How to explain all this to people who have been in Luanda only a few hours? So once again, as if they hadn’t heard him, they ask Felix:
“What’s the situation?”
And Felix answers:
“Haven’t I told you already? Confusão.”
They go away shaking their heads and shrugging their shoulders. And they are shaking their heads and shrugging their shoulders because Felix has sown confusão among them.
The next four days were drowned in unusual confusão. Every so often someone came into the hotel shouting, “They’re coming! They’re coming!” and announced breathlessly that the armored vehicles of the Afrikaners were already at the city’s edge. According to one, they were painted yellow; according to another, green. Numerous figures were given: Ten of these vehicles had been seen, later fifty or more. There was no way to check: They might really be a few kilometers away, or those might have been mere rumors. Oscar hung a map of Angola behind the reception desk. A crowd of people stood before it, arguing. Everyone wanted to show with his finger where in his opinion the front was, who had what city, to whom this or that road belonged. No two of them had the same picture of the situation. After a few days, the hundreds of fingers sweeping across the map had rubbed out cities, roads, and rivers. The country looked like a fragment of a gray, naked planet without people or nature.
On Monday the Portuguese garrison sailed away. The last platoon climbed the gangplank to the ship that morning. I knew some of the officers there and I went to say good-bye to them. The locals wanted the garrison to leave as quickly as possible. After years of colonial war, there could be neither understanding nor friendship between the two sides. But I saw it differently. I knew that in this final period the Angolans owed a large debt of gratitude to many, though not all, of the Portuguese officers. They had known how to behave loyally. I myself owed them a lot. They had treated me with sympathy and helped me generously. Nor had they ever attacked the Cubans, although the first people from Havana had come here when Angola was still formally a part of Portuguese territory. There exists a kind of interpersonal solidarity that should not be destroyed by dry political calculation.
A truck drove around the city that day and removed the statues of the Portuguese conquerors from their pediments. The governors and the generals, the travelers and the explorers were collected in front of the citadel and arranged in two brown granite rows. The plazas and squares looked even emptier. That afternoon an airplane flew in carrying foreign delegations. Only a few came. Rumors were circulating around the world that a squadron from Zaïre would bomb the airport that day and there would be no return. The cautious majority waited in their own countries for the unfolding of events in our city. It seems that they were right, because — as emerged later — the decision to destroy the airport had been reversed only at the last minute.
Thousands of people gathered at night in one of the squares. There had been requests to avoid large crowds so as to prevent a massacre in case of attack. The night was dark and cloudy, and the scene at the assembly recalled the secret meetings of the Kimbangists.
The cathedral clock struck twelve.
November 11, 1975.
Quiet reigned on the square. From the speakers’ platform, Agostinho Neto read a text proclaiming the People’s Republic of Angola. His voice broke and he had to pause several times. When he finished, there was applause from the invisible crowd, and the people cheered. There were no more speeches. After a moment the lights on the platform went out and everyone departed rather hastily, lost in the darkness. On the northern front the artillery was silent. But suddenly the soldiers in town began shooting wildly into the air in celebration. There was a chaotic uproar and the night came alive.
In the Tivoli, Oscar went to the safe and took out a bottle of champagne and a bottle of whisky that he had saved for the occasion. We were the oldest residents of the hotel, a crowd of veterans. Instead of evoking cheer and joy, the alcohol intensified our tiredness, our exhaustion. Oscar, who had long been at the limits of his strength, now drunk, called out in despair, “If this is what independence is like, I’ll blow my brains out!” After a moment it dawned on him that this was out of place, so he laughed and then grew quiet; in the end, he fell asleep with his head on the table amid the empty glasses.
There was a reception for the foreign delegations at Government Palace in the morning. I sent a dispatch to Warsaw that day:
LUANDA PAP 11.11. THE INDEPENDENCE CELEBRATIONS TAKING PLACE IN LUANDA HAVE BEEN PEACEFUL SO FAR. THE HOLIDAY ATMOSPHERE HAS BEEN SPOILED BY FNLA GUNNERS WHO HAVE AGAIN SHELLED THE PUMPING STATION AT QUIN-PANDONGO AND LEFT LUANDA WITHOUT WATER FOR TWO DAYS. IN THIS CONNECTION, A WILD STRUGGLE TOOK PLACE TODAY FOR INVITATIONS TO THE RECEPTION THAT PRESIDENT NETO GAVE AT GOVERNMENT PALACE BECAUSE OF RUMORS THAT IT WOULD BE POSSIBLE TO DRINK WATER THERE.
A RADIO STATION — NON-ANGOLAN — HAS REPORTED THAT THE FNLA AND UNITA HAVE DECIDED TO FORM THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT WITH A CAPITAL IN HUAMBO. THIS WILL BE ONLY A PRO FORMA CAPITAL SINCE THE ACTUAL HEADQUARTERS OF THESE ORGANIZATIONS IS KINSHASA. THUS ANGOLA HAS BEEN DIVIDED FOR THE MOMENT INTO TWO STATES WITH INCREDIBLY COMPLICATED BORDERS THAT CHANGE ALMOST EVERY DAY ACCORDING TO WHICH SIDE LAUNCHES AN OFFENSIVE TODAY OR TOMORROW AND WHAT PART OF THE TERRITORY IS TAKEN FROM THE ENEMY. NOW MUCH WILL DEPEND ON WHICH COUNTRIES RECOGNIZE THE MPLA GOVERNMENT OR THE FNLA-UNITA GOVERNMENT, AND AT WHAT TEMPO. SO A NEW, DIPLOMATIC WAR FOR ANGOLA HAS BEGUN.
IN THE MEANTIME, THE REAL WAR IS INTENSIFYING. BOTH SIDES ARE GETTING STRONGER. THERE ARE MORE AND MORE MEN, BETTER-TRAINED TROOPS, AND WEAPONS OF GREATER DESTRUCTIVE POWER.
ON MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10, THE ENEMY BEGAN A NEW TWO-FRONT OFFENSIVE. THERE WAS AN ATTEMPT TO CAPTURE LUANDA FROM THE NORTH. ARMORED VEHICLES AND ARTILLERY TOOK PART IN THE ASSAULT ALONG WITH COMPANIES OF ZAIRIAN TROOPS AND PORTUGUESE MERCENARIES. THE SOUTH AFRICAN ARMY, WHICH IS MOVING FROM THE SOUTH IN TWO MOBILE AND POWERFUL ARMORED COLUMNS, IS HEADING FOR PORTO AMBOIM AND, FURTHER ON, LUANDA. MPLA UNITS IN THIS AREA ARE ORGANIZING A DEFENSIVE LINE WITH THE MISSION OF HOLDING PORTO AMBOIM AT ALL COSTS FIN. COULD YOU SEND A LITTLE MONEY AND SOME CIGARETTES???? TKS IN ADVANCE BYE
Ruiz throttled back: The plane descended toward earth. We had passed Porto Amboim, a small fishing port, and flown over the wide, dark Cuvo River; then the plane flew straight for a few more minutes until it banked and we started back. Ruiz motioned for me to look through the windshield. Below, I could see a road that led to the river and seemed to have dropped into the water, because the bridge across the river had been destroyed. Now we flew along a road on which I could see a motionless column of armored vehicles. I counted: There were twenty-one of them and farther on stood trucks pulling artillery and, at the rear, five jeeps. People wandered along both sides of the road. We returned over the far bank of the river, passing zigzags of trenches below and some units on the road. The plane descended to treetop level and landed on the runway at Porto Amboim airport.