Sea Foam, who was in the yard with us, looked terrified and took off running towards his house. There was another knock. I looked up at the second floor. Granma Catarina, who hadn’t come down since the beginning of the party, was at the window. She just smiled.
“It must be the Soviet.”
So it was. He was frightened by the crowd in the living room, with all of them staring at him. He came in slowly and spent a long time cleaning his dust-laden boots.
“Gudafter-noon.”
As everyone was already a bit sloshed, they answered with the same accent: “Gudafter-noon.”
The music started again. He entered and asked for Granma Nhé, who was getting some more dishes ready in the kitchen. When Granma Nhé came into the living room, his smile disappeared from his mouth in an instant. Granma Nhé regarded Comrade Gudafterov with a strange look.
“Take it easy, Mother,” Aunty Tó urged.
“Gudafter-noon, Dona Nhéte. You don’t haf light again? Bilhardov put cable.”
Granma made her way slowly to his side.
“Good evening, Comrade Bilhardov. Are you coming from a funeral?”
“Fooneral? I no understand.”
“You have flowers in your hand. You must be coming from a funeral. What a shame you forgot to leave the flowers there.”
“Bilhardov no understand.”
It was Aunty Tó who saved Comrade Gudafterov. She smiled at him. “Don’t worry, my mother’s had a couple of drinks.” She took the flowers from his hand, thanked him and carried them to the kitchen.
Granma Nhé, as everybody knows, doesn’t like to be given flowers. She says it reminds her of funerals and cemeteries.
Comrade Gudafterov, without even noticing, found himself in a confusing situation, but then his confusion deepened because someone had brought vodka and he rapidly downed seven shots in a row.
“Tomorrow Bilhardov fix cable again. Dona Nhéte’s house haf light from Mausoleum. Viva!”
In the kitchen, Aunty Tó was about to drop the flowers into the garbage.
“Don’t do that, daughter.”
“But, Mother, you don’t like being given flowers.”
“No, I don’t like it. But this time I’m going to make use of them.”
“Make use of them to do what, Mother?”
“Tomorrow I want to go to the cemetery.”
“Tomorrow’s the day of your operation, Mother.”
“But before, I want to go to the cemetery. Leave the flowers there in the corner.”
Aunty Tó left the kitchen and went to say goodbye to some people who were leaving. Madalena came in.
“Madalena, get a vase for those flowers.”
“Should I put them in the living room, Granma?”
“Don’t even think of it. Put them outside in the yard.”
Granma Nhé remained standing, her eyes gleaming with a slow light. She looked outside, but in a direction where it was impossible to see the light or the stars. I didn’t understand where she was looking.
“Granma.”
“Yes, son.”
“Can I go to the cemetery with you tomorrow?”
“You want to?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Can Granma Catarina come with us, Granma?”
Granma Nhé laughed to herself, gave me an affectionate pat and told me to go play a little longer. Aunty Tó came back into the kitchen with a laugh.
“What is it, daughter?” Granma Nhé wiped at her bright eyes.
“I just came to give you a kiss, Mother. Everything’s going to be fine. I think you’re wonderful.”
“That’s good, daughter.”
“Now you won’t be my little mother any more.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll be my little nineteener, Mother. You’re only going to have nineteen fingers and toes.”
They both burst out laughing with a happiness that startled me. As Sea Foam said, “Words have magical charms and invisible strengths.” It’s true: that little gibe about being a “nineteener” not only made Granma Nhé laugh again but it changed her name for the rest of her life.
It was that night, on Bishop’s Beach, that Granma Agnette became Granma Nineteen.
7
I had that dream many times, but not with so many kids running along Bishop’s Beach without the strings of their kites getting tangled up — like crazy knots in the Comrade Old Fisherman’s net — nor had I seen so much wind causing such a strong swell in such a calm sea, it was just that when I dreamed I didn’t know it was a dream: my breathing became rushed because I was upset at seeing the square and the gas station with so many children and I wanted to know who they were. The children from Bishop’s Beach were there and also those from the Blue District, others from school and even a few adults: Aunt Adelaide laughing, the Comrade Gas Jockey running with a red and yellow kite, even Uncle Rui, who was a writer, went past on a bicycle that had moustaches drawn on it, and he did two things at once, riding the bike and keeping the kite under control — what a beautiful bicycle! — and Senhor Tuarles had a mug of beer in one hand and with the other he made the kites feint like soccer players, even Comrade Gudafterov was laughing and running, “Dona Nhéte, ka-yet bring news from far-away,” but what had never before happened to me in that dream of carnivals and also laughter was to see so many animated colours in a dance of soaring winds and the sky full of a thousand greens, yellows, oranges and reds with the blue behind, the sky imitating some birds that might be the living body of what’s called a rainbow.
“Are you dreaming, son?”
“Ay, Granma, don’t wake me up like that, I was dreaming about an awesome rainbow.”
“Oh, my dear,”—she wiped my face—“you were breathing so fast and covered in sweat. I was afraid you were having an asthma attack.”
“It was a many-coloured asthma, Granma…Our sky here on Bishop’s Beach had colours that I don’t even know how to describe to you.”
“The same dream, then.”
“But with ‘multiplication factors,’ as they say at my school.”
“It’s time to wake up in any event. Are you coming with me to the cemetery?”
“Yes. Are you going to talk with Granpa Mbinha?”
“It’s not the place to talk, son. It’s just to be there for a while. Sometimes a person goes to the cemetery to talk to herself.”
“Sea Foam talks to himself without going to the cemetery.”
We lingered over breakfast: a really good black tea that Madalena mixed with verbena leaf; the first time she had done that everybody refused to drink it, and now it was a custom and was even offered to visitors.
“There wasn’t any bread today, Granma,” Madalena explained.
“That’s all right. Heat up a bit of yesterday’s bread in the oven, it tastes wonderful. Just for five minutes so we don’t waste gas.”
“Yes, Granma.”
It was very early. The windows could still be opened without the risk of our having a breakfast of bread and butter with a light covering of dust.
The chickens were demanding the corn that hadn’t appeared for three days. They were just eating stale bread and potato peelings left over from someone’s house.