Читать книгу Sea Loves Me - Mia Couto - Страница 19

It was night, the last but one, and Patanhoca was still in his house. He lay on his mat ordering his thoughts: It’s true. I killed those two little children, but I didn’t mean to. That night, drink confused my hands. I swapped the medicines round. But that Chinawoman got her own back on me.

And he closed his eyes as if that crippling memory hurt him, she giving vent to her furies upon his head, smashing the bottle, cramming his flesh with glass. Blood and beer flowed in one and the same froth, her screams passed out on the ground where he was made night. Everybody thought he had died. Even she did, she who had left him, his wounds and his glass, to the night mist. She moved to a suburb of the city and opened her business.

He had crawled through the darkness, hands and voices protecting his thread of life and leading him along paths that he alone knew. He tried to forget the Chinawoman but he couldn’t. He launched the boat of his life in other waters: the same current took hold of it.

He decided to move to her area, he trapped himself as if the hunter of his own destiny. He found her and saw that he had not yet been replaced. Mississe showed her suitors the street, even those who were rich and powerful. Could it be that she was waiting for him?

Fear and shame inhibited him from revealing himself. He appeared through his snakes, sent to dispel the threat of thieves. Whether she took her time to understand, Patanhoca never found out. She did not display any change, but continued, a widow without expectations. Did her calmness belie her?

Such were the questions the snake catcher of Muchatazina, João Patanhoca, pondered on as he laid his tiredness to rest. He fell asleep awaiting the counsel of dreams. He listened with attention to his visions. They told him the following: she had repented, forgiven him. He would be taken back, once again João, once again a name and a face. Once again loved.