by Ondjaki
“did you guys see Paulo?” the doctor whispered
“i saw him, he was lying in the kitchen”
“lying? he’d fainted?”
“no... dead, he was shot in the head... he was in the kitchen with a gun”
“oh my god, what a mess”
“it must have been a mistake,” Scratch Man looked up so that the doctor wouldn’t see his tears, “it was a Diana”
“a what?”
“a pellet gun... to kill birds”
the doctor, too, looked away, he tried to loosen the handcuffs that were chafing his skin, he took a deep breath
looking, secretly astonished, at the brightness of the balloons that filled the sky, he murmured
“why did someone invent weapons to kill birds?”
«the name» is what the Mailman thought about, the name
about the names he’d had already and that he’d gathered in his life, the names parents choose for the most serious or most absurd reasons, the family name, «the one that’s imposed on us by an uncle or a cousin and then the name of the street that’s sometimes paired with that other, more familiar, one that’s going to be your family nickname, and then the names that life gives to us»
he brought his tired body to a halt to gaze with amazement at the enormous mountain of garbage that separated him from his home, this had been his route for years, his parents had always led him home this way, in the darkness or beneath the light of so many moons, the Mailman entered his musseque, passing various houses, he veered down alleys of rough earth dampened by mucky water, and, before reaching home, crossed the enormous mountain of garbage that divided what were in reality two different musseques, a rivulet of dark water drew curves on the ground that looked, however much he might want to deny it, like an enormous map of Angola, the Mailman confirmed the treacherous river’s sinuous curves, he extended his stride and crossed it, discovering on the dump’s outskirts a pathway of compacted garbage that led him, one hundred or more metres farther along, to the door of his miserable house, but
the Mailman brought his tired body to a halt and used his eyes to confirm that his pathway had disappeared, everything was occupied by towering extensions of the mountains of refuse accumulated over years, he turned, looked around, was unable to find a way through, tried to climb over the top, slipped without hurting himself, grabbed his mailbag and tried again on the other side, but the impossibility of access became more and more unremitting, he smiled, imagining that he had misjudged the path, he glanced towards the trees that he used to orient himself and saw that he was on the path to his house
he drew a deep breath, identifying each odour, let himself be borne away by a strange sadness, an ache that was at the same time a penetrating nostalgia for home and a fear of never returning there, he could take the long way, it would be a huge detour, but it wasn’t so much the impossibility of locating his hearth and home, it was more an offence that the city and the garbage had made against his person, preventing him from taking the pathway he had always used, the same dirt lane, filthy and strange, yet a trail that was also a little bit his, and thus, saddened, silent within, he sat down on a twisted tree trunk, set down his mailbag next to his feet, and began to read the only official letter that had been addressed to him
«mail for the Mailman» he thought
he opened it slowly, looked again at the edges of the dump without locating a pathway through, remained still, as though the same entity that had dumped the garbage had come to take charge of opening a passage for him
the letter, written in a pompous officialistic idiom, with a lengthy introduction on the reception of the letters he had left with various people in some of the country’s major ministries, someone had taken the trouble to put them all together, to consider them as stemming from a single correspondent, the Mailman, the man who wrote, by hand, on twenty-five-line paper, letters of a serious, official tone, requesting that he be granted a moped to improve the fulfillment of his duties
the letter explained that, the pertinent entities having analyzed his strange request, they had decided to deny the concession of the vehicle, in recognition of the reality confronted by other national mailmen who, for their part, even in provinces far more afflicted by slopes and inclines, continued the normal exercise of their duties without ever, until now, having wasted time and paper on requests that could be considered as absurd if not, depending on who might receive and interpret them, offensive
the Mailman, incredulous, read more similar justifications and also thought of the time wasted by whoever had put together all of the letters that were found in the envelope, and who had gone to the trouble of replying with such tenacity and care in a denial composed in severe, demanding Portuguese, written on a computer, with each page stamped by some dolt who hadn’t even taken the time to call him in for an interview where he could have explained himself,
he let the letter fall to the ground in the mud trampled by his feet, which were now still, and with both hands on his chin began to gaze at the dump as he had never looked at it before, slowly, his eyes roaming over the waste installation in its unbelievable dimensions, its height and breadth, the variety of its colours, the filthy balance of its odours, the forms he was able to imagine, here almost seeing a sleeping dinosaur, there a cross-legged giant, over here a crooked flower or a felled tree, almost human figures, or figures of beings who were more or less alive, in this awe-inspiring accumulation of what people tossed out, either because they didn’t want it or because it had no use or simply because it smelled bad,
this jumble of useless, putrefying things physically prevented the Mailman from reaching home
and wrapped up in the calmest rhythms of his sweaty breath, he decided to sit still, dozing off, waiting for a concrete action on the part of that entity known as time.
