The Tuner of Silences

by Mia Couto

  Aproximado said that the streets in our area were small and perfectly walkable. I should take my father to explore them, to see if he could be distracted. Now I know one thing: no street is small. They all hide never-ending stories, they all conceal countless secrets.

  On one occasion, while we were walking along, I got the impression that my father was pushing me gently, guiding me. We passed by a Presbyterian church at the very time when they were holding a service. We could hear a choir and a tinkling piano. Silvestre stopped short, his eyes ablaze. He sat down on the steps leading to the entrance, his hands open across his chest.

  —Leave me here, Mwanito.

  He hadn’t spoken for so long that his voice had become almost inaudible. And there, in that cold little corner, he remained for hours, stiff and silent. Even when the service had finished and the worshippers had left, Silvestre didn’t move from the step. Some of the older ones greeted him as they passed by. The church and the street were dark and deserted when I pressed him:

  —Father, please, let’s go.

  —I’m staying here.

  —It’s nighttime now, let’s go home.

  —I’m going to stay and live here.

  I was familiar with my father’s obstinacy. I returned home alone and alerted Ntunzi and Aproximado to old Silvestre’s decision. It was Uncle who replied:

  —Let’s leave the fellow to sleep there tonight . . .

  —Out in the open?

  —He hasn’t had so many houses for ages.

  Early the next morning, I went into the street to find out what had happened to my father. When I found him, it was as if he hadn’t changed his position, sheltering there on the steps where I had left him. I woke him with a gentle tap on the shoulder.

  —Come on, Father. We’ll come back tomorrow to listen to the hymns.

  —Tomorrow? So when is tomorrow?

  —In just a little while, Father. Come, I’ll bring you back here.

  So at the same hour every day for weeks and weeks, I took my father to the church steps, moments before the tuneful voices rose up to the heavens. Every time I tried to withdraw, he would grip me. Silently, and without moving so much as a finger, he wanted to share that instant with me. He was trying to re-create the veranda where we used to lay our silence to rest. Until, one day, I realized that he was murmuring the words of the hymns. Silvestre, even voiceless, was still joining in with the singers. Without anyone else being aware, Vitalício’s words were ascending to the heavens. It was a lowly heaven, lacking in vitality. But it was the beginning of an infinity.

  I awoke to the sound of female voices. I peered out of the window. Hundreds of people filled the street and were bringing the traffic to a halt. They were shouting slogans and brandishing placards on which one could read: Stop the violence against women! Among the throngs of people, I caught sight of Zachary Kalash, who was pushing his way towards our house. I opened the door and, without stopping to excuse himself, he pushed his way into the house as if he were seeking shelter.

  —What a racket these broads are making! Noci’s there raising hell.

  He was wearing his military uniform and dragging a bag and a case along with him. I led him through to the kitchen which had, so to speak, been our room for entertaining visitors ever since our sudden, frenetic arrival.

  —Where’s your brother?—he asked me.

  Ntunzi had come home less than an hour before, from yet another nightly escapade. He’d gone to bed still fully clothed, reeking of alcohol and cigarette smoke. Ever since his arrival in the city, my brother had hardly set foot in the house. From one night to the next, he hung out with people that Uncle Aproximado classified as “totally undesirable.”

  —He’s still sleeping.

  —Well, go and call him.

  Zachary waited in the kitchen, but didn’t sit down. He kept opening and closing the curtains as if the commotion in the street were disturbing him. “This world’s finished!” I heard him complain. I stumbled about in the darkness of the room, shook Ntunzi and urged him to hurry. I went back to the kitchen and found the soldier helping himself to a beer:

  —I’m going back to Jezoosalem. I’ve come to say goodbye.

  Everyone had found a place for themselves. I’d rediscovered my childhood house. My father had found a home in madness. Only he, Zachary Kalash, hadn’t found a place in the city.

  —Are you going for good, Zaca?

