Mia Couto - The Tuner of Silences

— But Zachary: don’t you miss the city?

— Not at all.

— Don’t you even miss someone?

— My whole life has been lived in war. Here is where I’ve found peace for the first time. .

He wouldn’t go back to the city. As he said, he didn’t want to depend on instructions for his income. We should watch and see how he survived in Jezoosalem: he slept like a guinea-fowl. On the branch of a tree for fear of the ground. But on the lowest branch, in case he fell.

Zachary Kalash didn’t remember the war. But the war remembered him. And it tortured him with the renewal of old traumas. When there was thunder, he would rush out into the open in a frenzy, yelling:

— Bastards, you bastards!

All around him, the animals protested and even Jezebel whinnied in despair. They weren’t complaining about the storm. It was Zachary’s fury that upset them.

— He gets like that because of the thunderclaps —Silvestre explained. That’s what frightened him: the memory of explosions. The clash of clouds wasn’t a noise: it was the reopening of old wounds. We forget the bullets, but we never forget the wars.

Our father had sent us to live at the ammunition store and, for me, the real reason behind this had to do with Ntunzi and the need for him to be distracted. The natural hierarchy allotted Ntunzi a rifle and me a simple catapult. Zachary showed me how to improvise some elastic out of the truck’s old tires, and to construct a weapon with a deadly reach. The stone was projected with a sudden hiss, and the bird plummeted to the ground, hit by its own weight. It was my stone of prey.

— You kill, you eat.

That was Zaca’s command. But I wondered: can such a colourful little bird, so full of song, really be put on our dinner plate.

— The only thing I can teach you and Ntunzi is not to miss your shot. Happiness is a question of aim.

— Don’t you feel any pity when you kill?

— I don’t kill, I hunt.

The animals, he claimed, were his brothers.

— One day, I’m the predator, next day, they’re the ones who’ll gobble me up —he argued.

To be good at taking aim isn’t a skill: it’s an act of charity. In fact his aim was suicide: every time he killed an animal, it was he himself who was the target. And that morning, Zachary was once again going to have to shoot himself: our father had ordered us to bring some game for dinner.

— Uncle Aproximado is coming and we want to welcome him with plenty to eat and drink.

That was why we set off into the bush in pursuit of a bushbuck, the antelope that barks and bites like a dog. The soldier went on ahead and transmitted orders to us with his hands. From time to time, Zachary would pause and get down on his knees. Then, he would dig a little hole, crouch down and speak into the opening, whispering inaudible secrets.

— The earth will tell me where the hoofed animals are.

And once again off we would go, following trails that only Zachary seemed to know about. It was almost noon and the heat drove us to find some shade. Ntunzi collapsed on the ground and satisfied his somnolence and fatigue.

— Wake me up one of these days —he begged.

What happened next took me by surprise: the soldier got up and turned his coat into a pillow to make Ntunzi more comfortable in his sleep. I had never imagined such attention possible in Jezoosalem. Returning to the shade of the agbagba tree, Zachary slowly prepared a cigarette, as if he got more pleasure from rolling it than smoking it. He gradually settled down by the trunk and, satisfied, gazed far up into the foliage.

— This tree goes very well with the soil —he said.

The catapult lay dormant in his hand, which was nevertheless aware of every shifting shadow. The birds spend all their time flitting about. The hunter never really relaxes. Half his mind, that feline side of him, is ever watchful.

— Always a hunter, eh?

— What? Just because of this catapult? No, this is just to make me feel like a child.

And he seemed to vacillate in the face of sleep, so exhausted that he didn’t seem to want to move his eyes. The sun was at its peak, and merely having a body represented an unbearable burden.

— Did you ever have a wife, Zaca?

— I was always hopping around from here to there, never settling down in my mind. This world, my son, only provides a perch for vultures.

As far as we knew, the soldier had never had a wife or a son. Kalash explained himself. Some people are like firewood: good to be next to. Others are like eggs: always in dozens. That wasn’t the case with him. He was like the bushbuck: always wandering devoid of any company. It was a habit he’d got from the wars. No matter how big the platoon, a soldier always lives alone. Soldiers die collectively, and are buried in more than a common grave: they’re buried in a common corpse. But when it comes to living, they do it alone.

In the shade of the agbagba, we all seemed to have succumbed to sleep. But suddenly, the soldier leapt up as if impelled by some internal spring. He aimed his rifle and a shot tore through the silence. There was a noise among the bushes and we tumbled after it, in a dash to recover the wounded antelope. But the creature wasn’t where we expected. It had escaped through the vegetation. A trail of blood on the ground indicated the path it had taken. That was when we witnessed an unexpected transformation in Kalash. Ashen faced, he stumbled and to stop himself falling, he sat down on a stone.

— You two follow the trail.

— All on our own?

— Take the rifle. You, Ntunzi, do the shooting.

— But aren’t you going with us, Zachary?

— I can’t.

— Are you ill?

— I was never able to do it.

Was that experienced hunter and veteran soldier of so many wars balking at the last shot? Then Zachary explained that he was incapable of facing up to blood and the death throes of his prey. Either the shot hit the target and death was immediate, or he repented and gave up.

— Blood makes me behave like a woman, but don’t tell your father. .

Ntunzi took the rifle and not long afterwards, we heard shots. Soon he re-emerged dragging the animal behind him. From that day on, Ntunzi developed a taste for gunpowder. He would get up before dawn and trek through the bush, as happy as Adam before he lost his rib.

While Ntunzi was learning to be a hunter again, I was the one who got the most pleasure from being a shepherd. First thing in the morning, I would take the goats out to pasture.

— All the earth is a road for goats. And every piece of ground is pasture. There isn’t a wiser animal —Zaca remarked.

A goat’s wisdom lies in imitating a stone in order to live. On one occasion, when I was helping to herd the animals back into the corral, Zachary confessed something: there was, in fact, a memory that kept coming back to him. It went like this: Once, during the Colonial War, he watched an injured soldier being brought in. Nowadays, he knows: soldiers are always wounded. War even injures those who never get to the front. Well, this soldier was no more than a kid, and his injury was this: every time he coughed, a torrent of bullets came out of his mouth. That cough was contagious: he needed to get away. Zachary didn’t just feel the need to get away from the barracks. He wanted to emigrate from the time of all wars.