Confession of the Lioness

  Never.

  I don’t understand. So who is going to kill the lions?

  You.

  How?

  You’re the one who’s going to kill them.

  You’re crazy!

  I’ll lead you, don’t worry. At the precise moment, all you have to do is pull the trigger.

  I expected the man to be more obdurate and refuse flat-out. But Gustavo Regalo seems to be pondering. Maybe the writer is beginning to yield to a surreptitious desire. He picks up the gun, weighs it in his hands, and aims at an imaginary target.

  Do you think I could hit the creature? he asks.

  There’s a glimmer of a new emotion in the writer’s soul. There’s the beginning of an almost infantile enthusiasm. And I think: Everything that we have carefully built over centuries in order to remove ourselves from our animal nature, everything that language has covered over with metaphors and euphemisms (our arms, our faces, our waists), in one instant can be converted back to its naked, brutish substance: flesh, blood, bone. The lion doesn’t just devour people. It devours our very humanity.

  And if I miss? Gustavo wants to know.

  Don’t worry, my dear writer. I’m not giving you the gun to kill the lion. It’s more for you to defend me.

  * * *

  I hope the writer will defend me. It looks as if he’s already started defending someone: He has sent a report to the central government criticizing Florindo’s inertia with regard to the rape of Tandi.

  Have you spoken to Naftalinda? I ask.

  It was she in fact who asked me to denounce this crime. And Hanifa, the maid, also came to me: She maintained that it was her husband, Genito Mpepe, who was in charge of the gang of rapists.

  Do you trust what Hanifa says after that episode the other night?

  Genito Mpepe himself confessed he was in the mvera leading those fiends.

  My dream about the lions in the church springs to my mind. And I remember Father Amoroso’s strange prophecy: You haven’t come to hunt lions. You’ve come to kill a person!

  * * *

  Tandi’s funeral, so simple and poorly attended, worried me more than I could have imagined. I wasn’t allowed to attend the funerals of my mother and father. I wasn’t the right age. I don’t know whether there’s a right age to contemplate death. Tandi’s disappearance affected me as if some part of me had been torn away. I had held one of that woman’s bones in my hand. How can I sleep without being visited by ghosts?

  The ceiling slowly gains density and I slip into a rare and mellow state of sleepiness. On that border between wakefulness and slumber, that’s when I see my sister-in-law enter my room, with the wariness of a shadow. I’m dreaming, and I don’t want to leave my dream. Luzilia emerges from the mist, Luzilia creeps through the house, Luzilia slips into my sleeping quarters. Beautiful, sweet-smelling, suggestive. She seizes the rifle and begins to dance with it. She caresses the weapon as if acquiring life from it. I sit there motionless, and follow her sinuous insinuations. The woman brushes the barrel of the rifle across her face as she stares at me, weighing me up with her eyes.

  Be careful, it’s loaded! I warn her.

  I know, that’s why I’m dancing with it.

  All dances are like this one, dangerous, almost fatal, the nurse adds. We start off in the arms of life, and end up dancing with death.

  Her lips kiss the trigger and then she sucks the barrel lasciviously. Her eyes remain fixed on mine. But I sit there, cold and distant. It’s well known: There’s a time to love and there’s a time to hunt. The two never mix. If I were to give in, I would be betraying an age-old tradition: When one is hunting, one cannot have sex.

  Don’t you see, Archie? I’m the lame serpent …

  Then I understand: The woman wanted to take possession of my soul. To my astonishment, Luzilia begins to take off her clothes, her body emerging leisurely and voluptuous. The light that bathes her gives her a moonlit air of unreality. She approaches, turns her back, and leans against me, impressing upon me her bodily curves. The ice turns to boiling water in my heart: I unravel, excited to the marrow, unable to speak, my fire quickened.

  Have you nothing to say, my little Archangel? she asks.

  What she asks is too hard a task. I am the hostage of temptation: When I try to speak, I lose my throat; when I try to touch her, my fingers fail me. Exactly as happened while hunting, in love too I am no longer in control of my body. All that I can utter is an inarticulate puff:

  Say, me?

  All at once she faces me. Her mouth, her teeth, her tongue, everything in her joins forces to extract my soul. And I almost die at long last, plunging into the abyss of sleep.

  * * *

  I awaken with a jolt and walk along the hall when the first shreds of light herald the new morning. I pass the writer, who announces point-blank:

  A woman has just left here.

  A woman? What woman?

  I don’t know, I’ve never met her before. She arrived from Maputo, she’s come looking for you. She says her name is Luzilia.

  Luzilia?

  Impassive on the surface, a volcano within me: Here I am, caught by surprise like an ambushed animal. In my outward air I am serene, but within me I am running impetuously, an adolescent succumbing to temptation. And I can already feel Luzilia’s body next to mine, already am absorbed in her groans and her sighs. It isn’t just the fulfillment of a dream I am seeking, but the healing of a wound caused by rejection.

  An hour later, Luzilia returns. She greets me with a kiss on the cheek that almost brushes my lips. She pats her face, scratched by the rough brush of my unshaven chin. I feel her breasts touching my chest, and we remain like that for a moment or two.

  I knew you’d come.

  Liar. I didn’t even know myself.

  So how’s my brother?

  It’s because of him that I’m here. Your brother … I don’t know how to tell you …

  Has he died?

  No, not yet.

  Not yet?

  Roland wants you to return to Maputo as quickly as you can. There are things he wants to tell you before he dies.

  I need one more day. Then we can go back together.

  Well, then, I’ll go back to Palma, as I’m in a guesthouse there. Meet me there tomorrow.

  Don’t go just yet, Luzilia. I want to show you the river. Afterward, I’ll drive you back to Palma.

  * * *

  From the most prominent bank of the Lideia we contemplate the valley in absolute silence. Only after we have sat down on the granite rocks does the nurse get ready to talk:

  There are things I have to tell you. First, about your mother, about her death.

  I know what happened. She was ill.

  Your mother died of kusungabanga.

  Is that the name of an illness?

  You could say that. An illness that kills all the others, those who aren’t ill.

  At first I didn’t understand. But then Luzilia explained: In the language of Manica, the term kusungabanga means to close with a knife. Before migrating for work, there are men who sew up their wife’s vagina with needle and thread. Many women get infected. In the case of Martina Bullseye, her infection proved fatal.

  Roland knew about it. That’s why he killed his father. It wasn’t an accident. He avenged his mother’s death.

  * * *

  My heart is flooded with anger: My brother had killed my father! And I repeat “my father” to myself as if he were more mine than Roland’s. My accusation gradually gives way to another feeling akin to envy.

  Tell me, Luzilia: Can my brother sleep?

  Roland sleeps, his wife confirms. How could I remain indifferent? My brother had managed the total exile that I had always coveted. I envied Roland for his madness and his slumber. I envied him for his wife, and the love given him that I never had.

  I walk away from Luzilia, over to the cliff to get a better view of the valley. Ever since I arrived in Kulumani, the waters of the river have swollen. In the dis
tant mountains where it rises, it must have begun to rain. The river never sleeps. In this, it’s like me …

  Here by the river, I courted a girl …

  I use the vague memory like a rapier, moved by the absurd wish to hurt Luzilia. And I continue:

  There were two sisters, that’s right, but I can’t remember their names or their faces. I got as far as kissing one of them. But I don’t remember either of them. Maybe if I saw them again …

  Men, men! A woman would never forget like that. I bet they remember you.

  I admit that at the time I was drinking heavily and even resorted to the liquors they make around here.

  So what had you come to do here, in the back of beyond?

  I’d come to kill a dangerous crocodile.

  And did you succeed?

  Do you doubt my skill as a hunter?

  You didn’t always catch what you wanted.

  I pretend not to hear. I follow the example of feline creatures, who feign distraction before hurling themselves at their prey. I no longer know how to deal with Luzilia except as a hunter.

