Sea Loves Me

by Mia Couto

  In the wake of all these occurrences, a general uproar gripped the area. The settlers held a meeting in order to try and reach a decision. They assembled at the home of Tiago’s father. The lad slipped out of bed and stood at the door, listening to their grim threats. He didn’t even wait for the sentence to be passed. He rushed off through the bush in the direction of the baobab. There, he found the old man settling himself by the warmth of the fire.

  —They’re coming to get you.

  Tiago was gasping for breath. The bird seller was not put out: he knew, he was waiting for them. The little boy tried harder, for never before had the man meant so much to him.

  —Run away, there’s still time.

  But the bird seller set himself at ease, in sleepy langour. He stepped serenely into the trunk and there he tarried. When he came out, he was wearing a tie and a white man’s suit. Once again he sat down, clearing the sand underfoot. Then he paced up and down, surveying the horizon.

  —Run along, boy. It’s nighttime.

  Tiago lingered. He glanced at the birdman, awaiting his gesture. If only the old man were like the river: still but moving. But he wasn’t. The bird seller belonged more to legend than to reality.

  —And why did you put on a suit?

  He explained: he was the natural offspring of the land. It was his duty to know how to receive visitors. It was for him to show respect, the duties of a host.

  —As for you, go, go back home.

  Tiago got up, reluctant to leave. He looked up at the huge tree, as if he were asking it for protection.

  —Can you see that flower? asked the old man.

  And he recalled the legend. The flower was where the spirits dwelt. Whoever harmed the baobab would be persecuted for the rest of his life.

  The settlers began their noisy arrival. They surrounded the place. The little boy fled, hid, and watched. He saw the birdman get up and greet the visitors. The beating started straightaway, with cudgels and kicks. The old man didn’t even appear to be suffering, a vegetable were it not for the blood. They bound his wrists and pushed him up the dark road. The settlers followed behind, leaving the boy alone in the night. The child hesitated, now stepping forwards, now back. Then it happened: the flowers of the baobab fell, like stars of felt. Their white petals turned red on the ground.

  Suddenly, the boy made up his mind. He dashed off through the bush after the procession. He tailed their voices and learned that they were taking the birdman to jail. When it became pitch-black behind the wall next to the prison, Tiago felt stifled. Was it any use praying, if the world around him had stripped itself of beauty? And in the heavens, just as in the baobab, no star glittered with pride anymore.

  The birdman’s voice reached him from beyond the prison bars. Now he could see his friend’s face, and all the blood which covered it. Interrogate the fellow, squeeze him hard. That was the order which the settlers left behind them as they withdrew. The guard saluted obediently. But he didn’t even know what secrets he was supposed to drag out of the old man. What madness could they prove against the old street hawker? And now, standing there all alone, the figure of the prisoner seemed free of all suspicion.

  —May I have permission to play? It’s a tune from your part of the world, boss.

  The birdman put the harmonica to his lips and tried to blow. But he recoiled from the effort with a wince.

  —They beat me a lot around the mouth. It’s a pity, otherwise I’d play.

  The policeman became suspicious. The harmonica was hurled out of the window, and it fell near where Tiago was hiding. He picked the instrument up, and stuck its pieces together again. Those pieces were like his soul, starved of a hand that might make it whole. The lad curled up in the warmth of his own roundness. As he set off into sleep, he put the instrument to his lips and blew, as if he were playing his own lullaby. Who knows whether the birdman, shut away inside, didn’t hear the sound of such comfort?

  He awoke in a kingdom of chirping. The birds! An infinity of them covered the whole police station. Not even the world, in its universal dimensions, seemed a big enough perch. Tiago approached the cell, surveyed the jail. The doors were open, the prison deserted. The bird seller had vanished without trace, the place had lost all recollection of him. He called the old man, but was answered by the birds.

