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By Root 795 0

resemblances; the only way to penetrate them—and to be penetrated by them—was through dreams, oracles, magic, which allow us to act on nature and her forces, moving like with like. Knowledge is elusive and volatile; it escapes measurement. That’s why the conquering god of that era was Hermes, inventor of all trickery, god of crossroads and thieves. He was also the creator of writing, which is the art of evasion and dissimulation and a navigation that carries us to the end of all boundaries, where everything dissolves into the horizon, where cranes lift stones from the ground and weapons transform life into death, and water pumps make heavy matter float, and philosophy deludes and deceives...And do you know where Hermes is today? Right here. You passed him when you came through the door. They call him Exu, messenger of the gods, go-between, trader, who is ignorant of the difference between good and evil.”

He looked at us with amused distrust. “You believe that I am as hasty in distributing gods as Hermes is in distributing merchandise. But look at this book, which I bought this morning in a little shop in Pelourinho. Magic and mystery of Saint Cyprian, recipes for spells to win love or cause your enemy’s death, invocations to the angels and to the Virgin. Popular literature for these mystics whose skin is black. But this is Saint Cyprian of Antioch, about whom there is an immense literature dating from the silver age. His parents wanted him to learn all there was to know about the earth—land, sea, and air—so they sent him to the most distant realms, that he might acquire all mysteries, including the generation and corruption of herbs and the virtues of plants and of animals: the secrets not of natural history but of occult science, those buried in the depths of distant and archaic traditions. At Delphi, Cyprian dedicated himself to Apollo and to the dramaturgy of the serpent; he studied the mysteries of Mithra; on Mount Olympus at fifteen, guided by fifteen hi-erophants, he attended the rites that summon the Prince of This World, in order to master his intrigues; in Argos he was initiated into the mysteries of Hera; in Phrygia he learned hepatoscopic fortunetelling. At last there was nothing left of land, sea, or air that he did not know, no ghost, no object, no artifice of any kind, not even the art of altering writing through sorcery. In the underground temples of Memphis he had learned how demons communicate with earthly things and places, what they loathe and love, how they dwell in darkness and how they mount resistance in certain domains, how they are able to possess souls and bodies, the feats of higher knowledge they can perform, of memory, terror, and illusion, and the art of causing turmoil in the earth, influencing underground currents...Then, alas, he was converted, but something of his knowledge remained and was passed on, and we find it here, in the mouths and minds of these ragged people you call idolaters. My lovely friend, a little while ago you looked at me as if I were a ci-devant. Who among us is living in the past? You, who would bestow the horrors of the toiling industrial age upon this country, or I, who wish that our poor Europe might recover the naturalness and faith of these children of slaves?”

“Jesus,” Amparo said in a nasty hiss. “You know as well as I do that it’s just another way of keeping them quiet...”

“Not quite. Capable of expectation. Without a sense of expectation, there can be no paradise; isn’t that what you Europeans have taught us?”

“I’m a European?”

“The important thing is not skin color but faith in Tradition. Granted, these children of slaves pay a price in returning a sense of expectation to a West paralyzed by well-being; perhaps they even suffer, but still they know the language of the spirits of nature, of the air, the waters, and the winds...”

“You people are exploiting us again.”

“Again?”

“Yes. You should have learned your lesson in ‘89, Count. We get fed up, and then...” Smiling like an angel, she drew her beautiful hand straight across her throat. For me, even Amparo