2380 YEAR OF CAMÕES 2380

He looks out at the ancient landscape: here where the crystals bend under the wind, among people who see him not, for that is not where they gaze. "Four hundred years ago the lakes and the plains and the rivers and the forests and the seas on this face of old parchment, ours, that of the land we tread." "The roads are strewn with broken spears/ Hair is blown to all sides/ The houses are roofless/ With walls turned red/ Worms procreate in streets and squares/ And the walls are peppered with brains/ The waters are red, as if painted /And when we drink/ It is as if we drank saltpetre." Spirals of smoke rise as he passes; the cities solidify, with endless stairways, terraces over which no birds fly. He continues forward, covered in leaves, ever more made of wire and cobalt, escorted by naked puppets; dust cascades over windows, at that moment the odour of melted rubber . "Luis" – repeats the clock: "Luis" – the clock. In the shade of a scanty white branch of coral the man turns the screws to the left, clods of earth crumble at his progress, here and there cracks open into entrances to rooms. A forefinger is enough to change his route, to advise him of the latest decision, while slow clouds tower up far off. "Luis" – repeats the clock. "Luis" – the clock. Noisily propellers whiz by; he seems to hesitate a little; in haste he turns the lower lever. Is it night or just the clouds advancing?

The breasts of those nymphs of the Tagus are torn on the rocks: here where the crystals bend under the wind. They are anxious, those who journey between music and the splendour of the show case, forgetful of their fate, now they wander on the land which stretches over tombs of semen. "In rags, they scream curses at me, witnesses of the silence of my way: Francisca Gomes, Isabel Nunes, Antónia Brás, Isabel Barbosa." Another, draped in sea weed, climbs the porphyry steps. "Luis" – repeats the clock. "Luis" – the clock. He goes onward, reduced by decree to the supersonic sound wave in his ears. He is outlined and then extinguished by a diagram in his breast; his mouth is defined by a breath of neon. "On the right a figure poses seen in profile, rigid, a spear in hand, under a billow of clouds; on the lower part of his face a kind of covering, while his head-dress is fastened by a strap tied under his chin. In front there are two blocks of fluted columns, those on the right little more than empty cardboard tubes, perhaps waiting to be painted." The burnt grass, where bare feet have passed, is lost to his sight focused on possible infinities. "I spoke to you all, we shared the same sheets, our sexes met under the halo of the lamp hanging from the ceiling beam." No one follows him, and he seeks no one. He merely tightens the third valve a little, recovers his courage, but no one can note the feeling involved in this process. "Luis" – repeats the clock. "Luis" – the clock. He can make out the foam on the beaches, the cacti, the delicate uninhabited skeleton. His memory is returning in measure with the air becoming saturated with water and soot. "It was in the time of the apples..." But who asks him to tell stories?

As if there could be nothing more than this horizon: here where the crystals bend under the wind. "In Macau, beside the Great Temple, the scribes sweated away throughout the day at the drudgery of letters which no one would ever answer; the convicts were sitting begging, iron yokes around their heads; the merchants gave blessings, departed and returned, the junks sailed out to sea, their broad sails swelling with written characters." "Luis" – repeats the clock. "Luis" – the clock. He forces himself to continue on his road, strewn with black boulders. He goes with no maps and no compasses, in a vacuum where the galaxies encircle him on all sides. He needs neither the stomach of a whale nor wings of wax. At each jet from the chimney in his left nostril, the universe recognises him, he recognises it, crossing it in a millimetre, overtaking it in many more. "Luis," – repeats the clock; "Luis" – the clock. In fathoms one measures the distance from his lips to his heart, so anxious for St. Elmo’s fire, lost among zinc chains and oceans which hollow him out from within. No name stays in his memory, brought down from the crow’s nest. Only the simoom whistles in his loose wires, the ratchets turn with no effect, the blind eye gives out the intense and frozen light of centuries without chronicle.

Which are the books able to describe this point of no return: here where the crystals bend under the wind, with no further texts to record them? He recalls, in intervals between the verses of Petrarch on the tape player in his esophagus, the friends who bring him through the still dark jungle: what he knew of love, like animals, what he had said of a queen, tormented on a curtained dais before the sea. "The scenes and hieroglyphs were painted on whitewashed surfaces, long narrow ribbons manufactured from the fibre of wild fig trees. These ribbons were painted on both sides and folded like the leaves of a fan. The three surviving books deal with astronomy, prophecy, arithmetic, but books on history are known to have existed." He goes onward, abandoned, amid the countless blank pages, a wagtail on each shoulder. "Luis" – repeats the clock. "Luis" – the clock. But he is aware of nothing, save for this inconsequential vocative, freed at last from the speech of others and of himself, within the prison of fear. "It was late afternoon in Goa: they sauntered under the canopies, their robes loose, a bracelet of bells at the ankle. I invented the eyes of reading." But the brake on his rudders goes crazy, and time races and is repeated, and a lightning flash slashes his lower belly. "Luis" – repeats the clock. "Luis" – the clock.

What has been detached from him are kings and poets, nurses and shepherdesses, seafarers and nymphs. And as the last caravel disintegrates in a rain of sulphur, the quadrant discloses the code to him: "Everything which changes, changes; change continues."

References: Leon Portilla – Vision de los Vencidos; Michael D. Coe – The Mayas; J. Eric Thompson – The Civilization of the Mayas.

© Mário Cláudio, Itineraries, Lisbon, Publicações Dom Quixote, 1993, pp 13-17.

CONCERNING BARNABY. MASTER-COOK OF THE CAPTAINCY OF THE FLEET, ON THE FIRST VOYAGE TO INDIA

It is not exactly a gift from Our Lord, my village of Ucanha, divided by the Varosa river, where I used to swim with my more daring companions when I was a boy. The monks of Salzedas saw us far down there below, they high up on the bridge which they had ordered be built, calling us layabouts and sluts and ordering us to go work in the fields. Later, leaving for Lisbon to take to sea as Vasco da Gama’s cook, I recall all these things together, and others besides, like the taste of maize bread on wet October afternoons, the savour of lamb on St. John’s eve. And I imagine that I shall be preparing none of these things for the sailors to India, since those who take to the waves will be fed on other foods, and I cannot even be sure what they will want to be served to avoid death by starvation during all that endless time. When I was a kid I learned how to prepare the bread oven, make the dough, put it on the shovel and take it out again only just when ready to be eaten. So proud I was to flavour the roast with salt and garlic. It became the centre of the feast and helped us sing just like a chant in praise of God, "Oh, my Saint John the Baptist, what want you now for posies? Carnations red and pinks and yellow roses."

Amidst weaponry and coils of ropes, gunnery and anchor cables, there they all were on that quay waiting to be stowed, casks and pipes and barrels of water, of wine, of olive oil, of vinegar, bails of provisions and of bread and of flour and of meat and of vegetables and of items for the pharmacy. The ships were named São Gabriel, São Rafael and Bérrio and São Miguel. And we all went aboard, after we had prayed, on the night of the seventh to the eighth of July, in that small hermitage of Our Lady of Belém, in a long procession with an abundance of local people and with all the sailors, carrying candles, following the King and the captain Vasco da Gama who led at the front. And I could not turn my eyes away from that most powerful sovereign who was broad of shoulder and full in body, and wore a cap of green velvet with a white feather, and who smiled all the while to give us courage, accompanying us in a launch until we set out into the vast ocean. I then inspected all the stores wondering how I was to sustain all those seafarers who, after the first hours of doleful lamentation, Began to hurl orders and race about the deck with a fury which announced within a short space an appetite of amazingly devouring proportions. I threw myself upon my fate, and straight away invented what I could with the material at our disposal to satisfy the bellies of those famished Portuguese sailors.

Not being a man who likes to be cheated, it was with disappointment that I looked around, ready for all my labours, and it was my opinion that the Indies fleet deserved better provender. I could see but little except the many cooking braziers, amid the dried beans and pickled goods, with which to keep that crowd at bay. There I went remedying matters as chance would have it, for voracity never failed them, and with some fire wood which we took on board and the miraculous provisioning of water from Cape Verde, the strength which they gained reinvigorated their will to chew. They talked of nothing save of pies and stews, casseroles and sweet cakes, and they huddled round the fire when their duties did not summon them away and fantasised about ragouts, whether real or imagined I never knew, for this and the memory of women was all that mattered in their heads. And it was not rare for them to prowl around the victuals, with the idea of snatching them rapidly from out my hands, and cook them themselves, their eyes as brilliant as the coals on which they roasted the items. It was with sorrow that we came to understand that our captain, a man discreet and prudent in all things, was so frugal in his nature that nothing which was concocted for his palate, however dainty or tasty it might be, could raise even the faintest of praise. Only one afternoon, he called into his presence and most seriously declared: "You’ve sent in goat’s meat in great excess for me; pay heed to these mariners of mine, since I can look after myself."

In the calms of Guinea with the crew laid low, here was I asleep of a sudden on the quarter deck, in a place well protected from the sun. And a dream attacked me, such as no other had ever come, and which was more or less like this: listen now. I was lying down, very fat, beneath a table, my head reclining on a cushion of black damask, and above were half eaten fruits, boiled eggs, browned chickens, and close by there flailed about an almost dying goose, in a pewter dish, and running by at speed a suckling pig with its skin peeling, which waved a knife ready to cut and pierce the goose. Yet best of all was a small table, guarded by a soldier, where cheeses and more cheeses were on offer, some more, others less ripe, almost imploring us to eat them up. I meanwhile was almost waking, fearful that my comrades, who were snoring lustily beside me, would arise from their sleep and steal all this abundance from me. This was the vision in the torpor of the Guinea coast, and I craved for a smoked ham to be served, intended for none save I, just so that I could ride upon it, steering it as if I were some angel, and that it would carry me through the air far, far away from those latitudes.

The ancients were wrong to compare the Indies to a gigantic elephant, or so I thought on landing, for they rose up, upon my honour, like a huge cascade of rice. At its summit, according to the natives, the chief god Vishnu, much enamoured of Retna Doumila, and considering the mound as grains of gold poured on the tomb of his beloved, would declare: "In a plant such as this there is contained all the joy of the lovely Retna, and I will baptise her as vrihi." In the company of these friendliest of grains we savoured all that the land offered to us, seated on small daises under the palm fronds, listening to the yelps of the boisterous monkeys, who dwelt in the temples of Calcutta. We tasted it to perfection with onion and garlic and coconut milk and we thought ourselves fortunate. There was no one to chase after the sailors, or our noble commander, divided as they were between the bait held out by women and the gentle repose after stuffing themselves with food, bellies in the air, filled and overfilled, triumphant with their enterprise. And there were not a few who, standing round my fire, requested the recipe of that morsel, and there poor Barnaby would have to recite yet again, "Allow the milk to boil, add the coconut, put into a cooking pot, take it off the flame, allow it to cool, filter the liquid through a fine cloth, and fry the chopped onion with the garlic cloves left whole in butter, take out the garlic as soon as it is blackened, and add the curry, and then the rice, carefully washed, stir, add salt to taste and pour in the milk and coconut, really hot, and boiling water, and stir again, then cover and cook slowly."

Great night of stars, with everything running to order, with the princes of so many nations, here was I spying upon the incomparable Vasco da Gama, at a table of jacaranda wood, alone and calm, with a silver porringer before him. He reached out his hand with its two rings toward the white pile of rice, which in the weak, nocturnal light seemed to glitter, and carried it to his mouth with extreme solemnity. Tiny bodies of the purest white from that extraordinary dish, fell hanging like berries from his dark beard. And that scene infused us, mark well all of you, with the vast pride of being Lusitanians, eating in this way, at these extremes of the world, teaching humanity that he who does not chew also does not work, and that no race is worthy of fame – no one will convince me to the contrary – which knows not, just like our Admiral, how to use strong molars, such as his, well sharpened all the more.

But the greatest learning from all that navigation was what we encountered on our journey home, on a certain hidden island with its palm grove. To receive us, there appeared upon the soft beach girls who barely touched the sands, bearing huge leaves laden with pineapples and cooked fish and song birds. They possessed the names of certain others, whose meaning our captain alone could master, and they squeezed into our parched mouths the coolest juices and the headiest wines, while handing to us for our use fans with which to refresh ourselves. And with the strangest talk they celebrated these feasts, offering for us to taste at every moment the bluest clams and the reddest lobsters. Our strength renewed, we set off in their pursuit and rolled with them on the turf, our arms and legs entwined, and then yet new dishes were put on offer, forcing us to belch, beseeching them so as not to explode, as it were, thanks to the abundance of morsels with which they tempted us. And even the moon, perceived between the branches took on the guise of a juice-filled apple which surely we could bite if our desire were strong enough. The few who still survived from this enormous venture, since scurvy had cruelly destroyed so many, here found their love of life rewarded, and even the names of those lands where we had come ashore, Angediva, Mogadoxo, Melinde, Mombassa and Zanzibar found their bitterness changed into a deep sweetness. And as we approached the cliffs of Portugal and since we had been incapable of restraint in the greed with which we had consumed and eaten everything, it was our leather soles we soaked for food. And here was I Barnaby, a child of Ucanha, beside the River Varosa, Master Cook of the Captaincy of this Fleet, coming into Lisbon harbour this twenty ninth day of August of the year one thousand four hundred and ninety nine, dusting with some pepper and some cloves that substance so hard to grind in the mouth, with which the mariners of this land (which the Lord has granted me) invariably and to their great confusion are finally consigned.

© Mário Cláudio, Itineraries, Lisbon, Publicações Dom Quixote, 1983, pp 179-185.

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