Nkokolani, March 13, 1895
Your Excellency Counselor José d’Almeida
I am deeply sorry that the letter sent in Fragata’s care went astray. More than by its mere loss, I am beset by the thought that it might have fallen into unknown hands. Nonetheless, I have every confidence in the messenger responsible for delivering this missive. I have already mentioned him before. This auxiliary it has been my misfortune to be assigned goes by the name of Mwanatu. He is somewhat retarded but of absolutely proven loyalty. His sister, Imani, on the other hand, is lively and intelligent, and we all but forget that we are dealing with a young black girl.
I am grateful for your warning not to send any information directly to Lourenço Marques without referring it first for Your Excellency’s appraisal. I would never have believed such discord possible in our administration. Your Excellency may rest assured; I shall be worthy of the trust you place in me.
I should add, sir, that there is no basis to Your Excellency’s suspicion that our correspondence is subject to unexplained deviations and intrusions. The only person who could intrude upon the secrecy of this missive would be the aforementioned Mwanatu, the fellow who cleans and looks after my quarters. He is the only person who carries the mail. The lad learned to read, but only in very rudimentary fashion. However, I am sure that he would no more risk opening letters than give them to someone else to read.
I am therefore at liberty, without any fear of intrusion in this report, to furnish you with the details Your Excellency requested concerning the tragic event that followed the arrest of the grocer, Francelino Sardinha.
Here is how it happened. In carrying out the orders received in Lourenço Marques, we placed the grocer under arrest. We did not consider it necessary to handcuff him, and, in all honesty, he did not seem downcast by the news. On the contrary, he appeared so relieved to have our company that he did not even ask why he had become the target of suspicion. This absence of surprise was, for me, clear evidence of his admission of guilt.
His only request was that we spare him being exhibited in the streets, in chains and escorted by Negro sepoys. During the remainder of our conversation, he seemed friendly, though in complete disagreement with our colonial policy. Suddenly, however, his mood changed radically. He became aggressive, and even slighted our brave army. I remember his exact words: To hell with your heroism. Defeating a horde of blacks who charge bare-chested against your rifles and machine guns! I did not need to answer these outrageous provocations, for Fragata retorted in no uncertain terms, reminding him that many kaffirs already possess rifles and machine guns.
But Francelino Sardinha, irate as he was, would not be budged from his arguments. With his firsthand knowledge of a reality we can only gauge through written reports, the storekeeper insisted that the vast majority of Vátuas refuse European weapons. These were his words: They don’t use the rifles they are given. They say that fighting from a distance is for cowards. What these people trust is their potions and amulets, which they are convinced protect them against bullets. God forgive me, but even I confess that I now believe in their superstitions.
I relate what happened on that fateful night with all the details of a recollection that is still at its most vivid, and I shall proceed with scrupulous care, because the conversation we exchanged may prove useful in assessing the tensions that divide us Portuguese. For example, the storekeeper spent much time confronting the impassive Fragata, asking him whether he spoke any of the languages of the blacks. He wanted to know whether our negotiators had ever bothered to learn any of these languages. He said that he, Sardinha, spoke the dialect of the kaffirs because life had required him to learn it. That he wasn’t like the “others” who had been in Africa for years and didn’t know a word of the local language. That is what the storekeeper said.
At this point, it was the envoy who lost his temper. And as he was addressing Sardinha, he lost control and blurted out our true intentions: And you, my dear Sardinha, do you speak English when you go to South Africa to sell our military secrets to the English?
The storekeeper remained silent for a time. He emptied his glass in one go to gain courage, and then asked: Do you know what language we speak, me and the English? We speak Zulu. According to him, the English, unlike the Portuguese, learned to speak the kaffirs’ languages. This was why they were on good terms with the court of Gungunhane and sat at his side as advisers. I have to confess that this praise for the English, in contrast to his attribution of some innate deficiency to the Portuguese, made my blood boil.
Perhaps it was because of this that I decided to salvage our honor and argue for the use of interpreters in our African territories. To speak Portuguese and to teach others to speak it was part of our civilizing mission. Ever hostile, the storekeeper warned us we would be naïve to trust interpreters. The same fatal gullibility had us distributing weapons among kaffirs we assumed were our allies. The crazed grocer’s conclusion could not have been more harrowing: We shall be killed by the very rifles we put in their hands. And the order to kill will be given in Portuguese, in the language we put in their mouths.
I have to say that, by this time, Sardinha was talking to himself. Both Fragata and I were busy unpacking the belongings we most needed from our bags. I was surprised at the storekeeper’s enthusiasm when he saw me hang my rifle from a nail in the wall. In a loud voice, he uttered the following words: Well, there it is, the only language these folk understand, hanging on that wall.
I asked him to watch his words, for the next day he would have to walk through the kaffir village escorted by two armed sepoys. The grocer kept up his arrogant demeanor and commented with irony upon the Portuguese and their inconsistencies: while he was being arrested, the Portuguese authorities were promoting Gungunhane to a rank above mine in the military hierarchy. And Sardinha even went on to pour scorn on Lisbon’s appointment of the Vátua chief to the rank of colonel in our army, with a right to honors and privileges. Moreover, what he then revealed, I have to admit, filled me with anger: Do you know how that black refers to us Portuguese? He calls us “my white Shangaan subjects.” We’re his slaves, the slaves of that man Gungunhane. That’s all we are, his slaves …
The conversation continued late into the night. Imani, who had witnessed the whole discussion, took her leave, and the storekeeper asked permission to go outside with her for a few minutes. After a brief absence, the man returned home in an unseemly manner, to commit suicide right there in front of us.
Your Excellency cannot imagine the discomposure that followed this act of madness. I had to bury the unfortunate storekeeper immediately, and with my very hands cleaned away the blood that had spread across the floor of the shop that we call a barracks. Even today, as I write, I see blood covering my fingers.
I remember my friend Fragata, seeing me in such a state, coming to my assistance:
Don’t concern yourself so much, my dear Germano. Our wretched storekeeper didn’t just kill himself because he was under arrest. The crime he was charged with was far more serious than the sale of arms and elephant tusks to the English.
And what was that?
Spying for the English. As soon as he got to Inhambane, the man would have been put in front of a firing squad. And Sardinha knew that.
Would we shoot a Portuguese? Would we kill one of our own?
That’s precisely the point: The storekeeper had long ceased being one of ours. He was, indeed—how shall I put it?—he was a black man, just a bit lighter, that’s all. That’s why he spoke the language of the kaffirs.
Apart from this, Fragata continued, Sardinha wasn’t detained over kaffir matters. The blacks, said Fragata, are the phantom that haunts us, but they don’t exist in their own right. It’s the English who are behind them. They are our true enemies.
My colleague believed that he had removed the burden of guilt from me by inciting my animosity toward the English. But I remained riven by remorse. Then, as if as a last attempt, Mariano Fragata led me out to the back of the house and pointed to a stone wall. Do you see those holes, all in a line? Do you know what that is?
I’ve got no idea.
All those holes were made by bullets. That wall, he concluded, was where the firing squad carried out its executions. In Inhambane, they told me it wasn’t worth bringing the storekeeper to the city. We should execute him right here, against that wall.
We were supposed to shoot him here?
You’re the soldier; you’re the one who would have shot him. So you see? It was much better that he shot himself.