  There’s one thing I don’t understand. Is it true that you understand what Roland is saying in that strange way of talking he has?

  Suddenly I realize how close I am to my father’s suspicions when confronting the fidelity of my mother’s letters. My God, how like Henry Bullseye I am! Luzilia is far from my thoughts when she replies:

  Don’t forget I’m a nurse. And then I’ve been looking after him for so long! I listen to your brother like someone reading another person’s palm.

  Nor should I forget that Roland could make use of the written word. It had always been his weapon, his refuge. From her trousers pocket, Luzilia draws two sheets of paper. She chooses the most crumpled one and gives it to me. It’s a letter from Roland, I recognize the handwriting of the well-behaved, eternal child. I don’t like reading out loud. I feel weak, ridiculous, denuded. For that reason, I read it in an undertone.

  My dear brother: I imagine my condition must pain you. I want to tell you that I don’t suffer. On the contrary, I’m happy because I can never again be a Bullseye. I have shed my inherited name with the same pleasure that some widows burn the clothes of their tyrant husband. After that shot, I no longer feared what I had been. No further crime awaits me. I am empty, like only a saint can be. Do you remember what our mother would call us? My angels, that’s what she would say. Here in this asylum, there’s no need for demons or angels. All we have is ourselves, and that’s enough. Yes, I killed our father. I killed him and will kill him again every time he’s reborn. I obey orders. Those orders were given me without the need for any words. It was enough to see my mother’s sad look. Don’t pity me, dear brother. At first, my alibi was madness. Then, it became my absolution. Our mother always warned me: A bullet kills in both directions. When I killed old Bullseye, I committed suicide. Once, after our mother’s death, you said: If only I could die. Well, now I’m telling you. It’s not death that confers absence upon us. The only way to cease existing is to go mad. Only a madman gains vacuity.

  Those lines confirmed my age-old suspicion: My brother pretended he was mad. The only truly sick creature was me, with my tormented nights, and my cruel memories of a half-lived past.

  Can I ask another question? Did you and my brother ever make love?

  Luzilia doesn’t answer. She merely smiles sadly. She unfolds the second sheet and waves it in front of me.

  Do you recognize this?

  It’s my old letter, that unlucky missive in which, many years ago, I declared my love. Without saying any more, Luzilia walks toward me, her sad smile now taking on an enigmatic air. She kisses me.

  Let’s go to Kulumani, let’s go to your room.

  We can’t. The writer shares the space with me.

  Let’s go to Palma, we’ll be more relaxed there.

  We get into the car. Her hand stops me from turning the ignition. And she whispers in my ear:

  You were right, this is your last hunt. I’m coming to get you …

  We set off in silence, Luzilia’s hand still perched on my arm.

  Tonight … And she pauses, seeking the right word.

  Yes?

  Tonight, make me scared of myself.

  I look at the sandy road that unfolds in front of us, with more bends in it than distance, and I think: To live is to wait in hope of what may be lived.

  Mariamar’s Version

  SEVEN

  The Ambush

  Be careful of lions. But be more careful of the goat that lives in the lion’s den.

  —AFRICAN PROVERB

  Ever since the hunter arrived, the days have gone by, dense but empty like the clouds in winter. During this whole time, I have remained shut away, a prisoner in my own home, peeping out at the failed preparations for the hunting expeditions. I heard my father’s footsteps echoing through the early hours of the morning and the noise of the jeep would have me throwing myself at the window to get a glimpse of Archie Bullseye.

  Little by little, though, my interest in my beloved began to fade. Why didn’t he send me some sign that he might be interested in seeing me again? There was only one true answer: I had died as far as he was concerned. There was no point in prolonging the illusion. It was this profound deception that made me give up. I no longer wanted to escape from the house; I could forgo a meeting with the hunter. I could do without the river, travel, dreams.

  * * *

  I wasn’t the only one disappointed in Archie Bullseye. The village elders were impatient, and began to hold meetings in the shitala, while an atmosphere of conspiracy began to take a grip on Kulumani. Florindo Makwala, the administrator, began to be seen at these meetings of the elders. His presence there was something unheard-of in the village. Makwala had always drawn a line between himself and the world that he called “traditional,” had always distanced himself from engaging with invisible matters. That was why people were puzzled by his sudden interest.

  * * *

  This afternoon, something unexpected happens. The administrator, Florindo Makwala, comes to our house. It’s not the custom for chiefs to leave their residence in order to discuss matters of governance. But this time Makwala has come to ask for favors. Shut away in the living room, he and my father confer for some time. I begin to fear that I may be the subject of negotiation. This fear is confirmed when I am later summoned to receive a disturbing command:

  Tonight, you’re to go with the administrator! Genito Mpepe declares.

  But aren’t I in prison? I ask.

  You’re going to sleep over there, in his house, my father affirms, embarrassed.

  In the visitor’s presence I manage to contain myself, though deep down I feel annihilated. The moment Florindo leaves, however, my entreaty gushes out:

  Father, don’t do this to me. For the love of God, I don’t want to—

  What you want has nothing to do with it.

  But, ntwangu, please, think carefully, my mother declares, unexpectedly taking up my defense. That Florindo, that miserable worm …

  Mpepe won’t brook any dissent. We should keep quiet. Did we know that, at the dead of night, there were conspiracies against his person? Did we realize how weak and isolated he was? Doing the administrator favors was his golden opportunity to regain his protection and respect.

  In silence, my mother prepares my bath, dresses me, and combs my hair. The sun is starting to go down when she escorts me to Florindo Makwala’s residence. She stands in the road without moving as she watches me enter the garden, and even calls me:

  Your scarf, girl …

  And she passes her hand over my face, pretending to tidy my hair. She lingers, gripped by her very gesture. She takes her time looking at me before saying:

  Don’t worry, my girl, you’re very pretty.

  And she sets off home. I stand there alone, undecided, at the entrance of what the administrator always insisted was not a “house” but a “residence.” My hesitation is brief: The adm
inistrator comes to greet me at the door and invites me into his office. There’s a large sofa that he promptly occupies while I look around at the walls, where there’s a huge calendar with a Chinese woman lying lecherously across the hood of a car.

  The photo of His Excellency is missing because your mother, Hanifa, was cleaning it and ended up breaking the glass. I’m awaiting funds to order a new frame …

  I stand there waiting while he withdraws into himself, his head bowed over his knees.

  I’m so desperate, Mariamar!

  Soon, I think, he’ll burst into tears. On a sudden maternal impulse, I sit down next to him, but then I remain motionless, as befits someone of my status.

  Give me your hand, Florindo says.

  Clumsy and confused, I stretch out my arm and half open my fingers. I stay like that for a while without him reacting to my gesture.

  Do you know why you’re here?

  I lie, shaking my head timidly. A sour smell pervades the air around me. Florindo Makwala takes my hand and leads me across the room just as a married couple of many years’ standing might do as they retire to their sleeping quarters. He leads me down a long dark corridor and, near the door at the end, places his head next to mine. I avoid him abruptly, but he persists and then whispers in my ear:

  There’s a problem with my wife, Naftalinda.

  At last, he explains himself. The reason for my presence there is, after all, far removed from what I had suspected. In fact, the root of Florindo’s despair lies elsewhere. His wife had offered herself as bait for the lions. Her husband had tried to dissuade her. In vain. The First Lady insisted that she would go and sleep naked, in the open air, night after night, until the lions were attracted and came and devoured her. This was her stated intention. Unless he, Florindo, behaved like a real man and assumed a firm position over the Tandi affair and so many other issues.

  My wife, my one and only wife …

  Naftalinda would neither look nor listen. The administrator was in a panic. It was crucial that Naftalinda should be distracted from her suicidal intention. The First Lady would only listen to someone like me, someone who lived in the same type of solitude, who spoke the same type of language.