Secrets in the Fire

by Henning Mankell

  ‘You don’t have to worry yourselves about going to school,’ she said. ‘You already work so hard in the cornfields. I don’t want to force you into doing more than you have to.’

  ‘But we want to,’ Sofia said.

  Lydia looked at her in amazement, and then looked with as much amazement at Maria.

  ‘You don’t have to know how to read and write in order to weed a field,’ she said. ‘You don’t need to know how to do sums to hoe and plant seeds.’

  Sofia didn’t know what to say. How could she make her mother realise that they wanted something more? To be able to read what was written on a sign, to be able to write their own names.

  ‘The white priest wants all the children to go to school,’ she finally said. ‘Maybe we should obey him.’

  Sofia knew that her mother had a lot of respect for white people. In their old village, everyone had been like that. When a white man or woman said something, you always had to listen carefully. Sofia didn’t know why. At one time, the white people had been in charge of their country but it wasn’t like that any more. The only one she knew who hadn’t cared about white people was Muazena. When white people came to their town, she preferred to lock herself in her hut and stay there until they were gone.

  ‘If that’s how it is, then of course you should go to school,’ Lydia said. ‘But we’ll have to mend your clothes. I don’t want my daughters to be dressed worse than anyone else.’

  Maria and Sofia leaned forwards and clasped their hands around Lydia’s strong arms as a sign of their joy. As soon as Lydia went inside to prepare for the night, they ran behind the hut, grasped each other’s hands and started dancing to a drumbeat they heard in the distance.

  It was dark and they could barely see each other.

  But you don’t need to see happiness to understand it, or to be able to share it with someone else.

  The same goes for sorrow and pain.

  One thing they knew was that there was nothing they liked so much as dancing. And the best dance of all was the dance of joy. No one had ever taught them to dance – it was something they had always known how to do. Sofia thought it must have begun when she was too little to walk, and had been tied to Mama Lydia’s back. When Lydia danced with the other women, her movements and rhythms were transferred into Sofia’s own body. They had been there ever since. It was the same for Maria.

  They danced until Lydia came out and called for them to go to bed.

  Later, when Lydia and Alfredo had fallen asleep, they lay whispering to each other.

  ‘What if we’re too stupid?’ Maria said. ‘All we’ve ever done is hoe the fields.’

  ‘I don’t think we’re any stupider than anyone else,’ Sofia said and tried to sound convincing.

  But deep down she was worried too.

  Early the following morning, before they went out to the fields to work, they sat with Lydia and mended their clothes. Lydia shook her head in despair.

  ‘It won’t get any better,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to weave more baskets and sell them. You need new clothes, both of you.’

  The next day, Maria and Sofia went to school. They held each other by the hand and their steps got slower and slower the closer they came.

  The school was a long, narrow building made of concrete, with lizards running around in the corners. There were no windows, just a sheet-metal roof held up by wooden poles. Lino came running when he noticed they had stopped on the road and obviously weren’t going to come any closer.

  ‘You have to speak to José-Maria,’ he said.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Sofia asked.

  ‘The priest,’ Lino answered with surprise. ‘And you have to talk to Filomena. The teacher.’

  He followed them to a corner of the school building where there was a small office.

  ‘What do we do now?’ Sofia asked.

  ‘Don’t you know anything?’ Lino asked. ‘You knock on the door and go inside when someone calls.’

  Then he ran away. The boys were playing soccer with a ball made of tightly twisted and knotted straw.

  ‘We’re going home,’ said Maria.

  ‘That’s the last thing we’re doing,’ Sofia answered. Then she knocked on the door. There was no reply. She knocked again. This time the door opened. The same white man who had looked at them with his sad smile when they first arrived was standing in the doorway. His face was sweaty and he’d put his glasses on his forehead.

  ‘We want to start school,’ Sofia said.

  The white man shuffled his glasses back on his nose.

  ‘I remember you,’ he said. ‘Remarkable how you are so alike. Are you twins?’

  ‘I’m Sofia,’ said Sofia. ‘This is Maria. There’s a year between us. Maria is the oldest.’

  ‘What’s your surname?’

  ‘Alface.’*

  The white man looked at them in amazement. Then he burst out laughing.

  ‘That’s a good name,’ he said. ‘Sofia and Maria Alface. Have you been to school before?’

  They shook their heads.

  ‘Then you should go to Filomena’s class. I’ll follow you there.’

  They went to the furthest classroom. The class had just begun. Filomena was young. And she was black.

  ‘Two more students,’ José-Maria said. ‘Sofia and Maria. How many have you got now?’

  ‘The last time I counted there were 92 students,’ Filomena said. ‘It’ll work if they sit four to a bench.’

  José-Maria shook his head.

  ‘We need to build a larger school,’ he said. ‘But where will we get the money?’

  Then he left. Sofia and Maria stood with downcast eyes. All the children in the classroom stared at them.

  ‘Are you twins?’ Filomena asked and smiled at them.

  Sofia shook her head. Her mouth was so dry that she couldn’t say a word.

  Filomena pointed towards a bench where two girls were sitting.

  ‘You can sit there,’ she said. ‘We have no books, no paper and no pens. We don’t even have chalk for the blackboard. Therefore you’ll have to remember everything. Sit down now.’

  And so they started school.

  That night, after they’d gone to bed, Sofia couldn’t sleep. She sneaked out of the hut and blew into the glowing coals until the flames returned. She could hear drums from somewhere. Invisible grasshoppers creaked around her.

  She looked deep into the fire.

  She thought she could see Muazena’s face amongst the flames. And Hapakatanda’s. They smiled at her.

  She sat and stared into the fire and didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. Maybe it was possible to do both at the same time. A crylaughter?

  The flames of the fire danced in the night.

  Sofia believed that the days ahead of her – the ones Muazena had compared to corn plants – would be bright. There were things other than monsters to be found hiding in the darkness.

  There was a lot more to life.

  And she was looking forward to it.

  *Means ‘salad’ in Sofia’s language

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A COUPLE OF DAYS after Maria and Sofia started school, José-Maria came and told them that everyone who had recently moved to the village was to meet that evening. The girls were to tell Lydia that everyone had to attend.

  Maria was frightened.

  ‘We might not be allowed to stay here,’ she said.

  ‘Why shouldn’t we be able to do that?’ Sofia answered. ‘Why would they let us start school if we’re not supposed to stay?’

  They were walking on the road home from school.

  ‘Maybe there are bandits here too?’ said Maria. ‘Maybe we should all be leaving?’

  Sometimes Sofia thought Maria had altogether too many questions. Why should she, who was younger, have to answer everything?

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Don’t ask me anything else right now.’

  In the evening, during the brief twilight when the sun set over t
he river, people met by the well in the middle of town.

  José-Maria got up on a box so everyone could see him.

  Then he told them about the landmines.

  ‘When you go out to the fields, or down to the river, you must stick strictly to the paths that have already been well-trodden,’ he said. ‘It is safe to walk on them. But don’t take any short cuts. There are landmines. We don’t know where they are. We only know that they are there.’

  ‘What’s a landmine?’ Maria asked.

  Sofia shushed her.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Don’t talk so much. Listen instead.’

  ‘Landmines are bombs buried in the ground,’ José-Maria continued. ‘You can’t see them. But if you put your foot on the ground above one, the mine will explode. You can have your leg blown off. You can be blinded. You can even die. Use only the paths. Never take short cuts, not even if you’re in a hurry.’

  Then he asked whether they had understood. Everyone nodded. They should stick to the paths. They were never to take short cuts, not even if they were in a hurry.

  On the way home, Lydia continued to lecture them. Sofia imagined the mines were like monsters buried in the ground, monsters that lay there waiting and spying.

  Then she imagined them as crocodiles. Ground-crocodiles that waited to sink their teeth into her legs.

  Lydia lectured them. Then Maria lectured Sofia. And Sofia lectured Alfredo.

  Always the paths. Never short cuts.

  That evening, after they’d eaten their maize porridge, Sofia saw there was a full moon. She could recall that there had been a full moon when they arrived in the village. They’d been there for a month already.

  She didn’t exactly know what a month was. It was longer than a day and longer than a week. But it was less than a year. She didn’t know how many full moons it had been since they fled the village where Hapakatanda and Muazena and all the dogs lay dead.

  Time was strange. It both existed and didn’t exist.

  The days were long. Maria and Sofia usually fell asleep straight after they had eaten their evening meal and helped Lydia clean up. They got up at sunrise. By that time, Lydia had already left for the fields. They dressed Alfredo, gave him some of the leftovers from the previous night’s dinner. Then Sofia swept inside and outside the hut, while Maria took Alfredo to a woman who lived in a hut on the other side of the village. She was too old to work, but she looked after Alfredo until Lydia came back in the afternoon. When Maria had left Alfredo, they hurried over to the fields. They worked there until the sun was directly overhead, hoeing and weeding. They ate the food that Lydia and the other women prepared, then hurried down to the river to wash before running again so as not to be late for school. They were always careful to stay on the paths and they ran as fast as they could. But no matter how fast they ran neither of them ever got there before the other. Sofia could run faster. But Maria had more stamina.

  The days were long. But even so they lay and whispered to each other when Lydia and Alfredo had gone to sleep.

  One night, as they lay with their faces close together, Maria asked if Sofia could remember her white dress.

  Sophia remembered it well. The white dress their father Hapakatanda had once brought home from the town near their old village. He had only been able to afford one dress. But he’d promised that Sofia would also get one the next time he had money or something he could swap for it.

  The dress had been left behind in the village on the night the bandits came.

  ‘I sometimes dream that I’ll wake up one morning and see that the dress is still here,’ Maria whispered.

  ‘It probably got burnt up,’ Sofia answered. ‘But one day, when I get some money, I’ll buy you a new one.’

  ‘Where would you get money,’ Maria said, ‘when Lydia hasn’t got any? Don’t forget, we’re poor.’

  ‘I’ll find a way,’ Sofia said.

  ‘No, you won’t,’ said Maria.

  ‘I promise,’ said Sofia.

  After Maria had fallen asleep, Sofia lay pondering what Maria had said. How was she to get a new white dress for Maria? She’d promised. Maria would never forget her promise. She knew that somehow or other she would have to keep it.

  It made her angry.

  She knew that she made promises to Maria far too easily. It had happened many times before.

  Time passed – time that both existed and didn’t exist. There was another full moon. Every day it got hotter and hotter. There was less and less water in the river. But the rains would soon be coming.

  One day, when they had a holiday from school and Maria was lying in the hut with pains in the stomach, Sofia went out to explore. The huts were spread across a large area. Until now, she had only seen a small part of the village.

  When she reached the other side, Sofia came across a man sitting outside a hut sewing clothes. He was treadling a black sewing machine. Sofia had seen a sewing machine once before. There had been an Indian who, for a short time, had tried to make a living from making clothes in her old village. He had sat in the shade of a tree and treadled his strange machine. All the children in town used to stand around him watching with fascination. Sofia hadn’t been more than five or six at the time, but she could still remember the sewing machine. She thought that she’d like to learn how to use a machine like that when she grew up.

  Before long, the Indian had left the village and taken his machine with him. The people in town were far too poor to be able to pay him to make clothes.

  Sofia could still remember how sad she had been when he left town. The sewing machine had been tied to his back.

  Now she saw a sewing machine again.

  It looked like the one the Indian had owned.

  She stood there, watching the man treadling and sewing.

