by Mia Couto
The students returned noisily to their dormitories. He and I remained on the beach contemplating the boat as it rocked, lulled by its destiny.
—So what are you going to do with it now?
—With the boat?
He didn’t know, nor did he want to think about it. He had built the boat, proved himself. The journey was another matter. Something undreamable.
—This was my journey, I’ve finished it here.
But in that case, what benefit was his work going to bring him?
—Is it not in the desert that we gain a mirage?
For days, he sat there on the beach contemplating the boat. He seemed anchored to his own triumph. Had Rungo taken leave of his senses, was his mind adrift? His wife got angry: Rungo wasn’t giving her any help at home. In tears, she begged me to appeal to what remained of his senses …
—Woman, I have no say in what he does with his timber. That man is wooden-headed.
She fell silent. Rungo was so good that no one could stand being his enemy. It was some sort of a curse, a service commissioned from the other world. She knew it, people relied on the spoken word there. So that very afternoon, she went to see the witch doctor. She didn’t have to wait long.
That same night, a storm blew up that threw the ocean into turmoil. The little boat loosened from its moorings and drifted off into the darkness. Rungo, so people said, set off after his creation.
Some days later, Peace came to the country. Even now, whenever I return to the island, I sit down on the seashore. Who knows of Rungo’s story and his boat drifting towards the other shore? With its ever-shifting waters, the ocean doesn’t let us see time. Whoever sees me gazing at the sunset, thinks I am absorbed in distant yearning. Sadness is a window that opens onto the back end of the world. Through it I glimpse Rungo Alberto, my old friend. Then a desert swallows up my soul. A foreign land is a place where no one awaits us.
The Dribbler
(No one can imagine how tiny my little town is.
But in it, there are folk who bid me good morning.)
Wherever I arrive is always somewhere. But I’ve never found greater shelter than in those places that lie in my memory. That’s where my hometown can be found, emerging ever so slowly into the light, like a boat from the darkness of slime.
That place dominates my childhood as if time were the only territory. This other time flowed by, obeying the secret tenets of lethargy. News of world events always reached us late, crossing such great distances that by the time we got the news, the reality that had originally shaped them had already changed.
News from Europe reached us like the planks of ships wrecked beyond the endless mists. These items of news landed moistened in our hands, ready to be moulded by our minds. It was we who dictated the importance and gravity of events. Reordered in this way, the world was like a toy to us.
We became giants when our countryman, Eusébio, dribbled past the universe to run out onto the fields of the World Cup. Wembley and Maracanã were transformed into the minuscule stadia of our childhood area. Our feet dreamed of soccer boots and each shot competed for headlines in the papers. At night, we imagined ourselves heroes from picture books.
At that time, the worldliest of wars was the one that pitted my area against all the others in the city of Beira. At the heart of this conflict was the soccer championship, which we went at hammer and tongs. This is where our honour was invested, and we would leave home just as warriors do when they bid their families goodbye.
It wasn’t that soccer was the only area of contention. We had already fought a previous battle—basketball. But we weren’t so good at it. This was a sport for rich folk. So out of step were we that, in the midst of a decisive match, our pivot stopped the game to ask the referee if he could head the ball into the basket.
We lacked tall players. Our tallest was Tony Candlestick, who had a dodgy heart—he didn’t have enough valves for such a big ticker. The briefest run caused his face to assume a reddish hue similar to that of a water lily. We would request a pause for Tony to regain his vision and after a few seconds, he would catch his breath and mutter a Let’s get on with it!
And on we went, invariably losing. The only time we won, we didn’t even notice it. The effort had been so strenuous that we didn’t care about the result. We were fanning Tony when our adversaries came over to congratulate us. Astonished, we retorted:
—Did we win?!
Having given up the elite sport, we returned to soccer, an activity more befitting our condition. That was when I found myself converted into a trusty centre forward. My fame emerged from a moment of confusion in the game—all games involved confusion as far as I was concerned—when someone unleashed a powerful shot in my direction. My only reaction was to protect my glasses, closing my eyes and turning my head to avoid being hit.
For a few seconds, I lost sight of the stadium. I felt the ball brush the top of my head. I later discovered that my reflexes had “ensured that the ball hit the back of our opponents’ net.” These words gave me a hero’s status in the history of my neighbourhood. At the end of the game, I was carried around shoulder-high and awarded the lifelong captain’s armband. With dubious merit, I had gained the status of commander of my team and the esteem of my neighbourhood.
However, the problem was that my team lacked players who could strike the ball. We would spend the match dribbling from one end of the field to the other, without ever summoning up the courage to shoot. We even adopted the tactic of sending high balls in to take advantage of Tony Candlestick’s height, but he, with his valveless heart, would lose his vision the moment he jumped.
—We need to score, Senhor Herberto would say, our illustrious coach, a fifty-year-old Goan whom we suspected had never even seen a soccer match. This was his complaint:
—All you do is dribble, you don’t shoot. Then he would sigh:
— We’re a team of dribblers.
