A General Theory of Oblivion

SABALU AND HIS DEAD

On the day Sabalu broke through the wall, Ludo confessed her greatest nightmare to him: she had killed a man and buried him on the terrace. The boy listened to her without surprise.

‘That was a long time ago, grandma. Even he doesn’t remember that now.’

‘He who?’

‘Your dead man, that Trinitá. My mum used to say that the dead suffer from amnesia. They suffer even more because of the poor memories of the living. You remember him every day, and that’s good. You should laugh as you remember him, you should dance. You need to talk to Trinitá the way you talk to Phantom. Talking calms the dead.’

‘Did you learn that from your mother, too?’

‘Yes. My mother died on me when I was a child. I was left abandoned. I talk to her, but I haven’t got those hands protecting me now.’

‘You’re still a child.’

‘I can’t do it, grandma. How can I be a child if I’m far from my mother’s arms?’

‘I’ll give you mine.’

Ludo hadn’t hugged anyone in a long time. She was a bit out of practice, and Sabalu had to lift her arms up. It was really him making a nest for himself on the old lady’s lap. Only later did he talk about his mother, a nurse, killed for fighting against the trade in human corpses. In the hospital where she worked, in a city in the north, corpses would sometimes disappear. Some of the employees used to sell the organs to the witch doctors, thereby increasing their meagre salaries fivefold. Filomena, Sabalu’s mother, had begun by rebelling against the corrupt employees, later moving on to fight the witch doctors, too. She started having problems. A car burst out at her as she was leaving work, almost running her over. Her house was burgled five times. They left charms nailed to her door, notes with insults and threats. None of this deterred her. One October morning, in the market, a man approached her and stabbed her in the stomach. Sabalu saw his mother drop to the ground. He heard her voice, in a hiss:

‘Just run for it, son!’

Filomena had arrived pregnant from São Tomé, attracted by the bright eyes, the broad shoulders, the easy laugh and the warm voice of a young officer in the Angolan Armed Forces. The officer had taken her from Luanda to that city in the north, he had lived with her for eight months, been there for Sabalu’s birth, then gone off on a mission to the south, which was supposed to last just a few days, but he’d never come back.

The boy ran across the market, knocking over baskets of fruit, crates of beer, chirping wicker cages. A violent commotion of protest was erupting behind him. Sabalu didn’t stop till he had arrived home. He stood there, at a loss, not knowing what to do. Then the door opened and a crooked man, dressed in black, pounced on him like a bird of prey. The boy dodged him, rolled over on the tarmac, got up, and without looking back, broke into a run again.

A truck driver agreed to take him to Luanda. Sabalu told him the truth: his mother had died, and his father had disappeared. He hoped that once in the capital he’d be able to track down someone from his family. He knew his father’s name was Marciano Barroso, that he was, or had been, a captain in the Armed Forces, and that he’d disappeared on a mission somewhere in the south. He knew, too, that his father was a native of Luanda. His paternal grandparents lived on the big Quinaxixe plaza. He remembered hearing his mother mention the name. She’d told him that there, on that big plaza, a lagoon had grown, with dark waters, where a mermaid lived.

The truck driver dropped him at Quinaxixe. He put a wad of banknotes in Sabalu’s pocket:

‘This money should be enough for you to rent a room for a week, and to eat and drink. I hope you find your father in the meantime.’

The boy roamed around, distressed, for hours and hours. He first approached an obese policeman positioned outside the door to a bank:

‘Please, sir, do you know Captain Barroso?’

The policeman fired a gaze at him, eyes sparkling with rage:

‘Move on, layabout, move on!’

A woman selling vegetables took pity on the boy. She stopped a moment to hear him out. She called over some others. One of them remembered an old man, one Adão Barroso, who had lived in the Cuca building. He’d died years ago.

It was already getting late when hunger drove Sabalu into a small bar. He sat down, fearful. He ordered a soup and a Coke. When he left, a lad with a swollen face, his skin in very poor shape, shoved him against the wall:

‘My name’s Baiacu, kid. I’m the King of Quinaxixe.’ He pointed at the statue of a woman in the middle of the park. ‘She’s my queen. Her, Queen Ginga. Me, King Gingão. You got any cash?’

Sabalu shrunk back, crying. Two other boys emerged from the shadows, flanking Baiacu, preventing his flight. They were identical, short and solid, like pit bulls, dull eyes and the same engrossed smile on well-drawn lips. Sabalu put his hand in his pocket and showed him the money. Baiacu snatched the notes:

‘Ace, pal. Tonight you can crib with us, over there, where the boxes are. We’ll look out for you. Tomorrow you start work. What’s your name?’

‘Sabalu.’

‘A pleasure, Sabalu. This is Diogo!’

‘Which one?’

‘Both. Diogo is both of them.’

It took Sabalu some time to understand that the two bodies constituted a single person. They moved about in unison, or rather, vibrated in harmony, like synchronised swimmers. They spoke, simultaneously, the same few words. They laughed common laughs. They wept identical tears. Pregnant women fainted when they saw Diogo. Children ran from him. Diogo himself, however, seemed not to have the least vocation for malice. He had the goodness of a Surinam cherry tree, which bears fruit in the sun, albeit discreet and infrequent, more out of negligence than any clear determination of the spirit. Baiacu had earned himself some money by making Diogo sing and dance kuduru outside the big hotels. The foreigners were fascinated. They would leave generous tips. One Portuguese journalist wrote a small article about the kudurista, which included a photograph of Diogo, his arms around Baiacu. Baiacu always carried a cutting of the article in his trouser pocket. He’d look proud:

‘I’m a street-businessman.’

Sabalu started out by washing cars. He would hand the money over to Baiacu. The street-businessman bought food for everyone. For himself he also bought cigarettes and beer. Sometimes he’d drink too much. He’d become a talker. He would philosophise:

‘The truth is the sole-less shoe of a man who doesn’t know how to lie.’

He became easily irritated. On one occasion, Diogo allowed some other boys to steal a small battery-powered radio that Baiacu had managed to extract from the back seat of a jeep that was stuck in traffic. That night Baiacu lit a fire by the side of the lagoon. He heated up a sheet of iron till it was red-hot. He called Diogo over, grabbed one of his hands and held it to the metal plate. Both Diogo’s bodies twisted desperately. Both his mouths gave a high-pitched howl. Sabalu threw up, tortured by the smell of burned flesh and Diogo’s desperation.

‘You’re weak,’ spat Baiacu. ‘You’ll never be king.’

From that day on, to make Sabalu a man — just a man since he’d never be able to transform him into a king — he started taking him along on short pilfering expeditions. These would happen in the late afternoons, when the bourgeois were heading home in their cars, languishing in traffic jams for hours on end. There was always some poor soul who’d roll down a window, either to let in some air because the air conditioning wasn’t working, or to ask someone a question. Then Baiacu would spring out of the shadows, his face spiked with pimples, his wide eyes aflame, and hold a shard of glass to their neck. Sabalu would stick his hands through the window and take a wallet, a watch, any object of value within his reach. Then the two of them would race away into the confusion of cars and people shouting threats, and the fury of car horns, occasionally gunshots.

It had been Baiacu’s idea to climb the scaffolding. He instructed Sabalu:

‘You climb up, see if there’s a window open anywhere and get in without making noise. I can’t do it. Heights make me really sick. Also, the higher I go, the shorter I feel.’

Sabalu climbed up onto the terrace. He saw the dead chickens. He walked down the stairs and discovered an apartment that was stripped to the bone, without furniture, without doors or flooring. The walls, which were covered in inscriptions and strange drawings, scared him. He backed slowly towards the staircase. He told Baiacu there was nothing there. The next night, however, he climbed the scaffolding again. This time he ventured across the few remaining floor tiles. In the bedroom he found the old woman sleeping on a mattress, clothes in one corner. The kitchen was the only place in the house that looked normal, apart from the walls that had been blackened by smoke. There was a heavy-looking table, marble-topped, an oven and fridge. The boy took out a bread roll that he’d brought from his pocket — he always had a bread roll in his pocket — and put it on the table. In a drawer he found a set of silver cutlery. He put it in his rucksack and left. He handed the cutlery over to Baiacu. The boy was impressed, and whistled:

‘Good work, kid. You didn’t find any dough, any jewels?’

Sabalu said no. There was more poverty up there than down here on the streets of Luanda. Baiacu didn’t agree:

‘You’re going back tomorrow.’

Sabalu just nodded. He asked for money to buy some bread. He put the bread, a stick of butter and a bottle of Coke into his rucksack and scaled the building. When Baiacu saw him coming back empty-handed, he exploded. He threw himself on Sabalu, punching and kicking. He knocked him down. He went on kicking his head, his neck, till Diogo held his arms and pulled him off. The following night, Sabalu climbed up to the terrace again. This time he found Ludo sprawled on the floor. He came back down, very alarmed. He asked Baiacu to let him buy medicine. The old woman had fallen over. She looked really bad. But the other boy didn’t even listen:

‘I don’t see wings on your back, Sabalu. If you haven’t got wings, you’re not an angel. Let the old woman die.’

Sabalu fell silent. He accompanied Baiacu and Diogo to Roque Santeiro. They sold the cutlery. They had lunch around there, in a bar that rose up, perched on stilts, over the Babel-like confusion of the market. Sabalu let Baiacu finish his beer. Then he dared to ask whether he might have some of the money for himself. After all, he’d been the one who’d brought the cutlery. The other boy was enraged:

‘What do you want the dough for? Anything you need I give you. I’m like a father to you.’

‘Let me just see the money. I’ve never seen so much all together.’

Baiacu handed him the thick wad of banknotes. Sabalu grabbed hold of them. He jumped down from the terrace onto the sand. When he got back to his feet, his knees were bleeding. He ran, slipping through the crowds, while Baiacu, leaning over the ledge, yelled insults and threats:

‘Thief! Son of a bitch! I’m going to kill you.’

Sabalu bought medicine and food. It was getting late when he returned to Quinaxixe. He saw Baiacu sitting with Diogo beside the scaffolding. He approached another kid and handed him five banknotes:

‘Tell Baiacu I’m waiting for him at the Verde Bar.’

The boy ran off. He passed on the message. Baiacu leapt to his feet and went, followed by Diogo, in the opposite direction. Sabalu climbed the scaffolding. He didn’t breathe easy till he had reached the terrace.