—It was God, wasn’t it?
—No, it was Zachary. With his rifle.
The Portuguese woman smiled. She passed her fingers through my hair and I held her hand up to my face. I had a strong urge to brush my lips over Marta’s skin. But then I realized something: I didn’t know how to kiss. And this ineptitude hurt me like a prelude to some fatal illness. Marta noticed the shadows falling over my body and said:
—It’s late already, go and sleep.
I went back to my room, ready to turn in, when I noticed Silvestre and Ntunzi arguing in the middle of the hall. When I arrived, my old man was decreeing:
—That’s the end of the matter!
—Father, I beg of you . . .
—I’ve made up my mind!
—Please, Father . . .
—I’m your father, whatever I do is for your own good.
—You’re not my father.
—What are you saying?
—You’re just a monster!
I looked aghast at Silvestre’s face: he had more wrinkles than he had face and veins bulged sinisterly along his neck. He opened and closed his mouth more times than his words required. As if speech was too unimportant for such anger. What he wanted to say was beyond any language. I awaited the explosion that always ensued when his blood was up. But no. After a moment, Silvestre calmed down. He even appeared to be conceding to Ntunzi and accepting his arguments. If he surrendered, it would be truly exceptional: my father was as obstinate as a compass needle. And in the end, it was his obstinacy that prevailed. He raised his chin in the pose of a king in a pack of cards, and concluded haughtily:
—I don’t hear anything you say.
—Well, this time, you’re going to go on not hearing. I’m going to say everything, everything that I’ve had to keep buttoned up inside me . . .
—I can’t hear anything—my father complained, looking at me.
—You were the opposite of a father. Parents give their children life. You sacrificed our lives for your madness.
—Did you want to live in that loathsome world?
—I wanted to live, Father. Just live. But it’s too late for questions now . . .
—I know very well who’s put these ideas in your head. But tomorrow, this is going to end . . . once and for all.
—Do you know something? For a long time I thought you had killed our mother. But now I know it was the other way round: it was she who killed you.
—Shut up or I’ll smash your face.
—You’re dead, Silvestre Vitalício. You stink of rottenness. Even that simpleton Zachary can’t stand the smell any more.
Silvestre Vitalício raised his arm and in a split second brought it down with a smack onto Ntunzi’s face. Blood spattered and I threw myself against my father. The struggle was complicated by the Portuguese woman, who appeared from nowhere to intervene. A clumsy dance of bodies and legs circled the room until the three of them fell to the floor in a tangle. They each got to their feet, shook themselves and smoothed their clothes. Marta was the first to speak:
—Careful now, no one here wants to hit a woman, isn’t that so, Mister Mateus Ventura?
For some time, Silvestre stood there, his movements suspended, arm raised above his head, as if some sudden paralysis had left him comatose. The Portuguese woman went over to him with motherly concern:
—Mateus . . .
—I’ve told you before not to call me by that name.
—One can’t spend so much time forgetting. No journey is that long . . .
We separated, unaware of the mishap that would occur during the night. The tires of Aproximado’s truck would be cut to shreds, reduced to the elastic of a catapult. The following morning, the vehicle would wake up paralysed, shoeless on the savannah’s scalding earth.
SECOND BATCH
OF PAPERS
On a night of pale moon and geraniums
he’ll come, his prodigious mouth and hands,
to play his flute in my garden.
At the onset of my despair
I see but two ways to go:
To become insane or a saint.
I who eschew censure
what isn’t natural such as blood and veins
find I’m weeping each day,
my desolate hair,
my skin assailed by indecision.
When he comes, for it’s certain he will,
how will I enter the balcony shorn of youth?
The moon, the geraniums and he will be the same
—among all things, only a woman ages.
How will I open the window, if I’m not insane?
How will I close it, if I’m not a saint?
Adélia Prado
In Lisbon, when I announced that I was going to rescue my husband lost in Africa, my family abandoned its usual indifference. In the heat of the discussion, my father even went as far as to say:
—There’s only one way to describe these ravings, my dear daughter: they’re those of a jilted lover!
I was already weeping, but only noticed my tears at that point. My mother tried to keep the peace. But she reiterated her misgivings: “No one can save a marriage, only love can.”
—And who told you there’s no love?
—That’s even more serious: love is for whoever is beyond salvation.
The next day, I consulted the newspapers and scanned the classifieds. Before leaving for Africa, I had to make Africa come to me, in what is said to be the most African city in Europe. I would look for Marcelo without having to leave Lisbon. With that conviction, and with the paper opened at the classifieds, my finger paused on Professor Bambo Malunga. Next to the photograph of the soothsayer, his magic skills were listed: “He’ll bring back loved ones, find lost friends . . . .” At the end, a note was added: “credit cards accepted.” In my case, perhaps it should have been a discredit card.
The following day, I walked down the narrow streets of Amadora carrying a bag full of the stuff stipulated in the ad: “A photo of the person, seven black candles, three white candles, a bottle of wine or spirits.”
The man who opened the door was almost a giant. His coloured tunic increased his bulk even more. I was uncertain about addressing him by his title when I introduced myself:
—I’m the one who phoned you yesterday, professor.
