“Elizabeth, if João is found, he won’t come back here. He’ll go to Bissau as well. I’m not even sure I can stay much longer. What happened to that patrol is not supposed to happen here. It’s no longer safe.”
Menges reached over to Elizabeth, draping his left arm clumsily around her back, his hand squeezing a shoulder, his head leaning toward hers, their knees touching. It was not for her benefit. He was seeking her comfort. “I always thought this day would come,” he said softly. She leaned a little forward to put her forehead gently against his. Her hand, which had lain inert in her lap, moved to his thigh. His free hand moved to hers. Their hearts raced. It had been a very long time since he had touched a woman. She felt for the first time the sinful thrill of adulterous possibility. But they went no further.
José Mendes de Farinha was only seventeen when he went underground in Luanda, hunted by the secret police as a boy radical. He had been Spínola’s ideal, an assimilado, educated in the best Catholic schools in Angola to aspire to be a true citizen of Lusitania. But he was swept up in the liberation movements all around him, egged on by the Jesuit priests who ran the schools and the mestiços chafing at the falsehood of their alleged equality. Comrade Henda, they called him at the meetings held in dark basements or back rooms of the lovely seaside city in the midst of a furious revival fueled by newfound oil to the north. On the run, he found his way to Kinshasa, where Mobutu was an inconsistent patron of the Angolan revolution, then to Cabral in Conakry.
Now he and his men were punching through Fula country, absolving liberated villages of their debts to the colonialists and freeing their farmers from the hated cash crops the Portuguese demanded. The PAIGC would extract their tributes eventually, but first they would take just a chicken or two. They would try to traipse lightly.
This ambush had been good for that. They had rice and provisions now. The medicine they would keep for the base, along with the services of this whining doctor. It was no secret why Spínola was bringing doctors to Guiné; hearts-and-minds campaigns could go two ways. But this skinny conscript couldn’t even pick up a weapon. His boots hadn’t even been broken in. He was limping from the blisters. What kind of training did the Portuguese even offer? At this rate, it would take them a week to get back to the base outside Kolda.
“You speak perfect Portuguese, not Kriolu,” João said, wincing at the pain in his boots but trying to tone it down, mindful of his obvious physical inferiority.
“Good Catholic education,” Farinha said.
“In Bissau?”
“Luanda. There is no education in Bissau.”
“Angola? You’re a very long way from home.”
Farinha was silent as they walked on through the narrow track skirting the forest. He was trying to decide whether to engage this man or treat him like a prisoner. The wounded friend was already a horrible burden. Two men had to carry him. Other men were carrying their packs and weapons. He should have just shot him.
“What is your rank, Doctor Gonçalves, so I can address you as a military man?”
“Major. But don’t. I’m a doctor. Do you want my serial number?”
“Do you want mine?” Farinha asked.
“I’d like your name.”
“José Mendes de Farinha, but you’ll hear everyone call me Henda. Don’t ask why.”
“Nom de guerre?”
“You speak French too?” Farinha grumbled.
João shuffled on. He was finding it difficult to navigate the ruts in the trail. His boots were killing him. The short walk from his quarters to the clinic and back had not softened them at all. No one had given him any tips on the matter, any training really at all. He was on the first forced march of his life, and the only other Portuguese military man was on a stretcher, barely conscious and probably heading into shock.
“Where are we going?”
“Now you’re looking for sensitive information, Doctor Gonçalves. But it will be no news to your Spínola to learn we are heading into Senegal.”
João’s head was swimming. He was exhausted and scared, still processing all that had transpired.
“Do you mind if I ask how you won over that Fula man, Sabally? I should not have been surprised, I guess, but I was. His welcome seemed so genuine last night.”
“It was genuine. Muslims regard hospitality as a religious duty. Trust me, it was nothing personal.”
“But what does he care about the PAIGC or the Portuguese? We’ve hardly touched his life. That village hasn’t changed for centuries. When he catches a glimpse of the Portuguese, it’s a patrol passing by or someone like me, dispensing medicine. What do you have to offer?”
Farinha shrugged his shoulders with exaggerated insouciance. He wanted his message to get through without turning around.
“Do you really want to have this conversation?”
“Yes,” João responded. “Yes, I do. I’ve been in this country for four months. I’ve had one semi-meaningful exchange with a Guinean, wounded in battle and in my hospital. Otherwise, the natives take my medicine and my advice in silence and shuffle away.”
“I’m not a Guinean.”
“You’ll have to do.”
“Doctor Gonçalves, are you from Lisbon?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I’ve been there, you know. Boring. When you look around you, at the cafés of Paris, the clubs in London, even at the political turmoil and excitement or tragedy in West and East Germany, do you feel like your benighted little corner of Europe has been left out? Do you feel like you’re looking into the window of a party that you weren’t invited to?”
He paused. The question was not meant to be rhetorical, but João didn’t answer.
“You are the joke of Europe, the last empire with nothing to show for it. London swings. Lisbon, what, languishes? You won’t put up with that forever. At some point, the young people will want some decent live music.”
He chuckled at that. Even in the worst of times, Africa bursts with musical joy. A nation devoid of such rapture was to be pitied.
“I don’t see why insulting my country has much to do with our conversation.”
“No? Doctor Gonçalves, this is one thing we have in common. We are the jokes of Africa. We’re like the dog that gets kicked by the runty kid who’s bullied by his father. Humiliation trickles downhill.
“Kwame Nkrumah declared Ghana independent of Britain fourteen years ago. Fourteen years,” Farinha continued, his voice starting to rise. He had intended to keep his cool, to preserve his energy. But he was always amazed how clueless the Portuguese were. “Ghana has already had time to see its first African leader rise, fail, and be deposed by a coup d’état. Your governor, Spínola, meets secretly with Léopold Senghor, who has been president of independent Senegal for more than a decade. It’s true. I’d love to be a fly on the wall for those meetings. Senghor has ruled for more than a decade, and we’re still suffering under the colonial control of a two-bit nation that peaked four hundred years ago.”
“‘Suffer’ is a strong word. Do you believe it?”
“Doctor Gonçalves, you are not a very good listener, are you? Independence for a country like Guiné, even Angola, may not mean wealth or development. I’m not a fool. I can see the fighting that will follow. It might not even mean freedom. The Russians, the Cubans, the Chinese, they’re all licking their chops. But we have our pride. We are surrounded on all sides by independent nations. Senghor and Sékou Touré in Guinea may not have done much for their people, but they are proud men. Kaunda in Zambia, Kenyatta, Nyerere in Tanzania too. That pride does not recognize the borders drawn up in the back rooms of London and Paris and Lisbon. They tell us to rise up, and our failure to do so only makes us feel worse. Your presence is a daily humiliation, whether you give us medicine or the heel of your boot. We will win our independence to relieve ourselves of embarrassment. It’s as simple as that.
“In the meantime,” he concluded, “I’d suggest you save your strength. You’ll have some patien
ts to attend to soon.”
“Ah, Senhora Gonçalves.” António de Spínola rose ostentatiously from the table. He was in his finery: white gloves, monocle, even the jodhpurs of the cavalryman he was. Elizabeth was joining him in a darkened dining room off the main officers’ mess on base. She still had not seen the governor’s palace. She wore the same flowered dress she had worn when João and she dined with the governor on their first night in the country. But Spínola seemed like a different man, weary and miserable despite the costume.
“Senhor Governor, my husband…”
Spínola raised his gloved hand to silence her.
“I know of João’s capture. I have no doubt that he is safe, Elizabeth. He is with one of Cabral’s most capable lieutenants, a man named Farinha, all the way from Angola. They have probably made it back to Senegal by now.”
Elizabeth was incredulous.
“If you know this, why don’t you do something?” she demanded.
“Elizabeth, intelligence is one thing; action is quite another. We learn much from our spies in the countryside, but not always because they want to help us. More often than not, they are taunting us. They are letting us know how helpless we are. I don’t have João’s exact location. That, I’m sure, is by design. The base they will be heading for is in the Senegalese Casamance, south of the Gambia, outside the town of Kolda. My friend President Senghor will make sure João is protected, but he will make sure the base is protected as well.”
