Mia Couto - Confession of the Lioness

Contrary to family tradition, my grandfather Adjiru had embarked on a different pursuit: hunting. That is what he became, by vocation and calling: a hunter. My arm is my soul , he would say. He killed a man by accident as he hunted a leopard over Quionga way. In order to cleanse himself of this blood he would have to rub himself with the ash from burnt trees. He refused to take part in the ritual: For him, who considered himself Portuguese, such humiliation was unbearable. He was banned from hunting, and was limited to working as a tracker. He accepted this demotion with regal dignity. Until the day he died, he never lost his noble bearing. While his work meant that he stayed close to the ground, he continued to cast his shadow over the whole of Kulumani. And now, as the village trembled at the threat of lions, everyone nostalgically recalled his divine protection.

My father, Genito Serafim Mpepe, could have been a hunter in his own right as well. But he preferred to remain a tracker, in a display of solidarity with his late mentor. If one had been demoted, the other had to be too. Genito’s only ambition, in the end, was to follow in the footsteps of the dethroned hunter. Even so, Grandfather’s standing proved impossible to equal. Adjiru had been more than a mweniekaya , the head of a family. His authority invariably extended to the entire neighborhood. Without pronouncements, his was a silent supremacy, that of someone who exercises power without need for words. As for me, Mariamar, I was a special person for him. Our “elder” reserved the most enigmatic of premonitions for me:

You, Mariamar, came from the river. And you will surprise everyone yet: One day you’ll go there where the river goes , he prophesied.

* * *

I’m a woman, and it could never be my destiny to travel. Yet Adjiru Kapitamoro was right. For only two days after Silência’s funeral, I’m traveling downstream in a skiff. I’m fleeing the custody imposed by my inveterate jailer, Genito Mpepe. To escape from Kulumani, there’s no road and no bush. My father’s on the road. In the bush, there are the killer lions. At each exit, an ambush awaits. The only way left to me is the river. This thread of water was baptized with the name Lideia, after the doves that visit us in the rainy season. It could perfectly well have remained an anonymous little river, but we feared that if it was left nameless, it might become extinguished forever. It was supposedly our grandfather, Adjiru Kapitamoro, who had given it its name. And we pretended we believed it.

So here we both go: the River Lideia with its bird’s name; and I, Mariamar, with my watery name. I travel against my fate, but with the flow of the river’s current. During this whole time, the skiff feigns obedience. It’s not my arms that propel it along but forces that I would rather remained unknown. November is the month when we pray for rain. And I pray for a land where I can lie down with the rain, weightless and freed from my body.

* * *

They say that farther on, this river flows through the city. I doubt it. This river of mine, which doesn’t even speak Portuguese, this river full of fish that only know their names in Shimakonde, I don’t believe it would be allowed into the city. And I’ll be stopped as well if I get as far as knocking on the door of the capital.

* * *

Obey everything except love , that’s what my poor sister Silência used to say. It’s for reasons of love that I’m leaving Kulumani, putting distance between me and myself, my present fears, my future nightmares. It’s not so much the desire to break my ties that has led me to disobey. I have another, more important reason: I’ve embarked on this act of madness because of the visitors’ reported arrival. In fact, because of one such arrival: Archangel Bullseye, the hunter. That man once hunted me. Ever since then, I’ve had no peace. To flee from a lover is the most complete act of obedience to him. The more I’m mistress of my fate, the more I’m a slave to that love of mine. There’s no river in this world that can free me from this trap.

* * *

Archie Bullseye came into my life sixteen years ago. I was also sixteen years old when he first met me. I was no more than a young girl, but my eyes had aged more than my body. My only ambition was to run far away from Kulumani. On Sunday afternoons I would break into the henhouse of the Catholic Mission to sell chickens out on the highway. My intention was to make a bit of money so that I could run away to the city. But the road was almost deserted, with very few travelers. It was 1992, and the war had finished that same year, but an invisible garrote continued to asphyxiate our area.

I never understood why so many vendors would crowd together on the edge of the lifeless road. Maybe they were gathered there in a type of prayer, a way of kneeling together before our fate. Or perhaps it was because the occasional furtive timber truck would appear. Such businesses belonged to powerful people, whom we called “the owners of the land.” But whoever passed by, I would hold my chickens up and their wings would flutter blindly, in momentary flight. No one ever stopped, no one ever bought anything. Clucking stupidly, the fowl would once again dangle from my hands, as if burdened by their daring effort to be birds but a few moments before.

Once, the policeman, Maliqueto Próprio — the only representative of the law in Kulumani — came up to me, all self-important, wanting to know where I’d got my merchandise. He pointed to the chickens as if they were proof of a crime. He charged me with theft, and ordered me to follow him.

To the police station? I asked, shaking.

You know very well there’s no police station in Kulumani. I’ve got my own lockup.

Maliqueto’s abuses were only too well known. At that moment, his sinister look merely confirmed his malicious intentions. My eyes failed me and my legs wobbled. The barrel of his gun sticking into my back didn’t permit any delay.

Please don’t do me any harm.

That was when Archangel Bullseye appeared, like a hero emerging from nowhere. He stopped in front of me, mounted on his motorbike, a proud emperor and a man whose orders the world respected. The policeman eyed the intruder, measuring him from head to foot. After a ponderous silence, he decided to withdraw. I don’t know whether the hunter was aware of the opportunity that his appearance had presented him with, but he smiled as he interjected:

Can I take a chicken?

It was me I wanted him to take. The man looked at me with apparent surprise. Suddenly I felt the weight of shame: I had never been looked at before. It was as if at long last my body were being born within me.

Those eyes , he sighed. Ah! Those eyes!

My face fell and I stood there confused, a bird with neither flight nor voice.

You have a lovely body , the visitor murmured.

His talk laid bare both my body and soul. To escape my unsteadiness, I retreated to some shade by the river. The man followed me, pushing his motorbike.

Would you like to come to Palma with me?

The town? I can’t.

I’ll take you there and bring you back on the bike. We can take a shortcut along the river so that no one will see us.

I can’t, I’ve already told you.

We can watch television, wouldn’t you like that?

I contemplated the surrounding countryside. How vast the world was, how infinitely vast! The universe was immense and the visitor was waiting for an answer. So many things went through my head! It occurred to me, for instance, to ask the hunter to help my mother carry water if he had a motorbike. To help the women of Kulumani to fetch firewood, dig clay, transport crops from their allotments. And above all, not to ask anything of me.