MESSAGE FROM THE DEAD, SILENCE FROM THE LIVING
The difference between war and peace is as follows: in war, the poor are the first to be killed; in peace, the poor are the first to die.
For us women, there’s another difference too: in war, we get raped by those we do not know.
We were in Nkokolani because we had fled, because of lies and cowardice. We had been happy by the sea, in Makomani. It was there that I was born, there that I grew up as a boarder at the Mission School, there that I learned to be the woman I am today. My mother, above all my mother, had been happy in that little village on the shores of the Indian Ocean. It was our grandfather Tsangatelo, the most senior member of our family, who one day, and for no apparent reason, ordered us to leave that place, and never to return. It was an unexpected decision, and it was as if we were being pushed away by ghosts.
This was how we came to settle in Nkokolani, an inland village, where only the presence of the River Inharrime allayed our longing for the vast ocean. Without ever talking about it openly, we hoped that our grandfather would one day explain things. Or, better still, that we might return from our exile. And that is what went through our minds when, a year ago, he ordered a meeting of the whole family.
We were all together, sitting in the yard of his house, when Tsangatelo emerged from his bedroom, carrying baggage, as if he were going on a journey: a sleeping mat, a blanket, a roll of tobacco, a goatskin bag full of manioc flour. And a gourd brimming with water.
Are you leaving, Grandfather?
I’m going to emigrate; I’m going to the mines.
The family’s initial response was to laugh. The mines require men of a certain age; the earth’s belly feeds on youth. Tsangatelo was over sixty. He wouldn’t even last the journey, which would be done on foot. At that time, there were still no recruitment companies of the type that later would be responsible for mobilizing the miners and organizing their transport.
Yet Tsangatelo had never been more serious. He was determined to go to work in the English domains. He was going to the Daimond, which was what we called the diamond mines of South Africa. Alarmed by the gravity of his announcement, the whole family huddled together in the yard of his house. They tried to dissuade him. They began by arguing the matter of his age. Then they resorted to other lines of reasoning. Grandfather should pay attention to the wretched state in which migrant workers returned home.
My uncle Musisi was the most vociferous of all our relatives: Our people’s departure for the Rand is worse than all the wars that have been waged against us.
Our young men, he argued, were no longer the same when they returned from South Africa. They never went back to being VaChopi. Grandfather Tsangatelo remained impassive, ignoring everyone. Uncle Musisi persisted: The mines of the Transvaal were killing our nation. In the old days, we would pay the bride price with our own cattle. Now the only things people wanted were those famous English pounds.
Another family member countered this, remarking that, although the Portuguese paid us in their own money, they made us pay them in English money. In that situation, how was it possible not to emigrate?
A heavy, resigned silence had fallen on everyone when Grandmother, her voice shaking, confronted her husband: Is that the example you want to set for our family?
What family? Grandfather asked.
And the woman said no more.
* * *
Before he left Nkokolani, my grandfather summoned me. He was violating the rules of our village: no one talks of serious matters with a child, especially if that child is female. At the time, I couldn’t have been more than ten years old. Today I understand the reason for the summons: our elder just needed to listen to himself. Standing there in front of me, he recalled the moment he had been called to visit his dying father. He didn’t have the courage. He was unable to contemplate a destiny that would, in the end, be his own as well. Now, so many years later, he looked at me and opened his heart:
Now, with these new Nguni invasions, it’s the same thing. I don’t want to be summoned to witness an even greater death: the death of my homeland.
I looked at his callused feet. At that moment, I felt ashamed of my sandals, and my legs were heavy with guilt. With the exception of my household, no one in the village wore shoes. That was enough for us to be called VaLungu, or whites.
Then Tsangatelo asked me to go and get one of the notebooks I kept at home. He wanted to dictate to me a dream that was haunting him. He wanted me to write down his exact words. Then I was to tear up the paper so that he would be free of his nightmare. I did what he asked.
* * *
Write, granddaughter, write down my dreamed beings. You, granddaughter, may ask, “Dreamed beings?” And I shall reply: “Yes, dreamed beings.”
Because I dreamed them. I say I dream them and not I dream of them. The dead soldiers come to me every night, more awake than I am. They come to me from all the battles ever fought anywhere. And then they shake me with their gangling arms in order to tell me that they have come because of this new war.
