Confession of the Lioness (6 page)

—FROM “BUTTERFLY HUNT,” BY WALTER BENJAMIN

I've never liked airports. So full of people, so full of no one. I prefer train stations, where there's enough time for tears and waving handkerchiefs. Trains set off sluggishly, with a sigh, regretting their departure. But a plane has a haste that's inhuman. And my mother's story loses any meaning when I watch planes hurtling into the air. Not everything, after all, is so slow in the endless firmament. I'm at Maputo International Airport, certain that I'm nowhere at all. Someone speaking in English brings me back to earth.

This is the writer. He's going to be your travel companion.

The writer is a white man, short, with beard and glasses. He's a well-known intellectual, and various people stop to ask him for his autograph. He gets up to shake my hand.

I'm Gustavo. Gustavo Regalo.

He seems to like his own name. He is waiting for me to show recognition. But I pretend he's a complete stranger.

I'm going to write a report on the hunting expedition. I'm under contract to the same company as you.

I'm sure you'll enjoy it. And the lions will be pleased to know that their deaths warrant a report.

This is my first hunt. I have to say, without meaning any offense, that I'm against it.

Against what?

Against hunting. All the more so when it's hunting lions.

Your problem, my writer friend, is that you've never seen a lion.

What do you mean by that?

You've seen lions in photos of safaris, but you don't know what a lion is. A lion only really reveals himself in territory where he's lord and king. Join me in the bush and you'll know what a lion is.

*   *   *

Four hours in a plane, seated next to the writer, are enough to gauge the abyss that separates us. With his intellectual airs, his notepad at the ready, his inability to keep quiet: In short, the writer irritates me. Judging by the way he looks at me, I realize that the reverse is also true. Something about him reminds me of Roland and the way my brother used to contemplate me. As if he were accusing me.

*   *   *

A feather is heavy; a bird is also heavy. The lightest knows how to fly. So goes my late mother, Dona Martina's saying. Well, as far as I'm concerned, both lightnesses are heavy, and my sleep never turns into nocturnal flight. A constant state of alertness makes me enter and leave sleep like a drunkard, makes me come and go like a shipwrecked sailor. It's a legacy of that fateful night when Roland shot my father. Insomnia brings back unwelcome memories; sleeping washes away memories I wanted to keep. Sleep is my illness, my madness.

*   *   *

During the journey, I feel an overwhelming lethargy. I pretend to be asleep in order to then pretend I'm woken up by the tearing of a sheet of paper. Gustavo apologizes, smiling timidly:

I'm going to write my girlfriend a letter. In the old style. A fake letter just to distract myself, to distract myself from missing her.

A fake letter? Is there any letter that isn't a fake? I remember the love letters that my father would dictate to my mother. It was a late evening ritual, when one could hear the frogs croaking in the nearby ponds. We were blacks and mulattoes who had been demoted to blacks. We were restricted to the edge of the area, there where rains and illness accumulated. Martina Bullseye, my mother, would beautify herself for these writing sessions, for they were the only time when she would receive compliments from her man. It was only at such moments that he behaved in a mild, almost submissive manner, as if he were asking for forgiveness. Sitting motionless, bent over the paper, my mother looked like some aged canvas. Next to her, Roland scribbled endless pieces of homework. At that moment, he was even older than our own mother. Even today I can remember my father's voice vividly, as he dictated, enunciating every syllable:

My darling Henry, my beloved husband, one and only love of my life … Are you writing this down, Martina?

He would dictate long letters that were always the same. In doing so, he would roll his words with slow deliberation, as if he were drunk. What a difficult relationship Father had with words! I inherited that problematic relationship with the written word, in contrast to Roland, for whom letters were a game with which to play. Maybe that's why I'm irritated by the fluency with which my traveling companion keeps scribbling line after line. Or who knows, perhaps what perturbs me is that I don't have anyone to write a love letter to.

*   *   *

The writer has finished his imaginary letter, and folds the paper carefully so as to slip it into an envelope. He zips open his briefcase and places it inside, among various other envelopes. The letter may be a fake, but the performance is a convincing one. And, once again, I'm assailed by a memory. Far from us, Henry Bullseye would complete the same ritual: He would invariably place the letter in an envelope, lick the flap and stick it down, and put it in his travel bag. He would take those letters on his lengthy hunting expeditions. He also carried with him a blurred photograph of Martina.

It's like that so that others can see it, but can't look too hard.

He was a jealous man, old Henry! In fact his jealousy became a reason for bloodletting and tragedy.

*   *   *

Through the window of the plane, the last signs of daylight dissolve among the clouds. I recall my mother's fable condemning the Sun for its petulance and the way I, maybe because of this story, always feel myself awakening as darkness begins to fall. I belong to neither day nor night. Sunset was the time when I would return home, exhausted from my endless games in those backyards that opened up like a vast savanna where my imagination hunted its prey. Roland would look at me, jealous of my intimacy with the world. Roland belonged to the house. I belonged to the street.

Mother, please don't make me have a bath yet. Let me stay dirty for just a bit longer.

The sweat and dust that covered me prolonged the rapture of my forests invented in the back gardens of the neighborhood. As my father was almost always absent, Martina Bullseye was able to exercise her mother's complacency with sovereign freedom. What came as a relief to us seemed to weigh heavily on her heart. During those long periods of solitude, our mother would continue to fulfill the ritual of those commissioned letters: She would put on her most elegant dress—in fact, the only dress she possessed—and pretend to listen to the absent Henry Bullseye's dictation. She performed the act of writing with such devotion that we could clearly hear our father's slow drawl echoing down the hallway.

*   *   *

Why are we going so fast?

The writer doesn't answer. Ever since the plane landed in Pemba, we have begun a long journey by road to Palma, the district capital. We can look forward to a nine-hour drive along poorly maintained sandy roads.

There are four people in the all-terrain vehicle: in front, myself and Gustavo, the writer; in the back, Florindo Makwala, the district administrator, and his outsized spouse, Dona Naftalinda. The First Lady, as the administrator insists on calling her, justifies her name: She is so heavy that the vehicle has developed a dangerous list on the side where she is sitting.

Gustavo is the driver. I chose to remain free to watch the bush that lines the road. For the last two hours, the scenery has been no more than a monotonous procession of scrawny, bare trees, devoid of foliage.

Why such speed?
I ask again.

The question has become an order. Gustavo needs to be aware of who is leading this expedition. We are two opposites. The writer is white and short. I'm a mulatto and tall. The writer shoots his mouth off and looks at people right in the eye. On the contrary, the human eye robs me of my soul; the more human the gaze, the more of an animal I become.

Is there still far to go?
Gustavo asks, mumbling so low that no one hears him.

At last, the man complies: The car slows down while I give him a smile of unconcealed scorn. I glance over at the rear seat.

Are you asleep, Dona Naftalinda?

Her silence is in concert with the surrounding countryside: It's as if the world were yet to be born. Inside the car, the hush is even heavier. I know that silence and the way, on very hot days, it sinks into us. It begins by inhibiting our very desire to talk. Later, we've even forgotten what it was we wanted to say. Before long, even the act of breathing becomes a waste of energy.

Archie's right, drive more slowly
, Dona Naftalinda complains.
The road's in a shocking state, and we're being thrown around in the back.

Naftalinda's tone is adjusted to her status: It has the geniality of someone who knows so well what she wants that she has no need to issue a command. My gaze ranges over the landscape like fire licking the elephant grass. Where the writer sees trees, I see places to shelter made out of shadows. In one of these shadows, the ill-famed lions, eaters of people and of dreams, will be resting.

*   *   *

So absorbed am I reviewing the shadows that I am unaware of a lively monologue that has begun from the direction of the backseat. The administrator is rattling on about automobiles, makes, models, countries of origin, and the years in which his favorite vehicles were manufactured. And how he could do with an automobile like this one provided by the company that contracted us.

Is there still far to go?
I ask, merely to change the subject.

The administrator repeats what he has already said a dozen times: Not far at all. In fact we're almost there. The writer asks:

It's strange, one doesn't see any people around. Doesn't anyone live here?

Florindo Makwala stiffens, offended. Was the visitor suggesting that all he ruled over were stones and dust?

You'll see them in a little while. The people. There are lots of them.

*   *   *

Stop, stop the car!
I order, the door already open and half of me outside the vehicle. The next minute, I creep over toward some bushes on the side of the road. There are vultures circling high above. Maybe there's a rotting corpse somewhere around here. It's a false alarm. I signal the others to get out of the vehicle.

Let's take a break.

Dona Naftalinda is lowered from the vehicle. The long-suffering jeep's suspension groans. The anxious administrator warns:

Help her down. Don't let her fall, for God's sake don't let her fall.

Don't you dare touch me, husband. Don't forget it's forbidden.

Various arms are raised to help in the operation to unload the First Lady. I hesitate, unsure where to place my hands. I'm afraid my arms will get lost among folds and rolls of fat. In front of me, a huge backside darkens the day, like a sudden eclipse of the sun.

If I'd known, I would have brought a crane
, the writer murmurs in my ear.

Once on the ground, Naftalinda whispers something to her husband. The administrator mutters awkwardly between his teeth.

My wife needs to go into the bush.

She can go
, I answer curtly.

She's scared.

Go with her.

She would rather you kept guard over her.

In these, as in other matters, it's better if the husband does that.

It's not that I'm scared
, Naftalinda declares, with the air of an empress.
But I've heard that the lions only kill women. I don't know whether, as First Lady, I'm also included on their menu.

You can be sure that you are
, the writer comments.

Over there's safe
, I assure her, pointing to some rocks in front of us.
You can go, Dona Naftalinda, we'll watch over things from here.

To distract ourselves from our embarrassing wait, the writer pretends to become interested in my rifle and admits:

There was a time when I dreamed of using a gun; I wanted to be a guerrilla fighter. In those days, we used to say that freedom would be born from the barrel of a gun.

So did it happen?

Freedom?

No. I'm asking whether you became a guerrilla.

More or less.

There's no more or less when it comes to guns and freedom. Have you ever seen anyone get killed?

Never. And you? Have you ever killed someone, or has it always just been animals?

I am immediately struck by the memory of my father swimming in blood that wasn't just his own, but that of all the Bullseyes. My words are rendered more somber by my solemn tone. Those we have killed, no matter whether they are strangers to us or our enemies, become members of our family forever after. They never leave us, but remain more present than the living.

*   *   *

Returning to our company once more, Dona Naftalinda smiles, amused by the way the writer shakes the dust from himself as if in some act of self-flagellation.

See the advantage of being a lion? A lion never gets himself dirty
, Dona Naftalinda asserts.

All I want is a bath. I've got more dust on me than I have clothes
, Gustavo complains, shaking himself vigorously.

So much the better
, I advise him in a sarcastic tone.
You're much better off like that because your body will begin to get used to the land. Get used to being part of the land, belonging to this land.

I am of this land.

Only the land can confirm that.

I turn my back and walk away, though not before I hear the writer mutter angrily to himself: