by Ondjaki
“no worries, guy, everything’s cool, you’re gonna do great,” another Brazilian assistant understood his anxiety, brought him a glass of water and gave his shoulder a gentle touch, “it’s like getting a vaccination, you know? just a little prick... and before you know it, it’s over... ready to record?”
with aching feet, the Mailman made a detour before going home, he’d spent the whole afternoon imagining the moment when the end of his shift would find him with his feet immersed in the cool waters of the building in Maianga
“excuse me...”
he had to say, for feet other than his were already present, in a spontaneous human gathering there, and packed in more tightly than it might at first seem, those who for various reasons, among them fatigue, had been taken with the same idea
“if you please,” Strong Maria smiled, not having seen him for a few days
from her countless bags she offered some snacks, she apologized there were no drinks left, but invited him to sit down because the water was lovely, a line sometimes heard on the building’s first floor, less in reference to the water’s taste or temperature than to its inexplicable powers of relaxation
“i’ve got to say, it is really categorical water,” the Mailman said from up above, on the fifth floor, a piano-and-saxophone melody descended like a gift from the gods at the day’s end, a soft, faltering, soothing sonorousness
“there’s always good international music here,” Blind Man commented, already seated
“not always, elder, just the other day he played Elias Dia Kumuezo, and Waldemar Bastos, the great Ruy Mingas, and Uncle Paulo Flores”
“it’s true, he plays everything,” Amarelinha murmured, bent forward over her own body, a little scared of having accepted Seashell Seller’s invitation to be there, seated at his feet, without knowing what to say, and fearful of the behaviour of her own body which, as a result of the lack of space, was leaning as never before into Seashell Seller’s firm, warm arms
“are you comfortably seated, Amarelinha?”
“yes, i am, thank you”
“and your father, he’s well?”
“he’s well...” Amarelinha burst into tears
“don’t cry like that”
“i’m sorry”
“what is it?”
“i don’t know, i always feel like i want to cry, lots of stuff is happening at home, my father’s very worried that he can’t find out where Ciente-the-Grand is”
“you don’t have any information?”
“almost none, just today Dad went out to see if he was in that police station there”
“everything works out in the end,” Blind Man murmured, trying to soothe the conversation’s mournful rhythms
“thank you, elder”
“take this shell, it’s special,” Seashell Seller opened his bag and pulled out an enormous pink shell so vibrant that it looked as though it were about to glow
“thank you”
Clara said when Paulo Paused passed her the package
“what is it?”
“open it and see, a present, it’s been such a long time since i gave you a present,” she sat down next to him, “or received one—”
“oh, cut it out, i give you a lot more presents than you give me”
“open it”
it was a small, carefully polished seashell in a format so unadorned that threaded on a necklace it would look like a deluxe piece
“it’s beautiful, Paulo, thank you... really beautiful”
“you deserve it, my love”
“where did you buy it?”
“professional secret, i can’t tell you”
“just tell me, in which store?”
“curiosity killed the cat, Clara”
“please, i want to buy something similar and i don’t even know where the store is”
“it wasn’t a store”
“it wasn’t?”
“no, it was from a guy, Seashell Seller, he came by here the other day, i liked it so much i bought it”
“what? that guy who’s always hanging around with a stinky old man?”
“you see? your world depends on interpretations... i don’t suppose you’ve ever stopped to chat with them?”
“not me, you’re the one who’s friends with those kinds of people”
“what do you mean by ‘those kinds of people’?”
“the ones you like to talk to, weirdos, you collect weirdos, weird words, weird places, like that old-timers’ bar where you like to go to eavesdrop on their conversations”
“you should talk more with ‘those kinds of people’ instead of spending your life gossiping with your mother”
“if you went out more often with me and my mother you might actually know what we talk about, but no, of course...you prefer to talk to blind weirdos who sell seashells...” Clara closed the package, leaving it on the table
she went to the bedroom and returned quickly, with irritated, determined gestures, and tossed a mass of newspapers and magazines on the sofa
“and let’s see if you can put away this crap that’s all over the bed”
they were the magazines his clippings came from—the clippings Clara avoided asking about, and about which Paulo Paused shunned giving extensive explanations
“isn’t shopping your hobby? mine’s collecting magazines...”
the journalist’s girlfriend locked herself in the bathroom
while he smoked at the window listening to her movements, he knew her gestures by heart, he knew where she was and what she was doing from the slightest sound issuing from the cubbyhole bathroom, imagined her body’s movements, the shades of the towels, the amount of toilet paper that his partner was unrolling from the roll, he almost mentally measured the water she used to take a shower or to brush her teeth, the languid or more nervous way in which she put on her clothes or her pyjamas, and the precise location where her feet trod the floor’s light-brown ceramic tile
“Paulo...” she said in a voice so soft that it could scarcely bear the weight of the most explicit feminine worry, “if you could please not forget to take your pills”
“no problem.”
