Confession of the Lioness

Mariamar’s Version: FOUR. The Blind Road

Today, my mother told me she’s working as a maid in the administrator’s house, where Archie Bullseye is staying. Every day, she passes my hunter. Perhaps she’s doing this on purpose, to humiliate me. Without me even asking her, my mother volunteers:

This fellow Archie is sick, the sickness of hunters has taken over his body.

If her intention is to hurt me, I feign no interest in my reply. I don’t want to know. My nation is no longer just the village, or even my own home: It’s this solitary spot. The garden where I’m confined.

I contemplate my legs and think how they are now dispensable. I almost miss the time, a while ago now, when I was paralyzed, as if my lower limbs no longer spoke the same language as the rest of my body. That’s what I yearn for today: a language my body doesn’t understand and that I can only speak in my dreams.

* * *

Our feet are born in our head, our whole body begins in our head, just as the rivers descend from the sky. That’s what my beloved grandfather, Adjiru Kapitamoro, used to say, and up to this day I think he was right. My legs went to sleep when my head awoke. One day, when I was twelve years old, I fell to the floor next to the bed like an empty sack. The family crowded around me, and Adjiru pulled at my father’s jacket:

Was it you, Genito?

I quickly answered in order to protect my old father. No one was to blame, and there was a likely explanation. I’d just had bad dreams during the night, with visions that I dared not remember. They pulled me to my feet and I collapsed again, devoid of any internal support.

Of all times now, in the middle of all this war, my father lamented. She’s going to be yet another burden.

Since when was a daughter a burden? Adjiru queried.

In childhood, one’s body only has one use: to play. But not in Kulumani. The children in our village asked their legs to help them run away in the face of gunfire, faster than bullets. This was the time when our villages were pounded by artillery. At the end of the day, the ritual was always the same: We would pack up our possessions and hide in the bush. For me, this procedure was a game, a recreation shared with the other children. In a world of explosives and blood, we would invent silent pastimes. In our nocturnal hiding place I learned to laugh inside me, to shout voicelessly, to dream without dreams. Until the day when my lower half was no longer mine. And I fell to the floor next to the bed.

* * *

After I became paralyzed, it was my grandfather Adjiru who, at the end of the day, would come and fetch me and carry me off into the forest in his arms. All the others had already withdrawn, and it was just me left, along with one or two worthless objects spread across the floor. While I waited for my grandfather’s secure arms, one certainty gripped me ever more forcefully: I was a thing and I would be buried like an object in the dust of Kulumani.

I, Mariamar Mpepe, was doubly doomed: to have only one place in the world and to harbor only one life. An infertile woman in Kulumani is less than a thing. She merely embodies inexistence. People said it was my mother’s fault that I was like that. Hanifa Assulua had been cursed. As a result of pressure from the Catholic priests, her family had barred her from being subjected to the rituals of initiation. My mother was a namaku, a girl who had never made the transition to womanhood. She had been baptized in the church, but she had never undergone the ceremony of the ingoma, which allows a girl to come of age. Hanifa was condemned to eternal childhood.

* * *

My father was certain: After my limbs weakened, I became an encumbrance. But he was unaware that something more serious than paralysis was happening to me. It’s true that my pangs of hunger had grown less acute. On the other hand, I began to suffer from unexpected fits. They happened in late afternoon, before we were taken out to our hiding places in the woods. Only Silência knew what was happening inside our room. According to my sister, during these attacks my behavior became totally different from before: I would crawl along on all fours with the dexterity of a quadruped, I would scratch the walls with my fingernails and roll my eyes ceaselessly. Hunger and thirst made me howl and foam at the mouth. To placate my raving, Silência would place plates of food across the floor and bowls of water. Corralled in a corner of the room, my sister, sobbing with terror, would pray for me to stop licking water and biting plates.

It’s a spell, it can only be a spell, she whimpered.

