Sea Loves Me

by Mia Couto

  —This hand of mine belongs to the informal sector, Dona Luarmina.

  —Every bit of you, Zeca Perpétuo, belongs to the informal sector.

  —You know the saying, don’t you, lady? Better a bird in the hand …

  —You’re an abuser …

  —This is all a dream, just a dream. Do you know what I dreamed yesterday, Dona Luarmina? Well, I’ll tell you, and don’t interrupt me. You came with me to the Baixo da Nuvem nightclub and you were dancing with me. You were dancing all dressed in white, all very respectful. I closed my eyes and then, all of a sudden, you whispered in my ear: See: I’m as naked as a fish.

  I shivered. I didn’t even have the courage to open my eyes. Her voice was buzz-buzzing next to my ear:

  —But take a good look: I’ve got a tattoo here on my belly. Feel it with your hand. Yes, right there. Now pass your finger over my hip, further down, yes there. That’s it. They’re tattoos to stop you slipping.

  This was all very pretty and a torrid tale to tell. But I was unable to pursue my memory of the dream any further. Dona Luarmina interrupted me, shaking me with her plump hand.

  —Be quiet, Zeca. You’re an old codger. Why are you still having such dreams?

  —Old, my foot! You, lady, who love birds so much: do birds’ feathers ever wear out?

  —But you, my dear sir, only fly close to the ground.

  —Well, so what, Dona Luarmina? It’s all the more fun down below.

  Luarmina wasn’t the sort to laugh at jokes. She would allow herself a smile every now and then. For the rest, she shut herself away in sadness for not having had a child. When I called her a flower, she would return to the fray with a bitter retort.

  —Don’t call me a flower, because it hurts. A seed is the only footprint a flower leaves behind. And I never left a child in this world.

  —That wasn’t your fault. The right insect never learned how to land on you. I wish I’d been there.

  —Be quiet, Zeca.

  —Listen to me: you’re a flower, that’s for sure.

  —All right then, I’m a flower. But one of those that was never good for anything.

  —You were good for beauty, Luarmina.

  —And what is beauty good for? Good for nothing.

  —Look, here’s just one example: what lights up the sky most? Isn’t it a rainbow? So tell me then: what’s a rainbow good for?

  —I’ve no idea.

  —It’s good for making itself look fancy, for teaching the sky how to dream.

  But she withdrew into herself again. She bade me forgive her. She had made up her mind she was a ruin. Here’s what she said:

  —I frittered away my time, but time, it didn’t forget me.

  That’s what she said as she pointed to her neck and her aging skin. To which I replied, by way of comfort:

  —Well, time hasn’t abandoned you, thanks and no thanks to God. Because it’s me and time competing for you, Dona Luarmina. Let me be the winner. Please, Dona …

  —Do you really want to taste me?

  —Of course I do, lady!

  —Well then, spin me one of your memories, a real one …

  Third Chapter

  The dugout was launched into the sea, a speck of dust entered God’s eye.

  One of my grandfather Celestiano’s sayings

  I don’t know why Dona Luarmina cried when I told her my old father’s story. After all, it was she who asked for it! I had warned her of the sadness of this memory, but she was insistent. This was the only reason why I unlocked my recollections.

  My father’s name was Agualberto Perchance. He was a person in every way. Only one feature put his humanity in doubt: my old man had the eyes of a shark. It wasn’t that he was born like this. It happened when he once jumped into the water from his boat in order to save his sweetheart. She was a very young girl he had met in other lands. He always took her with him in his boat, to keep him company on his fishing trips. At the end of the day, before he brought his fish back to the beach, my father would set course for beyond the horizon so as to leave the girl where she came from. Who was this girl, where was she from? This was a mystery that Agualberto kept to himself.

  That afternoon, my father was fishing near to our beach. The sea was choppy. I was screwing my eyes trying to catch a glimpse of the girl who was with my father. My mother turned her back on the ocean.

  —Have you seen my father out there?

  My mother didn’t answer. She was busy with her sticks of firewood and getting dinner ready. I stood there at the edge of the beach, looking at the little craft, now visible, now hidden by the waves. Until, all of a sudden, I noticed a figure falling into the sea. It was the girl. My father panicked and jumped in to rescue her. He plunged into the depths of the sea and stayed underwater for longer than his lungs would allow. Other boats put to sea to save him. We counted the seconds, minutes, the tears and the sighs. Only at the end of the day did my old man reappear on the surface of the water. No one expected him to re-emerge. But to everyone’s astonishment and prayers, my father leaped like a dolphin between the waves, yelling as if the whole firmament had invaded his chest. The onlookers shouted:

  —He’s alive! He’s alive!

  The fishermen rushed forwards to go and get their re-emerged companion. They rejoiced, dancing and singing while the boats headed back to the beach. The women ululated. My mother advanced and came to a standstill in front of her man. What was going on inside her head? After all, that woman my father had tried to save was another, her rival, lacking legitimacy. Even so, she confronted my old man. Her eyes ascended from the ground until they stared into his face. And this was when she screamed, covering her face with her hands. The others approached my father and a murmur swept through them like an icy cloud.

  —His eyes!

  Yes indeed, Agualberto’s eyes were no longer the same. No one managed to look my father in the face. For those eyes of his were the same colour as the sea: blue, marine in their transparency. His humanity had been washed away as if he were a fish. He had stayed far too long under the sea. And the rumour began to spread that Agualberto had the eyes of a shark, identical to those colossal, toothsome creatures.

  From that day on, my father withdrew ever more deeply into himself, spending his time sitting on the beach contemplating the horizon. People came from afar to catch a distant glimpse of the Black man with eyes the colour of the sea. On one occasion, my mother tugged at my arm and whispered to me in an anguished tone:

  —That woman, that other one, can it be that she has really died?

  We all knew she had, that she had got lost in the deep, there where the coral blossoms into fish. Everyone knew except old Agualberto, who was bereft of reasoning. Every afternoon he would take baskets of food into the sea, along with supplies of fresh drinking water. He would dive and remain underwater for a long time. Then he would return to the surface at peace with the world, having paid his yearning its dues. However, every time he resurfaced, his eyes looked all the bluer. There would come a day when they would be rinsed of all colour, like those seashells that are bleached white. All this seemed like the fulfillment of some prophecy, a map of his thoughts: he was losing his sight in the same way he had lost his love. And this is what happened: Agualberto was left waxen-eyed, and he never visited the watery depths again.

  When the blue left his eyes, my father also left home. Off he went. I was a child, and thought everything could be put right. My old man’s departure introduced me to the belief that for certain things in this life there is no resolution. At the same time, I had to witness my mother’s growing loss of sanity. She never accepted she had been abandoned. For long after my father had left, she would still tell me:

  —Wait, Zeca. Let me first ask your father.

  If I had been bullied or there were tears, she was always there to console me:

  —Don’t worry, I’ll tell your father.

  As if his not being present was no more than a delay in getting back from fishing
. It is all part of the age-old custom: a child is never told they’re an orphan. And so my mother dressed his absence in the garments of untruth.

  —Have you written him a nice little letter this week?

  I smiled sadly. But she gave me no time to reply.

  —Your father would be so happy to get a little note from you. He’d be so happy, he might even cry.

  —But Mother …

  —Do you know something? One day, a tear of his fell into the sea. And right there, at the point where the tear hit the wave, the tear turned into a piece of coral and sank to the bottom. Write to your father …

  —But Mother, I don’t even know what letters look like.

  —That’s why you’re going to go and see the priest and attend the Mission. Your father will send you a bit of money later.

  —All right, Mother.

  Then she would go back into our little house, looking as if she were walking right through the middle of a fire, surrounded by flames. She reminded me of Maria Ballerina in the way she seemed to regain her youth dancing with the blaze. But when my mother trod on the fire, nothing happened to her. I would remain out on the beach, escaping time, my gaze roaming over the night. My mother would come back some time later and tell me:

  —Do you see the stars, Zeca? Do you know what they’re saying?

