Good Morning Comrades

by Ondjaki

  “Yeah, he was just a kid. . . .”

  “And very brave.”

  “That’s for sure. If it had been somebody from my class in this story by the second punch they would have told them the licence number of the president’s car. Fortunately, I don’t think the president’s car has a licence plate. . . .”

  We might have talked much longer, but Bruno Viola was downstairs. He told my sister that he had incredible news. I realized that, finally, after almost a week, we’d got a report from somebody who’d seen something.

  This meant I had no choice: I had to go back out onto the balcony, among the bat-mosquitoes, because Bruno was sure to shoot his mouth off while telling the story, or else he’d have to shout while describing some scene, which would make it annoying to be there in the living room in front of the elders. I mean, this is what I was thinking. I went to open the front door for him.

  “What’s happenin’? You got news about Empty Crate, or what?”

  “Warts and all. I’ve got the official version. I mean the complete version!” he said.

  “I know what the official version is, Bruno. I hear it on the news every day.”

  “Hey, let’s go sit down, buddy. You’re gonna be stunned. . . .”

  “Oh Bruno, lay off with all the suspense. Just spit it out!” I wanted to hear it now!

  “Like this,” he said, running his hand over his neck.

  “Like what? You got a tickle in your throat?”

  “I’m dry. You expect a guy to tell a story. . . .”

  “Fuck, Bruno. You want a soft drink just for telling me the story?”

  “Yo, you know how it is. The story goes down better. . . .” He swallowed his spittle slowly, to show off his thirst, the bastard.

  “Okay, wait here. I’ll see what I can get.”

  Of course what I was going to get was my supper-time soft drink, which would no longer be part of my supper. I put ice in the glasses and told my mother that we were going to sit out on the balcony and talk.

  “I don’t need a glass. I’ll drink it out of the can,” Bruno said.

  “No! You’d drink it from the can if you were drinking it all yourself, but since we’re going to share it we need glasses.”

  “Okay, pour it.”

  “Go on, start talking. . . .”

  “Hey, you missed everything!”

  “Yeah, I know I missed everything. And all my buddies missed everything, too, because we were the first to run.”

  “But you don’t know what you missed, you wet-behind-the-ears.”

  “Your uncle’s wet behind the ears. . . . Now tell me or I’m going to take your drink away,” I threatened.

  “You’re not gonna believe me, but Empty Crate never came to the school.”

  “Empty Crate wasn’t at the school? You kidding me, or what?”

  So he had only come here to get my soft drink.

  “It gets worse. There wasn’t any crate or any truck or any shots or any raped women teachers or anything like that!”

  “Oh, but . . . There were people who saw . . .”

  “Saw, saw! . . . Saw what?”

  “Hey, I don’t know. . . . They were sure talking a lot. I figure they saw the truck arriving.”

  “No way! They didn’t see a truck. They saw the dust, which came from a car. But it wasn’t any Empty Crate truck.”

  I was stunned, as Bruno had said. So what had all that shouting been about, who had seen the truck coming, why had the entire school started to yell and run, and, above all, how had they struck such fear into the comrade English teacher as to make her run in that supersonic style?

  “Hey, I was told this by a guy in Room 3 who couldn’t run because he got stuck at his desk, so he saw everything . . .”

  “What did he see?”

  “It was like this: the whole school started to run because everybody was shouting, so everybody thought that somebody had actually seen Empty Crate arriving, and nobody waited around to see if it was really true.”

  “Yes . . .”

  “Right, so then everybody started to run and jump over the walls. Well, this guy was on the floor and putting his head up to take a look. I don’t know how his head didn’t get trampled. Of course he’s got this ridge on the nape of his neck that makes people respect the size of his head. . . .”

  “Yes, Bruno. Get back to the main event, you’re starting to exaggerate. . . .”

  “Me? Exaggerate? Fuck, don’t you even trust me? Then listen to this: when a lot of people had already split, the school was quiet, very quiet, with just one person crying in our room. . . .”

  “It must have been Luaia,” I interrupted.

  “Sure, it must have been her. . . . Because this dude also saw the comrade chemistry teacher go to the teachers’ offices and say that he was going to resist, that we were a bunch of cowards, that you had to fight back, and I don’t know what else. . . .”

  “Yes, go on.” I scratched my legs. The mosquitoes were eating me alive.

  “And he thought it was all over when he heard a car arrive . . .”

  “Whoah! And it was Empty Crate?”

  “No . . . You’re not gonna believe . . .”

  “Who was it? Tell me, Bruno!”

  “It was the comrade inspector!!!”

  We let rip with a howl that frightened even the mosquitoes. The poor comrade principal – what an embarrassment! So much preparation for the surprise visit, the school as neat as a pin, everybody in position, as they like to say, and when the comrade inspector arrived, the whole school ran away. I threw myself on the floor so I could laugh harder.

  “But wait, that’s not all,” Bruno said.

  “Go ahead. . . .”

  “When the comrade inspector asked if there was anybody there, or clapped his hands or whatever, the chemistry teacher came out with a crowbar in his hands and said, ‘Death to the bandidos! Bring on those bastards. Víctoria o muerte!’ and I don’t know what else, but fortunately he tripped and fell before he was able to crack the comrade inspector’s head . . .”

  “Ahahahahahahaha.” I couldn’t stop laughing because, aside from the humour of the situation, I could see the whole scene in my head.

  “Calm down, I haven’t finished,” Bruno said.

  “Fuck, Bruno, you deserved a whole soft drink just to yourself.”

  “Hey, if you want to look for one . . .”

  “I can’t. There aren’t any left.”

  “Then let me finish: before the chemistry teacher could get up, the comrade inspector ran for his car and took off. . . . Meanwhile, the comrade principal, who had seen his car from up in her office, came running downstairs, and she went running after the comrade inspector’s car, which never stopped, of course, because he was afraid of getting that crowbar in the head. . . .”

  “Hold it, Bruno: sorry, but your friend who was there on the floor, stuck under his desk – he saw all that?”

  “Hey, I’m telling you, he had a good angle of vision . . .”

  “And what else did he see?”

  “Hey, I figure all he saw was the comrade principal bawling out the Cuban teacher, and asking why the students had run away, and what all the shouting was about.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said . . .” Bruno started to laugh. “. . . He asked the comrade principal how it was possible that she was acquainted with this Empty Crate when everybody else was afraid of him. . . .”

  “Ahahahahahahaha.” I laughed like crazy.

  “Which means that the poor beggar hadn’t understood anything about anything. You see, he still thought that the comrade principal was a buddy of the comrade inspector, who had been promoted to Comrade Empty Crate. . . . Ahahahahahahaha.”

  Bruno Viola laughed so hard that he almost fell off his chair.

  “But Bruno, then what about the story that Eunice told me the day before?”

  “What story?”

  “Well, wasn’t she crying at the front door and s
aying that Empty Crate had surrounded Ngola Kanini School?”

  “Ha! She sure fooled you guys. . . .”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She was with her sweetie, they had a fight or something, and to stop my mother from asking questions, she told this story about Empty Crate.”

  “Ah, now I understand.”

  Whether or not all of that was true, it was more or less the real version of events because Cláudio also phoned me that night, and he’d heard a very similar version, except that it included Luaia being dragged out of the classroom by the comrade chemistry teacher, who hauled Luaia by the neck to Comrade Teacher Sara’s room, which, in fact, was more or less what Luaia had told us. It was Cláudio, too, who explained Murtala’s bad mood to me: the truth is that, in the midst of the rush, Murtala fell once, but managed to stand up before being knocked down by the others, except that when he was about to jump over the wall, he fell very badly again, and this time he seriously injured his ankle. Even in the middle of that rush, tons of people saw him fall, and they all started shouting, “Baaad, baaad, baaad!” In other words, they were making fun of him, and even though nobody stopped to stick chewing gum on his face or take advantage of his vulnerable position, by the time he started limping away again he knew very well that each of those bad’s had been for him, which made his bad mood understandable, and on top of that helped to explain why he didn’t even accept my water in case I also took advantage of him by subjecting him to some sort of delayed ridicule.

  Exaggerated or not, things like this were possible in Luanda, even a whole school taking off in a rush, some of them almost being run over by cars, others being knocked over by people in the school yard, others fainting, and still others, or more precisely, one other, running lynx-style without touching the wall or leaving a mark in the dust. On top of that, all this happened on the same afternoon that a certain comrade inspector had decided – the loser – to make a visit; but who ordered his car to go so fast and churn up so much dust that everyone would think it was Empty Crate?

  Wow! Here in Luanda there’s no doubting good stories. Lots of things can happen and there are a lot of other things which, if they can’t happen, can find another way to take place.

  Fuck, here in Angola there’s no doubt that something’s going to happen. . . .

  It all depends on los hombres, on their hearts, on the firmness with which they struggle for their ideals, the simplicity with which they act, the respect they feel for their compañeros. . . .

  As it happens, that morning I didn’t wake up feeling great, even though it was the day to take Aunt Dada to the airport. I don’t like this business of goodbyes at all.

  We had breakfast early because it was necessary to “do the cheque-king,” as my uncle used to say. I warned Aunt Dada right away to eat well because sometimes the wait to board the plane took longer than the trip to Portugal.

  “You must be mistaken, dear, because the trip takes eight hours,” she smiled.

  “I’m not mistaken, Aunt. Just don’t say later that I didn’t warn you, okay?”

  I knew what I was talking about. We carried in the luggage and the “cheque-king” alone took three hours: examination of the bags here, quarrel over the weight allowance there, questions somewhere else, passport control on the other side – all the usual stuff. The flight was scheduled to leave at noon, but I remember that it was ten o’clock at night when she boarded the plane, and the flight took off at eleven. A few days later I talked to her on the phone.

  “You don’t joke with Angolan Airlines, do you?” And she laughed.

  That same afternoon Romina fulfilled the promise she had made concerning the famous snack. It was a marvel, brimming with delicious desserts and complicated names, from the abundance of soft drinks, the chocolate mousse, the banana cake, to large quantities of toasted almond paste, even though I only managed to attack three saucers. Murtala didn’t come, I don’t know whether out of shame at having vomited the last time, or out of shame at his fall, for which we still hadn’t teased him as he deserved. But Comrade Teachers Ángel and María were there, and Cláudio, Petra, Luaia, Kalí, Bruno and I. The mood was good, although I have to say that the whiff of goodbyes lingered in the air. . . .

  They put on a video, and Ró’s mother, who is very considerate, brought two saucers of strawberry compote, one for each of the comrade teachers. You should have seen those faces: they stared at the sweets and they laughed, they ate a spoonful, they sucked the sweet in their mouths, they paused, they looked at each other, man and wife, smiling because of some strawberry jam. I thought it was a beautiful scene, but I couldn’t say this to anyone, or else they’d make fun of me.

  The film was about war. From this starting point Comrade Teacher Ángel began to talk about the Americans: they always won in the movies, but in real life they had to eat lots of shit, too. We started to say that in American films, the lead actor was always the best: his machine gun never ran out of ammunition; it wasn’t like an AK-47 that only had thirty rounds. One time Cláudio and I counted. The dude in the film fired for two and a half minutes without a break and he still had a bullet left over to shoot down a grenade that was going to blow up the bridge. Yeah, that dude was an ace.

  When the film ended, it happened: I’d scented that goodbye smell; why is it that goodbyes have a smell? You know, don’t you? As soon as the film ended, Comrade Teacher Ángel almost succeeded in refusing the saucers of jam that Ró’s mother offered him because he said he wanted to say a few things, but finally he decided to eat the fruit first and talk afterwards. In fact, he didn’t want to say a few things, he wanted to say a number of them.

  “Bueno,” he said, “it’s not easy to say what I have to say now. Above all, I don’t want to ruin the good mood in this room now. But you are, up to a point, not just our students – my students and the students of Camarada Teacher María – but you’re also our grandes amigos. And that’s why Camarada Teacher María and I decided we were gonna give you the news today, more privately here, and not mañana when the whole school’s gonna find out.”

  (Romina looked at me. At that moment she, too, sensed the smell.)

  “You are young, but you must already know that lots of things have changed in your country recently. . . . The attempts to get a peace agreement, the so-called international pressure. All this doesn’t just happen on TV, it’s gonna happen for real in your country, in your lives, in your friendships. . . . Your country’s changing direction and, as always, this has consequences. La revolución, as Che Guevara said, has many phases, some are easy and others are very difficult. Well . . .” He coughed. “Well, what I have to tell you is that in a very little time, I, Camarada Teacher María, the camarada chemistry teacher and many other Cubans who are here, are going back to Cuba.”

  (Everyone was shocked. Some people even stopped chewing.)

  “This way, to make it less difficult, we decided to tell you this today. Also because here we are in a private situation where we can talk about your doubts, about why all this is happening. Above all, we wanted to tell you – you who are just Angolan children, you who are children in a school, and you who are our amigos – that the struggle, la revolución, never ends. Education is a battle. Your choice of training, if you decide to be teachers, mechanics, doctors, workers, peasants. . . . that choice is also a battle, a decision that changes the direction of your country. You, in fact, are a group with influence like others in your class. You’re intelligent children, with a good education, your spirit is revolucionario. We’ve seen you work for the collective good, giving an explanation in class to a compañero, helping a teacher check homework. . . .”

  (We were horrified. . . . Our spirit was revolucionario? I didn’t even like to wake up early, and we all cheated on almost all our exams. . . . )

  “The good that you do to another person, the good that you do for your country, for society, it is in your hearts, it comes from there.” (Petra started to cry.) “In addition to feeling tha
t we’ve completed our mission in Angola, in addition to feeling privileged to be able to help our Angolan brothers, we’re returning to our patria happy to know that Angola has young people who, in their majority, are so dedicated to la causa revolucionaria because la causa revolucionaria, before anything else, is progress. Angola’s taking the first steps in another direction, but it could be the right direction. It all depends on los hombres, on their hearts, on the firmness with which they struggle for their ideals, the simplicity with which they act, the respect they feel for their compañeros. . . . Angola is already a great nation, and it is gonna grow more! Remember Che Guevara: even when he was a man of international reknown, he continued to volunteer in the factory.” He paused. “Simplicity is a value to hold onto. The hombre of tomorrow, the hombre of progress does not tremble before the attacks of imperialismo. He does not back down before the will of those who think the world belongs to them, he does not dirty himself in the mud of corruption – all in all, the hombre of progress does not fail!”

  (Even Ró’s mother looked impressed. Cláudio yawned.)

  “Bueno, to conclude, I wanna wish you happiness and tell you from the heart – my heart as much as that of Teacher María – that you were a marvellous class. . . . and that children really are the flower of humanity. Never forget that . . .”

  And, well, it turned out that Comrade Teacher Ángel also had a tear to wipe away from the corner of his eye. We applauded; Comrade Teacher María and Petra cried openly, I don’t know about Ró – I couldn’t see her face – and I’d become a little emotional myself but I couldn’t show it because Cláudio was watching. Ró’s mother said it was best to wash down those words with a toast, and brought a bottle of champagne.

  Then something occurred that happens to me once in a while. I started to see everything in slow motion, as if it were a black-and-white film: the glasses clinking, the smiles on everyone’s mouths, Petra’s reddened eyes, and, finally, the toast!

  Sentences mingled in my head: a toast to all the departing Cubans, a toast to mark the end of our contact with the Cuban comrades, a toast to the end of the fraternal collaboration between the Cuban people and our people, a toast as well to the end of the school year, a toast, also now, to Bruno, who was leaving, a toast to the fact that we didn’t know who would still be in our class next year, a toast because we don’t know if anyone is going to write to those Cuban teachers, a toast in order that when they return to Cuba, as a result of their time in Angola, they may have better living conditions: maybe more meat every week, maybe a car, maybe a little more money, maybe. . . . And now a toast to the heartfelt words of Comrade Teacher Ángel, a toast to Comrade Teacher María’s tears, a toast to the pride she felt as she saw her husband speak, a toast to the boys in this class who also felt like crying, a toast to Cuba, please, a toast to Cuba, a toast to the Cuban soldiers who fell on Angolan soil, a toast to the good will, the sacrifice, the simplicity of these people, a toast to Comrade Che Guevara, a significant man and an insignificant worker, a toast to the comrade Cuban doctors, a toast to us as well, the children, the “flowers of humanity,” as Comrade Teacher Ángel called us, a toast to the future of Angola and its new direction, a toast to the man of tomorrow, and, of course – how could we forget this, Cláudio? – a toast to Progress!