by Mia Couto
I’m not a man given to rescues. I’m a person who is happened to rather than who happens. I was thinking about all this as I walked back. My eyes didn’t even ask the way, it was as if I were walking in my own tears. Suddenly, I remembered the princess, I seemed to be listening to her voice asking for help. It was as if she were there, at the corner of every tree, on her knees and begging as I am now. But once again I refused to dispense life, I distanced myself from goodness.
When I got back to my hut, it pained me to hear the world round about, full of the beautiful sounds of nightfall. I hid myself in these selfsame arms of mine, I shut off my thoughts in a darkened room. It was then that her hands came to me. Slowly my arms, wilful snakes that they were, disentangled themselves. She spoke to me as if I were a child, the son she had never had:
—It was an accident at the mine, wasn’t it?
I nodded without a word. She uttered some curses in her own language and went out. I went with her, for I knew she was suffering more than I. The princess sat down in the main lounge and waited for her husband in silence. When the boss arrived, she stood up slowly, and in her hands appeared the glass clock. The one she told me to take such care with. She raised the clock high above her head and, with all her strength, hurled it to the ground. The glass shattered and spread all over the floor in shimmering grains. She continued, breaking other pieces of china, doing everything unhurriedly and without a single cry. But those shards of glass were cutting her soul, I knew. As for the boss, he shouted all right. First in Portuguese. He ordered her to stop. The princess took no notice. He shouted in their language and she never even heard. And do you know what she did then? No, you can’t imagine it, even I can hardly believe the events I witnessed. The princess took off her shoes, and looking her husband in the eye, began to dance on top of the pieces of glass. She danced and danced and danced. How she bled, Father! I should know, I cleaned it. I got a cloth, and wiped the floor as if I were caressing the lady’s body, bringing comfort to all her wounds. The boss ordered me to go, to leave everything as it was. But I refused. I’ve got to clean this blood away, boss. I answered him in a voice that didn’t even seem to be my own. Was I disobeying him? Where did that strength come from that rooted me to the ground, imprisoned in my own will?
So that’s how it was, the impossible made true. A length of time passing in a single flash. I don’t know whether it was because of the glass, but the next day, the lady fell ill. She lay there in a separate room, she slept alone. I would make the bed while she rested on the sofa. We would talk. The subject never changed: recollections of her homeland, childhood balm.
—This illness, lady, for sure it’s caused by longings.
—All my lyife is therrre. The man I love is in Rrrussia, Forrrtin.
I bustled around, feigning inattention. I didn’t want to know.
—His nyame is Anton, and hye is the only rrruler of my hearrrt.
I’m imitating the way she spoke, but it’s not to make fun of her. That’s the way I remember her confession of such a love. Confidences followed, she forever yielding up to me memories of her hidden passion. I was afraid that our conversations might be overheard. I would hurry with my tasks so as to get out of the room. But one day, she handed me a sealed envelope. It was a matter of the greatest secrecy, no one should ever suspect. She asked me to post the letter in town.
From that day on she never stopped giving me letters. One after the other, first one, then another, and yet another. She wrote as she lay there, the writing on the envelope shook with her fever.
But Father: do you want to know the truth? I never posted those letters. Nothing, not a single one. That’s the sin I bear and must suffer. It was fear that inhibited me from the obedience I owed her, fear of being caught with such frenzied proof in my hand.
The poor lady would look at me with warmth, trustful of a sacrifice that I wasn’t even making. She would give me her correspondence and I would begin to tremble, as if my fingers were holding a flame. Yes, that’s the right word: a flame. For that was the very fate that awaited all those letters. I threw them all into the kitchen stove. It was there that my lady’s secrets were burned. I would listen to the flames, which sounded like her sighs. God bless me, Father, just telling you my shame makes me sweat.
And so time passed. The lady’s strength deteriorated. I would enter her room and she would look at me, almost pierce me with those blue eyes of hers. She never asked whether an answer had arrived. Nothing. Only those eyes, stolen from the sky, looked at me inquiringly and in mute despair.
The doctor now came every day. He would come out of the room, shaking his head in nullified hope. The whole house lay in gloom, the curtains ever drawn. Only shadows and silence. One morning, I saw the door open just a crack. It was the lady peeping out. With a gesture, she summoned me in. I asked if she was feeling better. She didn’t reply. She sat down in front of the mirror, and covered her face with that perfumed powder, so deceiving death’s colour. She painted her mouth but took a long time getting the shade right on each lip. Her hands were trembling so much that the red smudged her nose and her chin. If I were a woman I would have helped, but being a man I just stood there, looking bashful.
—Are you going out, my lady?
—I yem going shtation. We yarre both going.
—To the station?
—Yes, Anton yis arriving on next trrrain.
And opening her bag, she showed me a letter. She said it was his reply. It had taken a long time, but it had arrived in the end, she waved the envelope as children do when they’re scared you may deprive them of their fantasy. She said something in Russian. Then she spoke in Portuguese: Anton was coming on the train from Beira, he was going to take her far away.
She was raving, of course. The lady was feigning an idea. How could an answer have come? If I was the one who collected all the mail? If many a day had gone by since the lady left the house? And, what was more: if the lady’s letters had been posted in the stove?
Supported by my arm, she started off down the road. I was her walking stick until we were near the station. It was here, Father, that I committed my worst sin. I’m very hard on myself, there are things I don’t accept in me. Yes indeed, I’m the person I defend myself least from in everything. That’s why this confession is such a weight off my conscience. I’m counting on God to defend me. Am I not justified, Father? Listen on then.
The princess’s skin was right up against my body, I was sweating her sweat. The lady was in my arms, abandoned to me entirely. I began to dream that she was running away with me. Who was I if not Anton himself? Yes indeed, I cast myself in the role of the author of the letter. Do you think I was an intruder? But at the time, I agreed to it. For if my lady’s life was devoid of any worth, what did it matter if I helped in her ravings? Who knows? Maybe this madness might heal the wound which was stealing her body away from her. But do you see, Father, the pretense I had taken on? I, Duarte Fortin, General Commissioner of all the domestic staff, was running away with a white woman, and a princess into the bargain. As if she would ever want someone like me, a man of my colour and unequal legging. There’s no doubt about it, I have the soul of a worm, and I shall have to crawl around in the next world. My sins require many a prayer. Pray for me, Father, pray for me a lot! For the worst, the worst is yet to come.
I was carrying the princess along by a roundabout route. She wasn’t even aware of the diversion. I took the lady down to the riverbank and laid her on the soft grass. I went to the river to fetch some water. I bathed her face and her neck. She replied with a shiver, and her mask of powder began to dissolve. The princess gasped for breath. She looked around and asked:
—The station?
I decided to lie. I told her it was right there, just nearby. We were in the shade only in order to hide from the others, who were waiting in the station yard.
—We mustn’t be seen. We had better wait for the train in this hiding place.
She, poor soul, thanked me for
my cares. She said she had never met such a kindly man before. She asked me to wake her up when the train came; she was very tired, she needed rest. I sat there looking at her, enjoying her close presence. I saw the buttons on her dress and imagined the warmth that lay underneath. My pulse gathered pace. At the same time, I was scared. And supposing the boss were to catch me right there in the middle of the grass with his lady? It would just be a question of pointing the dark muzzle of his shotgun at me and firing. It was the fear of being shotgunned that deterred me. I lingered there, just looking at that woman in my arms. It was then that my dream once again began to escape me. Do you know what I felt, Father? I felt that she no longer had her own body: she was using mine. Do you understand, Father? She had a white skin that was mine, that mouth of hers belonged to me, those blue eyes were both mine. It was as if her soul were distributed between two opposite bodies: one male, the other female; one Black, the other white. Do you doubt me? You can take it from me, Father, that opposites are the most alike. If you don’t believe it, see here: isn’t fire most like ice? They both burn, and in both cases, a man can only penetrate them when he’s dead.
But if I were her, then I must be dying in my second body. That was why I felt weakened, listless. I dropped down beside her and we stayed there, the two of us, without moving. She, with her eyes closed. I, trying to stave off my slow drift into sleep. I knew that if I closed my eyes, I would never again open them upon life. I was already deep inside myself, I couldn’t sink further. There are moments when we are very like the dead, and that semblance gives the dead encouragement. That’s what they can never forgive: we who are alive being so like them.
And do you know how I saved myself, Father? By digging my arms into the warm earth, just as those dying miners had done. It was my roots that bound me to life, that’s what saved me. I got up, sweating all over, full of fever. I decided to get out of there, without delay. The princess was still alive and gestured to try and stop me. I ignored her plea. I returned home, all the while with that same anxiety I had felt when I abandoned the survivors at the mine. When I arrived, I told the boss: I found the lady under a tree near the station, she was already dead. I accompanied him so he could see for himself. There in the shade, the princess was still breathing. When the boss bent down, she grabbed him by the shoulders and said:
—Antoni.
The boss heard the name that didn’t belong to him. Even so, he kissed her brow lovingly. I went to fetch the cart and, when he picked her up, she was dead, as cold as stone. Then from her dress fell a letter. I tried to pick it up but the boss was quicker. He looked at the envelope in surprise and then glanced at me. I stood there with my chin on my chest, fearful that he might ask questions. But the boss screwed up the paper and put it in his pocket. We went home in silence.
On the following day, I ran away to Gondola. I’ve been there ever since, working on the trains. From time to time, I come up to Manica and pass the old cemetery. I kneel by the lady’s grave and ask her to forgive me for I know not what. Actually, that’s not true, I do know. I ask her to forgive me for not being the man she was waiting for. But that’s only a pretense of guilt, because you know what a lie this kneeling of mine is. Because while I’m there, in front of her grave, all I can remember is the scent of her body. That’s why I’ve been confessing this bitterness of mine to you, which has stolen my taste for life. It’s not long now before I shall leave this world. I’ve even asked God to let me die. But it seems God doesn’t listen to such requests. What did you say, Father? I shouldn’t say such resigned things? But that’s the memory I have of myself. Widower of a wife I never had. It’s just that I feel so wretched. The only happiness that warms me, do you know what it is? It’s when I leave the cemetery and go and walk among the dust and ashes of the old Russian mine. The mine is now closed, it died along with the lady. I go there by myself. Then I sit down on an old tree trunk and look back at the road I have trodden. And do you know what I see then? I see two different sets of footprints, but both issued from my body. One set is large, a man’s feet. The others are the print of a small foot, a woman’s. They’re the princess’s footprints, walking alongside mine. They are her prints, Father. There is no certainty greater than the one I have of that. Not even God can correct me of such certainty. God may not forgive me my sins and I may run the risk of having hell as my fate. But I don’t care: there, in hell’s ashes, I shall see the print of her footsteps, forever walking on my left-hand side.
The Blind Fisherman
—Each man’s boat is in his own heart.
Makua proverb,
from northern Mozambique
We live far from ourselves, in distant make-believe. We vanish into concealment. Why do we prefer to live in this inner darkness? Maybe because the dark joins things, sews together the threads of separation. In the warm embrace of night, the impossible wins us to suppose we can see it. Our fantasies come to rest in such illusion.
I write all this even before I begin. Written with water by someone who wants no memories, which are ink’s ultimate purpose. All because of Maneca Mazembe, the blind fisherman. It happened that he emptied both his eyes, two wells dried up by the sun. The way he lost his sight is a story that defies belief. There are tales that get harder to understand the more they are told. After all, many voices only produce silence.
It happened one fishing trip: Mazembe was lost in the endless deep. The storm had taken the little boat by surprise, and the fisherman drifted boundlessly, ad infinitum. The hours passed, summoned away by time. With neither net nor provisions, Mazembe placed all his faith in waiting. But hunger began to make a nest in his belly. He decided to cast his line, but without any hopes: the hook had no bait. And nobody has heard of a fish that kills itself out of choice, biting an empty hook.
At night, the cold ripened. Maneca Mazembe covered himself with himself. There’s nothing more snug than one’s body, he thought. Or can it be that babies, inside their pregnancy, suffer cold?
The week went by, full of days. The boat stayed above the line of the water. The fisherman survived above the line of life. As his hunger grew, he felt his ribs in the frame of his body:
—I’m no longer myself.
It’s always like that: one’s judgment grows thin more quickly than one’s body. It was within that thinness that Maneca’s decision took root. He pulled out his knife and held his face firmly. He took his left one out, and left the other one for other tasks. Then he stuck the eye on the hook. Disinterred, it was already a foreign body. But he shivered as he looked at it. That disinherited eye seemed to stare at him, hurt in its orphan’s solitude. Which is why the hook, upon piercing his estranged flesh, hurt him more than any thorn can maim.
He cast the line and waited. He could already imagine the size of the fish, drowning in the air. Yes, for it isn’t every day that a fish gets its teeth into such a tidbit. And he laughed at his own words.
At last, after many false hopes, the fish arrived. Fat and silvery. In fact: has anyone ever seen a skinny fish? Never. The sea is more generous than the earth.
That’s what Mazembe thought as he avenged his hunger. He cooked the fish in the middle of the boat. Take care, for one day it will catch fire with you in it. That was his wife Salima’s warning. Now, with his stomach satisfied, he smiled. Salima, what did she know? Slim, her frailty was that of the reeds, which surrender to the lightest breeze. Nor could he understand how she was able to muster such strength upon lifting the mortar stick so high. And lulled by the thought of Salima, Maneca wilted into sleep.
But you can’t tell the height of a tree by the size of its shadow. Hunger, obstinate as ever, returned. Mazembe wanted to row, but he couldn’t. Strength no longer came to help him. It was then that he decided: he would pluck out his right one. And so, once again, he became his own surgeon. The fisherman was enclosed by darkness. The doubly blind Mazembe entrusted his fingers with sight. Once more he cast his line into the sea. He hardly had to wait before feeling the tug which
announced the biggest fish he had ever caught.
In his provisional respite from hunger, his arms regained their competence. His soul returned from the sea. He rowed and rowed and rowed. Until the boat hit something, darkness meeting darkness. Judging by the waves, murmuring in infantile ripples, he guessed he must have reached a beach. He got up and shouted for help. He waited through many a silence. At last he heard voices, people approaching. He was surprised: those voices seemed familiar to him, the same as those from where he came. Could it be that his arms had recognized the way back, without the help of his sight? He was pulled by many hands helping him to get out of his boat.
There was weeping and bewilderment. All wanted to see him, no one wanted to look at him. His arrival spread joy, his aspect sowed horror. Mazembe had returned shorn of that which goes furthest towards making us what we are: the eyes, windows which reveal the light of our soul.
After that, Maneca Mazembe never again put to sea. Not that it was his desire to remain in such an unliquid exile. He would insist: his arms had proved that they knew the water’s paths. But no one would let him go. Every time, his wife would refuse to give him his oars.
—I must go, Salima. What are we going to eat?
—Better poor than a widow.
She would put him at rest, they would catch clams, magajojo, shells you could get food from and sell. Like that, they would hold their misery at bay.
—I can fish too, Maneca, in the boat …
—Never, woman. Never.
Mazembe blew a storm: she was never to repeat such an idea. He might be blind, but he hadn’t lost his male status.
Times passed. During the long morning, the blind man would stock up on the sunshine. As his mind rode the waves, his dreams fed their images to him. Until, when the day was at its height, his daughter would lead him to the caress of some shade. There they would serve him his food. Only his children were allowed to do this. For the fisherman had given himself over to one sole war: to reject the cares of his devoted wife, Salima. To accept her support was, for Mazembe, the most painful humiliation. Salima offered him tenderness, he shunned it. She called his name, he muttered an answer.
