“I am,” I say, covering my notes with my forearms—a gut instinct.
“Would you like company?” Before she hears my reply, she slinks into the chair. “Rosalia,” she says. Her synthetic hair is straight and long, pulled back from her face. Her eyelids are an unreal blue, like peacock feathers, the backdrop to fake eyelashes that resemble large spiders.
“Serafim,” I say, raking my fingers through my hair. My tongue feels thick in my mouth. I look around the room in search of another beer from the server. I hear a low hum. The ceiling fans have been turned on. The wobbling lessens as the blades gain speed, the air lifting Rosalia’s hair from behind her ears, blowing strands across her face. Some hair sticks to her lipstick. She brushes it aside.
“I’ve seen you here before,” she says, in a voice belonging to someone who has smoked all her life. “Are you a professor?” She places a cigarette in her mouth and lets it sit there. I reach for my lighter and light it, light one for myself.
“Something like that. I’m a journalist.”
“I like stories.” She smiles, and her teeth are marbled in yellow. She closes her lips quickly. When she crosses her legs, her dress rides high up her thigh. Her flip-flops slap up against her heel, tapping air, her toes clenched. “I’ve seen you going in and out of your hotel. You alone?” She grabs her drink and presses the cold glass to her collarbone, rolls it up her neck. She closes her eyes. A bead of water runs down her neck.
“Yes,” I say.
“You don’t have to be.”
I think how easy and comfortable it would be to take her back to my hotel room, to feel her skin against mine.
I’m about to respond when the waiter lowers my plate to the table—piri piri prawns on a bed of rice. Before the flies can land, and without invitation, Rosalia picks up a prawn with her fingers and tears its head from its body. Looking directly at me, she sucks the juice from the prawn’s head.
“I’m used to being alone,” I say as she pinches the legs of the prawn and takes apart its shell. I nudge the plate closer to her. “Please, help yourself.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Rosalia looks like she has all the answers.
“Perhaps,” I say. Pó has been worried about Ophelia. Beira is not a safe place to stay out all night, especially for someone with albinism. Now it’s my turn to lean in and whisper. “I don’t know this place very well.” Her foot has stopped tapping. “Can you help me?”
“It’s what I do best,” she says.
“Good. Then perhaps you’ve seen a young albino girl here on the streets at night.”
Rosalia drops her prawn onto the plate.
“Ophelia,” I say.
“Odette,” she replies, lifting the napkin to her lips.
“No, I’m asking about a girl who goes by Ophelia. Do you know her?”
“On the streets she calls herself Odette. Keeps things separate, safe. She’s a pretty little thing,” she adds, and drops the crumpled napkin.
“So you know her?”
“What I know is it’s not safe for her out here,” she says. Both her feet are now on the floor. She presses down on the tabletop, about to get up.
I reach into my pocket and slip a couple of thousand meticais—thirty U.S. dollars—into her hand, more than she would have expected if I’d engaged with her in my room. “Watch over her,” I say. She looks at me in a very different way now. “You know where I’m staying.”
Ezequiel
THE PORTUGUESE REFER to Mozambique, and colonies like it, as Terras do Fim do Mundo. Driving north from Sofala through the province of Cabo Delgado—a thin coastal strip in the north where political control remains in colonial hands—it does feel like we’ve reached the end of the world. Except for me, who sees this place as a return. It is less than an hour’s drive to the mission. I could go back.
Most villages we drive through are shantytowns—the shed skins of snakes. People are left with nothing except promises. The Portuguese, in exchange for loyalty and continued servitude, promise safety and security. FRELIMO offers freedom, and the almost impossible dream: the right to decide their own futures, to determine their own happiness.
“I don’t want to visit the mission,” I say, after the Commander presses me.
He remains quiet in the passenger seat beside me, his hands on his knees. At one point the road plunges steeply toward a river and a ramshackle wooden bridge. He rolls the window down to look at a group of children swimming in the green water, and the kneeling women washing clothes. I’m afraid he’ll say something, or worse, ask me to stop so that he can stalk the women and children until they gather their things and run into the jungle.
“You’re certain you don’t want to return to the place you were raised?”
I can feel the motionless heat press on me. I roll my window down.
“Because that door will always stand open in your mind. A glimpse into your past might cure what troubles you.”
“I can’t go back.” Just one step in front of the next.
I can feel his yellow eyes on me, trying to determine what I am made of.
“Good. In this continent, to revisit the past is to learn that God and the Devil are one.”
It is late October and the promise of a long rainy season looms large. After a year of working by the Commander’s side I have become the perfect shadow he wants. I have seen the debris of his madness—at least three girls that I know of, butchered by his hands. I thought of their mothers and fathers, their siblings, not knowing whether their daughters ran away or were taken from them, as I disposed of their bodies.
I trust no one. Being alone with my judgments makes survival easier, since I don’t have to look out for anyone but me. I never felt comfortable leaving the Commander with girls, but often I never saw them enter his tent or room. Abel was in charge of procuring the young women. I would only find them the morning after, helpless in my inability to stop his madness. The truth is, even if I could, I wouldn’t be able to do anything. At least that’s what I tell myself. Commander Fonseca makes efforts to show kindness—setting me up in my own hotel room, giving me a few hundred escudos each week, leftover food and wine.
