A General Theory of Oblivion (11 page)

Baiacu turned to face them, triumphant. In the days that followed, people would listen to him. People would crowd around him to hear what he had to say. A man with a good story is practically a king.

On the day Sabalu broke through the wall, Ludo confessed her greatest nightmare to him: she had killed a man and buried him on the terrace. The boy listened to her without surprise:

“That was a long time ago, Grandma. Even he doesn’t remember that now.”

“He who?”

“Your dead man, that Trinitá. My mom used to say that the dead suffer from amnesia. They suffer even more from the poor memories of the living. You remember him every day, and that’s good. You should laugh as you remember him, you should dance. You need to talk to Trinitá the way you talk to Phantom. Talking calms the dead.”

“Did you learn that from your mother too?”

“Yes. My mother died on me when I was a child. I was left abandoned. I talk to her, but I don’t have those hands protecting me now.”

“You’re still a child.”

“I can’t do it, Grandma. How can I be a child if I’m far from my mother’s hands?”

“I’ll give you mine.”

Ludo hadn’t hugged anyone in a long time. She was a bit out of practice. Sabalu had to lift her arms up. It was really him making a nest for himself on the old lady’s lap. Only later did he talk about his
mother, a nurse, killed for fighting against the trade in human corpses. In the hospital where she worked, in a city in the north, corpses would sometimes disappear. Some of the employees used to sell the organs to the witchdoctors, thereby increasing their meager salaries fivefold. Filomena, Sabalu’s mother, had begun by rebelling against the corrupt employees, moving on, later, to fight the witchdoctors, too. She started having problems. A car sprung out at her, as she was leaving work, almost running her over. Her house was burgled five times. They left charms nailed to her door, notes with insults and threats. None of this deterred her. On one October morning, in the market, a man approached her and stabbed her in the stomach. Sabalu saw his mother drop to the ground. He heard her voice, in a hiss:

“Just run for it, son!”

Filomena had arrived pregnant from São Tomé, attracted by the bright eyes, the broad shoulders, the easy laugh, and the warm voice of a young officer in the Angolan Armed Forces. The officer had taken her from Luanda to that city in the north, he had lived with her for eight months, been there for Sabalu’s birth, then went off on a mission to the south, which was supposed to last just a few days, but he’d never come back.

The boy ran across the market, knocking over baskets of fruit, crates of beer, chirping wicker cages. A violent commotion of protest was erupting behind him. Sabalu didn’t stop till he had arrived home. He stood there, at a loss, not knowing what to do. Then the door opened and a crooked man, dressed in black, pounced on him like a bird of prey. The boy dodged him, rolled over on the asphalt, got up, and without looking back, broke into a run again.

A truck driver agreed to take him to Luanda. Sabalu told him the
truth: his mother had died, and his father had disappeared. He hoped that once in the capital he’d be able to track down someone from his family. He knew his father’s name was Marciano Barroso, that he was, or had been, a captain in the armed forces, and how he’d disappeared on a mission somewhere in the south. He knew, too, that his father was a native of Luanda. His paternal grandparents lived on the big Quinaxixe plaza. He remembered hearing his mother mentioning the name. She’d told him that there, on that big plaza, a lagoon had grown, with dark waters, where a mermaid lived.

The truck driver dropped him at Quinaxixe. He put a wad of banknotes in his pocket:

“This money should be enough for you to rent a room for a week, and to eat and drink. I hope you find your father in the meantime.”

The boy roamed around there, distressed, for hours and hours. He first approached an obese policeman positioned outside the door to a bank:

“Please sir, do you know Captain Barroso?”

The policeman fired a gaze at him, eyes sparkling with rage:

“Move on, layabout, move on!”

A woman selling vegetables took pity on the boy. She stopped a moment to hear him out. She called over some others. One of them remembered an old man, one Adão Barroso, who had lived in the Cuca Building. He’d died years ago.

It was already getting late when hunger drove Sabalu into a small bar. He sat down, fearful. He ordered a soup and a Coke. When he left, a young man with a swollen face, his skin in very poor shape, shoved him against the wall:

“My name’s Baiacu, kid. I’m the King of Quinaxixe.” He pointed
at the statue of a woman in the middle of the park. “She’s my queen. Her, Queen Ginga. Me, King Gingão. You got any cash?”

Sabalu shrank back, crying. Two other boys emerged from the shadows, flanking Baiacu, preventing his flight. They were identical, short and solid, like pit bulls, dull eyes and the same engrossed smile on well-drawn lips. Sabalu brought his hand to his pocket and showed him the money. Baiacu snatched the notes:

“Ace, pal. Tonight you can crib with us, over there, where the boxes are. We’ll look out for you. Tomorrow you start work. What’s your name?”

“Sabalu.”

“A pleasure, Sabalu. This is Diogo!”

“Which one?”

“Both. Diogo is both of them.”

It took Sabalu some time to understand that the two bodies constituted a single person. They moved about in unison, or rather, vibrated in harmony, like synchronized swimmers. They spoke, simultaneously, the same few words. They laughed common laughs. They wept identical tears. Pregnant women fainted when they saw Diogo. Children ran from him. Diogo himself, however, seemed not to have the least vocation for malice. He had the goodness of a Surinam cherry tree, which bears fruit in the sun, albeit discreet and infrequent, more out of negligence than any clear determination of the spirit. Baiacu had earned himself some money by making Diogo sing and dance
kuduru
outside the big hotels. The foreigners used to be fascinated. They would leave generous tips. One Portuguese journalist wrote a small article about the
kudurista
, which included a photograph of Diogo, his
arms around Baiacu. Baiacu always carried a cutting of the article in his back pocket. He looked proud:

“I’m a street businessman.”

Sabalu started out by washing cars. He would hand the money over to Baiacu. The street businessman bought food for everyone. For himself he also bought cigarettes and beer. Sometimes he used to drink too much. He’d become a talker. He would philosophize:

“The truth is the soleless shoe of a man who doesn’t know how to lie.”

He became easily irritated. On one occasion, Diogo allowed some other boys to steal a small battery-powered radio that Baiacu had managed to extract from the backseat of a jeep that was stuck in traffic. That night Baiacu lit a fire by the side of the lagoon. He heated up a sheet of iron till it was red-hot. He called Diogo over, grabbed one of his hands, and held it to the metal plate. Both Diogo’s bodies twisted desperately. Both his mouths gave a high-pitched howl. Sabalu threw up, tortured by the smell of burned flesh and Diogo’s desperation.

“You’re weak,” spat Baiacu. “You’ll never be king.”

From that day on, to make Sabalu a man, at least a man since he’d never be able to transform him into a king, he started taking him along on short pilfering expeditions. These would happen in the late afternoons, when the bourgeois were heading home in their cars, languishing in traffic jams for hours on end. There was always some poor soul who’d roll down a window, either to let in some air, because the air-conditioning wasn’t working, or to ask someone a question. Then Baiacu would spring out of the shadows, his face spiked with pimples, his wide eyes aflame, and hold a shard of glass to his neck. Sabalu
would stick his hands through the window and take a wallet, a watch, any object of value within his reach. Then the two of them would race away into the confusion of cars and people shouting threats and the fury of car horns, occasionally gunshots.

It had been Baiacu’s idea to climb the scaffolding. He instructed Sabalu:

“You climb up, see if there’s a window open anywhere, and get in without making noise. I can’t do it. Heights make me really sick. Also the higher I go the shorter I feel.”

Sabalu climbed up onto the terrace. He saw the dead chickens. He walked down the stairs and discovered an apartment that was stripped to the bone, without furniture, without doors or flooring. The walls, which were covered in inscriptions and strange drawings, scared him. He backed slowly toward the staircase. He told Baiacu there was nothing there. The next night, however, he climbed the scaffolding again. This time he ventured across the few remaining floor tiles. In the bedroom he found the old woman sleeping on a mattress. Clothes in one corner. The kitchen was the only place in the house that looked normal, apart from its walls that had been blackened by smoke. There was a heavy-looking table, marble-topped, an oven and fridge. The boy took out a bread roll that he’d brought in his pocket, he always had a bread roll in his pocket, and put it on the table. In a drawer he found a set of silver cutlery. He put it in his rucksack and left. He handed the cutlery over to Baiacu. The boy was impressed, and whistled:

“Good work, kid. You didn’t find any dough, any jewels?”

Sabalu said no. There was more poverty up there than down here on the streets of Luanda. Baiacu didn’t agree.

“You’re going back tomorrow.”

Sabalu just nodded. He asked for money to buy some bread. He put the bread, a stick of butter, and a bottle of Coke into his rucksack and scaled the building. When Baiacu saw him coming back empty-handed, he exploded. He threw himself on him, punching and kicking. He knocked him down. He went on kicking his head, his neck, till Diogo held his arms and pulled him off. The following night, Sabalu climbed up to the terrace again. This time he found Ludo sprawled on the floor. He came back down, very alarmed. He asked Baiacu to let him buy medicine. The old woman had fallen over. She looked really bad. The other boy didn’t even listen:

“I don’t see wings on your back, Sabalu. If you haven’t got wings, you’re not an angel. Let the old woman die.”

Sabalu fell silent. He accompanied Baiacu and Diogo to Roque Santeiro. They sold the cutlery. They had lunch around there, in a bar that rose up, perched on stilts, over the Babel-like confusion of the market. Sabalu let Baiacu finish his beer. Then he dared to ask whether he might not have some of the money for himself. After all, he’d been the one who’d brought the cutlery. The other boy was enraged:

“What do you want the dough for? Anything you need I give you. I’m like a father to you.”

“Let me just see the money. I’ve never seen so much all together.”

Baiacu handed him the thick wad of banknotes. Sabalu grabbed hold of them. He leaped down from the terrace onto the sand. When he got back to his feet, his knees were bleeding. He ran, slipping through the crowds, while Baiacu, leaning over the ledge, yelled insults and threats:

“Thief! Son of a bitch. I’m going to kill you.”

Sabalu bought medicine and food. It was getting late when he returned to Quinaxixe. He saw Baiacu sitting with Diogo beside the scaffolding. He approached another kid and handed him five banknotes:

“Tell Baiacu I’m waiting for him at the Verde Bar.”

The boy ran off. He passed on the message. Baiacu leaped to his feet and left, followed by Diogo, in the opposite direction. Sabalu climbed the scaffolding. He didn’t breathe easy till he had reached the terrace.

Daniel Benchimol read through the letter from Maria da Piedade Lourenço twice. He phoned a friend of his father’s, a geologist, who had devoted his entire life to diamond prospecting. Old Vitalino remembered Orlando very well:

“A good fellow, very ugly. Really stiff, and skinny, always standing very tense, as though he were wearing a shirt with studs in it. They called him Spike. Nobody wanted to have a coffee with him. He didn’t make friends. He disappeared not long before Independence. He took advantage of the chaos, stuck a few stones in his pocket, and ran off to Brazil.”

Daniel did some research online. He found hundreds of people called Orlando Pereira dos Santos. He wasted hours following any clue, any mention, that might take him from the name to the man he was after. No luck. He found it strange. A man like Orlando, living for twenty-something years in Brazil, or in any country that wasn’t Afghanistan, or Sudan, or Bhutan, would have to leave some trace on the great virtual web. He called Vitalino again:

“Did this Orlando guy have any family in Angola?”

“Probably. He was from Catete.”

“Catete? I thought he was Portuguese!”

“No, no! Hundred-percent Catete. Real light skin. After April 25
he insisted on reminding us of his origins. He boasted of having lived with Agostinho Neto himself. Would you believe it? A guy who all those years had never once raised his voice against colonialism. I should add, for the sake of the whole truth, that he didn’t do deals with racists, he never did that, he always acted like a decent kind of guy. He acted with just the same arrogance toward both whites and blacks.”

“And his family?”

“Well then, his family. I think he was a cousin of Vitorino Gavião.”

“The poet?”

“A tramp. Call him what you like.”

Benchimol knew where to find Vitorino Gavião. He crossed the street and went into Biker. The historic beer hall was almost empty at this time of day. Sitting at one table, toward the back, four men were playing cards. They were arguing loudly. They fell silent when they saw him approach.

“Careful!” said one of them sharply, in a pretend whisper but wanting the journalist to hear him. “The establishment press has arrived. The owner’s voice. The owner’s ears.”

Benchimol got annoyed:

“If I’m the voice of the regime, you’re the excrement.”

The one who had whispered straightened up:

“Don’t get annoyed, comrade. Have a beer.”