by Ondjaki
“The afternoon doesn’t want to end, 3.14. Everything’s so slow.”
“Get a grip and calm down. The Mausoleum’s quiet, Gudafterov has disappeared, there’s just the man in the watchtower left, and he won’t leave there even to go pee-pee.”
“He’s the one who could see us.”
“Only if they turn on the big surge light. They didn’t turn it on last night. It could be burned out.”
“But do you say ‘surge light’ or ‘searchlight’?”
“You say, ‘That big light that lights up the area we want to get through without getting caught,’ you smart-ass!”
“Calm down. It was just a doubt I had about the Portuguese language.”
“You know, you’ve got a lot of doubts. I’ve been thinkin’— but I’m not going to give the idea to Comrade Dimitry.”
“What idea?”
“To find Gudafterov,”—3.14 started to laugh—“all they’ve got to do is follow the aroma of the b.o.-dorov! Ha ha!”
Time didn’t want to pass. It reminded me of that poem we read in school about the lazy train that didn’t want to keep rolling forward along the railway line because it knew that the line had been diverted and that at the end of the day it wasn’t going to reach a station; it was going to be taken, by the same engineer who had worked on it for years, to a huge garage where it would be dismantled.
“You remember that poem?”
“I don’t remember anything, and I’m guessing you’re makin’ stuff up.”
“I swear I’m not making stuff up. That tale even ended with the engineer abandoning the train on the track and being fired because he didn’t have the courage to take the train to the garage where they dismantled trains that couldn’t run anymore.”
“So was it a poem or a tale?”
“That’s not important. Now you’re the one who has too many doubts. What’s important, and what I don’t remember, is whether or not the train was dismantled.”
“My dad was fired, too.” 3.14’s voice was all sad.
“Seriously?”
“Yes. They fired almost all the workers at the Mausoleum construction site.”
When the sun approached the horizon, the wind that usually arrived with it did not come.
On the veranda, Granma Nineteen smiled as she chatted with Doctor Rafael KnockKnock, and from where we stood we could see Dona Libânia pressed against the wall of the veranda to hear the conversation better.
Sea Foam came running out of his house, passed by the other side of the garbage dump, his legs leaping along the shoreline like he himself were running as though he wished to fly, balancing with his bare feet on the white sea foam of Bishop’s Beach.
“What’s he got hanging from his body?”
“Aren’t those his dreadlocks?”
“That long? They look like ropes.”
The sun sank, yellowed, into the dark blue of the sea and invented a beautiful sunset of a mulatto colour no words could capture. We just stared.
Time had decided it could pass.
And I stood still.
It wasn’t only the fingers or the toes, the legs or the head and eyes, that liked to look one way then the other. It was stillness itself. Within me. The voice that speaks within me had nothing to say, or else it wanted to practise a silence just like that.
Still from not thinking.
To feel the evening? To await a signal from the wind, a whistle like a segregated conversation taking account of the fact that the birds cried in a far-away and I could hear them? Wanting to hear mysterious sentences from Granma Catarina? Contemplating the things of Bishop’s Beach that I thought I alone saw?
Inventing minutes that were mine within the minutes of time?
Growing up with a heart and body that were fleeing from childhood? “Is someone running behind the child?” Granma Nineteen was in the habit of asking. Was time pursuing me with a body to frighten me? I felt the whole world there in the small square of Bishop’s Beach.
Nor did 3.14 say anything.
The two of us were still, imitating the ants when they stop for a tiny second to rest from their work, or the grasshopper stirring its body to get ready for a jump. Or the slug, still, lying on top of its spittle as though it could speak with the moon. Or sleeping fish.
“Don’t fish sleep even a little bit, Pi?”
“You should ask that crazy question of yours to the Old Fisherman. Did you ever see fish standing still with their eyes closed, almost throbbing with sleepiness?”
“I’ve heard it said that fish are really forgetful. It must be good to be like that.”
“Not remembering places and things? Forget it.”
“Aren’t there some things you’d like to forget?”
“I don’t think so. I like my life full of things that I can still tell to someone. If I have seven children, how am I going to have enough good tales to tell?”
“You want to have seven children?”
“I do.”
“Don’t worry about the tales. The tales that make the best stories are the ones we invent.”
“You think so?”
“I think so.”
Not even an eddy of dust to divert the eyes. It seemed like nothing wanted to happen.
“Are we just gonna stand here?”
“Yeah.”
“Doing what?”
“Just sitting. ‘Watching the time go by,’ as the elders say.”
“It’s really dark on Bishop’s Beach. I don’t know if time’s going to want to pass by here.”
3.14 drew an arrow in the sand, pointing in the direction of Granma Nineteen’s house. Then a heart and two well-drawn figurines.
“If Gudafterov is slow off the mark with your granma, I figure the Socialist Republic of Cuba is going to make some forward strides.”
I looked at the veranda. The two of them looked very calm as they conversed, and I really enjoyed seeing Granma Nineteen with that smile that I could only guess at because I was unable to see their faces.
“I don’t like that conversation.”
“But Gudafterov already invited your granma to go with him there to the far-away, right?”
“What do I know? It could just be some tale of my granma’s.”
“But if the muchacho doctor invites her, well excuse me, but Cuba is a lot better.”
“What do you know?”
“I don’t know anything, but Cuba’s got sun, beaches and pretty mulattas, I saw it all on television. Do you want to compare that with snow, frozen water that turns into ice and whitish women with minuscule boobs?”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
I thought I heard something in the yard.
“Did you hear something?”
“Nothing. What?”
“Hold it.”
Something, yes, close to the wall that divided Senhor Tuarles’s house from Granma Nineteen’s house.
“The parrots?”
“What kind of parrot’s that? It’s Charlita.”
We ran forward, then went in stealthily along the side of the veranda so that Granma wouldn’t call us. The yard was dark. The parrot His Name shouted out to expose us: “Down with American imperialism.” We made an effort not to laugh: the words came from a television commercial that hadn’t run in a long time. Just Parrot finished off: “Hey, Reagan, hands off Angola.”
We passed beneath the fig tree. Where the wall was lowest, we met up with Charlita.
“How come you guys don’t pay any attention? I’ve been here, like, forever, and those parrots did everything but call out my name.”
“You’re ahead of schedule, Comrade.”
“My dad fell asleep in the living room watching the news in African languages. It’s now or never. Here’s the stuff.”
“
Wonderful Comrade Charlita!”
She passed over a nearly full bottle of whisky with a really piercing aroma that looked good for the mission.
“You figure it’ll do?”
“It should,” 3.14 said, sniffing it and closing it again. “I’m going to recommend to Comrade Gudafterov that you be decorated.”
“I’m going to be what?” In addition to her poor sight, I’m not sure if Charlita heard very well.
“Decorated. You may receive a medal to show the gratitude of the community of Bishop’s Beach.” He laughed.
“But is it gratitude, or is it a gratuity?”
“Stop that, we’ve got to get out of here.”
Charlita’s voice trembled. “Good luck,” she said, almost as though we were heading for the war zone at any moment.
“Thank you, Comrade. Long live the revolution!”
“Tupariov,” she joked.
Charlita disappeared and then tripped on something that couldn’t be anything important because the old chicken coop was completely empty.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Just go.”
We ran away, passing close to the water tank. The parrots continued to be restless. I dipped my hand in a pool of leftover dirty, soapy water.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s to make the parrots calm down.”
I sprinkled their cage twice with the water. It was what Madalena did; they put their troubles behind them with drops of that leftover blue-soap water. They licked their bodies and remained still, saying nothing.
“Those parrots have a screw loose.” 3.14 didn’t know about this method of silencing parrots.
“Let’s just get going.”
“And your granma on the veranda?”
“Before we get to the veranda, we’ll jump over into Senhor Tuarles’s yard. We’ll go out the other side.”
“What if she calls you?”
“Too bad. We’ve got the bottle now, we have to get going.”
“What about dinner? My dad’s gonna give me a thrashing.”
“Too bad,” I laughed. “That’s your problem. Charlita moved the mission forward, now there’s no dinner for anybody. Draw courage from your hunger.”
“Okay. We’ll move ahead. Liquid ready?”
“Affirmative.”
“Matches?”
“I don’t know. Do you have them?”
“I have them. Dynamite in position?”
“Affirmative.”
“Forward, Comrade.”
We leapt, deliberately so as not to make noise, and in the right places. In spite of the darkness, we knew all the pitfalls of the houses on Bishop’s Beach, and with the two of us together it was practically impossible to put a foot wrong. “Careful with those bricks next to Senhor Tuarles’s abandoned car,” I warned, and we circumvented them. “Lift the gate or it’s going to make noise.” We got out without anyone seeing us.
“Should we crawl until we get to the entrance to the alley, going past your granma’s sidewalk, or are we going to be intercepted?”
“It’s better not to. The problem is that Dona Libânia has secret techniques for seeing and hearing, and at this time of night she could tell on us for skipping dinner or something.”
“Affirmative. We’ll circle around.”
The circle was enormous and we had to try to hide the bottle because this in itself was suspicious; anyone who saw us running flat-out through the darkness with that whisky bottle would tell on us.
“Where are you going?”
We stopped short in fear, almost ceasing to breathe.
“Foam! Do you always have to show up like a ghost from the other world?” 3.14 even forgot that he was crazy.
“La vida es como es. Where are you going?”
“We’re just gonna deliver something.”
“Something? A secret?”
“Foam, keep your voice down. We’ll tell you later.”
“Later, later...When later? In ten years? Twenty-five years? Time is always passing...Are you going to the Mausoleum?” How could he know this? “Lots of people want to go to the Mausoleum at this time of night...Yo lo sé because...The birds... The colourful flock...You guys are mixed up in that, eh?” He spoke in a louder voice.
“Shhh, Foam. Just go your own way.”
“My way is the way of us all.”
“Keep your voice down. We’re on a mission here.”
“And I am on a misión here, too.” And he didn’t ask anything more.
We waited a moment. Concealing the bottle, 3.14 looked at me.
“We will do the following, compañeros...You go on that side and I’ll go past Dona Liberia’s place,”—he sometimes called Dona Libânia this—“and we’ll see who gets there first.”
I was about to say something, but Pi didn’t let me.
“Agreed. Now let’s go.”
Foam ran off happily. He disappeared into the darkness, bidding us goodbye and tripped away with his long dreadlocks.
“Isn’t it dangerous for him?”
“No. They’ll stop him at the entrance. Or even on the beach—there must be watchmen there.”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t know either, and I don’t want to know. Everybody has to deal with his own problems.”
We ran with caution through the darkness. Aside from potholes in the sidewalks, open sewers and damaged transformer boxes near which it was dangerous to pee, Bishop’s Beach had many trees with spreading roots in places where a person wouldn’t expect them.
We passed Paulinho’s house and the big house of Carmen Fernández’s father, and cut through the alley of André the commando’s house.
“Whoa, kids, you runnin’ around at this time of night? What happens if the cops pick you up?”
“André, how’s it goin’?” I stepped forward so that Pi could hide the bottle.
“Great, and you guys?”
“Yeah, the usual.”
“And the parrot His Name, he still alive?”
“He’s really good and he eats a ton.”
“Those parrots that were in the war are always starving. Where are you guys goin’?”
“Just out for a walk.”
“A walk in the dark?”
“We’re fed up with walkin’ in the afternoon with the sun on our heads. Now we’re tryin’ out takin’ a spin in the dark, like a reconnaissance mission, you get it?”
“I get it.” He pretended to believe us. “And you’re goin’ along this side of the construction site? Won’t the Soviets give you a hard time?”
“Today all the Soviets are drunk. They got told off for it.”
“Go ahead then. If you have any problems just say you’re André the commando’s cousin.”
“That’s cool.”
We started running again, and our heartbeats accelerated when we found ourselves already on the other side, close to the wire mesh fence, in near-total darkness, with only a filament from the waning moon to give us limited visibility.
The light was off in the more distant watchtower. We could only see the one that was closer badly, with the watchman seated there, unmoving.
“It’s really silent and the lights are off in the towers.”
“Their generator’s broken, or else they forgot to fuel it.”
“Let’s go.”
“But what’s the plan?”
“Again?”
“Whaddya mean, again? Are you thick? We’ve got to damp down the whole path between the sticks of dynamite, that I know. But there’s only one bottle. How are we going to do it?”
“Ah, you’re right. We’ll have to activate our back-up plan,” 3.14 said.
“Jargon, again. Speak in clear Portuguese.”
�
�I’m going to douse the whole left side while you cover me by watching to see if anyone comes. If someone appears, Angolan, Soviet or even Cuban, we only came here to play. You whistle to warn me, I hide the bottle and we split.”
“Okay. Now, go.”
“Wait a sec. I just thought of something.” 3.14 was checking the materials, setting down the bottle and the matches.
“What is it now?”
“It’s better if you go first. The left side is really dark. You see better in the dark.”
“You come up with the craziest stuff.”
“Just go. I’ll wait for you here.”
I set off at a run like a hunched-over commando.
I found the first cardinal point, but something was odd. The ground was almost invisible, but the thread of the fuse and the dynamite were there. There was a kind of white sand in the hole and in the small groove that connected it to the next stick of dynamite. I sniffed.
I couldn’t waste time. I doused the hole and started to spill whisky along the tiny groove in the earth. I looked behind me and saw that the damp stain dried up quickly. I wasn’t certain that the whisky would even link up the cardinal points with a well-lighted fire.
At the second cardinal point the dynamite wasn’t even visible. I dug down a little and felt the coolness on my hands. I tested with my finger and it was what I had thought: someone had poured coarse salt in our dynamite holes.
I didn’t have time to think. I soaked the second point and half of the groove that connected to the third hole. I saw a very thin thread of salt that led out of there and into the interior of the Mausoleum by way of a door that we had never seen.
The guard in the tower coughed and got up to stretch his arms. I quickly entered the tiny door to hide because it was possible that he, too, saw well in the darkness, or that he had those glasses from the movies that see in the night in a greenish colour.
Inside it was dark and damp. I closed my eyes hard to get myself used to the darkness, and I saw as far as my eyes could see: the interior of the Mausoleum seemed to be a really dark, web-like pattern made out of that coarse salt. I don’t know how they had done it; maybe it was a Soviet construction technique. The salt was stuck together and climbed the walls like the threads of sand left by a termite when it climbed a tree. The patterns crossed each other and climbed farther than I could see. In some places there was much more salt that also crossed some cardboard boxes that looked like hastily wrapped presents. I felt afraid and I left: it looked like the web of a giant trap.