What happened to Oscar? Perhaps he survived, and has retired. I would so much like him to have a good and peaceful old age. And Gilberto? I don’t know, I cannot say. Felix? I also don’t know. People disappear without a trace, so completely and irretrievably, first from the world, and then from our memory.
And Dona Cartagina? I am almost afraid to think about it. What if she is no more? But this seems impossible. Without Dona Cartagina, I cannot imagine either Luanda, or Angola, or this whole war. That is why I am convinced that should you be in Luanda, sooner or later you will meet a gray-haired old woman walking in the morning toward the Hotel. Tivoli She will be hurrying, because, just like every other day, a lot of cleaning awaits her. If you stop her and inquire, “Excuse me, are you Dona Cartagina?” the woman will stop for a moment, look at you with surprise, and then politely answer, “Yes, it is I.”
And she will continue briskly on her way.
About the Author
Ryszard Kapu
ci
ski, Poland’s most celebrated foreign correspondent, was born in 1932. After graduating in history from Warsaw University, he was sent to India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to report for Polish news, beginning a lifelong fascination with the Third World. During his four decades reporting on Asia, Latin America, and Africa, he befriended Che Guevara, Salvador Allende, and Patrice Lumumba; witnessed twenty-seven coups and revolutions; and was sentenced to death four times.
His books—Shah of Shahs (about the Iranian Revolution), The Emperor (about the fall of Ethiopia’s Haile Selassie), Imperium (about the fall of the Soviet Union), and The Soccer War (a compendium of reportage from the Third World) — have been translated into nineteen languages. His most recent book, The Shadow of the Sun, “a record of my forty-year marriage to Africa,” will be published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2001.