Sea Loves Me

by Mia Couto

  —Imagine me there, eh, a guy who never gets involved in anything … If I were to receive an award it would be for keeping out of stuff.

  But the Revolution brought him distinction: he went on to lead one of the newly nationalized companies. Jorojão did his best to refuse. His refusal, however, led to an even bigger mess. So from that moment he performed his functions at the highest level of functionality. Jorojão arrived in the morning and didn’t leave until late at night. Everything operated just so, the company coffers filling with profits. Everything was going so well that they began to get suspicious. Other state companies hadn’t so much as a plate yet he filled up on soup? An inspection crew showed up, not even bothering to look at his papers. All they needed was to see the gun on the office wall.

  —This gun isn’t in line with regulations.

  —But this is the Glorious Gun, it’s the one I used to kill that PIDE bastard, don’t you remember, the one whose gun here I was given in a public ceremony?

  His explanation proved to be futile. How could they know if it was the same gun? Mounted on a wall, all guns look the same. They jailed him, charging him with stashing a suspicious shotgun. There he remained, making less noise than a pangolin. He still remembers these unhappy, inglorious times, of falling asleep to forget his belly. The memories still make him bitter.

  —Do you see now, sir? I don’t do anything, it’s these meddlesome troubles that always come looking for me.

  He stayed in prison for months. One day, through his cell bars, he saw a group of workers from his company enter the prison. He asked to speak to the warden, trying to understand the presence of his subordinates. The prison boss spoke to him with unusual deference:

  —Mr. Jorojão, did you not know that you were to be freed today?

  —Freed?

  —Yes, today, in commemoration of World Meteorological Day. However, now you’re going to remain here awhile longer …

  Why had this been said and undone? The postponement of his release resulted from the following: the workers, longing for their imprisoned director, had performed a witchcraft ceremony to achieve his freedom. The authorities had interrupted the ceremony and arrested the participants, accusing them of arcane superstitions. The cause was now subject to the effect: Jorojão’s release would have to be suspended lest the credit for it be given to the feudalist ceremonies. It’s simple, the head of the prison explained at the time. If you were to leave now they’d say that these superstitious rites produced their intended effect. And this goes against the principles of materialism. For this very reason, the district also postponed the celebrations for World Meteorological Day.

  Jorojão returned to his cell.

  —Have you ever heard such a thing? They kept me waiting there in prison on account of meteorological materialism!

  Months later he stepped into the freedom of the streets, at a time when no one could any longer tie his release to any stealth-sly spirits. Bitten by the dog and left toothless by the thug, Jorojão lamented. To this day, you can’t talk to him about the weather. Sitting in his old rocking chair, the immensity of each day weighs down on him. Work? For what? Work is like a river: even when it’s reaching an end, what comes behind it is more and more river. Wearily stretching his legs, he asks me:

  —Who is it who’s rocking: me, the chair, or the world?

  ‌Lamentations of a Coconut Tree

  The event was official and verified, it made the Nation’s newspaper. The buzz about the coconut groves of Inhambane was worthy of headlines and much spilled ink. It all began when, seated along Inhambane’s seaside drive, my friend Suleimane Inbraímo split the shell of a coconut. For the fruit didn’t gush the usual sweet water, but blood. Exactly so: blood, certified and unmistakable blood. But that wasn’t the only astonishing thing. The fruit cried and lamented in a human voice. Suleimane took no exaggerated measures: his wide-open hands dropped the coconut, and the red stains spread. He stood there, dumbfounded and overwhelmed, spent. The shock made his soul vanish into the low tide.

  When I ran to help, he was still in the same position, head bent on his chest. Evidence of the incident had been removed, hands washed, amnesiac. Only his voice still trembled as he related the episode to me. I distrusted. Doubt, we know, is the envy that the unbelievable hasn’t happened to us.

  —Forgive me, Suleimane: a coconut that spoke, cried, and bled?

  —I knew it: you weren’t going to believe me.

  —It’s not not believing, brother. It’s doubting.

