Henning Mankell - Chronicler Of The Winds

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.'