by Mia Couto
Chicomo, November 1, 1895
Dear Sergeant Germano de Melo,
I received your letter brought by Santiago’s messenger. By an irony of fate, I shall already be in Inhambane when you get here. I was directed, along with other officers, to coordinate the final offensive against the Lion of Gaza.
How strange are these misencounters of ours, which seem to repeat themselves endlessly, as happens in the case of platonic love. Santiago Mata is a man of boorish manners. I ask you to be patient with him. I have also had to revise my perceptions of others. Much of that which is ascribed to emotion is in fact prejudice. This was how I became reconciled with Mouzinho de Albuquerque. We need the ability to ponder just as much as we need single-mindedness.
Do not worry about disobeying my orders. By refusing to fulfill the functions I assigned to you, you enabled me to gain a much better understanding of my own duties. By continuing to send me your colorful personal letters, my dear sergeant, you performed an invaluable service for our army. I now have a much better acquaintance with the people of Mozambique than most other officers possess. You refused to act as a spy for me, my friend. So what? You can be sure that Portugal would find it hard to find a better spy in Africa. From your picturesque accounts, I gradually came to realize how far we are from understanding the territory that we aspire to conquer. How do these people think of themselves? How do they describe themselves, their nations and their leaders? For example, no one apart from ourselves uses the term Vátua to describe the VaNguni. No one uses the name State of Gaza anymore. What do the kaffirs themselves call it? And what do they call the man we call king? The name they give to Gungunhane is Nkosi. They use the same word for God. And they are right to call him that, for he behaves with divine authority. He punishes and rewards like some great Father. Our war does not just have a military dimension. It is a religious war.
Finally, the purpose of this missive is to validate your often repeated claim. If we want to defeat the Africans, we are going to have to get to know them better, penetrate their world and live among their peoples. They have been doing the same with us for decades now. They observe our way of life, usurp our way of thinking without our knowledge, and learn our language. And they do not need to write letters to divulge this wealth of information among their fellow men. As if conveyed by silent drumbeats, news of our power, and above all of our weaknesses, has spread across the African interior.
By way of conclusion, I must tell you that the same messenger brought me news that your beloved Imani and her father had left Sana Benene. They both left for Liengme’s Swiss hospital, goodness knows why. Be careful, dear sergeant. As a future husband you must remain vigilant of your young fiancée, who is both beautiful and, apart from this, black. I give thanks to God that I did not leave a female heart waiting for me back in Portugal. One can only rely on a mother for absolute loyalty over and above all other contingencies. For the rest, for wives and sweethearts, the longer the separation, the more insincere will their waiting be.
31
A HOSPITAL IN A SICK WORLD
The Swiss missionaries spare no effort in trying to engage the sympathy of the blacks, they do not contradict them in the slightest and they give them liberties that are entirely inappropriate and not conducive to good manners, such as, for example, holding their hands. And the blacks in the vicinity of the mission are so used to these fraternal forms of greeting that on the occasion of my visit, a black servant boy at this very mission came straight toward me, his hand held out! It may well be that this is the best way to educate the native but, from my point of view, I find it unacceptable and cannot tolerate it. Treating them well, educating them, providing them with good teaching and making of them able and skillful men, who may one day be of use to themselves and to society, yes, of course; but to descend so low as to hold one’s hand out to a black savage, certainly not.
—AHM-ACM, SECTION E, BOX 169, DOCUMENT 506, FROM THE ADMINISTRATOR OF CHAI-CHAI TO THE GOVERNOR OF THE DISTRICT OF LOURENÇO MARQUES, NOVEMBER 28, 1911
Sitting at the door of her house, Bertha Ryff had fallen asleep with a photograph album open in her lap. She was waiting for the arrival of her husband, Georges Liengme. She woke upon hearing our footsteps, and serenely turned to face us, as if we had been expected.
When we got close, my father limited himself to a drawn-out, sibilant Ssskyooze mee. I took the initiative of explaining the purpose of our visit. I soon realized that the only language in which we could communicate would be Txichangana. Nevertheless, it seemed strange to be conversing with a European woman in an African language. For the first time, I felt pride in the preponderance of an African tongue.
The woman seemed to be made of wax, so spindly and fragile that I found myself speaking in an undertone as if I feared she would fall to pieces if I were to raise my voice in the slightest. She was distant but helpful. Certainly, she said without any hesitation, we could spend the night in one of the rooms in the hospital while her husband was away. She insisted on only one condition: That man, she said pointing to my old father, would be the only man to share my room.
This is my father, I explained.
Mrs. Ryff smiled and glanced sideways at my father, who stood there motionless, his hands clutching his old straw hat next to his chest.
Elizabete will look after you, the Swiss woman concluded. Sit down and she’ll be with you soon.
We removed ourselves quietly and went to sit on an old tree trunk in the yard that was used as a seat. And we noticed how everything there seemed clean and tidy, in contrast to the disorder at Sana Benene.
The sound of voices and laughter came from one of the huts: It was Elizabete Xifadumela, who taught young black girls sewing and dressmaking. Two months before, when the classes began, the hall was full of young girls eager to learn a new skill. Attendance began to drop, as parents did not look favorably on this diversion from household chores. They feared the girls would forget their traditional roles as future wives and mothers.
At a certain point, the doctor’s wife called us over, waving a camera. I thought she wanted some sort of a souvenir of us and my father thought the same, for he quickly tidied his hair. But Bertha just wanted to talk about her husband’s hobby. She felt relieved that Georges had forgotten to take his cherished Kodak with him. She never mentioned it to her husband, but his images of naked black women made her feel uncomfortable. And she leafed through the album to illustrate that display of innocent shamelessness. It was one thing to know that Georges passed these women every day. It was another to suspect that her husband lingered in his contemplation of those lascivious bodies. This was why Bertha was rigorous in which rolls of film to select for printing locally and which ones should be printed in Switzerland. At the headquarters of the Presbyterian Church of Vaud, the photographs would be subjected to a second round of censorship. When they were sent back to Mandhlakazi, the images arrived having been screened and changed to conform to evangelical precepts. For example, all the chairs upon which the headmen leaned had been erased. Bertha knew why: chairs were a sign of sinful modernity. Such items originating in Europe distorted the idea of a “pure” people resisting the progress of time by living in its “natural state.” These Swiss pastors had been chosen to save a savage, pristine people. They had been given the divine function of naming this people, whom they thus designated as Vatsonga. And the sacred responsibility had been given them to protect this flock from the pernicious influence of the modern age.
My husband won’t be long. You’ll get to know him, he’s a saint!
Suddenly, a noisy group of young girls ran by and disappeared among the houses of the little village. The class had finished and Elizabete Xifadumela came to greet us. Following Bertha’s orders, the sewing teacher led us to the hut where we would be accommodated. As we walked along, I contemplated the woman who was leading us and thought that if Georges Liengme had sent photographs of that woman to Europe, then the leaders of the Presbyterian Mission would surely have bee
n perturbed. Elizabete was a proud mulatto woman who knew she was beautiful. She dressed in a modern way, and wore socks and sandals with a buckle. And she walked like no other woman did in that place: without asking permission to tread on the ground. That mixed-race woman was an aberration in the closed social order. In order to uphold the guarantee of puritan values, divine justice had punished that illegal beauty: Elizabete had inherited syphilis from her father. The dark patches on her hands and feet were like tattoos etched into the skin of the condemned.
Elizabete walked beside me the whole way. She compared my shoes with her sandals. At one stage, she asked me whether I too was a mulata. I replied that I wasn’t, that I was black and from the VaChopi people. She smiled in disbelief: That’s what you think. You’re more of a mulata than I am, my girl. You don’t know the price to pay for your situation.
Like her, I was a frontier soul. Those who considered themselves to be of a pure race hated us. Not because of what we were. But for not corresponding to what they expected.
Oblivious to what we were talking about, my father followed Elizabete, fascinated. Katini Nsambe had never seen a woman like that, with such an indistinct skin color and name.
Leave your shoes outside, our hostess ordered.
