Mia Couto - The Tuner of Silences

— Well, get this into your head: we didn’t leave the world. We were pushed out, just like a thorn expelled by the body.

His words pained me, as if life had skewered me, and in order to grow, I would have to prise its barb out of my body.

— One day, I’ll tell you everything —Ntunzi drew the conversation to a close. But for now, wouldn’t my little brother like to take a look at the other side?

— What other side?

— You know, the other side: the world, Over There!

I looked around me before answering. I was afraid our father might be watching us. I peeped up at the top of the hill, at the backs of the outbuildings. I feared Zachary might be passing by.

— Go on, take your clothes off.

— You’re not going to hurt me, are you, brother?

I remembered he had once thrown me into the muddy waters of a pool and I’d got stuck, my feet tangled in the hidden roots of bulrushes.

— Come with me —he beckoned.

Ntunzi sank his feet in the mud and entered the river. He waded out until the water was up to his chest, and urged me to join him. I felt the current swirling around my body. Ntunzi gave me his hand, fearing I might be swept away by the waters.

— Are we going to run away, brother? — I asked, trying to contain my enthusiasm.

I couldn’t understand why it had never occurred to me before: the river was an open highway, a channel that had been cleaved without let or hindrance. Our escape was right there and we hadn’t been able to spot it. As my resolve grew stronger and stronger, I began to make plans out loud: who knows, maybe we should return to the riverbank and make a dugout? Yes, a little dugout would be enough for us to escape that prison and flow out into the wide world. I looked at Ntunzi, who remained impassive in the face of my daydreaming.

— There’ll be no dugout. Never. So forget it.

Had I by any chance forgotten the crocodiles and hippos that infested the river further down? And the rapids and waterfalls, in a word, the countless dangers and traps that lay concealed in the river?

— But has anyone been there? It’s only what we’ve been told. .

— Just calm down and be quiet.

I followed him against the current and we waded our trail through the undulations until we reached a part where the river meandered ruefully, and the bed was carpeted with smooth pebbles. In this calm stretch, the waters were surprisingly clear. Ntunzi let go of my hand: I was to do as he did. Thereupon, he plunged in and then, while totally submerged, opened his eyes and looked up into the light as it reverberated off the surface of the water. I followed suit: from the river’s womb, I contemplated the sparkling light of the sun. And its radiance fascinated me, enveloping me in a gentle daze. If there was such a thing as a mother’s embrace, it must be something like this, this dizzying of the senses.

— Did you like it?

— Did I hell? It’s so beautiful, Ntunzi, they’re like liquid stars, so bright!

— See, little brother? That’s the other side for you.

I dived in again, seeking to sate myself in that spirit of wonderment. But this time I had a fit of giddiness. I suddenly lost all notion of myself, confusing the depths with the surface. There I was, twisting around like a blind fish, unable to swim up to the surface. I would have ended up drowning if Ntunzi hadn’t dragged me to the shore. Having recovered, I confessed that I had been seized by the chill of fear while underwater.

— Could it be that someone is watching us from the other side?

— Yes, we’re being watched. By those who will come and fish us.

— Did you say ‘fetch us’?

— Fish us.

I shuddered. The idea of our being fished, caught in the water, drew me to the horrifying conclusion that the others, those on the side of the sun, were the living, the only human creatures.

— Brother, is it really true that we’re dead?

— Only the living can know that, little brother. Only they.

The accident in the river didn’t inhibit me. On the contrary, I returned again and again to that bend in the river, and allowed myself to dive into the calm waters. And I would stay there endlessly, my eyes astonished, as I visited the other side of the world. My father never found out, but it was there, more than anywhere else, that I perfected my art as a tuner of silences.

I knew my father before I knew myself. That’s why I’ve got a bit of him in me. Deprived of a mother’s presence, Silvestre Vitalício’s bony chest was my only source of comfort, his old shirt my handkerchief, his scrawny shoulder my pillow. A monotone snore was my only lullaby.

For years, my father was a gentle soul, his arms enveloped the earth, and the most time-honoured tranquillities nestled in their embrace. Even though he was such a strange and unpredictable creature, I saw old Silvestre as the only harbinger of truth, the sole foreteller of futures.

Now, I know: my father had lost his marbles. He noticed things that no one else acknowledged. These apparitions occurred mainly during the great winds that sweep across the savannah in September. For Silvestre, the wind was ghosts dancing. Windswept trees became people, the lamenting dead and trying to pull their own roots up. That’s what Silvestre Vitalício said, shut away in his room and barricaded behind windows and doors, waiting for calmer weather.

— The wind is full of sickness, the wind is just one big contagious disease.

On those tempestuous days, the old man would not allow anyone to leave the room. He would call me to remain by his side, while I tried in vain to nourish silence. I was never able to calm him down. In the rustling of the leaves, Silvestre heard engines, trains, cities in movement. Everything that he tried so hard to forget was brought to him by the whistling of the wind in the branches.

— But Father —I ventured, — why are you so scared?

— I’m a tree —he explained.

A tree, yes, but without its natural roots. He was anchored in alien soil, in that fluid country he had invented for himself. His fear of apparitions worsened as time progressed. From trees, it spread to night’s dark corners and to the earth’s womb. At one stage, my father ordered the well to be covered over when the sun went down. Fearsome and malevolent creatures might emerge from such a gaping hole. This vision of monsters bursting from the ground filled me with fear.

— But Father, what things can come out of the well?

There were certain reptiles I didn’t know about, that scratch around in tombs and bring back bits of Death itself under their nails and between their teeth. These lizards climb up the dank sides of wells, invade one’s sleep and moisten the bed sheets of grown-ups.

— That’s why you can’t sleep next to me.

— But I’m scared, Father. I just wanted you to let me sleep in your room.

My brother never commented on my wish to sleep close to my father. In the dead of night, he would watch me creep furtively along the hall and stake out my place near the forbidden entrance to my father’s quarters. Many times Ntunzi came and fetched me, lying like a rag on the floor and fast asleep.

— Come back to your bed. Father mustn’t find you here.

I would follow him, too dazed to be grateful. Ntunzi would lead me back to bed and once, he even took my hand and said: