Il Cenacolo BRAZIL -- Sãn Paolo — A Roman Catholic priest who floated off under hundreds of helium party balloons was missing off the southern coast of Brazil. The Rev. Adelir Antonio de Carli lifted off from the port city of Paranagua on Sunday afternoon, wearing a helmet, thermal suit and a parachute. He wanted to break a 19hour record for the most hours flying with balloons to raise money for a spiritual rest stop for truckers in Paranagua. Her soft eyes straining, she peered first toward the roiling clouds on the horizon, low to the south and west, then at her companion, Giraffe Alpha, saying, “It looks like a hominid floating in eggs, but that seems too strange.” “My God, you keep resisting getting glasses! I’m tired of telling you!” “I’m wearing my contacts now—how can you!” “Hominid floating in eggs, my dear?” “You look!” And there it was. He paused. “Maybe we could pair it up with that woodpecker from Louisiana we’ve tethered in the map room all these years, and solo, who knows?” “Who knows what? That woodpecker wouldn’t sit on hominid eggs; it’s so nervous now, it jumps around every time someone goes near it even though it’s been there 50 years at least. So tiresome.” “Better call the bridge. The eggs couldn’t be hominid; they make other arrangements. Say something like ‘unidentifiable biomass approaching from southwest in unsettled skies. Should we collect?’
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“You say it. You call.” Giraffe Beta stared ahead, pointedly. “If that’s what you think we should do, you …” “All right. All right!” And, “Bridge! Magnify and identify items west southwest near horizon running before storm clouds,” he unnecessarily shouted into his cell phone. “Looks like mammalian primate, maybe clothed hominid, flailing within cluster of eggshaped spheres. Approaching rapidly as we speak.” Father De Carli farted. It was the first coherent thing he’d felt. Otherwise it was the wrapping, ‘pheromones of love’ came to him as if from sleep, and he felt the language too, ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely …’ and in the great distance, beyond the Malvinas, glimmering on the Ross Ice Shelf he had ‘seen’ them, not ‘seen’ exactly, like pheromones to the ticks and lice he sometimes felt when he was a kid, ‘mamma ‘s puppy’ she had called him, splashing in the open sewer behind the corrugated wall of their cabin in the weeds tangled ooooooooohhhhhhh! And he screamed, wrapped in his space suit, goggles tight to his eyes like coins pressed into … another fart, eeeeeeeeehhhhhhh!!! ‘Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade …‘ Old Mrs Noah was still drunk in bed, drooling sideways, snot on the pillow, or what was that old rag? — she’d been drunk on mead out of memory — you’d think her jaundice-face husband’s amber corpse propped in the stairwell to the bridge would chill her out — she could see him glassy staring at her through the doorway but no matter — Kapybara Alpha had too much to do to look again, the green and gold parachute of the crazy hominid struggling to open, and maybe it would but it was caught in its strings, well — Kapybara fumbled the dial to focus the wavy image, somehow stuck in the green-blue color range 2
and blurry, ah! there it is! eggs, no, fat plastic balls, jillions of them tethered to the crazy flailing — and I’d volunteered this shift, what fucking luck! — ‘It’s gonna fall on that yacht! No! the Sydney Opera House, can you believe it, there’s the Harbour Bridge!’ the choppy water only mildly disturbed, the shipping traffic frozen in place and the balloons separating now, away from the toppling creature tumbling downward shivering clothing fluttering you could almost hear the snap of the glossy fabric, well, the balloons would survive, floating freely — But it was not to be. To the east the haze of the Blue Mountains, the heat shimmering outback and, now high, fast and high, the pearl-ocean shimmer of the sea, the huge eyes of Malagasy’s lemurs stared as the tumbling Adelir Antonio glowed a stellar-brightness, a pulsing trapery of parachute, green, gold, enmeshed in jolly orbs stringed in gesturing masses. A haze of Africa loomed, low but rugged, growing, cities nested in beach-side valleys, green and brown, human yielding to promethean grandeur, roiled crocodile ridges over serpentine landscapes of the glow of sunset. The guests sprawled mostly, chin cupped in nesting hand or hands, and some disposed themselves with togas so loose at neck or falling open they seemed barely dressed. A few were bleary with wine, but most seemed startled to full awareness, and all peered at the centered figure, a somber sloe-eyed Byzantine Christos Pantocrator, though younger, beautiful in the serious way of a saint in majesty. Andrew’s arm was raised in horror, ‘No! We are your friends! None of us would ever turn against …’ but then the pause; it was there. A few still stirred their lobster bisque, but already the pasta with shrimp, scallops, 3
mussels and a thick marinara sauce had been served, and some were caught, eyes wide, twirled tines or spoons to their mouths. Thomas said, “Wow!” Peter said, “Shit!” Table Mountain, while sufficiently capacious for the thirteen guests, required the grill cooks to be stationed almost dimly to the rear, though a helper, nearly nude, stacking the thick lamb chops at one side of the red-bright grill was certainly prominent. The sommelier, too, stood out, dividing Peter and John, pitchers of different sizes in either hand, gaze alert to his task. But no one seemed to need more wine. At this moment Adelir Antonio de Carli arrived. As the cords that bound him settled and balloon cortege subsided, most of Capetown disappeared under their wide swath. It was a moment before servants standing with towels and basins, clustered near the plateau’s higher end, seemed to notice them, and only Simon, at the table, turned to glance. The priest removed his helmet and then stood to remove his thermal suit, which he did quickly. Only thin jogging clothes remained. He produced a comb and attempted to tidy himself, but at this point a servant arrived from the table and asked him, “Would you like to join us? We are curious about you.” Father de Carli smiled selfdeprecatingly, gesturing with his hands to indicate his ‘informal’ appearance, and the servant smiled in return, reassuringly. They went on to table. James the Lesser waved to a place he had made by scooting, with a servant’s aid, his chaise lounge to one side; another was found for the priest. Thaddeus, nearby, remarked, “You must be hungry,” and at once a wide ceramic bowl of lobster bisque was placed before him. The sommelier, too, arrived and said, “With that, let me suggest a chenin blanc — or perhaps a semillon — Stellenbosch in both cases would be preferred, and I do 4
have them.” To which Father de Carli answered, “This is a new experience for me. Please make the choice,” and began ladling the soup to his mouth. Christos Pantocrator yawned, then interrupted Philip, who was rounding the bend on some shaggy dog tale one sensed he had been improvising. Asking Father de Carli, “What’s in those bladders?” he went on without waiting for an answer, “They smell.” “I’ve not smelled them,” said the priest, “and it’s helium that’s in them.” And at that moment the atmosphere was suffused with fragrance, at first sweetly subtle, but soon cloying. “Dear God!” and “Sweet Jesus!” came from various quarters, bringing a smile to the Pantocrator’s face. “It does smell awful.” The balloons began a synchronized tremor, then rumble, some of them rising, then all, struggling at first, but soon collectively. The parties at the table, servants as well as guests, found themselves tethered. Adelir Antonio de Carli was no longer alone. “Damn!” shouted Peter, but it was too late for anyone to object; they all rose. Balloons linked to other hapless souls, passers-by and many more distant, began a general drift. Soon all were at sea. It was already nighttime, and now an array of stars, the Milky Way at its brightest, the Southern Cross dancing, myriad balloons and their tethered guests but dots interrupting the light. Soundless they drifted, the configurations of stars changing, the galaxy dimming, but others brightening until no image was familiar, and even space itself became more an intense feeling than a visual presence. Then light concentrated and overwhelmed. Only the balloons, clustered now, seemed a darkness, while the brightness was a roar, and then again a quietness, a centripetal shuddering as movement seemed to stop.
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“I knew you were joking,” Father de Carli said, apropos to little except the chill of a passing cloud. Since he’d been chatting with James, known as ‘the Lesser’ (one wonders what he called himself) James chose to reply, “Oh?” “Of course, Jews don’t eat shellfish, at least back then, and there,” Adelir Antonio de Carli ventured. “How clever of you,” and James turned his head, staring distantly, eyes slightly downcast, draped in his abundant homespun and now the traipsing fog, more an ocean banner of enveloping mists of varying densities, the weak blue of the South Atlantic sky surrounding while small whitecaps and hesitant spindrift displayed far below the ballooning company. “Why,” again ventured the priest. He rarely pressed others with queries that might suggest some awkwardness for anyone, but in fact he was curious and time stretched abundantly; they’d all been swinging for what seemed days, and nights. “Oh, nothing really, just a dinner club promotion for the World Cup. We’re reenactors promoting for Capetown’s hoped-for international clientele,” James mocked as his voice slithered to a deeper register, his jaw jutting slightly and face sliding to a moue. Both Thomas and Theddeus, nearby, their balloons swaying gracefully, guffawed. De Carli realized an audience had formed, though how anyone could hear at such distances silently startled: they were all adrift. Yes, adrift, he thought, ever more widely. A rocky outcrop poked through haze.
Everybody stared.
Mists wandered, dazzled, broke, then opened to reveal the steeply sloping cliffs of an island, the sea blue and rough against a rocky coast sometimes sheltering small black-stoned beaches, eroded, churned and polished lava the fruit of an endless roiling, water, storm and surf over centuries. Arid by the shore, green topped the pointed crests of ridges which 6
fell away, a few narrow valleys arrowed from the seashore to the central highland, much obscured within cumulus clouds, white brightly where the sun struck them. island was apparent, the view of what the ballooning party could see
That it was an ocean clear at the margins of
more was there also shown out
and sense, but that
clearly, a column of icy broken cubes, tiny in themselves, just facets of light really, but stirring as if a glassy atmosphere, a crystal majesty, a lean carafe rising into the sky above the island toward a slivered moon, the day bright, only the island a shape of mist and cloud, none elsewhere. And from this tower sparkling a voice, thin and high, then Voices — Sancta Elena, ora pro nobis, Santa Elena, ora … the glassy column a huge drapery undulating, pulsing, wave after wave up, back, down, a glittering gown headless save the moon, and it distant from the last of the glitter, a point less motioned than the quivering crystal cape as it hovered above the island center Sancta Elena, pro nobis.
ora
then a deeper, harsher wavering, a repetitious “I am … Fernão Lopez, my chickens are blessed by God, the Pope says so, the King says so, my chickens, my pigs are blessed by God. So too the goats, the ducks, so too … my crime was apostasy, I betrayed d'Albuquerque, betrayed Goa, I strayed. This island is my fate. The ships come, some pass but others stay awhile,, eat from my garden, my trees, my chickens, all are sacred, the Pope says 7
so, the King says so, I shall die on this island.” Father de Carli, to Thomas, now his nearest companion hovering, the balloon brightly colored in stripes, bobbing as it quickly came by, the apostle struggling with the lines, wide-eyed “He is Portuguese, I think, that’s his language, an old farmer, not like us, not …” glass,
and to the crystalline voice, rough from the shimmer of
the breathe of breezes, an echo preceding each word dancing the chilling air balloon and tower “Who are you?” Janus-faced, a question “… my chickens are blessed, my pigs are blessed …” Sancta Elena, isola sacra rumbling and then the glass wall turned to shades of blue, many crystals, many faces, each a mask of radiant tears. The wind turned cold. "France, armée, tête d'armée, Joséphine,” called a feeble, hesitant voice the faces turned in play, pastels to glittering primaries, undulating diamonds to left to right a 8
fountain of facets fractured frozen flaming “Vive l'Empereur!” the breath ceased to play and went its way.
Christos Pantokrator arrived with outstretched arms, the bonding ropes ensnaring his shape only upright loosely, his mouth a megaphone “The 1817 census recorded 821 white inhabitants, a garrison of 820 men, 618 Chinese indentured labourers, 500 free blacks and 1,540 slaves.” 9
James the Lesser, at the chant.
his side, took up “In 1840, Louis-Philippe, King of the French obtained permission from the British to return Napo leon's remains to France,
transported
aboard the frigate Belle-Poule, which had been painted black for the occasion, and on 29 November she arrived in Cherbourg. The remains were transferred to the steamship Normandie, which took them to Le Havre, up the Seine to Rouen and on to Paris. On 15 December, a state funeral was held. The hearse proceeded from the Arc de Triomphe down the Champs-Élysées, across the Place de la Concorde to the Esplanade des Invalides and to the cupola in St Jérôme's Chapel, where it stayed until the tomb was completed. In 1861, Napoleon was entombed in a porphyry sarcophagus in the crypt under the dome at Les Invalides.” The balloons bounced the apostolic party
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entered the
graceful, by now quieter the porphyry led over
sarcophagus
the balloons a flotilla impending in Rio de Janeiro
column
the ocean as if tethered
as if a returning fogbank near Copacabana beach Christo redemptor
at Sugarloaf Mountain impending “Sãn Paolo,” whispered Antonio de Carli,
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“is not so far away.”