Mia Couto - The Tuner of Silences

— First, the smells —he told me, filling his lungs.

He closed his eyes and sniffed at odours that, for me, didn’t exist. Silvestre was inhaling the house, kindling memories in his heart. He stood in the middle of the room, filling his chest.

— It’s like a fruit. We first taste it with our nose.

Then he used his fingers. All he had was the hand that the snake had spared. It was the fingers of that hand that crawled over furniture, walls and windows. It was as if he were becoming familiar with his body again after a long period in a coma.

I confess: no matter how much I tried, I still found the house where I was born alien. No room, no object, brought back memories of the first three years of my life.

— Tell me, my son, I’ve died and this is my coffin, isn’t it?

I helped him to lie down on the sofa. He asked for some silence and I let the house speak to him. Silvestre seemed to have fallen asleep when he stirred in order to take off the bandage round his hand.

— Look, son! — He called me, holding out his arm towards me.

The wound had disappeared. There was no swelling, no sign of anything. He asked me to take the bandage to the kitchen and burn it. I hadn’t even found my way down the corridor when I heard his voice again:

— I don’t want a nurse or any other stranger here in the house. Much less the neighbours.

For the first time, Silvestre was admitting the existence of others beyond our tiny constellation.

— The devil always dwells among the neighbours.

With the exception of Zachary, all of us lodged in our old house. Aproximado occupied the double room, where he already slept with Noci. Ntunzi shared a room with our father. I shared mine with Marta.

— It’s only for a few days —Aproximado maintained.

A curtain separated the two beds, protecting our privacies.

When we arrived, Noci was still at work. At night, when she came into the house, Marta was lying there, apparently sleeping. Noci woke her up by stroking her hair. The two hugged each other tightly, and then wept inconsolably. When she was able to talk, the young woman said:

— I lied, Marta.

— I already knew.

— You knew? Since when?

— Ever since the first time I saw you.

— He was ill, very ill. He didn’t even want anyone to see him. In a sense it was good that I arrived late. If you’d seen him at the end, you wouldn’t have recognized him.

— Where was he buried?

— Near here. In a cemetery near here.

As the foreigner held Noci’s hand, she turned a silver ring on the other woman’s finger. Without even having to ask, Marta knew that the ring had been a gift from Marcelo.

— Do you know something, Noci? It did me good to be there, at the reserve.

The Portuguese woman explained: going to Jezoosalem was a way of being with Marcelo. The journey had been as reinvigorating as a deep sleep. By sharing in that pretence of a world coming to an end, she had learnt about death without grieving, departure without leave-taking.

— You know, Noci. I saw women washing Marcelo’s clothes.

— That’s impossible. .

— I know, but for me, those shirts were his. .

Any item of clothing drifting in a current of water would always be Marcelo’s. The very substance of all the rivers in the world is surely made of memories resisting the flow of time. But the Portuguese woman’s rivers were increasingly African ones: more sand than water, more the fury of nature than gentle, well-mannered watercourses.

— Let’s go together to the cemetery tomorrow.

The following morning, I was left at home to look after my father. Silvestre got up late, and while still sitting in his bed, called for me. When I arrived, he sat there examining his own body. It had always been like that: my father forced one to wait before he started talking.

— I’m worried about you, Mwanito.

— Why‘s that, Father?

— You were born with a big heart, my son. And with such a heart, you are incapable of hating. But for this world to be loved, it needs a lot of hatred as well.

— I’m sorry, Father, but I don’t understand you at all.

— It doesn’t matter. What I want you and I to agree to is this: if they want to take me into town, don’t let me go, my son. Do you promise?

— I promise, Father.

He explained: the snake hadn’t just got his hand. It had bitten him all over his body. Everything around him was painful, the whole city enfeebled him, the wretchedness of the streets hurt him more than the contamination of his blood.

— Have you seen how the most scandalous luxury lives cheek by jowl with misery?

— Yes —I lied.

— That’s why I don’t want to go out.

Jezoosalem had allowed him to forget. The snake’s poison had brought him time. The city had caused him to go blind.

— Don’t you feel like going out, like Ntunzi?

— No.

— Why not?

— There’s no river here as there is there.

— Why don’t you do like Ntunzi who’s not here and is off buzzing around?

— I don’t know how to walk. .I don’t know how to walk all over the place.

— My son, I feel so guilty. You’re so old. You’re as old as I am.

I got up and went to the mirror. I was a young boy, my body still in first flush. Yet my father was right: tiredness weighed upon me. I had reached old age without deserving it. I was eleven years old, and I was withered, consumed by my father’s delirium. Yes, my father was right. He who has never been a child doesn’t need time in order to grow old.

— One thing I hid from you, back there in Jezoosalem.

— You hid the whole world from me, Father.

— There was something I never told you.

— Father, let’s forget about Jezoosalem, we’re here now. .

— One day, you’ll go back there!

— To Jezoosalem?

— Yes, it’s your homeland, your curse. Do you know something, son? That place is full of miracles.

— I never saw any.

— They’re such tiny little miracles that we don’t realize they’ve happened.

We had been in the city for three days and Silvestre hadn’t even opened the curtains. The house was his new refuge, his new Jezoosalem. I don’t know how Marta and Noci managed to convince my father to go out that afternoon. The women thought it would do him good to see the grave of his late wife. I went with them, carrying flowers, at the rear of the cortège as it made its way to the cemetery.

As we lined up before my mother’s tomb, Silvestre remained impassive, empty, oblivious to everything. We stared at the ground, he looked up at the birds streaking across the clouds. Marta handed him the wreath of flowers and asked him to place it on the grave. My father proved unable to hold the flowers, which fell to the ground, and the wreath broke apart. In the meantime, Uncle Aproximado joined us. He removed his hat and stood there respectfully, eyes closed.

— I want to see the tree — Silvestre said, breaking the silence.

— Let’s go — replied Aproximado, — I’ll take you to see the tree.