Between hard-fought draws and unintended victories, we reached the grand final of the inter-district championship. Senhor Herberto, who was always quiet, then came up with a solution—he’d heard that, in the town of Marromeu, there was a young man with a really strong shot. So strong that he was known as the “Marromeu Piledriver.” With his vertiginous kick, the lad had already knocked down posts and trees and the mere mention of his name made goalies petrified.
He suggested we contract the “Piledriver,” paying him to play for us as a forward. The idea was greeted like a stone hurled into a puddle. An immediate message was relayed to the mercenary striker. We received a swift reply: I’ll get there on the day of the final. Here’s my price: 150 escudos. Paid, of course, up front.
We were exultant. The money was a small fortune, but we would cover the cost, carefully pilfering from our fathers’ wallets. We were so hopeful that we stopped training. The coach told us that immobility was a good counsellor and training sessions were only good for tiring our legs and wearing out our sports shoes.
On the afternoon of the final, the stadium was packed. Even the girls were there with their giggles and tittered secrets. We were all ready to run out onto the field and there was no sign of the famous “Piledriver.” Marromeu was a long way away, could he have missed the bus?
But, lo and behold, at the last moment, our jaunty, magnificent forward appeared, fresh from the savannahs of Marromeu. To see him run out onto the pitch was like a balm for our anguish. There he was, kitted out differently from our team, in a light blue shirt with silver stars that glinted in the light of the sun. His hair slicked down to his parting, our precious reinforcement ran onto the field, giving those little jumps and skips that only the great professionals of the game indulge in to limber up and warm the spirits of the crowd. His cylindrical legs, as sturdy at the bottom as they were at the top, were his most astonishing feature. The lad wasn’t for showing any bonhomie. Without even looking at us, and while still warming up, he muttered:
—Have you got the money?
Herberto replied
that he had put it in the prearranged place.
— And what about tactics? our hired hand asked, still skipping about.
Herberto’s tactic was the most straightforward possible:
—To pass the ball immediately to the Marromeu Piledriver.
And so the match started.
Not long after kickoff, I found myself with the ball, and in the glare of the sunlight, I raised my leg on a whim. The ball touched my knee and sped off over the heads of two opponents, in Tony’s direction. He gave a leap and obviously, as he couldn’t see it, headed the ball with his neck. The opposing team, the spectators, and above all we ourselves, were astounded by such well-planned exchanges. The ball came to me once more and our supporters screamed in frenzy:
—Pass it to Piledriver, pass it to Piledriver!
I gave the ball to our saviour. He didn’t shoot straightaway. He allowed the ball to come to a standstill, and with the stylishness of a top-class ball player, took a couple of steps back to get his balance. Silence fell over the whole field of play, as if the entire universe were paying attention to the soccer player’s virtuosity. Like a buffalo, Piledriver charged towards the ball. The thump of his feet and the dust they raised were such that I had to shut my eyes. I was waiting to hear the ball being given a hearty thwack. But all I heard was a timid trrrr, like a piece of cloth being shredded, stitching being ripped apart. When I opened my eyes again, I saw Piledriver’s fat leg kicking the air and a suspicious brown stain spreading across his shorts. The hired hand had miskicked, but with such impulse that he had carelessly soiled himself.
What happened next was acutely embarrassing—our glorious striker leaving the field in tears, surrounded by us who seemed unaware of the brownish odours dribbling down his legs. As he was leaving, one of our team even stuttered:
—Hey lads … what about our money?
But our hired hand was already sneaking away through the bulrushes that surrounded the stadium. I can still remember the glitter of the silvery stars on his extravagant shirt amid the thick vegetation. As those stars faded, my own dreams of being a world champion soccer player were also extinguished.
Sentenced to Burn
—Father: dissolve me my sins.
Father Ludmilo didn’t bother to correct him. If he were going to correct him, he said later, he would have to correct the man rather than the sentence. For his visitor muddled up his mixture of languages as he stumbled through his prayers:
—Our boss who art in Heaven, your daily bread, braised be God.
He was an outlaw, one could see it in his appearance. He displayed himself in the holy house of God, full of arrogance and disrespect. The priest studied the confessor as he spoke. And he noticed the machete strapped to the young bandit’s boot.
But the sinner wasn’t alone. At the entrance, one could see, against the sunlight, the silhouette of another fugitive. This other man’s skin seemed lighter, and his frizzy hair was more that of a mulato. Father Ludmilo couldn’t make out his face.
In contrast, the pronounced features of the man kneeling in front of him were distinctive. What he said, however, was certainly not:
—God is pretty, Father, because we can’t see Him. Even I refuse to go to Heaven so as not to suffer disappointment. He uttered and then re-uttered the most disparate depravities. And on he went with his impious declarations:
—The problem with God, with all due respect, is that He sleeps snuggled up to the Devil’s backside.
When all was said and done, what exactly did that ragamuffin, that bootlegger want? The priest didn’t seem particularly interested. He yawned, tired. All you could say about that man is that he was a lover of disorder, a perpetrator of butcheries and massacres. His was an empty heart, not even his name had ever known a moment of warmth or affection.
—Before, the Church made me scared, Father. It was a place that seemed to make you ill immediately.
—Ill?
—Yes, people go in and their legs go weak straightaway. They even fall to their knees.
