by Ondjaki
on this fateful night, when the year-end, beneath the intense night-time heat, announced the arrival of the new year, Artur Arriscado found himself at midnight on a small boat, making the crossing from the pier to tranquil Mussulo Island, the lights and sounds of gunshots announced that zero hour had passed beneath the blessing of the motor’s engine, the calm waters of the sea, the sad wind and the serene gleam of the stars millions of kilometres away, the boat stopped, the passengers hugged each other, as was the custom at midnight on New Year’s Eve, they reached Mussulo three sheets to the wind in wavelets of alcohol they had ingested and flung themselves down right there, on the shore of the first beach they found
Artur Arriscado, better known as Scratch Man, awoke with his shoes wet from the kisses of the rising tide, aside from his discomfort at the light, unsettled voices were arguing far too early on this first day of the year, he opened his eyes, looked with pleasure at the peaceful, illumined blue of the sea, in the distance Luanda appeared not to have awoken yet from the lethargy caused by the previous night’s festivities,
he identified his group of friends, who were agitated and terrified of two guards pointing their lustrous AK-47s, the decision was taken in an instant and, while walking with a resolute stride, Artur Arriscado shook sand from his body and his hair, he tidied up his huge beard and, making a strange noise in his throat, came up to the men
“what’s going on here?” he said in an arrogant tone, winking at one of his friends and shaking hands with the only woman present
“you comrades realize that you’re on private land here? do you even realize where you’re setting foot?”
“you fucking monkey,” Artur stated, in his serious voice, “you’re seeing me here out of uniform, you come with those starter engines, do you know who you’re talking to?”
the guard hesitated
the other one immediately backed up a few steps but kept his weapon trained on the group
“lower that piece of shit right now!” Arriscado shouted in the direction of the farther-off one, the one who was closer took advantage of this to withdraw his finger from the trigger, he also lowered his weapon, “don’t you know who i am?”
“no, comrade...” replied the younger-looking one
“just because i’m out of uniform! and without my brass, you guys don’t even know my house over there?” he spoke without pointing with either his finger or his eyes
the other members of the group took advantage of their fear to mask it as respect for the cranky soldier who had just been disturbed
“cool it, my friend,” the woman joined in the spirit of the game
“i’m Colonel Hoffman, you hear me? eh?” Artur Arriscado threatened
“i’m sorry, Comrade Colonel, we weren’t informed...”
“scat, right now, and if more people appear from the boat that brought us here yesterday, they’re my friends, i don’t want any more hassles here, you hear me?”
“yes, colonel,” they both saluted
“dismissed!”
“yes, sir”
it was this group of friends, which included Paulo Paused, at that time little more than an adolescent, that knew of the existence of a certain Hoffman, the “colonel from Mussulo”
“we laughed a lot that day, sis,” Artur said to Clara, passing her the empty glass so that she could fill it again
“you guys had a lot of guts, imagine if he’d known that there wasn’t any Colonel Hoffman”
“how would he know? with the kick in the ass i gave them! no way, you should’ve seen those kids’ faces, all terrified we were gonna be liquidated on the spot”
“the best part was that other dinner two weeks later... with the other colonel”
“it’s true,” Artur Arriscado confirmed, “the guy who was jogging”
“it was an identical situation” Paulo explained “and when some of those young soldiers, well, were a little doubtful about the claims of the colonel here, another colonel passed by jogging, didn’t stop and shouted from a distance, ‘good morning, colonel!’”
“ha! ha! that’s right!” Artur drank his beer in big gulps, “what a life, those were the days...”
they ate and drank to the taste of these and other memories
Artur Arriscado belonged to the generation of great Luandan dancers, he was a friend of Ladislau Silva, also feared at Luanda sprees for step-sequences that included difficult passes, Ladislau being bow-legged and using steps only his arched limbs could perform, Artur was also a contemporary of Edú, in parties, and escapes from parties, which they had sneaked into as uninvited professional gatecrashers,
“bossman Scratch, we can speak freely here”
“and the chick?” Artur was referring to Paulo’s girlfriend
“she’s cool”
“okay, it looks like there’s a big deal, the other day i was at a Party meeting”
“but how can there be a big deal with water? we’ve been struggling with this since independence”
“the water business is a diversion, my lad, the real deal is the oil on the troubled waters”
“oil?”
“right, and the cirollers”
“who?” Paulo was pretty sure his fifteenth beer had begun to take effect
“cirollers is the code name i gave them, they’re the guys from CIROL: Commission for the Installation of Recoverable Oil in Luanda, they’re setting up everything underground to get the oil out”
“here in Luanda?”
“where else...? hey, sis, can you see if the next beer’s good and cold?”
“remember that study in the ’80s? there’s no way—that stuff with the tectonic plates”
“but the technology’s improved, they’ve invented metal plates, it looks like the city could stand it”
“i’m gonna need more information, Scratch Man”
“no can do, all of us who were at that meeting were threatened, anything that comes out in the papers is our fault, i never told you a thing, all i’ve told you is what’s already in the rumour mill”
Clara returned with another beer and saucers full of kitaba.
“cirollers?”
“right, that’s what people started calling them”
Scratch Man only left, in fact, when he had managed to drain the last drops of whisky from the bottle of Chivas, he took his leave, alleging he was in perfect shape to drive home
“take care, bro, careful who you talk to”
“don’t worry, it’s safe with me”
Cardoso’s Store, as it was known, was close to where Odonato lived
Ciente-the-Grand, following The Real Zé’s orders, had spent twelve hours without consuming weed or alcohol in order to be minimally ready for his mission, it was simple: two of The Real Zé’s other men would make their entrance, neutralizing the guards on the night shift without harming them, when he saw them come out with MPLA caps on their heads, he was supposed to go in, get the safe, use the combination he had memorized in advance, and carry away everything he found there in his backpack, nothing more
it was about two in the morning when the guards were pacified
Ciente-the-Grand went in armed with a flashlight and a knife, made his way to the tiny study on the first floor, on the table lay a cardboard box with some Euros and dollars which he pocketed immediately, behind the bookshelf was the safe, open, with two more boxes inside, Ciente smiled, for in truth he could no longer remember the combination The Real Zé had given him over the phone
a jeep stopped outside and Ciente became terrified, he already had his hand on the door of the safe and he closed it into a fist as he turned around to go to the window to peek out, a short guy with a pendulous belly was getting out of the car
he searched in his memory, this could very well be old Cardoso, the owner of the establishment, panicking
, Ciente dropped the knife in the darkness, he wanted to look for it but didn’t know what he should do first, he pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and rapidly typed in The Real Zé’s number
busy!
by luck the man returned to his car, rummaged frenetically in the glove compartment until he found something, left the car, locked it up, to Ciente it looked as though the man was carrying a pistol in his hand
the connection went through, The Real Zé answered
“how’s it goin’, everything okay? hello? Ciente? Ciente?”
Ciente had hidden behind a low refrigerator in the corner of the office, Cardoso was moving forward with caution, in a silence that concealed the sound of his steps but not his breathing
old Cardoso, before even entering the office, announced:
“i’m armed, whoever’s in there it’s better to come out”
Ciente tried to keep quiet, he dropped the phone
“it’s better to come out,” there was the sound of a bullet clicking into the chamber
“i’m armed too...” Ciente said in a tone lacking conviction
Cardoso realized where the voice was coming from, he managed to glimpse the burglar’s body in the shadow, behind the refrigerator
“come out, i can see you, come out slowly”
“if you already saw me, say where i am!”
“come out, you little fuck, or they’ll carry you out with a bullet up your ass”
Ciente tried to run and surprise old Cardoso and was rewarded by the effect of his sudden movements, the old man almost fell over when Ciente ran past him, he gave two jumps and made it up the flight of stairs, running clumsily out of the shop, knocking over boxes and shelves on the way
Cardoso recovered quickly, went to the window, and fired two shots
Ciente succeeded in running a few more metres, then he realized his muscles were failing him and his waning strength carried him forward in an attempt to reach the building where his father lived
he covered the final metres with difficulty, on his knees, and finally collapsed on the first floor, stretching out amid the ever-flowing waters
he dragged himself as far as the vacant elevator and in a hidden corner found an old tap, he turned it twice, heard a noise in the pipes, it was a call to whomever knew how to use this warning system
Little Daddy, on the third floor, heard the noise, he got up quickly, went to look for a long dagger that someone had offered him years ago, saying it had been used by Rambo in one of his films, put a red bandanna around his head, picked up a ridiculous little flashlight incapable of illumining even the slightest darkness
he whistled loudly twice
Nga Nelucha, on the fourth floor, woke up Edú
“did you hear that, Edú?”
“hear what?”
“Little Daddy whistled twice”
Edú promptly slid an unusually long wooden broom from beneath the bed, struck a firm blow on the room’s ceiling, coughed at the dust that fell onto the bed, waited a moment, and hit twice more, with greater force
on the fifth floor Comrade Mute put on his old brown shorts, tightened his belt and grabbed the Makarov pistol that spent the night beneath his second pillow, as he passed through the living room he turned on the record player, cranking up the strident music to high volume, even in the midst of the din, the voice remained in tune
on the sixth floor they all woke up at the same time, Xilisbaba spoke to Odonato
“aren’t you going to see what’s going on?”
“stay calm... we have to follow procedure, first Little Daddy will reconnoitre, then Edú will take up position in the staircase to make sure no one comes up, then Mute will go down with his weapon, you mustn’t do anything, stay calm”
Xilisbaba made her way to the kitchen and returned with the meat cleaver and the stick for churning the cassava meal
“go see what’s happening, i’ll get everyone into the bathroom”
“okay”
Granma Kunjikise and Amarelinha met in the bathroom
on his way downstairs, Comrade Mute, weapon in hand, met Edú, who was also guarding the stairs with a cassava-stick
“what was it? a thief?”
“i don’t think so, i don’t know, it was Little Daddy who sounded the alarm”
“how many times did he whistle?”
“twice”
“keep calm, i’m going down”
when the Mute met up with Little Daddy, they carefully descended a dangerous secondary staircase with slippery and missing steps where you had to know exactly where to put your foot
they heard moans, recognized the fallen body
“is that you, Ciente?” Little Daddy said, putting away his Rambo dagger
“they shot me up the ass...”
“at this time of night?” the Mute said
“is there a right time to get shot? just take me to my dad’s place”
Comrade Mute was frightened when he saw how much blood had mixed with the waters, it was clear the lad was weak and that it was necessary to get him upstairs as soon as possible
“help me,” he grabbed his arms
“there we go,” Little Daddy made a huge effort to sustain the weight of the legs without slipping in the middle of the water and blood, “this guy’s so skinny, can he really be this heavy?”
“jeez, just keep goin’”
“easy there,” Ciente-the-Grand groaned, “my ass hurts”
“that’s your problem, couldn’t you have got shot somewhere else? i wanna see who’s gonna yank the bullet out of there,” the Mute muttered
they went upstairs with the already limp body of Odonato’s firstborn.
the next day, after speaking with the secretary of Santos Prancha, the Minister’s Advisor, Paulo Paused obtained a pre-hearing with a view to investigating, along with more official wellsprings of information, the water question
eventually, thanks to a bit of luck, he would succeed in extracting from Prancha some lesser-known details concerning the other side of the question
Santos Prancha was in the habit of hoisting a glass, even during office hours, and at times this made journalists’ lives easier, complicating somewhat the discretion recommended by their occupation
“how are you, Comrade Paulo?”
“very well, thank you, Senhor Santos, and all’s well here?”
Prancha slowly shifted in his chair, he made formalities and business matters into pretexts for dragging his feet, lending them an importance they’d never had
he was used to opening the window, smelling the morning air, closing it again, turning up the air conditioning, but his body continued to perspire as though this were its life mission, and then he would pull out a Chivas Regal and serve himself
“Senhor Advisor, the reason...”
“just a moment, Paulito” he grabbed the telephone, “Dona Creusa, bring more ice, please, you know i don’t like to see this ice bucket half empty, right? hmm... i don’t want to hear about it, send somebody out to buy... what? do you think i have a personal operating budget for the Ministry’s ice? perform your duties, Dona Creusa, and don’t bother me, perform your duties!” he hung up the phone in dissatisfaction
“everything quiet around here?” Paulo tried to start
“everything’s quiet... everything’s under control, this Ministry isn’t like the others, here everything runs like clockwork, it’s just the ice question that irritates me, you heard how that gal—my secretary—asked who pays for the ice? that’s a good one!” he made one of his pauses, but Paulo felt no discomfort, “so you’re here because you want to see the Minister?”
“if possible... my boss would like to include an interview with him, something big, a front-page story or something like that”
“i see... i see,” h
e stirred his glass of whisky, nursing it
“but the secretary told me it would be better to talk with you first”
“of course... of course... to set things straight, i’m sure you’ve got certain matters in mind, you’re a good journalist... it’s possible the Minister might want to grant an opportunity”
“of course, we’re ready to cooperate”
“is it going to have a lot of politics in it, this interview your boss wants?”
“look, not really, it would be more about some high-profile matters that are in the air”
“high-profile matters in the air? i’m already worried and getting thirstier...”
“the water mess, water shortages, low supplies, it’s all people are talking about, and i actually thought that, to stop the rumours in their tracks, it might be good for the government to take an official position”
“i’ll see, i’ll see... the water mess?”
“the water mess”
Dona Creusa knocked on the door and entered
“Dona Creusa, stop!” the advisor Santos Prancha smashed his glass down, “what’s going on?”
“what do you mean, Senhor Advisor?”
“so that’s how you enter my office?”
“i knocked on the door, Senhor Advisor”
“but i didn’t reply, because i’m in a very important journalistic meeting”
“but didn’t you ask...?”
“please withdraw, madam”
“but, Senhor Advisor, the ice...”
“madam, you will withdraw, knock on the door and wait patiently”
“yes, Senhor Advisor,” Dona Creusa withdrew
“you were talking about the water mess?”
“yes, everybody talks about it, even the opposition papers have started to speculate”
Dona Creusa knocked on the door again
“come in!” Santos Prancha shouted
