Читать книгу Sea Loves Me - Mia Couto - Страница 22

Our passions are kindled when the fuse to our heart is lit. Our most lasting love is rain, between the cloud’s flight and the prison of a puddle. We are, after all, hunters who spear ourselves. And the well-aimed throw always carries with it a trace of the thrower.

Little, if anything, was known about her. Ever since she was a little girl, folk had known her as the hunchback cripple. We called her Rosa Caramela. She was one of those people who are given another name. The one she had, her natural name, didn’t suit her. Re-baptized, she seemed to fit better into the world. Nor were we willing to accept other permutations. She was Rosa. Subtitle: Caramela. And we would laugh.

The hunchback was a mixture of all the races, her body crossed many a continent. Scarcely had she been delivered into life than her family withdrew. Ever since then, her dwelling was barely visible to the naked eye. It was a hovel made of haphazard stones, without measurement or care. Its wood had never been turned into planks: tree trunk, pure matter, was what remained. Lacking both bed and table, the hunchback didn’t attend to herself. Did she ever eat? Nobody ever saw her with any victuals.

Even her eyes were ill-fed, having that scrawny look that conveyed hope of being gazed upon one day and the self-contained weariness of one who had once dreamed.

She had a pretty face, in spite of it all. Detached from her body, she might even have kindled desires. But if you stood back and glimpsed all of her, then her prettiness was cancelled out. We used to see her wandering along the sidewalk, her steps so short that her feet scarcely crossed each other. She found her diversion in the public gardens: she would talk to the statues. Of all her illnesses this was the worst. Anything else she did involved secret and silent matters, no one paid any attention at all. But talking to statues, no, nobody could accept such a thing. For the spirit she invested in her conversations was enough to give you a fright. Was she trying to heal the scars of the stones? She consoled each statue with a mother’s inclination.

—There now, let me clean you. I’m going to take this dirt of theirs off you.

And she would wipe their limbs, frozen in stone, with a filthy cloth. Then she would go on her way, fleetingly visible when passing through the circle of light of a street lamp.

By day, we forgot she existed. But at night, the moonlight would remind us of her crooked outline. The moon seemed to stick to the hunchback, like a coin to a miser’s pocket. And she, in front of the statues, would sing in a hoarse, inhuman voice: she would entreat them to emerge from their stony abode. She dreamed wide awake.

On Sundays, she retired, and was nowhere to be seen. The old woman would disappear, jealous of those who filled the gardens, disturbing the peace of her territory.

Nor did anyone ever try to explain Rosa Caramela’s behaviour. The only reason that was ever given was the following: once upon a time Rosa had been left stranded at the entrance to the church, a bunch of flowers in her hand. Her fiancé, whoever that might have been, was late. He was so late that he never turned up. He had warned her: I don’t want any fuss. It’ll be just the two of us. Witnesses? God alone, if he’s not too busy. And Rosa pleaded:

—But what about my dream?

She had dreamed of a reception all her life. A dream of glitter, a cortège, and guests. A moment that was to be hers alone, she a queen, pretty enough to inspire envious thoughts. A long white dress and the veil straightening her back. Outside, the hooting of a thousand cars. And now, there was her sweetheart depriving her of her fantasy. She brushed her tears aside with the back of her hand—what other use did it have? She complied. Let it be as he wanted.

The hour came, the hour went. He didn’t come, much less arrive. The bystanders wandered off, taking their snickering and mockery with them. She waited and waited. Nobody had ever waited so long as she. Only she, Rosa Caramela. She sat there with only the step to comfort her, a stone suffering the weight of her disenchantment with the world.

A story people tell. Does it contain the sap of truth? What seems likely is that there was no sweetheart. She had extracted it all from her imagination. She had invented herself a wife-to-be, Rosita beloved, Rosa wedded. But while nothing happened, the outcome still pained her greatly. She was crippled in her reason. In order to cure her ideas, they put her away. They took her to a hospital and abandoned her there. Rosa never got visitors, nor did she receive any medicine from any quarter. She adjusted to her own company, dispeopled. She became a sister to the stones, so often did she lean against them. Walls, floor, ceiling: only stone gave her any size. Rosa landed, with the flightiness of those in love, upon the cold floor tiles. Stone was her twin.

When she was discharged, the hunchback set off in search of her mineral soul. It was then that she fell in love with statues, solitary and sure of themselves. She dressed them with tenderness and respect. She brought them drink, came to their assistance on rainy days, or when it was cold. Her favourite statue was the one in the little garden in front of our house. It was a monument to some colonial figure whose name was no longer legible. Rosa whiled away many an hour contemplating that bust. An unrequited love: the statued man remained ever distant, never deigning to give the hunchback any attention.

From our veranda we could watch her, we, under the tin roof, in our wooden house. Above all, it was my father who would watch her. A silence would descend upon him. Was it the hunchback’s madness that caused our good sense to fly away? My uncle would joke, in order to save us from our state:

—She’s like the scorpion that carries its poison in its back.

We shared our laughter among ourselves. Everybody, that is, except my father. He remained intact, solemn.

—No one can understand the degree of her tiredness, you see. Always lugging her back around on her back.

My father concerned himself a lot with other people’s tiredness. He himself couldn’t be bothered with matters of fatigue. He would sit there and make use of life’s many tranquilities. My uncle, a man of diverse resources, would advise him:

—Brother Juca, find yourself a way of making a living.

My father didn’t bother to reply. He even seemed to become more firmly ensconced, an accomplice of his old chair. Our uncle was right: he needed a salaried occupation. His only initiative was to hire out his own shoes. On Sunday, his team’s supporters would pass by on their way to the soccer.

—Juca, we’ve come because of the shoes.

He nodded ever so slowly.

—You know the contract: take them and then, when you come back, tell me what the game was like.

And he would bend to take his shoes from under the chair. He would stoop with such effort that it was as if he were picking up the floor itself. He would lift the shoes and look at them in feigned farewell:

—This is hard for me.

It was only because of the doctor that he stayed behind. He had been forbidden excesses of the heart, rushes of blood.

—My lousy heart.

He thumped his chest to punish the organ. Then he addressed his shoes once more:

—Look you here, my little shoes: make sure you come home on time.

And he took his payment in advance. He sat with a set expression counting the notes. It was as if he were reading a fat book, of the type that like fingers more than they do eyes.

My mother: she was the one who stepped out into life. She would leave very early on her business. She would arrive at the market when the morning was still small. The world re-emerged through the sun’s first rays. Among the piles of cabbages, her face could be seen, fat with sad silences. There she would sit, she and her body. In the struggle for life, Ma escaped us. She arrived home and left in the dark. At night, we would listen to her complaining to Father about his idleness.

—Juca, do you think about life?

—Indeed I do, a lot even.

—Sitting down?

My father spared himself in his replies. She, and she alone, lamented:

—Me all alone, on the job, here at home and out there.

Gradually, their voices would fade away down the hall. From my mother there were still some sighs to come, as her hopes swooned. But we didn’t put the blame on our father. He was a good man. So good he was never right.

And so life went on in our little neighbourhood. Until, one day, we got the news: Rosa Caramela had been arrested. Her only crime: venerating a colonialist. The militia chief explained the sentence: yearning for the past. The hunchback’s madness concealed other, political motives. That was the commander’s judgment. If it were not so, what other reason would she have to oppose, with bodily violence, the statue’s demolition? Yes indeed, because the monument was a foot from the past dragging the present along behind it. It was a matter of priority that the statue should be circumcised, for the nation’s honour.

Consequently, old Rosa was taken away, to cure her of her alleged mentality. Only then, in her absence, did we realize how much she contributed to the making of our landscape.

For a long time we heard no news of her. Until one afternoon our uncle tore open the silence. He had come from the cemetery, from Nurse Jawane’s funeral. He climbed the little steps up to the veranda and interrupted my father’s repose. Scratching his legs, my old man blinked hard, sizing up the light.

—So, have you brought my shoes?

My uncle didn’t answer straightaway. He was busy helping himself to some shade, curing his sweat. He blew on his lips, tired. On his face, I noticed the relief of someone who has just returned from a funeral.

—Here they are, good as new. You know, Juca, these black shoes were really useful!

He fumbled in his pockets, but the money, always quicker to enter, was reluctant to come out. My father stopped him:

—I didn’t hire them out to you. We’re of the same family, our shoes are related.

My uncle sat down. He pulled over the bottle of beer and filled a large glass. Then, with the skill of knowledge, he took a wooden spoon and removed the froth to another glass. My father drank the froth from the glass. Forbidden liquids, the old man only indulged in fizz.

—It’s light, this froth. The heart doesn’t even notice it go by.

He consoled himself, his eyes looking straight ahead as if he were extending his thought. That self-absorption was nothing but a pretense.

—Was the funeral full?

While he unlaced the shoes, my uncle described the flood, crowds trampling on the flower beds, all there to bid farewell to the nurse, poor man, who had also died by his own hand.

—But did he really kill himself?

—Yes, the fellow strung himself up. By the time they found him he was already stiff, he looked like a lump of starch on the end of a rope.

—But why did he kill himself?

—How should I know? They say it was because of women.

They fell silent, the two of them, sipping at their drink. What pained them most was not the fact but the motive.

—To die like that? It’s better to pass away.

My old man took the shoes and examined them suspiciously:

—Is this earth from there?

—What, that there?

—I’m asking you if it’s from the cemetery.

—Maybe.

—Then go and clean it, over there. I don’t want the dust of the dead hereabouts.

My uncle went and sat on the bottom step, brushing the soles. Meanwhile, he continued to talk. The ceremony was going on, the priest was saying the prayers, reviving their souls. Suddenly, what happened? Along came Rosa Caramela, all dressed in mourning.

—Has Rosa come out of prison? my father asked, astonished.

Yes, she’d come out. During an inspection tour of the jail, they’d given her an amnesty. She was mad, she’d committed no more serious crime than that. My father insisted, surprised:

—But she, at the cemetery?

My uncle went on with his account. Rosa, all in black from her back down. Like a raven, Juca. She came in like a gravedigger, glancing at each tomb. She seemed to be choosing her hole. You know, Juca, in the cemetery no one lingers when visiting graves. We pass by in a hurry. Only that hunchback, the old girl …

—Tell me the rest, my father cut in.

The story went on: Rosa right there, in the middle of everybody, began to sing. The bystanders stared at her in educated astonishment. The priest kept up his prayer, but people were no longer paying any attention. It was then that the cripple began to undress.

—You’re lying, brother.

Cross my heart, Juca, may I be had by two thousand knives. She undressed. She began taking off her bits of cloth, at greater leisure than today’s heat. Nobody laughed, nobody coughed, nobody did anything at all. When she was naked, de-clothed, she came over to Jawane’s grave. She raised her arms and threw her clothes onto his tomb. The sight scared the crowd, which retreated a few steps. Then Rosa prayed:

—Take these clothes, Jawane, you’ll need them. For you’re going to be stone, like the rest of them.

Eyeing those present, she raised her voice, she seemed larger than a mere creature:

—And now: am I allowed to fancy him?

The onlookers fell back, you could hear the dust speak.

—What was that? I can fancy this dead man! He no longer belongs to time. Or am I forbidden him too?

My father left his chair, he seemed almost offended.

—Rosa spoke like that?

—It’s the truth.

And my uncle, by this time in the spirit of the thing, imitated the hunchback, her twisted body: and this one, can I love him? But my old man didn’t want to listen.

—Shut up, I don’t want to hear any more.

Suddenly, he hurled the glass through the air. He wanted to get rid of the froth but, in a mistaken lapse, he let go of the whole glass. As if in apology, my uncle went and picked up the pieces of glass, scattered on their backs all over the garden.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I went and sat my restlessness down in the garden in front of the house. I looked at the statue, it was off its pedestal. The colonialist was lying with his whiskers next to the ground, it was as if he had climbed down himself, burdened by fatigue. They had uprooted the monument but forgotten to take it away, the job needed finishing. I felt almost sorry for Beardy, all soiled from the pigeons, covered in dust. I stoked myself up, and came to my senses: am I like Rosa, placing feelings in lumps of stone? That was when I saw Caramela herself, as if summoned by my ruminations. I sat frozen, stock-still. I wanted to run away, but my legs dissented. I shuddered: was I turning into a statue, becoming the subject of the cripple’s passion? What a horrible thought, my mouth might escape me forever. But no. Rosa didn’t stop in the garden. She crossed the road and reached the steps up to our house. She stooped and cleaned the moonlight away from them. She put her belongings down in a whisper. Then, tortoise-like, she withdrew into herself, perhaps getting ready to sleep. Or maybe sadness was her only intention. For I heard her weep, in a murmur of dark waters.

The hunchback was shedding herself, as if it were her turn to become a statue. I wandered endlessly in such thought.

Then it happened. My father, in painstaking silence, opened the door to the veranda. Slowly, he approached the hunchback. For a few seconds, he leaned over the woman. Then, moving his hand as if he were dreaming his gesture, he touched her hair. Rosa didn’t react at first. But soon she began to emerge from herself, her face in the fullness of light. They looked at each other, both of them gaining beauty. Then he whispered:

—Don’t cry, Rosa.

I could hardly hear, my heart thumped in my ears. I drew nearer, ever concealed behind the darkness. My father was still speaking to her, in a voice I had never heard before.

—It’s me, Rosa. Don’t you remember?

I was in the middle of the bougainvillaea, its thorns were tearing me. I didn’t even feel them. Fear pricked me more than the branches. My father’s hands sank into the hunchback’s hair, they were like people, those hands, like people drowning.

—It’s me, Juca. Your sweetheart, don’t you remember?

Gradually, Rosa Caramela emerged from cover. Never had she existed so much, never had a statue merited such eyes. Softening his voice still more, my father called her:

—Let’s go, Rosa.

Without wanting to, I had left the bougainvillaea. They could see me, I placed no obstacle between us. The moon even seemed to sharpen its shine when the hunchback got up.

—Let’s go, Rosa. Pick up your things and let’s go.

And off they went, the two of them, deep into the night.