The Book of Chameleons

by Jose Eduardo Agualusa

  ‘I’m a man with no colour,’ he said. ‘And as you know, nature abhors a vacuum.’

  We sat down on a broad and comfortable bench that had been planted on the walkway. The sea stretched itself out serenely at our feet. Félix Ventura took off his hat and used it to fan his face. His skin glowed pink, covered in sweat. I felt sorry for him:

  ‘In cold countries people with light skin aren’t so troubled by the harshness of the sun. Maybe you ought to think about moving to Switzerland. Have you ever been to Geneva? I’d rather like to live in Geneva.’

  ‘My problem isn’t the sun!’ he retorted. ‘It’s the lack of melanin.’ He laughed: ‘Have you noticed that anything inanimate gets bleached whiter in the sun, but living things get more colour?’

  Could he really lack a soul, lack life? I denied this vehemently. I’ve never known anyone so alive. It seemed that he had not only a life but several lives, in and around him. Félix looked at me carefully:

  ‘Sorry to ask – but could you tell me your name?’

  ‘I have no name,’ I replied quite frankly. ‘I am the gecko.’

  ‘That’s silly. No one is a gecko!’

  ‘You’re right. No one’s a gecko. And you – are you really called Félix Ventura?’

  My question seemed to offend him. He lay back on the bench and his eyes disappeared into the incredible depths of the sky. I was worried that he would leap into it. I didn’t know the place where we were. I couldn’t remember ever having been there before, in my other life. Massive cacti, some of them several metres tall, rose up between the dunes, behind us, they too dazzled by the limpid brilliance of the sea. A flock of flamingos slipped with fiery calm across the blue sky, right over our heads, and it was only then that I was totally sure that this was, in fact, a dream. Félix turned, slowly, his eyes moist:

  ‘Is this madness?’

  I didn’t know how to answer him.

  I, Eulálio

  The following night Félix asked ngela Lúcia the same question. First, of course, he’d told her that he’d dreamed about me again. I’ve seen ngela Lúcia say very serious things laughing, or on the contrary, adopting a sombre expression when joking with her interlocutor. It’s not always possible to tell what she’s thinking. On this occasion she laughed at the anxiety in my friend’s eyes, greatly increasing his disquiet, but then right away turned more serious and asked:

  ‘And his name? So did the guy tell you who he is?’

  No one is a name! I thought, forcefully…

  ‘No one is a name!’ Félix replied.

  The reply took ngela Lúcia by surprise. Félix too. I watched him look at her as though looking into an abyss. She was smiling sweetly. She lay her right hand on the albino’s left arm. She whispered something in his ear, and he relaxed.

  ‘No,’ he whispered back. ‘I don’t know who he is. But since I’m the one who dreams about him I think I can give him any name I want, can’t I? I’m going to call him Eulálio, because he’s so well-spoken.’

  Eulálio?! That seems fine to me. So Eulálio I shall be.

  Rain on Childhood

  It’s raining. Thick drops of water, blown by the strong winds, throw themselves at the windowpanes. Félix, who’s sitting facing the storm, is savouring a fruit shake in small spoonfuls. For the past few nights this has been his dinner. He makes it himself, taking a papaya, piercing it with a fork, then he gets two passion fruit, a banana, raisins, pine nuts, a soupspoon of muesli (an English brand) and a strand of honey.

  ‘Have I told you about the locusts?’

  He had told me.

  ‘Whenever it rains like this it reminds me of the locusts. It wasn’t here, I’ve never seen anything like it here in Luanda. My father, old Fausto Bendito, inherited a farm in Gabela from his maternal grandmother. We used to go spend our holidays there. I felt like I was visiting Paradise. I used to play all day long with the workers’ children, and one or other of the local white boys from the area, who knew how to speak quimbundo. We used to play cowboys and Indians, with slingshots and spears we made ourselves, and even with air rifles – I had one, and another boy had one, which we loaded up with maças-da-India. You probably don’t know maças-da-India, they’re a little red fruit, about the size of a bullet. They were perfect as ammunition because when they hit their target they’d disintegrate – pluf! – staining the victim’s clothes with what looked like blood. When I see rain like this it reminds me of Gabela. Of the mango trees on the side of the road, even on the road out of Quibala. The omelettes – I’ve never tasted any like them! – the omelettes that they served for breakfast at the Quibala Hotel. My childhood is full of marvellous flavours. It smelled good too. Yes, I remember the locusts. I remember the afternoons when it rained locusts. The horizons would darken. The locusts would fall, stunned, into the grasses – one here, then another there, and they’d be eaten right off by the birds, and then the darkness would get closer, covering everything, and the next moment transforming itself into a nervous, multiple thing, a furious buzzing, a commotion, and we’d make for the house, running for shelter, as the trees lost their leaves and the grass disappeared, in just a few minutes, consumed by that sort of living fire. The next day everything that had been green was gone. Fausto Bendito told me he’d seen a little green car disappear like that, consumed by locusts. He was probably exaggerating.’

  I like listening to him. Félix talks about his childhood as though he’d really lived through it. He closes his eyes. He smiles:

  ‘When I close my eyes I can see those locusts again, falling from the sky. The red ants, warrior ants – you know what I mean? – red ants would come down at night, they’d come from some doorway in the night that leads to hell, and they’d multiply, to thousands, millions, as fast as we could kill them. I remember waking up coughing, coughing violently, suffocating, my eyes burning, from the smoke of battle. My father Fausto Bendito, in his pyjamas, grey hair completely dishevelled, his bare feet in a basin of water, fighting that sea of ants with a pump full of DDT. Fausto shouting instructions to the servants through the smoke. I laughed with a child’s amazement. I’d fall asleep and dream of the red ants, and when I awoke they’d still be there, in the middle of all that smoke, that bitter smoke, millions of those little grinding machines, with their blind fury and their ancestral hunger. I’d fall asleep, and dream, and they’d make their way into my dreams, I’d see them climbing the walls, I’d see them attacking the chickens in their coop, the doves in the dovecote. The dogs would bite at their paws. They’d run in circles, spinning in rage, they’d run in circles howling, their teeth trying to snatch the red ants that were clinging to their toes, they’d run, they’d howl, they’d bite themselves. They’d bite off the red ants, and their toes with them. The patio would be covered in blood. And the smell of blood maddened the dogs even more. It maddened the red ants. Old Esperança – who wasn’t all that old in those days – would shout, beg, Do something, master! The animals are suffering! and I remember my father loading the hunting rifle, while she dragged me into my room so I wouldn’t watch… Esperança would hold me, my face buried in her breasts, but it was no use. When I close my eyes now, I can still see them. I can hear it all – would you believe it? Even today I cry over the deaths of my dogs. I shouldn’t say this, really – I’m not sure you’ll understand me – but I mourn the death of my dogs more than my poor father. We awoke, shook down our hair, our sheets, and the red ants would drop out dead, or almost dead, but still biting randomly, chewing at the air with their thick iron pincers. It rained, fortunately. The rain came through the illuminated sky and we’d go running – bounding – out to that thick, clean water, drinking in the perfume of the wet earth. And the first rains brought the white ants with them. All night long they’d spin about the lights like a mist, with a sweet humming, until they lost their wings, and in the morning we’d find the path carpeted with them, fine and transparent. I’ve always thought of white ants and butterflies as creatures quite without malice. In old
en days stories for children always used to end with the words, and they lived happily ever after, this being after the Prince has married the Princess and they’ve had lots of children. In life there’s never a plot that works out like that, of course. Princesses marry bodyguards, they marry trapeze-artists and life goes on, and they live unhappily until they separate. And years later, just like the rest of us, they die. We’re only happy – truly happy – when it’s for ever-after, but only children live in a world where things can last forever. I was happy ever after in my childhood, there in Gabela, in the long holidays, as I tried to build a fort in the branches of an acacia tree. I was happy ever after on the banks of a brook, a strip of running water so modest that it didn’t even bother with the luxury of a name, but proud enough for us to think it more than a mere brook – it was the River. It ran through plantations of corn and manioc, and that’s where we’d go to catch tadpoles, to sail improvised steamboats, and also, as evening drew in, to spy on the washerwomen while they bathed. I was happy with my dog, Cabiri, the two of us were happy ever after, chasing pigeons and rabbits through the long afternoons, playing hide-and-seek in the tall grasses. I was happy on the deck of Príncipe Perfeito, on an endless journey from Luanda to Lisbon, throwing bottles with innocent messages into the sea. Whoever finds this bottle, please write to me. No one ever wrote to me. In catechism lessons an old priest with a faint voice and a weary gaze tried to explain to me what Eternity was. For me it seemed like just another name for my summer holidays. The priest talked of angels, and I saw chickens. To this day, in fact, of all the things I’ve seen, chickens are still the ones that most closely resemble angels. He talked of heavenly joy, and I saw chickens scrabbling away in the sun, digging up little nests in the sand, turning their little glass eyes in pure mystical bliss. I can’t imagine Paradise without chickens. I can’t even imagine the Great God, reclining lazily on a fluffy bed of clouds, without his being surrounded by a gentle host of chickens. You know something – I’ve never known a bad chicken – have you? Chickens, like white ants, like butterflies, are altogether immune against evil.’

  The rain redoubled its strength. Rain like this is unusual in Luanda. Félix Ventura wipes his face with a handkerchief. He still uses cotton handkerchiefs, massive things, with old-style patterns on them, and his name embroidered into one corner. I envy him his childhood. Maybe it’s not real. But I envy him it all the same.

  Between Life and Books

  As a child, before I’d even learned to read, I used to spend long hours in the library of our house, sitting on the floor, leafing through big illustrated encyclopaedias, while my father composed arduous verses that later – very sensibly – he would destroy. Later, when I was at school, I’d hide myself away in libraries to avoid playing the always too rough games with which boys of my own age used to occupy themselves. I was a shy boy, skinny, an easy target for other boys’ mockery. I grew – I grew a bit more than most, actually – my body developed, but I remained withdrawn, shy of adventure. I worked for years as a librarian, and I think I was happy in those days. I’ve been happy since, even now, in this little body to which I’m condemned, as through some mediocre romance or other I follow other people’s happiness from a distance. Happy love affairs are unusual in great literature. And yes, I do still read books. As night falls I scan their spines. At night I entertain myself with the books that Félix has left open, forgotten on his bedside table. For some reason – I’m not sure why – I miss the Thousand and One Nights, the English version by Richard Burton. I must have been eight or nine when I read it for the first time, hidden from my father, since in those days it was considered obscene. I can’t go back to the Thousand and One Nights, but to compensate I am discovering new writers. I do like the Boer writer Coetzee, for instance, for his harshness and precision, the despair totally free of self-indulgence. I was surprised to discover that the Swedes recognised such good writing.

  I remember a narrow yard, a well, a turtle asleep in the mud. A bustle of people were walking on the other side of the fence. I still remember the houses, set low in the fine, sandy light of dusk. My mother was always beside me – a fragile and ferocious woman – teaching me to fear the world and its countless dangers.

  ‘Reality is painful and imperfect,’ she’d say. ‘That’s just the way it is, that’s how we distinguish it from dreams. When something seems absolutely lovely we think it can only be a dream, and we pinch ourselves just to be sure we’re really not dreaming – if it hurts it’s because we’re not dreaming. Reality can hurt us, even those moments when it may seem to us to be a dream. You can find everything that exists in the world in books – sometimes in truer colours, and without the real pain of everything that really does exist. Given a choice between life and books, my son, you must choose books!’

  My mother! From now on I’ll just call her Mother.

  Imagine a young man racing along on his motorcycle, on a minor road. The wind is beating at his face. The young man closes his eyes, and opens his arms wide, just like they do in films, feeling himself completely alive and in communion with the universe. He doesn’t see the lorry lunging out from the crossing. He dies happy. Happiness is almost always irresponsible. We’re happy for those brief moments when we close our eyes.

  The Small World

  José Buchmann laid the photographs out on the big living room table, large A4 copies, black and white on matt paper. Almost all of them showed the same man: an old man, tall, slender, with a mass of white hair that tumbled down to his chest in thick plaits then disappeared into the heavy strands of his beard. As he appeared in the photographs – dressed in a dark shirt, in tatters, on which you could still make out a sickle and hammer on his chest, and with his head held high, his eyes ablaze with fury – he’d remind you of some olden-day prince now fallen into disgrace.

  ‘I’ve followed him everywhere these past few weeks, morning to night. Want to see? Let me show you the city from the perspective of a wretched dog.’

  a) The old man, seen from behind, walking along disembowelled streets.

  b) Ruined buildings, their walls pockmarked with bullet-holes, thin bones exposed. A poster on one of the walls, announcing a concert by Julio Iglesias.

  c) Boys playing football, tall buildings all around them. They’re terribly thin, almost translucent. They’re immersed, suspended in the dust like dancers on a stage. The old man is sitting on a rock, watching them. He’s smiling.

  d) The old man is sleeping in the shade of the husk of a military tank that’s eaten away by rust.

  e) The old man is standing up against a statue of the President, urinating.

  f) The old man, swallowed up by the ground.

  g) The old man emerges from the sewer like an ungovernable God, the unkempt hair glowing in the soft morning light.

  ‘I’ve sold this story to an American magazine. I’m off to New York tomorrow. I’ll be there a week or two. Longer, perhaps. And you know what I’m planning to do there?’

  Félix Ventura wasn’t expecting the answer. He shook his head.

  ‘But that’s crazy! You do realise how ridiculous that is, don’t you?’

  José Buchmann laughed. A serene laugh. Maybe he was just joking:

  ‘A long time ago, when I was in Berlin, I was surprised to receive a telephone call from an old friend of mine, an old schoolmate from my beloved Chibia. He told me that two days earlier he’d left Lubango, he’d travelled by motorcycle to Luanda, and from Luanda flown to Lisbon, and then from Lisbon he’d set off for Germany – he was fleeing from the war. He had a cousin who was meant to be meeting him, but there was no one there, and so he decided to try and find his cousin’s house – he left the airport, and got lost. He was anxious. He didn’t speak a word of English – still less of German – and he’d never been in a big city before. I tried to calm him down. Where are you calling from? I asked. From a phone box, he replied. I found your number in my address book and decided to call. I agreed: You did the right thing. Stay where y
ou are. Just tell me what you can see around you, tell me anything you can see that looks unusual, that attracts your attention, so I can get a sense of where you are. Anything strange? I asked. Well, on the other side of the road there’s a machine with a light that goes on and off, and changes colour, green, red, green, and in it there’s a picture of a little man walking.’

  He told the whole story imitating his friend’s voice, the broad accent, the anxiety of the unfortunate man on the other end of the line. He laughed again – uproariously this time – till he had tears in his eyes. He asked Félix for a glass of water. As he drank he began to calm down:

  ‘Yes, old man, I know New York is a very big city. But if I was able to find a traffic light in Berlin, and a phone box opposite it, with an acorrentado – a man in chains… that’s what they call people from Chibia, did you know that?… If I was able to find a phone box in Berlin with an acorrentado inside it, waiting for me, I should in New York be able to find a decorator called Eva Miller – my mother! God, my mother! Within the fortnight I’m sure I’ll find her.’