  —No, Mother.

  —You know, my son, the night is a letter that God writes in tiny handwriting. When you come back from the city, will you read me that letter?

  —Yes, Mother.

  Fourth Chapter

  If I built a chimney in my house, it wouldn’t be to let out the smoke, but to let in the sky.

  Grandfather Celestiano’s words

  Day always starts with a lie. That is because the sun only pretends to be born. That morning awoke with heatful intentions and I decided to go for a stroll along the beach. This was when I came across Luarmina plunged in a pool of water. She was dressed, and her clothes clung to her body. I walked up to her and asked her why she was taking a bath. She replied that she wanted to warm up her legs.

  —Is the water nice and warm?

  —I don’t get heat from the water. What warms me up are the sea snails.

  And she explained: there were some snails that licked her legs, grazing on those fat pastures of hers. The little creatures left their trails of sticky saliva on my neighbour and all I could think to myself was that my own mucus had been wasted, with all due respect. Heaven forbid.

  —Do you mind if I join you?

  —Join me where?

  —In the water where you are having your bath, lady.

  I got in, and snuggled up alongside my neighbour. I lay back in the water and closed my eyes just like she was doing. My hands pretended to be snails, slimy slugs furrowing their way over Luarmina’s thighs. To my astonishment, the mulata didn’t push me away. My fingers continued, carrying out their duties, fishing between her clothes and her body. I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye: the fat Luarmina was floating, in blissful subjugation, like a ship at anchor in a child’s drawing.

  Suddenly, however, she let out a cry. I ceased my capers and hid my hands behind my back.

  —What a fright, lady! What’s the matter?

  Luarmina pointed at something on the surface of the water. They were dead fish floating.

  —Look, Zeca, they’re fish without eyes!

  I shuddered. That was a sign. Someone on the world’s other shore was watching me. The dead are obstinate in their determination to be human. And right there, between me and Luarmina, the message of the gods was plain to see. The mulata was more terrified than I was.

  —What is it, Zeca?

  —We’d better get out of the water. Come, I’ll help you.

  Luarmina was trembling. To keep her alarm at bay, I kept talking non-stop. Do you know what fish are? How they first appeared? Well, sit down then and relax. Like that, yes. I’m going to tell you my grandfather Celestiano’s version of the story. In olden times, there were no living creatures in the sea. Only on land and in the air. There were many birds, floating over the continents. The gods were happy enough to watch them flying over the forests, soaring up over the tops of mountains. Then, one day, a bird had the audacity to hover over the waters. And it was surprised by the beauty of its own flight, glimpsed in the water’s reflection. It flew back and told the other birds:

  —I now know why we aren’t allowed to fly over the ocean.

  And so off they flew in their thousands, flocks of them all anxious to see their image. Never before had there been so many clouds over the sea: all made of feathers, buoyant enough to sustain their weight. At this point, a storm broke out, the punishment of the gods. Lightning ripped through the birds like flashing knives. Thousands of birds fell into the waves and were swept along by the currents, as if they were pursuing their flight in liquid gusts. And so, from their wings, the swell was born, and from their feathers the spume.

  —The way I feel at the moment, Zeca, I’m not in the mood for listening to stories.

  Luarmina didn’t want any distractions. She was being pulled under by the force of her own anxiety. It would be better if she did the talking.

  —So do you remember your family, Luarmina?

  But she didn’t answer. Her past was like the future in our languages; it only began when it was over, like the lizard being eaten by its own tail. The rest dissolved in the mists of sadness.

  —For as long as I had a finger, I stitched cloth and dressed people.

  But she didn’t find her life’s fulfillment as a dressmaker. She wanted something else, she wanted to grow people inside her, to have children, be born again in other lives. But without such a gift, she no longer felt like entering her home, so alone was she. This was why she spent more time on her veranda than within the walls of her house.

