Chronicler Of The Winds (16 page)

But when he had crawled into the statue and rested his head on the left hind leg of the horse, he couldn't sleep, even though it was late. He started thinking back on the life he had lived in the past, before the bandits had come creeping out of the night and burned his village. He felt as if he were being drawn back in time by an invisible wind. Suddenly the horse's belly was filled with spirits scattering memories over him. He was overwhelmed by a great sorrow – so great that it was almost too heavy for his thin body to bear.

It's
dawn. The dry earth is whirling outside the hut. His mother is pounding corn. And she is singing. He wakes up on the reed mat in the darkness of the hut. The smell of burning wood blows in through the opening of the hut. The smell of burning wood, which every morning reminds him that he will live another day. When he goes out into the strong sunlight, he can see that it's all true. His mother, who is pounding the heavy stick against the corn, his newborn sister, who is hanging on her back . . .

Inside the horse Nelio stood up straight, with his head inside the rider's ribcage. The horse seemed to be alive. He thought that soon he would have to return home. He had to find out what had happened, who was still alive, and who was dead.

The spirits hovering around him had no faces. The whole time he was afraid that he would suddenly recognise the presence of his father or his mother or his sisters and brothers. They would be dead, and it would be even harder for him to go on living life as he did now, which was only surviving.

Nelio would remember the days that followed as the time when he never danced and never smiled. He couldn't hide his gloomy mood, and he saw no reason to try. He was often annoyed at being disturbed all the time – by Nascimento who was always on his way from one fight to the next, and by Tristeza who came each day and asked what he should think about and when he was going to be allowed to buy his trainers. Nelio would lose his temper, and afterwards he would feel even gloomier at the thought that he had done something that was foreign to Cosmos. Deolinda, noticing that Nelio wanted to be left alone, tried to protect him. She chased off the others when she could, and she always saw to it that Nelio had something to eat without having to climb around on the rubbish heaps himself to search for scraps.

Nelio often thought about Cosmos as he sat in the shade of his tree. He wondered whether he was still alive, whether he had drowned at sea, or whether he had come so close to the sun that he caught fire and burned up. He wondered whether Yabu Bata had found the path he had spent more than nineteen years searching for.

When his thoughts grew too burdensome, he would leave the street and set off on long, solitary wanderings. The others would send someone to follow him, to see that he didn't walk straight into the sea and disappear. Of course, Nelio noticed that someone was following him at a distance. Ordinarily he would have turned round and said that he wanted to be left alone. But he didn't have the energy to do that. He walked and walked, sometimes so far that he reached the place where he had spent the night on the eve of his first entrance into the city. Often he would come back after it was already dark.

It was Mandioca who suggested that they should try to cheer him up by giving him a dog. They often sat and talked anxiously about Nelio's remoteness and melancholy.

'He thinks too much,' Nascimento said. 'Cosmos never had so many thoughts. He's sick in the head. His brain has swollen up from all the walking and brooding that he's doing.'

'What he needs is a dog,' Mandioca said. 'If you have a dog, you don't have time to think.'

'What do you know about dogs?' Deolinda said.

'I had a dog once,' said Mandioca sadly.

'What happened to him?' asked Deolinda.

'He ran away,' replied Mandioca. 'I look for him every day. Maybe he's looking for me.'

'He died a long time ago,' Nascimento said angrily. 'Dogs die taster than people.'

It looked as though a fight would break out between Mandioca and Nascimento. But Pecado stepped between them and said that they should be worrying about Nelio instead of fighting.

After discussing the pros and cons of getting a dog for Nelio, they decided it was worth trying. The next day they captured a brown dog by the harbour. The dog bit Nascimento on the hand, but they succeeded in tying a leash around his neck and dragged him back in triumph. Nelio was sitting in the shade of his tree when they appeared with the dog.

'We want to give you a dog so you'll be in a better mood,' Pecado said. 'He doesn't have a name, and I'm afraid he'll have to be tamed. He bit Nascimento on the hand. But I'm sure he'll be good company.'

Nelio stared at the dog, which was alternately barking and whining. He thought about the dogs that the bandits had killed when they burned the village.

He took the leash that Alfredo Bomba was holding.

'I thank you for catching a dog for me. I accept, and I will call him Rico. A stray dog is even poorer than we are, but I can still give him a good name. I will keep him until tomorrow. Then I'll let him go. But he will still be my dog. Tomorrow I will also be in a better mood. Now go away and leave me in peace.'

That night the dog stood tied up outside the equestrian statue, barking. In the early dawn Nelio let him loose. He ran off at once, and Nelio never saw Rico again. That night, as he lay awake because of the dog's barking, he realised that he would have to do something about his bad mood. He couldn't continue to be the leader of the group if he was always impatient and angry. And yet he couldn't leave them because he had made a promise to Cosmos. And none of the others could take over the leadership.

The only one he could imagine doing it was Deolinda, but that would never work. An albino who was also a girl could never be the leader of a group of wild street kids.

The next day he called them together behind the petrol station.

'I've had a lot to think about lately. And it was hard because you are always making such a commotion, but from now on everything will be different. I won't sit alone in the shade of my tree so often.'

His words had the effect he had hoped for. He could see that they were relieved. To further emphasise that he was back to normal, he told them that they should all work extra hard and not take any unnecessary siestas. Tristeza would be allowed to use the money they earned to go to the shoe shop and choose a pair of trainers. And from now on Deolinda would get the same share as everybody else. And they would also buy her a new dress.

'That we go around in rags is one thing,' Nelio said. 'But Deolinda is a girl. She should be properly dressed. But you have to wash well before you put on the new dress. And keep the old one. That's what you can wear when you climb around the rubbish heaps looking for food.'

A few days later Tristeza, his head held high, went into a shoe shop, and when he came out he was wearing a pair of white trainers. The same afternoon they bought Deolinda a new dress that was red with white trim around the sleeves.

'I thought all gloomy thoughts could be chased away,' Nelio said at last, as dawn drew near on the morning of the eighth day. 'But I was wrong. Because several days later something happened that made Deolinda disappear and never come back. And Alfredo Bomba started acting strangely.'

Nelio fell silent, as if he had said too much.

'Alfredo Bomba,' I said, trying to coax him to continue.

Nelio looked at me for a long rime before he spoke again. With the red glow of the morning on his forehead, I could see that he was sweating. He was slipping once more into a fever.

And then, just as I was starting to fear that he was asleep, he began speaking again.

Alfredo Bomba started acting strangely. And then everything else happened, ending with you finding me and carrying me up here to the roof

Then I knew that we had come to the end of the story. Now I was going to find out what had happened on that night down in the empty theatre. Maybe I would only have to wait one more night before I had the answers to the questions I had been pondering.

Nelio lay there with his eyes shut. I had put a cup of water next to the mattress. I got up carefully to go down to the yard and wash. I also had to wash my clothes, which were starting to smell bad.

Then Nelio began to speak again, without opening his eyes.

'It's not easy to die,' he said. 'It's the only thing that no one can teach us.'

He said nothing more. As I went down the winding stairs, I felt frightened. I could no longer push the thought aside; I could no longer fool myself with false hopes.

Nelio was going to die on the roof. He had known it all along.

I sat down in the dark of the stairs and wept. I don't cry very often. I couldn't even remember the last time it had happened. I am a man who laughs. But on that morning I sat in the dark stairway and cried, and I thought that it was all too late, and that a ten-year-old boy who is an old man is still only a child.

A child should live, not die.

I borrowed money from one of the girls at the bakery counter and then went over to one of the city's
barraccas
and drank
tontonto.
It didn't take long before I was quite drunk, and I fell asleep on the ground.

When I woke up many hours later someone had stolen my shoes, and I had to walk barefoot back to the bakery.

I remember that the day was very hot. The sea was dead calm.

I stood at the pump in the backyard for a long time, washing myself.

When Maria came walking towards the bakery I was out on the street waiting for her. I couldn't get enough of her smile. But all my thoughts were with Nelio, who was lying up there on the roof. No one had taught him how to act when he was about to die.

Is there any greater loneliness? When a person realises that he has to die and there's no one to teach him how to do it?

