Mia Couto - The Tuner of Silences

— It’s so that no one else can get in.

— But weren’t you the one who told us we were the last ones alive?

— I’m not talking about the living.

As soon as he had nailed the sign to the cross, our old man summoned us all and, priest-like, conducted the ceremony of our re-baptism. That was when Orlando Macara ceased being our Uncle Godmother. His new designation indicated that he was not Dordalma’s blood brother. He was, as Silvestre put it, a brother-in-law twice removed. He had been adopted at birth and for the rest of his life he would preserve his rank as an alien, foreign creature. Aproximado was able to talk with our relatives, but he could never converse with the family’s ancestors.

Those first weeks came to an end, and our good Uncle went to live far away, pretending that he had settled in the guard’s lodge at the entrance to the park. I always suspected that this was not his true residence. Ntunzi’s frustrated flight had proved this: Aproximado’s hiding place must be much farther away still, in the middle of the dead city. I imagined him scavenging among the ruins and the ash.

— Not at all —countered Ntunzi, — Uncle really does live in the hut at the entrance. He’s there under Father’s orders, keeping watch.

This was his job: he was there to protect his brother-in-law, in his isolation, given that he was guilty of killing our mother. Aproximado had his guns trained outwards and, who knows, maybe he’d already killed police who were trying to find Silvestre. That was why we would occasionally hear the sound of gunfire in the distance. It wasn’t just the soldier Zachary shooting the animals that would be turned into our dinner at night. These shots were different, and had another purpose. Zachary Kalash was a second prison guard.

— They’re all in it together. In fact, those two are a three-some — Ntunzi guaranteed. — They’re joined by blood, of course, but it’s the blood of others.

Wherever it was that he lived, the truth is that Aproximado only visited us in order to keep us supplied with goods, clothes, medicine. But there was a list of banned imports, at the top of which were books, newspapers, magazines and photos. They would have been old and out of date anyway, but in spite of this, they were prohibited. In the absence of images from Over There, our imagination was fed by stories that Uncle Aproximado would tell us when my father wasn’t around.

— Uncle, tell us, what’s happening in the world?

— There is no world, my dear nephews, hasn’t your father told you enough times?

— Go on, Uncle. .

— You know, Ntunzi, you’ve been there.

— I left so long ago!

This conversation annoyed me. I didn’t like being reminded that my brother had once lived over there, that he had known our mother, and that he knew what women were like.

He didn’t tell us about the world, but Aproximado ended up telling us stories, and, without him being aware of it, these stories brought us many different worlds rather than just the one. For Uncle, having someone paying him attention was reason enough for him to be grateful.

— I’m always amazed that someone wants to listen to me.

As he spoke, he moved around, now this way now that, and it was only then that we realized that one of his legs was skinnier and shorter than the other. Our visitor, and may I be forgiven for saying this, looked like the Jack of Clubs. Out of error or haste, he had been put together in a way that left no space for either his neck or his legs. He gave the impression of being so tubby that there were no points to his feet. And rotund as he was, he looked as tall when he was standing as when he was on his knees. He was timid, bowing formally and respectfully as if confronted by a low doorway whichever way he turned. Aproximado would speak without ever abandoning his modest ways, as if he were always mistaken, as if his very existence were no more than an indiscretion.

— Uncle, tell us about our mother.

— Your mother?

— Yes, please, tell us what she was like.

The temptation was too great. Aproximado went back to being Orlando, and warmed to the idea of travelling through the recollections of his half-sister. He looked all around him, checking on Silvestre’s whereabouts.

— Where’s that fellow Silvestre?

— He went to the river, we can talk.

So Aproximado coursed and discoursed. Dordalma, may God preserve her many souls, was the most beautiful of women. She wasn’t dark like he was. She’d inherited her fair skin from her father, a little mulatto from Muchatazina. Our father got to know Dordalma and was smitten.

— Don’t you think our father might yearn for her?

— Ah! Come on now: who knows what it is to have a yearning?

— Does he or doesn’t he?

— To yearn for someone is to wait for flour to turn back into grain.

And he would ruminate on the meaning of what it is to yearn. Everything is in a name, he would say. Names, and nothing else. Let us take the butterfly, for instance: does it really need wings to fly? Or could it be that the very name we give it is a fluttering of wings? And that was how Aproximado slowly and elaborately spun his answers.

— Uncle, come back to earth, talk to us. Tell us: did Silvestre and Dordalma love each other?

At first, they got on together like wind and sail, scarf and neck. Occasionally, it has to be said, they would flair up in minor discord. Everyone knows what Silvestre is like: as obstinate as a compass needle. Little by little, Dordalma cloistered herself in her own world, sad and silent like an unpolished stone.

— So how did our mother die?

Here, there was no answer. Aproximado was evasive: at the time, he was away from the city. When he arrived home, the tragedy had already occurred. After receiving condolences, our father had this to say:

— A widower is just another word for someone who’s dead. I’m going to choose a cemetery, a personal one where I can bury myself.

— Don’t say such a thing. Where do you want to go and live?

— I don’t know, there isn’t anywhere any more.

The city had foundered, Time had imploded, the future had been submerged. Dordalma’s half-brother still tried to make him see reason: he who leaves his place, never finds himself again.

— You haven’t got any children, Brother-in-law. You don’t know what it’s like to surrender a child to this festering world.

— But have you no hope left, brother Silvestre?

— Hope? What I’ve lost is confidence.

He who loses hope, runs away. He who loses his confidence, hides away. And he wanted to do both things: to run away and to hide away. Nevertheless, we should never doubt Silvestre’s capacity to love.

— Your father is a good man. His goodness is that of an angel who doesn’t know where God is. That’s all.

His whole life had been devoted to one task: to be a father. And any good father faces the same temptation: to keep his children for himself, away from the world, far from time.

Once, Uncle Aproximado arrived early in the morning, thus ignoring the instruction that he should only turn up in Jezoosalem at the end of the day. In normal circumstances, Uncle would stumble in his steps, and his legs seemed to obey two contrary urges.

— If I’m limping it’s not a defect but a precaution —he would say.