Mia Couto - Confession of the Lioness

Have you spoken to Naftalinda? I ask.

It was she in fact who asked me to denounce this crime. And Hanifa, the maid, also came to me: She maintained that it was her husband, Genito Mpepe, who was in charge of the gang of rapists.

Do you trust what Hanifa says after that episode the other night?

Genito Mpepe himself confessed he was in the mvera leading those fiends.

My dream about the lions in the church springs to my mind. And I remember Father Amoroso’s strange prophecy: You haven’t come to hunt lions. You’ve come to kill a person!

* * *

Tandi’s funeral, so simple and poorly attended, worried me more than I could have imagined. I wasn’t allowed to attend the funerals of my mother and father. I wasn’t the right age. I don’t know whether there’s a right age to contemplate death. Tandi’s disappearance affected me as if some part of me had been torn away. I had held one of that woman’s bones in my hand. How can I sleep without being visited by ghosts?

The ceiling slowly gains density and I slip into a rare and mellow state of sleepiness. On that border between wakefulness and slumber, that’s when I see my sister-in-law enter my room, with the wariness of a shadow. I’m dreaming, and I don’t want to leave my dream. Luzilia emerges from the mist, Luzilia creeps through the house, Luzilia slips into my sleeping quarters. Beautiful, sweet-smelling, suggestive. She seizes the rifle and begins to dance with it. She caresses the weapon as if acquiring life from it. I sit there motionless, and follow her sinuous insinuations. The woman brushes the barrel of the rifle across her face as she stares at me, weighing me up with her eyes.

Be careful, it’s loaded! I warn her.

I know, that’s why I’m dancing with it.

All dances are like this one, dangerous, almost fatal , the nurse adds. We start off in the arms of life, and end up dancing with death.

Her lips kiss the trigger and then she sucks the barrel lasciviously. Her eyes remain fixed on mine. But I sit there, cold and distant. It’s well known: There’s a time to love and there’s a time to hunt. The two never mix. If I were to give in, I would be betraying an age-old tradition: When one is hunting, one cannot have sex.

Don’t you see, Archie? I’m the lame serpent …

Then I understand: The woman wanted to take possession of my soul. To my astonishment, Luzilia begins to take off her clothes, her body emerging leisurely and voluptuous. The light that bathes her gives her a moonlit air of unreality. She approaches, turns her back, and leans against me, impressing upon me her bodily curves. The ice turns to boiling water in my heart: I unravel, excited to the marrow, unable to speak, my fire quickened.

Have you nothing to say, my little Archangel? she asks.

What she asks is too hard a task. I am the hostage of temptation: When I try to speak, I lose my throat; when I try to touch her, my fingers fail me. Exactly as happened while hunting, in love too I am no longer in control of my body. All that I can utter is an inarticulate puff:

Say, me?

All at once she faces me. Her mouth, her teeth, her tongue, everything in her joins forces to extract my soul. And I almost die at long last, plunging into the abyss of sleep.

* * *

I awaken with a jolt and walk along the hall when the first shreds of light herald the new morning. I pass the writer, who announces point-blank:

A woman has just left here.

A woman? What woman?

I don’t know, I’ve never met her before. She arrived from Maputo, she’s come looking for you. She says her name is Luzilia.

Luzilia?

Impassive on the surface, a volcano within me: Here I am, caught by surprise like an ambushed animal. In my outward air I am serene, but within me I am running impetuously, an adolescent succumbing to temptation. And I can already feel Luzilia’s body next to mine, already am absorbed in her groans and her sighs. It isn’t just the fulfillment of a dream I am seeking, but the healing of a wound caused by rejection.

An hour later, Luzilia returns. She greets me with a kiss on the cheek that almost brushes my lips. She pats her face, scratched by the rough brush of my unshaven chin. I feel her breasts touching my chest, and we remain like that for a moment or two.

I knew you’d come.

Liar. I didn’t even know myself.

So how’s my brother?

It’s because of him that I’m here. Your brother … I don’t know how to tell you …

Has he died?

No, not yet.

Not yet?

Roland wants you to return to Maputo as quickly as you can. There are things he wants to tell you before he dies.

I need one more day. Then we can go back together.

Well, then, I’ll go back to Palma, as I’m in a guesthouse there. Meet me there tomorrow.

Don’t go just yet, Luzilia. I want to show you the river. Afterward, I’ll drive you back to Palma.

* * *

From the most prominent bank of the Lideia we contemplate the valley in absolute silence. Only after we have sat down on the granite rocks does the nurse get ready to talk:

There are things I have to tell you. First, about your mother, about her death.

I know what happened. She was ill.

Your mother died of kusungabanga.

Is that the name of an illness?

You could say that. An illness that kills all the others, those who aren’t ill.

At first I didn’t understand. But then Luzilia explained: In the language of Manica, the term kusungabanga means to close with a knife. Before migrating for work, there are men who sew up their wife’s vagina with needle and thread. Many women get infected. In the case of Martina Bullseye, her infection proved fatal.

Roland knew about it. That’s why he killed his father. It wasn’t an accident. He avenged his mother’s death.

* * *

My heart is flooded with anger: My brother had killed my father! And I repeat “my father” to myself as if he were more mine than Roland’s. My accusation gradually gives way to another feeling akin to envy.

Tell me, Luzilia: Can my brother sleep?

Roland sleeps, his wife confirms. How could I remain indifferent? My brother had managed the total exile that I had always coveted. I envied Roland for his madness and his slumber. I envied him for his wife, and the love given him that I never had.

I walk away from Luzilia, over to the cliff to get a better view of the valley. Ever since I arrived in Kulumani, the waters of the river have swollen. In the distant mountains where it rises, it must have begun to rain. The river never sleeps. In this, it’s like me …

Here by the river, I courted a girl …

I use the vague memory like a rapier, moved by the absurd wish to hurt Luzilia. And I continue:

There were two sisters, that’s right, but I can’t remember their names or their faces. I got as far as kissing one of them. But I don’t remember either of them. Maybe if I saw them again …

Men, men! A woman would never forget like that. I bet they remember you.

I admit that at the time I was drinking heavily and even resorted to the liquors they make around here.

So what had you come to do here, in the back of beyond?

I’d come to kill a dangerous crocodile.

And did you succeed?

Do you doubt my skill as a hunter?

You didn’t always catch what you wanted.

I pretend not to hear. I follow the example of feline creatures, who feign distraction before hurling themselves at their prey. I no longer know how to deal with Luzilia except as a hunter.