles. The priest motioned with his bloodied hands and a goat was brought from the anteroom. The animal bleated continuously as it entered the candlelight. Alfonso beat a solid rhythm from his drum and the Babalawo began to stab at the goat’s jugular. The beast kicked its legs and wriggled as the priest grabbed hold and plunged the pocket-knife’s blade deeper into the wound.

  The initiate twisted as if in a rage. He yelled in a voice coarser than thunder: “Dai-raamatoo! Dai-raamatoo!,

  The Babalawo, who was saturated in the dead goat’s blood, presented the sacrificed animal to the Orisha. Through the novice, the Orisha drank for what seemed an age: locking his mouth onto the fatal wound.

  I had not realized that the ceremony had only just begun. What I had already witnessed seemed horrific at the time. For, as the Macumba priest produced ointments, potions, and more animals to slaughter, my stomach churned and I felt more and more nauseated.

  Alfonso was next to me throughout. His presence alone represented the outside world. I had met him in the fish market: and the image of him there haunted me.

  In the course of the rites, the Babalawo turned to me. His creased and painted face, splattered with blood, reflected the candlelight and the shadows of the chamber. He seemed interested that I had come; but he did not show any suspicion why I should want to attend. Before I assumed an active role in this most sinister of Macumba rites, the Babalawo made me swear an oath. Alfonso explained his orders and
, after him, I repeated the pledge: solemnly promising not to reveal the knowledge imparted to me.

  Alfonso touched my arm as we were leaving. The sun was bringing natural light back to Manaus. We walked slowly towards the fish market: the town seemed very different from when I had left it. “Always honour the Orishas,” said Alfonso softly, “and they will honour you in return.”

  * * *

  Rudolf lay in a state of delirium in the green box next to mine. Sweat dripped from his brow and evaporated as it came in contact with the floor. There was no sign of Luigi. Where was he? I could not believe that the Irishman would desert his master, especially in a crisis.

  Rudolf began to whine and bark like a dog.

  “Luigi!” he cried. “Where are you, Luigi?”

  It was painful to see a sadist without his disconsolate prey. I was sure that somewhere, not too far away, Luigi would be pining for punishment.

  With a vacant expression, the delirious Dutchman reverted to child-like prattle. And in English. Why not in Dutch? I never discovered.

  “My mother wanted to call me Lucas... but father would have nothing of it. He said I was to have the name of a real man. Don’t worry mother, I shall be home soon. We shall dine at the Amstel when I return... when I return...”

  The words echoed around the green box. “Rodolfo Oswaldo Raffaele Pierre Philibert Gugliemi, I will bear your name and do it justice.”

  Had Rudolf been named after Rudolf Valentino, whose real name he repeated over and over again?

  A naked woman came to say that the police had arrested a man from London for stealing. We would have to go and pay his fine. I realized that it must be Luigi.

  Kiato and I sat in the chiefs office at the police station. Piles of unopened letters were strewn about on a large school-master’s desk. Lists covered the walls and a peaked cap hung on a hook. A secretary sat in one corner and slowly picked out the details of the offence on an antique Olivetti. Luigi was brought from his cell and made to stand in front of us. He stood accused of robbing a chemist’s shop that morning. A man in blue suede shoes was asleep in the middle of the floor. One hundred and fifty-three bottles of Campari had been arranged around his foetal form. He lay quite still while Luigi explained what had happened.

  “I took the medicine from the chemist without paying the full amount by mistake. It was my fault.”

  His face melted with shame and despair. The officer-in-charge reached down, picked a bottle of aperitif from the floor and poured himself a drink.

  “The fine will be twenty American dollars. You may pay and leave.”

  The woman who had cured the hole in my cheek was sent for. She twirled round and round in Rudolf’s green box, clapping her hands, and shuffled from one wall to the next. She was fairly drunk. I explained that Rudolf’s fever seemed very serious and perhaps she could treat him. The woman looked at me and then at Rudolf. She removed his shirt and pants and pushed her hands across his chest.

  “He’d so muscular,” she said.

  “Is there anything you can do?” I asked.

  “Of course,” was the reply. She soaked the stems of two dried plants in water and I propped him up as she gave the potion to Rudolf to drink.

  He called out in delirium, “Mother, mother, you know how I hate schnapps!” Then he lay back, inert.

  The woman gulped down the rest of the elixir and lay down next to Rudolf. Both sprawled out on the bed, comatose, with Luigi at their feet.

  FIFTEEN

  For the Need of a Thneed

  Then they traveled through the forest,

  Over mountains, over valley,

  To the Glens of Seven Mountains,

  To the Twelve Hills in the valleys.

  There remained with Holy Lingo.

  The sun rose over Brasilia and its red desert sand. No birds sang, no leaves rustled in the morning breeze. An eerie silence engulfed Brazil’s ghost-town capital. Kiato and I rubbed our eyes and wondered if it was all a bad dream. Our hotel was in sector S2MW-702 of the world’s most planned, but perhaps most dead, city.

  An assortment of unscheduled flights, begged on executive jets, on crop-dusters, aerobatic planes, and on long distance buses, had brought us from Amazonas to the nation’s capital.

  Brasilia is like an experiment that went terribly wrong. It incorporates the idea that man is happy living shrouded in concrete, in the middle of a desert. A former President of Brazil, Juscelino Kubitschek, seemed to think it the perfect solution to unite the country economically and politically. As Head of State, he had ordered Brasilia to be constructed: a myriad paper-pushers and politicians were banished to his new capital. The city was opened in April 1960.

  Arriving on a weekend decades later, Kiato and I found the multi-lane highways and concrete monoliths all but deserted. At the weekends everyone of consequence jetted off to Rio or Sao Paulo.

  On the journey from Manaus southwards to Brasilia I had caught Rudolf’s mysterious fever. I had been delirious for most of the trip. My dreams were dominated by the priest-like woman who had brewed a potion to dispel all ills. My face pressed against endless bus windows as my eyes absorbed the contours of the road. Kiato frog-marched me from one vehicle to the next, poured chicken soup down my throat and always made sure that mine was the seat away from the draft. He was adept at begging rides for himself and his cafe ying friend”.

  On a bus nearing Brasilia I was slipping in and out of consciousness. My eyeballs felt as if they revolved in an opposite directions. Kiato found me, incredibly, a small bar of white chocolate. Until that moment, I had craved it with a desperate longing: its name had been the only word on my lips. When the bus stopped he had risked being left behind, in the hope that tasting the sweetmeat would bring me back from the edge of death. He whispered my name, and I turned, my mouth foaming and my face twisted into a paranoid mask.

  “Tahil,” he said softly, “I have blought you something special.”

  He held out the bar, coated in a crinkled red wrapper, cupping it in his hands as if it were a few drops of holy water. Glancing at the chocolate and then at him, my eyes burning as I saw what seemed an enemy with poison, I screamed:

  “Kiato, you bastard! Just leave me alone. I never want to see you again!”

  * * *

  The bus to Belo Horizonte stopped every hour for a similar amount of time. My fever had cleared, but I felt like a limp rag. We approached the city through a darkened suburb. It could have been anywhere, perhaps Africa or India: we were just passing through, visitors to that land.

  At the bus station a tall figure in a black leather coat waved. I handed him the letter written all that time before by his cousin, Oswaldo Rodríguez Oswaldo. The tall, clean-shaven figure wrapped his arms around my back and squeezed.

  “Have been waiting for you, hombre!” he said in a rubbery voice. “I am Leonardo Domingo de Rosas. Oswaldo wrote to me saying you’re arriving. I have met every bus in the last three days. Many buses, amigo.”

  He laughed like a hyena and then stared deep into my bloodshot eyes with almost psychopathic friendliness.

  “I will show you my city, then we shall go to other places. I will take you to Ouro Preto... the city of Black Gold.” He paused for dramatic effect and waited for us to gasp. “I have made a schedule and we have not a moment to lose.”

  Our watches were synchronized and we set off, down the ramp from the bus station towards his house.

  Coffee as thick as treacle was poured into thimble-sized glasses and passed around. Leonardo still lived at home. His mother, a decent-looking woman, made subtle hints that perhaps he should move out as he was well over thirty. Grey-haired, bespectacled and kindly in manner, she caught me in a questioning glance. First she looked at my unshaven face, then at my shabby, unwashed clothes: as if to say, “Why can’t Leonardo have respectable friends?”

  At the far end of the table a silent man crouched solemnly over a plate of simple peasant food: rice and beans.

  “Who’s that?” I aske
d.

  “That’s Justo, he’d my stepfather,” replied Leonardo coldly. “He and my mother got married ten years ago... in that time Justo has only spoken to me twice.” Leonardo pulled a face at the man, then changed the subject. He was eager to hear stories of his little cousin, Oswaldo.

  “That madman and me grew up together,” he said. “Does he still keep a dagger down his cowboy boot, which he never takes off?” When I answered that he did, Leonardo looked at his watch and laughed for seven seconds.

  “We must be very organized so that you get to see everything in the time you stay with me,” he said. “Firstly you must change out of those crazy jungle rags and get some proper clothes.”

  We were driven straight to a shopping centre and kitted out with suitable accoutrements for day and night disco dancing.

  Kiato disappeared into a changing room. A creature emerged, dressed from top to bottom in luminescent red leather.

  “Wow hombres, that’s nice, isn’t it?” cried Leonardo.

  Black and gold threads ran vertically down the front and back of the suit which he chose for me. A waistcoat embroidered with purple sequins was worn beneath.

  “Girls gonna go crazy when they see you chappies!” the Brazilian shrieked as we sped off towards Upstairs, the hottest discotheque in town.

  Leonardo secured a large crucifix around his neck with a heavy gold chain.

  “Agua, agua! When the girls know you guys are foreign they’ll be fighting for you,” he said.

  Kiato pushed back the giant red leather cuffs of his outfit and we marched into Upstairs.

  Three hundred people, sitting at tables adorned with cut glass, silver and starched napery, each wearing neat dinner dress, turned around. Kiato stopped dead in his tracks. I pulled my coat closed to hide the purple sequin waistcoat. Leonardo scanned the room with a tortured expression. He walked to the bar and ordered a drink: gulping it down in one. Then, looking me straight in the eye, he whispered: