A General Theory of Oblivion

MYSTERIES OF LUANDA

Little Chief enjoyed talking to the handicraft sellers. He would get lost down the dusty alleyways amid the wooden stalls, studying the Congolese fabrics, the thousand and one cloths showing sunsets and drums, the Chokwe masks the craftsmen used to bury, during the rainy months, to make them look old. Sometimes he’d buy some object or other he didn’t even like, just to prolong the conversation. Moved more by a spirit of solidarity than any thought of financial gain, he set up a company to produce and trade in handicrafts. He would imagine and design pieces in dark wood, which the craftsmen then undertook to replicate. He sold the objects at Luanda airport and in small shops dedicated to so-called ‘fair trade’, in Paris, London and New York. He employed more than twenty craftsmen. One of the most successful pieces was the figure of a Thinker, a popular figure of traditional Angolan statuary, with a gag over his mouth. The people named it Don’t Think.

One afternoon, Little Chief walked across the market without paying much attention to the sellers. He just smiled, nodding at anyone who greeted him. Papy Bolingô was beginning his show. Fofo was singing an old number by Orchestra Baobab. The bar was full. Seeing him arrive, one of the staff came over to him carrying a folding chair. He opened it up and the businessman sat down. People laughed, fascinated, as Fofo moved in time with the rhythm, opening and closing his enormous mouth.

Little Chief had watched the show many times. He knew that Papy Bolingô had worked in a circus, in France, during his years of exile. It was doubtless at that time that he’d discovered and developed his extraordinary skills as a ventriloquist, from which he now earned his living.

‘Fofo talks!’ he would insist, laughing. ‘Fofo sings. It’s not me. I taught him his first words, he was very little. Then I taught him to sing.’

‘Then we want to hear him singing a long way away from you!’

‘No chance! That’s one thing this guy won’t do. He’s such a shy little creature.’

Little Chief waited till the end of the show. People were on their way out, really excited, entranced by the miracle they had just witnessed. The businessman approached the performers:

‘Congratulations! Better every time.’

‘Thanks,’ the hippo thanked him with his metallic voice, a dramatic baritone. ‘We had a nice audience.’

Little Chief stroked his back:

‘How are you getting along, over on your little farm?’

‘Very well, padrinho. I’ve got loads of water, and mud for rolling around in.’

Papy Bolingô exploded into bright laughter. His friend laughed with him. Fofo seemed to imitate them, shaking his head, stamping his thick feet on the little stage.

The owner of the establishment, an old guerilla fighter called Pedro Afonso, had lost his right leg when a landmine exploded. This had not robbed him of his love of dancing. To see him dance, you would never have guessed he wore a prosthesis. He came over, when he heard the two friends laughing, tracing out some ornate rumba steps on the beaten-earth floor:

‘God invented music so poor people could be happy.’

He called for beers for the three of them:

‘Let’s drink to the happiness of the poor.’

Little Chief objected:

‘And what about me?’

‘You?! Ah yes, I always forget you’re rich. Here in our country, the first external sign of wealth is usually arrogance. You don’t have any of that about you. The money hasn’t gone to your head.’

‘Thanks. You know how I became rich?’

‘They say a bird came down from the sky, landed in your hand and spat out two diamonds.’

‘That’s almost how it happened. I killed a pigeon, to eat it, and I found two diamonds in the animal’s crop. Just a few days ago I learned whose diamonds they were.’ Little Chief was silent a moment, relishing his friends’ amazement. ‘The diamonds belonged to my neighbour, an old Portuguese lady. She lived in poverty for twenty-something years, despite being rich. And she made me rich — me — without knowing it.’

He told the story, taking time over the details, the twists and turns, inventing whatever he didn’t know with talent and relish. Papy Bolingô wanted to know if the old lady had kept some diamonds. Yes, the businessman said. There had been two left, both so big that none of the pigeons wanted them. The Portuguese woman had offered them to a couple of Mucubal shepherds. ‘It would seem she knew these hicks, God knows how. Luanda does have its mysteries.’

‘True,’ Pedro Afonso agreed. ‘Our capital is full of mysteries. I’ve seen things in this city that would be too much even in a dream.’