Rain, page 10
The next day, stepping out onto the street, Salanje savoured the light as though for the first time. Could it be true, have I come from the beyond? Has my dream come to pass after all? Whether it had or hadn’t, Adabo Salanje was rapt with all that blue, a warbling melody that gave the birds a new colour. At that same instant, he made up his mind and set off to consult the seer. He reflected on what his dream had taught him: if he knew the prior date of his posthumous death he could put one over on the calendar—death’s advantage is surprise. Rob it of this edge, and eternal victory and vitality would belong to us, at present mere mortals.
So off he went. The oracle met him with a smug twist of his lips. He ordered the man to sit in the dark. The wise man took a peek at the time via the crosses he placed over Salanje’s eyes. He required total silence. Suddenly, he confessed he was worried with a click of the tongue:
—I can’t do a thing. There’s too much commotion going on in your head. Calm your thoughts down!
Adabo was amazed. His immobility was complete. How was he to blame? The fortune-teller turned his focus again to his work. He would pull away the crosses and draw them closer again, as if he was having difficulty bringing things into focus.
—You know something, sir? You’ve got a situation going on inside you…
—A situation?
—I’m not even sure how to tell you.
Salanje swallowed his own throat. Were they not about to tell him his death was near, within a week’s time? Would time be counted by the days he had left?
—Am I going to die in next-to-no-time?
—No. You’re not going to die.
—I’m not going to die? How am I not going to die?
—That’s the problem.
—Give me an explanation for it, man!
—It’s that you, Adabo Salanje, you’re already dead.
The client was gripped by a convulsion. After a few flies had flown past, he exploded into laughter. Nonsense! Having laughed so hard, he had to straighten up again to alleviate his ribs. Each time we burst into laughter, the number of our ribs multiplies exponentially. Therein lies the danger of hard, unhinged laughter. Adabo left the consultation, took a breath of fresh air, and then went back inside. He got off to a serious start:
—So then do me the favour of explaining: what day was it, after all, that I died?
—Last night. You, sir, to tell the truth, are a newly deceased.
Adabo misted over. Had it been the dream? Can death occur in lands misted over by dreams? He’d never heard of such a thing. A lie, the oracle must be lying. The guy was fooling around. Adabo’s rage was such that he didn’t know if he ought to laugh. He ended up letting his anger ferment:
—All right then. So if I’m dead, as you have just said, I’m unable to pay for this appointment. I’ll leave just like that.
And he turned around and walked out. He didn’t even want to know more. Something, though, had changed in the innermost part of his being. He began to feel ease at displaying kindness, patience with children, consideration toward the elderly. Women met his eyes with a new gentleness, they appeared to be almost diaphanous. He was no longer overtaken by an unrestrained fever in the face of their beauty. Above all, there was an even greater change: he no longer had access to the dreamworld. He, who had been an assiduous dreamer, would never again have visions.
The following morning, his wife woke him up with a bit of tenderness, a kiss on the forehead. Never before had he received such tenderness. And accompanied by a gentle sigh:
—I missed you so much, Adabo!
Lingering doubt seized him once again. Could he really be dead, as the other man had prophesied? Could his passing have been effected, and in effect, without his having been duly notified? Doubt burrowed deeper and deeper into him.
He didn’t wait another minute. He went back to the the futurist. Arriving there, he halted for a second at the absence of people. An old chicken alone strutted in the vicinity. He knocked politely on the door but no one answered. He stepped into the dark room. When his eyes adjusted to the shadows he noticed the two ivory crosses, abandoned. He crouched down to pick them up and, before rising, still in a squat, he laid the ivory crosses over his eyelids. And waited for a sign. A voice frightened him:
—And who are you, sir?
—I’m Adabo, I’ve come to see the oracle.
—You can’t.
—I’ll pay, up front even. In fact, the oracle owes me…
—You can’t. The master has already passed.
—He died? When?
He’d died the day before. So the master, as the other man called him, was incapable of predicting his own death? Adabo got a kick out of that. But the other man responded that personal matters escape the powers even of wise men. Adabo turned to leave, gravity in every step: now, with the oracle dead, how could he determine the authenticity of his death?
—Can I take these crucifixes?
—Take them, they’re yours and then all’s even.
And he turned back to the road, hands in his pockets, ensuring that the little pieces of ivory were still there. The sun was already dipping low, the light’s shipwreck stretching across the neighbourhood. At the bend of the corner, an illegible shadow made him feel afraid. He was covered in goosebumps when he recognized the voice of the seer:
—I come in search of my ivory.
He unpocketed the useless utensils and extended them in his cupped hands. Then, unexpectedly, he felt his hands immobilized, captive to the feiticeiro. At first, he fought back. Later, feeling the conviction of those other hands, he slackened his resistance. The diviner softened his voice, as if to extend an invitation:
—Come with me.
And as the two men made their way, they didn’t leave a single footprint, as though they strode not across the sand but the clouds.
The Shadow’s Departure
That morning, I rose at the crack of noon. My neighbour was nearly splitting the door in two. I answered: she didn’t even ask please, and was already inside, crying all over my sofa.
—It’s my daughter, she’s barely breathing.
Her oldest daughter’s asthma robbed her of peace. Entire nights the mother neglected sleep: administering essences, burning incense, invoking benedictions. But the danger would not fade. Her daughter, chest in her throat, gasped for air through the wide-open window. The girl had been like that ever since the sudden unsettling of her love affair, her heart fractured. Her beloved, once flesh and bone, had disappeared, swallowed up into never, vanished into smoky nothing. Where, when, how? Nothing, no one could say.
—It’s the times, as you know.
The neighbour offered explanations with lucid ignorance. In our time, war grips so many nations. Who knows if the young man fell into one of these pits war opens in the earth. What’s certain is that, ever since then, her daughter showed no change, enfevered, huffing and puffing. Her soul had fled from her mouth, but no breath came back through it. The more she wheezed, the less she breathed. It wasn’t only question of air: the girl was completely without atmosphere.
—I don’t know what to do with her, me…
And what could I do? Poetry is no cure for those whom life doesn’t console. And the neighbour’s distress was well-founded: another attack and the girl would not survive. The doctor told her so. But I was preparing to leave that same afternoon. I showed her the tent, my sleeping bag, the equipment. There was nothing she didn’t already know:
—I know you’re going into the jungle. That’s why I came.
She wanted exactly this: that I bring back with me some recommended plant, a miraculous thing, able to uncrucify Jesus.
—This one here, look closely, it has to be equal, exact, and identical—no ands, no buts.
I promised to deliver, I would come back equipped with the miracle. She said goodbye with such pleading eyes that the injustice wounded me: there are those, in this life, who have such need of another’s favour.
That afternoon, I waited for my guide, the man who during the next few days would need to lead me through agnostic landscapes. His reference letter read: Júlio Carlos Alberto, former prisoner. The letter came from the director of the prison, on behalf of a friend. That I might give work to this newly free wrongdoer. Who knows if in the course of this work the mischief-maker wouldn’t come to show more kindness?
The jailbird introduced himself, with tongue-twisted diction, in the slang of the streets:
—I’m Julinho Casa’beto.
He helped me wrap the tools needed for my trip. He went on about himself while he worked, full of words. He spoke of everything so as not to say a thing. He longed for conversation, revenge for the silences of the cell. He who loses all knows not what he wants. In this life, he who has the least loses the most.
It’s this Julinho who, now, guides me through untamed forests groomed by nature alone. Because he remembers each obstacle, this guarantees his steady passage.
—The day’s nearly at an end.
Yes, a short time from now, night will fall. We’ll have trouble finding the oxcart driver who will deliver us to the house of the healer Nãozinha de Jesus. This woman was in my plans. She was the last of her kind: a doctor of healing plants. With her, I’d been earning an education. Nãozinha would circle shadows and pull up roots, tiny leaves, twigs. With these meagre materials she outduelled death. But the healer has a complaint: this vegetation is becoming scarce. These days, it barely hangs on to existence. And now, in a hollow in the woods, I wait for my body to faint as I gaze at the stars, the meteor showers. A short distance away, Julinho’s elbow cuts this peaceful moment short.
—Doctor, you’ll excuse me: but what is it you’re doing, horsing around in these jungles?
—It’s my job, Júlio.
—But, Doctor: you’re leaving the reserve to roam with wild herds? I guess each man digs his own hole. But tell me, I beg your pardon: have you ever seen a snake wear sandals?
Pulling my blanket tight, I loosen my tongue. Overcome with fatigue, I dethread conversation: my occupation, the medicinal plants. This trip will, however, be the last. This work of mine can’t continue. The monies were withdrawn, the entire thing was held to be of little importance. Priorities are elsewhere, they told me. What do you think you’ll find there, in the illiterate jungle: the cure for AIDS? I didn’t even respond. What argument could I make? There is, after all, another incurable ill: Acquired Humanodeficiency Syndrome. Inhuman sciences and occult scientists are never in short supply. What can I do to counteract them?
—Forgive me, I hear you, but I don’t follow you. It’s only for a like of listening, I spent so long without a person’s voice.
I asked him to talk about himself, the reasons for his being thrown behind bars. What crime, after all, had occurred?
—I killed a man.
—And why did you do that?
—To take his moya from him. There was a woman who asked me to do it.
—To take his moya?
—Yeah, don’t you know about moya? It’s a person’s breath, his inner figure.
I was familiar, but in another application. This man was not, after all, a common killer. He had not killed a man, but his shadow, the vessel that leads through other persons and times.
—It was a woman’s request. She was almost dying.
—You liked this woman?
—She was my one and only passion.
Instead of causing annoyance, Julinho’s conversation softened me. We fell asleep, the two of us, enveloped in the swirling smoke of the fire, beneath a starlit sky.
Next day, we set our course bright and early. We arrived soon after at the healer’s place. We stayed sitting in the entrance of the muti, in accord with custom. In any African house worthy of the name, the day is spent outside the home, in the yard. There, children run round, chickens peck at the ground. Nãozinha takes some time to arrive. Finally, she makes her appearance. We greet each other in long, drawn-out rituals, hand in hand, touching bodies, trading souls. It was then that Nãozinha de Jesus noticed Julinho.
—You brought this one along?
She shuddered, bowing her head. The handle of her catan soared, with a whistle, through the airs. The blade stuck straight into the trunk of the sacred tree. The healer spit in the sap that dripped from the blow. She turned back to face the man, now with a victor’s defiance. Julinho pulled away, downcast.
Then we sat. I owed her two words: explanation and request. I begin with the first subject: yes, that one, my final visit. My motives plunge Nãozinha into sadness. The healer is offended. I had promised her we would do combat together, both wishing to preserve her life-saving materials, to keep her age-old wisdoms in the world.
—Now there’s no more time. It’s because they take everything from us, those who come from the city cut down everything, they don’t leave us so much as a root…
Still, I try for the light at the end of the tunnel. I say: If we go together, with the proper haste—Nãozinha’s despondence cuts me short:
—I no longer have any hereafter, my son. Why all the hurry?
I move on to the second matter. I show her the bit of tiny plant I’m supposed to take back with me. I explain the urgency of the request, saving the life of the neighbour girl. The healer takes a look at the leaves and responds, disappointed:
—These leaves, they’ve disappeared some time ago now, flew away, butterflying off somewhere.
Not even a root, some leftover twig amid the brush? The healer purses her lips, in doubt. Only if it were somewhere in one last corner.
—Come with me, help me look.
Off we went, into the woods. Mist and leaves blocked the sun—it did me good, the cool air. A million enchantments distracted me. But beauties subtract from one another: we see the butterfly and forget the flower. Nãozinha stops in a clearing, sticks her hand out to say we’ve arrived. We both turn over the earth. Nothing, not even a trace of a plant. Even here, the traders have got to the plants first. Even here, they’ve dug, taken everything in wagon-loads to the city.
The next day, I return. If I’d left diminished, I was returning crushed.
How to explain to the neighbour that I hadn’t brought the remedy? Is that something you explain to a mother? I entered through the side door with my head bowed. The woman let me in and, seeing me, dispensed with explanations. She took me by the hand to see her daughter’s final pains. In the girl’s room, we grew dizzy amid incense and essences. The girl was lying there on the bed and we could hear the air inside her, crackling like fire. The dying girl had lost her gaze: she peered at what wasn’t there, landscapes of oblivion. Her eyes goaded me, magnetic. I was prisoner to their emptiness.
Suddenly, across that same fading face, a wry look spread. She fixed on someone who was entering the room. Who was she looking at, who had she recognized with such awe? I looked back in time to see the sharp gleam of a knife in a speeding fist. The very next second, the blade plunged into my chest. It stuck deep, a blow to the core. The last thing I saw was the asthmatic girl rise to hug my guide, Julinho Casa’beto. Then they bent down, the two of them together, to snatch my shadow.
Square of the Gods
To Che Amur, whose version of these events served as the basis for this story.
1926: That was the year that marked the occasion. That’s the year the personal story unfolded of the merchant Mohamed Pangi Patel, a powerful man who disbursed life and wealth on the Island of Mozambique. Accordingly, the years passed and Mohamed Pangi gave thanks to God for the beauty of the world and its marvels.
The Ismaelite grew rich off his own name, full of good cheer. His contentment only grew the day his only son came to tell him he’d decided to marry.
—You know something, son? Life is a sweet perfume.
Preparations for a wedding began. Such a celebration would never again be seen in such localities. Musicians came from Zanzibar, guests from Mombasa, peoples from Ibo and Angoche. The celebration lasted some thirty days. On every one of these days, the town square was covered with endless tables, boasting many a full spread. Day and night, foods of every variety and number could be found. The entire island turned up to help themselves by the belchful. In those days, not one of the poor felt the pang of hunger. And not a single family set foot in the kitchen: breakfast, lunch and dinner passed the day in the town square. While the many mouths opened wide to make way for such delights, Pangi stretched out over a bench, wise to the warm weather. His only occupation was to perspire as he basked in the joy of watching so many jaws at work.
—But, Father, isn’t this a bit much?
Pangi’s son began to worry about the mounting expenses. But Pangi responded with caution: Better not a single bird in hand. Better to see great flocks spread their wings over the land. The heavens, after all, only came to be after the first bird’s flight. And he smiled:
—Don’t forget, son: life is a sweet perfume.
And the old man began to explain: We all carry this fragrance in our natural and congenital bodies. The fragrance, at first, bursts forth in all directions, strong, contagious. If anyone were to have smelled the world’s first moment, they would have detected only their own perfume. But later, this fragrance thins. And then, in order to still sense it, people have to give their nostrils a workout: a headache for the nose. And that’s how, from that point forward, with the smallest reminder of a shudder, even the surface of memories begins to evaporate…
—Father: how will we pay for all this?
The question was an appropriate one. It wasn’t long before the creditors arrived, Pangi’s houses were foreclosed upon. Later, the goods from his stores were sold at public auction. Pangi’s endless properties grew ever more scarce. Once a rich man, he was demoted to a de-minted man, suit pockets full of sand. All of this, though, took place out of sight. No one beyond the dispossessed Pangi knew of this settling of accounts. Silent as a dagger, the Ismaelite went on sitting on his bench, in a state of pure fascination, as he gazed upon the endless celebration.