  —That’s why I like to hear stories about families. Go on, tell me about your home, your family.

  —Don’t ask that of me, Luarmina.

  —You know something, Zeca: tonight, when the moon is up, I think I’m going to have a bath outside, in my yard …

  —Will you be naked? I mean, undressed?

  —Who knows, Zeca?

  —And will you let me have a look, lady?

  —If you tell me a story, I will.

  Fifth Chapter

  The sea has one flaw: it never dries up. I almost prefer the tiny little lake in my village, which is very prone to drying up and we feel for it in the same way that we feel for a living creature, always in danger of meeting its end.

  The words of Grandfather Celestiano

  After that incident, my old man was left with a mamba’s moodiness. Any idea that nestled in his mind began to grow a fang. He was gone noiselessly at the crack of dawn, and took up residence there where we couldn’t clap eyes on him, beyond the marshes where the ground brooks neither path nor building.

  I only caught a glimpse of him every once in awhile. In such encounters, my heart always shrank. As a young child, I feared him, and fell over myself in my attempts to ingratiate myself in his presence. For the old man made a song and a dance out of everything and everyone: suca, famba,‌1 be off with you. Agualberto passed us with a stiff, slow gait. At first, we asked ourselves: is he blind? Impossible, the man pushed himself forwards as if he were pulling us towards him. Those vacant eyes of his stared into our soul rather than our face. The whole village was unanimous.

  —That fellow’s got more sulphur in him than the devil.

  No matter how great our fear, we couldn’t do without him. Why? Because my old man blessed the fish hooks. The fishermen would form a line and he would attend each one in turn. There would be complete silence while he closed his eyes. Agualberto Perchance would await the voices that would flow from his mouth. Somewhere out there, far away, the tide was turning, the ocean frolicked around as the tides raced. Until he received a signal that the tide was on the turn, he remained still and unblinking. He who knows, doesn’t speak, he who i
s wise, keeps quiet. As my grandfather said: Do you know the difference between a wise white man and a Black? The white answers your questions right away. For us Blacks, the wisest man is the one who takes his time before giving you an answer.

  And so my father waited in this state of immobility, while the fishermen who wanted to be blessed also waited. Until Agualberto raised his hand and wriggled his fingers as if he were summoning the invisible. He opened an old packet of cigarettes stuffed with a powder that bore some resemblance to tobacco. They had the appearance of cigarettes that had been chewed by time and sucked with the spittle of oblivion. The powders were sprinkled over the hook and luck stuck to it. Other times, he added various items to the bait: bits of glass, card, shells. All this was cast into the sea and the best possible good fortune invoked.

  But how did this man, my father, survive? I asked myself that question from afar. My old man left home every morning, and would eye the walls of the neighbourhood as if he were trying not to look at them. He would make for the quay. There, he would sit himself down on the wall, where he would receive the inevitable messages. Without fail, I would head for where he was, whenever I set off on my own fishing expeditions. Sometimes, he looked sad to me, his chest sticking out from his ribs. Was he shedding a tear on the landscape’s shoulder? Was he being trodden on by his past? Or was he yearning for that extinct girl?

  He sat on the edge of the quay, feeling the breeze off the Indian Ocean. The man didn’t even articulate a word: merely loose sounds, little shards of speech. When he spoke, it was as if he were licking his own tongue. His body swayed like a tree in a gale. Was his body pondering different thoughts from his head? As far as I could see, he was praying, lighting the wick of some word, in a never-ending process of not wanting to forget or remember, absorbed in a yearning for other lives.

  But he earned his money by blessing the fish hooks, the guarantee of a good catch. And every morning, the fishermen would wait by the wall while he unwrapped the same ancient cigarette packet and opened a bag full of offerings. I joined the hunters of fish. I would wait in the long line while gulls screeched overhead. When my turn came, I would be gripped by fear and slide away from the line. Countless times, I would line up again and wait. But when I came face to face with my old man, I would stumble over myself and leave the place.