I thought about that great loneliness, and the feelings I had then have never since left me in peace.

At midnight I followed Maria out to the street again. When she had taken a few steps, she turned and waved.

Then I went back up to the roof.

It was the eighth night.

When I went up to the roof and looked at Nelio, he was already dead.

I stood there motionless, and something hard clamped around my heart.

What I thought at that moment, I no longer remember. But I think it's true that when another person dies, the life you have inside you defends itself by mobilising all its forces to keep mortality at bay.

In the presence of death, life always becomes very clear.

But what I was thinking I can no longer recall.

Then I saw that I was mistaken. He wasn't dead; he was still alive. Or if he had died for a brief moment, then he returned to life because I had called him. I had whispered his name: Nelio. And suddenly he moved, quite feebly, but there was a definite movement on the mattress. I knelt down beside him and put my face close to his mouth; I could feel that he was still breathing.

But was he still there or was he about to leave? I must have been seized by panic because I started tugging and shaking him and calling out his name. If sleep and unconsciousness are the only experiences we have that teach us something about what death is, then he had already sunk very deep. I was shaking a body that felt already far away. Since he weighed so little, it was like shaking a bunch of feathers or an empty shell from which the spirit had departed.

At last he came back to life, though reluctantly, and opened his eyes. He was very tired and also seemed lost and confused. I wasn't sure that he recognised me, and it was a long time before he seemed to be calm again. I gave him some water with Senhora Muwulene's herbs to drink.

'I dreamed that I was dead,' Nelio said. 'When I tried to make my way back up to the surface, something was holding on to my legs. Then I managed to kick myself free. But I only did it because I wasn't finished with my story.'

I changed his bandage. His whole chest was now inflamed. The dark edges of the infection had spread far down towards his groin and up to his shoulders. The stench was almost unbearable. I thought my efforts were pointless – the bullets were spreading their poison through his body more and more rapidly, and his resistance had finally succumbed.

'I have to take you to the hospital,' I said.

'I'm not finished with my story yet,' he replied.

I said nothing more. I knew that he would never let me take him to the hospital. He would stay on the roof until he died.

Nobody had any money to lend me. That month, like so many others, Dona Esmeralda was late in paying us our wages. To give Nelio something to eat I had boiled some eggs from the bakery and mashed them up in a cup. I had to feed it to him, and he ate very slowly. Afterwards I rearranged the blanket under his head. The night was muggy, without a breath of wind. Nelio looked up and gazed at the clear night sky with the glittering stars.

Suddenly he said,
'Opixa murima orèra. Mweri wahòkhwa ori mutokwène, etheneri ehala yàraka.'

I was surprised by his words. I remembered that I had once heard an old woman in my village say the same thing:
'The moon disappears after growing big, the stars continue to shine even though they are small.'

I looked up at the sky. 'The moon will come back,' I said.

'The stars have no memory,' Nelio said. 'For them, the moon is every night a stranger coming to visit and then leaving again. Among the stars, the moon is an eternal stranger.'

The dogs were barking restlessly on that sultry night. Drums could be heard in the distance from the other side of the estuary. Fires blazed, and I thought I could see small, dwarf-like shadows moving to the rhythmic pounding of the drums.

Nelio thought that Deolinda had come to stay, but he was mistaken. Since he slept in his statue at night, he wasn't at first aware of what was going on. It wasn't until Mandioca came and sat down next to him in the shade of his tree one day that he realised that everything was not as it should be. Mandioca was hesitant and embarrassed. He sat there twisting an onion between his fingers. It was unusual for Mandioca to seek out his company alone, so Nelio understood that Mandioca must have something important weighing on his mind.

'What is it you want?' Nelio asked after waiting a suitable amount of time in silence.

'Nothing,' replied Mandioca.

More time would have to pass before Mandioca felt ready to start talking.

'The shadow is still long,' Nelio said. 'I'll stay here until it's gone. Before then you must tell me what you want.'

Mandioca dug into his pockets where his plants grew. He folded back his pockets so the sun could shine on the leaves. Earlier, to his astonishment, Nelio had seen that plants really could grow in Mandioca's pockets. It was as if Mandioca himself were a plant, a sapling whose arms were like spindly branches without leaves.

'Something isn't right,' Mandioca said at last, when the shadow had already begun to narrow.

'What you said just now doesn't mean anything,' Nelio said. 'Speak clearly if you want to talk to me. Stop mumbling.'

'It's Nascimento,' said Mandioca.

Nelio thought that Mandioca seemed to be in a wrestling match with his words.

'What about Nascimento?'

Silence again. Nelio sighed and continued to watch the shadow as it narrowed. A lizard darted between his feet and disappeared into a crevice between the cobblestones.

'What about Nascimento?' he repeated.

After the long, drawn-out preliminaries to the conversation, Mandioca's reply came surprisingly fast.

'Nascimento wants to do
xogo-xogo
with the
xidjana,
' he said. 'But I don't think the
xidjana
wants to.'

Nelio considered what he had heard for a moment before he asked his next question.

'Did he say that?'

'He already tried it.'

'What happened?'

'The
xidjana
didn't want to.'

'Don't call her
xidjana.
We said we would use her real name.'

'Deolinda didn't want to.'

'When was this?'

'Last night.'

'What happened?'

'Nascimento thought everybody was asleep. But I was awake. Nascimento pulled off the
xidjana
's blanket.'

'Her name is Deolinda.'

'Nascimento pulled off Deolinda's blanket.'

'Then what happened?'

'He pulled up her dress to see what she looked like underneath.'

'Did he see anything? Doesn't Deolinda wear anything underneath?'

'I don't know. She woke up.'

'Then what happened?'

'Nascimento wanted her to pull up her dress and show him what she looked like.'

'Did she do it?'

'She got mad and lay down to sleep again.'

'What did Nascimento say?'

'He said that the next night they would do
xogo-xogo,
whether she wanted to or not. Otherwise Nascimento would beat her.'

And the next night is the night that's now on its way?'

Mandioca nodded. The long conversation had taxed his strength. Nelio moved further into the shadow, which was now quite narrow, and thought about what he had heard.

'If Deolinda doesn't want to do
xogo-xogo
with Nascimento, she'll know how to stop it from happening. She threw him to the ground once before.'

Nelio considered the conversation to be over. But Mandioca didn't move.

'Is there something else?'

'Nascimento might not know that it's dangerous to do
xogo-xogo
with an albino.'

'Why should it be dangerous?'

'Everyone knows that you get stuck.'

'Stuck?'

'Nascimento is going to get stuck. He'll never be able to get out again. It's going to look very strange.'

'That's just a story. It's not really true.'

'Deolinda might not know that.'

Nelio realised that Mandioca's real worry was whether Nascimento would get stuck or not.

'Nothing's going to happen,' Nelio said. 'Now the shadow is gone. We don't need to talk about this any more.'

But that night as Nelio lay sleeping in the horse's belly, he was jolted awake from disturbing dreams. He had seen Deolinda's face before him – it was contorted with terror or rage, and she had talked to him, but he couldn't understand what she said. Filled with foreboding, he pulled on his trousers and crept out through the hatch. Then he ran as fast as he could through the city. But when he reached the stairs where the group lay tangled up among cardboard boxes and blankets, Deolinda was gone.

Mandioca was awake.

'Where's Deolinda?' Nelio asked in a low voice so as not to wake up the others.

'She's gone.'

'I dreamed about her. What happened?'

'Nascimento did
xogo-xogo
with her. Even though she didn't want to. But he didn't get stuck.'

Nelio felt his fury rise. 'Where's Nascimento?'

'He's sleeping in his box.'

Nelio kicked at the cardboard box where Nascimento spent his nights in a ceaseless battle with his monsters. He lifted the lid and told Nascimento to come out. Gradually the others began to wake up too. As Nascimento clambered out of his box, Nelio saw that his face was scratched. This made him so angry that he was about to lose control. The marks on Nascimento's face were Deolinda's attempt to defend herself. Nelio yanked at Nascimento's shirt and pulled him clear of the box. The others sat around nervously. They had never seen Nelio so angry before.

'Where's Deolinda?' Nelio said with a quavering voice.

'I don't know,' replied Nascimento. 'I was asleep.'

'But not before you did
xogo-xogo
with her!' Nelio screamed. And she didn't want to. I wasn't here. But she came to me in my dreams and told me what happened.'

'She wanted to do it,' Nascimento said.

'Then why did she scratch up your face? You're lying, Nascimento.'

Nelio let him go and began tearing the blankets off the others, who cowered before his fury.

'Nobody is going to sleep any more tonight]' he shrieked. 'Go out and look for her. Don't come back until you've found her. She's one of us. Nascimento has done something very bad to her. Did anybody see which way she went?'

Picado pointed towards the harbour.

'Get going!' Nelio shouted. 'Go and find her. But not you, Nascimento. You stay here and guard the others' blankets. Get back in your box, and don't come out unless I say so. The rest of you get moving! Don't come back without her!'

They searched all night for Deolinda. They kept on looking for her the next day, but she was gone. They asked other boys who lived on the streets whether they had seen her, but she had vanished without trace.

After four days Nelio realised that it wasn't worth it any longer. There was great unrest in the group, and he decided to call off the search. During all this time Nascimento was confined to his box behind the petrol station as if it were a jail. Nelio had worried about how to punish Nascimento for his attack. But it had been in vain. He couldn't decide what to do. Finally he gave up. He gathered them together and said that they would no longer search for Deolinda.

'She's run off, and she probably won't come back. We don't know where she is. When you don't know where to search any more, you have to give up. She left because Nascimento did something to her that he shouldn't have done. What we should really do is beat him every day for weeks on end and keep him locked up in his box for a whole year. But I don't think it was Nascimento who did the thing that made Deolinda leave. I think it was the monsters inside Nascimento's head that did it. That's why we're not going to beat him. And he doesn't have to stay in his box either. But what happened wasn't right.'

Nelio looked around. He wondered whether they understood what he was trying to say. The only one who seemed pleased was Nascimento. Nelio thought that the next time anyone attacked Nascimento, he wouldn't intervene. Nascimento did have monsters inside his head, but not everything could be blamed on them.

Secretly Nelio continued to search for Deolinda. He missed her, and he worried about what she might have done to herself. Sometimes he thought that she was right next to him, walking at his side with her woven bag slung over her shoulder. Nelio knew that an albino could be alive and dead at the same time. Maybe she had chosen to leave this world and move on to the next world where no one could see her, but where she could see everything she wanted to see.

One day Nascimento stumbled and fell to the ground, opening a big gash in his forehead. Afterwards Nelio went over and examined the spot where he fell. There was nothing there that could have made Nascimento stumble. The explanation had to be that Deolinda had stuck out her invisible leg.

She was somewhere close by. But she would not be coming back.

During that time Nelio spent long hours in the shade of his tree, studying the tattered atlas of the world that Tristeza had found in a rubbish bin and given to him as a present. The Indian photographer Abu Cassamo, whose dimly lit shop was next door to the theatre and the bakery, had told him the names of the various oceans and countries. He told Nelio what the big mountain ranges looked like, where the deserts were, and where the kilometre-high ice sheets reigned. Abu Cassamo, in whose shop there were hardly ever any customers, had a melancholy face, and he never spoke to anyone unless spoken to first. He was exceedingly polite and bowed even to Nelio when he came to the shop and stepped inside the murky room where the photograph lamps were turned off, the cameras were covered with black cloths, and the smell of curry was overwhelming. Through Abu Cassamo, who talked in a low and lilting voice, the world was explained to Nelio.

Nelio leafed through the stained pages of the atlas, thinking that he was living in an evil world. Where were people supposed to get enough strength and joy to endure? He was living in a world where bandits burned villages, where people were constantly fleeing, where the roads were lined with all the dead and all the bombed and burned wrecks of cars and buses and carts. He was living in a world where the dead were not allowed to be dead. They were chased out of their graves or out of their trees; they were in flight just like those who were still alive. And the living – they were so poor that they were forced to send their children to live on the streets like rats. But even the rats were better off, because at least they had their fur coats when the nights were cold.