by Ondjaki
Ró’s mother asked Comrade Teacher María if she wanted to say a few words, and even though she didn’t say yes, everyone was afraid that her few words might turn into the many words of her husband; she always spoke much more quickly and with a greater number of words than he. But she refused. She asked only that we pass her a handkerchief, “No, two handkerchiefs, por favor,” because the snot was already rolling from her very fat nostrils.
We didn’t stay very late at Ró’s house. Final exams started the next day; some people still wanted to go home and review the material, others wanted to look at the material for the first time, others just wanted to go home with the Tupperware containers that Ró’s mother was certain to provide. Someone even asked: “Dona Angélica, do we need a ration card here to have cake?” And the gang laughed, but that only made me wonder whether, with all the changes, ration cards, too, were going to disappear.
Up above, in the window, Teacher Ángel had his hand on Teacher María’s shoulder, and was kissing her on the cheek to stop her from crying so much.
I wasn’t going to be able to have milk in my breakfast coffee, as I usually did in the morning, because, since I was nervous about the first day of exams, coffee with milk would make me colicky. On these days I drank tea. I liked having to go out into the garden to pull up fresh verbena, although some people prefer to dry it first. The leaf is a bit rough, with tiny little nicks in the side, and it takes care, but it’s only if you pull too hard on it that you’re going to cut yourself. Before getting close you’re hit right away with the smell of the verbena cluster, which, if the garden has already been watered, is wonderful.
I heard the sound of boiling tea, but I let it be. It had to keep boiling for a moment.
“Dad, can you drive me to school today? So I don’t get there late?”
“Yes, son.”
“Hey, great.”
He was just being kind. I wasn’t late, but everybody liked to get a lift on exam days. I don’t know why. Maybe we needed to feel a little different on those days, so we went by car.
But, as we were finishing breakfast. . . .
“Good morning, son.”
“Oh? Good morning, Comrade António. Are you here? It’s so early. I didn’t even hear you come in.”
“I have the key, son.”
“And why did you come so early today?”
“Don’t you have a test today, son?” He was laughing.
“Yeah, exams start today.”
“So I came to wish you good luck, son!” He started to pick up the used cups.
“Thank you, António. . . . And leave that there. I’ll take everything into the kitchen.”
But he was stubborn, stubborn. As there weren’t many items on the table, he took only a few each time to increase the number of trips. He opened the kitchen windows, shooed away the cat, which was sleeping next to the door, went to turn on the gas, opened the larder and began to sweep the back yard.
“What’s for lunch today, son?”
“I don’t know, António. My mother’s still upstairs.”
“I’m going to take out fish!” He walked towards the larder.
“António, don’t take anything out yet. It’s better to find out if anybody’s going to be here for lunch.”
“Who? Your grandmother?”
“I don’t know, António, I don’t know.”
While my father went upstairs to get ready, I sat down in the yard. I couldn’t see the avocado tree from there, but I could hear its leaves, smell its strong scent, hear an avocado fall. “Mine!” I shouted, even though neither of my sisters was there to dispute the avocado with me. I went to put the avocado on the shelf in the larder.
“Comrade António, can you do me a favour? . . .”
“Tell me, son.”
“When my sisters wake up . . .”
“Yes.”
“Just tell them that this avocado here is already taken, okay?”
“I’ll tell them, son.”
Just in case, I went to look for a knife and carved my initial into the avocado. But this was mere “protocol,” as we said. Maybe by lunch time there would be two or three more avocados, but this was a childhood habit. When a mango fell, we said, “Mine!” When the doorbell rang, we said, “I’m not going, I called it.” When we were getting into the car, we said, “I’m in front. I called it!” If there was only one mango, we said, “The stone’s mine!” If we found a coin, we’d grab it, saying, “Finders keepers!” When someone got up, leaving a chair empty, we said, “When the cat’s away the mouse will play!” We heard an elder say, “Who wants . . . ?” and we immediately said, “Me!” A fig fell to the ground and we would say, “The seed’s mine!” – all of this in a state approaching military alert, all of it totally automatic.
“What test do you have today, son?”
“Portuguese Language.”
“Hmm. . . .”
“Comrade António . . .”
“Yes, son.”
“You’ve heard that all the Cubans are going away?”
“I think I heard that, son.”
“Everything’s going to change, Comrade António. . . . Don’t you think so?”
“It looks like peace is coming, son. . . . That’s what they were sayin’ in my neighbourhood yesterday.”
“They were talkin’ about that? About peace?”
“Hmm . . . Looks like we’re gonna have peace. . . .”
“Do you really believe that, António? . . . How many years have we been hearing that guff?”
“It could happen, son, it could happen. . . .”
He came out of the larder with an enormous fish.
