by Ondjaki
Afterwards we went uphill and I asked Comrade João to pass by the Josina Machel Hospital, which my aunt thought was called Maria Pia Hospital. I let out a laugh. I understood that this must have been the name the Portuguese gave the hospital, but, jeez, giving a hospital such a religious name is a put-down. We went down Bishop’s Beach where the avenue had just been resurfaced because a little while ago the comrade president had passed through, and since the comrade president always zoomed past, with motorcycle outriders and everything, a lot of people like to have the comrade president drive down their street because the potholes disappear right away, and sometimes they even paint lines on the road.
“Aunt . . . Does Portugal have a moon rocket?”
“No, no it doesn’t, dear.”
“You see, we have one, and it’s not from when the Portuguese were here, don’t think that. . . .” I pointed to the left, where we could see the unfinished mausoleum of Angola’s first president. “I mean, it’s still not ready, but almost. . . .”
When we passed by the corner, Maxando was in the doorway, with his huge beard, his Rasta hairdo, and that face that always made you afraid. I don’t know how, because the poor sap was always smiling and spoke decently to Aunt Maria and my grandmother. But we were afraid of him.
“But why are you all afraid of that Maxando?” my aunt said, looking at him as he smiled.
“They say he smokes a lot of weed, Aunt.”
“But did he hurt anyone?”
“I don’t know, Aunt, but he’s also got an alligator at home. That’s not normal!” I said.
“An alligator?”
“Yes, he has an alligator in his back yard.”
“What? An alligator?”
“Yes, Aunt, an alligator, a really long one. He had a dog, but the dog was run over by a soldier, and since the soldier didn’t have a dog to give him, he got him an alligator.” This was true, everybody on Bishop’s Beach knew it.
“And where does this alligator sleep? Is it locked up?”
“Yeah, it’s always locked up. It sleeps right there in the dog house.” My aunt didn’t seem to believe this.
“My dear, have you actually seen this alligator?”
“I’ve never seen it, Aunt, but everybody knows he’s got an alligator . . . It’s just that his alligator only likes to see Maxando. . . . He’s the only person who feeds it, you know. . . .”
We passed the fortress and turned onto the Marginal. I saw right away that the whole area was swarming with soldiers, but I thought there must be some meeting up the hill at the presidential palace. On the Marginal there were FAPLAs with machine guns and mortars and suddenly we heard sirens.
“The comrade president must be coming,” I warned. Maybe in Portugal it was different and she didn’t know. Comrade João pulled the car over to the edge of the road, stopped, turned off the engine, put the car in neutral and got out. I got out of the car as well. Only Aunt Dada didn’t get out. In the distance I saw the Mercedes limousines hurtling towards us, and I was worried because Aunt Dada still wasn’t getting out of the car. It was too late to turn back, and you could never dash off in front of them in these situations. I spoke to her through the window: “Aunt, Aunt! You have to get out of the car right away.”
“Get out of the car? Why? I don’t need to pee!” It was amazing, she was still seated and was even starting to laugh.
“This isn’t about peeing, Aunt. You have to get out of the car and stand completely still outside. Those black cars belong to the comrade president.”
“But it’s not necessary, my dear, he’s going to pass on the other side.”
“Dona Eduarda, please, get out of the car . . .” Comrade João talked like a man in a fever.
“I’m serious, Aunt. Get out of the car right now!” I almost shouted.
It was sunny. My aunt got out of the car, leaving the door open. I felt calmer, even though she didn’t look like she was standing at attention. The worst part was that as the cars approached, she put her hand inside the car to get her hat.
“Aunt!” I shouted. “No!”
I think I startled her. She stayed absolutely still. The motorcycle outriders went by, then two cars, then another one, and I think the comrade president was travelling in the last one, with the darkened windows. Later I had to tell her to keep still because we had to wait a moment before we could return to the car. Comrade João was sweating like a pig. We got into the car.
“Oh, my dear, what a circus!”
“So, you avoided seeing the circus of shots that would have happened if some FAPLA had seen you moving around. It looked like you were dancing, then on top of that you were going to put on your hat . . .”
“But do you have to get out of the car and stand at attention whenever the president goes by?” She was completely astonished.
“It’s not at attention, but you have to get out of the car so they can see you’re not armed or you’re not going to try anything. . . .” I’d been sweating, too.
“Oh yes . . . ?”
“Yes, of course. So that’s why I was frightened when you started to get your hat, because the cars were too close and they might’ve thought you were trying to grab something else. . . .”
Comrade João couldn’t even whistle. Of course it was possible that nothing would have happened, but it was also possible that almost anything could have happened.
We continued in the direction of the beaches. The sea was choppy, just choppy enough that it had turned that colour where you can’t decide if it’s green, blue or some other colour.
“What colour is the sea, Aunt?” I wanted to see if she was going to say green or blue because my sisters always saw the sea as blue, they never managed to see the greenness of the sea.
“It’s dark . . . it’s green . . .” She understood that it was a trick question. “What do you think, João?” But Comrade João just laughed. I already knew he didn’t want to take part in the conversation.
“All right, I’m going to tell you a secret, Aunt . . .”
“Tell me, my dear.”
“The sea is blue-een!” I laughed and laughed.
We continued to the end of the road, as far as the car could go; we saw the barricades. “What’s this?” my aunt asked Comrade João.
“Barracks. . . . It’s a barracks,” he replied. Soviet soldiers were guarding the entrance. The Soviets always had ugly faces, pale in spite of all the sun they got, and often they looked like lobsters.
“We can stay right here, can’t we?” she said.
“No, not here, Aunt . . . We’ll go over there by the foot of the rotunda.”
“But can’t we stay here on this ‘blue-een’ beach?” She smiled at me.
“No, Aunt, not here. This blue-een beach belongs to the Soviets.”
“To the Soviets? This beach belongs to the Angolans!”
“Yes, that’s not what I meant to say. . . . It’s that only the Soviets can bathe on this beach. You see those soldiers out on the points?”
“Yes, I see them.”
“They’re guarding the beach while other Soviets bathe there. It’s not worth going over there because they’re really bad tempered.”
“But why does this beach belong to the Soviets?” Now she seemed really startled.
“I don’t know, I really don’t know . . . It could be that we have a beach there in the Soviet Union that’s only for Angolans!”
Comrade João left us on the beach. He would come and pick us up later, in time for lunch. We spread our towels and went to bathe, but I always find the water off Luanda Island a bit cold. Of course my aunt said that it was marvellous. We swam, then went back to our towels.
“Aunt, in Portugal when your comrade president drives by, don’t you get out of the car?”
“Well, I’ve never seen the president drive by, but I guarantee you that nobody gets out of his car. In fact at times we don’t even realize that the president is in a car that’s passing.”
“Hmm! I don
’t believe that. Doesn’t he have police outriders on motorcycles to warn people? Don’t they put soldiers on the streets?”
“No, they don’t use soldiers. Sometimes, if there’s a big entourage, they call in the police to clear the traffic, but it only takes a moment. The president goes past and that’s it. Of course the cars get out of the way, it’s compulsory there too, but it’s because people hear the sirens, you understand?”
“Yes.”
“But when, for example, the president goes out on Sunday to a friend’s house he doesn’t take the police. Sometimes he even walks.”
What amazed me was that she was speaking seriously. “Your president walks?” I burst out laughing. “Ho! Wait until I tell that to my classmates! They always want to put down African presidents . . . In Africa, Aunt, a president only goes out in a Mercedes, and it has to be bullet-proof.”
We opened the bag of sandwiches. My aunt wasn’t very hungry, but after swimming and running I was starving. I ate with pleasure. She warned me not to spoil my appetite for lunch. “Appetite is never absent, Aunt, don’t worry,” I replied in the manner of an elder. Then Aunt Dada asked me questions about Luanda, what school was like, if I liked the teachers, what we learned, what the Cuban teachers were like, etc. I got a laugh out of her horrified look when I told her that there were a lot of robbers in Luanda, but that it was a dangerous profession.
“A dangerous ‘profession,’ you say. . . . And why is that?”
“Well, Aunt, it’s really risky,” I started to explain. “If the robbery goes well and there are no makas, it’s nothing but profit the next day. But if they catch you, ay! Then your health’s at risk!”
“‘Maka’ means problem, right?”
“Yeah, a maka’s a problem, a business. It can be a rough maka or just a little maka . . .”
“And this business of the robbers, what kind of ‘maka’ is that?”
“That’s what I’m explaining to you. . . . If you get caught, it’s a really rough maka!”
“Why?”
“Well, Aunt, for example, in Cláudio’s neighbourhood they caught a thief. Poor guy, he just liked to swipe lamps, you know. I guess that must have been his business in the Roque Santeiro Market or . . . anyway. . . . They caught the guy, they beat him, they beat him up, they beat him up so much that the next day, Aunt, he came back looking for his ear!”
“His ear?” She scratched hers.
“Yeah, he’d lost his ear there. Cláudio was the one who took him to show him where his ear was because they’d already seen the ear early in the morning, but they stayed away from it because they thought it was a magic charm!”
“Oh my God . . .” She was amazed.
“Wait. . . . I’m going to tell you other stories that are even hotter . . .”
“‘Hotter’?”
That was the problem with talking to people from Portugal: there were words they didn’t understand. “Yeah, hotter, I mean . . . Look, for example, in the Martal neighbourhood, when they catch a robber he actually thinks he’s going to be treated well.”
“Why?”
“Because in Martal nobody beats up the robber. Instead, there’s a man there, I think he’s an elder gentleman, and when he appears the chaos ends. Of course when they catch the robber, right at first, he has to take a few punches, some kicks, but then this gentleman arrives and nobody else touches the robber.”
“What do they do then?”
“Just wait, you’ll see. . . . Stay tuned for scenes from the next episode.”
But she got a strange look on her face. “‘Scenes from the next episode’?! How’s that?”
