Transparent City

by Ondjaki

  the floor swallowed up Ciente-the-Grand as though gravity had turned solid and barked an order to descend

  everyone saw the corpse disappear from the sixth floor, opening up a hole the exact size and shape of a corpse lying flat on its back, they peered down and saw the floor of the fifth floor yield with a piercing sound

  the fourth floor collapsed more swiftly and violently, following the corpse like a dead weight, if you pardon the expression, smashing everything it found in its path, ceiling or floor, kitchen or living room, partition or the first-floor wet zone, until it plunged, with a thunderous crash, into the open space of the building’s main entrance

  “so it was true,” Odonato peered sadly from his sixth-floor kitchen, “he didn’t want to come home... we’ve got to find a place to bury him today”

  they broke into two groups, one to try to immediately repair the damage to the building, the other to find a prompt resting place for the body, if only to neutralize the equally prompt rumours whose spread would attract the police or bring someone from the morgue

  João Slowly quickly suggested that they carry the body to the Church of the Sacred Little Lamb which, aside from being a normal place to lay out the deceased, was a peaceful place where family and friends could proceed with the wake

  Odonato agreed, sad and too transparent to think of anything else, and they made provisions to start repairing the sequence of holes

  “but the last... the last hole should remain in memory of my son,” Odonato pleaded

  another group tried to get a “contribution” for the dead man’s flowers, clothes, and shoes, but, above all, someone said with unexpectedness frankness, it was necessary to organize the gastronomic part of the komba, which would obviously include kilos and kilos of good food, countless litres of wine, beer and whisky, and in sufficient supply to last unbroken for at least three consecutive days.

  just before they took him outside, the dead man was dressed in donated clothing that was a little large for him but worthy of his final condition, Strong Maria and Xilisbaba washed the body and cut his hair and nails with water carried by Little Daddy

  on a small borrowed wagon, the body, already a little lighter, was finally taken to the back of Noah’s Barque, where a yard decorated with dry flowers awaited the deceased, João Slowly made a point of monitoring the situation in person, and though he was not in complete charge of the management of the Church of the Sacred Little Lamb, he interrupted the service that was taking place there and begged the recently contracted Brazilian pastor to prepare the ceremony

  “but just like that? not even god realizes yet that he’s passed”

  “don’t start causing problems, man, this is a question of life or death”

  “just of death, you mean”

  “you still tryin’ to be cute? the door’s right there if you want to be fired!” João Slowly threatened

  “fired already? you said this was a training period, that the first month was like an internship, hey, we’ve got good results, lots of the faithful have already understood our philosophy and know the whole ‘am-baaah Maria’”

  “good work, keep it up, you’ll be my only pastor, who knows, maybe someday you’ll get to be a bishop”

  “you think i might make it?”

  “go for it, today’s your big chance, i want this service to be remembered forever, the victim’s father will be here, the family, and i can ensure some politicians are here, go prepare the service, man, i want this mass to have a speech that’s almost apocalyptic...!”

  “good grief, man, we don’t make speeches in church, we only preach to the faithful,” the Brazilian said seriously

  “preach, pastor, preach, but i want this ready by late afternoon, the deceased is the son of my buddy Odonato”

  “very good”

  “one more thing”

  “tell me”

  “you don’t know him...” João Slowly said

  “who, the dead man?”

  “no, the father”

  “what about him?”

  “don’t be shocked when he arrives, don’t start making faces, try to act normal and, whatever happens, go ahead with the mass and let everything take place normally”

  “Brother João Slowly, our lord Jesus said, ‘do not judge so that you will not be judged, for in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you, whether it be physical or moral in nature, am-baaah!’”

  “am-baaah!”

  his hands still trembling, standing close to the hole in his kitchen, Edú sipped the verbena-leaf tea that Nga Nelucha had prepared to calm him down

  once the tea was served, his wife arranged a series of objects into a perimeter around the recently created cliff in her kitchen

  seated on his tiny stool, Edú heard the telephone ring but felt no desire to get up, he sucked up his tea with withered lips and a face where only his staring eyes revealed his horror at the departed’s final downward movement

  “oh my dear, drink, the tea will soothe you”

  “but haven’t you heard?”

  “what?”

  “that men shouldn’t abuse verbena-leaf tea”

  “and why not?”

  “verbena-leaf tea and avocados both calm men down too much”

  “but you need to calm down right away, you’re agitated, my dear, look how tense you are”

  “calming down is one thing, but for men verbena-leaf tea is downright dangerous”

  “enough of that”

  “you say that because you’re a woman, verbena-leaf tea calms the parts down below,” he pointed in the direction of his swollen crotch

  “don’t make me laugh now, you don’t need to worry about that”

  “you never know”

  the telephone rang persistently, Nga Nelucha wiped her hands and went to pick it up

  “it’s Angolan Public Television, they want to talk to you, it could be news about our tour, there must some interest, maybe from an embassy”

  “all right, let me answer”

  with great effort, he moved over, carrying his tiny stool, and sat down on it again, buttoned up his shirt, and made a point of patting down his hair before replying

  “yes, hello...”

  but it had nothing to do with him or the popularity of his gigantic testicular swelling, a public relations clerk from the show Courageous Nation was looking for a boy named Little Daddy

  “he’s not here, but listen, can i give him a message or something?”

  from the expression on Edú’s face, Nga Nelucha sensed that it was good news, he was breathing more deeply, gasping, sweating, he looked happy and sad at the same time, his tongue licked his lips

  “i don’t have anything to write with, can you call back in the evening? yes, today in the evening, he should be here then, is that all right? yes, thanks...”

  he hung up the phone and sat still in woeful silence, which might as easily have been prompted by good as by bad news, Nga Nelucha sat next to him on the sofa, and caressed the kitchen cloth as though it were a beloved marionette, not wanting to intrude on her husband’s silence, the wind gusted against the window, opening it a little farther, letting in the soft, respectful sound of Comrade Mute’s record player, in the next building Camões the rooster broke into sporadic murmurs of coughing

  “what was it, Edú?”

  “they found Little Daddy’s mother, all the way up in Huambo...” he covered his mouth as if hiding an uncomfortable truth, “they found Little Daddy’s mother!”

  gripped by contradictory emotions, Strong Maria, on learning the news, smiled and hurried to tell the others, she was entrusted with finding Little Daddy and giving him the good news, they had said, also, that the interested party should contact the television program’s public relations department
right away in order to finalize the details, as the mother had already been contacted and arrangements to transport her to Luanda for her televised re-encounter were already at an advanced stage

  in Huambo, it can be assumed, at that same hour, the lady had been informed and had already shared with her friends and neighbours not just the whereabouts of her son who had disappeared during the war years, but also the news that she was going to Luanda on a plane specially chartered by the Ministry of Social Reinsertion, with the right to one companion, male or female, as might be the lady’s wish

  the best clothes would already be laid out that afternoon, the lady would even have visited a talented young woman to have her hair combed into pretty braids, finally, after years of avoiding thinking about this subject, somebody from Huambo television had come to inform her, as suddenly as it was possible to pass on news, that her son was alive

  “god is great,” she must have said, in tears

  “and the Party, as well, my lady, don’t forget, all of this forms part of the Party’s efforts and action plan”

  Strong Maria, after looking everywhere, concluded that Little Daddy wasn’t in the building, he must have been sent out by João Slowly on a mission to find flowers or doilies for the religious altar where the ceremony would take place later

  “and João?” Strong Maria asked

  “Uncle João went out, too, he said he had to go all the way to the airport,” said one of the girls who was playing next to the building’s front door.

  when he arrived at the airport, late

  João Slowly had no difficulty in recognizing the women who were so anxiously waiting, two genuine blondes, as he confirmed immediately, kissing them loudly, looking them over to celebrate with concealed satisfaction the fact that even their eyebrows and the fine down on their upper lips were absolutely blonde, yellow, to put it that way

  “how are you doing? is everything okay? tudo bem?” he asked

  “yes, very nice, too-doo okay,” one blonde replied in English

  “too-doo very good, we are officially scientistas!” the other blonde said in English

  inspired by the pornographic film they had shown, but motivated above all by the collective masculine reaction of the crowd, João Slowly, who considered himself a multifaceted entrepreneur, with various undeclared business interests under way, including the Rooster Camões Cinema and the recently created Church of the Sacred Little Lamb, had decided on impulse to import two blonde prostitutes directly from Sweden, he had activated former contacts from the former Yugoslavia to Bulgaria in an effort to find two women with open minds and, preferably, equally open bodies, ready, they had said by email, to develop their careers in a country that everyone said was growing at an absolutely exceptional rate, in whatever field one might be working, even more so in the experimental field of multiracial contacts

  “very welcome bem-vindas, very nice ha-air,” João Slowly was beaming, “you arrived on a good day, on the eve of an international event”

  “we know, that’s why we’re scientistas...”

  “Angola is about to introduce the world to an eclipse of unprecedented quality, never before seen, you understand?, never before seen”

  “me think eclipse international in world,” one of the smiling Swedes said in Portuguese

  “yes, but we’re coordinating the event, NASA can’t compete with us, you get it? we’re heading into outer space... have you ever slept in a church?”

  “a church?”

  “a church... of god, deus, also ngana zambi”

  “amen,” the prostitute joked, making the sign of the cross over her voluminous breasts

  “yes, good, but in my church it’s ‘am-baaah’”

  “am-baaah?”

  “yes, like sound sheep make: Church of the Sacred Little Lamb!”

  João Slowly tried to reach Little Daddy by cellphone to confirm the boy had completed his assigned chore, but a strange signal seemed to indicate the telephone was outside its network area, or even disconnected

  in his rented candongueiro he continued straight to the church, for Odonato wanted the ceremony to take place as soon as possible, Superintendent Gadinho, along with friends, had already provided for the opening of a sepulchre in a far-away cemetery and even for the death-certificate papers to be supplied in order that there be no repetition of the mourning scene nor any increase in the “tip” due to its being a “last-minute” request

  everything seemed to be set when, after Amarelinha and Granma Kunjikise had got ready to go, Odonato called Xilisbaba into the room in a tone of voice that verged on pleading

  “Nato? Nato?” Xilisbaba repeated, not seeing her husband in the small space of his room

  “i’m here, Baba, up here”

  shoeless, his socks already on, and with the old-fashioned brown suit in place, the tie well knotted and even the hat set on his head, Odonato floated near to the ceiling

  “Nato!” Xilisbaba sighed, fearing for her heart, not even in these recent days had any other fear touched her so deeply

  “i’m here, Xilisbaba, i haven’t been able to get my shoes on”

  Odonato, almost totally transparent, his hands practically invisible, bobbed close to the ceiling with a cloud-like docility, he spun slowly above her body, pressing his hands against the ceiling, and steadied himself on the wire from which the light was suspended, avoiding touching the hot bulb

  “i’m too light”

  “so what do we do?”

  “take out my shoelaces, tie them together, and pass me the end”

  Xilisbaba, controlling her tears, managed to calm down, she pulled the laces out of his shoes, tied them, slid off her own shoes, climbed up onto the bed, and passed Odonato the end of the reasonably long string, Odonato struggled to navigate against his weightlessness, but quickly tied the string around his ankle with a firm movement

  “all right, we’re ready to go.”

  Granma Kunjikise left the sixth-floor apartment, followed by Amarelinha, who wore an equally old-fashioned flowered dress worn threadbare by countless washings, and, finally, Xilisbaba, moving with a particular care, gripping the laces and her suspended husband, who struggled to maintain a tranquil expression in spite of his weightless condition

  “let’s go, they must be waiting for us at the church”

  on leaving the building, the entourage was joined by Comrade Mute, dressed in a conservative black suit with well-shined shoes, Nga Nelucha and her husband Edú, who walked with effort, having refused to leave his tiny wooden stool at home, and Strong Maria, who carried huge flowers in her arms, they were joined by Blind Man and Seashell Seller with his ubiquitous bag, the noise and smell of the beautiful seashells pitting the noise of whitecaps, which sounded like a weeping song, against his muted strides

  “aren’t you coming with us, sir?”

  Strong Maria asked the Mailman, who approached them

  “to where?”

  “they found the body at last, we’re going to bury Senhor Odonato’s son”

  “then i’ll go, yes”

  the church was “composed,” as they say in Luanda, with last-minute flowers and some snacks served discreetly at the entrance, the body reposed in the hurriedly purchased open casket of inappropriate dimensions, the pastor was nervous but tried to disguise it,

  the family arrived and was received with tears and wailing, Odonato was pulled by his wife and tied to a metal-edged flower bed still without flowers and remained there for long minutes, suspended, ethereal, and transparent,

  “is everything to your liking, sister?” João Slowly asked Xilisbaba while seeking to maximize the curious stares in the direction of the two blonde bombshells who accompanied him

  “everything’s fine, thanks”

  “and you, brother, are you parked?” he laughed at Odonato

  “
as best i can be,” Odonato replied

  “as god wills,” the pastor murmured

  the blondes were given a place at the end of the row of plastic chairs, they forced themselves to put on a more serious and dignified expression for the purposes of the event, they thought that Odonato’s condition was due to some Angolan ruse, they had doubts about the nature of the ceremony but quickly realized, from the sincerity of the suffering, that this death was not part of a circus trick, they tried the Angolan snacks with gratitude and smiled even more on receiving glasses full of whisky with lots of ice in their delicate hands

  “that prick Little Daddy hasn’t shown up,” João Slowly said

  “it’s true,” Strong Maria confided, “i haven’t told you yet, they called from National Television, they found his mother”

  “the guy’s gonna be real happy, wonderful... this country’s wonderful!” he raised his glass to the two Swedes

  “and who are these two? this is how they come dressed for a funeral?”

  “they just arrived, Maria, i went to pick them up at the airport”

  “but who are they?”

  “they’re two Swedes who’ve come straight from the Europes to maximize business”

  “what business? the church? they’re the ‘sacred little lambs’?”

  “they came here to maximize revenue in the world’s oldest business, imagine the success, you can see how everybody’s looking at them...”

  “and how they’ve got their boobies nearly hanging out, go see if you can get them shawls, they need to show more respect, even if this is just the Church of the Sacred Little Lamb”

  “i’m already looking into that...” he glanced at the main door and saw the tax inspectors come in, “look who’s here, that’s all i need”

  the tax inspectors entered dressed in formal black and with appropriately funereal expressions on their faces, they went first to Xilisbaba and her floating husband to express their most elevated condolences and then cast an appraising gaze over the church’s amenities, they spoke briefly with the Brazilian pastor and only then headed towards João Slowly