  He decided to return to the tree. There was no longer any other place where he might go. No street, nor house: only the baobab’s belly. As he walked along, the birds followed in a twittering cortège, high in the sky. He arrived at the birdman’s abode, and looked at the ground covered with petals. They were no longer red, having returned to their original whiteness. He entered the trunk, putting distance between himself and time. Was it any use waiting for the old man? He had vanished for sure, a fugitive from the whites. Meanwhile, he began to blow on the harmonica once more. He lulled himself in its rhythm, no longer with an ear to the world outside. If he had paid due attention, he would have noted the arrival of a host of voices.

  —That Black son of a bitch is inside the tree.

  Vengeful steps surrounded the baobab, crushing the flowers underfoot.

  —It’s the fellow, along with his mouth organ. Play away, you scalawag, for you’ll soon be dancing!

  Torches were put to the trunk, and the flames licked the ancient bark. Inside, the boy had unleashed a dream: his hair was growing into tiny leaves, his legs into timber. His wooden fingers dug rootlike into the soil. The boy was in transit to another realm: he was turning into a tree, consenting to the impossible. And from the dreaming baobab, there rose the birdman’s hands. They touched the flowers, the corollas curled: monstrous birds were born and released, petal-like, on the crest of the flames. The flames? Where were they coming from, invading the remotest frontier of the dream world? That was when Tiago felt the sting of the blaze, the seduction of ash. Then the boy, a convert to the ways of sap, emigrated once and for all to his newfound roots.

  ‌The Russian Princess

  “The rumour of the existence of gold in Manica, and the announcement of the building of a railway to transport it, were enough for pounds sterling to appear out of the blue in their tens of thousands, opening shops, establishing steamship lines, organizing overland transport, investing in industrial enterprises, selling liquor, seeking to exploit in a thousand and one ways not so much the gold, but the very exploiters of the future gold… .”

  Antonio Ennes, Mozambique,

  Government Report, Lisbon, 1946

  Forgive me, Father, I’m not kneeling right, it’s my leg, you know. This skinny little leg of mine which I wear on my left side doesn’t hold my body up properly.

  I’ve come to confess the sins of long ago, blood pounded in my soul, it frightens me just to think about it. Please, Father, listen to me slowly, be patient. It’s a long story. As I always say: an ant’s journey is never a short one.

  You may not know, but this town was once favoured by another life. There were times when people came here from far away. The world is full of countries, most of them foreign ones. The heavens are so full of flags now that I don’t know how the angels can fly about without bumping into a length of cloth. What did you say? Get to the point? Yes, I’m getting there. But don’t forget: I asked for more than a little piece of your time. It’s just that a life goes by slowly, Father.

  Let me continue, then. At that time, there also came to the town of Manica a Russian lady. Nadia was her name. Rumour had it she was a princess there where she’d come from. She was in the company of her husband Yuri, a Russian too. The couple came because of the gold, like all the other foreigners who came here to dig up the riches of this land of ours. That man Yuri bought the mines, in the hope of becoming rich. But as the old men say: don’t run after the hen with salt already in your hand. Because the mines, Father, were the size of dust: a single puff was enough and there was almost nothing left.

  At the same time, the Russians had brought with them relics of past sustenance, luxuries from times gone by. T
heir house, if you were to see it, was full of things. And folk working for them? Why, there were more than many. As for me, being an assimilado,‌1 I was head servant. Do you know what they called me? General Commissioner. That was my rank, I was someone. I didn’t do any work: I told people to work. The boss’s requests, it was I who attended to them, and they always spoke to me politely, with respect. Then I would take their requests and bellow orders at the domestic staff. Yes indeed, I shouted. That was the only way to make them obey. No one labours for the joy of it. Or could it be that God, when he expelled Adam from Paradise, didn’t do so with a kick in the pants?

  The servants hated me, Father. I felt that rage of theirs whenever I stole their days off from them. I didn’t care, I even liked not being liked. I grew fat on their anger, I all but felt like a boss. I’ve been told that a taste for giving orders is a sin. But I think that it’s this leg of mine that counsels me in my wickedness. I have two legs: one of a saint, the other the Devil’s own. How can I follow but one road?

  Sometimes, I would catch snatches of the servants’ conversation as I passed their huts. They would be ranting over a host of things, their talk bristling with teeth. I would approach them and they would fall silent. They didn’t trust me. But I felt flattered by their suspicion: I commanded a fear that made them so small. They got their own back by making fun of me. They would forever be imitating my limp. They would fall about laughing, the rascals. I’m sorry for using oaths in a place of respect. But that old anger of mine is still alive. I was born with the defect, it was a punishment God had in store for me even before I took on a person’s shape. I know God is good, without a fault. But Father, even so: do you think he was fair to me? Am I insulting the Holy Father? Well, I’m confessing. If I’m causing offence, increase my penance afterwards.

  Very well, I’ll continue. In that house, the days were always the same, sad and silent. Early in the morning, the boss would be off to the mine, the gold farm, as he called it. He would only return at night, in the thick of night. The Russians never had visitors. The others, the English, the Portuguese, never stopped by there. The princess lived enclosed in her sadness. She would dress formally even inside the house. You could even say she visited herself. She always spoke in murmurs, so that to listen to her, you had to put an ear right up next to her. I would approach her slender body, with a skin the whiteness of which I’d never seen before. That whiteness often attended my dreams, and even today I tremble at the fragrance of that colour.

  She used to linger in a tiny room, gazing at a glass clock. She would listen to the hands dripping the minutes away. It was a clock from her family, and she only trusted me to clean it. If that clock were to break, Fortin, it would mean my whole life would break too. She would always tell me that, warning me to take care.

  One of those nights, I was in my hut lighting the spirit lamp. Suddenly, I was startled by a shadow behind me. I looked, and it was the mistress. She was carrying a candle and came slowly towards me. She peeped round the room, as the light danced into the corners. I stood there tongue-tied, ashamed even. She was used to seeing me in the white uniform I wore for work. There I was in my pyjama trousers, devoid of a shirt and of decorum. The princess walked round me and then, to my astonishment, sat down on my mat. Can you believe it? A Russian princess sitting on a mat? She remained there a myriad of time, just sitting stock-still. Then she asked, in that way of hers when she spoke Portuguese:

  —So, you lyive herrre?

  I had no answer. I began to wonder whether she was ill, whether her head wasn’t changing places.

  —Lady: it’s better that you go back to your house. This room is not good for you.

  She didn’t reply. Then she asked another question:

  —And forrr you, it’s good?

  —It’s enough for me. All we need is a roof to shut out the sky.

  She corrected my certainties. It’s animals, she said, that hide away in lairs. A person’s house is a place to stay in, a place where we sow our lives. I asked if there were Blacks where she came from and she laughed her fill: Oh! Fortin, you ask some funny questions! I was surprised: if there weren’t any Blacks, who was it that did the heavy work in her country? Whites, she answered. Whites? She’s lying, I thought. After all, how many laws are there in the world? Or is it that misfortune was not distributed to people according to their race? No, I’m not asking you, Father, I’m just discussing it with myself.

  That’s how we talked that night. At the door, she asked to see the compound where the others slept. At first, I refused. But deep down, I wanted her to go there. For her to see that their adversity was far worse than mine. And so I complied: we went out into the darkness in order to see the place where those of the houseboy rank lived. Princess Nadia was filled with sadness at the sight of such living space. She spoke with so much expression that she began to switch her words, jumping from Portuguese to her own dialect. Only now did she understand why the boss never let her go out, or dispense favour. It was just so that I wouldn’t see all this poverty, she said. I noticed she was crying. Poor lady, I pitied her. A white woman, so far from those of her race, there, in the middle of the bush. Yes indeed, for the princess, the whole place must have been bush, or the outskirts of bush. Even the big house, all clean and tidy in obedience to their customs, even her house was a bush dwelling.

  On the way back, I stepped on one of those micaia thorns. The barb pierced deep into my foot. The princess tried to help me, but I pushed her away:

  —You mustn’t touch it. It’s this leg of mine, lady …

  She understood. She began to console me, saying that it was no defect, that my body merited no shame. In the beginning, I didn’t like it. I suspected she felt sorry for me, that she was showing commiseration, and nothing more. But then I surrendered to her gentleness, and forgot the pain in my foot. It was as if that leg were no longer mine as it walked along.