“General Spínola, what am I to do?” Elizabeth pleaded. Her brave face was already crumbling at what she saw as the general’s indifference. “This is my husband you’re talking about. He doesn’t even know I am pregnant.”
It just slipped out. No one knew she was pregnant but her, and now the governor and commanding general of Guiné. She reddened with embarrassment.
She was there not exactly on a mission, more like a quest for absolution, for self-forgiveness. Her convoy had rumbled onto the main base in Bissau three days before; the scene that had greeted her on her arrival in the country had repeated itself tediously: the Guinean women ironing out the botflies, the aimless milling of young Portuguese men, the heat and dust. It was annoying somehow in its changelessness. On cue, Paula Pelegrin, Ana Aveiro, and Raquel Brito showed at her door within minutes to express their concern over João’s disappearance and offer up what gossip they had. Of course, she was the best gossip of all. A doctor had been captured. What on earth had he been doing? How did he get himself into this predicament? The women pressed her for details, her limited Portuguese frustrating their demands.
“I’m sure you are doing everything you can to get your husband back,” Paula said with feigned admiration.
“Yes, of course,” Elizabeth said with a serious look.
In fact, she had not done a thing to secure her husband’s freedom or even ascertain his whereabouts. She thought of those potboiler stories in the newspapers of mothers who moved heaven and earth to find their missing children; the Christian wives of arrested Berlin Jews, holding public vigils and protests to confront the Nazis and free their husbands; Antigone, defying King Creon to bury her brother Polynices; Henry at Agincourt; “fight till the last gasp.”
She was no hero, but she could make an effort. She would seek an audience with the governor. No sooner had she put out the word than a dinner invitation had arrived from the governor’s mansion for the next evening.
“Congratulations are in order.” He smiled, raising a glass of red wine. “This is wonderful news. I am sure your parents will be thrilled.”
“And my husband? Will he be thrilled? Can your friend Mr. Senghor get word to him?”
“Elizabeth, is it really so bad that these freedom fighters have the service of a good doctor for a few months? Guiné is lost, my dear. João is safely behind the lines now. The food is better in Senegal anyway, but he will be in Bissau soon enough, watching his comrades hail Amílcar Cabral’s ascension to the governor’s palace. I assume it will be called the presidential palace or some such thing. They can have it. As empire recedes, your husband will wash up unharmed on the beach.”
Spínola paused to take a deep drag from a cigarette, stub it out, and light another. A veil of smoke obscured his lined face for a moment, then cleared. Elizabeth sat silently and watched, feeling hopeless and alone.
“Ah, senhora, I can see the impatience on your face. I’ll have a word with Senghor, see if he can have your husband released. But it’s not really in my hands, as you can see,” he continued, his palms and shoulders raised in exaggerated helplessness. “Elizabeth, I’ll let you in on something. I’ll be gone from here soon. I have been recalled to Lisbon. Someone is not happy with the state of things in Bissau.”
The general looked at his hands, sheathed in white calfskin, then into Elizabeth’s eyes. This was not how it was supposed to end for him. He had failed. But there was no one to pity him. “My advice, if you want it: I would suggest you await word from your husband from wherever you call home in the United Kingdom.”
During the general’s monologue, a tuxedoed waiter had entered silently and laid a plate of prawns in tomato sauce in front of Elizabeth, with a glass of red wine. Only the overcooked macaroni divulged the meal’s African origins. Elizabeth now sat in silence. She was not about to make small talk about West African geopolitics with the most decorated military officer in the Portuguese ultramar. She couldn’t, even if she had wanted to. After four months in Africa, she was still an uneducated, inexperienced child of wealth and neglect.
Spínola stood and smiled down on her beneficently. “Senhora Gonçalves, if you will excuse me, I have duties to attend to. I know it’s rude of me, but please, enjoy your meal. I will make sure that Renato Araujo looks after you, should you decide to stay. He can make arrangements for your return to Britain as well. Is your friend, the Cabo-Verdiana, still with you?”
“Angélica.” Elizabeth nodded without meeting his eyes.
As he opened the door, he turned back for a moment. “I’m writing a book. I’ll make sure you get a copy.”
Elizabeth ate alone, absorbing the silence. The prawns were delicious.
It was three months before João worked up the courage to speak to Farinha about his captivity. The commander wasn’t an easy man to track down. He led forays into Guiné, consulted with superiors at a larger base outside Ziguinchor, and occasionally made the long, circuitous trip to Conakry when Cabral summoned his leadership. At times, he played host to a Cuban or Algerian goodwill delegation bringing supplies and best wishes. He was the model of the disciplined guerrilla commander, not yet thirty, not even Guinean. João liked to think they had something in common.
If João had expected the guerrillas to be living in squalor, he was disappointed. The base outside Kolda was tidy and well provisioned, under the protection of the Senegalese government, stocked by the Cubans and armed by the Soviets and Czechoslovakians. As promised, he was treated that first day to a warm baguette, but that proved to be nothing special. It was a staple of the base, served at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. His most difficult patient was the medic, Augusto, who was recuperating slowly. The other combat wounds João saw were mostly superficial. More dire combat casualties were left on the battlefield to be treated by Araujo and his medical corps in Bissau.
“Very useful, that hospital.” Farinha had chuckled when he explained where the real trauma patients were heading.
“But they don’t let the guerrillas return to the battlefield,” João protested. “If they recover, they’re taken away to Angola or Mozambique.”
Farinha laughed.
“Some, yes, but we’ve had plenty of escapes from the hospital. Besides, our comrades could use them in Angola and Mozambique.”
João kept himself occupied with an odd variety of respiratory problems—hacking coughs, shortness of breath—and strange skin ailments, all from the increasing use of defoliants. João thought of the bats. They would be someone else’s problem when these strange malad
ies turned into cancer down the line. There wasn’t much he could do. It was of no real medical consequence that he had gone to see the commander.
“José,” the doctor started. His voice quavered—not too much, he hoped. He didn’t fear what the commander might do to him for his impertinence. He feared what he was doing to himself, the humiliation of the supplicant.
Farinha looked up from a metal desk, surprised by the familiarity. It was the kind of desk you would see in a schoolroom, functional and ugly, beneath Farinha’s dignity, João thought. Farinha didn’t seem to care.
“I have not spoken of my personal situation. I hope you don’t mind if I plead my case now. I have a young wife.”
“In Africa?” Farinha asked.
“At the agriculture station in Contuboel,” João said. “At least, that’s where I left her. I couldn’t say where she is now. I dragged her into this. I married her and brought her to Guiné. She’s British. She has nothing to do with any of this.”
The fingers of Farinha’s hands laced together. He swung his body to the side and crossed his long legs, smiling.
“Are you petitioning for your release, Doctor Gonçalves, or would you like us to capture your wife for you?”
João stood in sheepish silence, looking from his feet to the man behind the desk, then back to his feet.
“Do you think your personal life is of any interest to me? You are rendering valuable service. We dragged your friend from the battlefield on a stretcher instead of putting a bullet in his head. He still hasn’t done a thing to repay the favor.”
Farinha gave him a withering stare. “You are not going anywhere.”
João’s head bowed.
“Can I get a word to her then, through the Red Cross? I am a prisoner of war. I have rights.” The words may have been defiant, but they were spoken almost apologetically. João felt like the pampered bourgeois doctor’s son that he was. He had nothing to plead but his young wife, not heroism, not service, not threat. In captivity, his thoughts of Elizabeth had swung wildly from carnal to affectionate, to distrustful, to contemptuous. One moment he was imagining his head lying on her chest, her fingers gently combing through his hair, or her head moving deliberately back and forth as he watched and moaned. The next instant, his thoughts flashed to the same scenes but it was a different man her hands or mouth would be caressing. Menges, perhaps, with his little glasses folded neatly on the bedside table, or maybe Luis, the bread man. Come to think of it, she did spend inordinate amounts of time with him. João would lie in his bunk, seething. She would not have waited for him. Of course not. She was likely already gone from the continent altogether.
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