  When he looked up from his work and noticed her, she looked down and thought she had better leave.

  But the man smiled and nodded. Carefully, she ventured a little closer.

  His name was Antonio but people called him Totio. He was old and had no teeth. His wife Fernanda was inside the hut. Their children were grown up and had their own families. Totio and Fernanda had run away from the bandits, too. They had abandoned everything except for the sewing machine.

  He told Sofia all of this while he treadled the machine and kept sewing. He was making a pair of black trousers.

  Fernanda came out of the hut and sat on a straw mat in the shade. She was fat, and breathed heavily in the heat.

  ‘Who are you?’ she called to Sofia from the mat. ‘If you’ve got money, Totio will sew you anything. If you’ve got a lot of money he can sew you a pair of wings.’

  ‘She’s only talking,’ Totio said and laughed. ‘I can’t sew wings.’

  He winked at her and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

  ‘Have you got a name?’ he asked.

  ‘My name is Sofia.’

  He continued to ask her about who she was and where she came from, sewing the whole time. Sofia answered as well as she could. From time to time Fernanda shouted from the straw mat. Then she fell asleep and started snoring.

  ‘I have a good wife,’ Totio said. ‘Sometimes she talks too much. But she’s a good wife.’

  ‘I’d like to learn how to sew,’ Maria said.

  Totio laughed.

  ‘I bet you would,’ he said.

  The trousers were finished. He checked them and hung them carefully on the edge of the table.

  Then he patted the sewing machine.

  ‘Good job, Xio.’

  Sofia looked at him with surprise.

  ‘Why shouldn’t a sewing machine have a name?’ Totio said. ‘Why do you want to learn how to sew?’

  ‘I want to make a white dress for my sister Maria,’ she said.

  She hadn’t worked out the answer beforehand. It just came out on its own.

  Then she thought she should explain why she wanted to sew that particular dress. She told Totio about what happened the nigh
t Hapakatanda died and about him coming home from the city with the dress for Maria.

  When she had explained everything, Totio nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘It’s like that,’ he said. ‘They kill and burn and plunder. But no one considers the fact that the bandits also stole a white dress from a girl called Maria.’

  ‘I promised her the dress,’ Sofia said.

  ‘Bring me the fabric and I’ll teach you how to sew,’ said Totio. ‘If you can get a nice piece of cloth and the right thread, I’ll teach you how to do it. First by hand and then, if you’re clever, you’ll learn how to use the machine.’

  Sofia couldn’t believe her ears. Was she really going to be allowed to treadle the machine?

  But how was she going to get a piece of fabric?

  At that moment Fernanda woke up.

  ‘Go now,’ said Totio. ‘I don’t have time to talk to you any more. Come back and see me when you have the fabric and the thread.’

  Sofia walked home. But first she followed one of the winding paths down to the river. There was a mound there where she and Maria would sit and watch for crocodiles. It was far enough from the water for there to be no danger of a crocodile getting them. But on this particular day Sofia wasn’t concerned about the crocodiles. How was she going to get a piece of fabric for Maria’s dress? She didn’t have any money, and Mama Lydia didn’t have any either.

  Then she remembered the clean white sheets that were usually hung out to dry outside José-Maria’s house. Maybe she could ask for one of them? But she dismissed that idea straight away. She would never dare. Besides, José-Maria would probably be angry with her for begging. He might even chase them from the village.

  Sofia stayed by the river for so long that it was already dusk when she finally got up and went home. When she reached the hut, she could tell Lydia was angry.

  ‘Where have you been all day?’ she asked loudly.

  Sofia looked down when she answered.

  ‘Nowhere,’ she said.

  ‘Nowhere?’ said Lydia. ‘I thought you’d fallen into the river. Or got lost. Why can’t you stay at home when your sister is ill?’

  ‘I’m feeling fine now, Mama,’ Maria called from inside the hut.