Ondjaki - Granma Nineteen and the Soviet's Secret

We found Granpa Mbinha’s headstone. It was actually clean; it had rained a little while ago. We swept around the sides, Granma blew away the dust and cleaned the black-and-white photograph that Granpa must have had taken without knowing that he was going to die because he had a really important air, with his head tilted, looking upwards. Granpa Mbhina was handsome and something about him reminded me of the Indians in movies.

“My Cachimbinha is handsome, don’t you think?”

“Really handsome, Granma.”

“The women who were after him! Leave it, son… I had to be very careful. This Granpa of yours was a scoundrel.”

“Granma, why did they call him Cachimbinha?”

“Because of that other Cachimbinha, the soccer player.”

“Granpa liked soccer?”

“He loved it, and he played it very well.”

“My Granpa Aníbal told me that when he was young they played soccer with a ball made from a pig’s bladder.”

“A pig’s bladder be damned! That must have been back where he came from.”

“I don’t know, Granma. Maybe it was in the really, really olden days.”

Granma Nhé fell silent. She put her hands together at the front of her waist and began to pretend that she was praying. Her lips were moving and I made an effort to understand the text, but it wasn’t possible, there was just a murmuring — shh, shh, shh. I only heard a few words from the Lord’s Prayer, and the “Amen,” at the end. And then Granma Nhé was at peace.

Elders do that, it’s normal. I don’t like to be at peace very much, but sometimes it happens. It was good there, like a film that couldn’t be shown any more: the gravediggers kept their distance but they stopped digging and remained silent, the trees swayed more gently, and there was a noise in the sky made by birds that came in to land in those peaceful trees, very old trees, because cemeteries, as everyone knows, are very old places, and, “Lots of people have already died in this world,” as Granma Catarina said. The sky was turning all blue and it was almost cloudless, even the few clouds that were visible were at a standstill; only Granma Nhé’s hair was moving a touch, as if it were flying.

The letters on Granpa Mbinha’s headstone were very small and had been worn down by time and the sun. It was almost impossible to read them. There was another name there, not the main name, but a name from the family. I tried to ask Granma Nhé who it was, but she had a little tear falling from her eye, and I stayed silent.

“Let’s go, son. I can’t put up any more with the pain in my foot.”

“You want me to call Senhor Osório with his slacks up to his armpits?”

Granma laughed.

“No, that’s not necessary. You help me yourself.”

“Granma, do you come here to talk to Granpa Mbinha?”

“I suppose I do.”

“Can the dead hear what we say?”

“Some of them can.”

The gravediggers said goodbye and thanked Granma for the money she had given them. The birds made their starting-to-fly noise and the trees stirred a little. The walls inside the cemetery were all white; it was true that it was a pleasant spot for a person to spend half an hour not doing anything.

“Granma, can more than one person be buried beneath the same headstone?”

“Yes.” She stopped and stood looking at me with her eyes very open and moist.

“I saw two names there, Granma.”

“I know, son.”

“Is there another person buried there, Granma?”

“There is.”

In that moment a great silence struck my heart. I looked into Granma Nhé’s pretty eyes; her face was telling me that I could ask her a thousand more questions and she would answer them for me, but my heart silenced me. It took the words out of my mouth and I was left without any more questions to ask. Just like that.

“Are you coming to drop me at the hospital?”

“Yes I am, Granma.”

She had kept a tiny flower in her handbag. She took it out gradually and set it in my hand.

“Did you forget it? Do you want me to go put it over there?”

“I want you to keep it for yourself.”

“All right.” I put it in my shirt pocket so as not to crush it. “Granma?”

“Tell me, my dear.”

“I like you a lot.” Granma didn’t reply and kept walking, but she held my hand with a soft grip. “I like our conversations a lot, even when sometimes we don’t manage to say anything.”

“You’re a darling. And when you grow up,”—she lowered her head to speak with me, looking me in the eyes with a peaceful gaze—“when you grow up, you have to remember all of these tales. Inside you. You promise?”

“Yes, Granma.” I didn’t even know what she meant, but with the open wound in her foot hurting her, and with her on the point of being hospitalized for an operation to have something cut off, I figured it was a good idea just to promise everything. “And you, Granma, do you promise to give me an ice cream when you come out of the hospital?”

“I promise.”

Senhor Osório looked like a chauffeur in a black-and-white movie: he went around the back and opened the door for Granma Nhé to get in.

“Can we go on, Dona Agnette?”

“We can, thank you very much, Senhor Osório. We’re going to the military hospital.”

Everyone was silent during the drive. Senhor Osório was whistling, it must have been because his indicators didn’t work; he whistled before he made a turn. All he had to do was go and see a mechanic. Everybody knows that when the indicators don’t work it’s something to do with a fuse, and you’ve just got to change it, a fuse that’s not needed for another light can be installed there; but I didn’t say a word, so that Senhor Osório wouldn’t think I was setting myself up as an expert.

At the entrance to the military hospital there was a barrier with military comrades who kept tabs on everybody who came in. They asked us what we were doing there.

“The vehicle can’t enter, Comrade.”

“What do you mean it can’t? I’m going to take this lady to have an operation, she can’t walk.”

“An operation on what?”

“On her leg.”

“On a toe,” Granma Nhé corrected.

“On a leg or a toe?”

“On the toe, Comrade. Let us in, we’re already late.”

“Is the operation being performed by a doctor, and who is he?”

“Doctor Rafael KnockKnock,” I snapped.

“KnockKnock? I’ve never heard of him.”

“Please, Comrade, “ Granma said, “don’t make us waste time. It’s an emergency case. Doctor Rafael is going to cut off my toe.”

“A toe?”

“That’s right.”

“And are you gonna walk okay after that, ma’am?”

“Yes, I will. Inside my shoe it won’t even be noticeable.”

“Do you know where the operating block is?”

“Yes, I know.” Senhor Osório started to whistle and put on the indicator even though the indicator didn’t work.

“Go ahead, please. Have a good operation, ma’am. They cut my brother’s whole leg off, he needs crutches to walk. Even so, he still dances at parties.”

Inside, Comrade Rafael KnockKnock was laughing as he waited for Granma Nhé.

“KnockKnock,” he joked as he rapped on the door of the car. “¿ Cómo está, abuela ? Everything bien ?”

“Yes. This is Senhor Osório.”

“ Encantado . Are you staying for la operación ?”

“No, no, I have to go take care of some business. Good luck, Dona Agnette. Your daughter should be in there. I’ll wait outside to take the little boy home.”

“Okay. Yes, your daughter’s inside and we have a little sorpresa .”

“More surprises?”

“Only una . You are going to like it.”