Читать книгу The beast of a thousand years - Ilmar Penna Marinho Junior - Страница 11

Chapter 5

EVEN THOUGH HE KNEW THAT the world turns and fate brings people from different continents together, curator Ferdinand could never had thought that besides Leonardo, a stranger, and Aurélien, Father Antoine’s nephew, the contemporary history of the tapestry would also count with the participation of Júlia, Baudoin’s daughter, born in Visconde de Mauá, a city located at an altitude of four-thousand feet on the Mantiqueira Mountains, a region consisting of villages and valleys, waterfalls and hiking trails.

The word “Mantiqueira”, in Tupi-Guarani, means “where the waters spring”. A perfect definition for a region exuberant in its hydrological richness and beauty that enthralled Júlia’s father, a Belgian tourist with a fancy name: Baudoin Fontenoy Werhofen. He was a botanist and had decided to go on vacation to the country famous for being “the country of the future”. But, besides being in awe with its forests and birds, he found himself also in awe with Brazilian women; a tourist on vacation in the country of the future, in awe with Brazilian forests, birds, and women.

On the way up the mountain, the Belgian was already impressed by the Harpy Eagle that followed the car on the bumpy road to Mauá. Being superstitious, he believed it was a good omen for a weekend ride. But he liked the virgin nature so much, the crystal-clear, unpolluted rivers, that he decided to extend the days of his stay, turning them into months, years, and his whole life. A few months after meeting the sexy Maria Tereza, with whom he bathed in the Slide Waterfall, they got married in an ecological ceremony at the Bridal Veil Waterfall, before Belgian and Brazilian friends.

In love with Maria Tereza and with nature, it’s easy to understand what led this man of proud carriage and a slightly angular chin to sell his hardware shop in Belgium and his furniture to build an inn on the Mantiqueira Mountains and opt definitively for the pleasure of living a healthy and loving life in the woods. In time, he became familiar with the geography and the history of the area, and found himself to be a self-taught guide because of his wise decision to come to live in Mauá, where he started his small family.

“I stopped taking medication and didn’t go to the doctors anymore. This region is miraculous,” he used to say to the visitors, recalling the time when he used to resort to decongestants to breathe.

From the union of the hot Maria Tereza Gusmão with the adventurous Walloon traveler with a Francophile soul, better known in the area by the nickname “Baldo”, was born the lovely Júlia, who would become a fan of photography and adventure books. And, once he was well established with his inn, named “Blue Angel” as suggested by Maria Tereza in honor of her husband, it didn’t take long for Baudoin to realize that, with his knowledge of languages and the forest, he could register in a book the perception and emotions of a European botanist apprentice who loved the woods. Thus the work Know the Tourist Region of Visconde de Mauá and Its History was born.

“Coming to live here was the best decision of my life. The people and nature gave me the support to stay in Mauá. I never want to go back to Brussels,” the happy Belgian, passionate about Brazilian things, used to say to everyone.

Little Júlia grew up amidst nature and a lot of reading. When she turned fifteen, Baudoin gave his daughter a camera and a new pair of glasses with a thinner rim and lenses. He saw his daughter go into the woods among native pines, quaresmeiras, and robles, to click bromeliads and orchids. He liked to see her climbing trees to catch the sun hitting the river or the glow of the rays scattered through the translucent waters caused by the waterfalls. The photos were developed in postcard format, for sale in the arts and crafts shops and the restaurants of Mauá. He saw his daughter, more grown-up and experienced, cover local events with stories or journalistic texts for magazines that had tourism supplements, published weekly in Rio and São Paulo, and in the monthly magazine Nature.

From her beloved father, Júlia had gotten her blue eyes and the curiosity for mysteries. Despite her farsightedness, in her teenage years her aquamarine eyes already tried to find the whereabouts of a cougar or an armadillo in the woods. This instinctive curiosity was strengthened with the reading of the Tintin books in their original version. She knew by heart the names of all the characters, the countries visited, the criminals’ nicknames, and Captain Haddock’s weird curse words.

At first, her father translated the text in the illustrations shyly and with the few words he knew in Portuguese, but then he learned to find a way with bolder and bolder sentences until he could speak fluently. He would make up funny words that made his daughter laugh. The fact of the matter is that, in the hide-and-seek language game in search of hidden words, Júlia studied French as a second language, as her father learned Portuguese as a very useful, fun activity that evoked a lot of laughter.

For Júlia, born in the small world in which her father had reinvented himself, there wasn’t anything more affective than sharing with him the simple, direct language of the comic books. For Baldo, the comics allowed his daughter to assimilate an infinite range of information about known cultural, social, and political environments, without having to leave Mauá. He told her that “Brussels breathed the atmosphere of the books, present in every bookstore”, the same passion that Júlia had felt in Mauá, always showing enthusiasm for the travels and adventures of reporter Tintin (pronounced “Tantan”), that delighted her so much.