  —No. Only until I’ve completed certain duties.

  —So what are you going to do in Jezoosalem?

  —I’m not going to do anything, I’m going to undo . . .

  —What do you mean?

  —I’m going to blow up the ammunition store, and bury the weapons . . .

  —You don’t want any more wars, isn’t that it, Zaca?

  His face exhibited a sad, enigmatic smile. He seemed afraid of the answer. He ran his finger around the rim of the glass and produced a humming sound.

  —D’you know something, Mwanito? I went to war to kill someone—and he waved his arm towards some vague presence.

  —Someone?

  —Someone inside me.

  —And did you kill him?

  —No.

  —So what now?

  —Now it’s too late. That someone has already killed me.

  When he was small, the same age as me, he wanted to be a fireman, to rescue people from burning houses. He’d ended up setting fire to houses with people inside. A soldier of so many wars, a soldier without any cause at all. Defend the fatherland? But the fatherland he’d defended had never been his. That’s what the soldier Kalash said, his words tumbling out as if he were in a hurry to finish his intimate revelations.

  —You know, Mwanito? Jezoosalem was more of a fatherland to me than any other. But anyway, let bygones be big ones . . .

  We were interrupted by the arrival of Ntunzi. Red eyed, his hair a mess, still unsteady on his feet from sleep. Zachary didn’t even greet him. He opened his bag and pulled out a rucksack, which he tossed at the new arrival.

  —Take that rucksack to your room and pack your kit in it.

  —Pack my kit? What for?

  —You’re going with me to Jezoosalem.

  —Where?—He fired back, laughing out loud, only to then proclaim in all seriousness:

  —Don’t so much as think about it, Zachary, I’m not even leaving here dead.

  —We’ll only be a few days.

  I knew how arguments developed in our little tribe. Aware that tension would soon boil over into conflict, I intervened in an attempt to calm things down:

  —Go on, Ntunzi. There’s no problem in keeping Zachary company. It’s just a question of going and coming back again.

  —He can go by himself.

  Zachary got up to face Ntunzi while at the same time drawing a pistol from a holster hanging from his belt. I stepped back, fearing the worst. But Kalash’s voice had the calm of a will that has been mastered when he spoke:

  —Hold this pistol.

  My brother looked aghast, as startled as a newborn baby, with his limp hand barely able to sustain the weight of the gun. Kalash took a step back and contemplated Ntunzi’s pathetic demeanour.

  —You don’t understand, Ntunzi.

  —What don’t I understand?

  —You’re going to be a soldier. That’s why I’ve come to fetch you.

  Ntunzi let himself collapse onto a chair, his eyes absorbed in nothingness. He sat like this for some time until Zaca Kalash took the pistol and helped him to his feet.

  —We already guessed what would happen to you here in the city. I’m not going to let you stay here any longer.

  —I’m not going anywhere, you can’t give me orders. I’m going to call my father.

  We followed my brother down the hall. The door to the bedroom was flung open, but Silvestre didn’t bat an eyelid at the uproar. The soldier put an end to the argument with a yell.

  —I’m ordering you to come with me!

  —The only
one to give me orders here is my father.

  Suddenly, Silvestre raised his arm. Our old man wanted to speak. But all he could do was whisper:

  —Get out, all of you. You, Ntunzi, stay here.

  Zachary and I withdrew and sat down again at the kitchen table. Zachary opened another bottle of beer and drank, without another word. Outside, the cries of the demonstrators could be heard: “Women: protest, protest!”

  —Close the door so that your father can’t hear it.

  When he came back to the kitchen, Ntunzi’s spine was curved like a pregnant woman in reverse, such was the weight he seemed to bear, as he came over to me:

  —Goodbye, brother.

  I hugged him, but my arms were too short for so much bulk. My hands patted the canvas of his rucksack as if it were part of his body. Ntunzi and Zachary walked out of the door and I stood watching my brother recede as if the open road were to be his inescapable fate. They slowly pushed their way through the women demonstrators. As I got a better look at his way of walking, it seemed to me that in spite of his hangover from the previous night, Ntunzi was marching forward with a military step, an exact copy of Zachary’s.