Ludmilo only pretended to pay attention. Nowadays, the only thing you need to do to pretend to be a priest is to know how to listen. In the end, the brigand was coming there to ask for undeserved forgiveness, even if he had to utter threats in order to get what he wanted.
—Father: it’s not entry to Heaven I want, no. I want a change of hell.
For he could no longer stay in this earthly hell, alongside creatures of the wild, a dread-end existence. For he no longer knew what he was: was he a man outside the law, or a law outside the man?
—I was even promised an ammunisty, or ministree, or amitree, or whatever you call it. I was promised one, Father. All I had to do was to give myself up with my weapon.
The priest remained silent, his mouth expressionless, the epitome of a non-practising cleric, part-time servant of God.
—Are you listening to me, Father?
He signalled that he was, he was merely meditating, an unhappy cogitator in an exchange of secrets with God. He explained that the connection to Paradise was poor, because of the interference of gunfire from the war. The lad should continue with his confession, without omitting a single detail.
And so the bandit set off on his long list of crimes, a blood-sodden deluge. Not even the priest could imagine the extent to which evil could be so creative. For example, how it’s possible to pestle an entire family to death: the old father battered with the stick, the mother forced to grind her own baby down and after all that, the mother raped to death. When the confession was over, the priest sat there, head bowed, as if he were dozing, indifferent.
—Father?
Ludmilo raised his head slowly: a tear glistened on his face. When he spoke, his voice had risen a few tones.
—I can’t forgive you, you filthy son of a bitch.
At first, the reprobate was shocked. Then more insults rained down on him, the priest had lost all control. When he’d got over his surprise, the bandit took offence. He got up, and peered through the peephole as if to make sure that it was the priest speaking. Then he pushed the hatch of the confession box until its hinges snapped.
—What did you call me? Repeat it!
And grabbing the priest by the collar of his soutane, he lifted him off his feet. All of a sudden there was the glint of a machete in the air.
—You’re going to forgive me, or I’ll turn you into cutlets.
The priest stammered something in Latin. The bandit, his mouth jammed against the priest’s face, asked:
—What did you say?
—I spoke Latin, the language of the angels.
—Speak another language, all the angels are white, I don’t want to share a language with them.
—Put the Father down or I’ll shoot you!
The voice came from the entrance; the other bandit had taken aim and was speaking. The Black man ceased his threats and put the cleric down. They stood there, looking at each other, in utter confusion. The visitor turned on his heel and walked slowly away, his rhythm falling in with the echo of his own footsteps. Suddenly, the priest called him:
—Come here, my son. I have something to say to you.
The bandit turned back, his hand on his belt. His gaze had regained its original arrogance, and he was once again the master of other people’s fears.
—What is it, Father?
—It’s just that we don’t have enough food to distribute here at the mission. We could do with a few sacks of maize. Do you think you could get us something?
The robber was puzzled. Then he let out a guffaw: yes, sir, I can. Then he went over to the priest so that no one could hear what he said:
—Just wait till the next truck passes by. One of the ones carrying gift aid.
And off he went, along with his companion. The priest smiled, and turning his eyes heavenwards, said:
—Forgive me, Father.
The sacristan, who had heard the conversation, went over to the priest. He looked at him quizzingly. How could he as
sociate himself with such folk, order a crime from a thief? Ludmilo didn’t bother to explain, and instead made for the sacristy. The sacristan, weeping, clung to his gown.
—Father, answer! How can you order stuff that’s been stolen from the people?
Ludmilo stopped and turned to face the boy. He seemed to want to answer, but maintained his silence. The priest pressed on again, passing the altar without dropping to his knees in devotion.
The sacristan wandered off, astonished, hemorrhaging the saddest thoughts. How could the priest have asked for the favour of stolen goods, fruits of the most heinous of crimes? No doubt some of the things he had used in the church likewise originated in such skulduggery. He spent the next few days ruminating: he needed to speak to Ludmilo, to ask him to be honest about his dishonesty.
But the priest avoided him. One afternoon, the sacristan was getting ready to say his prayers when the same bandit walked into the sacristy. He was on his own, and stinking. The boy shuddered with powerless hatred. The priest walked over to the visitor, and they greeted each other. The bandit gave him a sack.
—Here are the things. See? I didn’t forget!
The priest thanked him and mumbled a few words. The sacristan couldn’t hear what he was saying. For sure, the priest was overindulging in this unbelievable complicity with the forces of Evil. The killer then decided to withdraw. He wanted to take advantage of the paths being deserted, for he hadn’t met a soul on the way there. The priest advised him to pay his respects at the altar before he went. The other man consented, his machete scraping along the floor with metallic stridency. Ludmilo walked towards the heavy entrance doors and opened them wide.
There was an earth-shattering roar. Voices and cries were unleashed in a split second. Outside, a huge crowd demanded that the miscreant should face justice. The sacristan crossed himself, faint with fear. The bandit squirmed with terror. He ran to the priest and begged him for protection. If left in the hands of the people, his life would be extinguished like a candle being snuffed out. The priest put his hands on the ruffian’s shoulders.