“Take it easy, Aunt . . .” I pulled a soft drink out of the bag, opened it and took a gulp. “Then this dude arrives and tells everybody to go back to sleep. A few men go with him, they take the robber out into a yard and right there they give him the injection. And the robber wastes right there.”
“The injection? But this ‘dude’ is a male nurse?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “A male nurse from where, Aunt? What male nurse would that be? The injection they give him contains battery fluid. The guy wastes right there.”
“Wastes? What does he waste?”
“Wastes! They waste him, he gets it, he croaks, he kicks the bucket! He dies, Aunt!”
Aunt Dada stopped eating her sandwich. I guess she felt uncomfortable with the story or whatever.
“But is this true, my dear?” I suppose she wanted me to tell her that it wasn’t.
“I can even show you a classmate of mine who lives in that neighbourhood, Aunt!”
I picked up her sandwiches and asked her if she wanted them; she didn’t, so I ate them! But since she already seemed startled I didn’t tell her what they did in the Roque Santeiro Market when they caught robbers. The poor guys, they got tires put around them, then gasoline was poured on the tires and everybody stuck around to watch the man running all over the place asking people to put out his fire. Some people say that when they started burning thieves with tires the number of muggings went down, but I can’t be sure of this. Aunt Dada didn’t know that in Mozambique they cut off robbers’ fingers.
“Cut off all of their fingers?” She wanted to be frightened again.
“No, Aunt, they cut off one each time. One robbery, one finger, get it?”
To lighten up the conversation, I also told her some stories I knew about thieves who got away, like that one on Bishop’s Beach who was being chased by the police when somebody yelled, “Stop, thief!” and another policeman thought that policeman was the thief and shot him in the ribs and the robber ran away laughing.
“That means there are lots of different types of robbers. That was a really lucky one.”
“Sure, but there are also unlucky ones. . . . Look, in Bruno’s building. . . .”
“My dear, does this story end badly, too?”
“No, no, I think you can stand this one.” She laughed.
“In Bruno’s building a robber was breaking in on the fifth floor, and there was a dude on the sixth floor who takes care of this kind of stuff. They phoned him, he woke up, he jumped down this hole in the floor up there and landed on top of the robber, except that the guy was so frightened he took off running towards the stairs, only, guess what? There was a guard right there waiting for him. . . .”
“And what did he do? You’re not going to tell me another ‘scenes from the next episode,’ are you?”
“No, no, there’s no commercial break. . . . He hit the gas, jumped and threw himself off the fifth floor!”
“Did he die?”
“No way! He fell, he played dead, he only waited a couple of seconds, looked around, got up great, he was just limping a little, but when it comes to running, Aunt, I’m telling you: people with limps, cripples, people in wheelchairs, here in Angola they’re the ones who whip along the fastest. . . .”
“So he got away, did he?”
“Hey, no way! See what bad luck a guy can have.” I thought that expression sounded good. “A police car was going by, they caught him. Bruno said he even felt bad for him – shit, he almost got away. . . . But that’s how bad luck comes after people.”
By the time Comrade João came to pick us up, the heat had become unbearable. I looked at the trees. The birds were sitting still, not moving; they must have been sweating too. On the other side of the street there were stalls selling dried fish; in this case the stronger the sun, the better the fish. That nice little scent pricked my appetite. There are people who don’t like it, but I think that dried fish smells really good, like concentrated sea-juice.
On the way home we passed through Kinaxixi Square because I wanted Aunt Dada to see the tank.
“Aunt, in Portugal do you have a tank looking out over a square like that?”
“No, I don’t think so. . . .”
“Well, we do here! This is Kinaxixi Square,” I said, by way of introduction.
“But in the old days that tank wasn’t up there. You r
ealize that?” She was looking carefully at the tank. She was going to take a photograph but I told her it was better not to because there were a lot of FAPLAs in the street.
“It was a different tank? Was it bigger or smaller?” I hadn’t been aware that this was the second tank.
“No, you don’t understand. . . .”
“What?”
“There was a statue there.”
“A statue? What statue?”
“The statue of Maria da Fonte.”3 She seemed very sure of herself.
“I don’t know, Aunt. . . . Here in Luanda we usually only have fountains, or water that comes out with enough force for a fountain, when some pipe bursts.”
Comrade João was laughing.
When we got home they were waiting for us before having lunch. I was so envious: my sisters still had tons of chocolate left. That always happened; I was always the first to finish things.
My aunt went to wash. I don’t know why, they say that salt water is good for the skin, so why rush off right away to bathe? In my house everybody’s got this obsession with bathing, bathing all the time. I figure it’s unnecessary, every two days or so is enough. My sisters say that guys are always like that, they don’t like to bathe, but there’s a girl in my class who bathes only once a week. That’s because the water only comes on once a week in her house. When it does they fill the bathtub and have to make the water last for the whole week.
“Did it go well, dear?” My mother came to kiss me on the cheek.
“Yes, it went well.” I gave her a kiss back. “And we saw the comrade president go by on the Marginal.”
“Oh. . . .”
“But Aunt Dada almost got shot. . . .”