“Do you know who caught that fish?” I grabbed my backpack and put it on.
“It was your father,” he said.
“No way. It was me,” I said, trying it on.
“Hmm . . . Son, are you catching such big fish already?” He started to laugh.
I didn’t reply. What could I say? I looked at the fish, calculating its weight. Not even with a great story invented in my sharp morning mind could I fool Comrade António.
“See you tomorrow, Comrade António . . .”
“See you later, son. . . . See you later . . .”
I arrived at school by car; Cláudio too; even Bruno’s mother brought him to school that day. It was required that you bring your identity papers on the day of a test, but some people’s I.D.’s had expired, others had forgotten, others brought their birth certificates. There were always makas as we were going into the classroom and the tests started half an hour late.
Even during tests two of us sat at each desk; there was no other way to fit everybody in. The teachers were more vigilant than usual, but by the middle of the test we could see some of what the person next to us had written, and by the end we were even able to ask each other questions as long as we did it in a very low voice.
It worked more or less like this:if the teacher was very alert, the student pretended to be thinking and rested his head on his hand; from this position he could let his gaze slide sideways, but he had to be careful not to turn his head or else the teacher would pick up on it right away;
if the teacher was gullible, you could drop your eraser on the floor at the same time as the person across the aisle from you; then you asked, “Comrade Teacher, can I pick up my eraser?” When the teacher said, “Yes,” the two students exchanged erasers, taking advantage of the moment to exchange, at the absolute maximum, three words (but you could also write numbers or short phrases on the erasers);
if the teacher was reading during the test, the “normal” students would talk together, exchange ideas and show each other their answers; the “brave” students would pull cheat sheets out of their pockets or read words written on their arms, hands or legs, not to mention their bellies and chests; the “daring” students opened their backpacks and took out their notes, or talked with classmates who were sitting far away, going to the point of handing each other their tests for
a few minutes.
Our group usually got good marks because everybody studied for the end-of-semester tests, so that conversation was limited to cases where we had doubts. The person who sat in the middle of the room had to be really good at the subject in order to sit in a spot where everybody could talk to him. Even in this regard, the comrade Cuban teachers were kind because when they caught someone cheating they only gave them a warning; they didn’t confiscate the person’s test.
That dumb Murtala, one day he was sitting there with a cheat sheet right on top of his desk when the comrade coordinator of physics came into the room and looked at him. But I don’t think she saw anything. He looked so guilty that she asked: “What’s wrong? Are you feeling all right?” As she walked towards him, Murtala barely had time to swallow his cheat sheet, almost without chewing. I think it was two whole pages. Of course after that he had to leave the room to vomit.
“Fuck, that dude’s always puking!!!” Cláudio said, and we all laughed.
The test had gone well, really well: that was what I told my mother when I got home, starving to death, at twelve-thirty. I arrived happy and soaking wet. One of those half-hour showers that looks like it’s not going to happen then happens had fallen, and the city was almost drowning because some of the storm sewers had backed up and the streets looked like rivers, and the poor neighbourhoods almost floated away. But I’d walked home slowly: it had been so long since I’d been caught in the rain.
At home, I found one of my grandmothers, a girl cousin, everybody from my house and Papí, which was a real surprise. Papí usually only appeared in the evening, when he could ring the bell and stand chatting with my sister at the front gate, even though everyone knew (and he knew himself) that he didn’t have a chance with her.
“Papí,” I greeted him. “You came early today.”
“Hey, but your mother gave me a real talking-to! . . .”
“Why’d she give you a talking-to?”
“Well . . .” He had a towel in his hand and was rubbing his face and his hair. “So, so much rain that I just felt like sliding on your balcony. . . .”
That much was true. Papí had this habit: one other time when it was raining, he’d laid his hands on a hosepipe, doused down the balcony and was about to start sliding when my mother caught him. Maybe he had come now to get his revenge by sliding again.
“Your mother’s so nice. . . .” He was laughing. He trembled.
“Why?”
“She only gave me a tiny little talking-to and then she invited me to stay for lunch.”
I found this odd because Papí was a person who had a certain way of eating – I guess I can use this word – a categorical way of eating. Or, as my father said, “He doesn’t waste time,” and if there was one thing Papí didn’t like to waste time doing, it was eating. With my grandmother and my cousin in the house, was my mother really going to invite him to have lunch with us?
“Yes, dear, but I asked Comrade António to make more food.”
“It’s your decision, Mum, but don’t say later that I didn’t warn you!”
To explain what Papí looked like, it would be necessary to imagine a huge ball, as if there were a soccer ball the size of a human being. To imagine how much he was capable of drinking I’d have to tell you that the young people in our neighbourhood held a potluck dinner with eighty people and at one-thirty in the morning, thanks to Papí, they ran out of soft drinks. But for you to really know who Papí was, I have to tell you that everybody liked him, that he liked everybody and that he was a really friendly guy.
“Make yourself at home, Papí, serve yourself,” my mother said.
I swear on the soul of my grandfather, may he rest in peace, so that nobody says that I’m exaggerating: Papí served himself seven times in a row without a break, he gobbled down twenty-four slices of breaded beef, put thirty-two spoonfuls of white rice on his plate (my sisters counted them), drank two cans of Coca-Cola and, when my mother told him there wasn’t any more, he managed to knock back a litre and a half of water. Grandmother Chica couldn’t help saying: “After this, young man, you’re going to the doctor to see if you have parasites!”
We all started giggling like crazy, since we’d been holding back our laughter for a long time. It was great.
“No, grandmother, that’s the way it is!” Papí said, stroking his stomach. “It’s just one of life’s challenges . . .”
In the afternoon we went to the comrade Cuban teachers’ house. They lived in those ridiculous buildings. Petra knew which building it was, in spite of their being all the same, because theirs had a painting of Comrade José Martí7 over the door.
Ró’s mother had provided three enormous strawberry compotes. We saw right away that they were going to love them.
“Come in, come in . . . Sit down, I’m gonna call Ángel,” Teacher María said.
We sat down on chairs that were full of holes and started to look around: they had a black-and-white TV, the table only had three legs and the chair next to it was just like the ones at school.
“I’m gonna make tea for us,” Teacher María said.
We were a little bit ashamed. I don’t know why; they were our friends now. Maybe it was because we were at their house. Bruno put his hand on his nose, as if the place smelled bad, but Petra responded by giving him a look that made him straighten up. I did-n’t say anything, but I thought it smelled like mould, too.
“Good afternoon, compañeros.” Ángel started to shake hands and kiss the hands of the girls in a Don Juan style that made them embarrassed. “Forgive my lateness, I was packing things for the trip.”
“Good afternoon, Comrade Teacher!” we replied.
Teacher María came out of the kitchen with her huge smile, carrying the water for the tea. Since there were a lot of us, some drank from glasses, some from cups and two people were going to have to drink from saucers, but Bruno said he didn’t feel like tea. “Thank you very much.”
But I wondered: was it really tea? I mean, is one tea bag divided by two glasses, four cups and a saucer still tea? Being the last, I had to imagine that the substance was sugar juice, then I realized that it wasn’t necessary to imagine because it was sugar juice.
“How are your exams goin’?” Teacher María asked.
“Very well, really very well,” Petra said with a smile.
“So, are you all gonna pass?”
“Yes, almost all.” It was Petra again.
“Of course Mortala,” – they always called him that – “has many dificultades. He doesn’t have enough of a base to pasar the course. . . . ”
I don’t know if it was true, but Cláudio told me that when we did fractions again this year, Murtala said that the only fraction he knew was a fraction of a second but he didn’t know how to write it. Later, in a composition, he wrote that adolescence was when girls “got their monstruation”; but the worst was when, in physics class, he said he agreed with the suggestion of the Comrade Samora Machel, President of Mozambique, that we should ride a spaceship to the sun. When he was told that this was impossible because the sun would burn up the ship and the people, he gave exactly the same reply as Comrade President Samora (according to what I was told): “Fucking idiots! We’ll just go at night!”
In the middle of tea, Petra, with tears in her eyes, spoke to the comrade teachers and said: “We thank you, comrade teachers, for everything you’ve done for us. And also for everything that all the Cuban comrades have done for Angola, from the workers to the soldiers to the doctors and the teachers. Angola is grateful, and Angolans and Cubans will always be brothers . . .” Etc., etc., etc.
Cláudio whispered in my ear that Petra’s mother must have written that, but I’m not sure: Petra wrote good essays, too. A moment later I was shocked. I don’t know whether from emotion or for some other reason, but Cláudio decided to offer Comrade Teacher Ángel his watch. He’d put it in a package and everything, and Petra whispered in my other ear that his mother had made the package, and
I thought so, too.
When Teacher María started to cry very hard, the rest of us were a bit lost. Bruno couldn’t say goodbye to them, he just took off. Romina started to cry, too, and the strength with which Teacher María hugged us was amazing. I still hadn’t managed to say anything, but when Comrade Teacher Ángel shook my hand and said, “The struggle continues!”, this came out of my mouth:
“Comrade teacher. . . . I know that all that you said, comrade teacher, about the revolution is true and . . . the most important thing is that we be truthful . . .” And then I couldn’t say anything else.
He hugged me and wiped away my tears. Then he hugged Romina. Then he hugged Cláudio. Then he hugged Petra. Then he hugged Kalí. Then he hugged Catarina.
