I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers
.…
I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers
—FROM “THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS” BY LANGSTON HUGHES
In the dugout’s prow, my father and my brother rowed vigorously, taking turns with the oars so as to overcome the current. In the belly of the little boat traveled the sergeant, lying stretched out. What remained of his arms was wrapped in blood-soaked cloths. The disappearance of his hands—which before seemed only a hallucination—had now become a reality. Never again would the sergeant turn his gaze to his own fingers.
The blood accumulated in a pool, and each drop dripped onto my sense of guilt. Upon me, who had returned his whole body to him so many times, fell the sin of having caused his hands to fly away.
With us traveled the Italian woman, Bianca. From time to time, the woman would untie the unhappy sergeant’s cloths and dip them in the waters of the river. The Inharrime was stained red.
Do you know the story of this river? the European woman asked me.
And, without waiting for a reply, she began telling me that Vasco da Gama had once given it a name, the River of Copper. And they had once confided in her that, on the south bank of the river, the king of Gaza had buried a fortune in gold sovereigns. Well, there’s neither copper nor gold: the only things around here are grasses and stones. That’s what Bianca said, only to muse, immediately afterward: Why do we persist in giving names to things that belong to no one? And tell me, my dear: why in heaven’s name did they decide to call me the “woman with the hands of gold”?
I ceased listening to her. And I found myself swaying this way and that over the feeling that had rendered me breathless ever since I had shot the sergeant, some hours before. I know I did it to save my brother. But this reason wasn’t sufficient for me to face the suffering I could see stamped on his face. Ever since I embarked in this boat, I had had been unable to stop looking at him, as if my gaze might relieve him, and his pain and suffering might be shared between two souls.
The sergeant’s arms became gradually redder and redder. It was a strange coloring, peppered with the gunpowder that burned him. And his face had now gained a bluish hue. There seemed to be no border between the blue of his eyes, the blue of his skin, and the blue of the river. The man was groaning, his mouth open. The Italian woman told me he was calling my name. I tried to ignore him. I was scared he might be asking me to confirm the existence of his hands, now that he had lost them for good. At a certain point, however, I had to lean over his tortured face. It seemed that he wanted to dictate a letter, an urgent letter to the “Most Esteemed Sir.”
Our journey was interrupted by the strangest of episodes. On the left bank of the river, a huge fire spread light and flames that were so bright, they were enough to turn night into day. The Italian woman got out of the boat and dashed off in a frenzied rush. When I went to retrieve her, we ran into some Portuguese soldiers who were chasing horses that had fled the chaos.
When we got back to the dugout, the Italian woman was very disturbed and kept repeating: I saw him, I saw him! My father told her to keep quiet, because he feared that the soldiers, in their state of alarm, might take us for an enemy target.
And we rowed on in silence until day broke. Those strange events had distracted me. The moment the sun came up, I began to be tormented by guilt once more; without my being aware of it, tears rolled down my cheeks, thick and fast.
Don’t cry, Imani, Bianca begged me.
Let her cry, lady, my father interceded. Those tears aren’t hers.
And Bianca smiled tolerantly. She had returned to her senses, as if she had no memory of what had happened the previous night. She was, on the other hand, more forlorn, and her gestures more abrupt and restrained. Ever since she had come back to the dugout and recovered from her frenzy, the Italian woman had done justice to the nickname that had gilded her hands: she fulfilled her role as nurse with rigor. And she assumed a certain cold distance as she told him, by way of consolation, There are two or three fingers we might yet save.
To hell with my fingers, Germano mumbled. I’ve died, my dear friend. I’m already dead.
Now, now, Germano, you’ll bury me yet.
I like your accent, Bianca. Go on talking; don’t stop talking to me.
The Italian woman’s faulty pronunciation made the Portuguese language seem sweeter. She opened up its vowels and ignored the silences after its consonants. For sure, she would fail the exams set by Father Rudolfo. But this double standard was clear to see in the sergeant’s words. Whites can speak in various ways: people say they have an accent. Only we blacks are not allowed to have another accent. It’s not enough for us to speak another people’s language. In that language, we must stop being ourselves.
* * *
There are many things Bianca doesn’t know about. She doesn’t understand my father when he says my tears are not mine. These tears belong to a river inside of us that overflows through our eyes. In Nkokolani, we know that which cannot be explained in another language. We know, for example, how my little sisters were taken away by the flood. Mother wept; she wept every night. Not a single tear brought them back. Tired of crying, our mother traveled to the source of all the rivers. That source isn’t a place we give a name to. It’s the original belly, where those who arrive and those who depart lie nestled. The Italian woman doesn’t know any of this.
When Dona Bianca travels on a river, she sees time. In the swirl of the current, she contemplates that which never returns. But for us, time is a drop of water: it is born in the clouds, enters the rivers and the oceans, and falls again the next time it rains. A river’s estuary is the sea’s source.
The Italian woman spoke of the names the river had. When she announced them, I felt uncomfortable. For she spoke as if the waters of the Inharrime belonged to her. The truth is, Bianca is far from knowing how these rivers are born. Busy endowing them with names, she had neglected their history. The Italian woman doesn’t know that in the very beginning, when the earth as yet had no owners, the rivers and clouds flowed under the ground. Then the demon arrived and stuck his finger in the sand. His long nail scratched around in the depths. He was looking for stones that shimmered in the sunlight. Our mothers begged the gods to protect the stars they had hidden under the sand. They begged the devil to cease tearing out the gleaming minerals and delivering them up to the covetousness of those seeking to enrich themselves. But the devil didn’t stop. For there were those among the power-hungry who worshipped him. And his nails broke, and his long, thin fingers bled. For the very first time, the demon’s contaminated blood coagulated in the earth’s belly. The riches that lay below the ground were cursed. The clouds and rivers abandoned the planet’s belly in order to escape this curse. And they became the earth’s veins and hair.
This is the story of the rivers. The greedy may steal their water until they run dry. But they won’t steal their history. Now I understand: I learned to write in order to relate better what I had lived. And in this narration, I tell the stories of those who have no form of writing. I do what my father does: In the dust and ashes, I write the names of the dead. So that they may be born again from the footprints we leave.
It is strange how our farewells shrink the size of time. My fifteen years pass by me in a flash. My mother’s body is now that of a child. And it grows smaller and smaller, until it is no bigger than a fruit. And she tells me: Before you were even born, before you first saw the light of day, you had known rivers and oceans. And something within me is torn apart, as if I know that I shall never go back to Nkokolani.