‘Don’t touch it,’ Sofia shouted.
‘I wasn’t going to,’ answered Fabiao. ‘I’ve got something for you.’
Sofia threw down the crutches, swung across to the bench and sat down.
The boy stood in front of her with a basket in his hand.
‘There’s a girl who wants you to sew a dress,’ he said.
He gave her the basket.
There was a large piece of white fabric in it.
Sofia felt the fabric. It was soft, almost like silk.
‘Who is it that wants the dress?’ she asked.
‘She didn’t tell me her name,’ Fabiao replied. ‘But she paid money in advance.’
He put down a few banknotes on the table next to the sewing machine.
‘I need to know how big the girl is,’ Sofia said. ‘I can’t make a dress without knowing how big it’s supposed to be.’
‘It would fit you,’ Fabiao said. ‘She said you were the same size.’
Sofia suddenly felt strange. She put the fabric back in the basket.
‘Who is this girl?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Fabiao said. ‘It was an old woman who gave me the fabric and the money.’
‘When was the dress supposed to be ready?’
‘Before next full moon.’
Sofia looked at Fabiao for a long time before she answered.
‘Tell the old woman that I’ll sew a white dress,’ she said. ‘A white dress that fits me.’
Fabiao nodded and ran off. Dusk fell. Deep in thought, Sofia made up a fire. She was too tired to eat. She just sat on her straw mat and stared into the flames. She had put the wooden cover back on the sewing machine. Before she went to bed, she would carry it into the hut. No one was allowed to steal Totio’s sewing machine.
The white fabric was in the basket beside her.
She knew that Muazena had come back. It was Maria who was to have the dress. Maria who was dead, but who was still there, inside Sofia – or else deep in the fire that flickered in front of her.
Maria, who would always be there.
‘I’ll make the dress,’ Sofia thought. ‘I’ll make it as beautifully as I can. And one day, when I have worked hard for a long time and have made enough money, I’ll take Lydia and Alfredo and Faustino with me, and we’ll return to the village that the bandits burnt that night, so many full moons ago. And maybe I’ll even see the ocean again.’
She sat by the fire for a long time, deeply absorbed by the flames. She had removed her legs and laid them beside her. The tropical night was warm. Grasshoppers creaked, a dog barked in the distance. The starlit sky above her head was filled with unanswered questions.
Then she crawled into the hut with the sewing machine and her legs, let the straw mat fall across the door opening again, and went to sleep.
Outside the fire slowly faded.
The smouldering coals grew weaker.
Sofia slept.
On a path in her dreams, Maria ran towards her.
And the night, the African night, was still.
Henning Mankell, Secrets in the Fire
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