The Diving Dames Affair - Leslie Peter - Страница 21

"How like a man! Why should I tell you? Who are you, anyway?"

"I work for the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. The man who is missing is a colleague of mine from the same Section."

"So you're from U.N.C.L.E.! Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I didn't…" Illya sighed in exasperation. "Because nobody told me you would have a representative down here. I imagine they didn't know."

"No, they wouldn't," Coralie Simone said. "We didn't tell you."

"Why on Earth not?"

"Mrs. Stretford - the Commandant - said that since your Mr. Waverly couldn't be bothered to be cooperative, she didn't see why she should."

"So you wasted all that time checking on me, and I - Never mind! Since we are both trying to find out what's going on here, suppose we join forces for the time being, okay?" Illya smiled his rare and charming smile.

The girl hesitated. Then the smooth skin around her eyes crinkled delightfully, the wide mouth stretched in the lean face. There was a flash of teeth. "Agreed," she cried with a laugh. "It's a deal - for the time being!"

"Splendid. What now, then? I'm trying to find out what goes on in the grounds of that estancia back there."

"So am I. All the trucks seem to go there and not along the made-up road leading to the power station. I want to have a closer look. Do you think... if we kept on this side of the fence and circled the place from above..."

Kuryakin was shaking his head. "Not a chance," he said. Even if we could make it past the guards and the dogs, there's not a shadow of cover. Look!" His gesture encompassed the sweep of bare hillside above the trees masking the estancia, the slant of rocky slope beyond it, and the barren wall of cliff rising behind that. "Do you have a change of clothing in the car?"

"Yes," Coralie said. "Why?'

"Because I'm going to make a frontal foray. As long as you are not dressed like one of their spurious D.A.M.E.S, you can be my assistant when I ask for information about the Candomble."

'Candomble. I keep hearing that word. I've spoken to a lot of the local Negroes, and some Indians too. All of them seem afraid to talk about the dam - even if they've been forced to leave their homes by the scheme - because of the Candomble. What is it, a secret society?"

"Not exactly. More like a religion. There are a number of different cults here in Brazil - all of them a mixture of African and Indian worship with Christianity and Spiritualism. The two most affecting simple Negro and Indian people are Candomble and Umbanda. In both cases, their gods are a mixture of Christian and pagan ones; both believe that you can communicate with those gods or their representatives by means of mediums. But the initiates of Candomble - so it is believed - can be visited by, or get in touch with, their gods personally, whereas the umbandistas' mediums have to have the gods' wishes interpreted through a guide, rather in the manner of a western seance."

"How fascinating," the girl said. "But why the difference?"

"I don't know too much about it," Kuryakin replied. "But the main reasons go back to the days of slavery. The most intelligent African slaves brought over to Brazil were the Yoruba. They had the most complex religions and gods - and the mixture of these with Catholicism produced Candomble... the cult with the strongest African influence, radiating outwards from Bahia. The less developed Bantu from Angola, centered more on Rio, were that much more swayed by the great Spiritualist movement which swept Brazil in the last century, and their cult is the one called Umbanda today."

"But why should a religious cult bar local people from -"

"We'll ask," Illya said, interrupting, "when we get there."

---

But the tall, white haired Negro with the Harvard accent and the lined face who met them in the Candomble tenda - a wooden building like a mission hut which stood among trees to one side of the estancia - was uncooperative. They had not been challenged at the gate and they had followed the drive, which skirted the building and then sloped downhill towards a thicket, until a signpost had directed them towards the hut. A Negro woman in a white robe had left them in a waiting room while she'd gone to call Pai Hernando.

"If - as you claim - you are an anthropology graduate from the University of Southern California," the priest said in his well-modulated voice, "I cannot understand why you and your assistant should have chosen to come all the way here to this very modest, uninspiring tenda when there are so many others more interesting else where." He sat at a simple desk. Through the uncurtained window behind him, they could see groups of men in the now familiar khaki and black uniforms moving in among the trees.

"But that's just it," Illya said. "All the way here. Since Candomble is centered on Bahia state and the areas to the north and east of it, we find it intensely interesting, demographically, to find a tenda as far west as this. We had no idea the Yoruba had ever been transported this far."

"They probably migrated after abolition. And in any case the boundary between former slave peoples and the Indian aboriginals is hopelessly blurred now," Hernando said. He flicked a speck of dust from his pale gray suit and drummed his fingers on the top of the desk.

"As the priest in charge of this place," Coralie asked suddenly, "can you explain why the spirits should frown on the local people talking about this dam? We wondered how the forced moves had affected them, sociologically, but we couldn't get a soul to talk about it at all. They say the gods forbid."

"I am only Pai Hernando, the horse on which the spirits ride," the Negro said. "It is not for me to question the wisdom of the Orixas, the great ones. Indeed, I had no idea such messages had been transmitted through me. And now," he added pointedly, "if you could tell me how I can help you…"

"We should very much like to see some ceremonies - perhaps an orunko - to compare with those performed in the Candombles further east."

"I am afraid that is quite impossible. This is a simple country place. No such rituals take place here."

"But I thought…"

"Definitely not, sir. Apart from which, the local folk are - as you have seen - superstitious and suspicious. They would resent any outside participation, any hint of an audience, at their devotions."

Illya rose from his chair and paced up and down. "But surely," he cried agitatedly, running his hand through his pale hair, "there must be something in a cult which can impose so strong a taboo on the discussion -"

"I regret extremely," Pai Hernando said, rising to his feet also, "that I cannot help you at all. It is a pity that you should have traveled so far and so fruitlessly. Had you inquired first…"

"Are those soldiers out there?" Coralie asked innocently as he showed them to the door.

"Certainly not," the Negro said. "They are members of the construction company's security guard. There is valuable property in here."

"Your tenda is financed by the company, then?"

"By no means. They have been very generous, allowing us to operate on their land, granting us certain facilities."

"That aspect of paternalism in a foreign concern is interesting," Illya said. "Perhaps we could ask you a new -"