AFTER FATIMA TOOK her last breath, Machinga and Vasco left for the flat lands. It would take them days.
Ezequiel and I were alone at the top of the mountain. I awoke one morning feeling strong and well. I could see my future laid out in front of me like a clear path. We would start a new life far away from the men who chased after Zeca and infected his mind. I felt free making my way down the side of the mountain. I knew every inch of cliff and rock and shrub. I bathed under the waterfall and I waited for Ezequiel there.
I plunged into the pool and swam to the bottom, the water swirling around my legs and thighs, my breasts and neck. I shot up to the surface to take in a greedy gulp of air. I dove down once again, slicing through reeds at the bottom. I did not hear the distant whirr of helicopters, the rush of soldiers cutting through jungle to climb the mountain.
I wound my way up the mountain path.
In the distance I could see smoke rising from the village. Ezequiel had been gone when I left and now he’d returned, I thought. As I got closer, though, I saw that one of our huts was on fire.
“Ezequiel!” I called, running towards the flames. Between two huts a soldier appeared, followed by another. I looked behind me and saw two other men. I was trapped.
“Where is Ezequiel?” I yelled as two of the soldiers grabbed hold of my arms. I recognized one of them as the man who had been driving the car in Beira, the one who had frightened Ezequiel into silence. He lowered a stick, its tip wrapped in one of Fatima’s saris. The smell of burning petrol made my mouth taste like metal. He set fire to Machinga and Vasco’s hut. I tugged. The men behind me held tight.
Through a wall of smoke, another soldier emerged. He came down the path from our hut. He held a rifle. One of his legs was shorter than the other. His eyes were golden.
“Do you know who I am?” he said, before coughing into a handkerchief. He opened his hand and revealed Ezequiel’s harmonica. “We saw Zeca in Beira…we asked around. The optometrist, the landlord of the Grande Hotel, a man by the name of Fulvio. Which led us to Padre Theuns, a most disagreeable man of God.” He studied me. “What is your name?” His breath smelled like a dead animal was living inside his gut.
I would not give him my name and I would not look down at the ground. I locked him in a gaze. Shamed him.
He brought the back of his hand to my face, dragged his knuckle across my cheek. “So pale. So beautifully white,” he said. “Are you a woman or are you a ghost?”
I pressed my lips tight and stared into his lion eyes. I wanted to take a bite out of the man standing in front of me.
“Perhaps we can help each other,” he said, pressing the length of his rifle’s barrel across my neck. The other soldiers held my arms by my side.
I struggled to stay up. My legs were beginning to buckle.
The soldiers dragged me across the clearing and held me down against the grinding stone. My body seized up. I was unable to move, unable to resist, unable to cry out. No sound, except for the faint notes of Abák’s lullaby, the song I hummed over and over, the words growing clearer, my voice growing louder.
“Turn around!” I heard the man say. The men pinned me down before looking away. The man’s weight pressed down on me.
The sun tried to break through the dark clouds. I saw the vultures circling the sky. My body shifted in the air and I looked down at the woman who remained in my body, held down against the grinding stone. I sang my song and let the breezes caress my skin. The lion man rammed himself against me, going through his motions, grunting like an animal.
From high above, I looked beyond the clearing down the side of Mount Gorongosa. I scanned the shimmering leaves and felt cold. My vision clear, I saw Ezequiel stumbling as he ran down the mountain’s side. It looked as if he were running across the treetops. “Run, Ezequiel!” I was falling out of the sky, slipping back into my flesh and bone.
“Look away,” the man grunted in my ear, pressing down harder, urging himself on. I refused to look away. I wanted him to look at me, to see me and to recognize his own impotence.
The man dug his face into my neck. His lips parted like a rabid dog’s.
“You are a coward.”
He cocked his arm back and punched my stomach. One. Two. Three. With the fourth brutal blow, I felt something tear away from me. I arched my back with the knifing pain.
The man stood back. The other men appeared frightened by what they heard and saw. They backed away from me as a pool of blood puddled beneath me.