Despairing over the cause of all this, Silência reproduced the foundational myth of our tribe right outside our front door: In our garden, she buried a statue that had been secretly carved by my grandfather. Legend had it that a wooden statue, buried in the sands of the savanna by the first man, had turned into the first woman. This miracle occurred at the beginning of the world, but Silência prayed night after night that the little wooden statue in our garden might receive the breath of life.

The statue would never gain a soul, but every time Silência sensed that an attack was imminent, she would hurriedly dig up our little wooden sentinel and bring it to me. Then I would lull the statue as if it were my daughter, and as I rocked it gently, a mother’s peace would grow within me. Afterward, I would crawl along, carrying the figurine that I fancied was my legitimate child in my mouth, like a female cat.

* * *

My legs might have been lifeless, but I never became my own prisoner. Every morning, children’s voices would erupt into the garden.

Come on up, Mariamar, climb up on us!

The boys would take turns giving me piggyback rides and would carry me away far from home, scrambling around joyfully. Carried on their backs like a baby, I experienced every merry little game there was. Today, I can safely say this: I enjoyed a childhood delegated to me by other children. Hanging from someone’s neck, riding on some nameless back, I wasn’t even aware when my chest rubbed against a boy’s sweat.

If you do that, your breasts will never grow, my sister Silência warned.

In Kulumani, breasts are a signal: Depending on their volume, mothers know when they should subject their daughters to the ritual of initiation. What to me was an innocent game was an insult as far as the village was concerned. Women saw me riding on the backs of boys and would turn their faces away in embarrassment. It’s in the piggyback position that godmothers, the so-called mbwanas, carry the girls who are going to mutate into women to the ceremony. It was this that the women found unforgivable: I was anticipating and disrupting an occasion that they wished to keep sacred and secluded. As the daughter and granddaughter of people educated in Portuguese, I had no place in a world governed by outmoded rules. My sin became even worse because of the time of crisis in which we lived. The more the war robbed us of our certainties, the more we lacked the security of a past ruled by order and obedience.

* * *

One day, some boys went to Palma and stole an unused coffin. They brought it back at night and told me:

We’ve got a sedan chair for you.

From then on, they began to carry me everywhere inside the coffin. From my palanquin, I would see people stop to show me a respect that they had never given me before. Happy with this general veneration, I declared:

Mother, I want to live in a coffin forever.

But such deference eventually prevented me from realizing that my vanity was indeed sad: I had to cease existing in order for people to take note of my existence. I should yearn for that other carriage of flesh and blood, which had given me such pleasure before: the backs of the other children. But no. Swaying from side to side up there on my improvised throne, my heart was filled with the vanity of a queen.

Just watch my breasts grow now!

Don’t wish for that, sister, don’t wish to be a woman, Silência warned.

* * *

One morning, I awoke to find the coffin in pieces. It was my grandfather, Adjiru Kapitamoro, who had broken it. The old man had unexpectedly strode across the yard and smashed the wooden box to pieces. I even heard him yelling at my parents:

How can you allow this type of tomfoolery? She’s a child, for God’s sake …

I remember I cried as I looked at the broken planks. When she saw me furiously digging in the sand, Silência thought I was looking for the statuette she had buried in the garden. But the grave had another purpose:

I’m burying my coffin.

* * *

All this happened before that unforgettable morning when, wearing my shoes and with my hair tidy, I went out with my grandfather. Nor did he explain the reason fully. Only these mysterious words: You’re going to receive the waters of God.

I was used to his fancifulness. It was he who, when I was still a young girl, had given me the name that would remain with me: Mariamar.

I’m not just giving you a name, he said. I’m giving you a ship to navigate between ocean and devotion.

These were his words on the occasion of my second baptism. And he said more: that I didn’t need a ritual to be a woman. The woman I would become was already within me.

* * *

That morning when Adjiru came to fetch me heralded a day when something important was going to happen. Preparations for going out were completed in a trice: A comb was plowed through my unkempt hair and my feet were squeezed into some improvised footwear.

Have you put your shoes on? my grandfather checked.

Why the need for shoes? For a long time now, they had been a mere ornament for me.

Do my parents know where we’re going?

Don’t be scared, I’m your principal grandfather.

And he chatted away while he tidied my hair.

Bless yourself, dear granddaughter. You’re going to receive a miracle.

What miracle, Grandfather?

You’re going to walk again.

Whether it was an illness or a curse, he couldn’t remain resigned in the face of my descent into the condition of a wild animal. He took a deep breath before declaring:

We have a proverb that goes like this: “If you can talk, you can sing; if you can walk, you can dance.” Well, you’re going to sing, you’re going to dance, my dear granddaughter.

I looked at his arm as if it were the continuation of my own body. And indeed it was. How could I ever cut my second umbilical cord? Oblivious to my thoughts, Adjiru Kapitamoro wheeled me through the village in a little barrow, with the pride of someone invited to inaugurate the square.

Framed by the church door, the priest, Manuel Amoroso, stood waiting for us. The Portuguese missionary was the only white man we knew. We didn’t distinguish the man by the color of his skin or by the language he spoke, or even by his vestments. What differentiated him from the rest was that he had no wife that we could discern. Nor children following in his footsteps.

Adjiru Kapitamoro! exclaimed the priest, putting a flourish on every syllable as if he were chortling a jaunty song.

Indeed, Father.

For the first time, my grandfather’s voice sounded fragile to me, as if it were seeking support. I looked at him against the light, as if to satisfy myself of his stature. And once again, I took a breath: Behind his outline, the church tower rose majestically. That was where our vertical journey to the firmament began. At that point, getting close to God seemed to me to require the effort of a mountaineer. The church was not inviting me to enter it, but rather to climb it.

I took time to get used to the brightness once inside. Then I began to adapt: I’d never seen a house with so much wall. The same cross hanging on Amoroso’s chest dominated, on a much vaster scale, the center of the building. Upon the wooden crucifix rested this world’s second white man: bearded, half naked, and covered in wounds.

Kneel before Christ, Amoroso ordered.

She can’t, Father. Have you forgotten why she’s come here to the mission?

Let us help her. She must do it.

The two men suspended me by my arms and then let go. I collapsed like a wet cloth. I lay spread-eagled on the floor and from that angle contemplated Amoroso and Christ. The two white men were alike: sad and wizened, as if life were happening in some other, inaccessible place. Christ displayed his wounds, Amoroso exhibited his bereaved gaze. Both of them summoned me toward the great family of the suffering. Toward the family that, only in suffering, feels close to God.

* * *

So have you come to a decision regarding my little girl?

My grandfather was irritated by the use of the possessive. My little girl?

This granddaughter of mine will always be mine, and I’m leaving her here only until she can walk again—these were his angry words as he left the church. I myself will come and fetch her and take her back to our home when she can stand on her own two feet, my grandfather promised emphatically.

The Portuguese priest didn’t seem to hear. He was totally absorbed in contemplating the church ceiling as if he were looking beyond what he was actually seeing. He stood there motionless, unaware that Adjiru had already left. He was satisfied: In a predominantly Muslim region, the representation of a miracle could bring in believers and approval. Smiling, he told me:

When your dear old granddaddy dies, he’ll go straight to heaven.

My grandfather will never die!

As far as I was concerned, Adjiru Kapitamoro’s life was that of a tree: Rooted in the ground, he already belonged to the sky.

* * *

My grandfather’s visits were the high point of the two years I spent at the mission. On some occasions, he would sit silently, gazing at the horizon. Other times, he wanted to know whether God was paying me any attention.

And how’s your writing? he would ask.

I’m always writing, Grandfather. Do you want to read it?

No, my dear. If I read, do you know what will happen? I’ll stop seeing the world. Read me the story of the queen of Egypt.

It was his favorite text. I already knew it by heart. Grandfather would close his eyes and I would recite it, always in the same tone:

It is said that Ra, the sun god of ancient Egypt, weary of the sins of men, created the goddess Sekhmet to punish those who needed to be punished. And that’s what the goddess did, with an excess of zeal, according to some. Sekhmet’s vengefulness even began to fall upon the innocent. In despair, the followers of Ra asked the god to help, but he was unable. So the Egyptians had the idea of creating a drink that was the color of blood, and they managed to inebriate the goddess. As a result, she fell asleep and once again fell under the control of Ra.

When the story was finished, my grandfather remained with his eyes closed. Then, he kissed my hands, saying: You, my granddaughter, are my goddess.

* * *

Adjiru’s constant presence at the mission gave me peace of mind, but threw into relief other absences. One time, I managed to overcome my fear:

Grandfather, tell me something: Are my parents saddened by me?

It’s just that the war is now taking up all our time. That’s why they don’t visit you. Everyone’s gone, and I and one or two others of no importance are the only ones left.

Aren’t you scared of being killed?

I’m so skinny that any bullet would miss me.

In truth, the sound of gunfire and explosions was increasing in the vicinity. Father Amoroso was called to conduct funerals ever more frequently, and at an ever greater distance. The inhabitants of Kulumani, including my parents, had moved to Palma months ago. Only Adjiru and his five brothers remained. They were convinced that they would be spared because they were elderly. But it wasn’t their age that saved them. They paid for their security. What they hunted was given to the soldiers of both armies.

That’s how things are, Mariamar, Adjiru recalled. In war, the poor are killed. In peace, the poor die.

* * *

One time, the Kapitamoro clan brought the eldest of the brothers to the church. His name was Vicente and he was wounded, shedding blood, his weakened feet dragging along the ground. Held up by his brothers’ arms, Vicente entered the holy sanctuary, unable to see anything in front of him through the prevailing shadows. He was blind. Yet it was he who showed his brothers the way. He knew the church like the palm of his hand. He had built those walls that now offered him shelter.

They sat him on the long wooden bench, supporting him shoulder to shoulder. Adjiru walked over to the priest and addressed him in a tone that mingled entreaty with threats:

This is the house of God, no one can die here. Do you hear me, Father Amoroso?

Let us pray, my son, let us pray.

The Kapitamoros yelled their prayers, and for sure no one had ever prayed with such aplomb before an altar. The booming voices of those demented brothers were intimidating: The gods had better watch out in case there wasn’t a miracle.

At first we could still hear our wounded relative babbling. What he was asking for, however, was the exact opposite of what his brothers wanted: He was praying for his Creator to allow him to depart, tired as he was of suffering. What then happened was proof that God doesn’t listen to those who shout loudest. Vicente Kapitamoro breathed his last without anyone noticing, his devoted fingers intertwined, his head slumped over his knees.

This incident proved a blow to Adjiru’s faith. From then on, he no longer went to mass. He stopped at the entrance to the church and asked his brothers to go in and pray in his name. Let them pretend they were him, let them borrow his name and his soul, that’s what he asked.

We’re alike. God won’t notice.

Unhappy, Father Amoroso reflected on the situation. He was disappointed by Kapitamoro’s attitude. However, he couldn’t confront such an eminent figure in the village. He waited for time to bring him inspiration. And time brought peace. Gradually Kulumani resumed the life it seemed to have lost forever. The wounds of history healed, and broken affiliations were reforged. The missionary thought it would be good to make use of the wave of reconciliations and requested Adjiru to meet him in the churchyard so as to remind him of his sacred duties.

Tomorrow I shall say a mass for your brother Vicente’s soul.

My dear sir, with all due respect, I shall not go.

And why won’t you come?

I’ll go to the matanga, our own ceremony for the dead.

And how will you explain yourself before God?

I’ll explain myself before Nungu, our God. With all due respect.

For years he had been criticized for frequenting the mission and converting to Catholicism, and, in the words of Kulumani folk, for having become a vamissau. In his own defense, he had argued: The others have the drum dance, I have the Bible. In the beginning, Adjiru still had a reason for his apparent conversion: to entrust the drums to the hands of God, and make the sacred book dance. That was why he taught me the art of dancing. Now, however, any purpose had long been abandoned.

Appealing to divine inspiration, Amoroso picked off a long rosary of arguments. The hand of God, he said, is a sightless guide. What this hand seeks is that we should be the masters of our journey. But journeys last as long as a star. By the time we see them, they have long ceased to exist.

All this is just words. What hand of God sends us on a journey to war, Mr. Amoroso?

Why do you call me Mister? Why don’t you address me as Father anymore?

You live shut away in your own world. Look what’s happening out there. And you’ll see that sometimes the gods die in wars …

How can you dare to say such a thing in the house of God?

I’m the one who built this church. I and my brothers. We started building it when we were still slaves.

He paused, measured his words, and in the end burst out, without any rancor, as if he were among friends:

At the time, we should have thrown the church into the river.

Holy Mother of God!

Standing as tall as he could, his voice trembling with emotion, everything in the priest contrasted with my grandfather’s tranquillity:

Do you want to see a miracle, Adjiru? Well, look at your granddaughter, and turning to me, he ordered, Show him, Mariamar, show him …

I got up and walked toward Adjiru. My legs swayed, but my steps were firm. Grandfather didn’t seem surprised.

Mariamar can walk again, I’m very happy. But let me ask you this: Have you taught her to kick, Reverend Father?

Kick? Is that something one teaches a girl?

Of course, Father. Precisely because she’s a girl, she ought to learn to punch, bite, kick …

Those aren’t the words of a believer. Here, we teach people to love one’s nearest and dearest.

It’s from one’s nearest and dearest that we most need to defend ourselves.

He got up and walked around me, his hands tapping his chest as if it were a drum, and he began to wave his arms. Grandfather knew that we were forbidden to dance by the priest.

Can you still dance, Mariamar? Now, then, show me you still know how to kick up some dust.

Amoroso’s watchful gaze didn’t allow me to sway my hips. I tried one or two clumsy steps around the room and, without waiting, Grandfather raised his arm to put an end to the performance. In a dry tone, he ordered:

Go and pack your bag, because I’m coming to fetch you tomorrow.

The following day, he returned with a small wheelbarrow. I reminded him that I could walk on my own two feet, but he pointed uncompromisingly at the rough-and-ready vehicle and asked:

Do you know what day it is today, my dear?

Today?

You’re sixteen today. You’ve got a right to be carried.

Seated in my little carriage, I crossed the village, listening to the missionary’s frantic cries behind me:

Mariamar can walk, it’s God’s miracle, it’s a miracle! She’s being wheeled along, but she can walk perfectly. Come and see, for it’s a miracle!

I gazed around me, astonished. I hadn’t been outside the mission for months. Kulumani was unrecognizable. With the end of war, people had returned to the village. My family had also settled back in our old house. And there seemed to be more inhabitants than ever. A crowd of hawkers filled the road that led to Palma.

At home, only Silência rejoiced in my return. My mother was sifting rice and looked up unenthusiastically. I was the one who spoke after a long silence:

Grandfather says it’s my birthday today.

Grandfather invents calendars. That’s why he hasn’t died yet.

Whatever the day, it’s good to be back. To be back now that we’ve got peace …

Without averting her gaze from her sifting, Hanifa Assulua mumbled in an undertone. I was talking of peace? What peace?

Maybe for them, the men, she said. Because we women still wake up every morning to a timeworn, endless war.

Hanifa Assulua was in no doubt as to the condition of women in Kulumani. We awoke in the early morning like sleep-deprived soldiers and we got through the day as if life were our enemy. We would come home at night without anyone to comfort us over the battles that we had to face. Mother recited this litany of complaints in one breath, as if it were something she had been waiting a long time to say.

That’s why you should have left all this talk about peace back at the mission, dear daughter. During the time you lived there, we had to survive here.

She was accusing me. As if I were the one to blame for her solitude and the unhappiness of all the women. I retreated down the hall with the small steps of a prisoner returning to her cell.