“for how long?” João Slowly asked
“don’t include that clause, leave it like that, you can always go back on what’s not written down”
“that’s going to increase the price”
“money’s not the problem, just say how much and it’ll be there,” tax inspector This Time said
“will you guys be able to place this money overseas?”
“where?” tax inspector Next Time asked
“maybe in Portugal”
“maybe, depending on the amount”
“then it’s a deal, are you going to keep the enterprise’s name?”
“yeah, it’s a good name, it’s produced good results, people are already used to the Church of the Sacred Little Lamb”
“and what do i say to the pastor?”
“don’t say anything, just announce a change of management, the church will have new owners, but for the moment his duties will be the same, going forward we’ll have to make certain modifications in the services”
“new services?”
“yes, funeral services, commending souls to god, absolving sins five minutes before death, that sort of thing, here in Luanda everything revolves around money, if not nobody will take the business seriously”
“you’re right”
“we’re also going to include commercial packages for kombas, funerals move too quickly these days, we have to return to our traditions, old-fashioned kombas, with drinks, food, and professional mourners like in the old days”
“i can see you guys have a knack for that”
“thank you, João, will you be available if we need to consult someone?”
“you know everything has a price”
“sure, sure”
they settled the deal, the brothers had brought part of the money with them, the dollars were counted out and again deposited in a huge bag, they agreed that the tax inspectors would be able to go ahead and set up the new office in the room next door to the sacristy the next day
“now leave me here with my lady frien
ds, i have to say farewell, i’m going to miss this church”
“do you need help?” This Time winked at João Slowly, running his tongue over his lips in excitement as he looked at the Swedes
“no, thanks, i can handle it myself”
João accompanied the tax inspectors to the exit, stepped back inside the church, and bolted the door
the Swedes wandered slowly around the edges of the church, they changed the arrangement of the chairs, opening in their midst a huge bright space, João Slowly took dozens of candles off the shelves, which the Swedes lighted until they formed a circle of fire that cast dancing shadows on the walls
“i always wanted to make love in a church”
the Swedes began to take off their clothes
João Slowly did the same, he imitated their feminine gestures and they soon understood the game, taking off their blouses, he undid his buttons, leaving his shirt open, they took off their high-heeled shoes, he took off his shoes, in an almost parallel gesture the Swedes approached each other and undid one another’s bras, followed soon after by their panties, and João Slowly smiled, he dropped his pants and ran his hand over his hard sex, the Swedes, who were almost on the opposite side of the circle of flame, touched their own breasts and then each other’s breasts, squeezing the nipples hard without ceasing to look at him, he didn’t approach, the women kissed, slowly, in a lascivious way that allowed the entrepreneur to see their tongues and their daring fingers alternating paths between their moist lips, their breasts and their sexes with clipped, blonde hair
“Ave Maria, this is heaven...” João Slowly murmured
he closed his eyes and lost himself in the Swedes’ rhythmic energy, the candles began to go out, the spreading odour of wax inside of the church mixed with the odours of sex and sweat
the tax inspectors were peeping in at the scene from a crack in the window
at the other door, the Brazilian pastor tightened his fingers around his sex, moving his body with intense rhythm he followed the action within the house of his lord Jesus
“long live Sweden and all of Scandinavia!”
in his tiny cubicle, the man kept looking at the candle’s scarlet, self-sculpting stub
the Leftist didn’t realize it, he didn’t imagine anything similar, but, in fact, the mirror-image of that candle existed elsewhere: it was shaped exactly like the body of an ancient tree in an abandoned yard on Maianga Square, and soon this candle would disintegrate, though perhaps not the tree
the man didn’t think about this, he lit the candle and caressed the only pen he ever used for his writing, the pages looked yellower beneath the fleeting glow of the tree-like candle, the man’s thoughts slid over the poetry of the image but quickly returned to the axis of his thought, the important manuscript that he had set himself the task of writing
at his side a glass of water, a skimpy glass filled with water of dubious quality, the heat of the night, bats’ far-away cries and then an intense silence
he tried to turn on the enormous radio in the living room, but the radio refused, the candle light trembled, and the man looked at the flame
«don’t go out now, my light... you’re the light i rely on to create, don’t go out now»
and he sat down
to wait, as always, for the words to come from within, to enter his bloodstream and make him write
the scarlet candle cast dancing shadows on the hands and face of the man bent over his yellowed pages
calmly, with his hand shaking, the man peacefully finished what it had taken all of those years to compose
then he walked to Noah’s Barque where
Noah killed a cockroach and wondered at the fact that this was the third one he’d found that night
the critters seemed more befuddled than normal and he assumed this was caused by some product the Brazilian pastor had spread around the church
“sons of bitches, you haven’t got a chance with me, you can come into my ark, but i’m not going to leave you alone,” the old codger grumbled
he fulfilled his ritual of sweeping the whole bar three times, and after cleaning the floor with water mixed with cresol, he stood in the doorway, smoking his short, rank cigarette, waiting for whoever might yet show up
“good evening, Senhor Leftist”
“good evening, Noah”
“are you loaded down with notes, as usual?”
