Mia Couto - The Tuner of Silences

— A person! A dead person!

Silvestre and Ntunzi were mending the handle of a spade and didn’t stop their task. My brother looked up, his eyes betraying no interest:

— A person?

I clumsily gave hurried details of what I had seen. My father, impassive, commented quietly:

— This fucking wind!

Then, he put his hammer down and asked:

— What did its tongue look like?

— Its tongue?

— Was it sticking out of its mouth?

— Father: it was dead, it was far away. I couldn’t see its mouth, nor its tongue.

I sought some sort of understanding in Ntunzi, but he didn’t say a word. But given my conviction, Father issued his orders:

— Call Zachary over here.

Ntunzi left in a rush. It wasn’t long before he returned with the soldier carrying, as always, his rifle. My old man got things moving with a couple of words:

— Get yourself over there and see what’s happening. .

Zachary saluted, clicked his heels, but didn’t obey immediately. He squared himself to request due permission to speak:

— May I say something?

— You may .

— Mwanito can’t have seen what was really there. It was an optical disillusion.

— That may be — Silvestre conceded. — But it may also be one of those old dead bodies in the house. Some animal may have dragged it out onto the veranda.

— That’s possible. Last night there were hyenas prowling around.

— Quite so. If that’s the case, bury it. Bury the body, but not underneath a tree.

— But won’t you want to know who it is?

— If it’s a dead body, it can’t belong to anyone. Go and see to the task, and if the wind dies down, I’ll come and join you. .

— Maybe he was living here in Jezoosalem, and we didn’t know —Ntunzi suggested, with unexpected daring.

— Are you mad? If there is a body there, it’s not that of anyone who died. It’s someone who was always dead, born lifeless, so to speak.

— Father, I’m sorry, but for me. .

— That’s enough! I don’t want to hear any more opinions. You’re going to dig a grave and that body, or whatever it is, is going to be put away in the earth.

Ntunzi, Zachary and I set off in single file, in a pre-funeral cortège. We still heard Silvestre’s voice, summing up his conclusions:

— Later, when the wind drops, I’ll go and check things.

The soldier marched along in front, a spade in each hand. We stealthily climbed the steps up to the big house, and to my relief, my previous vision was confirmed. Half-covered by leaves, perfectly clear against the light, there lay a body. Some hidden force rooted us to the doorway, until Kalash murmured:

— I’ll go and take a look!

— Don’t go in, Zaca! — Ntunzi warned.

— Why?

— I don’t like that light —and he pointed to a sunbeam that filtered through the roof planks.

Sitting on the entrance steps, Zachary sniffed the air, as if trying to detect a suspicious smell.

— It doesn’t smell of death —he said in a cavernous tone that made us shiver.

And once again, we peered towards the end of the veranda trying to see through the light that shone from the rear.

— It’s a man —he said, sure of himself.

The body lay on its back on the wooden floor, as if the floor were the suggestion of a coffin. We couldn’t see the face that was turned to the other side. A kind of cloth covered the head, tied at the back.

— It looks —Zaca said— like a foreign black .

— How do you know?

The body wasn’t embracing the ground like local corpses do. Those bones weren’t seeking another womb in the earth. There was, of course, the detail of the boots. Zachary had never seen the like of them before.

— Now I’m beginning to think it’s a white —Zaca declared, still peering from the top of the steps. — I think the fellow’s soul has already begun to leave its shell.

And he gave the order for us to dig the grave, before anything else. When it was ready, we’d go back and fetch the body. By that time, the light on the veranda would have changed and we would be protected by bad spirits.

So we began to dig, our spades opening up the stranger’s final resting place. But then a strange thing happened: the hole was never ready. The moment we got to the bottom, the windblown sand completely refilled the grave again. And that happened once, twice, and three times. The third time, Zachary hurled his spade at the ground as if he’d been stung by a wasp and exclaimed:

— I don’t like this. Children, come over here quickly.

And he pushed us towards the shade of a mafurreira tree. He took a white cloth from his pocket and tied it to the trunk. His hands were shaking so hard that it was Ntunzi who spoke:

— I know what you’re thinking, Zaca. I feel the same too.

Then, turning to me, he said:

— This is what happened at our mother’s funeral.

— It’s the same spell —Zachary confirmed.

Then they told me what had happened on the day of my mother’s burial. “Burial” is merely a term that is used. For there’s never enough earth to bury a mother.

— I don’t want a gravedigger.

That was Silvestre’s stipulation, which he yelled in order to be heard above the wind. The dust stung his eyes. But he didn’t lower his eyelids. His tears protected him from the clouds of dirt.

— I don’t want a gravedigger. My son and I are the ones who’ll dig the grave, we’re the ones who’ll do the funeral.

But the grave they started was never finished. My father and Ntunzi tried, time after time, in vain. Hardly had they opened up a hole than it filled with sand. Kalash and Aproximado joined in, but the result was the same: the dirt, blown by the wind in its fury, refilled the cavity immediately. They had to resort to the professionals to complete the job of opening and closing the burial place.

Now, eight years later, the earth was once again refusing to open its womb to receive a body.

— Quiet everyone! — ordered Zachary Kalash. — I can hear noises.

Taking every possible care, the assistant approached the veranda. He peered between the planks and then turned towards us in astonishment. Where before the corpse had lain, there was nothing whatsoever.

— The dead body isn’t there any more, it’s nowhere to be seen —Zachary repeated in an undertone.

The wind had abated. Even so, dead leaves fluttered around accentuating the emptiness.

— I’m going to get a weapon —Zaca said. And he hurried away down the path.

Gradually, a new state of mind took hold of me, transforming my fright into a haughty sense of calm. I looked at Ntunzi who was trembling like a reed, and to his astonishment, I began to advance firmly towards the big house.

— Are you crazy, Mwanito? Where are you going?

In silence, I climbed the steps to the veranda and trod on the boards carefully in case the floor were to give way, and I were to fall through it and maybe even join the missing dead body. I walked along the veranda looking for some clue, until I decided to knock on the front door. My brother, his voice shaking, asked:

— Are you waiting for the dead man to come and answer the door?

— Don’t talk so loud.

— You’re crazy, Mwanito. I’m going to call Father —Ntunzi said, turning his back and retreating hurriedly.