The Book of Chameleons

by Jose Eduardo Agualusa

  I’d positioned myself directly above them at this point, hanging upside-down from the ceiling, in order that I might watch every detail. Félix lit the lamp to study the photographs. The picture of the old Boer (in black and white – as were all the photos, in fact) was excellent. He was sitting in a big, serious, dark wood chair. A delicate light slanted down on to the right half of his face, illuminating the silence inside him. In the bottom right-hand corner you could just make out – almost hidden in the shadows – the nervous silhouette of one of those minute little dogs that bourgeois women keep for company, and which I’ve always found extremely irritating, looking more like trained rats than dogs.

  ‘Do you like that photograph? Me too.’ José Buchmann smiled.‘The best photographs aren’t the ones that manage to sum up a character, they’re the ones that manage to sum up an age. In fact this old man received me with a certain amount of distrust, he didn’t waste too many words on me, but to make up for it he did give me an ending to my pilgrimage. Want to see it?’

  d) A cutting from the Johannesburg newspaper, O Século.

  ‘You ready? I think this is what you might call an anticlimax. You tell me. Read it!’

  Félix did as he was told:

  ‘Eva Miller has died – This evening the North American painter Eva Miller died at her home in Sea Point, Cape Town. Having lived in southern Angola, and speaking our language perfectly, Mrs Miller had come to be well respected among South Africa’s Portuguese community. In recent years she had divided her time between Cape Town and New York. The cause of her death remains unknown.’

  Irrelevant Lives

  Memory is a landscape watched from the window of a moving train. We watch the dawn light break over the acacia trees, the birds pecking at the morning, as though at a fruit. Further off we see the serenity of a river, and the trees embracing its banks. We see the cattle slowly grazing, a couple running, holding hands, children dancing around a football, the ball shining in the sun (another sun). We see the calm lakes where there are ducks swimming, rivers heavy with water where elephants quench their thirst. These things happen right before our very eyes, we know them to be real, but they’re so far away we can’t touch them. Some are so far, so very far away, and the train moving so fast, that we can’t be sure any longer that they really did happen. Maybe we merely dreamed them? My memory is already failing me, we say, and maybe it was just the darkening of the sky. That’s how I feel when I think of my old incarnation. I remember loose, incoherent facts, fragments of a vast dream. A woman at a party, at the very end of the party, in that vague intoxication of smoke and alcohol and pure metaphysical tiredness, grabbing my arm and whispering in my ear:

  ‘You know, my life would make a good novel; not just any novel, a great novel…’

  I think this happened more than once. I’m sure that most of those people have never read a great novel. I know now – I think I probably already knew then – that all lives are exceptional. Fernando Pessoa transformed the prosaic life story of a simple office worker into a Book of Disquiet that might possibly be the most interesting work in all of Portuguese literature. When a few days ago I heard ngela Lúcia confess the pointlessness of her life, I suddenly wanted to get to know her better. If a woman had one night taken me by the arm to tell me such a thing – you know, there’s nothing remarkable about my life, nothing at all, I’m barely here at all – perhaps I would have fallen in love with her. Despite what some of my enemies may have suggested (supported secretly by many of my friends) I’ve always been interested in women. I liked women. I used to go out with one or other of my close female friends on long walks. When we said goodbye and hugged, the scent of their hair, the feeling of their firm breasts, they all excited me. But if one of them took the initiative and tried to kiss me, or suggested something even more daring than a kiss, I would remember Dagmar (Aurora, Alba, Lúcia) and I’d panic. I lived a prisoner to that terror for many long years.

  Edmundo Barata dos Reis

  When José Buchmann appeared tonight he was accompanied by an old man with a long white beard and wild braids, grey and dishevelled, cascading over his shoulders. I recognised him at once as the old tramp the photographer had been pursuing, for weeks on end, showing him – in that extraordinary image – emerging from a sewer. An ancient, vengeful God, wild-haired, with suddenly lit-up eyes.

