The Sword and the Spear

by Mia Couto

  We’re going back, we’re going to find him.

  Are we turning back, Captain? one of the white soldiers queried. Isn’t it there we’re running away from?

  Toninho’s right, Captain, the other white protested. Are we going to pick a fight with a pack of wolves?

  There are no wolves here. No wolves and no tigers. We’re turning back and we’re going to give our comrade the burial he deserves.

  Faced with the captain’s conviction, I joined the protesters. If we altered our route, it would be the end of all of us. Once by the river we would be all right, but to get there was dicing with death.

  I’m not abandoning my men, the captain persisted. Alive or dead, white or black, I won’t abandon them.

  Then he turned around suddenly and asked me for my pen. He scribbled a few quick, crude lines, folded the paper, and gave it to one of the black soldiers:

  Take this message to the garrison. It says we are going to be late.

  And I asked Santiago’s messenger to also be the bearer of these untidy, scrawled jottings. Perhaps they will be the last lines I ever write. Santiago came as my savior. The same Santiago is leading me to my perdition.

  * * *

  P.S. I took advantage of another traveler to get a message to Imani. Right there on the spot, I scribbled a few heartfelt lines laden with yearning, and conveying my intense desire to see her again. I had already thought of the most poetic ways of reminding her of my love. But faced with the blank page, the only things that came to mind were the most ridiculous turns of phrase. Then, at the precise moment when I was carefully handing the letter to the messenger, Santiago appeared and demanded that I give him the pieces of paper. As I expected, the captain summoned the soldiers and read the contents of the letter out loud, while scoffing at my sentiments. Even worse, in an unbelievable display of cowardice, I eventually joined in the laughter directed mockingly at me. The messenger looked into my eyes, shook his head, and left empty-handed.

  28

  THE DIVINE DISENCOUNTER

  Women weep, men lie.

  —PROVERB FROM NKOKOLANI

  That night I slept like the fishes: in a sleepless dream, my body awake in a bed replete with life. I couldn’t get the image out of my head of the Angolan jerking in the waters, the crucifix soaked in blood in my father’s hands, his fingers trembling as if petrified. And Germano’s absence pained me as if there were no bed and I were lying on stones. My chest was heavy with so much crying. And my wailing didn’t stop even after I fell asleep. I slept weeping, such as only the dead are permitted to do.

  First thing in the morning, my childhood ritual was repeated: I awoke to the gentle lull of a broom sweeping the backyard. It was the priest who was sweeping. Where is Bibliana? I asked. He didn’t reply. In front of the broom, the sand turned to water. In the priest’s hands, the broom was an oar sweeping the waters back to the river. As always, Rudolfo Fernandes swept in order to dream. And he was bound to be dreaming of somewhere beyond all journeys. But the dogs snuffling around on the ground brought him back to reality in all its sadness. And once again, we were suffocating in the persistent dust of a poor, aimless world.

  I waved away the dogs that were busy breathing by the entrance. The dog’s shadow is its own tongue, my grandfather used to say. On a hot day like this, I’d give anything to be able to gasp like a dog. Or better still, I’d like the ground to turn to liquid. And it almost happened like that: Throughout the entire village the sands steamed, creating the illusion that we were walking over some endless lake.

  Father, I need to talk to you.

  This is what I murmured as I took the broom from his hands and began to walk up the path leading to the church. The priest followed me, shooing the dogs. Then he walked beside me, his hands hidden in the sleeves of his cassock.

  I know what is happening, my daughter. But there is nothing I can do. It’s not me you must talk to. It’s you alone with God.

  I hurried my step, for I didn’t want him to see that I was crying. I passed a group of men playing ntxuva. They stopped their game to watch me pass by. They stared at my shoes accusingly. They thought I couldn’t understand them, and they commented out loud: Damned VaChopi, they spoil their women with gifts.

  I knelt down in the church as if I were never going to be able to get up again. My hands together formed a cup in which my words echoed:

  I have come, my God, to offer up my own feet as a sacrifice. Here they are, immaculate, without blood or wounds. As if life had never existed in them, as if they were mere things, worthless objects.

  The priest nervously asked me to withdraw.

  Come, my daughter, he urged. Let’s go outside.

  Can’t I pray?

  That’s not praying. No one speaks to God like that.

  And he tried to force me to my feet, tugging at my arm. I resisted. At this point, the rosary that hung from his belt broke. Its fifty-nine beads fell noisily to the floor, and, bouncing willy-nilly, scattered everywhere. In the beams up in the roof, the doves stirred. They peered curiously at this unexpected commotion.

  Where is Bibliana? I asked.

  She went up north, for her dead brother’s funeral rites. She’s going to stay there for a few days.

  I asked the priest to leave me alone. I wanted the church all to myself, I wanted to feel the silence embracing me. As he left, the clergyman stumbled over his rosary beads. And I listened to him cursing angels and demons.

  Then I slowly became more serene in the midst of that peace, as if time had never invaded the interior of the church. I curled up on the seat and fell asleep. And I sensed that God was agreeing to listen to me. At first his divine words reached me swaddled in the cooing of the pigeons. But then they began to take shape and it became clear that the Creator was addressing me directly. I was mad, but my madness was beating a path for me toward God’s voice:

  Your choice was a sad one: a pair of shoes instead of bare feet. Because of your preference for them, you will forever remain incomplete. In exchange, the shoes will become part of your body. This was the choice you made and it will have its price, for your steps will never again belong to you alone. With your leather soles, you will follow paths that will lead you far from your own self. You will be different from other black women. And when you dance, your legs will no longer be yours. And every time you tighten your shoelaces, you will be constricting your soul.

  * * *

  The priest was waiting for me by the church door. He said that he had heard me crying, speaking, and praying inside the church. There was no point in making myself suffer so much, the priest continued: My father would never back down from his decision. I would be offered to the king of Gaza. Nsambe had grown tired of being a good man in a world that only favors the malign. When he tried being deceitful, all he could muster was the primitive art of revenge. The docile man, the affable musician, the tolerant father figure. All this was now part of his past.

  I sighed deeply. Yearning does not stem from the past. It is born in an empty present. No memory could come to my rescue.

  They say that the church at Makomani, the church of my childhood, has collapsed and been swallowed up by the waves. I miss the sound of the sea. Don’t you miss it, Father?

  Do you want to know the truth? I always hated that time next to the seashore.

  He had difficulty in even recalling it. Every night he had lived on the coast, the sea had flooded into his head. The priest never fell asleep without being submerged in the ocean that flooded the darkness of his room. Fearing that his eyes would jump out of their sockets, Rudolfo slept with his hands covering his eyelids. He would wake up with a stream of tears flowing down his face and salt stinging his skin.

  The sea told me there was a return. That is what pained me. For at the time I no longer knew how to wish for such a journey. I was like you are now, my dear girl: not knowing how to sleep, and not knowing how to live.

  29

  SERGEANT GERMANO DE MELO’S TENTH LETTER

/>   Gungunhane is the most cosmopolitan man I know: He speaks various languages, does business with various nations, dresses in cloth from Asia, adorns himself with bijouterie from the Middle East, surrounds himself with black and white advisers, has African spouses and European mistresses, and by day drinks local liquor while at night he gets drunk on port wine.

  His memory will live on among those who have no written records. And he will live in the books of those who have no more dreams.

  —WORDS OF FATHER RUDOLFO FERNANDES

  On the way to Chicomo, October 29, 1895

  Dear Lieutenant Ayres de Ornelas,

  Can I tell you, sir, of the yearning I feel for Imani? Would my dear lieutenant have the patience to provide a shoulder for me to lean on in my infinite sadness? You will ask me, sir, whether I write to this woman. The answer is no. When I get to the moment of trying to put my feelings down on paper, something within me snaps, a kind of fulfillment of some anticipated end.

  Do not worry, now, sir: I shall not use our messengers to get you my letters. These are exclusively for the use of the military. And it was only a day ago that a messenger left with two letters. One of them was a laconic message from Santiago. The second, which was mine, was needlessly long, and I have no doubt that you didn’t have the patience, sir, to read beyond the first paragraph. But if you did by any chance read it to the end, you will know that we turned back in order to carry out the funeral of one of our soldiers. And we buried the unfortunate Angolan there, on the banks of the Inharrime, or rather the little that was left of him. The crocodiles had spared his trunk and head. I didn’t have the courage to gaze at this horrific spectacle. Santiago also moved away from the macabre sight. But he ordered one of the black soldiers to examine the corpse before burying it. And that’s what he did with the utmost rigor. At one stage, he paused at two perforations on the right hand side of the wretched man’s neck:

  It wasn’t the animals that killed him.

  After the funeral ceremony, we washed ourselves and our stinking clothes. We were all half naked while our gear dried in the sun. One of the white soldiers climbed onto the top of a rocky cliff on the other side of the river to act as a lookout. Down by the river, the other soldiers lit a small fire to prepare coffee. And the captain and I rested in a generous patch of shade. Santiago Mata amused himself by scratching grooves in the sand with a twig.

  What are you writing, Captain?

  I’m not writing, I’m drawing. I’m drawing a country. Let me show you. You always start with a flag. See? This rectangle here, all full of stripes, is the goddamned flag.

  That’s a fine flag, Captain …

  I’m not your captain. Tomorrow we’ll reach Chicomo and I’ll leave you at the entrance to the garrison. And you’ll never see me again.

  Won’t you come in with me?

  I don’t know. We’ll see.

  Then he explained that the soldiers who were with him were not part of the regular army. I recalled Father Rudolfo’s use of the term mercenary. He answered, shaking his head:

  We are—how shall I put it?—an independent unit. We carry out operations that the others can’t.

  I tell you all this, sir, on the assumption that you already know. But for me, all this came as a complete surprise.

  Then, once again, the captain started to scratch in the sand. There’s a garrison missing here, he declared, surveying his work. Then he added: You, who never were a military man and who spent a long holiday in a store, perhaps you can draw me a garrison …

  In the ensuing pause, we could hear the wind rustling the leaves. Santiago, however, was listening to other things. Here, we are like animals, he said. Speech and silence take their turns. He signaled to the lookout, who responded from the other bank by calmly folding his arms. I remembered our encounter at Sana Benene and the moment when Bianca had asked Mata if he knew Mouzinho. I recalled, at that moment, the interest Imani had shown in that conversation back at Sana Benene.

  Do you remember Imani wanting to know whether you had ever met Gungunhane, Captain? Well, let me ask you now: Do you know the king of Gaza?

  Santiago Mata had indeed visited the court of the king of Gaza at Manjacaze. And he recounted the details of his meeting. At the time, he was escorting the counselor José d’Almeida on one of his endless diplomatic missions in which you yourself, sir, participated. As he entered Gungunhane’s domains, he felt the same surprise as all the other European visitors to the palace. Instead of an imposing palace, there was just a grouping of simple huts. Instead of a magnificent court, he was faced with a yard of spartan simplicity: the queens sitting on the ground, with barefoot, half-dressed children. What impressed him most, though, was the king of Gaza. According to Santiago, the king does not say much, expressing himself only in monosyllables, and although an inveterate drinker, he always appeared sober during the negotiations. Gungunhane possesses a quality of pretending not to understand what is being said to him. He acts as if he understood no other language apart from Zulu, the language of his court and empire. In meetings with his officials, rather than an autocrat who monopolizes the dialogue, the emperor allows his advisers to speak without ever interrupting them.

  In Africa and in Portugal, the same thing applies. The attitude of advisers veers between adulation of the king and wanting to kill him. To which Santiago added: Allowing these representatives of the people to have a voice is the best way of keeping the nation quiet.

  And now let me tell you, sir, the conclusions Santiago drew from everything he had seen and heard. He believed that that black headman with his simple ways was more of a king than our monarch with all the medieval sumptuousness of his retinue. That man without a uniform was a greater military tactician than our generals who strut around like peacocks at parades. He recited all these impressions with his eyes closed and then, with a tired sigh, concluded:

  The kings of this world, both black and white, can go and fuck themselves.

  I’m a republican, Captain.

  It’s all the same shit. Don’t you think the republicans will go and romp around in the kings’ palaces once they’ve ousted them?

  You will now understand, sir, that this is not a simple account of a mundane incursion into the African backlands. For at a certain moment, one of the black soldiers called us. On the cliff from where the lookout was watching the horizon, our sentinel had fallen asleep. We laughed, amused by the negligence of Toninho, the white soldier. Only Santiago suspected that there was another reason for his slumber. And he was right. Toninho was dead. A trickle of blood ran down his neck. The captain had no doubt: There were the same two perforations that had featured on the body of the Angolan, the same death, the same killer. And he ordered us to make a thorough search of the surrounding terrain. Perhaps the murderer was still in the vicinity. But our search was fruitless.

  So we had come to the place to bury one, and we ended up burying two. There was no prayer, nor words to commend the dead men’s souls. We closed their graves and left two improvised crosses on each. And all we could hear was the river and one of the soldiers weeping.

  Santiago remained detached from all these sad proceedings. He put out the fire and told us to resume our journey to the garrison at Chicomo. He smoothed the sand with his boots, extinguishing the ephemeral country he had invented in that little patch of ground.

  If you want to find a true soldier, the captain told me, look for him outside the army and far from military careers. Because I, my dear soldier … I’ve forgotten your name …

  Germano.

  Because, my dear Germano, I admit that if I were to formally join the army one day, it would only be for the pleasure of deserting.

  Do not be offended, sir, for I am just reproducing all the excretions of that deranged captain’s heart. I do so in order that you should be aware of your subordinates and be sure of the loyalty upon which you can rely.

  Once we were on our way again, Santiago cursed those who view military life as a career one might pursue wi
th the hope of an early retirement. He talked about this and then said no more for the rest of our journey. I suddenly felt like showing the captain my old mother’s letter. I carried it more in my thoughts than in my pocket. I wanted the captain to understand the affection that motivated my dedication to this strange fate of mine. When I was left an orphan, I became a son for the first time. Fortunately, I didn’t yield to the foolish urge to share these mawkish musings. Only with you, Lieutenant, do I feel at ease to share matters of this nature.

  And do you know what happened during the course of our march? Strangely, it suddenly dawned on me that my mother was not the author of that letter. For that woman abandoned her home when I was still a child. She abandoned home without ever managing to leave it. I was in fact adopted. But I was adopted by my own mother. Do you understand, sir? The woman who gave birth to me was called Mother. Afterwards, she took on the name of Spouse. It was this latter woman who nurtured me. With a love that was supervised, with a residual affection and whispered words. I was half a son, and so how can I be a whole man? And maybe it is better like this, to only half exist. The yearning I feel for my beloved is thus less painful.

  30

  SIXTH LETTER FROM LIEUTENANT AYRES DE ORNELAS

  Upon approaching Gungunhane, we feel an inexplicable sympathy. With his docile expression and tone of speech, we discover a set of attractive qualities that predispose us to be favorable towards him from the outset. It must be understood that underneath those amenable manners, he has an iron will that will not bend to any pressure.

  —RESIDENT MARQUES GERALDES, “REPORT OF 1888”