Ruiz had been carrying ammunition and flew straight back to Luanda, but I stayed behind. It was less than twelve miles along the riverbank to the front. A soldier with very dark skin took me there in a car. I asked him in Portuguese if he was from Luanda. No, he answered in Spanish, from Havana. It was hard to tell them apart by sight in those days, because the Cubans had clothed many MPLA units in uniforms they had brought over. This also had a psychological significance, because the FNLA and UNITA troops feared the Cubans most of all. They turned and ran at the sight of units in Cuban uniforms attacking, even though there might not have been a single Cuban among them. External differences were further effaced by the fact that both MPLA and Cuban units were multiracial, so skin color told nothing. Later, this all reinforced the legend of an army of a hundred thousand Cubans fighting in Angola. In truth, the whole army defending the republic came to not more than thirty thousand soldiers, of whom about two-thirds were Angolans.
We drove to a place where there were big cotton warehouses. Front headquarters was located here. You walked around in cotton up to your knees like snow. White moss grew on the uniforms and heads of the soldiers. You slept warm and comfortable here. The front line ran along the river. The South African units couldn’t break through because all the bridges had been blown. They hadn’t been prepared for that and were waiting for pontoon bridges. Both sides exchanged sporadic fire but felt too weak to attack. A ship was supposed to arrive the next day with two companies of Cubans and a company from Guinea-Bissau. Two MPLA units were on their way overland.
At dawn we drove along the front. It was pouring rain and piercingly cold. The car skidded in the mud and we had to flounder around on foot. We passed a dispersed unit, a dozen or more soldiers straggling along the road. Each of them was leading a small, barefoot, shivering child by the hand. At night, a few women with children had crossed to this side of the river in primitive African dugouts. The women had stayed at the shore to guard their belongings while the soldiers led the children to the rear, to the kitchen, to feed them.
I returned that same day in Ruiz’s airplane. Several badly wounded soldiers, local and Cuban, lay on the floor. There had been a night battle sixty miles east of Porto Amboim when the South Africans tried to force the river. The wounded made no noise; two of them were unconscious. Some African women sat motionless in the corner. The plane flew through clouds, lurching; rain fell below. We landed at Luanda in a downpour. Two heavy Antonovs stood on a side apron. They had brought mortars.
That evening, to Warsaw:
I RETURNED TODAY FROM THE SOUTHERN FRONT, THE BORDER OF WHICH NOW RUNS ALONG THE CUVO RIVER. I WILL LEAVE THE DETAILED DESCRIPTION FOR LATER: NOW I WANT TO SEND THE BIG NEWS. THE WAR IN ANGOLA HAS CHANGED IN CHARACTER. UNTIL RECENTLY IT WAS PRIMARILY A GUERRILLA WAR, DOMESTIC, FOUGHT WITH LIGHT WEAPONS. THE INTERVENTION OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN ARMY HAS CHANGED THAT. TODAY THIS IS MORE AND MORE A WAR OF REGULAR ARMIES AND HEAVY EQUIPMENT. THE YOUNG REPUBLIC REMAINS IN A DIFFICULT MILITARY PREDICAMENT, BUT IT HAS A CHANCE TO DEFEND ITSELF. THE ANGOLAN ARMY LEADERSHIP IS CONSOLIDATING ITS FORCES TO GO ON THE OFFENSIVE.
SOMETHING ELSE FOR THE FOREIGN DESK.
MICHAL, RYSIEK HERE, LOOK, MY MONEY RAN OUT LONG AGO AND I AM BARELY ALIVE. IT IS MORE OR LESS CLEAR WHAT WILL HAPPEN, WHICH IS THAT THE ANGOLANS WILL WIN, BUT IT IS GOING TO TAKE A WHILE AND I AM ON MY LAST LEGS. SO I ASK YOU TO GIVE ME PERMISSION TO RETURN HOME. A PLANE IS SUPPOSED TO LEAVE FOR LISBON, AND IT COULD TAKE ME OK???
YES, AFFIRMATIVE, IF YOU HAVE HAD ENOUGH YOU CAN COME HOME
GREAT, I’LL START ARRANGING DEPARTURE
OK, STRIKE YOUR SAILS, MIREK WILL BE WAITING FOR YOU IN LISBON
Packing and saying good-bye.
Pablo gave me a box of cigars for the road.
Comandante Ju-Ju gave me Davidson’s book on Angola.
And Dona Cartagina? Dona Cartagina broke down crying. We have lived through the worst together, and now my eyes were wet, too, when I looked at her. Dona Cartagina, I said, I’ll be back. But I didn’t know if what I was saying was true.
I also drove over to say good-bye to President Neto. The President lived in a villa outside town, built on a slope above a small, palm-grown cove. We talked about poetry — I was carrying his latest book of verse, Sagrada Esperança, which had appeared in Lisbon that year.
Às nossas terras
vermelhas do café
brancas de algodão
verdes dos milharais
havemos de voltar
[To our lands
red as coffee berries
white as cotton
green as fields of grain
we will return]
I knew that by heart. Neto complained that he’d had no time to write poetry lately and nodded toward a wall map, toward the little green and yellow flags stuck in it to indicate the positions of the FNLA and UNITA. A wall of books in his cramped office forms a better background for this figure than a public rostrum (though he is an excellent speaker). I have never seen him in uniform and can’t remember him going to the front.
I knew that things were going badly, I wanted to learn the details from him, but at the same time I didn’t feel up to asking him questions that would hurt. So there was silence and then I said good-bye and left.
In the evening I brush off my mildewed suit and put on a tie: I’m returning to Europe.
ABC
The name “Angola” comes from that of a king, N’Gola, who in the second half of the sixteenth century ruled the Mbundu people, inhabiting the region of today’s Luanda. N’Gola’s kingdom was called Ndongo, and it was the southern neighbor of another great African kingdom, Congo. Both states were brought under the rule of the King of Portugal, and subsequently destroyed.
Present-day Angola occupies 1,246,700 square kilometers. In terms of its area, it ranks fifth among African countries: after Sudan, Congo (Zaïre), Algeria, and Libya. Angola is fourteen times larger than Portugal, and larger than France, former West Germany, Great Britain, and Italy combined. Its borders on land measure 4,837 kilometers, and its coastline stretches for 1,850 kilometers. The land border isn’t clearly demarcated, however, running through uninhabited bush, and one can cross it at will (even drive over it in a car).
For a state surrounded by unfriendly neighbors, this creates serious defensive problems.
Topographical features: the country is divided into three geographical zones running north to south. The Atlantic coastal region (maximum width: 200 kilometers): low lying, semi-arid, and, in the south, desert. Many acacias grow here, dry blackthorn, and baobabs. Continuing east: the highlands, the most picturesque and fertile part of the country, with an eternally springlike climate. The highest peaks: Môco, 2,620 meters, and Lubango, 2,566 meters. Both areas are relatively densely populated, possessing excellent conditions for agriculture and cattle raising. Finally, the easternmost part of the country: a plateau covered with thin, dry bush (400–1000 meters above sea level). It occupies two-thirds of Angola’s entire surface and because of the scarcity of water is only sporadically inhabited, largely by pastoral tribes.