  ‘I’d like to introduce you to my friend Edmundo Barata dos Reis, an exagent of the Ministry of State Security.’

  ‘Not ex-agent, say rather ‘ex-gent’! Ex-exemplary citizen. Exponent of the excluded, existential excrement, an exiguous and explosive excrescence. In a word, a professional layabout. Very pleased to meet you.’

  Félix Ventura offered his fingertips to the old man. He was perplexed, annoyed. Edmundo Barata dos Reis took his hand firmly in his own hands, and held it, looking at him sidelong, like a bird, attentive, mocking, enjoying the other man’s discomfort. José Buchmann, wearing a lovely honey-coloured corduroy jacket, arms folded across his chest, seemed to be enjoying himself too. His little round eyes glowed in the dark of the room like shards of glass.

  ‘I thought you’d enjoy meeting him. This man’s life story could almost have been made up by you…’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I’m-All-Ears. That’s what they used to call me. It was my fighting name. I liked it. I liked hearing it. And then – in a flash! – the Berlin wall collapsed on top of us. Pópilas, old man! Agent one day, ex-gent – experson – the next.’

  Félix Ventura twitched:

  ‘Did you study with Professor Gaspar?’

  Edmundo Barata dos Reis smiled, surprised:

  ‘Yes, oh yes! You too, comrade?’

  With genuine joy the two men embraced. They exchanged recollections. Barata dos Reis, a good couple of years older than Félix Ventura, had been to Professor Gaspar’s classes at a time when you could count the number of black students at the Liceu Salvador Correia on the fingers of one hand. Leaving school he got a job with the meteorological service. Arrested in the early sixties, accused of trying to establish a bomb-making network in Luanda, he spent seven years in the Tarrafal concentration camp in Cape Verde. ‘No better than a chicken coop,’ he said, ‘but the beach was lovely…’ Within a few weeks of independence he was already known to friends and enemies alike (and he’d always had more of the latter than the former) as Mr I’m-All-Ears. Two years in Havana, nine months in Berlin (East Berlin), another six in Moscow; his steel tempered, he returned to the solid trenches of socialism in Africa.

  ‘A communist! Would you believe it? I’m the very last communist south of the equator…’

  That insistence would be what did it for him. Within a few months he would be changed into an ideological nuisance. An awkward sort of fellow. He wasn’t ashamed of shouting ‘I’m a communist!’ at a time when his bosses would only murmur, in hushed tones, ‘I used to be a communist…’ and he’d keep yelling out – ‘Yes, I’m a communist, I’m really very Marxist-Leninist!’ even at a time when the official version had begun to deny the country’s socialist past…

  ‘I’ve seen some things, old man…’

  José Buchmann sat down, legs crossed, in the big wicker chair that Félix Ventura’s great-grandfather had brought from Brazil. He put his right hand deep into his inside jacket pocket, took out a silver cigarette case, opened it, slowly separated some tobacco and rolled a cigarette. A wicked smile lit up his face:

  ‘Now tell him what you told me, Edmundo, the story about the President…’

  Edmundo Barata dos Reis looked at him seriously – angrily – violently tugging at the strands of his beard. For a moment I thought he was about to get up – I was afraid he might leave. José Buchmann shrugged:

  ‘You can say it, damn it! There’s nothing to worry about. Félix here is a solid chap. He’s one of us. And anyway, weren’t you both students of this famous Professor Gaspar? That’s got to mean something. Félix tells me it’s like belonging to the same tribe or s
omething.’

  ‘The President has been replaced with a double.’ Edmundo Barata dos Reis said this in a burst, then fell silent. His eyes flitted anxiously around the room. He had begun to look like a sparrow searching for an open window, for a bit of light, a bit of sky he could escape to. He lowered his voice: ‘The old man has been replaced. They’ve put a double in his place, a scarecrow – I’m not sure how to put it – a fucking replica.’

  ‘Shit!’ Félix burst out laughing. I’d never heard him swear before. I’d never heard him laugh like this either, with such violence. José Buchmann was surprised. Then he joined in, the two of them laughing. The three of us, laughing. One laugh drawing on another. At last Félix settled.

  ‘So, we have a fantasy president now?’ he said, wiping away his tears with a handkerchief. ‘Yes, I’d suspected as much. We have a fantasy government. A fantasy justice system. We have – in other words – a fantasy country. But do tell me, who has replaced the President?’

  Edmundo Barata dos Reis shrunk back in his chair. He didn’t remind me of a God any more, he didn’t remind me of a warrior – he was a dog, humiliated. He stank. He stank of urine, of rotting fruit and leaves. He straightened himself up, and instead of replying to Félix’s question he addressed himself to José Buchmann, pointing at him… ‘That laugh – when I hear that laugh, old man, it’s as though I’m face to face with someone else, from long ago. From another time, an old time. Don’t we know each other?’

  ‘I don’t believe so.’ The photographer tensed.‘I’m from Chibia. Are you from Chibia?’

  ‘What are you talking about, old man? I’m pure Luandan!’

  ‘Then obviously not.’

  ‘It’s true,’ said Félix, ‘Buchmann is from the provinces, from the deep south. He’s a bush-man…’

  ‘A bushman? The bush here is more like a garden. And your gardens here in Luanda, such as they are – well, they’re really more like bushland.’

  ‘Take it easy. Down with tribalism. Down with regionalism. Up with people-power. Isn’t that what they used to say? All I wanted was for comrade Edmundo here to answer my question. So who was it that replaced the President with a double?’

  Edmundo Barata dos Reis sighed, deeply:

  ‘The Russians, I think. Maybe the Israelis. The arms mafia, Mossad – I don’t know – maybe both.’

  ‘Could be – it would make sense. And how did you discover this coup?’

  ‘I know the double – I hired him! I hired others too. The old man never appeared in public himself – the doubles would always appear in his place. This one – Number Three – was always the best. He was the only one who could speak without arousing suspicions – the others kept quiet, we only used them for ceremonial functions when we just needed a body in the room. But Three was a special case, an extraordinary talent, a real actor. I watched him being trained – it took five months. He learned fast – how to move, how to approach people, the tone of voice, the protocol, the old man’s life story – the whole deal. By the end he was perfect. Or nearly perfect – this guy had one problem – or I should say, has one problem – he’s left-handed. It’s like looking at the President in a mirror. That’s how I noticed. Haven’t you spotted that the President has become left-handed all of a sudden? No, no, you haven’t noticed. No one has.’

  ‘When did you find out?’

  ‘A year ago, a little over a year ago.’

  ‘Were you still working for the security services then?’

  ‘What, me?! No, old man, I’ve been living the life of a tramp for more than seven years now. See this shirt I’m wearing? It’s become like a skin to me. It’s a shirt from the Communist Party of the U.S.S.R. I put it on the day they fired me, and I’ve never taken it off since. I swore I wouldn’t take it off until Russia went back to being communist. And now I wouldn’t be able to take it off even if I wanted to. Like a skin to me – you see? I’ve got a hammer and sickle tattooed on my chest now. That won’t come off.’

  It really wouldn’t come off. Félix Ventura looked at him, dazed. José Buchmann smiled, as if to say ‘Well, isn’t he something?’ Edmundo Barata dos Reis resumed the posture of an old warrior. He shook his tough grey locks, roughly, spreading a revolting smell around him.

  ‘Soup?’ he asked.‘Don’t you have any soup?’ ‘He’s crazy!’ Félix Ventura said certainly, after Edmundo Barata dos Reis had left. He said it, then said it again, firmly. He had no intention of wasting any more time on the matter. But José Buchmann insisted.

  ‘I’ve heard stranger things…’

  ‘Listen, the man’s completely barking. He’s flipped. You’ve been abroad for a long time, you don’t know what’s happened in this damned country. Luanda is full of people who seem completely lucid but suddenly burst out speaking impossible languages, or crying for no apparent reason, or laughing, or cursing. Some do all these things at once. Some are convinced that they’re dead. There are others who really are dead, but no one’s had the guts to tell them. Some think they can fly. Others believe this so strongly that they really can. It’s a fairground of lunatics, this city – out there in those ruined streets, in those clusters of musseque houses all around town, there are pathologies that haven’t even been recorded. Don’t take anything they tell you too seriously. Actually, let me give you a piece of advice – don’t take anybody seriously.’

  ‘Maybe he isn’t crazy. Maybe he’s just pretending to be crazy.’

  ‘I don’t see the difference. Someone who’s chosen to live on the streets, in the sewer, who believes that Russia will go back to communism, and who – on top of all that – wants people to think he’s crazy… That is crazy, in my book.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ José Buchmann seemed disheartened. ‘I’d like to get to know him better.’

  Love, a Crime

  ‘We spent some tough years here.’

  Félix sighed. The heat was stifling. Humidity clung to the walls. But he was sitting in the big wicker chair, sitting up straight, in a well-cut dark blue suit which drew attention to the shine of his skin. In front of him, nestling in a silk cushion, with a flower-patterned shirt and short red shorts, sat ngela Lúcia, listening to him, smiling.

  ‘There was a time when I used to have to do everything for myself, as I couldn’t afford to pay a servant. I’d clean the house, wash clothes, cook, take care of the plants. And there wasn’t any water either, so I’d have to go and fetch it, with a metal can on my head like a grocer’s wife, from a hole someone had made in the tarmac – at the end of the road, at the bend by the cemetery. I was able to bear it all, for all those years, because I had Ventura. I used to shout, Ventura, go do the washing up! and Ventura would go. Or, Ventura, go fetch more water! and Ventura would go.’

  ‘Ventura?!’

  ‘Ventura – me. He was my double. At some point in our lives we all resort to a double.’

  ngela Lúcia liked Edmundo Barata dos Reis’s theory. She loved the idea of doubles. Together they watched several tapes showing the President. I think I’ve already told you Félix has hundreds of videotapes. They found, to their surprise, that in the older ones the old man signed documents with his right hand. Recently he’d used only his left. ngela Lúcia also noticed that in some shots he had a small mole beneath his left eye, and not in others.

  ‘He may have had it removed,’ Félix pointed out. ‘Nowadays people get rid of all sorts of physical signs, as easily as you might wash off an ink-stain.’

  ngela was the one who noticed that the President with the mole appeared in earlier recordings, but also in ones that came later than those with the mole-less President.

  ‘It has to have been one of the doubles!’

  They played that game all afternoon. After five hours, by which time night had closed in, they’d managed to identify at least three doubles – the one with the mole, one with a slight bald patch, and a third who – ngela swore – had a calm sea-glow in his eyes.

  ‘I’m not going to argue with you on the s
ubject of light,’ said Félix. That’s when he remembered the business with his double, Ventura: ‘Believe me. We spent some tough times here.’

  The woman wanted to know how he’d managed to survive during that time. Félix shrugged. He lived badly, he muttered; at first he used to rent out novels – Eça, Camilo, Jorge Amado – at a time when few people had the money to buy their own. Later on he started sending parcels of books out to Lisbon, and his father would sell them to second-hand book dealers or selected clients. Fausto Bendito Ventura had managed to buy up excellent libraries on the cheap from despairing colonials in the turbulent months leading up to independence. He’d exchange a silver ring for a bound collection of nineteenth-century Angolan newspapers. A medical library in good condition – more than a hundred volumes – cost him no more than a single silk tie, and for six dollars he acquired fifteen cases filled with history books. Years later some of the old colonials would end up buying the books back from him – in packets of ten – at their true price.