Mia Couto - The Tuner of Silences

Finally, after night had long fallen, your father appeared, creeping furtively like a cat among the rooftops. He looked around, took a deep breath and picked up his wife. With Dordalma in his arms, Silvestre crossed the road slowly, knowing that dozens of eyes were staring at his sinister figure from behind their windows.

He stopped abruptly by the front door, and stood there like a statue. In the pitch darkness it was impossible to see whether he was crying, whether his face was furrowed in resentment of the world and its hidden people.

He shut the door behind him with his foot and from then on, Vitalício’s house was forever darkened. Silvestre placed your mother’s body on the kitchen table and cushioned her head on bags and cloths. Then, he went to your room and kissed your brow and passed his hand over your brother’s head. He turned the key in the lock and declared:

— I’ll be back in a minute .

He returned to the kitchen to undress your mother. He left her naked, still unconscious, and made a bundle out of her useless clothes. He took the bundle out into the back garden and burnt the clothes after dousing them with gasoline.

He sat down again next to the table and watched over his sleeping wife. He made no gesture of affection or care. He merely waited, as aloof as a zealous functionary. As soon as the first signs of consciousness became visible on Dordalma’s face, your father snapped at her:

— Can you hear me?

— Yes .

— Well, listen carefully to what I’m going to tell you: never shame me like this again. Do you hear?

Dordalma nodded, her eyes closed and he got up and turned away. Your mother placed her feet on the ground and sought her husband’s arm for support. Silvestre dodged and blocked her way to the hall:

— Stay here. I don’t want the children to see you in this state .

She was to remain in the kitchen, and get properly washed. Later, when the household was asleep, she could go to her room and stay there in peace and quiet. As for him, Silvestre Vitalício, he’d suffered enough vexations for one day.

Your father awoke, terrified, as if an inner voice were summoning him. His chest was heaving, his sweat flowing as if he were made solely of water. He went to the window, drew back the curtains and saw his wife hanging from the tree. There was a gap between her feet and the ground. He understood immediately: that tiny space was what separated life from death.

Before the street awoke, Silvestre, stepping swiftly, walked over to the casuarina, as if the only thing in front of him was some herbaceous creature made of leaves and branches. Your mother appeared to him like some dried fruit, the rope no more than a stem. He brushed aside the branches and silently cut the rope, only to hear the thud as the body fell to the ground. He regretted it immediately. He’d heard that sound before: it was the sound of earth falling on a coffin lid. That noise was to cling to his inner ear like moss on a sunless wall. Later on, your silence, Mwanito, was his defence against this recriminating echo.

For the second time in quick succession, Silvestre crossed the road with your mother in his arms. But this time, it was as if she had left her weight hanging from the gallows. He placed her body on the floor of the veranda and looked: there was no trace of blood, no sign of an illness or injury from a fight. If it weren’t for the complete stillness of her breast, one would say she was alive. At this point, Silvestre burst into tears. Whoever passed that way would have thought that Silvestre had succumbed to the pain of death. But it wasn’t his widower’s state that was making him weep. Your father was crying because he felt scorned. A married woman’s suicide is the worst indignity for any husband. Wasn’t he the legitimate owner of her life? In that case, how could he accept such a humiliating act of disobedience? Dordalma hadn’t abdicated from life: having lost possession of her own life, she had cast the spectacle of her own death in your father’s face.

You already know what happened at the funeral. The wind deranged the graves, making it impossible to carry out a burial. Others were needed, the professional gravediggers, to complete the interment. Once home, after the funeral, Ntunzi was the most solitary of all the children in the world. No amount of affection from those present could console him. Only a word from old Silvestre Vitalício could heal him. But your father remained distant. It was you who passed through the crowd and took the widower’s face in your little hands. Your hands offered Silvestre a refuge, tucked away inside a perfect silence. Maybe it was in that silence that he caught a glimpse of Jezoosalem, that place beyond all places.

After the funeral, your father shut himself away for days in the church. He didn’t join in the choir, but he attended the service and later would lie around as if he were a beggar without a home to go to. Sometimes, he would sit down at the piano and his fingers would run up and down the keyboard dreamily. It was July, and the cold was such that one’s hands, nestling in one’s pockets, grow forgetful.

It was during one of these retreats that Zachary entered the church. He had just got back from the front line, and was still wearing a military coat. Kalash went up to your father and greeted him with a hearty hug. It looked as if they were hugging each other affectionately, but they were fighting. What they were whispering to each other sounded like words of consolation, but they were death threats. Whoever passed by would scarcely guess that they were in mortal confrontation. And no one could claim to have heard the shot. The blood dripping from Zachary’s uniform as he left could never be taken as proof. Silvestre wiped the floor, and left no trace of the violence. There was no fight, no shot, no blood. To all appearances, the two friends had lingered in their embrace, comforting each other in their mutual grief at the disappearance of your dear mother, Dordalma.

Now you know why Ntunzi left with Kalash. Why he’s destined to be a soldier, which has been the fate of generations in Zachary’s family. Now you know why Silvestre feared the wind and the way the trees danced phantasmally. Now you know the purpose behind Jezoosalem and the exile of the Venturas away from the world. It wasn’t just because your father was unhinged and that Jezoosalem was a chance product of his madness. For Silvestre, the past was an illness and memories a punishment. He wanted to live in oblivion. He wanted to lead his life far from guilt.

When you read this letter, I shall no longer be in your country. To be more precise, I shall be with Zachary: shorn of a country I can call my own, but sworn to serve causes invented by others. I’m returning to Portugal without Marcelo, I return without part of myself. Wherever I go I shall never find space enough for herons to soar in flight. In Jezoosalem, the earth will always contain more earth.

Noci once told me of the emptiness of her relationship with Aproximado. How their love had drained away over the course of time. Although our trajectories were so different, we both trod the same paths. I had left my home country to look for a man who was betraying me. She was betraying herself with someone who didn’t love her.

— Why do we put up with so much?

— Who?

— We women. Why do we put up with so much, with everything?