A General Theory of Oblivion

DANIEL BENCHIMOL INVESTIGATES LUDO’S DISAPPEARANCE

Daniel Benchimol read through the letter from Maria da Piedade Lourenço twice. He phoned a friend of his father’s, a geologist, who had devoted his entire life to diamond prospecting. Old Vitalino remembered Orlando very well:

‘A good fellow, very ugly. Really stiff and skinny, always standing very tense, as though he were wearing a shirt with studs in it. They called him Spike. Nobody wanted to have a coffee with him. He didn’t make friends. He disappeared not long before Independence. He took advantage of the chaos, stuck a few stones in his pocket, and ran off to Brazil.’

Daniel did some research online. He found hundreds of people called Orlando Pereira dos Santos. He wasted hours following every clue, any mention, that might take him from the name to the man he was after. No luck. He found it strange. A man like Orlando, living for twenty-something years in Brazil, or in any country that wasn’t Afghanistan, or Sudan, or Bhutan, would have to leave some trace on the great virtual web. He called up Vitalino again:

‘Did this Orlando guy have any family in Angola?’

‘Probably. He was from Catete.’

‘Catete? I thought he was Portuguese!’

‘No, no! Catete, hundred per cent. Real light skin. After the twenty-fifth of April he insisted on reminding us of his origins. He boasted of having lived with Agostinho Neto himself. Would you believe it? A guy who all those years had never once raised his voice against colonialism. I should add, for the sake of the whole truth, that he didn’t do deals with racists, he never did that. He always acted like a decent kind of guy. He acted with just the same arrogance towards both whites and blacks.’

‘And his family?’

‘Well then, his family. I think he was a cousin of Vitorino Gavião.’

‘The poet?’

‘A tramp. Call him what you like.’

Benchimol knew where to find Vitorino Gavião. He crossed the street and went into Biker. The historic beer hall was almost empty at this time of day. Sitting at one table, towards the back, four men were playing cards. They were arguing loudly. They fell silent when they saw him approach.

‘Careful!’ said one of them sharply, in a pretend whisper but wanting the journalist to hear him. ‘The establishment press has arrived. The owner’s voice. The owner’s ears.’

Benchimol was annoyed:

‘If I’m the voice of the regime, you’re the excrement.’

The one who had whispered straightened up:

‘Don’t get annoyed, comrade. Have a beer.’

Vitorino Gavião let out a bitter laugh:

‘We’re the Greek chorus. The voice of the nation’s conscience. That’s what we are. Here we sit, in the gloom, passing comment on the progress of the tragedy. Giving warnings to which nobody pays heed.’

A runaway baldness had robbed him of the thick head of hair, Jimi Hendrix-style, with which in 1960s Paris he had proclaimed his négritude. The way he was now, his skull smooth and shining, he could pass for a white man even in Sweden. Well, perhaps not in Sweden. He raised his voice, curious:

‘What’s the news?’

The journalist pulled up a chair. He sat down.

‘Did you know a guy called Orlando Pereira dos Santos, a mining engineer?’

Gavião hesitated, very pale:

‘My cousin. First cousin. Did he die?’

‘I don’t know. Would you stand to gain anything from his death?’

‘The guy disappeared around Independence. They say he took a package of diamonds with him.’

‘You think he’d still remember you?’

‘We were friends. Spike’s silence in the early years didn’t surprise me. If I’d stolen a package of diamonds I’d want to be forgotten, too. He was forgotten. Everybody forgot him a long time ago. Why are you asking me these questions?’

The journalist showed him the letter from Maria da Piedade Lourenço. Gavião remembered Ludo. He’d always found her a bit distracted. Now he understood why. He remembered his visits to his cousin’s apartment, in the Prédio dos Invejados. The euphoria of those days before Independence.

‘If I’d known how it was going to end up, I’d have stayed in Paris.’

‘And what were you doing — there, in Paris?’

‘Nothing,’ sighed Gavião. ‘Nothing, like here. But at least I was doing it elegantly. I could be a flâneur.’

That same afternoon, after leaving the newspaper offices, Daniel walked up to Quinaxixe. The Prédio dos Invejados still looked pretty dilapidated. Nevertheless, the entrance hall was freshly painted, and the air was clean and cheerful. A security guard was posted at the elevator.

‘Does it work?’ asked the journalist.

The man smiled, proudly.

‘Almost always, boss, almost always!’

He asked Daniel for some identification and only then did he call the lift. The journalist got in. He went up to the eleventh floor. He got out. He paused a moment, struck by the cleanness of the walls and the shine on the floor tiles. There was only one door that jarred with the others, the door to apartment D. It was scratched and revealed a small hole, halfway up, that looked like a bullet wound. The journalist pressed the doorbell. He didn’t hear a sound. Then he knocked three times, hard. A boy came to the door. Big eyes, a mature expression surprising in someone so young.

‘Hello,’ the journalist greeted him. ‘Do you live here?’

‘Yes, sir, I do. Me and my grandma.’

‘Can I talk to your grandma?’

‘No.’

‘Let be, son, I’ll talk to him.’

Daniel heard the voice, fragile, cracked, and only then saw the very pale woman appear, dragging one leg, her grey hair parted into two thick braids.

‘I am Ludovica Fernandes, my good man. What do you want?’