  From that night on, the lady began to go out often, to visit her surroundings. She would take advantage of the boss’s absence, and tell me to show her the way. One of these days, Fortin, we must leave early and go as far as the mines. Those desires of hers scared me. I knew the boss’s orders which forbade the lady to go out. Until one day, someone gave the game away:

  —The other servants told me you’ve been going out with the lady.

  The bastards had groused about me. Just to prove that, like them, I would bow before the same voice. Envy is the worst snake: it bites with the teeth of the very victim. Which is why, at that moment, I retreated:

  —It’s not me who wants it, boss. It’s the lady who orders it.

  You see, Father? There I was in a trice, informing against the lady, betraying the trust she had placed in me.

  —It’s not going to happen again, do you hear, Fortin?

  We stopped taking to the streets. The princess begged me, urged me. Just for a little way, please, Fortin. But I didn’t have the spirit for it. And so the lady was once again a prisoner in the house. She looked like a statue. Even when the boss arrived, after darkness had fallen, she just sat there benumbed, looking at the clock. What she saw was time, which only reveals itself to those in life who have no presence. The boss didn’t even bother with her: he would march straight up to the table, and order drink to be brought. He would eat, drink, and then start all over again. He never even noticed the lady, it was as if she belonged to some lower form of existence. He didn’t beat her. Blows are not the stuff of princes. Assault or murder are not things they carry out themselves, they hire others. It’s we who are the workforce for their grubby whims, we who are destined to serve. I only ever delivered a blow, gave out a hiding, when told to by others. The only folk I ever beat up were those of my own colour. Nowadays, when I look around me, I have nobody I can call a brother. Nobody. These Blacks don’t forget. It’s an embittered race the one I belong to. You, Sir, are Black, you can understand. If God is Black, Father, I’m done for: I’ll never be forgiven. Never ever! What did you say? I can’t sp
eak of God? Why, Father, is it that he can hear me down here, so far from Heaven, and me so tiny? Can he hear? Wait, Father, let me just make myself more comfortable. My devil of a leg, it never wants to obey me. That’s better, now I can confess some more. It was as I said. Or rather, as I was saying. There was no ongoing story in the Russians’ home, nothing happened. Nothing but the lady’s sighs and silences. And the clock drumming away in that emptiness. Until one day, the boss hounded me with shouts:

  —Call the servants, Fortin. Quickly, everybody outside.

  I summoned the houseboys, the servants and also the fat cook, Nelson Maquina.

  —Let’s go to the mine. Hurry, climb on to the cart.

  We got to the mine, we were given spades, and we started to dig. The roof of the mine had collapsed yet again. Beneath the earth we were treading on, there were men, some already stone dead, others taking leave of life. The spades rose and fell nervously. We saw arms appear, sticking out of the sand, they looked like roots of flesh. There was shouting, a confusion of orders and dust. Next to me, the fat cook pulled at an arm, summoning up all his strength to unearth the body. But blow me if it wasn’t a loose arm that had already been torn from its body. The cook fell over with that piece of death gripped in his hands. Sitting back clumsily, he began to laugh. He looked at me and that laugh of his filled with tears, the fat man was sobbing like a lost child.

  I couldn’t stand it, Father, I threw in the towel. It was a sin, but I turned my back on that tragedy. There was too much suffering. One of the houseboys tried to grab me, insulted me. I turned my face away, I didn’t want him to see that I was crying.

  That year, the mine caved in a second time. The second time too, I abandoned the rescue attempts. I’m no good, I know, Father. But you’ve never seen a hell like that one. We pray to God to save us from hell after we die. But, when all is said and done, hell is where we live, we step on its flames, and we bear with us a soul full of scars. It was the same there, it looked like a field of sand and blood, we were frightened even to set foot on it. For death buried itself in our eyes, pulling our soul along with its many arms. Is it my fault, tell me frankly, is it my fault that I gave up when it came to winnowing bits of people?