“Comrades, beach close for temporary, orders of Comrade President: Workers must finish Muzzleum verk. Your collaboration, please.”
“Lots of people work here every day, Comrade General. We need to go out on the sea. Some people still live on the other side of the beach.”
“Comrade President resolve all problem. Today beach close. Reasons of security. Muzzleum almost finish. Need make verk beach zone. Nobody hurt. Comrade President promise. Population must collaborate. Last varning: tomorrow nobody on beach, soldiers close everything fast! Gudafter-noon, Comrades!”
He didn’t go on trying to speak. Gudafterov went to open the main gate and the jeep entered the Mausoleum construction site. The soldiers in the jeep stayed at the gate to guard the entrance, and they ordered everyone to go away without putting up any more resistance.
“Time to come home, children,” Granma Nineteen said from the veranda. “It’s lunchtime and I don’t want you over there around those guns.”
Everybody cleared out. Senhor Tuarles, drenched in sweat, came over to say that the best thing would be for them to drink a few beers to freshen up and think up better ideas. Sea Foam ran into his house, the Comrade Gas Jockey leaned back his chair and set his hat at an angle that allowed his eyes to grow sleepy.
“After lunch you come here and tell the whole conversation,” Dona Libânia said. “You can eat slices of a banana cake that was left over from the party, but don’t tell anybody.”
“Sure, Dona Libânia.” 3.14 had a sweet tooth.
“Listen, Pi, do you think they’re gonna find the dynamite we put there?”
“No way. He’s just going there to bawl people out. He’s gonna find the soldiers drunk, he’s gonna give a couple of them a smack to make an example of them. You think the General’s not hungry? He must want to have lunch, too.”
“Let’s hope.”
“Hey, when you finish eating let’s meet out front here again. There could be more surprises.”
“I hope not.”
“Don’t forget to give the letter to your granma. Then you can tell me what’s in it. Imagine the mistakes in Armpitov’s writing!”
“Sure thing.”
I went to the bathroom to wash my hands, take off my shirt and wash my armpits, and wash my face with that soap that came with little crumbs trapped inside it, I don’t know why. It was very hot and the letter fell out of my waist where I had it hidden. I opened the letter. It was two pages long, written in a handwriting that was difficult to read. It seemed to have been written in haste; it was impossible to understand anything. But it was from him: it even had his signature — Bilhardov — at the end.
I stood still for a moment thinking. Words, the words that one person sometimes says to another person, at times they’re words that a person speaks without thinking, especially when they’re arguing, they just come out like that; at other times they’re words that a person spends a long time preparing, because they mean something to the other person, and can be said only with well-prepared words, and it’s not even always good to prepare words too much; at times talking at random or really fast summons up words that have more truth or force of conviction. That two-page letter, with words written in haste, yet thought out with a view to being read by my Granma Nineteen — what words would those be? Why had Gudafterov written such a long letter to my granma? Maybe he was coming by again with his conversation about the beauty of “snov,” and the forests and hearths of his cold country in the far-away; maybe he had even succeeded in writing a beautiful letter and — I had already seen this in the movies — women of any age like beautiful letters that make them cry.
I crumpled the letter, tore it into little pieces and dropped it in the toilet to flush away Comrade Gudafterov’s words.
“Go write letters to your own darn wife there in the far-away.” I grabbed the water bucket and poured the whole thing into the toilet so that no paper remained.
“What’s the hold-up? Come to the table,” Granma called.
“Sorry, Granma, I was washing my face. It’s really hot.”
“Come and sit down. And I don’t want to see any elbows on the table.”
During lunch I saw the Boss General’s jeep pass by the window really fast, with the soldiers aiming their AK-47s at the sky. It made me nervous, and I wondered if they’d found the dynamite buried at the cardinal points 3.14 invented. Some day I’m going to ask André the commando if they also have that code of cardinal points in war zones, because I figured it was an awesome idea of Pi’s — unless he had seen it in a movie and not told me about it.
“Granma, can I go play?”
“Right after eating, with this sun on your head? Perish the thought. We’re going to take a siesta.”
It was better not to argue. Insisting too much might put Granma in a bad mood, and then she might send me to lie down for the whole afternoon. I needed not to get angry at her in order to be free later in the afternoon, or even at night, whatever turned out to be the time to grab the “hod drink.”
“Can I go to Granma Catarina’s room?”
“No. You’re going to lie down in my bed.”
“All right, Granma.”
“If you fall asleep, I’ll wake you later. Today Doctor Rafael is coming here. You can help me understand what he says.”
“Late in the afternoon, Granma?”
“I think so, I’m not sure.”
“But I’ve already agreed to go play with 3.14 then.”
“You can play later. I’ll let you go out afterwards.”
Granma must have been tired, or sleepy from the pills she was taking for the pain: she soon fell asleep next to me. I heard a few whistles from downstairs but I was unable to open the window, because it might have woken Granma up.
I rolled over very gently and entered Granma Catarina’s room. She was rocking in her chair.
“Granma, just let me open the window a moment.”
“Open it, son. It’s all the same to me.”
Down below, 3.14, drenched in sweat by the midday sun — I don’t even want to imagine the smell of his b.o.-dorov— was calling out to me to come downstairs. In his hand he had a letter identical to the one I had drowned in the bathroom. Annoyed, I went downstairs.
“Where are you going? Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping? I’m going to tell on you,” Madalena said, and started up the stairs.
“Listen carefully, Madalena: if you tell Granma that I went out, I swear I’m going to tell her about all the times I saw you smooching with a Soviet soldier, and also with another Angolan soldier, and I’m also going to tell about the time on Saturday night when I saw you come in at close to two in the morning, when even the clock in the living room was striking the hour, and you were wearing that miniskirt that Granma already forbid you to wear because it’s so short, and I’m going to tell her about the baths you take in the white foam of the sea with that boy, even when the water is cold or full of jellyfish. Do you hear me?”
Madalena’s face was so fearful that it looked as if she was going to faint. She stood still, looking at me, and only later said: “I’m sorry. You can go. I was just joking.”
3.14 was waiting for me, half-concealed, amidst the trees.
“Listen to this: it looks like Gudafterov mined the beach with letters for your granma.” He laughed.
“I don’t find that funny at all.”
“What did the other letter say?”
“I don’t know. It was unreadable. I threw it away.”
“It was your Aunt Adelaide who gave me this one. She said that Gudafterov left it with her to hand in to your granma.”
“Son of a bitch.”