short, strong arms, who had on one occasion questioned him at the radio station. Then he noticed the tall young man, gaunt as an Egyptian mummy, his wrists cuffed together. He didn’t hesitate. He helped the young man to his feet, covered his hands with his jacket, and brought him to his apartment.
“Why did you help me?”
Little Chief asked this question over and over, countless times, during the four years he spent hidden in the sound technician’s apartment. His friend rarely answered. He gave a big laugh, the laugh of a free man, shook his head, changed the subject. One day he looked him straight in the eye:
“My father was a priest. He was a good priest and an excellent father. To this day I don’t trust priests without children. How can you be a priest if you aren’t a father? Mine taught us to help the weak. And that time, when I saw you sprawled out on the pavement, you sure looked pretty weak to me. Besides, I recognized one of the policemen, a security officer, who had been at my work interrogating people. I don’t like thought police. I never have. So I did what my conscience told me.”
Little Chief spent long months hidden away. After the death of the first president, the regime experimented with a hesitant opening-up. Those political prisoners not linked to the armed opposition were released. Some received invitations to occupy positions in the apparatus of the State. As he went out onto the streets of the capital,feeling somewhere between alarmed and intrigued, Little Chief discovered that almost everybody believed him dead. Some friends assured him they had actually been at his funeral. A few of his comrades in the struggle even seemed a little disappointed to be reunited with him quite so alive. As for Madalena, she received him joyfully. In the years that had passed she’d set up an NGO, Stone Soup, committed to improving the diet of the communities living in Luanda’s slum housing. She would go through the poorest neighborhoods of the city, teaching the mothers and feeding the children, as best she could, with the limited resources available.
“You can eat better without spending any more,” she explained to Little Chief. “You and your friends fill your mouths with big words –
Social Justice, Freedom, Revolution
– and meanwhile people waste away, they fall ill, many of them die. Speeches don’t feed people. What the people need are fresh vegetables and a good fish broth, at least once a week. I’m only interested in the kinds of revolution that start off by getting people to the table.”
The young man was enthused by this. He started accompanying the nurse, in exchange for a symbolic wage, three meals a day, a bed, and laundry. In the meantime, the years went by. The socialist system was dismantled by the very same people who had set it up, and capitalism rose from the ashes, as fierce as ever. Guys who just months ago had been railing against bourgeois democracy at family lunches and parties, at demonstrations, in newspaper articles, were now dressed in designer clothing, driving around the city in cars that gleamed.
Little Chief allowed a thick prophet’s beard to stretch down over his thin chest. He was still incredibly elegant and, despite the beard,retained a youthful look about him. However, he began to walk stooped slightly to the left, as though he were being pushed, from within, by a violent gale. One afternoon, seeing the rich people’s cars parading past, he remembered the diamonds. Following Papy Bolingô’s advice, he went over to the Roque Santeiro market. He was carrying a piece of paper with a name on it. He thought, as he allowed himself to be dragged along by the crowd, that it would be impossible to track anyone down in the vastness of that chaos. He was afraid he would never be able to get out. He was wrong. The first trader he approached pointed him in one particular direction. Another, a few meters on, confirmed it. After fifteen minutes he stopped outside
“Why did you help me?”
Little Chief asked this question over and over, countless times, during the four years he spent hidden in the sound technician’s apartment. His friend rarely answered. He gave a big laugh, the laugh of a free man, shook his head, changed the subject. One day he looked him straight in the eye:
“My father was a priest. He was a good priest and an excellent father. To this day I don’t trust priests without children. How can you be a priest if you aren’t a father? Mine taught us to help the weak. And that time, when I saw you sprawled out on the pavement, you sure looked pretty weak to me. Besides, I recognized one of the policemen, a security officer, who had been at my work interrogating people. I don’t like thought police. I never have. So I did what my conscience told me.”
Little Chief spent long months hidden away. After the death of the first president, the regime experimented with a hesitant opening-up. Those political prisoners not linked to the armed opposition were released. Some received invitations to occupy positions in the apparatus of the State. As he went out onto the streets of the capital,feeling somewhere between alarmed and intrigued, Little Chief discovered that almost everybody believed him dead. Some friends assured him they had actually been at his funeral. A few of his comrades in the struggle even seemed a little disappointed to be reunited with him quite so alive. As for Madalena, she received him joyfully. In the years that had passed she’d set up an NGO, Stone Soup, committed to improving the diet of the communities living in Luanda’s slum housing. She would go through the poorest neighborhoods of the city, teaching the mothers and feeding the children, as best she could, with the limited resources available.
“You can eat better without spending any more,” she explained to Little Chief. “You and your friends fill your mouths with big words –
Social Justice, Freedom, Revolution
– and meanwhile people waste away, they fall ill, many of them die. Speeches don’t feed people. What the people need are fresh vegetables and a good fish broth, at least once a week. I’m only interested in the kinds of revolution that start off by getting people to the table.”
The young man was enthused by this. He started accompanying the nurse, in exchange for a symbolic wage, three meals a day, a bed, and laundry. In the meantime, the years went by. The socialist system was dismantled by the very same people who had set it up, and capitalism rose from the ashes, as fierce as ever. Guys who just months ago had been railing against bourgeois democracy at family lunches and parties, at demonstrations, in newspaper articles, were now dressed in designer clothing, driving around the city in cars that gleamed.
Little Chief allowed a thick prophet’s beard to stretch down over his thin chest. He was still incredibly elegant and, despite the beard,retained a youthful look about him. However, he began to walk stooped slightly to the left, as though he were being pushed, from within, by a violent gale. One afternoon, seeing the rich people’s cars parading past, he remembered the diamonds. Following Papy Bolingô’s advice, he went over to the Roque Santeiro market. He was carrying a piece of paper with a name on it. He thought, as he allowed himself to be dragged along by the crowd, that it would be impossible to track anyone down in the vastness of that chaos. He was afraid he would never be able to get out. He was wrong. The first trader he approached pointed him in one particular direction. Another, a few meters on, confirmed it. After fifteen minutes he stopped outside
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