Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [100]
“There’s only one culture: strangle the last priest with the entrails of the last Rosicrucian.”
Aglie signaled us to go in. If the outside was seedy, the inside was a blaze of violent colors. It was a quadrangular hall, with one area set aside for the dancing of the cavalos. The altar was at the far end, protected by a railing, against which stood the platform for the drums, the atabaques. The ritual space was still empty, but on our side of the railing a heterogeneous crowd was already stirring: believers and the merely curious, blacks and whites, all mixed, some barefoot, others wearing tennis shoes. I was immediately struck by the figures around the altar: pretos velhos, caboclos in multicolored feathers, saints who would have seemed to be marzipan were it not for their Pantagruelian dimensions, Saint George in a shining breastplate and scarlet cloak, saints Cosmas and Damian, a Virgin pierced by swords, and a shamelessly hyperrealist Christ, his arms outstretched like the redeemer of Corcovado, but in color. There were no orixas, but you could sense their presence in the faces of the crowd and in the sweetish odor of cane and cooked foods, in the stench of sweat caused by the heat and by the excitement of the imminent gira.
The pai-de-santo went forward and took a seat near the altar, where he received the faithful, scenting them with dense exhalations of his cigar, blessing them, and offering them a cup of liquor as if in a rapid Eucharistic rite. I knelt and drank with my companions, noticing, as I watched a cambone pour the liquid from a bottle, that it was Dubonnet. No matter. I savored it as if it were an elixir from the Fountain of Youth. On the platform the atabaques were already beating, to brisk blows, as the initiates chanted a propitiatory song to Exu and to Pompa Gira: Seu Tranca Ruas e Mojuba! E Mojuba, e Mojuba! Sete Encruzilhadas 6 Mojuba! E Mojuba, 6 Mojuba! Seu Maraboe e Mojuba! Seu Tiriri € Mojuba! Exu Veludo, i Mojuba! A Pompa Gira € Mojuba!
The pai-de-santo began to swing his thurible, releasing a heavy odor of Indian incense, and to chant special orations to OxaM and Nossa Senhora.
The atabaques beat faster, and the cavalos invaded the space before the altar, beginning to fall under the spell of the pontos. Most were women, and Amparo made sarcastic asides about the sensitivity of her sex.
Among the women were some Europeans. Aglie pointed out a blonde, a German psychologist who had been participating in the rites for years. She had tried everything, but if you are not chosen, it’s hopeless: for her, the trance never came, was beyond achieving. Her eyes seemed lost in the void as she danced, and the atabaques gave neither her nerves nor ours any relief. Pungent fumes filled the hall and dazed both worshipers and observers, somehow hitting everybody—me included—in the stomach. But the same thing had happened to me at the escolas de samba in Rio. I knew the psychological power of music and noise, the way they produced Saturday night fevers in discos. The German woman’s eyes were wide, and every movement of her hysterical limbs begged for oblivion. The other daughters of the saint went into ecstasy, flung their heads back, wriggled fluidly, navigating a sea of forgetfulness. The German tensed, distraught and almost in tears, like someone desperately struggling to reach orgasm, wriggling and straining, but finding no release. However much she tried to lose control, she constantly regained it. Poor Teuton, sick from too many well-tempered clavichords.
The elect, meanwhile, were making their leap into the vacuum, their gaze dulled, their limbs stiffened. Their movements became more and more automatic, but not haphazard, because they revealed the nature of the beings taking possession of them: some of the elect seemed soft, their hands moving sideways, palms down, in a swimming motion; others went bent over and moved slowly, and the cambones used white linen cloths to shield them from the crowd’s view, for these had been touched by an excellent spirit.
Some of the cavalos shook