by Alex MacBeth
The Comandante had not flown since he had hitched a ride en route to being deployed in Chimoio in a Cuban-supplied MiG 15bis military two-seater in 1987. The Mozambican Air Force pilot, ‘Giant Maninho’, had offered Felisberto a ‘tour of the sky’ via his target, a Renamo camp north of the Gorongosa Mountains. Felisberto wondered what it would be like to fly as a civilian. He left his gun, the keys to his car and his badge with Naissone. “Don’t ask, I’ll be back soon for them.” Naiss chuckled and took what his friend had left. Felisberto texted Samora instructions to collect the car, as he had no idea how long he’d be gone.
About six years earlier, Felisberto had won a provincial raffle on 25 September Day, which commemorates the start of Mozambique’s struggle for independence. The prize was a return ticket for two to any destination on domestic carrier Areas de Nampula. The Comandante had always despised holidays. His older brother had used them when he was a child as an excuse to be angry with everyone and make him cry. He had flirted with a half-decent experience in his teens but the truth was he was happy rooted to one place. Naturally he had never cashed in the raffle prize.
He checked his wallet. It was still there, ink fading, ripped at the edges, past its date of validity, but nevertheless there. He paid the driver and stepped into the airport, where he headed straight for the Areas de Nampula desk, behind the international carriers. “Good morning. I’d like to fly to Tete,” he said. He waved the shrivelled air mile token with a fake smile. The staff behind the desk huddled round the ticket and laughed. “Are you joking?” said a young man wearing a shirt with the airline’s logo.
Felisberto leant in closer, making sure to keep his eyes firmly on the flight check-in attendant’s own. “Listen,” began the Comandante, with a characteristic pause’n’stare he had perfected in twenty years of police work.
“I…
“We understand,” said a young girl. “But this voucher expired five years ago.”
“I have been busy working and this is the first holiday I have had in that time to come and claim this prize. One can’t just go flying places in my profession.”
“What profession is that, sir?” said a lanky figure at the back, lacing his question with uncontrollable fits of giggles. The airline’s staff all laughed, like a group of hysterical teenage girls. The lanky figure shook his head and turned his back on the Comandante, reigniting his conversation with the two girls. Felisberto sensed a different approach would be needed.
“Matola?” came a voice from behind him. It was Waes. They’d played together at Ferroviário de Beira in the late 1990s when Felisberto was the captain of a football team and not of a police station. Now Waes the gargantuan hard tackling defender was here, working at customs.
“What are you doing in these parts, Matola? What’s the problem?” asked Waes, sensing the lanky figure at the airline desk might be responsible. “Don’t you know that this man is a war hero? You wouldn’t even be standing here in your nicely ironed shirts spitting your clever PR talk if men and women like Mato… Comandante Felisberto hadn’t protected our land from foreign invaders.”
“His ticket has expired,” the lanky airline worker said matter-of-factly, instantly regretting his interjection. Waes lifted the wooden bar separating him from the staff area behind the check-in desk and walked slowly towards the tall but petrified worker, who looked to his colleagues for help. Everyone fell quiet. “Show me his ticket,” demanded Waes. The flight attendant handed over Felisberto’s voucher and Waes inspected it. “So you are trying to deprive a war veteran of a legitimately acquired flight voucher? Denying a Comandante of police access to his legitimate reward?” said Waes waving the voucher in the lanky airline worker’s face. “Is the flight fully booked today?”
Waes had spoken. He and Felis exchanged numbers and half an hour later the Comandante was walking along the burning tarmac towards an Embraer 340. Minutes later he was high in the sky, placing miles between himself and Stokes, Minister Frangopelo, the Red Army colonel Li, the frangipani-scented corpse and the red die.
Chapter Ten
Comandante Felisberto landed at Tete Airport at around 2pm. As he stepped out of the plane and onto the tarmac, he was assaulted by a furnace blast of hot, dry air. Inside the terminal building, a sign sponsored by a local resort read 48° Celsius. For the first time in years, Felisberto paid for a bottle of water and drank it in one gulp.
As he left the airport in the back of a tchopela, a motorised rickshaw, he saw machines that he had seen before in training after the war in South Africa: haulers, flatteners, diggers and lifters. Cranes in the distance lifted iron girders onto multi-floored new buildings. He recognised the name of the district of Moatize as they drove through it. It was famous across Mozambique for its coal. On the sides of the road new bars were being erected everywhere. Trucks and lorries carrying materials clogged recently asphalted traffic lanes.
Before 2006, Tete had been the backwater of Mozambique; a town mocked for its provincialism, its people lambasted for their peculiar Portuguese accent. Felisberto remembered a village on the banks of a huge river from his last visit. Now the town was a burgeoning market, compensating for time lost to inertia, selling construction materials to a profusion of Brazilian mining companies. A large billboard sponsored by the government on the side of the road proclaimed, “You can bet on Tete.” Felisberto counted four banks as they rode, all with sparkling peach and cream facades. Some still had protective covering on the windows.
“Where to?” asked the tchopela driver, reaching the toll bridge on the 700 metre-wide Zambezi River. “Near the river, west,” said Felisberto, looking down at the huge body of water bristling in the afternoon sun. Five minutes later, the Comandante was standing outside a newly-built cement block. Julio appeared and welcomed him with the one leg salute. He took Felisberto’s suitcase and led him inside. “This is Claudia,” said Julio, introducing his wife. They took a quick tour of the house before Julio ushered his old friend down to the pier. He stopped at a secluded store and bought two cold beers. “There, on the rock,” said Julio, guiding Felisberto to the riverbank.
“Don’t get too close to the water.” He handed Felisberto a cold Manica beer. “The crocodiles love Nampula blood.” They opened their beers and watched the late afternoon activity on the river. A group of naked women were washing their clothes in a pool further down, their children splashing beside them. “Every week one gets eaten by crocodiles,” said Julio. They drank to the world’s necessities and sat in silence watching the sun settle down behind the river. Felisberto had last seen the huge body of water when he had been involved in his regiment’s defence of the Dona Ana Bridge in 1984.
Then shrapnel tore away part of his leg during an air raid on the camp where he was stationed. At first doctors told him he would never walk again. But a young surgeon removed ninety per cent of the shrapnel and Felisberto spent no more than six months in a military hospital before re-joining his regiment. He was injured again in 1987, before travelling to Havana for guerrilla warfare training in a Cuban military academy. He spent two years in Cuba, developing a distinct taste for rum and cigars. When he found himself back on the frontline in early 1990, Nelson Mandela had already been released and there was talk of a truce between the warring factions in Mozambique. Eighteen months later Renamo and Frelimo signed a treaty in Rome, which give way to peace, and the first democratic elections in Mozambique.
“Whatever you are thinking, it was long ago,” said Julio, seeing the Comandante lost in his thoughts. “The river has found its soul again. We are here now,” he added. Felisberto looked like a tortured man. “Felis, what brings you here?”
Felisberto looked at his colleague and wished that he could tell him everything about Stokes’ body washing up in Quissanga. He was tempted to disclose everything at once: the explosion at the comando, Bia’s death, the former Red Army Colonel Li, every detail of the sordid case he found himself in. His instinct warned him not to. Knowing about the disc could endanger Ju
lio. Just as he was thinking it, he panicked. Where was the disco pequeño?
Felisberto felt his left pocket. It was still there, but he realised he hadn’t even listened to it yet. Worst of all, even if he had wanted to, he wouldn’t have known how. He was carrying a disc of potentially devastating information in his pocket as if it were a pack of cigarettes. Julio surreptitiously watched his old comrade pick his way through a minefield of emotions. He coughed to remind Felisberto that he was there, but the Comandante ignored him. Felisberto was too busy persuading himself that once he found out the contents of the disc, there would be no going back. Innocence would turn to burden. He would be hunted, perhaps killed for the knowledge.
“Well, it’s good to have you anyway,” said Julio, settling for no answer. “There is a party for army vets and police, one of those awful cracking teeth events, in town tonight and I thought two old men with no better prospects like us could go.”
“Sounds great,” muttered Felisberto.
Julio’s children were home and they waved to the Comandante as they sat down for dinner. On being properly introduced they appeared to know him already. Felisberto was touched that Julio had told them about him and made a mental note to tell Germano and Sofia about Julio one day soon. Over dinner they discussed the recent boom in Tete.
“If you have a mafia, this is a good place to bring it,” said Salvador, Julio’s eldest, rubbing his thumb against his index and middle finger to show that money ruled triumphant in the new Tete. His father seemed embarrassed by his son’s brazen interjection, but didn’t intervene. He had wanted his children to be strong, now he would have to live with their leadership. “This generation,” Julio grumbled, putting on his coat. Felisberto caught the headline of the daily Noticias on the mantelpiece. Authorities were now linking the kidnappings at the port in Nacala to ivory. “We believe this could be a racket of ivory smugglers shipping to the Middle East,” the paper quoted Comandante Antonio as saying.
Another op-ed suggested the Nacala kidnappings could be linked to organ smuggling. Only last week, wrote the reporter, two Chinese men were caught at Maputo Airport with four frozen hearts. Immigration authorities refused to officially confirm any arrest - suggesting there could have been ‘a special agreement,’ wrote the journalist – but at least one officer had leaked information about it to the press. Was a child’s heart really worth that much in the West, mused the Comandante?
“Let’s go,” said Julio.
The Comandante and his former co-combatant stepped outside into the smothering heat, and a street where the din of cicadas competed with the blaring radios and TVs. Fruit bats flitted past them as Julio stopped a tchopela, a tuk, and headed across the bridge towards a restaurant and bar on the side of the river. “I’m not sure about this, I don’t…” Felisberto mouthed, but before he could finish objecting, Julio had dragged him inside.
Couples in expensive clothes chatted away in the restaurant. The young singles brigade, mainly cadets in their late teens or early twenties, roamed the dance floor for any stray girls brave enough to engage with their posse. “Really, I’m not sure about this,” Felisberto repeated, taking hesitant baby steps forward. “Is there an election soon?”
“It’s always campaign season, Felis,” retorted Julio. They walked to a quieter spot behind the river and smoked. Julio grabbed a beer from a tray a waiter was carrying and stuffed it into Felisberto’s hand. “Drink,” Julio insisted. “We’ve lots of toasts to catch up on.”
The party grew louder and more crowded as various VIPs and their entourages entered bearing gifts. First it was the turn of the mayor, then the provincial police commander, then the deputy head of interregional policing from Maputo. All entered wearing shiny suits, followed by a clique of yes women and men. The DJ interrupted each song to welcome every VIP like a praise singer, individually listing each one’s achievements with sycophantic indulgence. Strobe lights played strange effects on the crowd for every new VIP. The more important the person, the more protracted the lighting arrangement. “Remember the parties in Maputo?” said Julio. “Complexo Xima? Kampfumo?”
“Jimmy Dludlu, Orchestra Marrabenta,” Felisberto responded, warming nostalgically to the subject. The Comandante put his hands to his mouth and played an improvised trumpet, Julio threw in some saxophone and before long a small crowd had gathered to hear the impromptu human beat-box tribute to early 1990s Mozambican jazz. A mock round of applause later, Julio and Felisberto clicked beers and retreated to the bar for something harder to drink.
As the Comandante crossed the dance floor, he began to regret having drunk so much. In a corner of the room, beside an old man with his back to Felisberto, stood a familiar figure in a body-clenching red dress. Felisberto knew it wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. He had held Bia in his arms as she had died. Yet everything about the apparition confirmed it to have been the woman who had been shot while talking to him in Stokes’ flat the night before. Felisberto hurried to the bar and leant on it for support. He looked again in the direction of the ghostly woman. Her red dress sparkled beneath a strobe light but it was dark and full of smoke and he could not see clearly.
He closed his eyes and counted to three. One, two, three…
There she was, sitting talking to the old man.
Her long curly hair. The mole on her left cheek. It was her. Felisberto slivered round the edge of the room. That distant scent from his childhood crept towards him. The frangipani was the clincher - Bia was alive and in the same room.
“Are you okay?” Julio asked. “Fine,” replied Felisberto, wiping the cold sweat from his brow. “A double whisky,” he said turning to the barman. The Comandante drank the double straight and signalled, with crocodile mouth movements with his hand, that he needed to talk to Julio outside. “What’s up, Felis?” Julio asked, when they had reached the front gate and the thump of the music was fading. “You’re acting like queen of the proms.”
“I had a bad bout of malaria recently, just needed some fresh air.” Julio knew his friend was lying.
“Drink,” said Julio. Felisberto gulped back the glass Julio gave him and closed his eyes hoping the apparition would go away. When he opened them again Julio was holding two more glasses. “You look like you need it more than me. I’ll get two more,” said Julio. Felisberto drank the whisky and followed the sound of the music to the dance floor.
She had disappeared.
The Comandante stood on his toes to get a better view through the crowd of bodies and smoke, desperately trying to catch a trail of red or a frangipani scent. Then a glimpse of red leaving through the back door like blood from a thin wound.
It was definitely her.
Felisberto ran to Julio, elbowing his way through the throng. He explained that his malaria attack had left him with terrible diarrhoea. Before Julio could ask any more, Felisberto ran across the dance floor making gestures to explain his unfortunate bowel troubles.
Outside he’d lost them again. Then he caught sight of a red collar touching the inside window of a black Mercedes. Felisberto jumped into one of the many tchopelas. “Follow that Mercedes,” he barked. “What’s it worth?” asked the driver, upset with Felisberto’s tone. “Five hundred, but step on it and don’t disappoint me.” They followed the Mercedes across the bridge and down into a luxury residential unit by the river, not far from where they set off. Felisberto told the driver to stop two hundred metres away from where the car parked and gave him 200 MT. “You said five hundred,” he protested. “I thought the journey would be longer,” replied the Comandante, walking slowly in the direction of the resurrected Bia and the old man.
As he left the cab the heavy scent of white acacia blossoms enveloped him, honeying the hot air. The Comandante wrapped a scarf around his face and lit a cigarette. Someone turned on the light in a house up ahead and he saw the silhouettes of the old man and Bia’s clone.
He saw the girl open the window and approached to get a better look. It was her, and yet his rational mind
refused to accept the evidence presented to it. How could it be? Yet there she was: same size, same face, same smell. He walked on the inside of the pavement, hidden by the boulevard’s cloying acacia trees, until he was twenty or so metres away from the house. The girl pulled the curtain as the old man approached the window. All Felisberto could see was two silhouettes making out.
He was tempted to ring the bell but then realised he was being ridiculous. Frangipani scent is sold in markets across the country, he reasoned. He had only glimpsed her face from distance. The mole could have been a scar. More convincingly, she had died in his arms. He suddenly felt deeply ashamed of himself and rushed back to the party.
By the time he made it there the couples brigade had left, leaving the singles to sharpen their teeth on anyone brave enough to share the same premises. Julio was at a table with two other men, one of whom Felisberto recognised. “Maninho,” said Felisberto embracing his old friend, “I thought they’d sectioned you for the benefit of us all.”
“Felisberto, you old cynic, they let me out to find other psychos like you. Come here, you!” Giant Maninho bear-hugged Felisberto. “Four shots!” Maninho screamed at the top of his voice in the direction of the bar. “Four shots for me and my old friend, Felis!” he screamed again. Maninho began to dance. “That was a very long shit,” said Julio looking at the Comandante suspiciously. “Met a girl in the toilet who wanted to talk. You know how it is,” Felisberto explained. Julio didn’t buy it: Felisberto wasn’t the type.
Maninho came and rescued the Comandante from elaborating on his lie. “Dance, Felis, the war is over!” screamed Maninho as the waitress left four shots on the table. “Dance!” he screamed. Felis looked at Maninho and understood how his side had won the war. The man’s energy was irrepressible. The last time the Comandante had seen Maninho was the last time he had flown in a plane, en route to Chimoio, when he had hitched a lift with ‘The Giant’, who had dropped a bomb on a Renamo camp.
