Dr. Lemos sighed. “The law does not recognize animal trauma, Senhora. Only viability. You have ten days to transfer your large mammals to a state-approved facility in Manaus, or we will be forced to seize them.”
The tapir in question, a gentle giant named Saturnino, was currently sleeping against the back wall of the clinic, his spotted hide twitching as he dreamed. He had been found as a calf, wandering in circles near a burned clearing, his mother a patch of scorched fur and bone. Every time Xuxa tried to lead him to the forest gate, he would simply lie down and refuse to move, his long nose trembling.
Xuxa leaned on her shovel. “From whom? The loggers I reported last month? Or the rancher whose cattle are dying because he poisoned the creek?” XUXA A VOZ DOS ANIMAIS
He walked, not toward the gate, but toward her. He pressed his warm, bristly snout against her chest, right over her heart. Valentina flew from her perch and landed on Xuxa’s shoulder, nuzzling her ear. The tamarins scampered down her legs. Chico the sloth began his impossibly slow, deliberate crawl across the mud, headed directly for her lap.
Inside the enclosure were her children. Not just Saturnino the tapir, but Chico the three-toed sloth, Valentina the blind macaw, and a mated pair of tamarins whose tiny fingers could hold hers with a trust more profound than any human handshake. Only viability
Saturnino lifted his head. His nostrils flared. He looked at the open hatch. Then he looked at Xuxa.
For the first time in twenty years, Xuxa felt the hot sting of defeat. She nodded, not trusting her voice, and watched them drive away. The next nine days were a blur of motion. Xuxa did not cry. She worked. She made calls to every journalist, every NGO contact, every sympathetic politician she had ever met. Most calls went unanswered. The few that answered offered only sympathy, which is the currency of the powerless. Every time Xuxa tried to lead him to
“Saturnino is not depressed,” Xuxa said quietly. “He is traumatized. There is a difference.”
Tonight, the voice was singing a lullaby.
Her gift had arrived late. As a young model in São Paulo, she had heard the roar of a lion from a circus truck stopped at a traffic light. It wasn't a roar of power. It was a sob. A sound of pure, chemical despair. That sound had shattered her world of glitter and flashbulbs. She sold her wardrobe, bought a battered Land Rover, and drove north. Her family said she had lost her mind. Perhaps she had. But she had found her soul.
The rain began to fall again, softly this time. And in the quiet, you could hear it: not just the drumming of water, but the chuff of a tapir, the trill of a macaw, the whisper of a sloth.