She stopped at the entrance to the hut and studied my body and face.
Do you know what you should do? Elizabete asked. You should use a headscarf.
I should hide my hair, conceal my origins—that was her recommendation. A woman always has another race within her. She gains power by hiding her mysteries. Become mysterious, the mulata concluded. And then she added:
Then ask the doctor to take a photo of you. He’ll like that. He’ll like it very much.
The mulata withdrew and we still heard her laughter as she walked away. The hut was spacious and airy. My attention was drawn to a sewing basket on the floor in a corner. I rummaged among balls of woolen thread, buttons, and needles. My fingers lingered on a rag doll in the shape of a little black girl. I caressed the soft little figure as if I were returning to what I had missed as a little girl. The wooden closet was full of winter clothes, dangling from the lifeless hangers. In spite of my father’s reproachful air, I placed a fur coat over my shoulders. Then I found a piece of paper, rolled up and tied with a ribbon. It was a letter from Bertha to her husband. My father interrupted my incursion, chiding me for tinkering with white folks’ things. That was exactly what he said: white folks’ things.
Maybe Elizabete was right. I should come out of myself more and stop dressing as if there were only one season in the year. I needed no mirror except for Germano’s eyes. Until the Portuguese had arrived, all I knew about my body was what a blind woman knows about her own beauty. But now there was a gleam in that man’s eyes every time he looked at me. Germano was, after all, like all men, without a homeland. They are given birth to by women forevermore.
* * *
From the window we saw the Swiss doctor arrive, along with his delegation. He corresponded to the descriptions people had given of him: short, with an ample brow, and clear, bright eyes.
Georges Liengme did not kiss his wife, who remained seated at the entrance to the backyard. The couple knew that displays of affection should not be made in public. Apart from that, the missionary was exhausted after a journey of several days through the troubled countryside separating Mandhlakazi and Lourenço Marques. Bertha Ryff hurriedly hid the album and put the loose photographs away in the large pockets of her apron. Then she smiled candidly at the silhouette of her tired husband standing in the full glare of the sun. Farther away, one could see a mule and a young guide making up the delegation.
Georges Liengme had returned from an arduous mission. He had been summoned by the Royal Commissioner, António Enes. The Portuguese were expecting the Swiss to convince Ngungunyane to hand over Zixaxa and Mahazul, the leaders of the revolt against Lourenço Marques. Bertha knew her husband and how tenaciously he stuck to his principles; the chances of the meeting being successful were remote. And this was confirmed by her husband:
They hate us, Bertha, the doctor said with a sigh, while loosening his suspenders over his shoulders. As soon as they can, they’ll expel us. They need to find a culprit. A white culprit.
They can’t expel us. Don’t we all have the same right to work in Africa, whether Protestant or Catholic? Didn’t they sign treaties in Europe about this?
Treaties don’t protect us. Portugal will argue that we don’t limit ourselves to evangelizing. They accuse us of distributing arms to the blacks and encouraging them to revolt.
Nevertheless, António Enes had shown himself to be a cordial, ethical man. Tall and lanky, with sunken cheeks and deep-set eyes, the Royal Commissioner, much to the astonishment of the Swiss, took pride in his reluctance to respond to the Portuguese government’s demands to expel the doctor. Enes put it like this:
I can’t stop you from encouraging an act of betrayal. But I hope you don’t betray Portugal. The missionary should return to Manjacaze, given that the king of Gaza would certainly listen to him. This way, war might be avoided. As their conversation came to a close, Enes’s tone became almost menacing: If there were a military confrontation, the Portuguese would not distinguish between villainous Africans and treacherous Swiss. This, in short, was what had happened in Lourenço Marques.
Is it as serious as that, Georges? his fragile wife asked.
Start getting your things together. You and the children had better get out of here as soon as possible.
Don’t show a face like that when you come in, our children need to see a smiling, confident father when they meet you again.
Bertha hadn’t understood: The doctor’s apprehensiveness had not been stirred by the intimations of the Royal Commissioner. On the way, he had passed hundreds of Portuguese and Angolan troops approaching the State of Gaza.
