This was a change that had taken place in a very short time.
As she returned to the house she saw more and more signs of decay and decadence. The white sheepdogs in their kennels were not as well cared for as they had been in the past. Pedro Pimenta’s farm was wasting away. When he and Isabel died, what they had built up together had immediately started to crumble away.
Ana Dolores had gone into the house with her customer. Ana sat down on the veranda and Carlos climbed up on to an abandoned dovecote. Ana suddenly had the feeling that she wasn’t alone. When she turned to look she discovered Teresa standing at the point where the veranda branched off along the side of the house. She was very pale, and so thin that she was almost unrecognizable. At first Ana wasn’t sure if it really was Teresa. She was uncertain what to do, but stood up and said hello. Teresa did not reply, but she hurried over and stood close by Ana. She smelled strongly of some oily perfume or other. Ana could see that the roots of her hair were caked in dirt and grease.
‘Were you also married to my husband?’ Teresa asked.
‘No.’
‘I’m sure you were married to my husband. You used to have red hair, but then you had it dyed.’
‘I’ve never had red hair, and I’ve never been married to Pedro.’
Teresa suddenly gave Ana a powerful slap in the face. It was so unexpected that the pain in her cheek and the surprise at being hit struck her dumb.
‘As you know what my husband is called you must have been married to him.’
Teresa turned round and hurried away. Then she suddenly turned round and started to come back. Ana braced herself for another smack, but Teresa turned yet again and disappeared behind the gable end of the house, and started shrieking.
Ana Dolores came running on to the veranda.
‘Where is she?’
Ana pointed. Ana Dolores hurried along the veranda and followed it behind the gable end. When she came back she was holding Teresa by the arm. It was as if she were dragging along a rag doll. They both disappeared into the house.
The man in the pith helmet left with his newly purchased white sheepdog. He didn’t even seem to have noticed Teresa’s presence. Ana Dolores came back again. Ana wondered what she had done in order to calm Teresa down, but she didn’t ask.
‘I’ve come here because there’s something I want you to do,’ said Ana.
She pointed at Carlos, who was sitting on the abandoned dovecote, scratching his fur absent-mindedly. He didn’t seem to have noticed Teresa’s outburst either, something that surprised Ana. Carlos always tried to protect her by screeching and kicking up a row. But not this time.
‘I’m about to leave Lourenço Marques,’ she said, ‘and I can’t take Carlos with me. I thought I would ask if he could stay here on the farm. As long as he gets food and is allowed to do what he wants to do, he’s very calm and no trouble. One day he might well decide to go back to the forest again. He’d be able to do that from here.’
‘You mean that he would be free to wander around and sit wherever he likes, as he’s doing now?’
‘You could give him some rules if you liked. He’s a quick learner.’
‘But you don’t want me to build a cage for him?’
‘Certainly not. Nor should you attach a chain to his neck. Obviously I’m prepared to pay you well for your trouble.’
Ana Dolores looked at her, smiling.
‘When you first came here you were in a pitiful state,’ she said. ‘But you’ve done well for yourself.’
‘I can at least pay you so that Carlos can lead the life he wants to have when I’m no longer here.’
Ana Dolores stood up.
‘Let me think it over,’ she said. ‘If I’m going to take on responsibility for an ape, I want to be sure that I really can and want to do that.’
She stood underneath the dovecote, looking up at Carlos who was still picking away at his skin, searching for ticks. Ana watched them from her seat on the veranda. Ana Dolores left the dovecote and walked to the row of kennels and pens where the sheepdogs that were already trained were jumping up excitedly at the bars. She stopped at one of the pens and seemed to pat the dog through the bars. Then she returned to the veranda.
‘Shout for the ape,’ she said. ‘Or at least get him to come down from the dovecote so that I can introduce myself to him.’
‘So Carlos can stay here?’
‘As long as he doesn’t bite.’
Ana shouted for Carlos, who clambered slowly down from the dovecote. Looking back, it seemed to Ana that he had appeared to hesitate.
74
What came next happened so quickly that afterwards Ana wasn’t at all sure of the course of events. The sheepdog Ana Delores had just been stroking burst through the bars surrounding its pen and raced towards Carlos, who had just reached the ground. Ana shouted a warning, but it was too late. The dog leapt up and sunk its teeth into Carlos’s throat before he had realized the danger. Ana ran down the steps and began hitting the dog with a sweeping brush that was leaning against the veranda rail, but it didn’t release its grip on Carlos’s throat. Ana screamed and hit out with the brush as hard as she could. Ana Dolores didn’t move a muscle. Only when it was all over did she help to pull the dog away and drag it back to its pen.
Carlos lay motionless on the ground. His head was almost detached from his body. His eyes were open. He continued to look at Ana, even though he was dead.
Ana Dolores came back after locking up the sheepdog, which was still wild with fury.
‘I don’t understand how it could have happened,’ she said.
When Ana heard those words, she realized immediately what the facts were. At first she couldn’t believe it, but there was no other possible explanation.
It had not been an accident.
Ana stood up and slowly brushed the dust off her dress.
‘I don’t know how you did it,’ she said. ‘I understand that you unfastened the gate to the dog’s pen, but not how you then ordered it to attack. Perhaps the dog is trained to react not only to a spoken command, but also to a hand gesture or a movement of the head.’
Ana Dolores tried to interrupt her.
‘Let me finish,’ roared Ana. ‘If you interrupt me I shall beat you to death. You gave the dog a signal to attack Carlos. You wanted the ape to die. I don’t know why you did it. Perhaps because you are so full of hatred towards anybody who doesn’t look down on black people? Perhaps you are so full of hatred towards the ape who became my friend that it had to die? I have never met anybody as full of bitterness and hatred as you, Ana Dolores. One of these days the people in this country will have had more than enough of the likes of you.’
Ana Dolores tried once again to say something, but Ana — who was so furious that she was shaking — merely raised her hand.
‘Don’t say a word,’ she said. ‘Not a single word. I don’t want to hear a word from your mouth ever again. Just fetch me a sack so that I can take him away from here.’
Ana Dolores turned on her heel and disappeared into the house. She never reappeared. Instead, a maid came out with an empty sack. She handed it over without even looking at the dead ape. Ana put Carlos’s body into the sack, knowing that Ana Dolores was standing behind one of the windows in the house, watching her.