“Be ready.” 3.14 spoke gently, with his eyes nearly moist, and it wasn’t from the dust. “From this time onwards you’re going to have to lie when they ask you if we were the people who dexploded the Mausoleum construction site.”
The wind made a cute sound as it passed in a flying curve through the trees of Granma Nineteen’s yard: the old fig tree, the guava tree, the mango tree, the cherimoya tree, the bushes, the papaya tree, the red Brazilian cherry tree.
“I know, Pi, I know.”
10
After lunch Comrade Gudafterov arrived, drenched in sweat and reeking of body odour. He didn’t know it, but Granma Nineteen preferred him to visit at night, after 6PM, when he had taken his bath and washed his armpits, because if there’s one way to know that Comrade Gudafterov is near, that way is called Soviet Body Odour. Or simply “b.o.-dorov,” as Comrade 3.14 used to say.
“Kildren, you just play? Look at marvellous construction of Mausoleum. Very pretty, like big rocket, very pretty!”
“You’re gonna see that big rocket take off,” 3.14 said. His teeth were jammed tight together, but I understood him.
“Gudafterov no understand.”
“Just wait, Goofofferov, you’re gonna understand.”
“Kildren, Granma Nhéte come back good?”
“Yeah, she came back.”
“Gudafterov want greet her.”
3.14 jumped off the wall from above the bushes, almost crippling himself. He burst out laughing and I knew he was going to say something.
“Gudafterov! Go wash your armpitovs! Hahaha!”
“Granma Nhéte is wake up?”
“Has she woken up?”
“Yes, woken up.”
“I don’t know, Comrade Gudafterov. You’d better go ask the elders.”
“Gudafteroooov!” 3.14 shouted, making a megaphone of his hands. Sea Foam laughed so hard he rolled around on the sand; the Comrade Gas Jockey was guffawing. “Gudafterooov, we don’t like b.o.-dorov! Go wash your armpitovs!”
The sun warmed my face and my laughter and the things and the names and the houses, and all the people of Bishop’s Beach refused to leave my imagination. As hard as I tried to stop them, a slew of voices spoke at once: some laughed, others cried, the children made noise as they ran around, Sea Foam took flight holding aloft a sheet of newsprint, the Old Fisherman appeared with Rainboat repainted a bright new shade of blue, and from Granma Nineteen’s house to the sea was a heap of sand that had never known the cement of the Mausoleum construction site.
I opened my eyes.
For the first time, I thought about 3.14’s plan without my heart accelerating with fear at having to lie about things which, after all, we just had to get done.
Comrade Gudafterov came out with a disconsolate expression on his face and made no jokes in his Soviet-accented Angolan Portuguese. He said goodbye to me just as he was about to go out the front gate and ran his hands through the flowers at the entrance as though bidding them farewell. On top of everything else, Granma Nineteen didn’t like people messing around with her flowers as if they were patting a dog. But Granma didn’t see him; she only came downstairs later.
On the top floor, after looking out at us, Granma Catarina closed the windows for the last time that day.
“Are you thinking about life, son?” Granma Nineteen liked to say that she didn’t sleep at night in order to concentrate on “thinking about life.”
“I’m just lookin’ at our Bishop’s Beach. Did Gudafterov bring bad news, Granma? It was even in the Jornal de Angola.”
“The comrade’s name is Bilhardov.”
“Bilhardov, Gudafterov, Armpitov. He’s been given so many names here, Granma, that when he returns to his country he won’t know what he’s called.”
Granma Nineteen moaned with pain from her bandaged foot, but she still laughed.
“Do you want me to get you a chair?”
“No, it’s good to walk. It just hurts.”
“Do you miss your toe, Granma?”
“No. Everything’s fine, son.” She also looked at our Bishop’s Beach, with the sea behind it showing off the shade of blue that they call navy. “Everything’s fine.”
“Granma, they’re going to dexplode all the houses, eh?”
“It’s ‘explode,’ son. Don’t talk like that; people will think you don’t know how to speak Portuguese.”
“I like ‘dexplode’ better. It’s a word that sounds like it’s bursting open; explode seems like it should be for a slow flame.”
“All right, but only say those invented words of yours in the house.”
“Bilhardov came to tell you, eh?”
“Yes, he came. Tomorrow they’re going to close the beach. Orders from one of those generals who commands the construction site.”
“So it’s already starting.”
“Yes, it’s already starting.”
Granma asked me to go and see if there was water in the faucet.
She knew very well that there was no water at that hour, but to please her I turned on the faucet to see, turned it off again, re-arranged the hose that had already been arranged, just to do something, to allow her time to see if she wanted to tell me about their conversation. But she didn’t say a word.
“If I were feeling better, I’d water the plants just like that.”
“With make-believe water, Granma? I think you should only do that in the house, otherwise people are going to think you’ve lost your mind.”
“Watering does the plants good, but it also does good to the person who waters. Even with make-believe water, as you say.”
Granma went back inside without saying anything more. She didn’t even tell me what time dinner was, or that I couldn’t go and play with the other kids in the square.
The sun had gone away, the Comrade Gas Jockey wasn’t there anymore and 3.14 had already whistled twice.
We sat down on Senhor Tuarles’s sidewalk to wait for Charlita. We thought she might have been punished, but she showed up.
“Charlita, you never showed up again. Are you sick, or what?”
“My dad keeps telling me not to go out into the street because any minute now they’re going to start dynamiting the houses.”
“That’s not how it works. They have to warn people first. They’re going to close the beach and order everybody out. Each person can only take one chair and a bag with their underwear. Not even toothbrushes are allowed, that’s what I heard.”
“You’re full of it.” 3.14 knew this was a lie.
“I’m just kiddin’, but it’s true, they’re going to close the beach.”
“How do you close a beach? With a padlock?”
“You just put men with guns there.”
“They’ve had them on the beach forever.”
“But they never actually stopped you from going there. They already know us. Now they’re not going to let us play there anymore.”
“And Foam? And the Old Fisherman? Are they gonna take his dugout to his new house?”
“What do I know?”
“Charlita?”
“What is it?”
“It’s just that you’re so quiet. Our plan’s really advanced.”
“I don’t want to hear any more about that crazy plan. My dad was already set to give me a thrashing because of it.” Charlita scratched at the ground with a stone, making some very ugly drawings.
“Your dad? Don’t tell me you already tattled on us.”