One morning Ana gathered all the women together, along with Zé and Judas, and told them about her visit to Johannesburg and the meeting with Pandre. She didn’t say anything about the promise she had given him for the time being, but she could tell by the reaction she received that even if there was an element of surprise and astonishment, they were delighted to discover that Ana had not abandoned Isabel. While the whites in Lourenço Marques regarded her as a disgraceful criminal who had killed an innocent man, for the blacks she was not exactly a heroine — she had after all killed the father of her children — but a woman who had made a valiant attempt to rise out of her misery and offer some resistance.
Ana thought that was an appropriate description of Isabel’s fate: that she had risen up and offered some resistance. Even if she was now locked up in a cramped prison cell, guarded by menacing and often drunken soldiers, it was as if she had walked away from her plight and left behind all the white people who despised her.
That same day, a white man she had never seen before came to the brothel and asked for a job. It did happen from time to time that white men, often in a bad way thanks to a fever or alcohol, came to her asking for work. She had hitherto always sent them packing as they had nothing to offer her that could be of use.
But the man standing before her now made a different impression. He wasn’t dressed in shabby clothes, nor was he unwashed with a straggly beard. He introduced himself as O’Neill, and explained that he had worked as a bouncer in bars and brothels all over the world. He also produced a well-thumbed bundle of references from previous employers.
Ana had often wished she had a white bouncer in the brothel. Even if Judas and the other security guards did what they were supposed to do, she was never absolutely sure that they would react as she wanted them to.
She decided to employ O’Neill on trial for a few months. He seemed to be strong and radiated determination. She thought it would soon become clear if he was a person she could employ permanently.
Later on Ana had a conversation with Felicia under the jacaranda tree. It was evening by now. Felicia was waiting for one of her regular customers from Pretoria, a religious gentleman farmer who was always talking about his eleven children, and that the only reason he visited the brothel was that he no longer wanted to have sex with his wife because she was worn out after giving birth to all those children.
Ana asked her about Isabel’s family. There was so much she still didn’t know. It also surprised her that none of Isabel’s relations had been to see her in the fort. Ana was the only person who visited her, apart from Father Leopoldo who always did the rounds of those imprisoned there. Ana had been to the cathedral again to see him, and he told her that Isabel never spoke to him either. She kept it to herself, but that knowledge gave her a feeling of relief. She knew that she could well have become jealous if Isabel had chosen a priest to talk to.
Felicia was dressed in white, just as the gentleman farmer always wanted her to be.
‘I don’t know much,’ said Felicia. ‘Isabel’s sisters are looking after the children. She also has an elder brother called Moses. He works in the mines in Rand. He’ll no doubt come here as soon as he can. If he can.’
‘Are her parents still alive?’
‘They live in Beira. But the sisters have decided not to tell them anything about what has happened.’
‘Why not?’
Felicia shook her head.
‘Perhaps because they are afraid that the news would cause their parents such great grief that it kills them. They are old. Or maybe they don’t want them to be afraid that the whip would start lashing their shoulders as well. Everybody seems to be waiting for the brother who works in the mines.’
‘When will he come?’
‘Nobody knows. Neither when nor if he can come.’
Ana began talking about the headless bird that had been lying on the prison governor’s steps.
‘Who could have done that?’
Felicia drew back, as if Ana were accusing her of doing it.
‘I don’t mean that you did it, of course. But who would want to kill her? No white man would put a dead bird on a step as a warning. Surely it must have been somebody black?’
‘Or somebody who wanted to make it look that way.’
Ana realized that Felicia was right.
‘So you think it was a white man?’
‘Only a white person would want her to die.’
‘Why do you think she refuses to speak?’
‘Because she’s grieving.
‘Grieving?’
‘Grieving for the husband she was forced to kill.’
‘Because he had deceived her?’
‘She knows that all whites do that.’
‘Are you saying that all white people tell lies?’
‘Not to other whites. But to us.’
‘Do I tell lies?’
Felicia didn’t answer. She continued looking at Ana, didn’t turn her eyes away, but remained silent. So I shall have to answer the question myself, she thought. She’s making me decide. It’s my decision and nobody else’s.
‘I still don’t understand what you mean when you say that Isabel is grieving. She misses her children, of course. But that’s not grief.’
‘She’s grieving for the children she never had. As she was forced to kill her husband.’
Ana had the impression that their conversation was going round in circles and getting nowhere. She sensed rather than understood the logic in Felicia’s words.
‘Who would want to kill her?’ she asked again.
‘I don’t know, but essentially I believe that every single one of all the thousands of white people living in this town would be prepared to hold the knife that stabs right into her heart.’
‘Who has anything to gain from her death? It wouldn’t bring Pedro back to life.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Felicia. ‘I can’t understand the way you think.’
Ana got no further. Felicia stroked her hand over her newly washed white dress, carefully smoothing away the wrinkles. She wanted to leave.
‘Who am I to you?’ Ana suddenly asked.
‘You are Ana Branca,’ said Felicia in surprise.
‘Nothing more?’
‘You own this tree, the ground it’s growing in and the building around us.’
‘Nothing more?’
‘Isn’t that enough?’
‘Yes,’ said Ana. ‘That’s more than enough. It’s so much that I can barely manage to cope with it.’
A gigantic man with a large beard and a weatherbeaten face appeared in the open door leading into the garden. It was Felicia’s client. Ana watched them walking towards Felicia’s room. She looked very small by his side.
Just like I must have done, Ana thought. When I walked beside Lundmark to the consul in Algiers, to get married.
She remained sitting under the tree. It had been raining earlier in the evening. Steam was rising from the soil, and there was a sweet smell coming from the tree’s roots. There was also another smell, but she couldn’t make out where it was coming from. The underworld was intruding. Ana thought of herself as Hanna again, and remembered all the smells that rose up from the marshes and heather-clad moors where she grew up.