“What war?” I ask them in alarm.
“The one that’s about to begin,” my dreamed beings reply.
I take a quick look outside the house. But it’s just to distract them, for they know I can’t see beyond my own self. I am a ransacked field, a cemetery larger than the world itself.
All these dreamed beings weigh so heavily upon me that they sink my dream, for they travel carrying the weapons that cut them down.
“Give me some respite,” I beg them.
“It wasn’t us who opened the door,” they reply. “It was you. You are the dreamer.”
I point to the walls of my room and show them how limited the space is: “In no time at all, I won’t be able to accommodate any more of you.” And they answer: “When that happens, you are the one who will have to leave the dream.”
I then realized I needed to appeal to their good sense. I waved to the one who was nearest and was getting ready to whisper something in his ear when he declared brusquely: “There’s no point in being secretive. We can all hear you before you even speak.”
“The war you speak of may be slow to start,” I argued.
“Well, in that case, we’ll fire shots at you.”
“But I’m the dreamer.”
“Not any longer. Now we are the ones dreaming you.”
* * *
When Tsangatelo had finished dictating his nocturnal fantasies, he straightened his back as if relieved. Then he asked me to hand him the sheet of paper on which I had written, so that he could personally tear it up and cast it to the winds. And that’s what he did, turning slowly and throwing the pieces of paper to the four points of the compass. Then, his eyes open wide, he stretched out his arms and faced the sun, proclaiming:
Farewell, my dreamed beings. I’m going where I shall be the owner of my own dreams.
And he took his leave. I stood motionless, watching how Tsangatelo walked away with that shrewd ability to be no more than a shadow. Those feet furrowing through the sand were older than the earth itself. In those steps of his, all my ancestors advanced as well.
* * *
My grandfather was my age when our lands were first invaded. We couldn’t understand why these people considered us animals and appreciated their cattle more than they did the people they conquered. We couldn’t understand why they stole our livestock, killed our people, and raped our women. They called us tinxolo, or “heads.” That’s how they saw us: we were counted as slaves, discounted as animals. With fire and brimstone, they founded an empire that was passed on from grandfather to son, from son to grandson. And it was now this grandson, Ngungunyane, who was castigating us once more.
The persistence of their aggression wrought changes among our folk. We had always lived dispersed in small groups, and occupied in minor conflicts with our nearest neighbors. But this threat had united us as one people. We became the VaChopi, “those of the bow and arrow.” We resisted the invasion of the VaNguni; we maintained our language, our culture, and our gods. We paid dearly for our obstinacy. The price Tsangatelo paid was to be dislocated from his own life.
* * *
A year had passed since Grandfather’s departure. One morning, a messenger arrived at our house: our relative had been lost inside the mine where he was working.
Did he die? Grandmother asked, devoid of emotion.
No, he hadn’t died. He’d just got lost. That’s what the messenger answered. Or maybe “lost” wasn’t the right word, he added, in sudden doubt.
Well, so he did die, then, Grandmother concluded. Isn’t that the news you’re bringing us?
I offered the visitor a coconut shell full of nsope. The man stood there impassively, examining the drink. I don’t know why, but I recalled an old song from my childhood: How beautiful are a messenger’s feet … And this messenger’s feet gradually made their way into the song, as if they were leading me away, far from the village.
At last, the emissary raised the coconut shell to his lips. Never before had I seen anyone drink so slowly. He was worried about the news that he still had to give. In the end, he gained courage: It wasn’t certain that Grandfather Tsangatelo had got lost by accident. Everything suggested that our elder had lost his bearings of his own free will.
Of his own free will? my grandmother mused, then immediately concluded: It’s not my husband.
Among his workmates there was only one explanation: Tsangatelo had decided to live forever in those subterranean labyrinths. Our relative had exiled himself inside the mine, wandering eternally through the darkness. The miners could sometimes hear someone digging away down in the depths. It was Tsangatelo, opening up new galleries. He had gnawed away at the belly of the earth so much that there wasn’t a corner of it he hadn’t reached. The danger for us was that the entire nation would sink, lacking the ground to support it.
Our grandmother laughed, neither sad nor angry. And she commented, That miserable wretch should have returned my bride price long ago …
You may not like what I’m going to say next, the visitor apologized. And he held his cup out for me to fill again.
Go on, my friend, my grandmother encouraged him. Tsangatelo has got lost in the bowels of the earth? You couldn’t have brought me better news.
There was, however, a more serious aspect to the matter. This had been the subject of conversation in the compounds where the miners slept. There were murmurings that, from time to time, a woman went down into the galleries to take him food and water. That’s how old Tsangatelo survived.
A woman? My grandmother asked. Is that what you said: a woman?
I glanced at grandmother’s face, assessing the darkness of her eyes. No sign of jealousy, no surprise. Nothing. Not even a hint. The messenger wiped his trembling lips various times with the back of his hand. He wasn’t cleaning them. He was plucking up enough courage to continue.
You’re not going to enjoy the rest of the story.
The rest? What rest?
In fact, no one believes that the woman who goes to him is really a woman.
So what is she, then? A spirit?
It’s a man.
A man?
A tchipa. One of those men who, among the miners, perform the role of a woman. The truth is this: your husband is now married to a tchipa.
Only then did my grandmother appear affected. Her look of scorn gave way to a mask of hurt and astonishment. We had all heard tell of those miners who “marry” other men and forget the wives they left behind in their homelands. But we would never have imagined Grandfather Tsangatelo becoming one of them.
With unexpected vigor, grandmother snatched the coconut shell with its nsope from the intruder’s hand, threw it to the ground, and sent the messenger away. She waited until the man had disappeared and then shouted: Tsangatelo is no longer a person! He’s dead. Tsangatelo has died.
She rushed noisily into the house and straightaway set about throwing all her husband’s possessions outside. Like a widow, she beat all his belongings with a rod. She was purging them of death’s impurities. Then, as her stick whistled through the air, she declared, That mole is going to rot away in the hole he’s dug himself.
Her words rang out like some terrible malediction. But for me, it had the opposite effect: Grandfather was telling us there was a way out. Nkokolani was not, after all, like those tiny places where the only road out is also the way back. He had left and hadn’t returned.
Even today, as I fall asleep, I can hear his long fingers digging away in the earth’s belly. And that’s how he is unearthing the stars next to our anthill. It is also how my mother and I buried our dream of one day returning to live by the sea again.
* * *
It was noon, and it was so hot that even the flies had given up flying, from drowsiness. We were out at the back, in the shade. Aunt Rosi had come to visit us in the morning and had stayed on as if she had forgotten she lived somewhere else. She had an excuse for remaining: The paths must be on fire. At that hour, chunks of fire broke away from the sun, and no one could walk across the ground.
Mother was braiding her hair and was chuckling at the white strands her sister-in-law wanted her to hide under her new hairstyle. My father then got up and showed them a colored page he had stolen from a book in the old church. Prior to this, he had been staring at the sheet of paper as if it contained the answer to all our afflictions.
Can you see the angels here?
I don’t see any black angel, Rosi commented with irony. And she and my mother laughed.
Be quiet, this is very serious. I want to ask you ladies something. If one of these angels appeared in Nkokolani now, what would we ask for?
If real people don’t listen to us, what’s the use of asking for things from someone who doesn’t exist?
I would ask for a husband for Imani, joked Rosi.
If only they had oars instead of wings…, Mother said, sighing.
I still hoped my father might want to hear my wish. But instead of that, he decided to speak on my behalf: there was no point in asking me, because he was sure of what I secretly longed for.
Isn’t that so, daughter?
Then he adopted a rigid posture, beat his chest above the sheet of paper, and declared that, in his case, he wouldn’t ask for anything. I’ve been thinking, he announced, and I have decided, as an elder of the Nsambe family, I shall speak with the spirits.
The sun isn’t even high and he’s already drunk, my mother remarked.
That night, in the cemetery, there would be a ceremony to remember Tsangatelo and to ask him to bring us peace. Much more than the sympathy of the Portuguese, we must gain the goodwill of our ancestors. This cult reflected the division that dominated our family. For some, such as Grandmother and my father, our elder was dead; for others—and I was one of those others—Tsangatelo was alive and merely trudging through a long, dark tunnel. One day, he would be expelled from this tunnel, as if he were being born for a second time.
* * *
The preparations for the ceremony required effort from all of us. I was charged with the task farthest away from the house: I spent the whole afternoon collecting firewood. And I gathered sticks and twigs as if they were bits of myself that I reassembled under my arm. Following the example of the other wives in Nkokolani, my mother had left large bundles of firewood burning during the night. That was what they always did. In the morning, when the houses awoke once more, the fire was already lit. In this way, the men were spared the task of lighting a new fire. In our village, lighting a flame is the exclusive responsibility of husbands.
Night had already fallen, and I hadn’t finished piling up the wood in the yard. It was at this point that the church bell began ringing by itself. The birds took to their wings in alarm, and the villagers sought refuge in their houses. The local blind man, who never went out into the street, then appeared in the village square. He had returned from the war years ago without any sign of injury. But the war had invaded his head, extinguishing his sight from the inside.
The blind man listened to the fluttering of the birds’ wings around him and declared: My brothers, these are the last birds! Take a good look, because you’ll never see them again.
He spun around, his arms open like wings, as if he were doing a dance on his sightless feet.
Let us greet these birds that endow the skies with height. Let us greet them because tomorrow the only things flying in Nkokolani will be bullets.
And he went back into his house, his hands paddling the darkness. The mysterious chimes of the church bell were, for me, another kind of summons, a warning that other gods were demanding our attention. I abandoned the still-unheaped firewood and forgot about the rest of my duties. And off I went in the tenuous light that remained, toward the decaying church. It was a tiny, spartan building, in such a dilapidated state that no one ever went there. Not even God made his presence felt. People say that many a mass was once said there, and many new Christians given catechism. But ever since the last priest left for Inhambane, the building had begun to crumble, solitary and sad, like an island in the midst of an infinite sea of African spirits. It was in a tiny church, similar to this one, that I had once been taught to read letters and numbers.
* * *
There is nothing like a little empty church for us to find God within us. I recalled the times when the church at Makomani was full of life and Father Rudolfo would keep saying to himself:
Back there in Portugal, they say Negroes have no soul. But it’s the opposite: these people have too much soul …
Maybe the priest was right. But at that moment, I didn’t have a soul that could come to my aid. I knelt down and put my ear to the ground. And I heard Grandfather Tsangatelo scratching away to reach the surface. But the stone was too thick, and my grandfather’s fingers were too weak and tired.
The bells started to ring again, and the owl that lived cloistered in the ruins fluttered off over my head. I advanced, stepping on the carpet of feathers as if I were walking on a patch of moonlight. There’s a proverb that says that an owl’s feathers are so light, they never fall to the ground. That night, the feathers spun around in a frenzy and would have risen up until they were stuck to the roofing tiles. There they would have gained flesh and wings: angels would have been born. I would have gone mad like the dogs. My howls would have caused the bravest to quiver with fear. As my mother says, for me to go mad, all I need is a little piece of the moon.
When I withdrew, the bell was still being rung by unseen hands. I returned home, now certain that it wasn’t the church where Grandfather was to be found. While the others went off to carry out the ceremony to commemorate the death of someone who hadn’t died, I chose another way to celebrate the life of our grandfather. I embraced the anthill as if I were hugging the whole world. That was the family’s altar, our digandelo, where the sacred mafura tree grew. There I tied white cloths around its trunk. And there I listened to Tsangatelo as one listens to an angel beating its wings.
* * *
Tsangatelo leaned against the anthill in order to narrate a tired old fable. It was night, and the gods allowed him to tell stories. This time, however, he improvised a new scenario. He stood up straight in an effort to imitate the night’s vastness. And when he spoke, he seemed to be expressing himself in a new language, born from his words, as if only the gods were listening to him. This is the story Tsangatelo told:
Somewhere, there was an ancient war, in a time before any place had a name. Preparations for battle had just begun, at that first moment when warriors are imbued with so much faith that they cannot see how weak and terrified they really are. The two armies were lining up to confront each other when a huge flash ripped through the skies. The firmament was swept by the incandescence of a star. The soldiers dropped to the ground, momentarily blinded. When they came to themselves, they had lost their memory, and no longer knew the purpose of the weapons they carried. So they laid down their lances, assegais, and shields, and looked at each other without knowing what to do until, perplexed, the enemy commanders greeted each other. After that, the soldiers embraced. And when they looked at the landscape again, they no longer saw territory to be conquered but land to be cultivated.
Eventually, the men dispersed. As they returned to their homes, they heard the oldest lullaby, sung in the timeless voices of one lone woman.