“the usual... bring out a red wine to give the night a shock”
“sure, i’ll bring it out”
Noah made his way to the ark, pulled out two tall glasses for special occasions, filled them to the brim, sipped from his, gave an exclamation, approved with a brief nod of his head
“are we toasting any particular occasion?” the Leftist asked
“we’re going to toast an unoccasion”
“have you become a poet, Senhor Noah?”
“we’re all poets, the question is whether we allow it to happen”
“i couldn’t agree more... but which unoccasion are we going to toast?”
“whichever one occurs to us... whatever undoes the sadness of these days, wafts us far away... sometimes, you know, it happens that i feel the same sorts of thing that Senhor Odonato is always talking about”
“what things?”
“city-related things... the emotions and sadnesses we feel inside when something happens in this city”
“i understand”
“all the worlds get mixed up, pardon my poetic speech, but we’re all water from the same river”
“minus those beyond the third bank, as the master Guimarães would say”
“minus those beyond each individual’s bank,” the elder Noah raised his glass, made the toast before heading off to piss, holding his bladder at bay with his left hand
“go ahead, man, pissing is a fundamental right”
Noah turned on the bathroom light, stumbled on another cockroach, failed to capture it prior to its speedy, zigzagging escape
“son of a bitch, i’ll get you next time, i’ll give you a cresol bath and burn your shitty little shell,” he began to relieve himself, “do they think they own the place, or what?”
the Leftist swiftly pulled his disorganized notes out of his attaché case, gave them a farewell glance, crammed them into an opaque bag and opened the ark, finding right away a spot deep down and at the edges where he could hide his papers
«one of the safest places in Luanda» he thought
on top of the papers he deposited a bag containing three scorpion fish and some little boxes that he knew would be of limited use
“the wine bottle is on the counter, man”
“oh, sorry, i hadn’t seen it.”
the young BBC journalist almost tripped on the false step and would have hit her head on an outjutting section of the wall had Davide Airosa not caught her
“oh, i didn’t see it,” the journalist said, relieved
“we can’t always see what we’re looking for,” Davide said
“i can see that this is going to be a serious interview”
“i took advantage of your fall to give you a quote, but it wasn’t just a joke”
“and whose words are those?”
“i don’t remember”
“they wouldn’t be yours?”
“no, they’re not, that happens to me sometimes, i don’t remember where my words come from, i’m sorry, i should have kept my mouth shut”
“you always say that to me”
“i do?”
“yes, every time we meet you end up saying those same words, or something similar”
“we haven’t met that many times,” Davide Airosa sat down, inviting her to do the same
“one more reason why this is important,” the journalist made herself comfortable and pulled a recorder f
rom her bag
“are you already taping?”
“i’m always taping... in my memory i’m always taping, Davide”
“that’s risky”
“or lucky, think about it, some day i can tell someone the important things i’ve seen and lived through in this city”
“don’t worry, that’s all that Luandans do”
“what is?”
“each Luandan is a creator of his own tale, just be careful you don’t pick up the habit”
“that sounds lovely, inventing, making up another version of your own life”
“it can entail the risk of forgetting the original version”
“yes, there’s that”
“or something worse”
“are you sad, Davide?”
“a little bit... i got a difficult piece of news, the death of a journalist, a great friend of mine”
“he was your friend?”
“you know about it? about Paulo?”
“i practically saw it happen”
“what happened, anyway? what was it like?”
“i think it was a reflection, a reflection in your friend’s window”
“he was at the window?”
“he was at the window with a weapon, Davide...”
“he wasn’t doing well,” Davide rubbed his face, hid his tears, searched in his breathing for the calm that was missing in his chest
“don’t let it get to you”
the building’s waters seemed to be speaking, they spouted at fresh, rhythmic intervals, their echoes scurried down the stairs or the elevator shafts, which carried them away to hidden zones of the building or the street, the wind swooped down into that enclosed spot, enabled by the waters and their strange flow, the whistling of the wind mingled with voices from the time before that spoke to those who knew how to listen to them
the journalist caressed her face
in one ear she was listening to the watery orchestra raise its tone, imitating or stirring up the wind, in the other she felt Davide’s troubled breathing, the pulse of his pain in the air he inhaled, she let her hand slide down his neck, she felt his veins tremble, and she liked it, the journalist liked the feeling that she could make their closeness contain a man’s pain, his loss, his soothing weeping, she liked to feel the sudden, boiling will to kiss the awkward scientist rising from her feet and passing through her knees and her sex