Bambo was from a part of Africa where the Portuguese hadn’t been, but he wasn’t put out: “Africans,” he said, “are all Bantu, all similar, they use the same subterfuges, the same witchcraft.” I pretended I believed him, as I walked past wooden statuettes and printed cloth wall-hangings. The apartment was cluttered and I took care not to tread on the zebra and leopard skins that covered the floor. They might be dead, but one shouldn’t step on animals.
Once he’d shown me to a little round stool, the soothsayer checked the things I’d brought and then noticed that I’d left something out:
—There’s no item of your husband’s clothing here. I told you yesterday on the phone that I needed a piece of his intimate clothing.
—Intimate?—I repeated blankly.
I smiled to myself. All Marcelo’s clothes were intimate, they had all brushed against his body, they had all been touched by my enraptured fingers.
—Come back tomorrow, lady, with all the materials required—the soothsayer suggested delicately.
Next day, I emptied Marcelo’s wardrobe into a holdall and walked through Lisbon carrying the bundle. I didn’t get as far as Amadora. Halfway, I stopped by the river and cast the clothes into the water as if I were emptying them onto the floor of the soothsayer’s consulting room. I stood there watching them float away, and suddenly, it seemed as if it were Marcelo adrift in the waters of the Tagus.
At that moment, I felt like a witch. First, clothes are an embrace that welcomes us when we are born. Later, we dress the dead as if they were leaving on a journey. Not even Professor Bambo could imagine my magic arts: Marcelo’s clothes floated like some prediction of our re-encounter. Somewhere
on the continent of Africa, there was a river that would return my sweetheart to me.
I’ve just arrived in Africa and the place seems too vast to receive me. I’ve come to find someone. But ever since I got here, I’ve done nothing but get lost. Now that I’m settled in the hotel, I realize how tenuous my connection is with this new world: seven numbers scribbled on the back of a photograph. This number is the only bridge leading me to that other bridge I have to cross in order, perhaps, to find Marcelo. There are no friends, there are no acquaintances, there aren’t even any strangers. I’m alone, I’ve never been so alone. My fingers are only too aware of this solitude as they dial the number and then give up. Then, they dial again. Until a voice on the other end answers softly:
—Speaking?
The voice left me speechless, I was incapable of saying anything at all. My rival’s question was absurd: speaking? I hadn’t uttered so much as a word. It would have been more appropriate to ask: not speaking? Seconds later, the voice insisted:
—It’s Noci here? Who is this?
Noci. So that was her name. Up until then, the other woman was just a motionless face. Now, it was a name and a voice. A shudder returned my voice to me: I revealed everything all at once, as if I could only explain myself by blurting it all out. The woman remained silent for a moment and then, unperturbed, arranged to come to the hotel. An hour later, she introduced herself at the poolside bar. She was young, wore a white dress and matching sandals. Something broke within me. I expected someone of regal bearing. Instead, I was faced with a vulnerable young girl, her fingers trembling as if her cigarette were an unbearable weight.
—Marcelo left me . . .
What a strange sensation: my husband’s mistress was admitting she’d been abandoned by my husband. Suddenly. I was no longer the betrayed woman. And we two strangers were being transformed into one-time relatives, sharing a common desertion.
—Marcelo went off with a married woman.
—He was involved with a married woman before.
—Here?
—No, there. It was me. And who is this new woman?
—I never found out. But in any case, Marcelo’s no longer with her. No one knows where he is.
She cupped her cigarette ash in her hand. It was the ash falling into her palm in this way that made me understand what she wasn’t telling me. I made an excuse to go up to my room. I said I’d only be a minute. But the tears I shed in that brief moment were enough for a lifetime.
I returned, having pulled myself together. Even so, Noci noticed my tortured look.
—Let’s forget Marcelo, forget men . . .
—None of them warrants a woman’s sadness.
—Much less that of two women.
And so we sat talking about those non-existent things that women know so well how to endow with expressiveness. That woman’s loneliness hurt me, for she was hardly more than a girl. She chose me as her confessor, and for some time she complained that she’d suffered for being a white man’s lover. In public places, looks condemned her: she’s a whore! But she told me how her relatives had gone to the other extreme and encouraged her to get out of the country and take advantage of the foreigner. While Noci was talking, I still wondered to myself: if I saw her going into a bar with Marcelo, what would I say, what expressions of outrage would erupt from me? In truth, all I felt for that woman now was sympathy and warmth. For every occasion she had been insulted, I had also been affronted.
—So what do you do now, Noci?
To get a job, she had surrendered to the advances of a trader, the owner of a business. His name was Orlando Macara and he was her boss by day and lover by night. At the interview for the position, Orlando arrived late. Limping along like the hand on a clock and looking her up and down with a salacious grin, he said:
—I don’t even need to see your CV. I’ll take you on as a receptionist.
—Receptionist?
—Yes, to give me a reception.
She’d got a job by walking out on herself. Deep within her, a decision had been reached. She would divide in two just as a fruit separates: her body was the flesh; the seed was her soul. She would surrender her flesh to the appetites of this boss and any others. But her seed would be preserved. At night, after being eaten, sucked and spat out, her body would return to the seed and she would eventually sleep, whole and intact like a fruit. But she could find no rest in her slumber, and this was causing her to slide into despair.
—Women-friends of mine gossip. But I ask you: now that I’m going with a man of my own race, is it no longer prostitution?
She wasn’t asking for my opinion. Noci had long been sure that it was no use pondering these afflictions. A whore hires out her body. In her case, it was the opposite: her body was hiring her out.
—I’m fine like I am, believe me.
The black girl sensed a doubt in my eyes. How can one be happy with a body that is no longer our own? Sex, she said, wasn’t done with either our body or our soul. It’s done with the body that’s under our body. Once again, her fingers trembled, causing her cigarette ash to drop. At that moment, Marcelo’s clothes passed before me eyes, floating in the waters of the river. Those clothes had been unbuttoned by those same slender fingers.
—It’s been so long since I made love— I confessed— that I can’t even remember how to undress a man.
—Is that so bad?
And we laughed, as if we were the oldest of friends. One man’s lie had brought us together. What united us was the truth of two lives.
Orlando Macara, Noci’s boss, came to fetch her at the hotel. I was introduced, and from the start, I recognized one thing: the man was the soul of congeniality. He was squat and lame, but exceedingly gracious.
—How did the two of you meet?—he asked us.
I had no idea what answer to give. But Noci improvised with surprising ease.
—We met on the internet.
And she went on about the advantages and dangers of computers.
Orlando wanted to know why I had come, and what my impressions were. When I mentioned Marcelo, he suddenly seemed to remember something.
—Have you a photograph of him?—he asked. I showed him the photo I carry in my wallet. While Orlando looked closely at the details, I addressed Noci:
—Marcelo came out well in this photo, don’t you think?
—I’ve never seen the man before in my life!—she answered abruptly.
The trader got up and went over to the window with my wallet. I followed his movements somewhat suspiciously, until he suddenly exclaimed:
—That’s him. I took your husband to the reserve.
—When was that?
—It was some time ago. He wanted to take photos of animals.
—So did you leave him there?
—Nearly.
—What do you mean nearly?
—I left him just before we got there, near the entrance to the reserve. I don’t want to worry you, but he looked ill to me . . .
The illness Marcelo suffered from, I could have replied, was himself. In other words, he was a man beyond remedy.
—So you’ve never heard any more of Marcelo, whether he came back, or whether he stayed there?
—Stayed there? My dear lady: it’s not a place for anyone to stay . . .
That night, alone in my room, I mulled over the motives that could have led Marcelo to want to travel to the reserve. It can’t have been just for the sake of photography. Doubts gnawed away at my sleep, so much so that, first thing in the morning, I summoned the help of Noci’s boyfriend. He turned up late, limping so heavily that his lameness didn’t seem a defect so much as an apology for his lack of punctuality. Or who knows, maybe it was just out of consideration for the ground he was treading on? Noci was with him. But this time she was so distant and quiet that I hardly recognized the girl from the previous day. I got straight to the point:
—Take me to where you left my husband.
I was waiting for his negative rea
ction. That it wasn’t a place for men, let alone a woman. And a white woman, with all due respect. I pressed him to take me to the reserve.
—But your husband, my dear lady, your husband is no longer there . . .
—I know.
Orlando Macara didn’t make things easy. I understood that there was the matter of costs. In the end, we reached an agreement: I would go with him as far as the entrance where he had left Marcelo. After that, Orlando wouldn’t have anything more to do with it.
—Why don’t you tell her everything, Orlando?
Noci’s intervention took me by surprise. She argued on my behalf and revealed that there were relatives of Orlando living in the reserve who would welcome me.
—Relatives? Funny relatives.
—They’re a bit strange. But they’re good folk.
—Don’t talk to them, they’re all mad.
Orlando relented and then gave way. Nevertheless, he gave me a whole list of instructions: I should avoid contact with the family living in the encampment. And I should understand the idiosyncrasies of each of the four inhabitants.
—For example, there, I’m not Orlando.
—How do you mean?
—I’m Aproximado. That’s what they call me there: I’m Uncle Aproximado.
His condition for driving me there was that I should agree to lie: if they asked me how I had got to the reserve, I was to free Orlando from any responsibility. I’d come on my own.
Orlando came by my hotel early. I followed his old truck in my car. It was a long journey, the longest I’d ever made in my whole life. The old jalopy was in such a ramshackle condition that the journey would take three days.
I felt like doing something that I would certainly never have the chance to do again: to drive such a decrepit vehicle along such bewildering roads.
—Orlando, let me drive, just a bit.
—You’d better get used to calling me Aproximado.
He allowed me to drive. But only while we were still in the city. So that’s how I found myself driving along narrow suburban thoroughfares. I was rarely able to see the roads, because they surged up before me so full of people and garbage. I guessed where the road was by the two lines of people who walked along on both sides of it. People here don’t walk along the sidewalks. They walk along the road as if it were their right.