I make my way down to the lobby. People are chatting on the sofas. The hotel has been divided, refurbished to accommodate those in the military with titles: colonels, lieutenant colonels, majors, always in full uniform with shiny decorations. The hotel houses them and their families. The children are only allowed to play on the rooftop terrace, which overlooks Porto Amélia’s harbour and the Indian Ocean. The staff extends sheets across posts and antennae to create some relief from the blistering sun. Mothers stand by the railing, drinking tropical concoctions and smoking. They never leave and they do not discuss the one thing they all know—that the hotel had once been a brothel, and only recently repurposed for the war effort.
The lobby of the hotel with no name is wide and the light filters through the curtains. The windows are tall, constructed of small square panes filmed with dust. The chandelier is still the same as before the war, when businessmen came by large ship to claim crocodile suitcases and elephant tusks. They would stay at the hotel a few days before setting out to conduct their business up or down the coast. That is why there are claw-footed bathtubs in our rooms. The place smells of old mixed with a trace of cheap perfume. I am reminded of my birth mother.
Outside, the palm trees curve. The big sun is dull and looms over the ocean and the city. A black waiter dressed entirely in white carries a tray over to Commander Fonseca leaning against the jeep. The Commander picks up the pack of cigarettes and the waiter bows slightly before backing away.
The Commander is not dressed in his uniform. He wears cream-coloured pants and a linen shirt, open to display his dark patch of chest hair. His shirt is already soaked in perspiration, and through the shirt I can see his ribs and flat stomach. Nothing about his relaxed dress puts me at ease. If anything, he looks agitated.
“This place is filthy,” he says
to me, spitting into the sand. “This would be a good country to live in if it weren’t for the blacks. Mondlane wants to be their father, but he doesn’t see what his children are capable of.” It’s always the same rant. “You drive,” the Commander says, tossing the keys to me. “Abel has errands today.” I never ask what the chores are and Abel, if he is within earshot of the Commander’s racist rants, remains expressionless. Whenever the Commander spews his poison, I think of my own ancestry. Increasingly, his words have an impact on me, and I often feel guilty. I am overwhelmed by them but remain straight-faced. For most of my life I saw myself as white. I chose to ignore any references to my blackness. I learned things would be easier for me that way. I can no longer deny that side of me. I am not safe here and a threat is always present.
I make a slow turn away from the hotel and onto the beach road. A group of women wrapped in their colourful capulanas walk with baskets on their heads. They hear the jeep coming from behind them and form a line. Commander Fonseca taps me on the shoulder to slow down. The women are Makua. Their faces are covered in mussiro—the thick white paste I’m familiar with. Only the mussiro prepared for me by Mother Anke was laced with bleach, and there are days when I look in the mirror and notice a tinge of blue to my skin.
The women look straight ahead. They know better than to look inside the jeep. At the front of the line is a girl, no more than fifteen, I would guess. She does not wear mussiro, nor does she carry a basket on her head. Instead, she holds on to a rope, which is secured around the neck of a goat. The girl is trying hard not to look our way.
“Menina,” Commander Fonseca calls out, before whistling to get her attention.
I see her sidelong glance. She is beautiful as she fights a smile. The Commander sticks his head out the window and opens his mouth to say something, but before he can, I shift the jeep into gear and it kicks in acceleration. He keeps looking at the reflection of the girl in the side mirror.
We drive along the dirt road. The ocean breeze is never far from our side. A film of salt dusts my cheek and makes it difficult to run my fingers through my hair.
“Do you know where we’re going?” the Commander says.
I do not answer.
“I need to get away from that suffocating place. Nothing ever happens there.” He lights another cigarette, blowing smoke through his nose like a bull.
After an hour’s drive past deserted beaches on one side and, on the other, fields of mango spread across the sandy terrain like a forest, the Commander asks me to veer onto a narrow dirt road. At the end of the road there is a weathered shack of bamboo and behind it forest.
“This is it,” the Commander says. “Perfect spot for some target practice.” He opens the back of the jeep and unfurls a cowhide. There are five guns, all different types.
“Go ahead,” he says, and picks up a shotgun for himself.
My hand hovers over the guns before it settles on a black revolver with a wooden handle, a Colt Python.
“We’re hunting, not playing a game of Russian roulette.” Go for the Armalite seven sixty-two.”
The Commander leads the way. He carries his gun over his shoulder, and I do the same. He keeps looking back as if assessing how I hold a gun, my comfort with its weight. Perhaps it is a bold taunt or challenge, to see if I will take aim at him. I have never revealed a thing to him, but every so often he says something that tells me he knows details about my life I have buried deep. I don’t believe the lieutenant would have shared the information he learned from my fevered mumblings. It makes my ears itch when the Commander alludes to my family on the mission or the men who took me into the jungle. I cannot show my discomfort.
The Commander spots a strip of mud at the edge of the sea. A flock of flamingos stand in the shore’s shallow water, their heads and necks tucked underneath their wings. But the flamingos are not the animals that dazzle the Commander. A little farther off there is a troop of vervet monkeys. They have come to the water’s edge to wash their food, twirling fruit or some other meal in the water in quick motions.
The Commander prepares to cock his weapon without taking his eyes off the monkeys. He aims the barrel of the rifle toward the open ocean, then lowers it to the mud, before scanning his gun from left to right. I want to bury my face in my hands. The gun goes off. The shot vibrates in the air. I am surprised the flamingos do not take flight. We are close enough that I can see the chaos surrounding the monkey that has been hit. It twitches before lying still. The other monkeys screech and yell, jump up and down in frantic motions. One of the bigger monkeys is trying to drag the dead monkey away. The Commander fires again. The bigger monkey collapses over the first one. There is pandemonium, but the monkeys do not leave the side of their downed family members. The flamingos unfurl their necks and poke at the shallow water as if nothing has happened.
The loyalty of the monkeys overwhelms me.
“Your turn. Shoot,” the Commander says.
Dread surges up my throat.
“Shoot!”
I pull the trigger and miss.
The Commander looks up to a shimmer of green slowly covering the sun.
“It’s going to rain,” I say.
“Not rain,” the Commander says, holding out his hand. A locust falls from the sky and lands dead in his palm.
“What’s happening?”
Exhausted locusts begin to drop all around us. Some still flutter from their dive and fall.
“Can you hear the noise they make?” the Commander says, with a renewed enthusiasm.
The air turns glass-bottle green, as does the sea. The cloud of locusts descends on us. They rain down and I feel somehow privileged to witness the event. It’s a sign.
The flamingos engage in an eating frenzy. They pluck the juicy insects that bob on the surface of the water, mistaking the locusts for fish. The monkeys remain unimpressed, huddled over their dead, preening them as if for a funeral. One of the monkeys stands on watch, his masked head scanning the surroundings. The locusts fall all around its feet, but it does not pick them up to eat.
* * *
—
When we arrive back at the hotel, the Commander insists that I come to his room to turn down his bed. This strikes me as suspicious, since a hotel worker comes every night to do this. The Commander says it is our last night before we push off from the coast and into the heart of the battle, Mueda.
“That girl,” he says, looking at me, daring me to pretend ignorance. I won’t walk into his trap. “Find her.”
I walk out to the beach and step into the water. Gusts of wind kick up the sand in swirls. My face is blasted with a million pinpricks of sand and I feel alive.
* * *
—
It is past midnight. More than enough time to make the Commander believe I have scoured the city. I knock lightly on the Commander’s door.
“Come in.”
The room is dark, except for light from a single candle. Commander Fonseca is sitting in a chair. A shadow blacks out half of his face. There is enough light that I see a glass filled with drink and the revolver resting on his lap.
“I could not find her, Commander.”
He shakes his head.
“I asked around. Spoke to everyone, and no one knows this girl. Perhaps she is not from these parts,” I say, hoping he is too drunk to catch the tremble in my voice.
“Beatriz,” he says. He holds up a hand to stop me. “Her name is Beatriz.” He lifts the revolver and waves it toward the bathroom door. I open the door. The girl is hog-tied in the bathtub. Her face is plastered with mussiro; her tears have wet the area under her eyes. She is gagged and rests her forehead in exhaustion against the rim of the bathtub.
“I sent Abel out to find her for me. I knew you wouldn’t do it.” He clicks his tongue as though I’m a child who has misbehaved.
I step back into the room and there is nothing I can say. I take a step back toward the wall and lean against it.
* * *
—<
br />
The Commander directs me to the bamboo shack where earlier that day we spent hours taking refuge from the plague of locusts. The wind is strong, and with every gust the shack rattles. Shards of glass and splinters of wood cover the floor. A few rags and clothing are tossed on top of the stained mattress in the corner. Apart from the wooden table, two chairs, and a lantern at the edge of the table, the room is bare.
I am tied into one of the chairs. Abel drags Beatriz inside. He ties her torso to the back of the chair, the same way I have been tied. Our arms and hands are free. One of my eyes is shut and will not open. My head throbs and I take hold of it. I am beaten and too dazed to understand the wisdom of this.
Commander Fonseca is drenched.
“Abel, wait for me in the car.”
Every breath I take is met with a sharp pain across my chest. I shiver, suddenly cold. The smell of pine cuts my nostrils and I remember the forest just behind the shack. With my one good eye, I take a clear look at Beatriz. It is clear she has been drugged. Her eyelids are heavy and her head hangs down and to the side, her chin touching her collarbone.
The Commander stands at the table. The six-chamber cylinder swings out to the left and he loads one bullet before spinning it to a click. He slams the revolver onto the table. “One of you will disappear tonight, become a ghost. I think it’s only fair to let fate decide that.”
I look at the gun and stare at what remains of this world. I feel defenceless, and the thought that I could grab the gun and fire at the Commander is futile.
“Spin it,” he tells me through clenched teeth.
I spin the cylinder and press the gun to my temple. With my eyes closed I try to conjure Papa Gilberto. I want it all to be over. I want to run over the canopy of trees and reach the sun before it drops on the other side. I press down on the trigger. Click! I exhale and return the gun to the table.
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