Edú walked with difficulty, climbing the first flight of stairs and smiling openly at finding the sea of people on the first floor
Nga Nelucha, his young wife, who had taken in her sister’s wary advice to keep quiet about audiovisual happenings in her husband’s career, was avoiding areas of conviviality, particularly the crowds of neighbours and acquaintances standing in the flowing waters of the local bathing spot, who were bound to ask about their all-afternoon adventure on National Television
“how did it go on TV?” asked João Slowly, who had just come down from his terrace
his smile and stare suggested the question was really directed at Little Daddy, who had got a ride with them
“everything was just great,” Little Daddy replied, “it’s all really big, really pretty just from the lights!? it looks like a soccer stadium”
they all laughed out of a shared sense of joy and wellbeing and the secret, so simple after all, lay in those feet resting in the marvellous water that was neither hot nor cold, neither still nor really flowing, that stroked their toes, tickled their heels and gave their calves a rested feeling that induced a temporary drowsiness
“are you falling asleep, elder?” Seashell Seller nudged Blind Man
“hey, who are you to wake me up by giving me a shove like that, how come you don’t show any respect?”
making room for the new arrivals
Amarelinha laughed at the fake quarrel, and, after laughing together, they all made themselves comfortable, finding it curious that only Nga Nelucha did not take off the red, high-heeled shoes she was wearing, even though the others advised her that doing so would be appropr
iate given the place and the occasion
“we’re not all the same, neighbours, we’re going to respect our differences,” Nga Nelucha grumbled, revealing an unusual bout of bad temper
“hey, look who’s here, it’s my neighbour...!” João Slowly exclaimed, having just set his feet in the collective almost-swimming-pool, “excuse me for not getting up to greet you, come and join us”
“may i?” Odonato inquired, his face visibly tired, or sad
“by all means, there’s always room for one more”
only after taking off his shoes and letting his eyes adjust to the gloom did Odonato recognize, with shock, the body, face, and hands of Amarelinha who, on the other side of the water, gave him a timid wave
“are you all right, my dear?”
“how was your day, Dad?”
“i’ll tell you later,” Odonato said, taking a deep breath, and plunging his feet into the water, “is your mother at home?”
“yes, she is there”
the words themselves killed the conversation without killing time, as though the place and the waters demanded silence and contemplation
but the silence was broken by someone who was unable to refuse to speak if the elders present asked him a question
“how about you, Little Daddy, how did your first time on television go?”
“even if it’s not worth the trouble, it’s too... just really beautiful”
“did you record your message?”
“i recorded it, yeah, a cool Brazilian guy gives you tips, but i talked about my province and just said i was looking for my mother”
“you did good, it’s great that you got a spot, it’s tough to get on there,” João Slowly made implicit reference to the friends he had called to get the young man into the recording session for the much-solicited family reunification show
“you left them your contact details?”
“what do you mean?”
“how’s she going to get in touch with you?”
“i left the name of the neighbourhood and the building”
“not even a telephone number, boy? you could have left mine”
“but i didn’t even speak with you, godfather”
“well, forget about it, they have people’s contact details, we’ll hope that everything works out”
“yes”
and as though the silence wished to descend again
“we don’t always get what we want, that’s what life will teach you one day... at times we don’t get even the simplest things” the Mailman said, making some people aware of his peaceful presence
“a simple moped... so many letters, so many ministries, and it seems like they’re ignoring me on purpose, how much would it cost? i’m sure it’s just a question of a signature, a simple order... other people who don’t even need transportation drive around in big cars, i’m just asking for a moped, i even tell them explicitly in my letters that it can be a Chinese moped, although i’d prefer a Japanese one, they last longer...”
it was night in the city of Luanda
with its placid tides, in spreading horizontal beauty, as it says in poems written by dreamers who prefer this way of describing the sea and its aquatic configurations
a strange heat permeated Odonato’s body, Amarelinha assumed she shouldn’t stay any longer and withdrew, the Mailman bid farewell, resigned to his moped-less condition, Edú, unable to reach the itch caused by his famous swelling, suggested to Nga Nelucha that she scratch it with her own hand, Blind Man sniffed three times as a secret signal to Seashell Seller that it was time to leave, the rooster from the neighbouring building recovered its ability to crow and must have realized that its remaining eye didn’t guide it very well either, it bumped into pails and abandoned buckets on its terrace and, as a result, felt what might be called rooster sadness
on arriving at the humid sanctuary, Xilisbaba saw her husband strip off his oversized shirt, exhibiting a nudity that offended all known notions of human density
“this is my body, this is the sight of my pain,” he murmured
“let’s go upstairs, dear,” Xilisbaba comforted him.
