Found in Translation

by Frank Wynne

  Now I’m not crying out for an inn anymore. What with the truck, the driver, the seat in the cab, I’m completely at peace. I don’t know where the truck’s going, and neither does he. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because all we have to do is keep driving, and we’ll see when we get there.

  But the truck broke down. By that time, we were as close as friends can be. My arm was draped over his shoulder and his over mine. He was telling me about his love life, and right when he’d got to the part about how it felt the first time he held a woman’s body in his arms, the truck broke down. The truck was climbing up a hill when it broke down. All of a sudden the squeal of the engine went quiet like a pig right after it’s been slaughtered. So he jumped out of the truck, climbed onto the hood, opened up that upside-down lip, and stuffed his head back under it. I couldn’t see his ass. But I could hear the sound of him fiddling with the engine.

  After a while, he pulled his head out from under the hood and slammed it shut. His hands were even blacker than before. He wiped them on his pants, wiped again, jumped down, and walked back to the cab.

  “Is it fixed?” I asked.

  “It’s shot. There’s no way to fix it.”

  I thought that over and finally asked, “Now what do we do?”

  “Wait and see,” he said, nonchalantly.

  I was sitting in the cab wondering what to do. Then I started to think about finding an inn again. The sun was just falling behind the mountains, and the hazy dusk clouds looked like billows of steam. The notion of an inn stole back into my head and began to swell until my mind was stuffed full of it. By then, I didn’t even have a mind. An inn was growing where my mind used to be.

  At that point, the driver started doing the official morning calisthenics that they always play on the radio right there in the middle of the highway. He went from the first exercise to the last without missing a beat. When he was finished, he started to jog circles around the truck. Maybe he had been sitting too long in the driver’s seat and needed some exercise. Watching him moving from my vantage point inside the truck, I couldn’t sit still either, so I opened the door and jumped out. But I didn’t do calisthenics or jog in place. I was thinking about an inn and an inn and an inn.

  Just then, I noticed five people rolling down the hill on bicycles. Each bike had a carrying pole fastened to the back with two big baskets on either end. I thought they were probably local peasants on their way back from selling vegetables at market. I was delighted to see people riding by, so I welcomed them with a big “Hi!” They rode up beside me and dismounted. Excited, I greeted them and asked, “Is there an inn around here?”

  Instead of responding they asked me, “What’s in the truck?”

  I said, “Apples.”

  All five of them pushed their bikes over to the side of the truck. Two of them climbed onto the back, picked up about ten baskets full of apples, and passed them upside down to the ones below, who proceeded to tear open the plastic covering the top of the wicker and pour the apples into their own baskets. I was dumbstruck. When I finally realized exactly what was going on, I made for them and asked, “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

  None of them paid the slightest bit of attention to me. They continued to pour the apples. I tried to grab hold of someone’s arm and screamed, “They’re stealing all the apples!” A fist came crashing into my nose, and I landed several feet away. I staggered up, rubbed my nose. It felt soft and sticky, like it wasn’t stuck to my face anymore but only dangling from it. Blood was flowing like tears from a broken heart. When I looked up to see which of them had hit me, they were already astride their bikes, riding away.

  The driver was taking a walk, lips curling out as he sucked in deep draughts of air. He had probably lost his breath running. He didn’t seem to be at all aware of what had just happened. I yelled toward him, “They stole your apples!” But he kept on walking without paying any attention to what I had yelled. I really wanted to run over and punch him so hard that his nose would be left dangling, too. I ran over and screamed into his ear, “They stole your apples.” Only then did he turn to look at me, and I realized that his face was getting happier and happier the longer he looked at my nose.

  At that point, yet another group of bicycles descended down the slope. Each bike had two big baskets fastened to the back. There were even a few children among the riders. They swarmed by me and surrounded the truck. A lot of people climbed onto the back, and the wicker baskets flew faster than I could count them. Apples poured out of broken baskets like blood out of my nose. They stuffed apples into their own baskets as if they were possessed. In just a few seconds, all the apples in the truck had been lowered to the ground. Then a few motorized tractor carts chugged down the hill and stopped next to the truck. A few big men dismounted and started to stuff apples into the carts. One by one, the empty wicker baskets were tossed to the side. The ground was covered with rolling apples, and the peasants scrabbled on their hands and knees like ants to pick them all up.

  It was at that point that I rushed into their midst, risking life and limb, and cursed them, “Thieves!” I started swinging. My attack was met with countless fists and feet. It seemed like every part of my body got hit at the same time. I climbed back up off the ground. A few children began to hurl apples at me. The apples broke apart on my head, but my head didn’t break. Just as I was about to rush the kids, a foot came crashing into my waist. I wanted to cry, but when I opened my mouth, nothing came out. There was nothing to do but fall to the ground and watch them steal the apples. I started to look around for the driver. He was standing a good distance away, looking right at me, and laughing as hard as he could. Just so I knew that I looked even better now than I had with a bloody nose.

  I didn’t even have the strength for anger. All I could do was gaze out at everything that was making me so angry. And what made me the angriest of all was the driver.

  Another wave of bicycles and tractors rolled down the hill and threw themselves into the disaster area. There were fewer and fewer apples rolling on the ground. A few people left. A few more arrived. The ones who had arrived too late for apples began to busy themselves with the truck. I saw them remove the window glass, strip the tires, pry away the planks that covered the truck bed. Without its tires, the truck obviously felt really low, because it sank to the ground. A few children began to gather the wicker baskets that had been tossed to the side a moment before. As the road got cleaner and cleaner, there were fewer and fewer people. But all I could do was watch, because I didn’t even have the strength for anger. I sat on the ground without moving, letting my eyes wander back and forth between the driver and the thieves.

  Now, there’s nothing left but a single tractor parked beside the sunken truck. Someone’s looking around to see if there’s anything left to take. He looks for a while and then hops on his tractor and starts the engine.

  The truck driver hops onto the back of the tractor and looks back toward me, laughing. He’s holding my red backpack in his hand. He’s stealing my backpack. My clothes and my money are in the backpack. And food and books. But he’s stealing my backpack.

  I’m watching the tractor climb back up the slope. It disappears over the crest. I can still hear the rumble of its engine, but soon I can’t even hear that. All of a sudden, everything’s quiet, and the sky starts to get really dark. I’m still sitting on the ground. I’m hungry, and I’m cold, but there’s nothing left.

  I sit there for a long time before I slowly stand up. It isn’t easy because my whole body aches like crazy every time I move, but still I stand up and limp over to the truck. The truck looks miserable, battered. I know I’ve been battered too.

  The sky’s black now. There’s nothing here. Just a battered truck and battered me. I’m looking at the truck, immeasurably sad, and the truck’s looking at me, immeasurably sad. I reach out to stroke it. It’s cold all over. The wind starts to blow, a strong wind, and the sound of the wind rustling the trees in the mountains is like ocean wave
s. The sound terrifies me so much that my body gets as cold as the truck’s.

  I open the door and hop in. I’m comforted by the fact that they didn’t pry away the seat. I lie down in the cab. I smell leaking gas and think of the smell of the blood that leaked out of me. The wind’s getting stronger and stronger, but I feel a little warmer lying on the seat. I think that even though the truck’s been battered, its heart is still intact, still warm. I know that my heart’s warm, too. I was looking for an inn, and I never thought I’d find you here.

  I lie inside the heart of the truck, remembering that clear warm afternoon. The sunlight was so pretty. I remember that I was outside enjoying myself in the sunshine for a long time, and when I got home I saw my dad through the window packing things into a red backpack. I leaned against the window frame and asked, “Dad, are you going on a trip?”

  He turned and very gently said, “No, I’m letting you go on a trip.”

  “Letting me go on a trip?”

  “That’s right. You’re eighteen now, and it’s time you saw a little of the outside world.”

  Later I slipped that pretty red backpack onto my back. Dad patted my head from behind, just like you would pat a horse’s rump. Then I gladly made for the door and excitedly galloped out of the house, as happy as a horse.

  THE MAN WITH THE LIGHT

  José Eduardo Agualusa

  Translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn

  José Eduardo Agualusa (1960–). Considered one of Africa’s most important writers, Agualusa was born in Huambo, in modern-day Angola. He studied agronomy and silviculture in Lisbon. Both as a novelist and a reporter Agualusa has become an important voice of his country. He has a weekly column in the Brazilian newspaper O Globo. In 2007, Agualusa and his translator won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for The Book of Chameleons. His novel A General Theory of Oblivion was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2016 and won the International Dublin Literary Award 2017. His books have been published in almost thirty countries and he now lives on the Island of Mozambique, where he works as a writer and journalist. He also has been working to establish a public library on the island.

  For Miguel Petchkovsky and Paula Tavares

  Nicolau Alicerces Peshkov had an enormous head, or maybe it had simply caused the rest of him to shrivel away, but either way, it definitely looked as though it had been attached to the wrong body by mistake. His hair, what was left of it, was weedy and red, his face covered in freckles. His unlikely name, his even more extraordinary physiognomy, the whole lot was due to the travels through the Huambo highlands of an itinerant Russian, who in his alcoholic ravings boasted of having served as an officer in Nicholas II’s cavalry. Besides the name and the freckles, Nicolau Alicerces Peshkov had inherited his father’s passion for cinema and his old projector. It was precisely that name, those freckles, and that projector, which is to say, his Russian heritage, that nearly landed him in front of a firing squad.

  He had just spent two days and a night hiding in a crate of dried fish. He’d been woken with a start by a crackle of gunfire. He didn’t know where he was. This was always happening to him. He sat up in his bed and tried to remember, as the gunfire outside grew: he had arrived at dusk, pedalling his old bicycle, he’d rented a room in the boarding house run by a Portuguese man, he’d said goodbye to little James, who had family in the village, and gone to bed. It was a small room. The bedstead was iron, with a wooden board across the top and no mattress. A sheet, which was clean but threadbare, flimsy, covering the board. An enamel chamber-pot. On the walls, somebody had painted a blue angel. A good picture. The angel looked straight at him, looked at something that wasn’t there, with the same luminous and hopeless aloofness as Marlene Dietrich.

  Nicolau Alicerces Peshkov, whom the Mucubal people called The Man with the Light, opened the window of his room, hoping to discover the reasons for the war. He peered out and saw that all along the road an armed mob was moving, some of them soldiers, mostly young civilians with red ribbons round their heads. One of the young men pointed, shouting, and another opened fire in his direction. Nicolau still didn’t know what war this was, but he did know that, regardless, he was on the wrong side – he was the Indian here, and he had nothing better than a little tomahawk with which to defend himself. He left the bedroom, in his underpants, went into the kitchen, opened a door and discovered a long and narrow back yard, blocked at the far end by a high adobe wall. He managed to jump the wall, by climbing a pathetic-looking mango tree that grew alongside it, and found himself in another yard, this one broader, more run-down, next to a wattle-and-daub hut that looked like it was used as a storeroom. He thought about James Dean. What would the kid do in this situation? He’d definitely know what to do, James was an expert in getting away. He saw a laundry tank, filled to the top with water, covered by a tarp. James Dean would climb inside the tank, and stay there for as long as necessary, waiting to grow scales. He, however, would not fit into this prison. His body might, actually, but not his head. It was in this state of despair that, hearing the mob getting closer, he noticed the crate of fish. The smell was appalling, a strong stench of rotting seas, but there was just enough space for a crouching man. And so he climbed into the crate and waited.

  Looking through a gap in the crate, he saw the mob with the ribbons arrive. They were dragging by the neck five poor guys whose only crime, it seemed, was speaking Umbundu, urging them on with kicks and blows from their rifle-butts. They lay the men down on their backs and resumed their beating, with their weapons, their belts, heavy sticks, shouting that this was just for starters. Soon after this, a woman with a pistol appeared and, with a glance, forced the aggressors aside, pressed the gun to the neck of one of the poor wretches and fired. Then did the same to the other four. Next, they brought forward two young boys and four older women, one carrying a small child on her back, all crying and wailing. When they saw the bodies, their screaming grew louder. One of the soldiers cocked his rifle: ‘Anyone who mourns the dead dies too.’

  The others began raining down blows on the group, not even sparing the child, while a guy with a video camera danced around them.

  Nicolau Alicerces Peshkov turned away from the gap, and squeezed his eyes shut. It was no good: even with his eyes closed, he saw two of the beribboned young men rape one of the women; he saw them kill the child, with blows from their rifle butts, and the rest of the group with bullets and kicks.

  He emerged from the box on the evening of the following day. He was so exhausted, and such was the torment in his puny breast, that he didn’t notice the soldier who was sitting right next to the crate, watching over the corpses. The man looked at him with surprise, as happy as a little boy who’d just found the lucky charm in the fruitcake, and led him by the hand to the police station. At the door, a very tall, thin man with a full beard seemed to be waiting for them. They took him to a windowless room, sat him on a chair. The tall man asked his name.

  ‘Peshkov? Nicolau Peshkov?! You’re Russian, comrade? That’s very convenient – I studied in Moscow, at the Lubyanka, I speak Russian better than Portuguese.’

  And he unleashed a stream of impenetrable gibberish that seemed to amuse everybody. Seeing the others laugh, Nicolau Peshkov laughed, too, but only out of politeness, because what he really needed to do was cry.

  The tall man abruptly turned serious. He pointed to a leather case on his desk. ‘Do you know what this is?’ Nicolau Peshkov recognised it as the case in which he kept his projector and his movies. He explained who he was. For forty years, he had been travelling the country with this contraption. He was proud to have brought the seventh art to the most remote and hidden corners of Angola – places forgotten by the rest of the world. In colonial times, he’d travelled by train. Benguela, Ganda, Chianga, Lépi, Catchiungo, Chinguar, Cutato, Catabola, Camacupa, Munhango, Luena. Wherever the train happened to stop, he would get out. He would unfurl the screen, put the projector on the tripod, set out half a dozen canvas chairs
for the dignitaries of the town. People would come from far away, from the surrounding bush-country, from places with secret names, even places with no names at all. They would offer him goats, chickens, eggs, game. They would sit on the other side of the screen, facing into the projector’s light, and watch the movie back to front.

  The war that followed independence destroyed the railroad and he was restricted to the outskirts of the big cities. He soon lost everything he had managed to earn in the twenty previous years. He concentrated on the south. He travelled by bicycle, with his assistant, the young James Dean, between Lubango and Humpata, between Huíla and Chibia. Sometimes he ventured as far south as Mossâmedes. Maybe Porto Alexandre. Baía dos Tigres. Never anywhere else. He would bring a white sheet, pin it to the wall of a hut, any wall would do, set up the projector and run the movie. James Dean would pedal the whole time to generate the electricity. On a tranquil, moonless night, there was no cinema better.

  The tall man listened with interest. He took some notes.

  ‘And you can prove you really are the individual you claim to be?’

  Prove it? Nicolau Peshkov took a yellowing piece of paper from his shirt pocket and carefully unfolded it. It was a cutting from the Jornal de Angola. An interview published five years earlier: ‘The Last Cinema Hero’. In the photo, which was black and white, Nicolau Alicerces Peshkov was posing next to his bicycle, hands on the handlebars, his enormous head slightly out of focus.

  The tall man snatched the cutting, turned it over and started to read some article or other about the importance of manioc flour. ‘Not that one, chefe,’ groaned Nicolau Peshkov, ‘please, read the story on the other side. Look at the photo. That’s me.’ The tall man looked at him with contempt: