The Tuner of Silences

LEAVE-TAKING

The image of the donkey’s mangled body drained my sleep all night long. I couldn’t imagine how much blood a furry creature can contain. It was as if the jenny had turned into a river of red waters, pumped out by a heart that was larger than the earth itself.

Next day, my father went to bury Jezebel alone. First thing in the morning, his spade was already busy in his hands. We offered our help from afar.

— I don’t want anyone here—he yelled.

Nor did we want to get too near. Silvestre’s look was vengeful. Zachary walked round our house, his rifle at the ready, watching my father.

— No one go near him—the soldier warned.

He spoke as if about a rabid dog. Despite the warning, I decided to approach the place where Silvestre was guarding the dead donkey. Night had fallen and there by the grave he remained, toe to spade. I advanced, stepping lightly out of respect for his vigil, and coughed quietly before asking:

— Aren’t you coming in to sleep, Father?

— I’m staying right here.

— All night?

He nodded. I sat down carefully, some way off. I remained silent, knowing that there would be no more words spoken. But conscious too that no silence could fill that moment or any other moment ever again. In the distance, we could hear Aproximado hammering on metal as he repaired the damaged vehicle. Ntunzi was helping Uncle and a beam of torchlight helped them both.

My father was the picture of grief. Defeated, solitary, disbelieving in everything and everyone. Without raising his head, he murmured:

— Son, give me your hand.

I thought I hadn’t heard him properly. I remained impassive, keeping my astonishment to myself, until once again Silvestre implored:

— Don’t leave me here all alone.

I lay down and fell asleep to the rhythm of the hammering coming from the improvised workshop. For me, that episode marked the end of Jezoosalem. Maybe that was why my sleep was disturbed by a nightmare. I was assailed by a vision that kept returning, no matter how hard I tried to chase it away: next to me, between myself and my father, a huge snake had settled itself. It was inert, as if asleep, and my old man, lying next to it, contemplated it with a look of fascination.

— Come here, son, come and get yourself bitten.

A snake isn’t an animal: it’s a muscle with teeth, a legless centipede with a stomach in the middle of its neck. How could Silvestre Vitalício be so enamoured with such a lowly animal?

— Get bitten?

— I’ve already been stung.

— I don’t believe you, Father.

— See how swollen my hand is, how its colour has changed. My hand, my dear Mwanito, already belongs to the race of the dead.

It was a hand without an arm, without veins, without nerves. A piece of body without family or familiarity. Silvestre added:

— I’m like that hand.

He’d been born without wishing to be, he’d lived without desires, and he was dying without warning or alarm.

The snake decided to abandon its immobility and little by little began to coil itself sensually around me. I resisted by trying to back away slowly.

— Don’t do that, Mwanito.

And he explained: that snake was none other than Time. For years, he had resisted the snake’s incursions. On this night, he had surrendered, given up.

— Can’t you hear the bells?

It was the hammering on the metal panels of the truck. But I didn’t disabuse him. I had another concern: the snake was staring at me, but couldn’t decide whether to sink its fangs into me. It seemed hypnotized, unable to act in accordance with its own nature.

— It doesn’t even need to bite— Silvestre explained. — Its poison is passed on through its eyes.

That’s what had happened to him: while the snake had fixed his eyes with its own, his entire past had come to his mouth. The snake didn’t even need to bite him. The poison coursed through his insides in anticipation and Time began to fester inside his body. When, eventually, its slender fangs plunged into him, Silvestre could no longer see the venomous creature: it was no more than a memory, nebulous and dense, slipping away between the dew and the stones. And that was how his remaining memories paraded past him, slithering, viscous like snakes. Sluggish, almost timeless, like the heavy flow of rivers.

— Time is a poison, Mwanito. The more I remember, the less alive I become.

— Do you remember my mother, Father?

— I didn’t kill Dordalma. I swear, my son.

— I believe you, Father.

— It was she alone who killed herself.

People believe they commit suicide. And it’s never like that. Dordalma, poor soul, didn’t know. She was still convinced that someone could cancel their existence. When it comes to it, there’s only one true suicide: to stop having a name, to lose any awareness of oneself and of others. To be beyond the reach of words and the memories of others.

— I killed myself far more than Dordalma ever did.

He, Silvestre Vitalício, had certainly committed suicide. Even before reaching death, he had put an end to his life. He swept places aside, banished the living from himself, erased time. My father had even stolen names from the dead. The living aren’t, after all, mere buriers of bones: they are, before anything else, shepherds of the deceased. There isn’t an ancestor who’s not certain that, on the other side of light, there’s always someone to rouse him. In my father’s case, that wasn’t so. Time had never happened to him. The world was beginning within itself, humanity was ending within it, without precedent or antecedent.

— Father, is that snake also going to open the doors of the past to me?

Silvestre didn’t answer. Instead, he crawled forward like a hunter. Even a sleepwalker has the honour-bound duty to kill a deadly snake. Was it such a command that caused my father to rush after the snake and club it to death?

Can a snake lie down? Well that one melted away like a shadow, forever expired. Old Silvestre bemoaned his sudden gesture that had worn his joints away:

— My bones have died. .

Vitalício lamented the extinction of his own skeleton. While in my case, my bones were the only living part of me.

The following morning, they came and woke me up. I had fallen asleep exhausted, some metres from Jezebel’s grave. Next to me, Silvestre Vitalício was still asleep, all curled up. When I got to my feet, my Uncle was already prodding his brother-in-law with the tip of his foot. Silvestre’s body rolled over as if devoid of life. How could he have sunken into such a deep sleep? Why was there thick, white froth seeping from his mouth? The answer wasn’t late in coming: there were two threads of blood from a small wound on his arm.

— He’s been bitten! Silvestre has been bitten!

Alarmed, Uncle called for Zachary and Ntunzi. The soldier rushed over with a knife and in a flash cut my father’s arm and then, leaning over him like a vampire, sucked the bloody wound.

— Don’t do that! I responded heatedly. — Don’t do anything, it was all a dream!

They looked at me, puzzled, and Zachary detected some sort of mental torpor in my words that led him to inspect me in search of the pinprick that might explain my confused state. Finding nothing, they carried Silvestre away in a state of semi-consciousness. In Zachary’s arms, my father looked like a child, even younger than I was. Words tumbled from his mouth like remnants of food, grains of rice lodged in an old man’s gums.

— Dordalma, Dordalma, not even God is enough, nor are you going. .

They left me alone with Silvestre, while they prepared for the emergency.

— So here I am—he sighed.

And he slowly passed his hands up and down in his arms to show the extent of his disintegration, viscous as if he were returning to clay rather than to dust.

— Father, go and wait quietly in the shade.

— I’m going to die, Mwanito. I’ll have too much shade before long.

— Don’t say that, Father. You’re vaccinated.

— Let me ask you, my son: wouldn’t you like to die with me?

It’s solitude that we most fear in death, he continued. Solitude, no more than solitude. Silvestre Vitalício’s expression was vague and vacant. I got a sudden fright: my father no longer had a face. All he had were his eyes, pools without a shore, into which our anguished moments rushed headlong.

— My blood is what makes your blood flow, did you know that?

Those words had the weight of a sentence. His life, as Ntunzi used to say, had never allowed me to live. The strange thing was that he seemed to be dying within his own death.

— Look— he said, holding out his hand. — They’re two almost invisible holes. And yet, a whole life is draining out through them.

Could Silvestre Vitalício be dying? His face didn’t reflect such a final pronouncement, with the exception of his blank, unavailing look. Most worrying, however, was his hand: it had changed colour and swollen to double its size. Blood seeped from the slit they had made, and dripped onto the ground, to Zachary’s horror. Aproximado took charge of the situation and declared:

— Let’s take advantage of this to get him back to the city.

Zachary hoisted Silvestre in his arms, although he was no weight to carry. He was just dozy, deprived of body. He was sweating like a fountain and, every so often, was shaken by violent tremors.

— The man needs to be in hospital.

Uncle’s orders were precise and swift. We would all leave together, we’d get out of Jezoosalem before our father got his wits back.

— Mwanito, go and get your things. Run.

I entered my room, ready to rummage through every nook and cranny. But suddenly, I came to my senses: what did I have in the way of things? My only possessions were a pack of cards and a bundle of notes buried in the back garden. I decided to leave all these memories where they were. They were part of the place. The papers that I’d scribbled on were bits of me that I had stuffed into the soil. I had planted myself in words.

— Ntunzi, aren’t you going to take your case?

— I’m only taking the map. The rest, I’ll leave here.

Ntunzi went out. I couldn’t resist glancing into his case. It was empty except for a cloth folder tied with string. I undid the strings and dozens of papers fell out. In each one, Ntunzi had drawn women’s faces. There were dozens of faces, all of them different. In the corner of each piece of paper, he had written: “Portrait of my mother, Dordalma.” I gathered the drawings together and put them back in the case. Then, I dashed out without even taking a last look around the room. When we are children, we never take our leave of places. We always think we’ll be back. We never believe it’s the last time.

I was the first to climb into the truck. Ntunzi sat next to me, at the back. Zachary appeared as we had never seen him before. For the first time, he was in civilian clothes. He was weighed down by a rucksack on his back.

— Is that all you’re taking, Zachary?

— I’ll be back later. We’re in a hurry now.

Aproximado and Zachary went to fetch my old father. I still thought he might dig in his heels and refuse to come. But no. Silvestre came, walking like a child and as obediently as a servant. He installed himself in the front passenger seat, and made room for the Portuguese woman to sit beside him.

The truck lurched forward with a whine and then advanced slowly, passing the entrance gate and leaving in its wake a cloud of dust and fumes.

Seated on top of the baggage, Ntunzi was exultant, and he held my shoulders with both hands:

— We’re going to the city, little brother. I can’t believe it. .

I turned my face away: before long my brother would be shedding tears of joy and at that moment all that I wanted were my impure feelings, in which happiness was mixed with nostalgia. I waved farewell, without realizing that there was no one on the other side. The only creature left in Jezoosalem was neither human nor alive: Jezebel, may God rest her soul.

— Who are you saying goodbye to?

I didn’t answer. It wasn’t Jezebel I was taking my leave of. I was saying farewell to myself. My childhood had been left on the other side. By setting out on this journey, I had ceased being a child. Mwanito had stayed behind in Jezoosalem, and I needed a new name, a new baptism.

That was when the vision struck me: without any other wind apart from the breeze produced by our old truck, the trees around us began to detach themselves from the ground and to flutter like ungainly green herons.

— Look, brother! They’re herons. .

Neither Ntunzi nor Zachary heard me. Then, it occurred to me that I should take a photo of these flying pieces of vegetation. Mine was a strange appetite: for the first time, it wasn’t enough for me to see the world. Now, I wanted to see the way I looked at the world.

I got up and leaned on the roof of the passenger cabin to ask Marta for her camera. Standing there, I faced the road as if it were cutting me in half as it passed under the vehicle, separating joy from sadness.

When I managed to get a glimpse of the front seat, I got a surprise: my father and the Portuguese woman were hand in hand. The two of them were sharing a silent conversation about their respective nostalgias. I didn’t have the courage to interrupt their silent dialogue. So I sat down again, a piece of baggage among all the other baggage, a relic among other dust-covered relics.

Two days passed with brief pauses and the continual roar of the vehicle’s engine. At the end of the second day of the journey, as I slept with the swaying of the truck, I was no longer aware of the road. I was awoken with a start by Ntunzi’s nudges. For the first time, we were going through a town. That was when I stared in wonder at streets crowded with people. Everything was exhilarating. The urban bustle, the cars, the advertisements, the street hawkers, the bicycles, kids like me. And the women: in pairs, in groups, in throngs. Full of clothes, full of colours, full of laughter. Wrapped in capulanas, concealing their mysteries. My mother, Dordalma: I saw her in every woman’s body, every face, every burst of laughter.

— Look at the people, Father.

— What people? I can’t see anyone.

— Can’t you see the houses, the cars, the people?

— Absolutely nothing. Didn’t I tell you it was all dead, all empty?

He was feigning blindness. Or had he really been blinded as a result of the snake bite? While Silvestre sat hunched in his seat, Marta held her cellphone out of the window, turning it this way and that.

— What are you doing, Miss Marta? — Zachary asked.

— I’m seeing if I can pick up a network signal—she replied.

She was obliged to bring her arm in. But for the remainder of the journey, Marta’s arm swivelled this way and that like a rotating antenna. It was longing that guided her hand, seeking a signal from Portugal, a voice to comfort her, a word that would steal her back from geography.

— So when do we arrive, Zaca?

— We already arrived some time ago.

— We’ve arrived in the city?

— This is the city.

We had arrived without noticing where the rural world had ended. There was no clear border. Merely a transition in intensity, a chaos that got more dense: nothing more than that. In the passenger cabin, my father intoned, with a morbid shake of his head:

— Everything’s dead, everything’s dead.

There are those who die and are buried. That was the case with Jezebel. But cities die and decay before our noses, their entrails exposed, infecting us within. Cities decay within us. That’s what Silvestre Vitalício said.

At the entrance to the hospital, our old father refused to get out of the truck.

— Why do you want to kill me?

— What are you talking about, brother?

— It’s a cemetery, I know perfectly well what it is.

— No, Father. It’s a hospital.

The family’s efforts to get him out of the vehicle were all in vain. Aproximado sat down on the sidewalk, his head in his hands. It was Zachary who thought of a way to get us out of the impasse. If old Silvestre hadn’t died, then his case was no longer as urgent as it had been in the beginning. We should go home. The neighbour, Esmeralda, who was a nurse, could then be called in to treat him in his own home.

— Let’s go home, then! — Ntunzi agreed enthusiastically.

To me, it sounded strange. Everyone in our group was returning. Not me. The house where I was born had never been mine. The only home I’d ever had were the ruins of Jezoosalem. Next to me, Zachary seemed to hear my silent fears:

— You’ll find you’ll still remember the place where you were born.

As I contemplated the front of the house, it was obvious that nothing there meant anything to me. The same seemed to be happening to Silvestre Vitalício. Aproximado undid the various padlocks that secured the grilles on the doors. This operation took some time, during which my father stood there, his head bowed, like a prisoner in front of his future cell.

— It’s open—Aproximado announced. — You go in first, Silvestre. I’m the one who lives here, I’m the one with the keys. But you’re the owner of the house.

Without saying a word, and using only gestures, Silvestre made it clear that no one apart from himself and me would go through that door. I followed, protected by his shadow, stepping only on the dust on which he had trodden.

— First, the smells—he told me, filling his lungs.

He closed his eyes and sniffed at odours that, for me, didn’t exist. Silvestre was inhaling the house, kindling memories in his heart. He stood in the middle of the room, filling his chest.

— It’s like a fruit. We first taste it with our nose.

Then he used his fingers. All he had was the hand that the snake had spared. It was the fingers of that hand that crawled over furniture, walls and windows. It was as if he were becoming familiar with his body again after a long period in a coma.

I confess: no matter how much I tried, I still found the house where I was born alien. No room, no object, brought back memories of the first three years of my life.

— Tell me, my son, I’ve died and this is my coffin, isn’t it?

I helped him to lie down on the sofa. He asked for some silence and I let the house speak to him. Silvestre seemed to have fallen asleep when he stirred in order to take off the bandage round his hand.

— Look, son! — He called me, holding out his arm towards me.

The wound had disappeared. There was no swelling, no sign of anything. He asked me to take the bandage to the kitchen and burn it. I hadn’t even found my way down the corridor when I heard his voice again:

— I don’t want a nurse or any other stranger here in the house. Much less the neighbours.

For the first time, Silvestre was admitting the existence of others beyond our tiny constellation.

— The devil always dwells among the neighbours.

With the exception of Zachary, all of us lodged in our old house. Aproximado occupied the double room, where he already slept with Noci. Ntunzi shared a room with our father. I shared mine with Marta.

— It’s only for a few days—Aproximado maintained.

A curtain separated the two beds, protecting our privacies.

When we arrived, Noci was still at work. At night, when she came into the house, Marta was lying there, apparently sleeping. Noci woke her up by stroking her hair. The two hugged each other tightly, and then wept inconsolably. When she was able to talk, the young woman said:

— I lied, Marta.

— I already knew.

— You knew? Since when?

— Ever since the first time I saw you.

— He was ill, very ill. He didn’t even want anyone to see him. In a sense it was good that I arrived late. If you’d seen him at the end, you wouldn’t have recognized him.

— Where was he buried?

— Near here. In a cemetery near here.

As the foreigner held Noci’s hand, she turned a silver ring on the other woman’s finger. Without even having to ask, Marta knew that the ring had been a gift from Marcelo.

— Do you know something, Noci? It did me good to be there, at the reserve.

The Portuguese woman explained: going to Jezoosalem was a way of being with Marcelo. The journey had been as reinvigorating as a deep sleep. By sharing in that pretence of a world coming to an end, she had learnt about death without grieving, departure without leave-taking.

— You know, Noci. I saw women washing Marcelo’s clothes.

— That’s impossible. .

— I know, but for me, those shirts were his. .

Any item of clothing drifting in a current of water would always be Marcelo’s. The very substance of all the rivers in the world is surely made of memories resisting the flow of time. But the Portuguese woman’s rivers were increasingly African ones: more sand than water, more the fury of nature than gentle, well-mannered watercourses.

— Let’s go together to the cemetery tomorrow.

The following morning, I was left at home to look after my father. Silvestre got up late, and while still sitting in his bed, called for me. When I arrived, he sat there examining his own body. It had always been like that: my father forced one to wait before he started talking.

— I’m worried about you, Mwanito.

— Why‘s that, Father?

— You were born with a big heart, my son. And with such a heart, you are incapable of hating. But for this world to be loved, it needs a lot of hatred as well.

— I’m sorry, Father, but I don’t understand you at all.

— It doesn’t matter. What I want you and I to agree to is this: if they want to take me into town, don’t let me go, my son. Do you promise?

— I promise, Father.

He explained: the snake hadn’t just got his hand. It had bitten him all over his body. Everything around him was painful, the whole city enfeebled him, the wretchedness of the streets hurt him more than the contamination of his blood.

— Have you seen how the most scandalous luxury lives cheek by jowl with misery?

— Yes—I lied.

— That’s why I don’t want to go out.

Jezoosalem had allowed him to forget. The snake’s poison had brought him time. The city had caused him to go blind.

— Don’t you feel like going out, like Ntunzi?

— No.

— Why not?

— There’s no river here as there is there.

— Why don’t you do like Ntunzi who’s not here and is off buzzing around?

— I don’t know how to walk. .I don’t know how to walk all over the place.

— My son, I feel so guilty. You’re so old. You’re as old as I am.

I got up and went to the mirror. I was a young boy, my body still in first flush. Yet my father was right: tiredness weighed upon me. I had reached old age without deserving it. I was eleven years old, and I was withered, consumed by my father’s delirium. Yes, my father was right. He who has never been a child doesn’t need time in order to grow old.

— One thing I hid from you, back there in Jezoosalem.

— You hid the whole world from me, Father.

— There was something I never told you.

— Father, let’s forget about Jezoosalem, we’re here now. .

— One day, you’ll go back there!

— To Jezoosalem?

— Yes, it’s your homeland, your curse. Do you know something, son? That place is full of miracles.

— I never saw any.

— They’re such tiny little miracles that we don’t realize they’ve happened.

We had been in the city for three days and Silvestre hadn’t even opened the curtains. The house was his new refuge, his new Jezoosalem. I don’t know how Marta and Noci managed to convince my father to go out that afternoon. The women thought it would do him good to see the grave of his late wife. I went with them, carrying flowers, at the rear of the cortège as it made its way to the cemetery.

As we lined up before my mother’s tomb, Silvestre remained impassive, empty, oblivious to everything. We stared at the ground, he looked up at the birds streaking across the clouds. Marta handed him the wreath of flowers and asked him to place it on the grave. My father proved unable to hold the flowers, which fell to the ground, and the wreath broke apart. In the meantime, Uncle Aproximado joined us. He removed his hat and stood there respectfully, eyes closed.

— I want to see the tree— Silvestre said, breaking the silence.

— Let’s go— replied Aproximado, — I’ll take you to see the tree.

And we headed for the open ground next to our house. A solitary casuarina defied the sky. Silvestre fell to his knees before the old trunk. He called me over and pointed to the tree’s canopy:

— This tree, my son. This tree is Dordalma’s soul.

A BULLET BITTEN

We are daytime creatures, but it’s the nights that give us the measure of our place. And nights only really fit comfortably in our childhood home. I had been born in the residence we now occupied, but this wasn’t my home, it wasn’t here that sleep descended upon me with tenderness. Everything in this dwelling made me feel a stranger. And yet, my slumber seems to have recognized something familiar in its tranquillity. Maybe that was why, one night, I had a dream that I’d never had before. For I fell into a deep abyss and was carried away by waters and floods. I dreamed that Jezoosalem was submerged. First, it rained on the sand. Then on the trees. Later, it rained on the rain itself. The camp was transformed into a riverbed, and not even continents were enough to absorb so much water.

My papers were released from their hiding place and ascended to the surface to ride along on the churning waters of the river. I went down to the shore to collect them. When I held them in my hands, something suddenly happened: the papers were turned into clothes. They were the sodden vestments of kings, queens and knaves. Each one of the monarchs passed by and handed over their heavy mantles. Then, devoid of their clothes, they floated on until they vanished in the calmer waters downstream.

Their clothes weighed so heavily in my arms that I decided to wring them out. But instead of water, letters dripped out of them and each one of these, upon hitting the surface, gave a pirouette and launched itself into the current. When the last letter had fallen, the clothes evaporated and vanished.

— Marcelo!

It was Marta who had just come ashore. She emerged as if from the mist and set off again in pursuit of the letters. She was shouting for Marcelo as her feet guided her with difficulty through the waters. And the Portuguese woman disappeared round the bend in the river.

When I got back to the house, old Silvestre asked about the Portuguese woman in a strangely anxious tone. I pointed back at the mist over the river. He got up in a rush, projecting himself beyond his own body, as if he were undergoing a second birth.

— I’m on my way—he exclaimed.

— Where, Father?

He didn’t answer. I saw him stumble off in the direction of the valley and vanish among the thick bushes.

Some time passed and I almost fell asleep, lulled by the sweet song of the nightjars. Suddenly, I was startled by a rustling in the undergrowth. It was my father and the Portuguese woman approaching, supporting each other. The two of them were soaked. I ran out to help. Silvestre needed more help than the foreigner. He was breathing with difficulty, as if he were swallowing the sky in small doses. It was the Portuguese woman who spoke:

— Your father saved me.

I couldn’t imagine how brave Silvestre Vitalício had been, nor how he had plunged into the swirling river, struggled against the current, and in the face of Death’s designs had pulled her out of the waters where she was drowning.

— I wanted to die in a river, in a river that rose in my homeland and flowed out into the end of the world.

That’s what the Portuguese woman said as she stared at the window.

— Now leave me— she added. — Now I want to be alone with your father.

I went out, smitten by a strange sadness. When I looked through the window, I seemed to see my mother leaning over her former husband, my mother returned from the skies and rivers where she had lingered her whole life. I knocked on the window and called, almost voiceless:

— Mother!

A woman’s hand touched me, and before I could turn round, a bird perched on my shoulders. I slackened lethargically, and didn’t offer any resistance when I felt myself being drawn upwards, my feet leaving the ground, the earth losing size, shrinking away like a deflating balloon.

I washed my face under the washtub tap as if only water could free me from my watery dream. Without drying myself, I looked out at the street through which the city flowed. Why was it that I had been dreaming about Marta ever since she had broken into the big house at Jezoosalem? The truth was this: the woman had invaded me just as the sun fills our homes. There was no way of avoiding or obstructing this flood, there was no curtain capable of blocking out such luminance.

Maybe there was another explanation. Maybe the Woman was already within me even before she arrived in Jezoosalem. Or perhaps Ntunzi was right when he warned me: water has nothing to learn from anyone. It’s like women: they just know things. Inexplicable things. That’s why we need to fear both creatures: woman and water. That, in the end, was the lesson of the dream.

After our outing to the cemetery, Silvestre Vitalício showed no further signs of life. He was an automaton, devoid of speech or spirit. We still believed it might be part of his recovery from the snakebite. But the nurse dismissed this explanation. Vitalício had sought exile within himself. Jezoosalem had isolated him from the world. The city had stolen him back from himself.

Aproximado said that the streets in our area were small and perfectly walkable. I should take my father to explore them, to see if he could be distracted. Now I know one thing: no street is small. They all hide never-ending stories, they all conceal countless secrets.

On one occasion, while we were walking along, I got the impression that my father was pushing me gently, guiding me. We passed by a Presbyterian church at the very time when they were holding a service. We could hear a choir and a tinkling piano. Silvestre stopped short, his eyes ablaze. He sat down on the steps leading to the entrance, his hands open across his chest.

— Leave me here, Mwanito.

He hadn’t spoken for so long that his voice had become almost inaudible. And there, in that cold little corner, he remained for hours, stiff and silent. Even when the service had finished and the worshippers had left, Silvestre didn’t move from the step. Some of the older ones greeted him as they passed by. The church and the street were dark and deserted when I pressed him:

— Father, please, let’s go.

— I’m staying here.

— It’s nighttime now, let’s go home.

— I’m going to stay and live here.

I was familiar with my father’s obstinacy. I returned home alone and alerted Ntunzi and Aproximado to old Silvestre’s decision. It was Uncle who replied:

— Let’s leave the fellow to sleep there tonight. .

— Out in the open?

— He hasn’t had so many houses for ages.

Early the next morning, I went into the street to find out what had happened to my father. When I found him, it was as if he hadn’t changed his position, sheltering there on the steps where I had left him. I woke him with a gentle tap on the shoulder.

— Come on, Father. We’ll come back tomorrow to listen to the hymns.

— Tomorrow? So when is tomorrow?

— In just a little while, Father. Come, I’ll bring you back here.

So at the same hour every day for weeks and weeks, I took my father to the church steps, moments before the tuneful voices rose up to the heavens. Every time I tried to withdraw, he would grip me. Silently, and without moving so much as a finger, he wanted to share that instant with me. He was trying to re-create the veranda where we used to lay our silence to rest. Until, one day, I realized that he was murmuring the words of the hymns. Silvestre, even voiceless, was still joining in with the singers. Without anyone else being aware, Vitalício’s words were ascending to the heavens. It was a lowly heaven, lacking in vitality. But it was the beginning of an infinity.

I awoke to the sound of female voices. I peered out of the window. Hundreds of people filled the street and were bringing the traffic to a halt. They were shouting slogans and brandishing placards on which one could read: Stop the violence against women! Among the throngs of people, I caught sight of Zachary Kalash, who was pushing his way towards our house. I opened the door and, without stopping to excuse himself, he pushed his way into the house as if he were seeking shelter.

— What a racket these broads are making! Noci’s there raising hell.

He was wearing his military uniform and dragging a bag and a case along with him. I led him through to the kitchen which had, so to speak, been our room for entertaining visitors ever since our sudden, frenetic arrival.

— Where’s your brother? — he asked me.

Ntunzi had come home less than an hour before, from yet another nightly escapade. He’d gone to bed still fully clothed, reeking of alcohol and cigarette smoke. Ever since his arrival in the city, my brother had hardly set foot in the house. From one night to the next, he hung out with people that Uncle Aproximado classified as “totally undesirable.”

— He’s still sleeping.

— Well, go and call him.

Zachary waited in the kitchen, but didn’t sit down. He kept opening and closing the curtains as if the commotion in the street were disturbing him. “This world’s finished!” I heard him complain. I stumbled about in the darkness of the room, shook Ntunzi and urged him to hurry. I went back to the kitchen and found the soldier helping himself to a beer:

— I’m going back to Jezoosalem. I’ve come to say goodbye.

Everyone had found a place for themselves. I’d rediscovered my childhood house. My father had found a home in madness. Only he, Zachary Kalash, hadn’t found a place in the city.

— Are you going for good, Zaca?

— No. Only until I’ve completed certain duties.

— So what are you going to do in Jezoosalem?

— I’m not going to do anything, I’m going to undo. .

— What do you mean?

— I’m going to blow up the ammunition store, and bury the weapons. .

— You don’t want any more wars, isn’t that it, Zaca?

His face exhibited a sad, enigmatic smile. He seemed afraid of the answer. He ran his finger around the rim of the glass and produced a humming sound.

— D’you know something, Mwanito? I went to war to kill someone—and he waved his arm towards some vague presence.

— Someone?

— Someone inside me.

— And did you kill him?

— No.

— So what now?

— Now it’s too late. That someone has already killed me.

When he was small, the same age as me, he wanted to be a fireman, to rescue people from burning houses. He’d ended up setting fire to houses with people inside. A soldier of so many wars, a soldier without any cause at all. Defend the fatherland? But the fatherland he’d defended had never been his. That’s what the soldier Kalash said, his words tumbling out as if he were in a hurry to finish his intimate revelations.

— You know, Mwanito? Jezoosalem was more of a fatherland to me than any other. But anyway, let bygones be big ones. .

We were interrupted by the arrival of Ntunzi. Red eyed, his hair a mess, still unsteady on his feet from sleep. Zachary didn’t even greet him. He opened his bag and pulled out a rucksack, which he tossed at the new arrival.

— Take that rucksack to your room and pack your kit in it.

— Pack my kit? What for?

— You’re going with me to Jezoosalem.

— Where? — He fired back, laughing out loud, only to then proclaim in all seriousness:

— Don’t so much as think about it, Zachary, I’m not even leaving here dead.

— We’ll only be a few days.

I knew how arguments developed in our little tribe. Aware that tension would soon boil over into conflict, I intervened in an attempt to calm things down:

— Go on, Ntunzi. There’s no problem in keeping Zachary company. It’s just a question of going and coming back again.

— He can go by himself.

Zachary got up to face Ntunzi while at the same time drawing a pistol from a holster hanging from his belt. I stepped back, fearing the worst. But Kalash’s voice had the calm of a will that has been mastered when he spoke:

— Hold this pistol.

My brother looked aghast, as startled as a newborn baby, with his limp hand barely able to sustain the weight of the gun. Kalash took a step back and contemplated Ntunzi’s pathetic demeanour.

— You don’t understand, Ntunzi.

— What don’t I understand?

— You’re going to be a soldier. That’s why I’ve come to fetch you.

Ntunzi let himself collapse onto a chair, his eyes absorbed in nothingness. He sat like this for some time until Zaca Kalash took the pistol and helped him to his feet.

— We already guessed what would happen to you here in the city. I’m not going to let you stay here any longer.

— I’m not going anywhere, you can’t give me orders. I’m going to call my father.

We followed my brother down the hall. The door to the bedroom was flung open, but Silvestre didn’t bat an eyelid at the uproar. The soldier put an end to the argument with a yell.

— I’m ordering you to come with me!

— The only one to give me orders here is my father.

Suddenly, Silvestre raised his arm. Our old man wanted to speak. But all he could do was whisper:

— Get out, all of you. You, Ntunzi, stay here.

Zachary and I withdrew and sat down again at the kitchen table. Zachary opened another bottle of beer and drank, without another word. Outside, the cries of the demonstrators could be heard: “Women: protest, protest!”

— Close the door so that your father can’t hear it.

When he came back to the kitchen, Ntunzi’s spine was curved like a pregnant woman in reverse, such was the weight he seemed to bear, as he came over to me:

— Goodbye, brother.

I hugged him, but my arms were too short for so much bulk. My hands patted the canvas of his rucksack as if it were part of his body. Ntunzi and Zachary walked out of the door and I stood watching my brother recede as if the open road were to be his inescapable fate. They slowly pushed their way through the women demonstrators. As I got a better look at his way of walking, it seemed to me that in spite of his hangover from the previous night, Ntunzi was marching forward with a military step, an exact copy of Zachary’s.

I was drawing the curtains again when I noticed Noci waving at me. She was inviting me to go down and join the demonstration. I smiled, embarrassed, and closed the window.

Days passed during which all I did was be a father to my father. I looked after him, I took him places to which he invariably reacted like a blind man.

Until one day, I got a letter. I recognised Marta’s handwriting on the envelope. It was the first letter anyone had ever written to me.

THE IMMOVABLE TREE

I’m writing you this letter, dear Mwanito, so that we may take our leave of each other without saying goodbye. On the last day we were together, you told me about the dream you had had in which your father saved me from drowning in the river. If we take it that life is a river, then your dream was true. I was saved in Jezoosalem. Silvestre taught me how to find Marcelo alive in everything that is born.

I never tried to find out how Marcelo had died. For me, the explanation that he had died of an illness was enough. On the day I left, when I was already at the airport, Noci told me details of my husband’s final journey. After Aproximado had left him by the gate, Marcelo must have wandered aimlessly for days, until he was shot down in an ambush. We can imagine where he went from the images that remained on his camera. Noci gave me these black and white photos. They were not, as I had supposed, pictures of water birds and landscapes. It was a report on his own end, an illustrated diary of his decline. From what we can glean, we can see that he wanted to escape from himself. At first by being dishevelled and shedding his clothes. Later, by behaving more and more like an animal, drinking water from puddles and eating raw flesh. When Marcelo was shot down, they took him for a wild animal. He wasn’t killed in war. It was hunters. My man, dear Mwanito, chose this particular suicide. When death took him, he had already ceased to be a person. And in this way, perhaps he felt that he would die a lesser death.

It wasn’t a continent that swallowed up Marcelo. He was consumed by his inner demons. Those demons went up in flames shortly before my return to Lisbon, when I burned all the photographs that Noci had given me.

Life only happens when we stop understanding it. Lately, my dear Mwanito, I have been far from understanding it. I never imagined myself travelling to Africa. Now, I don’t know how I’m going to return to Europe. I want to go back to Lisbon, of course, but free from the memory of ever having lived. I don’t want to recognize people or places or even the language that gives us access to others. That’s why I got on so well in Jezoosalem: everything was strange to me, and I didn’t have to account for who I was, or what course of life I should follow. In Jezoosalem, my spirit became light, free of any rigid structure, akin to the herons.

I have your father, Silvestre Vitalício, to thank for all this. I criticized him for having dragged you off to a wilderness. But the truth is that he established his own territory. Ntunzi would answer that Jezoosalem was founded on the deception of a sick man. It was a lie, of course. But if we’ve got to live a lie, let it be our own lie. Besides, old Silvestre didn’t depart so far from the truth in his apocalyptic vision. For he was right: the world ends when we are no longer capable of loving it.

And madness isn’t always an illness. Sometimes, it’s an act of courage. Your father, dear Mwanito, had the courage that we lack. When all was lost, he began again. Even if, for the rest of us, it was meaningless.

That’s the lesson I learnt in Jezoosalem: life wasn’t made to be fleeting and of little consequence. And the world wasn’t made to have boundaries.

When you began to read the labels on the weapons crates, it wasn’t the letters that you learnt most. You were taught something else: words can be the curve that links Death and Life. That’s why I’m writing to you. There is no death in this letter. But there is a farewell, which is a way of dying a little. Do you remember what Zachary used to say? “I’ve had all my deaths, fortunately, all of them were fleeting ones.” My only death was Marcelo’s. And that was certainly the first conclusive outcome. I don’t know whether Marcelo was the love of my life. But it was a whole life’s worth of love. Whoever loves, does so forever. Don’t do anything forever. Except to love.

However, I’m not writing to you to talk about myself, but rather about your mother, Dordalma. I spoke to Aproximado, to Zachary, to Noci, to the neighbours. Every one of them told me bits of her life story. It’s my duty to return this past that was stolen from you. People say that the story of someone’s life is lessened in the account of their death. This is the story of the last days of Dordalma. Of how she lost her life after having been lost to life.

It was a Wednesday. That morning, Dordalma left home as she had never done before in her life: to be stared at and admired. She wore a dress to leave mere mortals groping and a neckline capable of making a blind man see heaven. She was so glorious that few noticed the little case that she was carrying with the same vulnerability as a child on its first day of school.

I’m beginning like this, Mwanito, because you have no idea how beautiful your mother was. It wasn’t her face, or her waist, or her lithe, shapely legs. It was her entire being. At home, Dordalma was never more than gloomy, lifeless, and cold. Years of solitude and rejection had equipped her for nothingness, to be a mere native of silence. But on countless occasions, she would avenge herself in front of the mirror. There at the dressing table, she would garb herself in passing apparitions. She was, so to speak, like an ice cube in a glass. Disputing her place on the surface, reigning over this lofty abode until the time came for her to go back to being water.

So let me now go back to the beginning: on that Wednesday, your mother left home dressed to provoke fantasies. The looks she got from her neighbours were not appreciative of her beauty. There were sighs: of envy from the women; of desire from the men. The males gazed at her, their pupils dilated, their eyes predatory.

Here are the facts in all their bluntness and crudity. That morning, your mother climbed into the minibus and squeezed herself in between the men who filled the vehicle. The van set off amidst fumes, impelled by some strange sense of haste. The van didn’t follow the usual route. The driver didn’t pay attention to where he was going, distracted perhaps by the sight of his beautiful passenger in his rearview mirror. Eventually, the bus stopped in a stretch of dark, secluded wasteland. It pains me to write what happened next.

According to the few witnesses, the truth is that Dordalma was thrown onto the ground amid grunts and salivations, feral appetites and animal frenzy. And she sank further into the sand as if only the ground offered her fragile, trembling body protection. One by one, the men used her, shrieking as if avenging some age-old insult.

Twelve men later, your mother remained, almost lifeless, on the ground. During the hours that followed, she was no more than a corpse, a body at the mercy of ravens and rats, and worse than that, exposed to the mischievous looks of the few passers-by. No one helped her to get up. Countless times, she tried to recompose herself, but her strength failed her and she collapsed again, without a tear, her spirit gone.

Finally, after night had long fallen, your father appeared, creeping furtively like a cat among the rooftops. He looked around, took a deep breath and picked up his wife. With Dordalma in his arms, Silvestre crossed the road slowly, knowing that dozens of eyes were staring at his sinister figure from behind their windows.

He stopped abruptly by the front door, and stood there like a statue. In the pitch darkness it was impossible to see whether he was crying, whether his face was furrowed in resentment of the world and its hidden people.

He shut the door behind him with his foot and from then on, Vitalício’s house was forever darkened. Silvestre placed your mother’s body on the kitchen table and cushioned her head on bags and cloths. Then, he went to your room and kissed your brow and passed his hand over your brother’s head. He turned the key in the lock and declared:

— I’ll be back in a minute.

He returned to the kitchen to undress your mother. He left her naked, still unconscious, and made a bundle out of her useless clothes. He took the bundle out into the back garden and burnt the clothes after dousing them with gasoline.

He sat down again next to the table and watched over his sleeping wife. He made no gesture of affection or care. He merely waited, as aloof as a zealous functionary. As soon as the first signs of consciousness became visible on Dordalma’s face, your father snapped at her:

— Can you hear me?

— Yes.

— Well, listen carefully to what I’m going to tell you: never shame me like this again. Do you hear?

Dordalma nodded, her eyes closed and he got up and turned away. Your mother placed her feet on the ground and sought her husband’s arm for support. Silvestre dodged and blocked her way to the hall:

— Stay here. I don’t want the children to see you in this state.

She was to remain in the kitchen, and get properly washed. Later, when the household was asleep, she could go to her room and stay there in peace and quiet. As for him, Silvestre Vitalício, he’d suffered enough vexations for one day.

Your father awoke, terrified, as if an inner voice were summoning him. His chest was heaving, his sweat flowing as if he were made solely of water. He went to the window, drew back the curtains and saw his wife hanging from the tree. There was a gap between her feet and the ground. He understood immediately: that tiny space was what separated life from death.

Before the street awoke, Silvestre, stepping swiftly, walked over to the casuarina, as if the only thing in front of him was some herbaceous creature made of leaves and branches. Your mother appeared to him like some dried fruit, the rope no more than a stem. He brushed aside the branches and silently cut the rope, only to hear the thud as the body fell to the ground. He regretted it immediately. He’d heard that sound before: it was the sound of earth falling on a coffin lid. That noise was to cling to his inner ear like moss on a sunless wall. Later on, your silence, Mwanito, was his defence against this recriminating echo.

For the second time in quick succession, Silvestre crossed the road with your mother in his arms. But this time, it was as if she had left her weight hanging from the gallows. He placed her body on the floor of the veranda and looked: there was no trace of blood, no sign of an illness or injury from a fight. If it weren’t for the complete stillness of her breast, one would say she was alive. At this point, Silvestre burst into tears. Whoever passed that way would have thought that Silvestre had succumbed to the pain of death. But it wasn’t his widower’s state that was making him weep. Your father was crying because he felt scorned. A married woman’s suicide is the worst indignity for any husband. Wasn’t he the legitimate owner of her life? In that case, how could he accept such a humiliating act of disobedience? Dordalma hadn’t abdicated from life: having lost possession of her own life, she had cast the spectacle of her own death in your father’s face.

You already know what happened at the funeral. The wind deranged the graves, making it impossible to carry out a burial. Others were needed, the professional gravediggers, to complete the interment. Once home, after the funeral, Ntunzi was the most solitary of all the children in the world. No amount of affection from those present could console him. Only a word from old Silvestre Vitalício could heal him. But your father remained distant. It was you who passed through the crowd and took the widower’s face in your little hands. Your hands offered Silvestre a refuge, tucked away inside a perfect silence. Maybe it was in that silence that he caught a glimpse of Jezoosalem, that place beyond all places.

After the funeral, your father shut himself away for days in the church. He didn’t join in the choir, but he attended the service and later would lie around as if he were a beggar without a home to go to. Sometimes, he would sit down at the piano and his fingers would run up and down the keyboard dreamily. It was July, and the cold was such that one’s hands, nestling in one’s pockets, grow forgetful.

It was during one of these retreats that Zachary entered the church. He had just got back from the front line, and was still wearing a military coat. Kalash went up to your father and greeted him with a hearty hug. It looked as if they were hugging each other affectionately, but they were fighting. What they were whispering to each other sounded like words of consolation, but they were death threats. Whoever passed by would scarcely guess that they were in mortal confrontation. And no one could claim to have heard the shot. The blood dripping from Zachary’s uniform as he left could never be taken as proof. Silvestre wiped the floor, and left no trace of the violence. There was no fight, no shot, no blood. To all appearances, the two friends had lingered in their embrace, comforting each other in their mutual grief at the disappearance of your dear mother, Dordalma.

Now you know why Ntunzi left with Kalash. Why he’s destined to be a soldier, which has been the fate of generations in Zachary’s family. Now you know why Silvestre feared the wind and the way the trees danced phantasmally. Now you know the purpose behind Jezoosalem and the exile of the Venturas away from the world. It wasn’t just because your father was unhinged and that Jezoosalem was a chance product of his madness. For Silvestre, the past was an illness and memories a punishment. He wanted to live in oblivion. He wanted to lead his life far from guilt.

When you read this letter, I shall no longer be in your country. To be more precise, I shall be with Zachary: shorn of a country I can call my own, but sworn to serve causes invented by others. I’m returning to Portugal without Marcelo, I return without part of myself. Wherever I go I shall never find space enough for herons to soar in flight. In Jezoosalem, the earth will always contain more earth.

Noci once told me of the emptiness of her relationship with Aproximado. How their love had drained away over the course of time. Although our trajectories were so different, we both trod the same paths. I had left my home country to look for a man who was betraying me. She was betraying herself with someone who didn’t love her.

— Why do we put up with so much?

— Who?

— We women. Why do we put up with so much, with everything?

— Because we’re afraid.

Our greatest fear is loneliness. A woman cannot exist on her own, for she risks stopping being a woman. Either that or, for everyone’s peace of mind, she becomes something else: a mad woman, an old hag, a witch. Or, as Silvestre would say, a whore. Anything but a woman. This is what I told Noci: in this world we are only somebody if we are a spouse. That’s what I am now, even though I’m a widow. I’m a dead man’s spouse.

I’m leaving you the photos we took, of our days in the game reserve. One of them, my favourite, shows the moonlight reflected in the lake. That night, I fear, was the last time I saw the moon. I still have some of its diffuse light left to illuminate the long nights that await me.

I want to thank you for everything that I experienced and learnt in this place of yours. The lesson I learnt is this: death separated me from Marcelo in the same way that we are parted from the birds by night. Just for a season of sadness.

We re-encounter our beloved on the next moonlit night. Even without a lake, even without night, even without the moon. They return to us ever more, within the light, their clothes floating in the river’s flow.

I don’t know whether I am happier than you: I have a house to go back to. I have my parents, I have my social circle in which I can live up to whatever expectations others have of me. Those who love me have accepted that I had to leave. But they insist that I return unchanged, recognizable, as if my journey were just a passing phase. You are a child, Mwanito. There is still a long journey, a lot of childhood, that you can live. No one can ask you to be only a keeper of silences.

You won’t be writing back. I’m not leaving an address, or any sign of me. If you ever feel like finding out about me one day, ask Zachary. He gave me the task of regaining part of his past in Portugal. He wants his godmother back, he wants the magic of those letters to be reborn. One day, I’m sure, I’ll come back to see you again. But there will never be another Jezoosalem.

THE BOOK

Five years had passed since Marta, Ntunzi and Zachary had gone. One day, Aproximado called me to the room where Noci was, along with some kids from the neighbourhood. On the table, there was a cake with some candles stuck in the white sugar icing.

— Count the candles— my Uncle ordered.

— What for?

— Count them.

— There are sixteen.

— That’s how old you are— Aproximado said. — Today is your birthday.

Never before had they given me a birthday party. In fact, it had never occurred to me that there had been a day on which I was born. But here, in this austere room in our house, the table was laid with cakes and drinks, decorated with streamers and balloons. On the icing of the cake, my name was written.

They went and got my old man, and sat him down next to me. One by one, the guests gave me their presents, which I piled clumsily on the chair by my side. All of a sudden, they started singing and clapped their hands. I realized that for a brief moment I was the centre of the universe. At Aproximado’s instruction, I blew out the candles at one go. At that moment, my father stirred, and without anyone noticing, he squeezed my arm. It was his way of showing affection.

Hours later, after he had returned to his room, Silvestre retreated as usual into his shell. For five years, I was the one who looked after him, who guided him through the banalities of his daily routine, who helped him to eat and to wash himself. It was Uncle Aproximado who looked after me. He would often sit down in front of Silvestre, as one family member to another, and after holding his gaze for some time, would ask himself out loud:

— Aren’t you pretending to be mad just so as not to pay me what you owe?

One couldn’t detect so much as a hint of a reply on Vitalício’s face. I appealed to Uncle’s reason: how could play-acting be so convincing and long-lasting?

— The thing is that they are old debts, left over from the days at Jezoosalem. Your father hadn’t paid for his supplies for years.

— Not to mention the rest — he added.

Aproximado never explained what this “rest” consisted of. And so his lamentations continued, always in the same tone: his brother-in-law never imagined how difficult it was to reach Jezoosalem by road. Nor how much a truck driver had to pay to avoid an ambush and escape attack. A secret of survival, he suggested, was to lunch with the devil and eat the leftovers with the angels. And he concluded, as if giving his intelligence a bit of spit and polish:

— It serves me right. Business deals among relatives lead to. .

— I can pay, Uncle.

— Pay what?

— What you’re owed. .

— Don’t make me laugh, nephew.

If there were debts, the truth is that Aproximado didn’t take it out on me. On the contrary, he protected me like the son he never had. If it hadn’t been for him, I would never have attended the local school. I’ll never forget my first day in class, the strange feeling at seeing so many children sitting in the same room together. There was something stranger still: it was a book that united us for hours on end, weaving together childhood dreams in an aging world. For years I had taken myself to be the only child in the universe. And during that life, a solitary child was forbidden to look at a book. That was why, from the first lesson onwards, while the times tables and the alphabet flowed around the room, I caressed my notebooks and recalled my pack of cards.

My fascination for learning didn’t go unnoticed by the teacher. He was a thin, wizened man, his eyes deep-set and grown old. He spoke passionately about injustice and against the newly rich. One afternoon, he took the group to visit the place where a journalist who had denounced corruption had been murdered. There was no monument nor any sign of official recognition in the place. There was just a tree, a cashew tree, to recall for posterity the courage of someone who had risked his life to expose dishonesty.

— Let us leave flowers on this sidewalk to clean away the blood; flowers to wash away the shame.

These were the teacher’s words. With our master’s money we bought flowers and we strewed them over the sidewalk. On our way back, the teacher was walking in front of me and I noticed how lacking in weight he was, so much so that I feared he might take off into the sky like some paper kite.

— Is that what he did? — Noci was astonished. — He took you to visit the people’s journalist?

— And we left flowers, all. .

— Well then, tomorrow you’re going to take this teacher some papers. Plus a little letter I’m going to write. .

I didn’t know what was going through her head, but the girl didn’t need any encouragement. At her command, I kept watch down the hall while she rummaged through Aproximado’s drawers. She gathered together some documents, scribbled a short note and put everything in an envelope.

It was this envelope that I delivered to the teacher the following morning. By now, it was clear how ill our gentle master was. And he grew thinner and thinner until the merest clothing seemed too big on him. Eventually, he stopped coming and it wasn’t long before we were told he had died. They later told us he had been suffering from the “sickness of the century.” That he had been the victim of the “pandemic.” But they never mentioned the name of the illness.

Silvestre went with me to the teacher’s funeral. In the cemetery, he passed Dordalma’s grave. And he sat down with the weight of one who was never going to get up again. He remained there silent and unmoving, with only his feet brushing the sand, this way and that, like the continuous swing of a pendulum. I gave him a little time and then urged him:

— Shall we go home, Father?

There would be no going home. At that moment, I realized: Silvestre Vitalício had lost all contact with the world. Before, he almost never spoke. Now, he had stopped even seeing people. They were mere shadows. And he never spoke again. My old man was blind to himself. He didn’t even have a home inside his own body.

That night, I thought about the deceased teacher. And I came to the conclusion that the “sickness of the century” was some sort of calcification of the past, an intermittent fever made of time. This illness ran in our family. The following day, I announced at school:

— My father suffers from it too. .

— What?

— The sickness of the century.

They looked at me with pity and repulsion, as if I were the bearer of some perilous contagion. Friends avoided me, neighbours kept their distance. This exclusion by all, I have to admit, gave me a certain satisfaction, as if deep down I wanted to return to my solitude. And over time, I allowed myself to go astray. After the teacher’s death, I lost interest in school. I would leave home in the morning, all dressed up for it, but I would stick around in the yard, scribbling down memories in the notebook I kept as a diary. When everything around had become darkness, my pages still preserved the light of day. When I got home, I began to greet my father in the old way, in accordance with the rules of Jezoosalem:

— I can go to bed now, Father. I’ve hugged the earth.

Perhaps, deep down, I yearned for the immense hush of my sad past.

And then there was Noci, an additional reason for skipping school. Aproximado’s girlfriend offered to help me with my homework. Even if I didn’t have any, I invented it just to have her leaning over me, her huge dark eyes spearing mine. And then there was the bead of sweat running down between her breasts that I followed, doused and aroused by that drop, descending into her bosom until I sank into tremors and sighs.

Early in the morning, Noci would go around the house almost in a state of undress. I began to have erotic dreams. It wasn’t new to me: female classmates, women teachers and neighbours had all made appearances in my daydreams. But this was the first time the gentle presence of a woman had placed the entire house under her spell. I found one thing out later: in the heat of the night, I wasn’t the only one to have such dreams.

I don’t know how much love Noci still gave to Aproximado. The truth is that we sometimes heard groans coming from their room. My father would toss and turn in his bed. He who had closed his ears to everything still had ears for this. On one occasion, I noticed that he was crying. It then became clear: Silvestre Vitalício would weep on the nights when the house was aglow with love.

Love is addictive even before it has happened. That’s what I learnt, just as I learnt that dreams grow more intense the more they are repeated. The more I clamoured for Noci in my nightly ravings, the more real her presence became. Until one night, I could have sworn that it was she, in the flesh, who furtively entered my room. Her figure slipped between my sheets and, during the moments that ensued, I sprawled across the intermittent frontier between our bodies. I don’t know whether it was really she who visited me. I know that after she left, my father wept in the bed next to mine.

My uncle never tired of going on about how he hadn’t been paid for his services to the family. But from what we could see, Silvestre’s debts didn’t leave Aproximado in any state of need. Our Uncle boasted of the money he made from the business of selling hunting permits. “But isn’t that illegal?” Noci would ask. Well, what is illegal these days? One hand dirties the other and both imitate the gesture of Pontius Pilate, isn’t that so? That’s how Uncle responded. And not a day went by when he didn’t return with fresh motives for rejoicing: he cancelled fines, turned a blind eye to infringements and conjured up complications for new investors.

— Do you remember the truck I had during the war? Well nowadays, the apparatus of the State is my truck.

One Sunday, his vanity led him to open out the map of the game reserve on the floor of the living room, and to summon me, my father and Noci:

— See your Jezoosalem, my dear Silvestre? Well now, it’s all private property, and I’m the one who's deprived of it, do you understand?

My father’s hollow look ranged over the floor, but failed to pause where his brother-in-law intended. Then suddenly Silvestre decided to get up and cross the room, dragging the map along with his feet so that it was ripped into large strips. Unable to contain herself, Noci laughed. Aproximado’s breast unleashed a hitherto controlled anger:

— As for you, my dear, you’re going to stay away from here.

— Is this your house?

— From now on, I’m the one who’ll pay you visits in your house.

From then on, Noci appeared like the moon. Visible only at certain periods of the month. As for me, I became subject to the tides, periodically flooded by a woman.

Once, Noci turned up at the house mid-morning. She slipped furtively through the rooms. She asked after Aproximado.

— At this hour, Miss Noci? — I answered. — At this hour, you know only too well, Uncle is at work.

The girl went to the bathroom and, without closing the door, threw her clothes on the floor. I was suddenly smitten with a type of blindness and shook my head fearing I would never be able to see properly again. Then, I listened to the water from the shower, and imagined her wet body, caressed by her own hands.

— Are you there, Mwanito?

Embarrassment prevented me from answering. She guessed that I would be stuck in the doorway, incapable of peeping in, but without the strength to move away.

— Come in.

— What?

— I want you to find a box that’s in my bag. I brought the box for you.

I went in bashfully. Noci was drying herself with the towel and I was able to catch glimpses of her breasts and her long legs. I pulled out a metal box and brandished it, trembling. She responded to my gesture.

— That’s it. There’s money inside. It’s all yours.

Then she explained the origins of that little treasure trove. Noci belonged to a women’s association that cam-paigned against domestic violence. Some months before, Silvestre interrupted one of their meetings and crossed the room in silence.

— It was very strange what he did — Noci recalled.

— Don’t take it too badly— I rejoined. — My father always had a negative attitude towards women, please forgive him. .

— On the contrary. I. . in fact all of us were very grateful.

What had happened was this: Silvestre had crossed the room and had left a box with money in it on the table. It was his contribution to the campaign of those women.

In the meantime, the association had closed. A number of threats had sown fear among its members. What Noci was now doing was returning my father’s gesture of solidarity.

— Now, make sure you hide this cash from Aproximado, do you hear? This money’s yours, yours alone.

— Only mine, Miss Noci?

— Yes. Like me, at this moment, I’m yours alone.

Her towel fell to the floor. Once again, just like that first time in Jezoosalem, the presence of a woman took the ground away, and the two of us plunged into the abyss together. Afterwards, as we lay, exhausted on the tiled floor, our legs entangled, she passed her fingers over my face and murmured:

— You’re crying. .

I denied it fiercely. Noci seemed moved by my vulnerability and looking deep into my eyes, asked:

— Who taught you to love women?

I should have answered: it was lack of love. But no words occurred to me. Disarmed, I watched Noci buttoning up her dress, preparing to leave. When she got to the last button, she paused and said:

— When he handed us the box of money, your father wasn’t aware that among the notes, there was a bit of paper with instructions on it.

— Instructions? From whom?

— Your mother.

My father had never realized this, but his deceased spouse had left a note explaining the origin and purpose for this money. It was Dordalma’s savings and she was leaving this inheritance so that her sons should lack for nothing.

— It was your mother. It was she who taught you how to love. Dordalma has always been here.

And she placed the palm of her hand on my chest.

Then they came to get Uncle. An incrimination from an unknown source, we were told. Only I knew that the telltale documents had come from his drawer, and that it was his own girlfriend, with my complicity, who had sent the papers. When he came home, having paid his bail, Aproximado was suspicious of everything and of everyone. Above all, he suspected my father’s secret powers. At dinner, taking advantage of Noci’s absence, Aproximado spoke belligerently:

— It was you, Silvestre, I bet it was you.

My father didn’t hear, didn’t look, didn’t speak. He existed in some other dimension and it was only his physical projection that appeared before us. Uncle resumed his menacing discourse:

— Well let me tell you this: just as you arrived here, my dear Silvestre, so you’ll be booted out. I’ll have you exported like some hunting trophy.

I could swear I detected a mocking smile on my father’s face. It’s possible his brother-in-law got the same impression because he asked in a tone of surprise:

— What’s happening? Has your hearing come back?

Well, if that was the case, Silvestre had better listen. Whereupon Uncle launched forth with a litany of mishaps. My father got up from his chair abruptly and slowly poured the contents of his glass on the floor. We all understood: he was giving the dead something to drink, and was apologizing in advance for any ill omen.

— It’s too much, this is just too much! — Aproximado roared.

The provocation meted out by his brother-in-law-widower had gone beyond all acceptable limits. Limping more than usual, Uncle went to the bedroom and brought back a photograph. He shook it in front of my nose and shouted:

— Take a good look at this, nephew.

His spirit suddenly and unexpectedly energized, my old man jumped onto the table and covered the photo with his body. Aproximado pushed him and the two fought for possession of the picture. I realized that it was my mother’s image that was dancing around in Aproximado’s hands, and I decided to join in the tussle. In no time at all, however, the paper was torn and each one of us ended up holding a piece in our fingers. Silvestre took hold of the remaining pieces and ripped them to shreds. I kept the portion I had ended up with. All it showed were Dordalma’s hands. On her entwined fingers, could be seen an engagement ring. Once I was in bed, I kissed my mother’s hands repeatedly. For the first time, I said goodnight to the person who had given me all my nights.

Before I fell asleep I sensed that Noci was coming into my room. This time she was real. Naked, she lay down next to me and I followed the contours of her body while losing the notion of my own substance.

— You’re the one who knows I’m here, you’re the one touching me. .

— Let’s not make any noise, Miss Noci.

— This isn’t noise, Mwanito. It’s music.

Music it may have been, but I was terrified at the thought of my father lying there next to us and, even more so, that Aproximado might hear us. But Noci’s presence was more powerful than my fear. As she bounced up and down on my legs, I was afflicted once again by a doubt: what if women blinded me as they had my brother Ntunzi? I closed my eyes and didn’t open them again until Noci shut the door as she left.

The following day, there was no day. Halfway though the morning, Aproximado was back from his office and his shouts reverberated down the hall.

— Son-of-a-bitch!

I shuddered: Uncle was insulting me after discovering that I, along with Noci, had betrayed him. The unequal echo of his steps approached down the hall and I sat on my bed expecting the worst. But his yells, when he reached the doorway, suggested something very different from my initial fears:

— I’ve been punished! I’ve been transferred! You great sonof-a-bitch, I know it was you who fixed all this. .

The image of a once discreet and affable uncle vanished forever before our eyes. His gesticulations, as he stormed round old Silvestre’s bed, were both grandiloquent and burlesque. He pulled out his cellphone as if he were drawing a pistol and declared:

— I’m going to call your eldest son, he’s the one who’s going to take charge of this mess.

And he went on moaning while he waited for his call to be answered. He’d had to put up with this nutcase all his life. Now he had this deadweight, in fact two deadweights, in his own home. He stopped his grumbling when he realized Ntunzi had answered. Aproximado told us he was going to turn the speaker on so that we could all hear the conversation.

— Who’s that? Is that Ntunzi?

— Ntunzi? No. This is Sergeant Ventura speaking.

Can nostalgia sometimes take the form of a sudden lack of moisture in the mouth, a cold glow in the throat? In the stuffiness of that room, I swallowed drily upon hearing the evocative power of an absent voice. Aproximado repeated his acrimonious list of complaints against his brother-in-law. At the other end of the line, Ntunzi made light of it:

— But old Silvestre is so feeble, so cut off from the world, so remote from it all. .

— That’s where you’re wrong, Ntunzi. Silvestre is more heavy and troublesome than ever.

— My poor father, he’s never been so harmless. .

— Oh! Is that so? Well in that case tell me why he still calls me Aproximado? Eh? Why doesn’t he call me Uncle Orlando, or even Uncle Godmother, like he always did before?

— Don’t tell me you’re thinking of kicking Silvestre out? Because it’s his house.

— It was. I’ve already paid more than I should for it and for all the rest.

— Wait, Uncle. .

— I’m the one giving the orders here, nephew. You’re going to ask your regiment for some leave, and then you’re going to come to the city and take these two useless creatures off my hands. .

— And where do you want me to take them?

— To hell. . or rather, to Jezoosalem, that’s it, take them back to Jezoosalem again, who knows, maybe God’s already there waiting?

Straight after this, Aproximado packed up his things and left. Noci tried to organize a farewell dinner, but Uncle slipped out of it. What was there to celebrate? And off he went. Along with Aproximado went his girlfriend, my secret lover. In my desire, I got as far as invoking her, and in my dream, I made her recline on the empty double bed. But Noci showed no sign of herself. And I realized this: I had a body, but I lacked maturity. One day, I would go and look for her, and tell her how much I had remained faithful to her in my dreams.

One week later, Ntunzi returned home. He was elated, eager for our reunion. He had progressed in his military career: the stripes on his shoulders showed that he was no longer a common soldier. I had thought I would throw myself into my brother’s arms. But I surprised myself with my apathy and the phlegmatic tone with which I greeted him:

— Hi, Ntunzi.

— Forget Ntunzi. I’m Sergeant Olindo Ventura now.

Shocked by my indifference, the sergeant stepped backwards and, frowning, showed his disappointment:

— It’s me, your brother. I’m here, Mwanito.

— So I see.

— And Father?

— He’s in there, you can go in. He doesn’t react. .

— By the looks of it, he isn’t the only one.

The soldier turned on his heel and disappeared down the hall. I listened to the inaudible murmur of his monologue in my father’s room. Shortly afterwards, he returned and handed me a cloth bag:

— I’ve brought you this.

As I didn’t move so much as a muscle, he himself took my old pack of cards out of the bag. There were still some grains of sand and a bit of dirt clinging to them. Faced with my impassiveness, Ntunzi placed the gift on my lap. The cards, however, didn’t stay there. Without a hand to hold them, they fell to the floor one by one.

— What’s wrong, little brother? Do you need something?

— I’d like to be bitten by the snake that attacked our father.

Ntunzi stood there speechless, in a state of puzzlement. He swallowed bitter doubts and then asked:

— Are you all right, little brother?

I nodded. I was as I’d always been. He was the one who had changed. I was suddenly taken with the memory of how Ntunzi, when we were still in Jezoosalem, had announced his decision to abandon me. This time, his long, painful absence had had its effect and I had ceased feeling anything.

— Why did you never visit us?

— I’m a soldier. I’m not in charge of my life.

— Not in charge? Then, why are you so happy?

— I don’t know. Maybe because, for the first time, I’m in charge of others.

From the interior of the house came sounds that were familiar to me. Silvestre was tapping the floor with his walking stick, calling me to help him go to the bathroom. Ntunzi followed me and watched me care for our old father.

— Is he always like this?

— More than ever.

We placed Silvestre back again in his eternal bed, without him even noticing Ntunzi’s presence. I filled a glass with water and added a bit of sugar to it. I switched on the television, arranged the pillows behind his head and left him gazing vacantly at the luminous screen.

— I find it strange: Silvestre isn’t all that old. Is this death-like state of his for real?

I didn’t know what to answer. To be honest, is there any other way of living in this world of ours that doesn’t involve deception?

Once back in the kitchen, an impulse made me throw myself at my brother. I hugged him at last. And our embrace seemed to last the duration of his absence. It only ended when his arm gently pushed me away. I was no longer a child, and I’d lost the ability to shed a tear. I took the pack of cards in my hands and shook the dust off it, while asking:

— And what’s the news of Kalash?

Zachary Kalash was still hiding behind his soldier’s disguise. But he was old, to be sure, much older than our father. One day, a military policeman stopped him to check where he’d got the uniform he was wearing. It was worse than false: it was a colonial uniform. Zachary was arrested.

— Last week, he was freed.

But he had other news: Marta was going to pay his fare to Portugal. Zachary Kalash was going to visit his wartime godmother, from the old days of military service.

— It’s a bit late now for him to see his godmother, don’t you think?

For sure, we fear death. But there’s no greater fear than that which we feel at the idea of living life to the full, of living at full tilt. Zachary had lost his fear. And he was going to live. That’s what Zachary had answered when my brother questioned him.

When we visited the cemetery, we stopped at Dordalma’s grave. Ntunzi closed his eyes and said a prayer and I pretended to accompany him, ashamed that I’d never learnt any prayers. Afterwards, as we sat in the shade, Ntunzi pulled out a cigarette and was lost in his thoughts for a while. Something reminded me of the times when I used to help our old father fabricate silences.

— So, Ntunzi, are you going to stay with us for a while?

— Yes, for a few days. Why do you ask?

— I’m worn out from looking after our father all by myself.

It was lucky I didn’t know how to pray. Because recently, I’d asked God to take our father up to Heaven. Ntunzi listened to my sad outburst, passed his hand down his leg and patted the top of his military boot. He took off his beret and put it back on his head again. I understood: he was preparing to make some solemn declaration. His soldier’s status helped find the courage. He gazed at me lingeringly before he spoke:

— Silvestre is our father, but you are his only son.

— What are you saying, Ntunzi?

— I’m Zachary’s son.

I pretended not to be surprised. I left the shade and strolled round my mother’s tomb. And I mused over the countless secrets her gravestone concealed. So when Dordalma left home in the ill-fated van, it was Zachary she was going to meet. Now, everything made sense: the way Silvestre treated me differently. The guarded protection that Kalash always afforded Ntunzi. The anxiety with which the soldier carried my sick brother down to the river. Everything made sense. Even the new name Silvestre had given my brother. Ntunzi means “shadow.” I was the light of his eyes. Ntunzi denied him the sun, reminding him of Dordalma’s eternal sin.

— Have you spoken to him, Ntunzi?

— To Silvestre? How could I when he shows no sign of life?

— I meant your new father, Zachary?

No, he hadn’t. They were both soldiers and there were matters that were not appropriate for conversation. For all misintents and purposes, Silvestre would remain his sole, legitimate father.

— But look at what Zachary gave me. This is the last bullet, d’you remember?

He showed it to me. It was the bullet lodged in his shoulder, the one he had never explained. It had been fired by my father during their scuffle at the funeral.

— See? My father almost killed your father?

— There’s just one thing I don’t understand: why did they go off to Jezoosalem together?

— Guilt, Mwanito. It was the feeling of guilt that bound them. .

What Ntunzi then went on to tell me left me perplexed: the struggle between Zachary and Silvestre in the church didn’t match what everyone thought. The truth was far removed from Marta’s account. What, in fact, happened was this: overwhelmed by remorse, Zachary arrived late at the funeral, completely unaware of what had happened during the last hours of his beloved’s existence. As far as he was concerned, Dordalma had committed suicide because of him. And that was why, burdened by the weight of his guilt, the soldier had turned up to express his condolences. In the church, Zachary had hugged my father, and like the good soldier that he was, declared his wish to restore his honour. Suffocated by his grief, he took out his pistol with the intention of putting an end to his own life. Silvestre clasped Kalash to himself in time to deflect the shot. The bullet lodged next to his collar bone. He would have shot himself through the heart if he hadn’t been squeezed so hard, Kalash had lamented bitterly.

Later, as the soldier left the hospital where he had been treated, my old man avoided Zachary’s attempt to give him a grateful hug:

— Don’t thank me. All I did was pay you back. .

My brother slept in the living room. That night, I couldn’t get to sleep. I pulled up a canvas chair and sat down by the front door. It was misty and the dew made the surroundings hazy. I thought of Noci. And I missed the chasms she had opened beneath my feet. Maybe I would go and see her, if she persisted in staying away.

I half-expected to hear the door open. My brother couldn’t sleep either. Holding the cards, he invited me:

— Fancy a game, Mwanito?

The game was just an excuse, of course. We played without talking, as if the result of the game were all-important. Then Ntunzi spoke:

— On my way to the city, I passed by Jezoosalem.

— Aproximado said it’s completely changed.

It wasn’t true. In spite of everything, time hadn’t penetrated beyond the entrance to the game reserve. Ntunzi assured me of this as he described in detail all that he had seen of our old home. I stopped him before he began his account:

— Wait a minute, let’s bring father here.

— But won’t he be sleeping?

— Sleeping is his way of living.

We hauled old Silvestre out on our arms, and deposited him so that he was reclining on the last step.

— Now, you can go on. Tell us what you saw, Ntunzi.

— But can he hear anything? I think he can, isn’t that so, Silvestre Vitalício?

In a loud voice, my brother embellished every detail, and took me through his last visit. My father remained with his eyes closed, unresponsive.

— I spent a whole day in my past. One day in Jezoosalem.

That’s how Ntunzi began the account of his visit. He had ferreted around for signs of our stay in the encampment, looked for the secret notes that I had scribbled over the years and buried in the garden. He visited the ruined buildings, scratched the ground as if scraping his own skin, as if his memories were some lump hidden inside his body. And he rescued the pack of cards from the hiding place where I had buried it. That was the only testimony to our presence there.

He held the little pieces of card, and raised them up to the sky as one does with the newly born. Some of them were faded and illegible. Kings, knaves and queens had been dethroned by the worms of time.

— And after that, Ntunzi? What did you do, what happened afterwards?

My brother climbed up to look on top of the cupboard in our room and there was the old case where he had hidden his drawings. He shook the dust off them, so that he could see more clearly the dozens of sketches of our mother’s face. All of them were different, but they all had the same large eyes of someone who is in the world as if standing at a window: waiting for another life.

Ntunzi interrupted his story, and suddenly knelt down to look into my father’s face.

— What’s happened, Ntunzi? — I asked.

— It’s Father. .he’s crying. .

— No, he’s always like that. .it’s tiredness, that’s all.

— It looked to me as if he was crying.

My brother had lost contact with us and no longer knew how to read our old father’s face. I gathered up the cards and placed them in Ntunzi’s hands.

— Please, brother, read me the pack, remind me what I wrote.

There followed moments as thick as a river in full flow. My brother pretended to be deciphering tiny letters among the beards of kings and the tunics of queens. I knew he was inventing almost everything, but for years, neither of us had been able to distinguish the frontier between memory and lying. Sitting in his chair on the veranda and swaying his body as my old father used to do, Ntunzi interrupted his reading when he saw that I was completely still.

— Have you fallen asleep, Mwanito?

— Do you remember how I was cold and distant yesterday, when we met?

— I admit that I was taken aback. I’d chosen my smartest uniform. .

— The problem is that I suffer from the same illness as our father.

For the first time I confessed that which had been stifling my heart for ages: I had inherited my father’s madness. For long periods of time, I was assailed by selective blindness. My inner being was invaded by the desert, which turned our neighbourhood into a community peopled by absences.

— I have fits of blindness, Ntunzi. I suffer from Silvestre’s sickness.

I went to the drawer in the kitchen and pulled out my school folder, which I opened out before my brother’s astonished look.

— Look at these papers—I said, holding out a bundle of pages covered in handwriting.

I had written all this during my moments of darkness. Assaulted by fits of blindness, I ceased seeing the world. All I could see were letters, everything else was shadows.

— You are a shadow now.

— I’ve got a name that means shadow.

— Can you read the handwriting?

— Of course, this is your handwriting. Careful and neat, like it always was. . Wait a minute, are you saying you wrote all this without seeing?

— My blindness lifts only when I write.

Ntunzi chose a page at random and read out loud: “These are my last utterances, Silvestre Vitalício proclaimed. Pay attention, my sons, because no one will ever listen to my voice again. I myself am taking leave of my voice. I say this to you: you committed a grave mistake in bringing me to the city. I am in the process of dying because of that perfidious journey. The frontier between Jezoosalem and the city wasn’t based on distance. Fear and guilt were the only frontier. No government in the world is more oppressive than fear and guilt. Fear made me live, humble and withdrawn. Guilt caused me to flee myself, empty of memories. This is what Jezoosalem was: it wasn’t a place but a time of waiting for a God to be born. Only such a God would alleviate the punishment that I had imposed on myself. Yes, only now do I understand: my sons, my two sons, only they can bring me that sense of forgiveness.”

His voice faltered and he stopped reading. My brother crouched next to Silvestre and read the last sentence again “. .my sons, my two sons. .”

— Did you say that, Silvestre?

Faced with my father’s passivity, Ntunzi turned to me and asked, his voice trembling with emotion:

— Is this true, brother? Did Father say this?

— These pages contain all that is our life. And when is living, Ntunzi, for real?

I tidied the sheets and put them away in the folder. And I gave him my book as my final and only belonging.

— Here is Jezoosalem.

Ntunzi clutched the folder and went back into the house. I watched my brother disappear into the darkness, while the memories returned of a time when we would erase our tracks to protect our solitary refuge. And I recalled the half-light where I had deciphered my first letters. And I remembered the twinkling light of the stars over the river. And striking off the days on the blackened wall of time.

Suddenly, I felt an immense longing for Noci. Maybe I’ll go and look for her sooner than I thought. That woman’s tenderness was confirmation for me that my father was wrong: the world hadn’t died. In fact, the world hadn’t even been born. Who knows, I may learn, in the attuned silence of Noci’s arms, to find my mother walking across an endless wasteland before reaching the last tree.