Júlia listened closely to her father Baudoin explaining the extraordinary power of influence of the comics that “opened their minds to the imagination” and went way beyond mere fun. She never forgot the lesson.

“You know, Dad, what I want most in life is to be a reporter. Will you let me go to Rio? I’m already eighteen.”

“Your life is here, darling. You have everything you need here. That city down there doesn’t need your sensibility. Urban violence despises your beautiful pictures of nature, full of flowers and love. You belong in Mauá, Júlia.”

“What if I run away some day?”

“I would be forever sad, baby. You’ll hurt me deeply, because you’ll convince me that all that I’ve taught you was a bunch of crap. It didn’t make you happy.”

“Happy, without me choosing my own life? Why can’t I be like Tintin, by a thousand lightning and thunder?” asked Júlia, using the same expression as Captain Haddock, the famous character from the books, who her father liked so much and who made Baldo laugh.

“Baby, Tintin never had a family. That’s why.”

“Hervé, Tintin’s creator, experienced this conflict when he lived in a city where he didn’t feel free anymore. Suddenly, all his dreams and drawings became white. He drew the Tibetan book without colors. He even had a consultation with a famous psychiatrist in Switzerland. You told me that, Dad. Do you remember? He only got rid of his white demon when he ran away from Brussels. I have to leave Mauá, or I’ll begin to dream all in white. Let me do it, Dad, please, let me…”

*

The more the clientele of the inn hidden in the mountains grew, more beautiful the flower gardens became, and the number of accommodations increased, and the kitchen was modernized. Júlia saw her mother, on weekends and extended holidays, tie her apron around her waist and the white scarf over her head and take the position of chef. She didn’t miss the timing of preparation of the dishes, each tastier than the other. Among the house specialties, the simplest was the dry, crunchy French-fries, a Belgian secret shared by her husband: the potatoes were cut and put for a few minutes in boiling water, then in cold water with ice; after being drained, they were deep-fried and dried up in paper towels.

Júlia also knew that the breakfast was unbeatable, with the refinement of Belgian royalty, flavorfully buttered by the happy morning smile of the inn’s owner. Those who stayed at the Blue Angel didn’t regret going, nor did they forget to come back.

Since she was a kid, Júlia was interested in the inn’s administrative and commercial tasks and in helping her father with the eco-tours. She avoided the kitchen like the plague. She had never peeled a potato, made coffee, or stir-fried rice. But what she lacked in the ability to deal with pots and pans, she had to spare in the competence to organize papers and deal with the mail. She also liked to talk with the guests at the front desk. She was very skilled in convincing hesitant guests on the internet and was the guarantee of a stay of total rest and many pleasures, that only her family hospitality business, and the good climate and the charms of the mountains, could offer.

Júlia had always been curious about the lives of mature couples, newlyweds, lovers, male and female homosexuals, increasingly out and frequent. In these meetings, she didn’t speak a lot, but she would hear many things about the stories of the big city. She only became talkative when the guests spoke French. It was her opportunity to practice the foreign language and reap the progress she had made with her father’s teaching, who, whenever he could and there were no guests around, communicated with her in his mother tongue. Her face radiated an inouïe happiness if the foreigners congratulated her for her ease in the idiom of Baudelaire, her favorite poet. The things the guests told her about the daily life in Rio grew into fantasy thoughts that lazily traveled through the yellow ceiling of the room. It was her way of daydreaming about the big city.

“Mom, the magazine that published Dad’s guide asked me to write about you. The editors want to know how he ended up here and how you two met. They think that the differences in origin and culture would make a very interesting piece.”

“Not now, darling. I’m very busy.”

“Please. Love encounters set up by fate make good texts. Come on, help me. Could you at least tell me how did my father end up in Mauá?” insisted Júlia, frowning her forehead.

“You know, baby, I think that differences are attracted to one another in love. That’s what happened with us,” explained her mother, holding the wooden spoon. “I still don’t know exactly how everything happened. I just know that a hurricane passed through my life.”

“It’s understandable. You were young, in a place like Mauá, and a foreigner comes and says in your ear that love overcomes the differences. It was impossible not to fall in love. Tell me a little bit about him, Mom,” insisted Júlia, curious to know more about the stranger.

“The first time I saw him standing at the square with his backpack, I went crazy. He was a gorgeous man smiling at me with his blue eyes, who didn’t want to go back to his country because of me. Look, I still get goose bumps,” said her mother with a sweet smile.

Maria Tereza was silent, with an ethereal look while she handled the pots. An enigmatic smile gave way to a triumphant one.

“I’ll tell you this, baby: he was going to stay for a weekend, and he stayed a month. He had to go back to Belgium, but he didn’t even stay for two months there. He left his wife, left everything behind, and came back to be with me. He came to live here for good, and a year later my little nuisance was born.”

“Did you know he was coming back? You were sure of it, weren’t you?”

“Baby, I prayed every night to Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus. When he left, he told me in his best “Brazilian”: ‘I’ll come back, I’ll protect our love, because I’ve learned at the waterfell that the souls are only soulmates if they have the same heart.’ You know, baby, I love my Belgian king like I’ve loved him from the first day.”

“King? Where did that come from?” exclaimed Júlia.

Mother and daughter laughed and hugged, moved.

“I just hope you find someone who makes you a queen.”

“Here in this Godforsaken place? Not even by a miracle”

“It’s not the place that matters. It’s the line of fate that is written on our hands and the stars. You’ll eventually find him, wherever he is, my love. Have faith in this.”

“Then help me, Mom, so I don’t have to run away from here.”

“Don’t even think about that. You’re still my little girl.”

“Little girl? Mom, I’m already twenty-years-old. It’s time to live in Rio,” she argued, wiggling the stem of her eyeglasses with the tip of her fingers. “I can’t stand being in Mauá any longer.”

“Aren’t you happy here with us?”

“Of course I am, very much so. But I don’t have a future here, Mom. I want to go to college. Work in a newspaper. Have my life as a woman. Talk to him, Mom. I can’t listen to other people’s stories anymore. I want to write my own story.”

“I’ll try, my love. Things are not that simple. No one can open your father’s thick skull. I’ll plot something, baby. I’ll grab the Belgian by the stomach on his birthday. You’ll see.”

Maria Tereza was not laughing anymore. Her daughter could go away any minute now, without permission. She knew that her daughter’s absence from the inn would open a painful wound in her father’s heart. But she couldn’t disappoint Júlia. Time had come not to frustrate her dream of being a journalist in Rio de Janeiro and find love. Saddened and resigned, she asked herself: How could Júlia follow her destiny if she didn’t help her a bit, huh?

*

“Wonderful! Wonderful!” repeated the king’s friends.

Maria Tereza had prepared a dinner worthy of the Ordre des Agathopédes, a famous Belgian gastronomic coterie. In the art and the pleasure of good cuisine, she had outdone herself with the quiche royale, accompanied by a green salad and fruit rouges, as a first course; the roasted boar with marron glacé and potatoes au gratin, and the dessert, never served before. They even had the tasty bleu de Bresse cheese1, which her husband loved and that now was also being produced in Minas Gerais, where mornings and nights were usually cold, and the pastures were rich in nutrients, like in the Rhône-Alpes region, where Bresse is located.

When the lights in the room were out and he went to blow the candles on the cake, the birthday boy began to cry copiously. And it was no wonder. The cake had the colors of the Walloon flag, red and yellow around the lit volcano, with incandescent, molten bleu lava. Baldo didn’t feel guilty for accepting several pieces of the cake. Chef Maria let him and his Belgian friends who lived in Rio have seconds and thirds of the delicious dessert. The next morning, solemnly, like King Leopold III, who had to renounce his throne in 1951 in favor of his son Baudoin, father Baldo, although grumpy and upset, finally allowed his daughter to travel in search of her destiny.

The vigorous mountain dweller did not resist the celebrations and, for the first time in many, many years, fell ill. Perhaps it was too much emotion for a quiet Belgian, or just for a father who was heartbroken by the terrifying event of his beloved daughter leaving the Blue Angel Inn for the very first time.

“Go, baby girl, take Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus’s medal. I asked your father to bring me one if he decided to come to live here. Keep it, my love, to light your path,” said Maria Tereza, very moved, crying while she said goodbye and put her daughter on a bus and the medal around her neck.

Her father was so emotional he could barely speak.

“Remember the first words in French that I taught you? From the first scene in the book Tintin in the Land of the Soviets?”

“Of course I remember, Dad. It was bon voyage. You made me repeat the word voyage a thousand times, until I got the pronunciation right.”

“Then I wish you bon voyage, my love, and stay away from violence,” her father whispered, looking crestfallen, as if he had not had much sleep and had had a piece of his heart ripped off at a single stroke.

It wasn’t easy for Júlia to leave Mauá. To leave behind her childhood of rag dolls, animals and woods, her teenage years of many books, memories of laughing, happy, bouncy times in the flowery gardens of the inn. To stop having her father’s company, who had encouraged her to see the world. Maybe if she hadn’t read so many stories and had so many conversations with so many guests she wouldn’t have this urge to venture out in a big city and be a reporter like the fearless Tintin.

“What did you tell him, Mom, to let me go?”

Her mother told her about the terrible argument. He didn’t want to let her leave Mauá at all. He got to the point of screaming. He only lowered his voice when she challenged him to answer something like this:

“Don’t you understand, you stubborn man, that Mauá has become too small for her? Do you want your daughter to be miserable for the rest of her life? Do you want your daughter to get old without finding the destiny of happiness as a woman as she deserves? You’ll never forgive yourself for this cruelty. When I met you, right after you came from Belgium to be happy here, you weren’t that selfish.”

1. A sort of blue cheese produced in the region of Bresse, France (N.R.)