by Mia Couto
—Come, I’ll show you the place just beyond the river bend.
Enthralled and disarmed, Jordão climbed atop the dewy dorsal of dreams and set off against the current to the land beyond limits.
High-Heel Shoes
It happened in colonial times. I hadn’t yet reached adolescence. Life took place in Esturro, a Beira neighbourhood not lacking for neighbours. In that tiny corner, the Portuguese set down their roots. The men there never amounted to masters of anything; even their dreams suffered from a lack of ambition. Their exploring only went as far as making the rounds of neighbourly quarters. If they robbed, it was so they might never become rich. The others, the true masters, not even I knew where they lived. For certain, they didn’t dwell anywhere. Dwell is a verb one applies only to the poor.
We lived in this tiny neighbourhood of dust-ridden streets, where the sun set earlier than in the rest of the city. Everything carried on there without much fanfare. Our neighbour was the only intriguing figure: an imposing, whiskered man with a voice like thunder. But friendly, a man of refinement and good manners. Everyone called him Zé Paulão. The Portuguese man laboured at harsh altitudes behind the wheel of heavy cranes. He was like a rooster with its plume of feathers hoisted high, ruler of a vast roost, but living totally alone. Other men marvelled at his aloneness, the ladies cursed at such waste. They all remarked: such a human man, a man so blessed with manliness, such a shame he was living by himself and for himself. Never did anyone witness him in the company of another. After all, God doesn’t dole out nuts to just anyone.
All that was known about him was this brief summary: his wife had run away. What reasons she had for deconsummating their marriage, no one knew. She was the model modest little Portuguese woman, the daughter of humble country labourers. Beautiful, of a flowering age. We saw her only once, when she was leaving the house, fearfully white. In certain and exposed danger, she was walking down the middle of the street. The cars screeched to a stop, fishtailing. The pale white woman didn’t seem to hear a thing. Then I saw: the girl was crying, a true watershed. My father stopped our vehicle and asked her how we could help. But the young woman didn’t hear a thing—she was sleepwalking. My father decided to accompany the creature, protecting her from the dangers of the streets, until she disappeared where the darkness came to an end. It was only then that we were able to confirm that the woman had left the house to make a most definitive departure.
From that moment on, only solitude was capable of comforting Zé Paulão. Or so it seemed to the neighbourly public. We, however, were the only ones who knew the truth. In the yard behind our house, where no others laid eyes, we could see, every now and then, women’s clothing drying in the sun. Paulão had his ways of coping after all. But we kept our secret. My family wanted to be the only ones to relish that revelation. Let others pity the solitary man. We alone knew the backside of reality.
And there was another secret we kept to ourselves: at night, we could hear a woman’s footsteps on the other side of the wall. In Zé Paulão’s house, there could be no doubt, a woman’s high-heel shoes ticky-tacked across the floor. They made the rounds through the bedroom, the hallway, and the sleepy rooms of our neighbour’s house.
—One hell of a scoundrel, that Paulão!
My aunts approved of these naughty little comments, a snicker behind their teeth, their teeth covered by their hands. There was much discussion of the mysterious woman: who was it that no one ever saw arriving or departing? My mother bet: she had to be a rather tall lady, much taller than Paulão. The footsteps could only belong to a fat woman, my aunt countered.
—Maybe she’s so fat she can’t fit through the door, my father joked.
And then, still laughing:
—That’s why we never see her leaving!
I used to dream of her: she was the most beautiful woman in the world, so beautiful and elegant that she could only come out at night. The world’s eyes didn’t deserve the sight of her. Or was she an angel? Paulão, seated high up in his crane, had nabbed her by surprise. What’s for certain is that the mysterious woman next door filled my dreams, ruffled my sheets, and forced me out of my own body.
One night, I took advantage of my childhood, to play little games with myself, pretending I was an adventurer, a hero from one of those shoot-em-up movies. Climbing onto the roof, I escaped the manhunt for me, outwitting hundreds of Indians below. At the last minute, I leaped to my neighbour Paulão’s porch. I could even feel imaginary arrows piercing my soul. I took a deep breath and a moment to grab my plastic pistol. Then a light went on inside the house. I crouched down, fearing I’d be mistaken for a common thief. Taking a few punches at the hands of my corpulent neighbour would bring no pleasure. I hunched down into a dark corner. I could neither see nor be seen. Just then, my ears stood up. The heels. The mystery woman must have been making the rounds through the adjacent accommodations. I couldn’t resist catching a glimpse. That’s when I saw a woman’s long skirt. I was on full alert: finally, she was right there, within eye’s reach, the woman of our mysteries. There stood the woman who gave form to my desires. Indians be damned! Paulão could go to hell! I drew closer to the light, defying all concepts of prudence. Now the entire living room was within view. The fascinating lady had her back to me. She wasn’t so tall in the end, nor so fat as my family had supposed. Suddenly, the woman turned around. Thud! The earth opened in a huge abyss. Zé Paulão’s eyes, adorned with makeup, locked on me. The lights went out and I leaped from the porch, my heart catacombing into the abyss.
I returned home, my head out of tune. I locked myself in my bedroom, giving shape to the silences. Hours later, at the dinner table, the same subject returned.
—Our neighbour, the immortal lover—not long ago I heard those heels over there. It was my father who spoke, setting off a wagging of tongues.
—You all are just jealous you can’t do the same, my aunt announced. Everyone laughed at once. Only I kept to myself, silently fulfilling my obligations to melancholy.
Later on, when everyone had slipped into the release of sleep, I again heard the high-heel shoes. My eyes filled with a deep, inexplicable sorrow. I was crying for what, in the end? My mother, having suspected something in that way only mothers are able, rushed into my room, filling it with light.
—Why are you crying, my child?
I told her about the passing of an uncertain girl whom I’d loved deeply. She’d abandoned me, betraying me with another man in the neighbourhood. My mother pretended not to understand, a stroke of her maternal wand. Her smile was filled with unusual suspicion. She tendered her fingers through my hair and said:
—Come, come. Tomorrow you can move to another room. You’ll never have to hear the sound of those high heels again.
Joãotónio, for Now
For now, I’m Joãotónio. I’ll say it and then I’ll unsay it: when it comes to women, I advance like the army. ’Cause my whole encounter with them feels like a battle. What I mean is the minute I look at a woman, I already start wondering: what’s her voice like? It’s not her audible voice that piques my interest, but the other, silent one, disembodied, capable of speaking as many languages as water. In other words: what I want to decipher is her moans, these wings sliding to the edge of the abyss, the chill that runs up the soul when it’s lost its home.
You know what I’m talking about, bro: a person’s voice obscures the sweet taste of her sighing. The voice conceals the way she sighs. I can already hear your question: what’s this obsession with unravelling the secrets behind the way a woman sighs? It’s the same desire a general has, bro. It’s the taste of the enemy’s surrender. It’s the desire to hear in advance the way they make love, subdued and abandoned.
Sometimes, I stop to think: deep down, I’m afraid of women. Aren’t you? You are, I’m sure of it. Their thoughts come from a place that’s beyond reason. That’s where our fear comes in: we’re unable to make sense of their way of thinking. Their superiority frightens the hell out of us, bro. That’s
why we see them as well-versed adversaries in a battle. But let me get back to the beginning—just look at me, screeching like a hairpin turn, swerveering off into this pseudo-philosophizing. And start your listening over, too.
For the time being, I’m still Joãotónio. What I’m telling you now is the fiction of my unhappiness. Don’t go telling this to everyone. I’m trusting you, bro. ’Cause it’s not just anyone who makes his troubles public. What I’m about to write is cause for shame.
I’ll start with Maria Zeitona, source of all urges. As I write the name of this woman, I can still hear her voice, smooth as a bird’s wings. I already told you: a woman’s voice is as important as her body. It whets the appetite more than appearances or seductions ever could, at least for me.
As I wasn’t saying: Maria Zeitona seemed to be intact and untouchable. She gave off suspicion like an ember beneath ashes. Her body spoke through her eyes. And what crystalluminous eyes! We were married in an instant. I wanted nothing more than to suffer the promise of that inferno. I was marrying to consummate the ardencies swarming round my dreams. But the bad news, my brother: Maria Zeitona was ice-cold, frigelid! It was as if I were making love to a corpse. You could say we maintained asexual relations. And that’s how she stayed more virgin than Mother Mary. I tried, I tried again, I used every technique from the whole of my experience. All the same, bro: for nothing. Zeitona was damp firewood: flames could not touch her.
I changed tactics, I gave her worthy surprises. I ran through all the preliminaries I knew. I even kissed the tips of her toes. Still no luck. A kiss is neither given nor received. It’s life that does the kissing, and the kissing back. I’ll say it again, bro: it’s life that kisses us, two beings in an infinite moment. Enough with the family chat? All right, got it, bro, I’ll get back to this subject of mine, Maria Zeitona.
At the end of these campaigns, I gave her a penultimatum: either she sweetened up or I’d resort to unfortunate measures. And that’s what didn’t happen. That, bro, is when I made my decision: I’d send Zeitona to a prostitute. That’s right, my little Zeitona would intern with a pro of the romp and raze. That’s how she’d learn to tangle in the sheets. At last she’d commit immortal sin.
It didn’t take long for me to find the right instructor: it would be Maria Mercante, the renowned bacchanalian, with an innate talent for horizontal acts. Dark-skinned, deep-dipped Black. Possessor of savoury fillings. In this world, there are two creatures that use their rear to get ahead in life: the wild boar and Maria Mercante. I got straight to the point with that piece of tail:
—Please, give my wife a lesson in nuptial twistings and turnings!
—Rest assured, sir. It’s no use for a woman to be known for her qualities: she needs to have qualifications!
And the able prostitute got to work. She held forth on irrelevant subjects—perhaps just to increase the price of these lessons. Zeitona would leave virginity behind with more regrets than the only one to have conceived without sin. Zeitona knew the math: the Virgin Mary had, in the end, turned down the visit of the Holy Spirit. She’d responded in these terms:
—Bear a child without making love? Where’s the pleasure in that? Go without food but get stuck belching anyway? I’ll teach Zeitona. None of these platonics: sex at first sight.
I interrupted her, directing the conversation to my more material woes. Advanced payment guaranteed, Maria Mercante accepted the job. I could rest assured: my wife would leave her tutelage hotter than the midday sun. We’d ruffle the sheets until the mattress begged for urgent repairs. And off Zeitona went to this place of ill repute. We might as well say it: an undressing room.
Weeks passed. The course ended, my wife came back home. She was, indeed, a changed woman. She had a different way about her but not in the way I’d expected. Man, I’m almost ashamed to admit it: all of a sudden my little Zeitona came on like a man! She, who usually sat back on her heels, was now leading the charge! That is and was: my Zeitona oozed manliness. And not just when making love. The entire time, in everything she did. Her voice, even. Everything in her had changed, bro, to the point I had to scratch my male parts just to be sure they were still there. I’m telling you: she was the one who pushed me to the bed—you better believe it. She’s the one who turned me on, took my breath away. I lay there like a spectator, commanded and directed like a girl during her first time. And it’s that way to this day.
The problem, bro, is this: I kinda like it. It’s tough for me to admit it, so much so that I hesitate to write this. But the truth is that I’m enjoying this new position of mine, my era of passive initiate, being on the bottom, the embarrassment, the fear.
That’s it, bro. Explain it to me, if you can. I don’t know what to think. At first, I would make excuses: after all, there are several versions of the truth that can claim to be truthful. For example: when it comes to sex, there’s no male/female. The two lovers join into a single, binary being. There was no reason to think I’d been given a lower position. You following, my brother?
But now, at the moment I write, I no longer have any appetite for explanations. Only for unreason. Every day the one thing I look forward to is nighttime, the quiet storms when I become Joãotónio and Joanantónia, man and woman, in my wife’s virile arms. But for now, bro, I’m still Joãotónio. I’m saying goodbye, meanderly, to my real name.
That Devil of an Advocate
The attorney rested his patience in the palm of his hand. Time was stretching on, the consultation had already exceeded its actual worth. He turned his head back to the woman seated in front of him. He’d stopped listening to her minutes ago. His distraction focused on the woman’s legs, which she crossed and uncrossed. They had too much flesh for so little clothing. Resigned, the advocate returned to his duties as listener. The woman put forth her reasons for having left her husband.
—My husband snores.
—And that’s a reason? There are more people in the world snoring than sleeping.
—Yes, mister attorney, sir. But this husband of mine snores backwards.
—Snores backwards?
—Yeah, he only snores when he’s awake.
The attorney thought to himself: here is a woman of piss and vinegar. And he asked for more information, a firmer foundation. But his client continually wandered back to a story as useless as glasses in the hands of a blind man.
—Now you look closely at me here, sir. You think I’ve gone senile? No, no—you don’t have to answer that. The answer is clear as can be, it’s in your eyes, mister attorney, sir. But this husband of mine is a big old soul. If you’d only seen him: towering, broad-reaching. But only from the neck up. Because on the lower levels, from the waist down …
—I’m sorry, Miss. But these details …
—Details? It’s exactly these details that result in children! You’ll excuse me for saying so, sir, but you, sir, were born on account of a detail, mister attorney, sir … Intimacy doesn’t intimidate me. We only call it trash because the smell twists our nostrils. But getting back to my husband, before the trail goes cold. If only you knew what a little Casanova he was. Night never fell, mister attorney, sir. How did he become like this? I’ve spent years asking myself, mister attorney, sir. You know what he says? That I don’t turn him on because I spend my whole life crying. Now you tell me, is that a reason? Sure, it’s true, I really do enjoy a good cry. I can’t go a single day without spilling a little bit. But, for him, my former-ex-husband, this never used to be a problem. Before, he would clamber all over me, he never once slipped on my tears. It’s only recently that he stopped visiting my body. And you know why? You know why he suddenly stopped? It was because he kissed me with his eyes closed. Yes, that’s it, he would kiss me with his eyes shut tight. You, mister attorney, sir, you’ll forgive the intrusion, but how is it that you kiss?
—How do I kiss? What sort of question …
—Don’t tell me that you haven’t been kissing, mister attorney, sir … Don’t respond if you don’t want to. B
ut you, sir, know as well as anybody: a man can’t ever kiss with his eyes closed.
—I know what it is they say about this, that you lose your way and your soul, that sort of thing … But I don’t worry about such things. In fact, I don’t close my eyes.
—And don’t you ever start, mister attorney, sir. If you do, there’s no way back.
The doctor of jurisprudence turned his attention back to the elegance with which the woman crossed and uncrossed her legs in her chair. The woman, all of a sudden, grew quiet. And stayed that way, on pause. Later, she scooted her chair closer to him and whispered:
—Now, mister attorney, sir. Don’t you start covering for my husband. Don’t be a devil of an advocate …
—It’s backward, miss.
—Backward? We’ll see about that later. You know something, mister attorney, sir, I’ve been watching your eyes. Do you cry much, sir?
—Me? Cry?
—Yes, there’s no shame in it. Tell me.
And, having said this, she got up from her seat and sat on his desk. Her knees brushed up against the responsible attorney. The woman passed her fingers along his face and said:
—I’ll bet you don’t know how to have a proper cry, doctor. There’s a certain technique to it, you know. I’m quite an expert on the subject. I’m a graduate in sadnesses, I’ve done all the coursework. Suffering—what’s suffering? Suffering is a road: you walk along it, forwards along its endless distance, to reach another side. This other side is a part of ourselves that we’ve never known. I, for example, I’ve already travelled far and wide within myself …
The woman hopped down off the desk and made a spot for herself on the attorney’s lap. The man, knowing he was in the wrong, didn’t do a thing. He seemed to abandon himself to her. The woman continued her advances.
—I’m going to give you a crash course in crying. Don’t make that face. Men cry, yes, they do. They just have their own way of doing it. I’m going to teach you how to get the tears flowing.