They’re right here, they’re not far from Mandhlakazi. The war has started, Bertha.
The Swiss woman crossed herself. Then, noticing us at the entrance to the hut, peering across at them and listening to their conversation, she explained our presence to her husband. The doctor shrugged. We would have to wait. He needed to recover from his journey first. Apart from that, there wasn’t a day when there weren’t dozens of sick people arriving, always accompanied by numerous family members. Illness in Africa isn’t a matter for one person alone. The relatives need to be treated too, for there are always many of them living in close proximity to one another.
Are you going to rest, husband? Ngungunyane is here.
Here at the mission?
He’s waiting for you at the hospital. He arrived last night, and guess who was with him? Mrs. Fels. Fortunately, she left for the Transvaal today to meet up with her husband. But you already know what I think about the matter, Georges, we cannot tolerate such indecency at our mission.
The king has hundreds of women. What’s the difference?
This is different, and you know only too well it is.
So what does Ngungunyane want?
He says he doesn’t feel well.
And he’s right to feel like that.
It wasn’t the emperor who was ill. It was the empire that had come to an end. His soldiers were deserting him en masse. Soldiers were fleeing from hunger, emigrating to the mines, returning to the places from where they had been taken.
The emperor is on his own. And we are even more insecure.
As the doctor was walking off in the direction of the hospital, his wife called after him:
Don’t you want me to take your boots off for you, husband?
32
SEVENTH LETTER FROM LIEUTENANT AYRES DE ORNELAS
War waged in Africa against the savages has the painful need to be thorough in its destruction, in order not to appear weak and cowardly. The Negroes do not understand clemency and generosity. To cause the greatest possible damage to the enemy is the only duty of a fighter.
—ANTÓNIO ENES, “THE AFRICAN WAR OF 1895,” 1898
Inhambane, November 3, 1895
Dear Sergeant Germano de Melo,
Our resounding military victory at Magul has restored my honor as a soldier and my pride in being Portuguese. With this action, we have silenced the backstabbing insinuations on the part of Commissioner António Enes, who vilified one of the heroes of our African campaign, our good Colonel Eduardo Galhardo. Insistent telegrams repeated the same message over and over again, in the weeks beforehand, invoking our “duties as patriots,” the commissioner “requesting” that the colonel should proceed to Manjacaze. I was amused by the refined quality of Galhardo’s reply. He said that there was no need for António Enes to invoke patriotic rhetoric for him to fulfill his obligations. And he went on to say that in his relations with his superiors, he was not used to receiving “requests.” If the commissioner were to give him orders, he would obey them without a moment’s hesitation. This dignified outburst proved to be therapeutic for me. Those who have never ventured from the comfort of their offices can never appreciate what a herculean task it is to transport an arsenal of war over hundreds of kilometers, crossing the rivers, lakes, and swamps of the African hinterland.
The worst defeats we have suffered came about because we lacked the courage to fight a single battle. This explains the intoxicating feeling I received from the news of our engagement at Magul. This euphoria lasted until, some days later, I saw pillars of smoke proliferating across the vast plains of Bilene. Villages were being burnt. I saw hundreds of anxious-looking kaffirs carrying their meager possessions through the countryside. And I confess that the sight caused me sadness. It is not enough for us to have defeated the Vátua army. In a climate of increasing fear, the blood of soldiers is not worth much. The terrible truth is that civilians need to die for a defeat to begin to weigh heavily on a nation’s conscience.
During those troubled days, something happened that I shall never forget. You will be aware, my dear sergeant, of the fire which destroyed much of our garrison at Chicomo. It happened on a pitch-black night. As the soldiers were already in bed, the alarm was only raised when the flames had already devoured many of the houses. Amid all the shouting and running about, one dark, stocky soldier of unknown name ran to the hospital building and rescued the patients. After that, the same young man dodged through the flames to reach the munitions store and dragged away the crates of explosives that were nearest to the fire. After that, he went to the corral and cut the ropes tethering the horses. The animals scattered into the darkness, kicking and jumping, knocking over everything in their frenzied flight. But they returned later, safe and sound.
