Mia Couto - Confession of the Lioness

It was I who led Silência to death’s door on that fatal morning. She was my sister, my friend. More than this, she was my other self. For her, however, jealousy was always an insurmountable obstacle. Silência always wanted to be me, to live like I lived, to love whoever I loved. My sister always appropriated my dreams. That’s what happened with Bullseye, the hunter. I soon regretted telling her of my encounters with the visitor. For she accused me of distorting the situation, as if that story belonged to her. Deep down, she was tormented by jealousy. For she didn’t have enough soul in herself to invent another life. She was dead from fear. That’s why when she stopped living, she didn’t die.

* * *

I’m coming to the end. Every end is a beginning, Adjiru Kapitamoro used to say. But not this end. This is the final conclusion, the collapse of the very last skies. I only have one unaccomplished wish left: to go and see the ocean again. Maybe that’s why, as I feel myself falling asleep into my last human slumber, the same dream invades me. The sea crashing onto the beach, birds of foam fluttering through the air, and Archangel Bullseye this time awakening from the sleep of a drowned man and taking me far from Kulumani, to that place where mirages dwell and journeys are born.

Florindo Makwala leads me to the dead lion, as if it were an excursion to my own failure. I didn’t hunt any of the lions. My brother Roland can relax: This wasn’t my last hunt. It wasn’t even a hunt. And my mother, wherever she may be, can take pride in her prophecy: Hunting and I have gone our different ways.

* * *

On the way, we pass by to pick up Gustavo Regalo. I find him immersed in his usual papers.

Leave your work, and let’s go and see the lion that’s been shot.

It’s not my work — I’m looking over your diary.

Is it worth the trouble?

Listen, I’m a writer, I know how to judge: Whoever writes like this doesn’t need to hunt.

I feel a lump in my throat. Gustavo can’t imagine the value of his reward. It was just a short note that began my story with Luzilia. It was the letters that caused my father to get down on his knees in front of his beloved wife. It was envy that I felt for Roland when he remained at home, seated like a king in the company of his books. I was always the one out on the street, or in the bush. What Gustavo now has given me is a home. Perhaps that’s why I now offer him my old rifle. Gustavo declines. And I ask:

So can’t we exchange? You hunt and I’ll write.

You’ve given me what comes before the gun in hunting.

* * *

And we set off to see the lion, the trophy from such a costly war. The vehicle proceeds slowly over a short distance until it pauses near a hillock. Without saying a word, we get out of the jeep and follow a path next to the river. It’s early morning, and the dew still glistens in tiny pearls on the grass and in the cobwebs. With his camera swaying on his chest, the writer follows me. The thorns brush my legs and arms. A trail of blood is my inheritance. I’m a hunter who bleeds more than his victim.

Who killed this lion? Gustavo wants to know.

It was Maliqueto , answers Florindo Makwala, who is walking in front. Genito Mpepe was the one who killed the lioness, the one that attacked Naftalinda.

The lioness had been killed beside the road. By this time she had been taken to the village, where she would be exhibited as proof of the hunt’s successful outcome. That left the male, which looked majestic. That’s why the administrator requested a photograph of the lion and not the lioness: The picture would have greater impact in the nation’s news outlets.

* * *

A little farther ahead, next to a clump of bushes, lies the animal. Stretched out as only a feline can extend itself. It had lost its regal dignity. The most striking thing are the ticks sucking its snout. As soon as they sense the bitter taste of death, they let themselves drop like gray falling peas. I’ve come to see the lion, the king of the forest, and I’m absorbed with insignificant parasites. I picture one of these ticks growing and bursting like a grenade full of blood, staining the whole scene red.

Take a photo of me next to the trophy , the administrator insists, cutting a vain pose, one foot on the animal. It’s an illusion I don’t bother to dismantle: What is there is no longer a lion. It is empty plunder. It isn’t anything more than a useless shell, a piece of skin stuffed with nothingness.

* * *

I am going to visit Hanifa Assulua. I won’t stay for Genito’s funeral. But at least I want to express my condolences. And apart from this, I have the task of taking her only surviving daughter with me.

Before entering the garden, I collect some wildflowers. I don’t want to turn up empty-handed. As I kneel, picking among the grass, I am startled by Hanifa’s voice:

Flowers again?

I want to explain that Genito is the beneficiary of my gesture. But his widow walks swiftly on ahead of me, unwilling to listen. When we get to the shade of her front yard, she offers me a chair and she sits down on a mat. In silence, she allows the mourning women in black to mill around her. I have no words to say about the deceased. That’s why I give her the flowers with only a word of explanation.

They’re for Genito. Flowers for when there are no words.

What can we do? People live without asking to do so, and die without being given permission.

I’m sorry it ended like this.

It’s not being a widow that hurts me. I’ve been a widow for a long time , she says in a matter-of-fact way the moment we have exchanged formal greetings.

What worries her is her daughter, Mariamar. She is ill and, in Kulumani, no one can provide her with any treatment.

I have the papers from the hospital confirming that she should be admitted. My daughter has gone mad.

I’ve spoken to the administrator. I’ll take her with me. But are you going to stay here on your own?

I have graves to look after.

Your daughter will come and visit you.

Mariamar can’t come back. Ever. She would be killed by the living and persecuted by the dead.

* * *

Hanifa goes into the house and returns a few minutes later leading a young girl by the hand.

This is my daughter.

The girl is wrapped in a capulana , which partially covers her face. She walks with lifeless steps, as if she were a scarecrow. In her hand she carries a notebook on whose cover one can read the words Mariamar’s Diary. As her eyes meet mine, I feel bemused and uneasy. Suddenly those honey eyes transport me back to a past that seemed to have faded. I turn my face away, I’m a hunter, I know how to escape from traps. Those eyes contain so much light that they seem to darken the world. But it’s a good darkness, the gentle languor of childhood. Mariamar’s eyes are so clear that, without my knowing, they restore something to me that I lost long ago. Now I address her as if I were resuming a conversation that had been interrupted, and my voice almost fails me as I ask:

You’ve only got that notebook, aren’t you taking a suitcase with some clothes?

She doesn’t speak , her mother intervenes. She’s hasn’t spoken since yesterday.

Mariamar gesticulates, pointing at her notebook. Her mumbling reminds me of Roland, my poor brother, who had such an intimate relationship with words throughout his life, and now doesn’t even have access to the most basic vocabulary. The girl with the honey eyes waves her arms, her capulana opens like a pair of wings, and her mother translates: