Brasyl

“As you can see, we are not in Paris,” said Qui

“Even for a Jesuit, that is subtle,” cried Falcon, catching Qui

“Teillagory never taught that,” Qui

Luis Qui

Whistles and jeers swelled into a thunder of disapproval. Fruit began to fall and burst fragrantly on the sun-heated cobbles. In the edge of his eye Luis Qui

Falcon gave a courtly bow. “So, Father, I look forward to our voyage together. We have much to explore.”

The pelt of derision falling around the duelist grew thin and failed as the spectators drifted away, the order of the enslaved day restored. The tropical fruits, crusting in the sun, began to smell nauseatingly and drew flies. One by one the ladies of the Pelourinho closed up their gelosias.

Dona Maria da Maia da Garna looked again from the lemon to the orange.

“So tell me again how a piece of clock can tell us whether the world is pointed or flattened? Once more and I am sure I shall have it.”

Dr. Falcon sighed and again set the little lead bob swinging in its gimbals.

The dona persisted out of politeness to her educated guest; the other women had long since abandoned the demonstration and turned to their own small talk, which, though they saw each other daily, never seemed to stale. Five months Falcon had itched in social isolation in his rotting, rack-rented casa by the ocean docks, daily applying to bureaucrats and magistrates for a permission here, a docket there, only to be sent away with a demand for supporting applications, informations, and affidavits. Now the advent of a Jesuit had swept away all obstacles; the permits and letters of comfort arrived by special messenger that day, and the doors on polite society, barred so firmly, swung open. He suspected that as a geographer, a scientist, he was far less extraordinary a beast than as a Frenchman with a facility for the art of defense.

Dona Maria had indeed hoped for an after-di

“The attractive force — the gravitational force — that acts upon the pe

João the foot servant stood solid as death by the dining-room door, wearing the same stern face that he had when Dr. Falcon had darted swift as a lizard around all the casa grande’s clocks, lifting his uncouth green glasses to leer into their faces. His eyebrows had lifted a wrinkle as Dr. Falcon opened the case of the German long-case, the master’s prize and time-keeper for all the escapements of the house, and deftly unhooked the pendulum mechanism.

“In this way, we have a sensitive means of determining the exact shape of our globe, whether prolate like this lemon — greater across its polar axis than its equatorial — or oblate, like this orange, bulging at its girth.” A titter from down the table, Dona de Teffé, much gone on wine.

Dr. Falcon acknowledged the dona with a nod. His lips had barely touched his glass; wine did poorly in this morbid heat, and it was wretched Portuguese stuff. But it was pleasant, uncommon pleasant, to dine in the company of women. Unheard-of at home; not even in Caye

“Yes yes. Forgive me, Doctor — I must be very stupid — this is all fine and mathematical and scientific, I have no doubt, but what it does not explain to me is what holds it up.”

“Holds what up?” Falcon peered over his rounds of green glass, perplexed. “The lemon. Or the orange. Now I can easily see how it is we whirl around the sun, how this gravitational force of yours tethers us to it; it is no different from the bolas our vaqueiros use on our fazenda. But what I ca

Falcon set down the fruit. A breath of small exasperation left his lips. “Madam, nothing holds it up. Nothing needs to hold it up. Gravity draws us to the center of the Earth, as it draws our Earth to the center of the sun, but at the same time, the sun is drawn-infinitesimally, yes, but drawn nonetheless-to the center of our Earth. Everything attracts everything else; everything is in motion, all together.”

“I must confess I find the old way much simpler and more satisfying.” The dona skillfully quartered and peeled the orange with a sharp little curved knife. “The mind naturally rebels against a round Earth with everything drawn to the dark, infernal center. It is not only against nature, it is un-Christian; surely if we are attracted to anything, it should be upwards, to heaven, our hope and home?”

Falcon bit back the riposte. This was not the Paris Academy, nor even the Lunar Society meeting in some bourgeois salon. He contented himself to watch the sensuous deftness with which she slipped a lith of naked orange between her reddened lips. And you presume to call heaven your hope and home? Dona da Maia da Garna turned with relief from lemons and hell to the conversation at the far end of the table. Her chaperone, a tall preta woman with an eye patch, once handsome, now run to fat, leaned forward from her posiition behind the dona’s seat to study the pendulum. Falcon saw her press her thumb against her wrist to measure it against her pulse. Even in undeclared house arrest, Falcon had been close enough to Belém society to understand the meaning of the eye patch. Jealous wives often revenged themselves on their husbands’ slave lovers by blinding them with scissors.