Mia Couto - Confession of the Lioness

Soon, I think, he’ll burst into tears. On a sudden maternal impulse, I sit down next to him, but then I remain motionless, as befits someone of my status.

Give me your hand , Florindo says.

Clumsy and confused, I stretch out my arm and half open my fingers. I stay like that for a while without him reacting to my gesture.

Do you know why you’re here?

I lie, shaking my head timidly. A sour smell pervades the air around me. Florindo Makwala takes my hand and leads me across the room just as a married couple of many years’ standing might do as they retire to their sleeping quarters. He leads me down a long dark corridor and, near the door at the end, places his head next to mine. I avoid him abruptly, but he persists and then whispers in my ear:

There’s a problem with my wife, Naftalinda.

At last, he explains himself. The reason for my presence there is, after all, far removed from what I had suspected. In fact, the root of Florindo’s despair lies elsewhere. His wife had offered herself as bait for the lions. Her husband had tried to dissuade her. In vain. The First Lady insisted that she would go and sleep naked, in the open air, night after night, until the lions were attracted and came and devoured her. This was her stated intention. Unless he, Florindo, behaved like a real man and assumed a firm position over the Tandi affair and so many other issues.

My wife, my one and only wife …

Naftalinda would neither look nor listen. The administrator was in a panic. It was crucial that Naftalinda should be distracted from her suicidal intention. The First Lady would only listen to someone like me, someone who lived in the same type of solitude, who spoke the same type of language.

Are you sure I’m the right person, sir? At home everyone says I’m not even a person …

The administrator is more than convinced. Naftalinda and I had much in common: We’d been born in the same year, we’d both studied at the mission, we were both condemned not to have children, destined never to be women.

Go into that room and speak to her. But there’s one thing: Never address her by her old name. She doesn’t like it now …

In Kulumani, we gain names depending on the time and how old we are. Oceanita was Naftalinda’s first name, when she was just an infant, because of the volume of her tears. When she cried it was like the tide coming in. Each tear was a watery egg that fell on the ground with a loud splash.

The girl became a teenager and her body expanded in volume. Concerned, the family delivered her into the care of Father Amoroso: For so big a body, she would need many souls. We both met at the mission. My reason for being there was to cure my paralysis. Hers was to get lighter. I walked again. But she never shed any weight. In spite of a change in name, the girl remained fat. When we said goodbye to each other at the entrance to the mission, I noticed for the first time a bitterness in her look and a harshness in her voice:

Never call me Oceanita again. I’m Naftalinda now.

She was sent to the city and I heard no more about her until a few days ago, when she returned to Kulumani accompanying her husband and my hunter of lions. Ever since then, I hadn’t seen her again unless it was from afar, when she made her triumphal incursion into the menfolk’s shitala. As far as I was concerned, she was still Oceanita. But for all the others, she didn’t need a name at all. She was merely a wife, a very special wife. She was the First Lady in a village without any ladies.

* * *

Now all the chief’s voluminous spouse wants to do is die. It strikes me that her desire for suicide actually stems from a purely generous sentiment. She is so fleshy that the animals would feel sated and leave the village in peace for many a moon. Or who knows, maybe the hunters would take advantage of the moment to mount an ambush against the execrable beasts…?

The administrator opens the door with painstaking care and signals me to go in alone. I advance through the half-light, guided by the noise of heavy breathing. It’s as if her exhaled breaths collapse, exhausted, from her ample chest, like injured birds plummeting from high cliffs.

Step by step, I identify shadows until at last I detect the First Lady’s presence. She’s seated like Buddha, in a big old chair, her fingers submerged in two glasses of vinegar.

It’s to soften my nails , she announces, without greeting me.

Her screeching voice is like a nail scraping glass. She doesn’t notice me quiver. Her gaze is concentrated on her own hands.

I adore my nails , she states, blowing on her fingers. And she adds: They’re the only thin part of my body.

The whiff of vinegar adds flavor to an irrational fear that has assailed me ever since I entered the house. It’s a trap, I think with a shudder. It’s not the lion she wants to capture, but me. The inquisitorial gaze of my hostess comes to rest on me at last.

I’ve already forgiven you, my friend.

She is now confessing, so many years later: She’d always been envious of me, of my slim figure, my almond eyes. Her envy tormented her all the more every time I climbed up on the boys’ backs and they ran off with me, falling to the ground with me as if we were one body, and laughing with me in one single whoop.

How I hated you, Mariamar! I prayed so often to God that he might take you away.

I was now more used to the light, and I contemplated her as thoroughly as a dockworker might inspect a cargo on the quay. My gaze probes her like a blind man. I stare at Oceanita without ever actually seeing her. Her invisible elbows, her moon-shaped dimples, her folds and tucks: The girl is a whole plantation of flesh. Then I realize: She finds my scrutiny irritating. When she tries to get up, she’s like a star uncoupling from the universe.

I’ll help you , I am quick to offer.

There’s no need. She brushes me away energetically.

But then she falls back, as if her legs were failing her. And she uses me to support herself, like a ship nudging against the quay. She seems to get pleasure from this lingering touch. I maneuver her away with great care, and take a couple of steps back to contemplate her again. When some days before I glimpsed her from afar, I wasn’t aware of her size. Now I realize: Naftalinda is so fat that even when she’s standing, she’s still lying down.

All of a sudden the woman lifts up her skirt, exhibiting her forbidden parts, and I quickly look away. But the First Lady stands there without moving, like a statue, exposing herself without any shame.

Take a good look at me! Don’t be afraid to look, we’re both women. How can a man desire me? How can I seduce Florindo, tell me?

Don’t do this to me , I beg her.

What did Florindo tell you? Did he tell you I’d offered myself to be fed to the lions? Well, he didn’t understand. I want to be devoured, but I want to be devoured in the sexual sense. I want a lion to make me pregnant.

A lion would burrow like a miner until it reached her core. That was her secret plan. I look at her. She has a pretty face; her eyes are deep-set, dream-laden.

Do you know something, Mariamar? I miss our time at the mission. The mission wasn’t just a religious house: It was a country. Do you understand? We two lived in a foreign country. We’re whiter than that Archangel fellow.

I help her back into the chair, and tell her I shall be spending the night with her, sharing her room just as we used to do at the mission.

Naftalinda?

Call me Oceanita …

Can I sleep in this corner?

Wherever you like, but first of all help me to go out, I want to fulfill my dream.