Sea Loves Me

by Mia Couto

  —Your grandfather Celestiano was right, son.

  —What was it he said?

  Grandfather had criticized Agualberto for surrendering to the white man’s ways. The reason for his misfortune had been because he had turned his back against the older world.

  —This is our church, my father said, pointing at the tree. Do you hear, Zeca?

  —Yes, Father.

  —Tell Father Nunes that I came here to our ancestors’ tree. Tell him I came here, that I didn’t go and get down on my knees in his church …

  He took a piece of konkuene from his bag. He placed the black coral in a hollow of the tree trunk as an offering to the ancestors.

  —I’m the only one with a piece of coral like this; no one else has a piece like it.

  After that, we left, clambering along the riverbank. My father walked steadily next to me, as if he were able to make use of my eyes. Could it be that in spite of having lost the roundness in his eyes, he could still see?

  —I listen to the light on the water, and the direction it takes …

  —So where are we going?

  —Now we’re going to the little forest where that boat of mine was born.

  I led him into a wood where he had prepared the timber for his first and only boat. The old man walked around the clearing, and felt the trunks of every tree as if he were caressing a woman’s body. And he called every tree by name.

  —This one is called Hope, that twisted one over there is called Sunrise.

  He stumbled over shrubs, and tumbled to the ground. I made to help him get up. But he preferred to remain seated.

  —Let me die a little here. Pull me over there just a tiny bit. Yes, that’s good, there’s a little ray of sunshine here.

  He sat there for a time with his eyes closed. Once again, he took a piece of coral out of his bag and placed it on the ground. It was another offering to the gods.

  —Now what, Father?

  —Now I’m going to the other side of the sea …

  —I’ll go and get the boat ready and I’ll go with you.

  —No. You stay, I’m going alone.

  I put him in the boat along with his old bag. I pushed him out as far as I could while still in my depth. I pointed it in the right direction and told him:

  —Keep going straight ahead, don’t turn …

  —I’m in the sea, my son, I don’t need anyone to guide me now.

  And off he went. It was the only time he ever called me son. It was, I knew it, his farewell. Hearing that word from his mouth could have been my childhood being born. But it was his farewell.

  Eighth Chapter

  When my grandfather Celestiano sensed death approaching, he called his wife and asked her:

  —Let me look at your eyes!

  And he lay there enthralled, as if his soul were a boat floating on a sea that was his beloved’s eyes.

  —Are you cold? she asked, seeing him shiver.

  —No. It’s you who are crying.

  —Crying? Me? It’s started raining, that’s what’s happened.

  My grandmother’s recollection

  of old Celestiano’s final moment

  My illness has got worse: I no longer get out of bed. Even more serious: I cannot even sleep. The moment my eyelids close, the folds in the sheet turn into water, and the next moment everything turns red and I flow out into rivers of blood. If I sleep, I drown, if I remain conscious, I go mad. I need to dream, all I want to do is dream.

  I can hear the door opening. It must be thieves, but I’m no longer bothered. Let them steal the nothing that I possess, let them take the little life left that I have. They would even do me a favour. But it’s Luarmina peering round the door.

  —I’ve come to visit you, Zeca.

  —Is that so? I smile, in disbelief.

  —You always visited me. Today, I’m the one visiting you.

  Luarmina undoes a new sheet. She bids me help her to change the sheets on the bed.

  —These ones are soaking; how can someone sweat so much?

  I wanted to tell her it wasn’t sweat but the sea itself punishing me. But I didn’t hem and haw, and got straight to the point.

  —How good it is that you’ve come, Luarmina. It’s because I’m about to die.

  —Don’t talk nonsense, Zeca. You’ll live to throw a few shovelfuls on my grave.

  I made the same request as old Celestiano had made in his final moments: I wanted her to sit next to my bed just so that I could find pleasure in her eyes.

  —I beg you, dear neighbour: I want to swoon while looking into your eyes.

  Luarmina smiled indulgently, as if I had returned to my childhood once and for all.

  —If you go on talking like this, I’m going.

  —Then do me a favour, lady. Tell me a story.

  —A story? Me?

  —Yes, neighbour, I’ve already told you so many of mine.

  —But I don’t have any stories, I’ve led such a sheltered existence.

  —How is that possible?

  —My life has been an uneventful one. I’ve lived so little that I haven’t got long before I die.

  —Make an effort, Dona Luarmina. It’s shameful for a man, but I want you to lull me until I begin to dream. I need to dream, I need so much to dream!

  Luarmina got to her feet, bewildered. She wandered this way and that as if she were not so much seeking an idea but something that had been lost in the clutter of the room. Suddenly, she stopped next to the bed and uttered a strange order:

  —Get up, Zeca.

  She startled me. I refused, incapable of any movement whatsoever. But she persevered, pulled me, levered me up by my armpits.

  —But I can’t stand. Leave me in bed.

  —Stop babbling, Zeca, and help me to get you up.

  —But what do you want to do with me, lady?

  —What do I want to do? I want to dance with you, man.

  What an irony of fate! All my life, I had dreamed of dancing with that woman. Now she wanted to, but I couldn’t. Luarmina still dragged me off as if I were a sack full of levity. I tried as hard as I could, but my feet couldn’t keep up with the steps. Until she deposited me on the bed like a lifeless bundle.

  —I’m sorry, Dona Luarmina.

  —You’re ill. I shouldn’t have forced you.

  —It’s not illness. For us, illness is something else, not what you whites …

  —I’m a mulata, don’t forget.

  —You lady, for all intents and mispurposes, are white. The truth of my illness is this: I’m being punished by my father.

  —Punished?

  —Because I didn’t carry out what he asked me to do.

  —But that’s no reason …

  —No? I betrayed the promise I made. Don’t you remember what I told you? I promised to look after that woman of his, I promised I would take her water, food …

  —But you did all that.

  —No, I didn’t do anything at all.

  —Yes, you did.

  I was puzzled by her insistence. What did that woman know about my life, what did she know about the lives of Black people? I was getting annoyed at Luarmina’s presumption. Maybe that was why I shouted:

  —I never did, lady. I never went back there.

  The mulata decided to sit down, bowed her head in her hands, sighed, and said:

  —That woman your father took around in his boat, that woman didn’t die.

  —What do you mean didn’t die?

  —She was carried away, clinging to a piece of wood …

  —How do you know?

  —Because I’m that woman.

  I lay there, gaping, my mind in turmoil. Was Luarmina joking, did she think I no longer had any sense at all? But she continued with a serenity that left me bewildered:

  —Yes, I’m that woman. And you comforted me with all your conversation, every time you visited me …

  —It’s not true …

  —You fulfilled your pledge, Zeca. I’m
telling you. You have no reason to feel ill.

  I was stunned. Could it be true, a story ending happily with such ease? I looked at Luarmina’s face as if she had been there forever, as if this were merely another night in an entire life. Every time the fat mulata plucked the petals from a flower in that game of “sea loves me, sea loves me not,” was it after all just my love making her do so?

  —But now, Luarmina, I have one illness left.

  —What illness?

  —You. You, Luarmina, are my illness.

  —I promise you, Zeca, I’ll come back later and cure your illness once and for all.

  —But Luarmina, promise me you really are the woman from the boat!

  She kept quiet. Her head bowed, she murmured:

  —I’ll leave the door open. Like that, you can listen to the sea …

  Listening to the sea, I fell asleep. But it wasn’t all of me that slept. Just as my father had died bit by bit, I now fell asleep a bit of me at a time. First, it was my memory that fell into the abyss and was lost to existence. As if at last the sea were teaching my memories to sleep. As if my life were accepting the supreme invitation and leaving me for its eternal dance with the sea.

  ‌Notes

  The Fire

  1 A dress worn by women, akin to a sarong.

  2 Small plot of land for cultivation.

  How Ascolino do Perpétuo Socorro Lost His Spouse

  1 Popular dishes in Goan cuisine.

  2 A derogatory term for a Goan in colonial times.

  So You Haven’t Flown Yet, Carlota Gentina?

  1 A variety of local corn.

  The Whales of Quissico

  1 Term for cheap wine imported from Portugal in colonial times, and which was often watered down.

  The Barber’s Most Famous Customer

  1 A popular musical rhythm.

  2 A poor white.

  3 A Mozambican dance.

  4 Portuguese secret police during the colonial era.

  5 Eduardo Mondlane, leader of the Mozambican Liberation Front (FRELIMO) guerrillas from 1962 to 1969, was educated in the United States.

  The Bird-Dreaming Baobab

  1 A local word for a mouth organ.

  The Russian Princess

  1 Under the Portuguese colonial system, an assimilado was a Black African fluent in Portuguese and assimilated into European culture.

  The Flagpoles of Beyondwards

  1 Song dating from the war of independence, heralding the approach of guerrilla forces.

  The Widower

  1 A derogatory Mozambican term for a Goan.

  The Indian with the Golden Crotch

  1 A derogatory term in Mozambique for a person of South Asian origin, often used for traders from the subcontinent.

  The Captain’s Lover

  1 Derogatory term for a Portuguese person.

  Rosita

  1 I wrote this story based on witness statements I gathered during the flooding of the Limpopo Valley in March 2000. Rosita is a little girl who really was born in a tree. Her mother had sought refuge there because it was the only high point in that flooded landscape.

  Sea Loves Me

  1 —Leave, go away.

  ‌About the Author

  Born in Beira, Mozambique, Mia Couto directed the Mozambican state news agency during the years following independence from Portugal. Since the late 1980s, he has worked as an environmental biologist and a writer. Couto is the author of more than thirty books, which have been published in thirty-five countries. He has won major literary prizes in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Portugal, Brazil, Italy, and the United States, including the 2013 Camōes Prize and the 2014 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. He was a finalist for the 2015 Man Booker International Prize and the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award.

  Mia Couto lives with his family in Maputo, Mozambique, where he works as an environmental consultant.

  ‌About the Translators

  David Brookshaw’s many translations include Mia Couto’s recent novels Woman of the Ashes and The Sword and the Spear, as well as earlier Couto novels such as The Tuner of Silences, Sleepwalking Land, The Last Flight of the Flamingo and Under the Frangipani. He has translated widely from the literatures of Lusophone Asia and the Azores Islands. Brookshaw is Professor Emeritus of Lusophone Studies at the University of Bristol, England.

  Eric M. B. Becker is the recipient of a PEN Heim Award, a Fulbright Fellowship and a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has translated works by, among others, the Brazilian writers Lygia Fagundes Telles and Fernanda Torres and the Angolan-Portuguese writer Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida. He lives in New York City.