Rafturile mele

Două lucruri m-au atras către catrea asta. Autorul, Gerald Durrell, a cărui trilogie despre Corfu am îndrăgit-o atât de mult. Și titlul haios, care îmi sugera c-o să am parte de aceeași proză simpatică ca cea din mai sus pomenita trilogie. Ei, n-a fost chiar așa.

Cartea e povestea ultimei călătorii pe care a făcut-o Gerald Durrell în Madagascar, în căutare de specii pe cale de dispariție ce trebuiau salvate. Expediția a avut loc doar cu cinci ani înainte de moartea autorului, iar copilul năzdrăvan din Corfu a fost înlocuit cu omul de știință serios, nițel bolnav, nițel obosit de viață poate. Dar cu același dar al povestirii.

Cartea ne dezvăluie aventurile unei echipe anglo-franco-malgașă pornită în căutarea unor specii de animale rare pe care urmau să le prindă și să le strămute pe insula Jersey în Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust. Acolo animalele aveau să intre într-un program de înmulțire supravegheată și, în cazul în care condițiile viitoare din Madagascar o vor permite, strănepoții animalelor prinse vor fi fie reintroduse în mediul lor natural. Cu alte cuvinte, o altfel de încercare de salvare a unor specii de la dispariție.

Printre animalele selectate pentru program s-a strecurat și ciudatul aye-aye.

In the gloom it came along the branches towards me, its round, hypnotic eyes blazing, its spoon-like ears turning to and fro independently like radar dishes, its white whiskers twitching and moving like sensors; its black hands, with their thin, attenuated fingers, the third seeming prodigiously elongated, tapping delicately on the branches as it moved along, like those of a pianist playing a complicated piece by Chopin. It looked like a Walt Disney witch’s black cat with a touch of ET thrown in for good measure. If ever a flying saucer came from Mars, you felt that this is what would emerge from it. It was Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky come to life, whiffling through its tulgey wood.

It lowered itself onto my shoulder, gazed into my face with its huge, hypnotic eyes and ran slender fingers through my beard and hair as gently as any barber. In its underslung jaw, I could see giant chisel-like teeth, teeth which grow constantly, and I sat quite still. It uttered a small, snorting noise like ‘humph’ and descended to my lap. Here, it inspected my walking stick. Its black fingers played along its length as if the stick were a flute. Then it leant forward and, with alarming accuracy, almost bisected my stick with two bites from its enormous teeth. To its obvious chagrin, it found no beetle larvae there and so it returned to my shoulder. Again, it combed my beard and hair, gentle as a baby breeze.

Then, to my alarm, it discovered my ear. ‘Here,’ it seemed to say to itself, ‘must lurk a beetle larva of royal proportions and of the utmost succulence.’ It fondled my ear as a gourmet fondles a menu and then, with great care, it inserted its thin finger. I resigned myself to deafness – move over, Beethoven, I said to myself, here I come. To my astonishment, I could hardly feel the finger as it searched my ear like a radar probe for hidden delicacies. Finding my ear bereft of tasty and fragrant grubs, it uttered another faint ‘humph’ of annoyance and climbed up into the branches again.