— It’s only for a few days—Aproximado maintained.
A curtain separated the two beds, protecting our privacies.
When we arrived, Noci was still at work. At night, when she came into the house, Marta was lying there, apparently sleeping. Noci woke her up by stroking her hair. The two hugged each other tightly, and then wept inconsolably. When she was able to talk, the young woman said:
— I lied, Marta.
— I already knew.
— You knew? Since when?
— Ever since the first time I saw you.
— He was ill, very ill. He didn’t even want anyone to see him. In a sense it was good that I arrived late. If you’d seen him at the end, you wouldn’t have recognized him.
— Where was he buried?
— Near here. In a cemetery near here.
As the foreigner held Noci’s hand, she turned a silver ring on the other woman’s finger. Without even having to ask, Marta knew that the ring had been a gift from Marcelo.
— Do you know something, Noci? It did me good to be there, at the reserve.
The Portuguese woman explained: going to Jezoosalem was a way of being with Marcelo. The journey had been as reinvigorating as a deep sleep. By sharing in that pretence of a world coming to an end, she had learnt about death without grieving, departure without leave-taking.
— You know, Noci. I saw women washing Marcelo’s clothes.
— That’s impossible. .
— I know, but for me, those shirts were his. .
Any item of clothing drifting in a current of water would always be Marcelo’s. The very substance of all the rivers in the world is surely made of memories resisting the flow of time. But the Portuguese woman’s rivers were increasingly African ones: more sand than water, more the fury of nature than gentle, well-mannered watercourses.
— Let’s go together to the cemetery tomorrow.
The following morning, I was left at home to look after my father. Silvestre got up late, and while still sitting in his bed, called for me. When I arrived, he sat there examining his own body. It had always been like that: my father forced one to wait before he started talking.
— I’m worried about you, Mwanito.
— Why‘s that, Father?
— You were born with a big heart, my son. And with such a heart, you are incapable of hating. But for this world to be loved, it needs a lot of hatred as well.
— I’m sorry, Father, but I don’t understand you at all.
— It doesn’t matter. What I want you and I to agree to is this: if they want to take me into town, don’t let me go, my son. Do you promise?
— I promise, Father.
He explained: the snake hadn’t just got his hand. It had bitten him all over his body. Everything around him was painful, the whole city enfeebled him, the wretchedness of the streets hurt him more than the contamination of his blood.
— Have you seen how the most scandalous luxury lives cheek by jowl with misery?
— Yes—I lied.
— That’s why I don’t want to go out.
Jezoosalem had allowed him to forget. The snake’s poison had brought him time. The city had caused him to go blind.
— Don’t you feel like going out, like Ntunzi?
— No.
— Why not?
— There’s no river here as there is there.
— Why don’t you do like Ntunzi who’s not here and is off buzzing around?
— I don’t know how to walk. .I don’t know how to walk all over the place.
— My son, I feel so guilty. You’re so old. You’re as old as I am.
I got up and went to the mirror. I was a young boy, my body still in first flush. Yet my father was right: tiredness weighed upon me. I had reached old age without deserving it. I was eleven years old, and I was withered, consumed by my father’s delirium. Yes, my father was right. He who has never been a child doesn’t need time in order to grow old.
— One thing I hid from you, back there in Jezoosalem.
— You hid the whole world from me, Father.
— There was something I never told you.
— Father, let’s forget about Jezoosalem, we’re here now. .
— One day, you’ll go back there!
— To Jezoosalem?
— Yes, it’s your homeland, your curse. Do you know something, son? That place is full of miracles.
— I never saw any.
— They’re such tiny little miracles that we don’t realize they’ve happened.
We had been in the city for three days and Silvestre hadn’t even opened the curtains. The house was his new refuge, his new Jezoosalem. I don’t know how Marta and Noci managed to convince my father to go out that afternoon. The women thought it would do him good to see the grave of his late wife. I went with them, carrying flowers, at the rear of the cortège as it made its way to the cemetery.
As we lined up before my mother’s tomb, Silvestre remained impassive, empty, oblivious to everything. We stared at the ground, he looked up at the birds streaking across the clouds. Marta handed him the wreath of flowers and asked him to place it on the grave. My father proved unable to hold the flowers, which fell to the ground, and the wreath broke apart. In the meantime, Uncle Aproximado joined us. He removed his hat and stood there respectfully, eyes closed.
— I want to see the tree— Silvestre said, breaking the silence.
— Let’s go— replied Aproximado, — I’ll take you to see the tree.
And we headed for the open ground next to our house. A solitary casuarina defied the sky. Silvestre fell to his knees before the old trunk. He called me over and pointed to the tree’s canopy:
— This tree, my son. This tree is Dordalma’s soul.
A BULLET BITTEN
To cross the world’s desert with you
Face together death’s terror
See the truth and lose fear
I walked beside your steps
For you I left my realm my secret
My swift night my silence
My round pearl and its orient
My mirror my life my image
I abandoned the gardens of paradise
Out here in the harsh day’s light
Mirrorless I saw I was naked
And this wasteland was called time
With your gestures I was thus dressed
And learnt to live in the wind’s full force
We are daytime creatures, but it’s the nights that give us the measure of our place. And nights only really fit comfortably in our childhood home. I had been born in the residence we now occupied, but this wasn’t my home, it wasn’t here that sleep descended upon me with tenderness. Everything in this dwelling made me feel a stranger. And yet, my slumber seems to have recognized something familiar in its tranquillity. Maybe that was why, one night, I had a dream that I’d never had before. For I fell into a deep abyss and was carried away by waters and floods. I dreamed that Jezoosalem was submerged. First, it rained on the sand. Then on the trees. Later, it rained on the rain itself. The camp was transformed into a riverbed, and not even continents were enough to absorb so much water.