i entered that building
a coolness dampened my skin, i know that area well and i had never felt such coolness, i saw some cracked steps and i thought it was better not to tread them, i jumped, i climbed further, the seashells in my bag got noisier, yet my heart told me to keep climbing, i continued,
an elder-like child passed me going downstairs with a huge watering can, he was a drawer of water, without a doubt; on the second floor i still hadn’t seen anyone else; on the third floor i saw no one, fourth floor, a neighbour woman peered at me without seeing me; fifth floor, a huge stockpot was on the floor, i had to walk around it to get by and on the sixth floor i knew i was there, i did as i always do in places i want to scope out, i spoke up,
“look at the pretty seashells, who wants seashells...?”
i carried on, it wasn’t necessary to knock because the door was open and Dona Xilisbaba—i was seeing her for the first time—came to shout down the hall
“hey, Nelucha, i left the pot on the fifth floor”
only then did she look over and see me, she looked me in the eyes
“Auntie, i’m here to sell seashells, i only sell pretty seashells”
she went in and lingered, at first the door almost closed, then i heard the words of
an argument, the voices stopped shouting and i had to peep in, i trembled, it was him
the gent was backlit by the window and i was afraid again, the light went straight through him like a bullet, you could see the inside of his body, just like that, if you know what i mean, it’s not so as though the gentleman’s body was missing much, it was more like he was not of that body
“that’s him,” the gent said to the woman
she pushed him into the darkness of the kitchen, they disappeared, then i peered in even more carefully
the living-room floor looked emptied, there was little furniture, a big chair full of holes, a black-and-white television, a candle in front of the television
and i saw the prettiest eyes in the world emerge out of another darkness, the timid eyes of someone who cries often, i wondered at that gaze as at the gaze of the whelks i can’t be bothered to harvest
she approached slowly to gaze more closely at the seashells i had hung from my belt, all of my materials, my oh-so-beautiful seashells, dried algae, the bones and scales of big fish, stones and trash from the sea
she approavched and the conversation in the kitchen stopped, back there the gentleman and the lady didn’t make a sound
“do you have more seashells in that bag?”
i looked at the gentleman again, you could see in his eyes that he was her father, he moved his eyes up and down, the girl moved her eyes also
“i’m selling seashells from the sea, i only sell pretty ones”
i hauled the bag off my back and halted in the middle of the floor, we all stopped
the transparent gent looked at me, i tried to look at him, the gent looked at his daughter, the daughter looked and felt the sea in my shells
they say that to hear the sea it’s enough to place the seashell next to your ear and wait for the sound, i don’t know that i ever experienced this as i’ve never been alone with any sound, i prefer to go right to the edge of the sea to find sunken seashells
“i want other seashells as well, even if they’re not pretty...”
and she suddenly went away into the darkness
my mission was now to find i-don’t-know-what-all kind of shells for that dishevelled girl
but i was okay with the mission, i was able to return under the plausible pretext of being a supplier and that’s my life, too: other people tell me which roads to take so that i can go and come back, as i liked to
say
“i’m selling seashells from the sea, i only sell pretty ones”
[from Seashell Seller’s recording]
days before the beginning of the short circuit and the gigantic blaze
Odonato’s body was a shadow that had fled from what it had been throughout his life, as not even his tightest clothing fit his body, and he now walked in a series of clumsy movements
every day—he was already tired of it—he re-learned how to walk, taking into account the meagre ballast now provided by his body, altering the most basic notions of gravity, teaching his knees how to communicate with his shrivelled muscles and even teaching his lips to obey the motor commands that give rise to words, that final, pronounceable redoubt of the ideas and wishes that we utter
“you see, life has many sides,” Granma Kunjikise would say
“speaking your own language, mother? that’s good, that way you won’t forget it”
“hum,” the old woman laughed, “we don’t forget the language of our heart. i speak Umbundu to see whether the dead are still listening to me...”
“i’m going out, mother, tell Xilisbaba that i went back to the police station to take Ciente food”
“go with open eyes, where you think there’s a tree, there’s only a shadow... it’s your paternal eyes that don’t want to see the truth...”
with eyes wide open, Odonato walked through the torn-up city, barely recognizing nearby street corners and alleys due to the amount of scaffolding and enclosures, cranes and machinery, men and accents
heedful of the rhythms of his light, free-roaming body, the transparent man steadied himself beneath the weight of the bag of food he was carrying, some very powerful, very fragrant cut of steak with plenty of French fries, in the hope that something would be left over for his son
and he even had time to stop in at Noah’s Barque to ask, as a favour to a friend, for a little plastic bag of mustard to please the police officers
“it’s even got mustard? yes, sir,” Agent Belo smiled, licking his well-fed lips, “now that’s what i call a picnic even a dead man will remember...”
“do you think i can see my son today? it’s been almost a week”