Ondjaki - Granma Nineteen and the Soviet's Secret

“Naw…That’s a dream.” 3.14 looked at me with the face of a madman.

“How so?”

“Our plan, don’t you remember? That page just had a drawing, as if it were the description of a wish. I mean, since you can’t really write about a wish, they drew a picture.”

“You’re talking bullshit, Pi.”

“No, you’re the one who’s not getting it. That’s how come I always say our plan has to go ahead.”

“We’ll never do it.”

“Don’t say that, Comrade. The struggle continues.” He laughed.

“Victory is certain. Yeah, I know.”

“I’m serious. You saw the dynamite.”

“Be serious, Pi. We can’t go messing around with that dynamite. If we do we’ll just die without having grown up to be elders.”

“You’re being thick because dynamite only goes off if you ignite it. First, you gotta set it right, then you’ve gotta connect up the wick. Only then can you light it.”

“And if they catch us? What if we go to jail at this age? Or if they send us to the front lines to fight South African japies?”

“First, only people who are over sixteen years old or whatever are sent to the front lines. Second, kids our age aren’t allowed in jails.”

“How do you know?”

“Third, nobody here’s going to tell on us. Unless it’s Charlita. But also, who’s even going to believe that the two of us were the ones who dexploded a Mausoleum, that size, guarded by a bunch of lobsters that blue?”

I knew that when it was time to act, 3.14 lost all fear. I had already gone with him to a bonfire that had been forgotten on the beach. We took real AK-47 bullets with us, from a soldier who wanted cigarettes in exchange, and when it was time to throw the bullets into the bonfire I said that we better not do it.

“Then keep yours. I’m throwing my bullets into the fire.”

“What if they shoot back at us?”

“Don’t be a scaredy-cat. You think with so many directions they’re going to choose to come right at our legs to get us back?”

Before I could utter a word in reply, he laughed as if he were eating the world’s best baobab ice cream, threw the bullets high into the air towards the middle of the bonfire and took off running. I went after him. We didn’t look back, but it appeared that the bullets had stayed there, heating up in the fire. We ran skidding with all the strength of our legs’ sweat, and when we rounded the trunk of that fat palm tree we heard two high-pitched shot-like reports and the sound of tin being pierced. One bullet had gone who-knows-where, while the other had pierced the can that was next to us.

“You see! The bullet chose the can because it makes more noise than our legs. Hahaha!” 3.14 looked back at the fire and tried to persuade me to throw my bullets, too, but I wasn’t brave enough.

“I’m going to hold onto them. If some day there’s a home invasion at my granma’s house, at least I have two bullets.”

3.14 could have given me a ribbing over that line about keeping bullets without even having an AK-47 in the house to shoot with, but he didn’t say anything. He laid a hand on my shoulder and we stayed there warming our faces in front of the yellow fire that smelled of the dust of cunning bullets that liked to pierce cans rather than the legs of Bishop’s Beach’s children.

“What you thinkin’ about?”

“I’m not thinking, I’m remembering.”

“What are you remembering?”

“Nothing, leave it.” I pointed at Comrade Rafael KnockKnock’s Lada. “Look who’s coming.”

“Your granma with nineteen fingers and toes!” he shouted in delight.

I hadn’t even known you could fit that many people into one of those old Ladas. Doctor Rafael was driving, Granma Nhé was in the front seat; behind them was Aunty Tó, her husband, my mother, a nurse and even Madalena Kamussekele, laughing with her head out the window.

They went around the square, on the far side of the gas pump. The Comrade Gas Jockey waved goodbye the way that he always did, in spite of the fact that people lived nearby. I don’t know; everybody has the right to use up as many goodbyes as he wants, but I figure that waving goodbye is something you do more for a departure of the long-trip type, like when somebody goes in an airplane to some other international country, or even to another province, as long as they stay there for more than two weeks, or you wave goodbye when you’re so far away that your voice doesn’t reach even if you shout so loudly that your throat hurts, or if it’s like in those movies about big ships that sometimes sink, then it’s worth going down to the port to wave goodbye, with or without a handkerchief, with or without tears. There are even people who like to wave goodbye while laughing and keeping their longing to cry hidden, because the person who’s leaving is already sad to be going so far away, and they don’t need to take the tears from our prolonged goodbye with them; and then, if it’s a person who likes the person who’s leaving a lot, and they’re going away, even if it’s only for a few days, then maybe it’s all right to give them a little goodbye wave, but not so extravagantly that you’re almost imitating the Comrade Traffic Cop like the Comrade Gas Jockey does. On top of that, I should say that you never wave a very big goodbye to a person who’s coming home, but it’s not worth explaining more. A lot of elders don’t understand a thing about waving goodbye.

The car stopped and we reached it at the same time as the dust that always arrives a little bit late, just like Madalena Kamussekele. It’s useless making any kind of appointment with her, even to watch a soap opera or a movie at the Kinanga Cinema — she’s going to arrive late. It seems that one time my cousin Nitó, who’s also known as Sankara, hit her for this. I mean, everybody was waiting for the afternoon matinée that started at three o’clock, and Madalena, just because she was on course to arrive five minutes early, stopped at the final bend to wait for a moment and ask a passing elder for the time — just to be certain that she arrived late. Nitó boxed her ears a couple of times to make her lose this habit, though she still hasn’t lost it to this day.

Granma Nhé’s eyes looked tired, and a little swollen, too, and on her arm I saw those little stains from when someone gives blood, the skin all purple and looking like it hurts like anything.

“Granma. We were here waiting for Granma.” 3.14 laughed as he spoke and looked into the car to try to find the spot where the toe no longer was.

“What ‘Granma’ is that?” I gave him a nudge and pulled him out of the way. “Is this the confidence you picked up in the Mausoleum, or what? Is your granma around here?”

“Cool it. Granmas are loaned out here on Bishop’s Beach.”

“There’s nothing to loan here. Everybody fixes himself up with his own granma. And anyways, mine’s awesome and she only has nineteen digits.”

Granma Nhé laughed. At last she seemed to be in a good mood.

Comrade Rafael KnockKnock went around the front of the car and succeeded in opening Granma Nhé’s door without saying “KnockKnock.” It was a miracle of forgetting.

“Oh, no, un momentito ,” he said, while he shooed us away. “I forgot por completo .”

He closed the door again, so that we all burst out laughing in disbelief: he regarded Granma Nhé with a clownish face, and said in a loud voice: “KnockKnock. Now, sí, abuela .” Granma was laughing so hard that she almost wasn’t able to stand up.

“ Me gusta seeing you like that, Abuela . What a joyous heart you have, what a marvellous smile!”

The foot emerged all wrapped up in some gauze that didn’t allow you to see anything from any operation.