  —Go ahead and ask, among these folk around here, ask about what happened with these coconuts.

  I filled my chest to let my patience breathe. I’m used to strange things. I even have a talent for stumbling on these inoccurrences. But this was not the right moment. We should have left that place long before. Our work had already ended a week earlier and we still awaited news of the boat that would take us back to Maputo. Not that the place wouldn’t allow us some modest rest. Inhambane is a city of Arab manners, unpressed to enter time. The tiny houses, dark and light, sighed in the weariness of this eternal measuring of strength between the lime and the light. The narrow streets are good for courting; it appears that in them, no matter how much we walk, we never stray from home.

  I watched the bay’s feminine blue, this sea that makes no waves nor creates urgency. But my travel companion already had a flea in his ear. When I asked about the arrival of the next boat, Suleimane wobbled, one foot then the other, as prisoners do.

  —Every time, it’s coming today.

  The man spoke in imperfect certainty. Because at that very instant, as if issuing from his words, breezes began to swell. It squalled. First, the banana trees fanned. Gesticulant, the leaves swayed listlessly. We didn’t make the connection.

  After all, only a hint of wind is needed to fan the fruitful plants. They should be called, in that case, fanana trees. But afterwards, other greens began to shake in agitated dance. Suleimane began with a stammer:

  —This squall isn’t going to abide any boat.

  I sat there, listless a thousand times over, to show I didn’t have an opinion. I unwrapped the little cakes I’d bought a short time ago from the ladies at the market. A kid approached. I thought: here comes one more cry-beggar. But no, the child stayed beyond a beggable distance. My teeth had already prepared for the taste when the kid’s eyes grew wide, a shout rising in his throat.

  —Mister, don’t eat that cake!

  I stopped mid-bite, my mouth in dread of who-knows-what. The boy renewed his sentence: I was not to stick my saliva on the flat cake. He didn’t know how to explain, but his mother came at the child’s gesticulation. The woman entered the scene with colossal heft, fastening a nimble capulana.

  —The child is right, I’m sorry. These cakes were made with green coconut, were cooked with lenho.

  Only then did I understand: they had offended the local tradition that held the still-green coconut sacred. Forbidden to harvest, forbidden to sell. The unripe fruit, lenho, was to be left amid the tranquil heights of the coconut trees. But now, with the war, outsiders had arrived, placing more faith in money than in the respect for commandments.

  —There are many-many displaced people selling lenho. One of these days they’ll even sell us.

  But the sacred has its methods, legends know how to defend themselves. Varied and terrible curses weigh over he who harvests or sells the forbidden fruit. Those who buy it get what’s left over. The shell bleeding, voices crying, all this was xicuembos, hexes with which the forefathers punish the living.

  —You don’t believe it?

  The huge woman interrogated me. It wouldn’t be long before she reeled off her own versions, applying the principle that two weeks of explanation aren’t enough for he who half understands. Even before she spoke, those present clicked their tongues in approval of what she was going to say. In the good country way, each seconds the other. Exclamations of those who, saying nothing, agreed with the unsaid. Only then did the wom
an unwrap her words:

  —I’ll tell you: my daughter bought a basket way over on the edge of town. She brought the basket on her head all the way here. When she tried to take the basket off, she couldn’t. The thing looked like it was nailed down. We pulled with all our strength but it didn’t budge. There was only one remedy: the girl returned to the market and gave the coconuts back to the man who sold them. You hear me? Lend me a bit more of your ear, for a moment. Don’t tell me you didn’t hear the story of neighbour Jacinta? No? And I add, sir: this Jacinta put herself to grating the coconut and began to see the pulp never had an end. Instead of one pan, she filled dozens until fear bid her stop. She laid all that coconut on the ground and called the chickens to eat it. Then something happened I almost can’t describe: the little chicks were transformed into plants, wings into leaves, feet into trunks, beaks into flowers. All, successively, one by one.

  I received her reports quieter than a seashell. I didn’t want a misunderstanding. Suleimane himself drank with anguish these stories of the common man, fanatical believerist. And then we were gone, leaving that place for a no-star hotel. We had the common intention to chase sleep. After all, the boat would arrive the following day. Our return trip was paid for, we no longer had to think about the spirits of the coconut groves.

  Bags and suitcases tottering on deck, motors humming: that’s how, at long last, we made our way back to Maputo. My animated elbow brushes Suleimane’s arm. Only then do I notice that, hidden amid his clothes, he carries with him the cursed coconut. The same one he’d begun to split open. I marvel:

  —What’s this fruit for?

  —I’m going to send it for analysis at the Hospital.

  Before I could dissent from this logic, he countered:

  —That blood there, who knows in what veins it ran? Who knows if it was diseased, or rather, disAIDSed? He rewrapped the fruit with an affection meant only for a son. Then he broke off, rocking it with a lullaby. Perhaps it was just this lullaby of Suleimane’s, I could almost swear it, and yet he seemed to hear a lament coming from the coconut, a crying from the earth, in the anguish of womanhood.

  ‌Beyond the River Bend

  What I cite are facts from the newspaper. They went something like this: “A hippopotamus broke into the Centre for Typing and Sewing in the Munhava neighbourhood, leaving a path of destruction and sowing fear among residents of the most densely populated neighbourhood in the capital of Sofala province … . A night watchman present at the time said the animal wasn’t your regular old hippopotamus, but a very strange specimen who busted down the door to the school, strode into the classrooms, and began to destroy the furniture… . Rumours have been circulating among residents in the area that the hippopotamus is in fact a former resident of the city who lost his life in the neighbourhood where the animal came from and that this old man had returned to proclaim the following prophesies: rain would cease to fall in the city and plagues were to kill people by the score. The prediction coincides with a surge in the number of epidemics in the metropolitan region. [End of citation.]”

  The newspaper didn’t cover the remaining events, those that occurred later. What I’m adding to the story here are the reports of those witnesses with faulty judgment, people versed in nocturnal apparitions. Luckily, in our world today, there are no sources undeserving of our trust.

  Jordão—or Just J, as he was known—awoke that day in a fit of fear: what were those sounds coming from the school? He froze, tensed. He decided to sit still and face the consequences of doing nothing. But the racket grew louder. Someone had entered the school in a rage, looking for trouble. Thieves, they must have been. But was it really possible, this level of shamelessness? Was someone testing his courage? Jordão grabbed his gun and headed for the school. He rolled back on his heels, his feet in the opposite gear. The noise coming from the intruder was enough to set the daring running and make a coward of any hero. Fear is a river one must cross wet.

  As Jordão drew closer, he called to the heavens for reinforcements:

  — May the xicuembos protect me!

  The moon lit the way. Its glow was strong, but not enough to pull a thorn from your foot. That’s the reason Jordão can’t be entirely sure of everything he saw; his eyes took in the events that followed but his thoughts found them difficult to grasp. When he looked through the window, he saw the enormous beast chewing through a sewing machine. The mammal’s girth was unrivalled by anything he’d ever seen before. This wasn’t some ordinary example of its species, this one. A more appropriate name for this beast was hyper-potamus. Just then, the giant beast saw the soldier peeping through the window frame. He looked straight at the man with the two sleepy eyes stuck to the roof of his forehead. Then he went back to nibbling on the furniture—the pudgy creature’s picnic would not be stopped.

  All sorts of ideas began to fly as swift as a flock of birds through Just J’s head. How had the mpfuvo, as they called the beast in southern Mozambique, come to the school? Had he come in search of knowledge, to learn how to write, out of some thirst to transform from artiodactyl to artiodactypographer? Or had he come to improve his sewing abilities? No, that couldn’t be. His fingers were stiffer than panhandles.

  During those moments of hesitation, the soldier cast his thoughts back to the way things used to be: those who hunted the mpfuvo, in accordance with tradition, never set off for the river without first receiving the blessing of the mystic vapours. Husband and wife would bathe in the medicinal fumes for good luck. When the hunter stuck his prey with the first spear, a messenger would run to the village to alert his wife. From that moment forward, the woman was prohibited from leaving the house. She would light a fire and stand guard over it, without food or drink. Were she to break the ritual, her husband would suffer the wrath of the angry hippopotamus—the hunted turned hunter. Remaining cloistered bounded the beast’s spirit, prevented the pachyderm from fleeing the spot where he would meet his end. The wife’s confinement would end only when she heard shouts of joy coming from the river, heralding the hunt’s success. In the village, everyone except for Just J would rejoice. It always seemed the spears had wounded his soul on that stretch of river.

  But at that point, in the schoolhouse window, it wasn’t jubilant refrains but the hippopotamus’s rage that made the soldier stir. In truth, what provoked the beast’s ire at the present moment was the scenery. Corners, doors, walls: this was uncharted territory for the brute. He snarled, gnashed his teeth. The soldier was made tiny by his fear, only his gun granted him any stature. Suddenly, without thinking, Jordão fired a shot. A flurry of bullets hit their mark. The nose, being in front of the eyes, never obstructs them. The beast, in all his girth, trembled and folded, collapsing to the ground. His pink belly lent him the appearance of a newborn. In his final moment he devoted a look full of tenderness to the hunter. As though, instead of resentment, he felt gratitude. Was it love at last sight?

  Jordão recalled how, as a child, he’d developed a soft spot for the mpfuvos and their clumsy ways: such a large nape for so little neck! Fat as could be, they seemed to him suited to all sorts of dancing. And because the disaster-prone beasts, barely terrestrial, were his brothers: none of them was ever at home among others. Jordão often dreamed about the animals, which looked like upturned canoes riding the river’s lazy current. In his dreams, he’d climb on their backs and ride just beyond the river bend. That was his greatest dream: discovering what lay up ahead of the human landscape and reaching the land beyond limits.

  At that moment, however, gun in hand, Jordão hungered to lead other lives, to trample other creatures that he found inferior. He was flooded by an abrupt anger for feeling a certain kinship with such untamed creatures. Did this sense of superiority come from his rifle, or had age killed his capacity for imagination? Or do all adults commit this sort of adultery?

  The sound of gunshots brought many curious onlookers. They launched straight into he-said, she-said, rage and outrage.

  —You killed the mpf
uvo? Don’t you know who this animal was?

  —Just wait and see the punishment we’ll get on your account.

  —You won’t need to wait until tomorrow. You’re going to regret this finger of yours pulled the trigger.

  And off they went. Jordão sat on the top step of the school entrance with his thoughts. All that thinking had made him thinner. What could be done? He’d been accused of killing not some terrible beast but a man transfigured. How could he have guessed at the truth about the hippopotamus, his message-bearing role? He dropped his head into his arms and that’s how he remained, more circumflex than the accent mark itself.

  That’s when he felt a nudge. Someone was tapping him on the back, as though to rouse him from sleep. He looked behind him and goosebumps rose across his entire body. It was a tiny mpfuvo, a baby hippopotamus. What could it want, this kid? Shelter is what it sought, the protection of a being greater than itself. He rolled around near the soldier’s armpit as if seeking to stir an imaginary breast. Then he nestled up against his mother’s giant body, grunting to call her attention. Jordão regarded the little animal with its mouth bigger than its snout. He rose to his feet and took the orphan into his arms. The little one wouldn’t sit still, only making him heavier. Jordão stumbled, nearly dropping his cargo, before regaining his stuttering footsteps along the muddy riverbank.

  When they reached the river, the young hippopotamus leaped up to join his herd. As he watched, Jordão felt the weight of his gun grow unbearable. His shoulder began to ache from the load. With an abrupt gesture, he threw the rifle into the river, as though casting off a part of himself. At that moment, he heard a human voice. Where was it coming from? It came from the young hippo he’d just saved.

  —Climb atop the capsized canoe.

  Canoe? That hefty thing cresting the surface? The voice repeated the invitation: