‘Mizzes, want houseboy?’
She’d repeated the phrase so many times that day. A question pregnant with hope, she’d asked it of a variety of people at countless houses. The height of the sun seemed to dictate who she got to speak to: at first, with the sun low and unassuming, she’d been met by young white men, presumably the sons of the white ladies she really needed to talk to; later on, with the sun rising and raging, she’d been attended to by people who clearly didn’t belong to the household, for they were the same colour as she was, and yet they wouldn’t even deign to listen to what she had to say. Then finally, once the sun had calmed, humours cooled and bodies stopped sweating, she’d found just the right person to approach: a white lady with a big house. It was almost as if the lady had been waiting for her.
‘Mizzes, want houseboy?’
This was one of several phrases in the whites’ language Ndani had learned off by heart. She’d learned them as soon as she’d decided to go to Bissau and seek work, work as a house help in a whites’ house. The idea had come about after a long djumbai with her stepmother, a conversation Ndani would never forget. Her stepmother, the youngest of Ndani’s father’s four wives, had been a house help in Bissau for several years. She’d worked for a white misses, the wife of a rich white businessman who owned shops in Bissau, Nova Lamego, Teixeira Pinto, Aldeia Formosa and several other places. The stepmother had told Ndani about how the whites lived, their habits, their comforts, their quality of life… ‘What I wouldn’t give for half what they have,’ her stepmother had said, before bitterness crossed her face, lending her voice extra conviction: ‘Very different is the world of the whites!’ Ndani had spent the rest of the day trying to imagine how it could be so different. She’d gone to bed still full of curiosity. That night she’d dreamed of living in a big house in which everything was painted white and where house helps obeyed her every command. Whether because of the strange sense of pleasure the dream gave her or because of the emotion she’d detected in her stepmother’s voice, nothing would ever be the same again. Ndani began to see everything in a different light. A mysterious force seemed to be driving her away from the tabanca and towards the world of the whites, towards a life that would surely be very different to the one she’d experienced so far. That mysterious force had stayed with her and afforded her not a moment’s peace.
Doubtless the same force had helped her withstand the insults she’d suffered all day, and the fatigue, hunger and thirst that had hampered her efforts for the last few hours. The same mysterious force had helped her evade the conductor on Sô Costa’s bus, which had taken her from Biombo to Bissau, and would now enable her to get what she so desperately wanted. The evidence was right there before her: a white lady staring attentively at her.
‘Mizzes, want houseboy?’
Ndani had prepared for the journey meticulously. Nobody in Biombo knew anything about it, nobody other than her friendly stepmother. It was her stepmother who’d taught her the phrase she was now repeating, and one or two others besides. Her stepmother had even made Ndani memorise certain rules of behaviour, things white masters demanded of black house helps: particular ways to respond; gestures that showed obedience and submission.
Ndani looked back at the lady, who was holding a hosepipe and watering the flowers that grew between the house and the wall. Ndani saw how firmly she held the hosepipe and how conscientiously she watered the stems before moving down to the roots. Every plant got just the right amount, one stem after another. It was laborious work requiring careful attention, work that obliged the lady to be on her feet for a long time. It was hard work. It was no work for a misses! It was work for a house help. ‘She mustn’t have a houseboy,’ Ndani concluded. An expression of joy spread across her face: at long last she was going to get what she’d set out for.
‘Mizzes, want houseboy? Hmm?’
The lady turned to face her. Their eyes met for a moment. Ndani remembered one of the lessons her stepmother had taught her, that a house help should never look a master in the face. Ndani quickly lowered her gaze, unconsciously accentuating her expression of joy. But it didn’t last long. It was soon replaced by a look of surprise and indignation as the jet of water hit her square in the chest. The white lady had interrupted her careful watering of the plants and watered Ndani instead. Ndani, who merely wanted to be the lady’s house help.
Ndani backed away from the gate with faltering steps. She shook the water off her, although a few drops seemed determined to get inside her bundle of clothes. The clothes were an offering from her stepmother: ‘White masters don’t like native clothes,’ she’d said. Ndani looked up at the lady, who’d gone back to her work as if nothing had happened. Ndani stared through the gate, lost for words, trying to take it all in. Was something else going to happen, something more significant? The lady’s attitude suggested not: she’d returned to her task with the exact same dedication, skill and composure as before. Giving a girl a good soaking must be normal for whites, perhaps it was a natural reaction, something that happened whenever a white lady met a black girl at the gate for the first time. Ndani remembered her stepmother telling her that whites were particularly fond of those pretty little things they called flowers; she’d said they were expensive to buy and that some of them were like badjiki, although they served no purpose, you couldn’t eat them. Ndani spent a moment sizing up the situation, seeing if she could remember anything else her stepmother had told her about whites and flowers. But no, that was it. Her stepmother had talked about all the jobs a white misses made a black house help do, but she’d never mentioned watering flowers. Her stepmother’s master had been a very rich businessman… his house must not have had flowers! Do rich white businessmen not like flowers? If not, then this white lady wasn’t married to a businessman. Or she was, but he was poor. No, poor whites didn’t exist. Ridiculous, she was being ridiculous! Firstly, there were no poor whites, and secondly, how could a poor person live in such a big lovely house? A house that looked just like the one Ndani’s stepmother had described when she’d talked about how the whites lived. A house Ndani would be very pleased to live in, as pleased as she’d been in her dream that night. A house with flowers no less, flowers that the lady had planted and that Ndani would now tenderly care for…
‘Mizzes, I…’
‘No!’
The lady spoke loudly and with a firm voice. Her eyes had a strange glint to them as she stared back at Ndani through the bars of the gate. Ndani froze, her bundle of clothes held tight to her chest. She must have looked like a statue, except for her excessive blinking: it was as if she had sand in her eyes. A few moments passed then Ndani approached the gate again, defying the malice emanating from the lady’s eyes. Arms folded at the chest to protect her bundle of ‘civilised’ clothes, she stood at the gate waiting for the lady to aim the hosepipe at her again. She’d get the drenching out of the way, then try to explain that she could do all the hard work the lady was doing; that she could clean clothes and scrub floors; that she would learn to cook fish and meat the way whites like it, with vinegar and garlic and no chilli. Once she’d made herself understood, the lady would surely open the gate and lead her into the house, that beautiful house where Ndani would find out why it was very different, the world of the whites…
‘Mizzes…’
It came out almost as a scream. A scream accompanied by an imploring look, because she couldn’t believe what was happening. Instead of aiming the jet of water at her again, the lady simply let the hosepipe fall and walked away. She turned the tap off at the wall, reeled in the hosepipe and left it neatly coiled in the corner. Then she wiped her feet on a mat and went up the steps of the house.
‘Mizzzzes…’ Ndani screamed again, from her side of the gate, her eyes bulging. It was a scream of desperation, of anguish and affliction. The lady had disappeared inside the house, but Ndani kept her eyes trained on the steps that led to the door, hoping that someone would suddenly appear, would walk over and open the gate, tell her to go inside.
A truck passed making a huge racket. The noise stirred Ndani from her daze, perhaps because it sounded just like Sô Costa’s bus. She looked around. The sun had disappeared from the horizon and it was getting dark. There was no sign of the hustle and bustle she’d found so exciting when she’d first arrived in the city earlier in the day. She felt her stomach bite, noticed her mouth was dry, realised she couldn’t even summon up enough saliva to nturdjar her thirst. Her legs trembled. A few tears trickled down her cheek. She moved away from the gate and sat down on the curb, her moist eyes dazzled by the house lights on the other side of the road.
What to do?
She was in a part of town where only whites lived. If there had been any blacks living there, she’d have gathered her strength and gone to ask for a little food. She felt sure that if she explained the situation to a black person, told them that she’d had nothing to eat or drink since yesterday and had spent the whole day going from house to house looking for work, told them why she couldn’t go back to Biombo, then surely she’d have been invited in and given a little food and drink. Her stepmother had warned that ‘praça blacks are like whites,’ but she felt sure she’d have at least been given a little water to quench her thirst, a thirst that was beginning to burn her head up and make breathing painful.
Stirred by either hunger or tiredness, she realised she couldn’t just sit on the curb. She forced herself up and went back over to the gate where she’d been standing earlier. She sat down cross-legged, her upper body resting against the wall. She wished she were back in the tabanca, where she’d never lacked for food. She tried to imagine how her family would have reacted to finding out she’d fled, what the neighbours would have said. Her eyes regained their shine for a moment. Then she thought of all the slights and put-downs, how others were always sticking their noses into her business…
Everybody believed the prophecy of the damned djambakus. He’d said she harboured an evil spirit inside her, the soul of a wicked defunct; he’d foretold a turbulent future for her, said her life would amount to a series of catastrophes, one tragedy after another… She’d had no peace in Biombo since then. She was blamed for anything that happened anywhere near her, even the smallest thing – someone tripping over, hurting themselves, catching a fever – everything was an omen for more tragedies to come. Even Ndani’s own mother had started to believe the prophecy, though she pretended not to.
Deep down, everyone would have been pleased to hear of Ndani’s departure. Everyone except her youngest stepmother, the only person in the tabanca who looked her in the face, who treated her like a normal person. Everyone else, good folk and bad, found excuses to avoid her. The older she grew, the heavier the rejection weighed, the harder the discrimination became to bear. So when her stepmother told her of another world within this one, Ndani hadn’t thought twice about seeking it out.
But now the day’s events had brought new doubts. Could it be that this other world, a world she so desperately wanted to be a part of, had rejected her too? Could the djambakus have been right in his revelation? Where did this wicked spirit come from? Why had it chosen her when there were so many others?
She buried her head in her bundle of clothes and started to cry. She didn’t hear the Citroën 2CV pull up by the curb, didn’t notice the white man get out and come over to her. Only when he tapped her on the shoulder did she raise her head, astonished to see a white man standing before her.
‘What are you doing here, huh?’
‘I… houseboy for mizzes, master.’
She struggled to her feet and pointed at the house. She kept pointing for a while, looking from the white man to the house and back again. Hope returned to her face and her eyes began to shine in the dark. Hunger and tiredness were forgotten.
‘I… houseboy for mizzes, master,’ she repeated, pointing at the house again. The front door opened and out came the lady who’d been watering the plants. She came over to the gate and opened it.
‘Did you tell this girl to wait here?’
‘No, of course not. She just turned up this afternoon, muttering away, I couldn’t make head nor tale of it.’
Ndani realised they were both looking at her and tried to take advantage of the situation by stating her intentions again:
‘I… houseboy for mizzes, master,’ she said, pointing at the lady, but keeping her eyes fixed on the man.
‘Didn’t you say the other day that you could do with a housegirl?’ the man said, putting his arm around the white woman’s shoulders.
‘I did, but not one like this. What could she do? Bake cakes? No. Cook codfish? No. Make meat for supper? No. So…’
The lady tugged at the man’s arm, making it clear she wanted to move away. Ndani took a step towards the gate and made a pleading face. It did not go unnoticed by the man.
‘Wait a minute, Linda. What should we do with her?’
‘Leave her be! She’s got nothing to do with us, we didn’t ask for her, we don’t need her… Come on, let’s go inside, you must be exhausted.’
‘One moment, love, let me just check…’
But the woman led the man away before he’d had a chance to say anything else. Arm in arm, they made their way over to the house and up the steps. Ndani clung to the iron gate, unable to support her own weight any longer. Her desperate eyes followed the couple. She’d allowed herself to believe in a happy ending, she’d thought the man had noticed how tired and hungry she was, how much she needed a little water. But it turned out they really were very different, the whites.
Was this the difference her stepmother had spoken of? Ndani had understood her to mean different levels of comfort, well-being, happiness and beauty. Her stepmother had spoken of wonderful things. So far Ndani had found only cruelty. But was it really cruelty? Or was it contempt for blacks? If they’d found a white girl hungry and thirsty, would they have abandoned her in the same way? Silly, she was being silly! Never would a white girl be out seeking work in the street. White children her age went to school every day, her stepmother had told her that, and when they didn’t have school, they read story books or learned little skills from their mothers, like lace making, embroidery and baking. A white house help to another white, waih! Impossible, such things didn’t exist.
All the same, Ndani would have liked to know how that white couple would have acted if she’d been white. They would surely have helped her, wouldn’t they?
Frustrated in her efforts, going round in circles with her endless questions, she didn’t notice the door of the house open again. The man was practically at the gate when she finally looked up from the ground. She backed away, but stayed alert to his movements. When he made a signal for her to come, she refused to believe it. When he took her firmly by the arm and tried to pull her towards the house, she decided she didn’t trust this white man or his intentions. She wanted to break free and flee, but she knew she hadn’t the strength. She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t. All she could do was let tears pour down her face.
A little later, after swallowing the first few spoonfuls of the soup they’d offered her, Ndani threw up everywhere. She went to bed without finding out why it was very different, the world of the whites…
Was it chance or destiny?
Someone would have to explain everything to her nice and slowly if she was ever going to understand. And it would have to be someone who knew the whites very well, better than her stepmother even. Things just kept getting stranger and stranger… Her stepmother had been right about one thing, though: very different is the world of the whites!
What made it so different? At first Ndani had thought it was all the things they had: the houses, the cars, the clothes, the food, the money. The colour of their skin too, of course, but that was obvious, that was why they were called whites. But later on she found out that there was more to it than that, that there was another thing, a big thing, although it took her a long time to work it out, perhaps because it was something you couldn’t see: their behaviour. Yes, their behaviour, the way they acted towards other people. In this regard, whites were certainly very different to blacks.
It was something she’d have to discuss with her stepmother. Ndani would send her a message on Sunday and ask her to come and see her in Bissau. There were lots of things to discuss, Ndani simply had to tell her about what had happened with the misses, to see whether it was normal. At first Ndani had actually thought it funny, but now she was suspicious…
First of all, there was the name she’d been given. Ndani could still remember the episode clearly, it had happened the day after she’d thrown up all her food. That had been rude of her, she knew that, she felt ashamed whenever she thought about it. But what else could she have done? Her stomach had betrayed her. These things happen, it might have happened to anyone, anyone who’d gone a whole day without eating or drinking. But the misses hadn’t seen it like that. She must have thought it was custom for blacks to vomit whenever they ate whites’ soup, maybe that’s why she’d wanted to beat her. Mariazinha, the misses’ youngest daughter, had come to her rescue. The next morning, the misses had still been in a furious mood when she’d said:
‘What did you say you were called?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Your name, for goodness sake!’
‘Ah, Ndani, mizzes, Ndani.’
‘What did you say? Dánia? Dánia… but that’s a Russian name, it’s a Communist name. Holy Mary Mother of God! You lot do pick the most… All the lovely Portuguese names there are to choose from and your father gives you a Russian name! That’s how Communist uprisings start, little things like that. You won’t have a Portuguese name, but you will have a Russian name, is that it? Which can only mean that Communist propaganda has already reached the villages! Communist agents are at large even in the bush! My God, it’s disgusting! How is it that you lot are so ungrateful? Huh? Ungrateful, that’s what you are. Ungrateful and stupid! We come to this hellhole to civilise you and you do nothing but moan… Well I will not tolerate a Communist name in my house. Never! You will be called Daniela, do you hear me? From now on, you’re Daniela. Da-ni-e-la. Maria Daniela and that’s that.’
It took a while for Ndani to realise ‘Thatsthat’ was not her new surname. But that wasn’t the end of the matter. The misses told the master about it as soon as he got home from work.
‘Know what I found out today, Zezinho?’
‘How could I possibly, my dear?’
‘Antunes was right: the Communists are everywhere. It’s not just in Europe, they’re here too…’
‘Huh? Who told you that?’
‘Her. The housegirl you appointed yesterday. She has a Communist name.’
‘A Communist name? What do you mean?’
‘You heard me, a Communist name. She’s called, or rather she was called, Dánia, that’s what she said.’
‘You must have heard her wrong.’
‘What? There’s nothing wrong with my hearing!’
‘But you must have misunderstood. The natives don’t have names like that…’
‘Of course they don’t! That’s my point: it’s a Russian name.’
‘Dánia isn’t a Russian name. I’ve never heard of it. Tánia maybe…’
‘Dánia or Tánia, whatever. It’s not Portuguese, that’s the main thing.’
‘Well, at least we agree on that.’
‘You need to clamp down on all these Communists running around out there.’
‘What do you mean, all these Communists?’
‘The Russian names…’
‘But it’s not Russian, I’ve just told you.’
‘But there are Communists, you can’t deny that, I heard you talking to Antunes the other day. And if they’ve yet to make their presence felt, there’s still Radio Moscow, which is worse.’
‘But nobody listens to that here.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Well in any case, I think you need to clamp down on it. Better to snuff it out now than have to deal with it later…’
Ndani had to be forever on her guard those first few days lest the misses think she was rejecting her new name. It wasn’t easy changing your name from one day to the next, it took some getting used to, but she just about got away with it. She was lucky in that the two names were a little bit similar, otherwise she would undoubtedly have fallen fowl of Dona Linda, and the misses was very ill-tempered back then. Ndani would never forget the slap she got the day the cat ate a piece of fish and the misses thought Ndani had stolen it. There was an almighty uproar and Ndani very nearly lost her job, all because of that thieving little creature. But Dona Linda never hit her after that, she just shouted, and although it was undoubtedly true that what she shouted were insults and slurs, Ndani didn’t understand the words.
To think back to those outbursts now, two years later, was even quite amusing. Ndani had got so used to the new name it was as if she’d always been called Daniela. How things had changed in that house, oh!
But who’d brought about so much change? Was it not, in fact, Dona Linda? Was it not the misses herself who’d started to confuse things? Had she not gone so far as to ask Ndani to sit down with her at the table only last week, saying she didn’t like taking her tea alone? Ah, but it was even quite funny when you thought about it!
It was late afternoon and Senhor Leitão hadn’t got home from work yet, he’d been delayed for some reason. Dona Linda told Ndani to make some peppermint tea. Ndani made a pot, served it in the living room and retired to the kitchen. But she was summoned back: ‘Daniela, come here, please.’ Then, as she approached, Dona Linda said: ‘Sit down, please.’ The misses had never said please to Ndani in her life, and now she’d said it twice in a minute. How strange! Stranger still was the way the misses smiled at Ndani as she sat down. Ndani sensed she’d better pay careful attention, she guessed she was about to be given a message to take to Dona Maria Augusta, Dona Linda’s friend who lived down the road. But there was no message. Dona Linda picked up the teapot, filled a cup and offered it to Ndani, beaming all the while. ‘For you,’ she said, and then added ‘to drink’ when she saw how hesitant Ndani was about taking the cup. The misses then spoke to Ndani in a very unusual fashion, the way she typically only addressed white neighbours or friends:
‘Tell me, Daniela, how old are you?’
This was a question Ndani had been expecting right from the start. Her stepmother had told her that one of the things white people most like to know is a person’s age. Ndani hadn’t believed her at the time, but her stepmother had gone on to say that the whites actually liked to know a person’s age right down to the day, month and year. It all had to be worked out and learned off by heart. So Ndani, with her stepmother’s help, had done some calculations. She could no longer remember the exact day or month they’d settled on, but she could remember the number of years: thirteen. Now all she had to do was add on the two that had passed since then. Ndani answered promptly, before she’d even sipped her tea.
‘I’m fifteen, Mistress.’
‘Oh, how wonderful! Then you’re almost the same age as João, my eldest. Remember him, Daniela? He’s now in the Metropole finishing school. He wants to be a lawyer, you know? A lawyer… Do you know what one of those is? Lawyers are people who go to the courthouse, who know all the laws and punish the criminals…’
Dona Linda then told Ndani, through a mixture of pride and vanity, about Mariazinha, her daughter, who wanted to be a doctor. ‘Adoctor, now isn’t that a fine thing to be?’Dona Linda said with a gentle smile on her face. It seemed she liked her daughter a lot more than her son. She talked about Mariazinha for a long time, although Ndani didn’t take much of it in because her head was spinning, turning a question over and over, but failing to find a good answer: Why was it that whites didn’t have lots of children like blacks did? Ndani had noticed that all the white women she’d come across, neighbours from the same street and others who lived elsewhere but came with their husbands to visit Dona Linda and Senhor Leitão, only ever had two children, three at most. What Ndani couldn’t understand was that the women nevertheless seemed happy and spoke proudly of their offspring. Imagine how happy they’d be with more children! So why didn’t they make it happen? Maybe white women couldn’t bear as many children as black women could?
‘And what about me, do you know how old I am?’
There was the misses with this age business again. Ndani’s stepmother had certainly been right there, she’d warned her of the white obsession with age. What was the point of memorising dates and calculating years? Being alive and healthy, that was the main thing. Age wasn’t worth talking about, it was something you just felt in your body. You could see age in people’s faces, especially the young; when women reached the age of birth, they had kids: when old age came, you felt the years in your bones; when you were of a dying age, you died. So what was the problem?
‘I don’t know, Mistress.’
And even if she had known, she’d never have said. Ndani fixed her eyes on the kitchen clock and sipped her peppermint tea. The pendulum on the clock moved back and forth endlessly, showing no sign of fatigue. Perhaps the clock had an age too. Or was it calculating its own age?
‘I’m fifty year’s old…’
‘Yes, Mistress.’
Ndani replied instinctively. She had no idea what the misses was talking about and had replied automatically to disguise her distraction. She didn’t understand why the misses had asked her to sit down, but she knew there would be hell to pay if Dona Linda found out she wasn’t listening, so she made a real effort. You never could tell a white’s true intentions. Dona Linda was perfectly capable of suddenly demanding that Ndani repeat everything she’d just been told, and Ndani wouldn’t have been able to.
Dona Linda was talking about her homeland. ‘We’re from the Alentejo…’she said. The Al and what, Ndani wanted to ask, but thought it best not to interrupt. The whites had so many names for their homeland, it was impossible to remember them all. Besides, what was the point? Ndani would never go there… It was best to just let the misses go on talking and hope she might finish soon.
‘You know, Daniela, what we really wanted was to go to Angola or Mozambique. I wanted to go to Mozambique so much! Know why? South Africa is so close. If you can’t make a go of it in Mozambique, you can slip over the border. South Africa is very rich, you can earn a lot of money there. But we were unlucky. We got sent here. What am I saying, unlucky? May the Good Lord forgive me… Anyway, we didn’t get Angola or Mozambique, we got Guiné, me and Zezinho, a different fate entirely. He’d wanted to be a policeman, but he landed a better job here. He’ll soon be promoted to Administrator. I wanted to work too, work in a factory, for example, but I couldn’t find anything, there’s no industry here, there are no factories. Patience, I suppose…’
Dona Linda picked up her teacup, but it was empty. Ndani immediately stood up to go and fetch more tea, it was her opportunity to withdraw. But when she returned to the living room with a new pot, the misses was no longer there.
Several days passed without anything similar happening. For Ndani, alias Daniela, this made things all the more confusing. Why had the misses suddenly made her sit down in what had formerly been Mariazinha’s chair, before she’d left for the Metropole? Why had Dona Linda told Ndani about her past when this was not a subject for a housegirl to discuss with her mistress? The white lady’s behaviour was impossible to understand.
Ndani didn’t know if it was loneliness or if there was some other reason, but there could be no denying that Dona Linda’s behaviour had changed since her last visit to the Metropole. Changed radically! The misses had even started to dress differently, with brand new clothes.
It made sense to Ndani that the misses had to have new clothes and furniture, for there was the master’s promotion to think about. An Administrator was very important, only the Governor was higher up. Being an Administrator’s wife was likewise very important, not every woman was so fortunate. But this still didn’t explain Dona Linda’s new smile, her new ways. Were such things also required for the master to be promoted? It was possible…
No, that couldn’t be it. If Dona Linda had only changed the way she’d behaved towards her white friends, then Ndani would have understood, the misses had to show that her husband was moving up in the world, that being an Administrator was a different status entirely. ‘Vain are the whites,’ Ndani’s stepmother had once said, and she was absolutely right. Ndani had noticed how much whites liked to show other whites all the things they had. Dona Linda’s conversations with her friends were always the same: they talked about the clothes they had, the houses they had, the businesses their husbands had, the flowers they had, the dogs and cats they had, the house help they had. They also sometimes talked about the relatives they had in their homeland, a cousin or a widowed grandmother who had lots of money or who had just bought a property in Lisbon or who had an American car, the latest model. But those types of conversations were not typical, they only occurred when one of them wished to remind the other that she was important, even though she lived in Guiné.
All of which was normal, Ndani was used to it. But the misses changing the way she treated her housegirl, to the point of actually saying ‘please’, now that was strange. If Ndani was ever to find out what all this was about, she’d have to ask someone who knew the whites very well. Why would a person who had always been wicked, who used to insult her housegirl all day long, even sometimes beat her, suddenly change so much that she invited that same housegirl to sit at the table with her and drink tea?
Ndani sent her stepmother a message.
But before her stepmother had had a chance to come to Bissau, something else happened that possibly explained recent developments and answered a good many doubts.
Was it chance or destiny?
It happened one afternoon when Ndani and Dona Linda were alone in the house. After her habitual siesta, the misses called for her afternoon snack. It was the same routine every day: she woke up at the same time, washed and had her afternoon snack; then she carried her transistor radio out onto the veranda and listened to music from her homeland until her husband came back from work. It was a ritual she’d kept for months, ever since Ndani had taken over gardening duties.
‘Daniela!’
Ndani had everything ready. As soon as she was called, she carried the tray into the living room and went over to the table where Dona Linda liked to take her afternoon snack. Ndani walked halfway around the table, the better to place the tray exactly where the misses liked it, with everything in easy reach, accessible with the minimum of effort. Dona Linda had explained it all to Ndani one day, saying that she liked to have everything just so, with the teapot on the right, the teacup on the left and the little spoons in the middle.
‘Sit down, please.’
It was happening again. Ndani sat down in the same chair as last time and tried to anticipate what would come next. She felt tempted to pick up the teapot and serve herself, but she hesitated and decided against it. She worried she might have misread the situation or that the misses might think such an action excessively bold, and this could cost Ndani dear. A housegirl should always be cautious, always know her place. Ndani’s stepmother had taught her well. Just because Dona Linda had once invited her to sit at the table and drink tea, didn’t mean she would do so again. Who’d ever heard of such manjuandade between a housegirl and a misses anyway?
‘Pass that cup, please.’
It was ‘please’ all over again. So it was to be the same routine as last time. Ndani held out her cup and the misses filled it. Ndani didn’t expect the misses to serve her sugar as well, that would be too much, so she took the initiative and added two heaped little spoonfulls herself. She liked sweet drinks, nice and sugary. She thought she now had it clear. She was to sit in the chair in place of Mariazinha and listen to whatever stories Dona Linda wished to tell.
‘Take a slice of cake. Please, help yourself…’
So it was to be even more complicated than last time. It was no longer just tea, now Ndani had the right to cake too. Perfect! She’d make up for lost time. When she’d first started working in the house, the misses had controlled everything she ate, feeding her on leftovers. If there was a lot left over, Ndani had her fill and stuffed her belly, but if there wasn’t, she went hungry. She’d never had the right to cake though. Not unless she burned one in the oven, and then, although she got to eat the burned cake, she also got, in the best case scenario, a clip around the ear and a scolding. She was the house help and there was always hell to pay whenever anything went wrong in the kitchen. If something burned, she had to intervene herself, play fireman. If the cake turned out well, it went straight to the misses and master’s table. If there was any left over, it was kept in a special place and served again the next day. How many times had Ndani longed to try even the tiniest piece! And now she had a whole fluffy cake to feast on, the misses had said for her to help herself. How things had changed in that house, oh!
‘You know, Daniela, I was talking to my husband about this yesterday, you really ought to start coming to church with me.’
Waah! So that was what this was about. But church was for whites, it had their white God inside. Ndani had once peeked inside the church in the praça. The statues in the Priest’s area were all white. There wasn’t a black thing in there. Even Ndani knew that the black church was the baloba and the black God was Yran. Now the misses was confusing things…
‘I’ll take you to buy some new clothes tomorrow and on Sunday we’ll all go together – me, you and Zezinho – to Mass at Sé cathedral.’
Ndani lost her appetite for cake. She drank her tea, but it had turned bitter, no longer had any taste or smell. Just a few days ago, she’d been convinced that life had turned a corner, that things had finally started to come good for her. But now the misses had come up with this business of going to church. Where had she got the idea from? Somebody had put her up to it, there was no way she could have thought it up all on her own, just like that. Ndani looked up and her eyes met Dona Linda’s. The misses appeared to be trying to analyse her reaction, read her thoughts even.
‘I’m going to explain something to you, Daniela. Pay attention, please, because it’s very important.’
This was going from bad to worse! Now the misses wanted to explain important things to her. All she’d ever explained to Ndani were matters of cookery and hygiene, no more than that, and until recently, this had all been done through yelling. Now Ndani was to be told something very important and have it explained to her calmly besides, sitting at the table with the misses, a fluffy cake at her disposal. If ever there was proof things had changed in that house, this was it. Ndani had better pay careful attention to what the misses had to say.
‘I’ve been thinking it over for a long time, since our last trip to the Metropole, you know? It has to do with something that either happened by chance or… We were at sea, travelling along peacefully, when suddenly the weather took a turn for the worse. There was torrential rain, waves crashed violently against both sides of the boat. I was so afraid, I thought we were all going to die right there and then, drowned at sea. Although the boat was very big and modern, it was clear the captain couldn’t get it under control, the situation was out of his hands. Almost all the passengers were screaming, lots were crying, others were throwing up all over the place. It was absolute chaos, you can’t imagine. I sat on my own, praying, pleading to Our Lady of Fátima that she might come and save us. The next day, when everything was back to normal, I thought about what had happened. Imagine what would have become of us if instead of being in that big boat, we’d been in a small boat, a caravel, for example. You know what a caravel is, don’t you? It’s an old type of boat, the sort the Portuguese explorers used to discover the world. Now here’s the question: What would have happened if we’d been in a caravel? We would have drowned for sure. We’d have perished at sea, no doubt about it, because no one could swim out of that ocean, not with all the sharks. Do you hear what I’m saying, Daniela? Well, I didn’t say anything to anyone at the time, but as soon as I reached the Metropole I went to church to do two things: to thank Our Lady of Fátima for saving us and to speak to the Priest. I wanted someone who knew about these things to explain to me how the Portuguese had managed to discover Africa when the dangers were so great. And you know what? The Priest’s explanation made a huge impression on me. Know what he said? Pay attention, because this is the key part. He said Europeans reached Africa in order to save the Africans. Do you hear me, Daniela? The Priest said that at first this salvation involved taking the Africans away, to the Americas, to remove them from their cult statues and masks, never mind the sacred trees… But later on it was decided that this actually wasn’t the best method, and so we Europeans had to come to Africa to teach Christianity to Africans and save their souls.’
Dona Linda paused a moment to stare at Ndani, then picked up her teacup and drank the remains in one go. ‘Just a moment,’ the misses said and headed off into the bedroom. She came back a minute later carrying a cord made of silver with a cross dangling from it. She stood next to Ndani for a moment and then she told Ndani, alias Daniela, to stand up. With great calm, the misses lifted the cord over Ndani’s head and placed it round her neck. Then she adjusted it, so that the cross was visible right between Ndani’s breasts, and looked up with a triumphant smile. Dona Linda’s hands rested on Ndani’s shoulders as if in readiness to embrace her. She held this position for some time, gazing by turns into Ndani’s eyes and down at the crucifix. She only removed her hands after Ndani, in a gentle voice, had said: ‘Thank you’. Such gratitude seemed to take Dona Linda’s joy to a new peak, indeed Ndani might even have said the misses adored the way her housegirl had thanked her for the offering: speaking softly, her eyes pointed to the floor, full of humility. Dona Linda’s smile grew and grew, until she gave Ndani two friendly pats on the shoulder, then skirted around the table and sat back down. She was evidently most happy with life.
Ndani sat back down too. She raised her hand to her chest and took hold of the cross. It was heavy for its size. It reminded her of the necklace her father had given her a few days after the Djambakus had said she harboured an evil spirit inside her body. It had had a goat’s horn instead of a cross and her father had got it from the Djambakus himself, or possibly a different djambakus, Ndani could no longer recall. But she remembered that the horn, and the items it held inside, had the power to expel the evil spirit from her body and thus prevent her life from becoming an endless series of tragedies. Yet she’d lost the necklace in a fight with another girl. The thrashing she’d got from her father was all too fresh in the memory. He’d been furious with her. ‘Now what do you expect me to do? I’ve a good mind to leave you with that wickedness inside you… I have other children besides you to worry about, you know?’ And that’s what he’d done, he’d left her alone and stopped worrying about her.
Did this object she’d just received from Dona Linda have similar powers? What were they? Should she ask now or save it for another time? Ndani looked up at the misses. Dona Linda was still filled with joy. Her smile was so wide it forced her lips to half-open and she had a mysterious glow in her eyes. Evidently she wouldn’t be going out onto the veranda to listen to music today. She seemed so happy and distracted that Ndani wondered what she could possibly be thinking about. Her children? Her husband’s promotion? Saving African souls?
‘Let’s go to church.’