— So you can go back to your stinking city. Get out of here.
Aproximado still slept with us that night. Before he fell asleep, I went over to his bed, determined to confess something to him:
— Uncle, I think it’s my fault.
— What’s your fault?
— I was the one who made dear Ntunzi fall ill.
This was why: I’d gone along with his wish that we should kill our old man. Aproximado rested his big round hand on my head, and smiled kindly:
— I’m going to tell you a story.
And he spoke of some father or other who didn’t know how to give his son enough love. One night, the hovel in which they lived caught fire. The man picked the child up in his arms and left the scene of the tragedy, trudging through the night. He must have crossed the borders of this world, for when he eventually put the child down on the ground, he noticed that there was no more earth. All that remained was emptiness upon emptiness, shredded clouds among faded skies. The man concluded to himself:
— Well now, my son will only ever find ground on my lap.
That little boy never realized that the vast territory where he later lived, grew up and made children, was no more than his old father’s lap. Many years later, when he opened up his father’s grave, he called his son and said to him:
— Do you see the soil, son? It looks like sand, stones and clumps of earth. But it’s arms as well, and its arms will embrace you.
I patted Uncle’s hand, and returned to my bed, where I lay wide awake for the rest of the night. I was listening to Ntunzi’s heavy breathing. And it was then that I noticed he was coming back to life. Suddenly, his hands stretched out feeling the darkness, as if he were looking for something. Then he moaned, almost on cue:
— Water!
I rushed over, holding back my emotions. Aproximado woke up and switched on a torch. The focus of its light veered away from us and meandered down the hall. The next moment, the three adults came into the room and hurried over to Ntunzi’s bed. Silvestre’s trembling hand sought out his son’s face and he saw that he was no longer feverish.
— The river saved him—Zachary exclaimed.
The soldier sank to his knees next to the bed and took Ntunzi’s hand. The other two adults, Aproximado and Silvestre, stood there facing each other, silent. Suddenly, they hugged each other. The torch fell to the ground and only their legs were visible, tottering nervously backwards and forwards. They were like two blind men in a clumsy dance. For the first time, Silvestre treated his brother-in-law with fraternal affection:
— I’m sorry, brother.
— If that nephew of mine had died, you’d have nowhere else in the world to hide. .
— You know very well how much I care for these kids. My sons are my last hope in life.
— But you’re not helping them like this.
You don’t help a bird to fly by holding onto its wings. A bird flies when it’s quite simply allowed to be a bird. That’s what Uncle Aproximado said. Then he left, engulfed by the darkness.
MY BROTHER, NTUNZI
Do not seek me there
where the living visit
the so-called dead.
Seek me in the great waters.
In the open spaces,
in a fire’s heart,
among horses, hounds,
in the rice fields, in the gushing stream,
or among the birds
or mirrored in some other being,
climbing an uneven path.
Stones, seeds, salt, life’s stages.
Seek me there.
Alive.
M y brother Ntunzi had only one aspiration in his life: to escape from Jezoosalem. He had known the world, had lived in the city, and remembered our mother. I envied him for all this. Countless times I begged him to tell me about this universe that was unknown to me, and each time, he would linger on details, the colours and the bright lights. His eyes shone, swollen with dreams. Ntunzi was my cinema.
Incredible though this may seem, the person who had stimulated him in the art of telling stories had been our father. Silvestre thought that a good story was a more powerful weapon than a gun or a knife. But that had been before our arrival at Jezoosalem. At that time, and in the face of complaints about conflicts at school, Silvestre had encouraged Ntunzi: “If they threaten you with a beating, answer with a story.”
— Is that what Father said? — I asked, surprised.
— That’s what he said.
— And did it work? — I asked.
— I got beaten up all the time.
He smiled. But it was a sad smile because, in truth, what story was there to invent now? What story can be conceived without a tear, without song, without a book or a prayer? My brother’s expression became gloomy, and he grew old before my very eyes. On one occasion, his sorrow was expressed in a strange way:
— In this world there are the living and the dead. And then there’s us, the ones who have no journey to make.
Ntunzi suffered because he could remember, he had something to compare this with. For me, our reclusion was less painfuclass="underline" I had never experienced any other way of living.
I would sometimes ask him about our mother. That was his cue. Ntunzi would blaze like a fire fuelled by dry wood. And he would put on a complete performance, imitating Dordalma’s manner and voice, each time adding in one or two new revelations.
On the occasions when I forgot or neglected to ask him to revisit these memories, he would soon react:
— So aren’t you going to ask me about Mama?
And once again, he would re-kindle his memories. At the end of his performance, Ntunzi would become subdued again, just as happens with drunks and their euphoria. Knowing that the outcome would be sad, I would interrupt his theatre to ask:
— And what about the others, brother? What are other women like?
Then, his eyes would gleam anew. And he would turn on his heels, as if exiting an imaginary stage before re-emerging from the wings to imitate the ways of women. He would bunch his shirt up to simulate the bulk of a woman’s bosom, wiggle his buttocks and reel around the room like a headless chicken. And we would collapse on the bed, dying of laughter.
Once, Ntunzi told me of some old crush he’d had, a product more of his delirium than of lived experience. Not that it could have been otherwise: he had left the city when he was only eleven years old. Ntunzi dreamed his women with such ardour that they became more real than if they were flesh and blood. On one occasion, when he was in the middle of his hallucinations, he met a woman of boundless beauty.
When the apparition touched his arm and he looked at her, a cold shiver ran through him: the girl had no eyes. Instead of sockets, what he saw were two empty holes, two bottomless wells without sides.
— What’s happened to your eyes? — he asked unsteadily.
— What’s wrong with my eyes?
— Well, I can’t see them.