Transparent City

by Ondjaki

  “excuse me, comrade, but you can’t park here”

  “what do you mean?” the driver inquired

  “i mean this is a traffic-flow area, it’s not a place where you can just stop”

  “can’t you see that this is a ministerial vehicle?”

  “so can’t you put it in short-term parking?” the policeman suggested

  “what’s this?” the Advisor finally took notice

  “the Comrade Officer says we can’t park here”

  “tell that officer we’re not parked”

  “the Senhor Advisor says we’re not parked”

  “how’s that?”

  “how’s that, Senhor Advisor?”

  “the vehicle is not turned off, much less parked”

  “it’s because the vehicle’s turned on”

  “but it’s not moving” the policeman tried

  “Senhor Advisor?”

  “what is it?”

  “he says that the vehicle is not moving”

  “hey, tell that officer to get off my case”

  “Comrade Officer”

  “what is it?”

  “The Senhor Advisor says... to get off his case”

  “how’s that? are you joking with me, or what?”

  “not me, i’m just passing along the message”

  “lower your window”

  the driver lowered the Senhor Advisor’s window

  “good afternoon, Your Excellency”

  “i’m not yours, nor am i an Excellency”

  “then what should i call you, man?”

  “in the first place, you shouldn’t call me ‘man,’ but ask, ‘what is your title?’”

  “and what is it?”

  “what’s what?”

  “your title”

  “i’m the Advisor to His Excellency the Minister”

  “then, Senhor Advisor to Our Excellency, your car is incorrectly parked”

  “Comrade Officer, i already told you through my substitute driver to get off my case, this vehicle belongs to the Ministry and we’re here to wait for a passenger”

  “but can’t the Comrade Advisor to Our Excellency wait in short-term parking?”

  “no! i’m here to wait for an important man, an American! have you ever seen an American walk all the way to short-term parking?”

  “i haven’t seen that yet”

  “and you’re not going to see it because the vehicle is going to stay here”

  “so what do i say if my boss comes to talk to me?”

  “say that the Advisor to Our Excellency is here waiting for an American, now let me close the window because the air conditioning is wasting gas”

  “Senhor Advisor to Our Excellency, please excuse...”

  “what is it?”

  “can i just ask you to help me with a cigarette, or even with a hundred kwanzas to quench my thirst?”

  “you can,” but the Advisor didn’t budge, he continued to stare raight ahead with mysteriously calm demeanour

  “then?”

  “then what?”

  “the dough?”

  “the driver has the dough,” the Senhor Advisor closed the window

  the driver had already been designated for the mission of identifying the American at the exit to the terminal, and though he insisted that he be provided with a description, even an approximate one, the Advisor continued to smoke in silence inside the vehicle, the driver decided to leave, approaching the mob that surrounded the main passenger exit

  “how about it?” the policeman insisted

  “how about what? if you didn’t get anything out of the boss-man, you expect me, without even a regular salary, to slip you some dough? get some brains in your head”

  “i’m going to complain to my boss about you guys,” the dejected policeman walked away

  people were coming out with suitcases, baggage of unbelievable dimensions, worthy of travelling in the hold of a ship, and others, more restrained, with backpacks

  there were people of all colours, with hair and eyes of all shades, the driver was confused as to who might be the American, he asked someone who was fair-skinned but miscalculated, by coincidence he was an Angolan, he asked another, a really tall, very dark-skinned black guy, who even spoke English, but he was Nigerian, and suddenly, with alarm, he spotted a large group of Chinese who were smiling and embracing other Chinese who were waiting for them

  and no sign of any American

  “my elder, how about one of these spacial glasses?” the boy, a street vendor, tried to empty out an enormous bag of glasses he was carrying on his back

  “who told you i had poor sight?”

  “these glasses aren’t for seeing, my elder, they’re for looking”

  “are you joking, or what?”

  “not at all, elder, these are spacial glasses, one of them en-clips is coming where the sun turns mulatto, and it’s gonna be here soon”

  “when’s that?”

  “the Party hasn’t announced it yet, they’ve just been warning about it on the radio, but these here are japie glasses from South Africa, they stand up to the sun of the en-clips and everything”

  “how much you askin’?” the disoriented driver tried to ditch the discussion

  “five hundred, my elder”

  “you kiddin’? five hundred for plastic glasses that look like they belong to a child, all crazy colours, and on top of that for an en-clips that you don’t even know when it’s happening?”

  “but these glasses, elder, at night they see right through the chicks, their miniskirts, their stockings and everything”

  “is that so?”

  “sure is, they’re advantages, my elder, that way, elder, you can size up a lady before making a move on her, you can spot them transvestites”

  “not for five hundred... listen, did you see an American here looking really lost, i came to pick the guy up and i don’t know him or nothin’”

  “American, like one of them guys who speak English?”

  “yeah, or he might even speak American”

  “i didn’t see him, elder, but there was an elder here lookin’ half-lost, he sat there inside the airport”

  “i’m gonna go look in there”

  “and the glasses, my elder?”

  “i’m gonna wait for the en-clips”

  the American was a young black man who looked like many young Angolans, if it weren’t for the English language, for his desperate, sweaty expression, he never would have been identified by his true nationality

  “you Américan saienteest?”

  “yes, my name’s Raago, petroleum engineering... nice to meet you”

  “petroil? yes, here petroil good, gasoil cheapsky, ay, me Kakuarta, Ka-kuar-ta, good playne on TAAG flaite? let’s go, boss waitare”

  “ok, let’s go”

  “watz u name?”

  “Raago.”

  “Rag-ass-o?”

  “no, Raago”

  “ok, ok”

  it did the American good to step inside the ministerial vehicle with its gelid air conditioning, yet the smell of tobacco smoke bothered him

  “you not smoke?” the Advisor tried to be sympathetic

  “no, thanks,” the American smiled, taking advantage of the remark to open the window, “i really don’t smoke”

  “oh, shit!” the Advisor burst out laughing and pretended he was going to put out the cigarette, “so you come work with us?”

  “yes, it’s going to be complicated though”

  “no complicated here,” the Advsor gesticulated, “here everee thing is very simples, simples! capiche? good friends, good money!”

  the American let his eyes take in the city, the colours of the women who carrie
d the whole world on their shoulders to feed their infants, their children and their nephews and nieces, their godchildren and their distant relatives who had arrived from far-away wars in search of the expensive, difficult yet safe perch of the Angolan capital

  “the women are so beautiful,” the American commented

  “yes, very biutiful, naice, bonitas… Angola all hot, uorm claimat, uorm chiks… very naice, kizomba dence, you know?”

  “kizomba?”

  “yes, nashunal dence, kizomba!”

  having just arrived, the American believed he’d seen a vision, in the midst of the mass of people crossing the street, selling and drinking water, brushing off dust, mopping their foreheads, the American Raago believed he’d recognized a face

  he tried to whistle but no sound emerged, hours of flying had dried his lips

  “hey!” the American opened the automatic window, “hey you!”

  the you had an unconcerned air, his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose due to the heat and the lost look that always befuddles the expressions of very intelligent people

  “Raago?” Davide Airosa, a young Angolan scientist, never forgot names or pages of books

  the Advisor ordered the driver to stop the vehicle, they pulled up next to the sidewalk

  it had been a few years since they had seen each other, Raago had met Davide Airosa when the latter was doing his Master’s in the States, before being called, literally, to make his hallucinatory contribution to the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford

  “long time no see,” Raago seemed startled at finding Davide Airosa here

  “yeah, long time... what’s up?”

  “Tudo bem,” Raago risked trying the little Portuguese he remembered

  “nice, how long you staying?”

  “i dunno, i here to work”

  they both spaced out for a moment, looking at each other as though wondering, after so many years, how many experiences each of them had passed through, how many adventures, how many lessons and challenges

  “the vehicle’s registration has to be visible,” the policeman’s voice thinned as he complained the car was illegally parked

  “are you joking, or what? you’re gonna make me get out of the car in this heat?”

  “everybody has to do his job, sir, this vehicle is illegally parked”

  “parked? are you all right in the head, or has the sun fried your grey matter?”

  “comrade, you must take care not to redouble the infraction, you have already committed it, and now you want to commit it verbally, as well”

  “you’re the one who’s going to get committed, did you see this vehicle’s licence plate?”

  “i saw it”

  “do you know my position?”

  “i don’t have a clue, but now we’re under orders to get the vehicle registration, boss, don’t take it badly...”

  “don’t worry, i’m taking it just fine, take the licence number if you want, but you’ll be out of a job by the end of the day”

  “why, boss?”

  “because this is turning into a national obsession, did you guys take some course that made you think all cars are parked? this vehicle is provisionally stopped for reasons of international fraternization”

  “what?” the policeman scratched his head, sweated

  “this citizen is one of those Americans from America itself”

  “what, that guy who looks like he’s from Malanje Province?”

  “what kind of lack of respect is that? this comrade is one of those scientists who only stops studying when he starts walking with a cane, as it happens, the heat is impossible, Senhor Rag-ass-o, Senhor Raago, we’re going to go on our way”

  Davide tried to ask for an address, but the American didn’t know where he was staying or what contact details to give him and the Senhor Advisor’s habit of never being available did not allow them to exchange contact details

  “i can find you,” Davide Airosa promised, waving goodbye and ingesting the dust raised by the car

  “so where do we stand, i don’t get it,” the policeman commented

  “what do you mean?” Davide Airosa asked

  “they stop, they commit, they split... and i don’t see a thing?”

  “all i saw here was dust.”

  in spite of the heat, the dust, the grit stuck to his body, Davide remained content, meandering in his own mind

  and as in New York, where Davide had missed so many classes due to what he called his excessive strolls, so in Luanda it was normal for him to start walking only to have his mind taken over by strange sequences of thoughts which, while they started out making him journey to the past, provided him, as on so many other occasions, with space for the emergence of some brilliant idea, the problem for Davide was precisely that he had been gripped, since early childhood, with ideas more brilliant than concrete, more dreamable than feasible, more beautiful than practical

  it was the absence of yellow that caught his attention

  the sun had set far enough that the remaining yellow was now a lie that the seawater told the sky and that the sky reflected in tones of pink and purple, announcing to Luanda that it would tell no more by the powerful light of the sun which bathed it every day since night was falling now, and people turned on the fluorescent lights on their porches, not only to provide light for their children’s games, but to gradually let the cicadas chime in with their vibrato, awakening the toads, stirring up the fireflies, lulling to sleep the hot stones, making the elders on Luanda Island, both fishermen and their aging wives, tighten their casual clothes around their bodies and light up their cigarettes and bongs, which feed dreams and delight the lungs with a marvellous calm for those who enjoy it

  the young scientist, listening to the sound of the cars, no longer felt his glasses sliding down his face, his shoes were full of sand

  sand from the beach

  he breathed in the smell of meat being readied for the grill, heard the whimpering of dogs shooed away by the women preparing it, the laughter of stone-wielding children who pursued those same dogs in their pendulous, salty gauntness, he was able to hear, in the distance, on the far side of the enormous rocks, children’s voices as they delighted in a late dip, savouring the water’s lukewarm temperature and readying their bodies, their backs and their cheeks, for the slaps their mothers or elder sisters would give them for arriving home late after their swims in the darkness of the sea,

  Blind Man and Seashell Seller were coming back along the beach, both of them tired and satisfied with the results of their day’s work, Seashell Seller anxious because his sense of smell told him that the water would be nice and he felt like a swim, and Blind Man’s fatigue and hunger making him want to find someone to give him a plate of food followed by a cigarette with or without weed in it

  “you guys don’t know how smells speak,” Blind Man smiled

  “you’re right, some people don’t know, elder, but as for me, i’m a friend of smells”

  “but you guys only notice smells now and then, when they’re strong... for me smells have all the voices you could imagine, an elder’s shout or a child’s laugh... i see plenty even with my eyes closed”

  “i know, elder, i understand that”

  “let it go, son... i’m not talking about things that can be understood”

  it is possible that, in his sensorial world of tones and experiences, Blind Man may have noted the far-off presence of Davide Airosa who, smiling to himself, confirming that he had walked too far, shook off his feet, freeing them from the sand and the pebbles that were a discomfort to anyone who was getting ready to start walking again

  but see, no, Blind Man did not see

  “me, i just fish for shells and on top of that i have to talk a ton just to convince people to buy...”

  “are you tal
king that way because you’re sick of the sound of your own voice, or what?”

  “or what!” replied Seashell Seller, keeping to himself the smile that he failed to smile.

  when Airosa got to Paulo’s apartment, he was received warmly

  that night Clara was friendly, with her eyes shining—she looked prettier that way, Airosa didn’t look at her directly because he was afraid that his gaze would reveal the fantasies he’d cultivated for years, in which his friend’s girlfriend played a central role

  “Davide, the maddest of our mad scientists,” Paulo welcomed him, giving him a hug

  “good evening...” Davide Airosa said

  there were quitetas with lemon sauce, red chili peppers, a bottle of gin, lots of ice and tonic water, Davide’s favourite drink

  “hey, have you started drinking harder stuff, or do you still have this delusion that you’re the Queen of England’s nephew?”

  “i wouldn’t say the nephew... but in some ways our alcoholic tastes are related,” Davide sat down, timidly crossing his legs

  they opened the windows

  the wind brought a pleasant breeze into the apartment, it might be about to rain, for the odours in the air were redolent of murmurs of plants and animals, they felt the turbulent salt air from Luanda Bay and the pressure was different, they were silent for a while, tasting the quitetas

  “cooked in white wine, or what?”

  “house secret,” Clara smiled, “all you have to do, sir, is say whether or not they’re good”

  “i figure they’re super-superbly superb, as the unfortunate Odorico Paraguaçu would say”

  “enough of your Adolfo Dido sayings,” Paulo smiled, as he served him a second round

  alcohol and night enveloped the conversation, after dealing with the ordinary, everyday topics, they got to the subject that really worried Paulo

  “what’s happening with this petroleum business? is it really going ahead?”

  “i know only that i know nothing”

  “but from the little you do know? i know it’s possible that the oil exists, but are they getting ready to exploit it?”