A General Theory of Oblivion

MUTIATI BLUES (1)

Today the Kuvale number no more than five thousand, but they occupy a vast area, more than half of Namibe Province. Nowadays they are a prosperous people, in terms of the things they value: they have copious head of oxen. With the exception of the northeast, their territories were spared almost any direct incidents in the war, there has been rain in recent years, at least enough to keep the cattle (there have even been some good years, and it has been a long time since there has been a really bad one), and yet the course Angola has taken puts them in a position of food poverty. They are unable to trade their oxen for corn. This apparent paradox — so many oxen yet so much hunger — is yet another way in which they are unusual. But isn’t that true of Angola, too? So much oil…?

Ruy Duarte de Carvalho, ‘Aviso à Navegação:

A brief introductory look at the Kuvale shepherds’

The detective squatted down. He fixed his gaze on the old man, who was sitting, very straight-backed, a few metres ahead of him. The brightness of the sky was dizzying, preventing him from seeing clearly. He turned to the guide:

‘That old man over there, he’s a mulatto?’

The guide smiled. The question seemed to unsettle him.

‘Maybe. Some white man who came through here seventy years ago. These things happen. They still happen today. These guys offer their wives to the visitors, didn’t you know that?’

‘I’d heard.’

‘They do it. But if the woman refuses, that’s fine, they’re under no obligation. Women have more power, here, than people think.’

‘I don’t doubt it. Here and everywhere else. Eventually women are going to end up with all the power.’

He addressed the old man:

‘Do you speak Portuguese?’

The man he’d spoken to ran his right hand over his head, which was covered by a kind of hat, a really nice one, with red and yellow stripes. He looked straight at Monte in a silent challenge, opened his mouth — which was almost toothless — and gave the tiniest little laugh, a soft laugh that dispersed like dust into the luminous air. A lad who was sitting beside him made some comment to the guide. The guide translated it:

‘He’s saying the old man doesn’t talk. Never has.’

Monte got up. He wiped the sweat from his face with his shirtsleeve.

‘He reminds me of a guy I met many years ago. He died. A shame, as I’d have really liked to kill him again. Nowadays, now I’m older, I’m assailed by these memories, incredibly clear ones, of things that have happened. As if someone were inside my head, someone who had been passing the time leafing through an old photo album.’

They had been walking for hours along the dry riverbed. Monte had been summoned by a general, one of his companions from those fighting days, who had bought a huge estate near there to pass on to his daughter. He’d had a solid barrier put up around the property, cutting off the traditional grazing routes of the Mucubal shepherds. Gunshots were exchanged. A shepherd was wounded. The following night a group of young Mucubals attacked the farm, making off with a fourteen-year-old boy, the general’s grandson, as well as some twenty head of cattle.

Monte took two steps towards the old man.

‘May I see your wrist? Your right wrist?’

The old man was wearing a simple piece of cloth, tied at his waist, in a variety of shades of red and orange. He wore dozens of necklaces, his wrists were adorned with bright, broad copper bracelets. Monte held his arm. He was about to push up the bracelets when the blow knocked him down. The lad sitting beside the old man had leapt to his feet, throwing a violent punch at his chest. The detective fell on his back. He turned. He crawled away a few metres, coughing, trying to recover his breath, as well as his poise, while behind him a fierce argument was breaking out. Finally, he managed to get back up onto his feet. The commotion had brought people over. Young people with lustrous, rust-coloured skin were emerging from the splendour of the evening, like a miracle, gathering around the old man. They were shaking long sticks. They were rehearsing dance steps. They were leaping about. Shouting. The guide drew back, terrified:

‘This is getting ugly, man. Let’s get out of here!’

Back in Luanda, sat at a bar table, Monte was summarising the humiliating defeat in between gulps of beer, resorting to an image that was expressive, if inelegant:

‘We were run out of there like dogs. I swallowed so much dust I’ve been crapping bricks ever since.’