  I was drawing the curtains again when I noticed Noci waving at me. She was inviting me to go down and join the demonstration. I smiled, embarrassed, and closed the window.

  Days passed during which all I did was be a father to my father. I looked after him, I took him places to which he invariably reacted like a blind man.

  Until one day, I got a letter. I recognised Marta’s handwriting on the envelope. It was the first letter anyone had ever written to me.

  THE IMMOVABLE TREE

  Terror at loving you in such a fragile place as the world.

  Woe at loving you in this imperfect place

  Where everything leaves us broken and silent

  Where everything deceives and divides us.

  Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen

  I’m writing you this letter, dear Mwanito, so that we may take our leave of each other without saying goodbye. On the last day we were together, you told me about the dream you had had in which your father saved me from drowning in the river. If we take it that life is a river, then your dream was true. I was saved in Jezoosalem. Silvestre taught me how to find Marcelo alive in everything that is born.

  I never tried to find out how Marcelo had died. For me, the explanation that he had died of an illness was enough. On the day I left, when I was already at the airport, Noci told me details of my husband’s final journey. After Aproximado had left him by the gate, Marcelo must have wandered aimlessly for days, until he was shot down in an ambush. We can imagine where he went from the images that remained on his camera. Noci gave me these black and white photos. They were not, as I had supposed, pictures of water birds and landscapes. It was a report on his own end, an illustrated diary of his decline. From what we can glean, we can see that he wanted to escape from himself. At first by being dishevelled and shedding his clothes. Later, by behaving more and more like an animal, drinking water from puddles and eating raw flesh. When Marcelo was shot down, they took him for a wild animal. He wasn’t killed in war. It was hunters. My man, dear Mwanito, chose this particular suicide. When death took him, he had already ceased to be a person. And in this way, perhaps he felt that he would die a lesser death.

  It wasn’t a continent that swallowed up Marcelo. He was consumed by his inner demons. Those demons went up in flames shortly before my return to Lisbon, when I burned all the photographs that Noci had given me.

  Life only happens when we stop understanding it. Lately, my dear Mwanito, I have been far from understanding it. I never imagined myself travelling to Africa. Now, I don’t know how I’m going to return to Europe. I want to go back to Lisbon, of course, but free from the memory of ever having lived. I don’t want to recognize people or places or even the language that gives us access to others. That’s why I got on so well in Jezoosalem: everything was strange to me, and I didn’t have to account for who I was, or what course of life I should follow. In Jezoosalem, my spirit became light, free of any rigid structure, akin to the herons.

  I have your father, Silvestre Vitalício, to thank for all this. I criticized him for having dragged you off to a wilderness. But the truth is that he established his own territory. Ntunzi would answer that Jezoosalem was founded on the deception of a sick man. It was a lie, of course. But if we’ve got to live a lie, let it be our own lie. Besides, old Silvestre didn’t depart so far from the truth in his apocalyptic vision. For he was right: the world ends when we are no longer capable of loving it.

  And madness isn’t always an illness. Sometimes, it’s an act of courage. Your father, dear Mwanito, had the courage that we lack. When all was lost, he began again. Even if, for the rest of us, it was meaningless.

  That’s the lesson I learnt in Jezoosalem: life wasn’t made to be fleeting and of little consequence. And the world wasn’t made to have boundaries.

  When you began to read the labels on the weapons crates, it wasn’t the letters that you learnt most. You were taught something else: words can be the curve that links Death and Life. That’s why I’m writing to you. There is no death in this letter. But there is a farewell, which is a way of dying a little. Do you remember what Zachary used to say? “I’ve had all my deaths, fortunately, all of them were fleeting ones.” My only death was Marcelo’s. And that was certainly the first conclusive outcome. I don’t know whether Marcelo was the love of my life. But it was a whole life’s worth of love. Whoever loves, does so forever. Don’t do anything forever. Except to love.

  However, I’m not writing to you to talk about myself, but rather about your mother, Dordalma. I spoke to Aproximado, to Zachary, to Noci, to the neighbours. Every one of them told me bits of her life story. It’s my duty to return this past that was stolen from you. People say that the story of someone’s life is lessened in the account of their death. This is the story of the last days of Dordalma. Of how she lost her life after having been lost to life.

  It was a Wednesday. That morning, Dordalma left home as she had never done before in her life: to be stared at and admired. She wore a dress to leave mere mortals groping and a neckline capable of making a blind man see heaven. She was so glorious that few noticed the little case that she was carrying with the same vulnerability as a child on its first day of school.

  I’m beginning like this, Mwanito, because you have no idea how beautiful your mother was. It wasn’t her face, or her waist, or her lithe, shapely legs. It was her entire being. At home, Dordalma was never more than gloomy, lifeless, and cold. Years of solitude and rejection had equipped her for nothingness, to be a mere native of silence. But on countless occasions, she would avenge herself in front of the mirror. There at the dressing table, she would garb herself in passing apparitions. She was, so to speak, like an ice cube in a glass. Disputing her place on the surface, reigning over this lofty abode until the time came for her to go back to being water.

  So let me now go back to the beginning: on that Wednesday, your mother left home dressed to provoke fantasies. The looks she got from her neighbours were not appreciative of her beauty. There were sighs: of envy from the women; of desire from the men. The males gazed at her, their pupils dilated, their eyes predatory.

  Here are the facts in all their bluntness and crudity. That morning, your mother climbed into the minibus and squeezed herself in between the men who filled the vehicle. The van set off amidst fumes, impelled by some strange sense of haste. The van didn’t follow the usual route. The driver didn’t pay attention to where he was going, distracted perhaps by the sight of his beautiful passenger in his rearview mirror. Eventually, the bus stopped in a stretch of dark, secluded wasteland. It pains me to write what happened next.

  According to the few witnesses, the truth is that Dordalma was thrown onto the ground amid grunts and salivations, feral appetites and animal frenzy. And she sank further into the sand as if only the ground offered her fragile, trembli
ng body protection. One by one, the men used her, shrieking as if avenging some age-old insult.

  Twelve men later, your mother remained, almost lifeless, on the ground. During the hours that followed, she was no more than a corpse, a body at the mercy of ravens and rats, and worse than that, exposed to the mischievous looks of the few passers-by. No one helped her to get up. Countless times, she tried to recompose herself, but her strength failed her and she collapsed again, without a tear, her spirit gone.

  Finally, after night had long fallen, your father appeared, creeping furtively like a cat among the rooftops. He looked around, took a deep breath and picked up his wife. With Dordalma in his arms, Silvestre crossed the road slowly, knowing that dozens of eyes were staring at his sinister figure from behind their windows.

  He stopped abruptly by the front door, and stood there like a statue. In the pitch darkness it was impossible to see whether he was crying, whether his face was furrowed in resentment of the world and its hidden people.

  He shut the door behind him with his foot and from then on, Vitalício’s house was forever darkened. Silvestre placed your mother’s body on the kitchen table and cushioned her head on bags and cloths. Then, he went to your room and kissed your brow and passed his hand over your brother’s head. He turned the key in the lock and declared:

  —I’ll be back in a minute.

  He returned to the kitchen to undress your mother. He left her naked, still unconscious, and made a bundle out of her useless clothes. He took the bundle out into the back garden and burnt the clothes after dousing them with gasoline.

  He sat down again next to the table and watched over his sleeping wife. He made no gesture of affection or care. He merely waited, as aloof as a zealous functionary. As soon as the first signs of consciousness became visible on Dordalma’s face, your father snapped at her: