Confession of the Lioness (14 page)

When we free their wrists, the boys stand there motionless, as if stuck to the trunk of the tree.

You can go
, we encourage them.

Where?
one of them finally asks.

Wherever you want. You're free now.

They don't move. To me, they seem to have been incorporated into the vegetable matter of the tree. We leave them, while the condemned boys remain rooted to the shadow of their fear. They'll stay there until their executioners return.

*   *   *

I start driving again along paths that are covered in elephant grass. I seem to be traveling in a boat, among green waves rippling away as far as the horizon. The jeep is advancing so slowly that walking would be faster.

At the top of a hill, I stop the vehicle, take off my hat, and pretend to search the sky.

Are we lost?
Gustavo asks anxiously.

It's good to be lost. It means there are possible routes. Things get serious when you run out of routes.

I'm asking whether you are still able to find any routes.

Out here in the bush, it's the routes that come and find us.

I hear Florindo Makwala's laugh behind me. The writer's face bears a semblance of humiliation. All my words, all my silence have the effect of an accusation: He is from the city; he can't even come to terms with the ground he treads. The truth of the matter is this: Here in this world, Gustavo needs me as his teacher even to walk along on his own two feet.

*   *   *

When we get back to the jeep, the sun is at its height and the heat causes mirages in the long grass.

I could do with a whiskey on the rocks
, Florindo jokes.

The two of them swap rude jokes. All of a sudden I order them to keep quiet. I pretend to be listening carefully to something that has escaped their notice. My solemn tone gives them a fright:

Be quiet, don't leave the car. Under any circumstances, do you hear?

Crouching low, my gun at the ready, I pretend to choose the quietest path and gradually disappear among the bushes. After that, silence reigns, a terrifying solitude surrounds those who wait in the car, frozen with fear. I hear them muttering to each other.

How long is he going to take?
Florindo asks.

Their mumbled conversation, which only serves to keep their apprehension at bay, is suddenly interrupted as I decide to fire into the air. To produce even greater fear, I burst headlong out of the undergrowth, leaping over shrubs and yelling for us to get out of there. The writer jumps behind the wheel and the jeep lurches forward at startling speed.

What's happened, Archie?
the writer asks, tremulous.

I can't tell you.

The administrator remains silent. If I can't recount the cause of my terror, then what has happened escapes human reason. When we arrive back in the village, I retire without saying a word. From my room, I hear Florindo and Gustavo talking:

What in heaven's name happened?

How would I know?

I'm beginning to suffer the same beliefs as these wretched folk. Who knows, maybe he saw one of those things …

One of those things…?

Yes, the lame serpent, for example.

The administrator explains himself: In the village there's a serpent that moves around over the silence of ceilings and over distant paths. This venomous creature seeks out happy people in order to bite and poison them, without their ever being aware. This is why, in Kulumani, everyone suffers from the same unhappiness. Everyone is scared, scared of life, scared of love, even scared of their friends. Some folk call this monster a “devil.” Others call it a
shetani.
But most call it the “lame serpent.” The writer interrupts this long narrative:

Forgive me, my dear administrator, but as far as I am concerned, this serpent is ourselves.

 

Mariamar's Version

FIVE

Some Honey Eyes

It is easier to hear a pretty girl's murmur than a lion's roar.

—ARAB PROVERB

It was my honey eyes that captivated Archie Bullseye when he visited us for the first time sixteen years ago. The hunter found me on the side of the road and, without knowing it, saved me from the forays of Maliqueto Pr
ó
prio, the policeman. I've already talked about this. But I didn't mention that Archie had returned some days later to make overtures and promises. He said he wanted to take me away to the city. And that we would be happy and forget about all that we had gone through before.

Come with me
, the hunter insisted.
Let's find happiness together.

Terrified, I refused. What he was promising was far beyond what I could ever dream. I looked around me to see whether someone was listening to us. We were talking in the kitchen yard, that little space where women most forget about what it is to live. I looked at the stove that was forever lit, the firewood piled up, the saucepans laid out facedown. I examined all this as if it were the work of no one at all. As if the embers were not gathered up from our kitchen to light a neighbor's fire. As if women's hands were not ensuring that the fire never went out.

Have you nothing to say, Mariamar?

To listen is also to talk. The hunter was talking about things I didn't know: the city, happiness, love. How good it was to hear his talk, how bad for me it was to hear his words! But I didn't succumb to his invitations. In the end, happiness and love are similar. You don't try to be happy, you don't decide to fall in love. You're happy, you love.

We'll be happy, Mariamar.

Who told you I want to be happy?

He contemplated me as if I were speaking a language he didn't understand.

*   *   *

That night, the drums beat and there was dancing. At first I stood motionless, watching the others shake their bodies sensuously, while the ground shook as if the drums were beating in the depths of the earth. I managed to hold myself back until my feet were ignited. To free myself from this fire, I surrendered gradually to the rhythm of the music, gyrating across the moonlit yard. Seeing me dance, Archie came over and put his arm around my waist, inviting me to turn with him.

Let go of me, huntsman, dancers don't touch each other here.

I don't care, I dance the way I know.

I remembered what the men of Kulumani said: No one hunts with anyone else. Well, dancing is like hunting. Each dancer takes possession of the whole world. I spun around before facing him:

I'm not dancing with you. I'm dancing for you. Go and sit down and watch me become a queen.

He obeyed submissively. As for my performance, it stopped obeying me. For I found myself dancing naked across the yard, rolling on the ground, little by little losing my human composure. Archie collapsed in surrender, speechless and without gesture. Seeing him like that, weak and defenseless, made me feel even more womanly. I whispered sweet nothings in his ear and he melted away in my embrace. We didn't even notice that the fire had gone out: Another fire had been lit within us.

While I was getting dressed, I told Archie what he was waiting for so hopefully:

Early tomorrow morning, come and get me. I'm going to run away with you.

I certainly shall. Before the village wakes up, I'll pass by here and fetch you.

That night, I was visited by all possible dreams. Until morning broke, I remained by my bedroom door, my hands clutching the case that lay in my lap. My future was packed away in that case. Folded away neatly like clothes, my hopes and dreams lay waiting.

*   *   *

I never got as far as unpacking that case. For, the following morning, the hunter didn't come to get me. Forgetfulness, I thought, to mitigate any doubts. A minor lapse that Archie would put right later on: He would return to Kulumani, and, to prevent any delays, my little suitcase would remain packed.

Little by little, like someone dying without being ill, I submitted to the evidence: Archie had abandoned me. One by one, my dreams turned into a recurrent nightmare: From my dreams, indistinct voices emerged:

Dombe! Dombe!

In the distance, beyond the morning mist, people were shouting. They took us for creatures of the white race. That was why they were calling us
dombe
, which is the name given to fish. Ever since the Portuguese arrived here centuries ago, this is the word used to describe them. Washed up on the beaches, coming from the liquid horizon, they could only have been born in the ocean. Which was where we came from, Archie and I.

Lying unconscious by my side, the hunter seemed to have given up. That was my nightmare: Archie and I were washed up on a beach as we fled downstream in a dugout. The current had taken us out beyond the estuary and deposited us on the shoreline, among the bits and pieces scattered along the sand.

Gradually, shadows emerged from the dunes, shapes rushed toward us, unrestrained. They're coming to save us, I thought. But when they leaned over us, what they did was rob us of our clothes and possessions. The angry cries of the crowd grew louder and louder, as they rhythmically egged each other on:

Dombe, dombe!

Don't kill us, please don't kill us
, I implored them, sobbing.

You're fish, we're going to gut you.

I'm a person! I'm black, look at me!

It was then that I realized how ridiculous my situation was. How can anyone prove their own race? I tried to speak in Shimakonde, but not a single word came to me. Once again, the chanting shouts, like some ritual of execution. Suddenly a vision emerged from the misty background: Genito Mpepe, cutlass in hand, commanding his ululating horde:

Dombe! Dombe!

It was the end. My father prepared to knife my lover. Lying lifeless next to me, Archie had no idea of the immediate danger. As quick as a flash, the cutlass sliced through the air but didn't reach its victim. All of a sudden the hunter's body turned to liquid, wave after wave until it became ocean, nothing more than ocean. Archie was saving himself at the very last moment, transformed into water. In my dream, I too gave in to this final impulse, joining my beloved in his fate. As no one came to my rescue, I chose to melt into another substance.

The dream taught me I had one decision to make: I wanted to die by drowning. I have never wanted anything so much as that. To die in water is to return. That was what I felt the first time I saw the ocean: a yearning for a womb to which I was returning at that moment. A yearning for that gentle death, that beating of a double heart, that water which, after all, is what our whole body is made of.

My mother, Hanifa Assulua, used to complain that in Kulumani we were all buried. It was the opposite. We were drowned, that's what it was. All of us had been drowned before we were even born. At our birth, we were delivered onto the first beach we washed up on.

*   *   *

Tonight my father knocked on my bedroom door. Curious, I opened the door slightly:

I'm going into the bush with the visitors. Tomorrow we're going to hunt lions.

Never before had my father come to say goodbye. He would leave in the early morning, and no one would notice him going. But this time, he looked at me with lifeless eyes, and touched my neck as he used to when I was a little girl.

Don't touch me!
I reacted violently.

I just came to say goodbye
, he mumbled submissively.

I was astonished to have merited this farewell. In Kulumani, fathers don't pay any attention to their daughters, rarely speak to them, and never show any sign of affection toward them, much less in public. Affection is a mother's task. Why, then, was Genito Mpepe giving me this sudden and unexpected display of attention? Then it occurred to me: He wasn't just taking his leave. He was saying sorry. Genito Mpepe knew that he wouldn't return from the expedition. So he had come to ask for forgiveness. He was asking my forgiveness for never having been my father. Or what was worse still: for only having been my father in order not to let me be a free, happy person.

It's strange how much our heart rules our head. For years, I had wished for and imagined his end. I had prayed fervently that some wild beast might eat him, just as had befallen Sil
ê
ncia. But now, before that sudden display of humility, I relented, overcome by remorse.

Father, please don't go on this hunt!

He looked at me over his shoulder with an astonishment that gradually turned into helpless sadness:

Why are you asking me this, Mariamar?

It's because I had a dream, Father. I dreamed of the sea.

Genito Mpepe was an expert in premonition. This ability to see ahead was what made him an excellent tracker. The future slipped through his dreams and the following day there was nothing that could take him by surprise. How was it that this time he was ignoring what to me was such an obvious omen?

You're only asking, Mariamar, because you're scared I'll kill your little huntsman. It's not me you want to protect.

Don't go, I beg you.

I have to go. I can't turn back. Those men have already paid me.

He turned around and walked away, dragging his feet as if reluctant. He paused to look at the trunk of the tamarind tree. It was I who broke the silence:

I was so sad when that tree died.

Then my father told me: When I got sick in my legs, it was my mother who cured me. It wasn't the mission, it wasn't Father Amoroso. My mother performed
takatuka
on me. She transferred my pain to that tree, which afterward couldn't stand the burden and withered away. That's what
takatuka
consists of: to switch someone's illness to something. That's what happened with me: Hanifa Assulua swapped my soul's injuries for the life of that tamarind. That's what my father told me as he said goodbye.