Ondjaki: Granma Nineteen and the Soviet's Secret

“A parrot all burned like that?” Granma Nhé laughed. “Are you sure he’s alive?”

“Yeah, Granma.”

“Look here, I don’t want any bewitched animals here in the yard. What’s his name?”

“It’s His Name.”

“How do you know?”

“That’s the name we gave him. The soldier who found him had that name, too.”

“And where is that soldier?”

“He died in the explosion that the parrot escaped from.”

His Name ate with enthusiasm. It must be because the war, since it makes you afraid, stimulates your appetite. When he arrived, for the first few days, Just Parrot started getting thin like he was almost finished. Later we had to give them food in separate cages because His Name ate with an appetite from the old days.

“What are you guys doin’?” Madalena met us near the big cage.

“I was remembering the tale of His Name. Is it true he came right out of an explosion that didn’t kill him?”

“Those are André’s lies.”

“The commando’s lying, Madalena? Don’t shoot your mouth off, or André’s gonna give you a beating that’ll last till midnight.”

“He’s gonna give it to me right now? At least I’ll put up a fight…”

“Haha! You’re gonna fight with the commando? Not even a regular soldier.”

“Hush, keep it down, the hens are layin’ eggs. What did you come here to do?”

“We need a pair of wire cutters.”

“Wire cutters? What for?”

“We can’t say.”

“Then I can’t help you.”

“But do you have them or don’t you?”

“I can have them.”

“Madalena, in that case we don’t even know if it’s worth telling you. Because if you don’t have them, then you’re going to squeal on us and we’ll be stuck without the wire cutters.”

All this conversation confused her. That was actually our objective: to start blabbing until she said whether or not she had a pair of wire cutters and what she was going to ask for to lend them to us without anybody finding out.

Madalena kept tabs on a whole bunch of keys. She could get into the animals’ hutches, open the parrots’ cage, the doors of the house, the pantry, and even the big garage door, behind which were a thousand objects covered with dust that made asthmatic people cough.

“You guys…You talk and talk and you don’t say anything.”

“You’re the one who’s not replying.”

“What was the question?”

“The question was about the wire cutters.”

“There must be a pair in the toolbox.”

“You can’t just lend them to us?”

“‘Just lend them’? Just how?”

“Just like that.”

“And if they catch me in Granma’s stuff? Aren’t they ‘just’ going to give me a thrashing?”

“No, Granma will only give you a kind of thrashing.”

“I can go see if they’re there.”

“Thank you, Madalena.”

“What’s this thank you stuff? Thank you is what you say to the Comrade Teacher in school. Here there’s going to have to be salt for us to eat with green mangoes.”

“But haven’t you got the key to the pantry?”

“No. It’s in the display cabinet.”

“And the key to the display cabinet?”

“It’s in Granma’s room.”

It was agreed: we would get her salt in exchange for the wire cutters. Later she showed us a huge pair of wire cutters with a plastic grip that would be great for cutting an electric cable. We had already seen this in movies, and everybody knew that to cut an electric cable you had to be wearing shoes, wrap the wire cutters in a piece of cloth and not have wet hands or feet. If the wire cutters had a plastic grip, that was even better. In any event, we flipped a coin to see who would actually go and cut the cable and who would guard the entrances in case some elder, or even Comrade Gudafterov, appeared.

“Good, if something happens, you know what to do, just give me a kick,” 3.14 requested. “If you don’t, we could both get stuck here by the force of the electricity.”

The cable was behind Granma Agnette’s house. We dug down a little and found it. Even though Comrade Gudafterov had buried it so that no one would see it, 3.14 is good at finding those things. We followed the wire for a bit and soon understood that this had to be the one.

“Do I cut it?”

“Affirmative, Comrade.”

At first it was difficult, then we decided that the two of us would have to push down together.

We heard a noise from the side of the Mausoleum construction site and hid behind a really dusty avocado tree that was breaking the houses’ foundations with its roots. It was Comrade Dimitry going into a shed with cages full of brightly coloured birds, more than one of which had parrots inside. Maybe it was the same place where the boxes of dynamite were hidden.

3.14 picked up a rock and threw it in the direction of the cages. I had to grab him and drag him back to our hiding place. Comrade Dimitry dropped a cage containing some parrots, which started shouting, “A single people, a single nation!” and “National Radio, broadcasting from Luanda, capital of the People’s Republic of Angola,” with a voice just like that of the comrade on the radio who said those words on the news every day at one PM and eight PM.

We smothered our laughter so that we wouldn’t be caught.

“Let’s split now.”

We took advantage of Comrade Dimitry’s confusion and fled.

We ran into the yard to return the wire cutters to Madalena before anyone could arrive and make her feel like telling on us.

“Here they are, Madalena. Thanks a lot.”

“What kind of thanks is that? I already said: coarse salt after lunch, because at the end of the day they’re going to bring green mangoes.”

“Sure. We’ll bring it later. Nobody came by?”

“No. They’ve got company.”

“Who is it?”

“The neighbour. Dona Libânia.”

“Then it’s just a visitor.”

“No, because Dona Libânia is talking as if she was three visitors. And she eats more peanuts than the parrots.”

“Madalena…Do you know if the light went out in the house?”

Madalena didn’t reply, and as everybody was sitting in the living room looking at Granma Agnette’s extended leg, we took advantage of the situation to go to the pantry to swipe the coarse salt.

“You go by yourself. It’s only a little salt, your hand’s big enough.”

“You’re afraid of getting caught.”

“It’s not that, it’s just that in my house they already thrash me all the time, and if we get caught here I’m gonna get it again for something that’s not even my business. I already helped you get the wire cutters and showed you where the Soviet’s cable was.”

“Okay, I get it. So cover my back.”

“And if somebody comes?”

“You make the noise of that drunken cat.”

“What cat?”

“The one on the Cambalacho soap opera. Haven’t you seen it?”

“No.”

“Hey, that means we don’t have a communication code in case of an emergency.”

“In the time we’ve stood here talking you could’ve already swiped the salt.”

He watched the living room and it went really fast. A handful of salt would be enough. I ran out into the yard to call Madalena.

“Madalena! Take your salt.”

“Hey, is that how you hand it over? Without wrapping paper or anything?”

“Whoah, are you jokin’? You think this is the people’s store, or what? Here it is, if you want it.”

We were on our way out through the yard, but they heard our footsteps.

“Children!” Granma Agnette called. “Come and say hello to everyone.”

“We can’t, Granma. We’re really sweaty.”

“I said come inside.”