I thought, forcefullyâ¦
âNo one is a name!â Félix replied.
The reply took Ãngela Lúcia by surprise. Félix too. I watched him look at her as though looking into an abyss. She was smiling sweetly. She lay her right hand on the albinoâs left arm. She whispered something in his ear, and he relaxed.
âNo,â he whispered back. âI donât know who he is. But since Iâm the one who dreams about him I think I can give him any name I want, canât I? Iâm going to call him Eulálio, because heâs so well-spoken.â
Eulálio?! That seems fine to me. So Eulálio I shall be.
Rain on Childhood
It’s raining. Thick drops of water, blown by the strong winds, throw themselves at the windowpanes. Félix, who’s sitting facing the storm, is savouring a fruit shake in small spoonfuls. For the past few nights this has been his dinner. He makes it himself, taking a papaya, piercing it with a fork, then he gets two passion fruit, a banana, raisins, pine nuts, a soupspoon of muesli (an English brand) and a strand of honey.
‘Have I told you about the locusts?’
He had told me.
‘Whenever it rains like this it reminds me of the locusts. It wasn’t here, I’ve never seen anything like it here in Luanda. My father, old Fausto Bendito, inherited a farm in Gabela from his maternal grandmother. We used to go spend our holidays there. I felt like I was visiting Paradise. I used to play all day long with the workers’ children, and one or other of the local white boys from the area, who knew how to speak quimbundo . We used to play cowboys and Indians, with slingshots and spears we made ourselves, and even with air rifles – I had one, and another boy had one, which we loaded up with maças-da-India . You probably don’t know maças-da -India , they’re a little red fruit, about the size of a bullet. They were perfect as ammunition because when they hit their target they’d disintegrate – pluf! – staining the victim’s clothes with what looked like blood. When I see rain like this it reminds me of Gabela. Of the mango trees on the side of the road, even on the road out of Quibala. The omelettes – I’ve never tasted any like them! – the omelettes that they served for breakfast at the Quibala Hotel. My childhood is full of marvellous flavours. It smelled good too. Yes, I remember the locusts. I remember the afternoons when it rained locusts. The horizons woulddarken. The locusts would fall, stunned, into the grasses – one here, then another there, and they’d be eaten right off by the birds, and then the darkness would get closer, covering everything, and the next moment transforming itself into a nervous, multiple thing, a furious buzzing, a commotion, and we’d make for the house, running for shelter, as the trees lost their leaves and the grass disappeared, in just a few minutes, consumed by that sort of living fire. The next day everything that had been green was gone. Fausto Bendito told me he’d seen a little green car disappear like that, consumed by locusts. He was probably exaggerating.’
I like listening to him. Félix talks about his childhood as though he’d really lived through it. He closes his eyes. He smiles:
‘When I close my eyes I can see those locusts again, falling from the sky. The red ants, warrior ants – you know what I mean? – red ants would come down at night, they’d come from some doorway in the night that leads to hell, and they’d multiply, to thousands, millions, as fast as we could kill them. I remember waking up coughing, coughing violently, suffocating, my eyes burning, from the smoke of battle. My father Fausto Bendito, in his pyjamas, grey hair completely dishevelled, his bare feet in a basin of water, fighting that sea of ants with a pump full of DDT. Fausto shouting instructions to the servants through the smoke. I laughed with a child’s amazement. I’d fall asleep and dream of the red ants,
âNo one is a name!â Félix replied.
The reply took Ãngela Lúcia by surprise. Félix too. I watched him look at her as though looking into an abyss. She was smiling sweetly. She lay her right hand on the albinoâs left arm. She whispered something in his ear, and he relaxed.
âNo,â he whispered back. âI donât know who he is. But since Iâm the one who dreams about him I think I can give him any name I want, canât I? Iâm going to call him Eulálio, because heâs so well-spoken.â
Eulálio?! That seems fine to me. So Eulálio I shall be.
Rain on Childhood
It’s raining. Thick drops of water, blown by the strong winds, throw themselves at the windowpanes. Félix, who’s sitting facing the storm, is savouring a fruit shake in small spoonfuls. For the past few nights this has been his dinner. He makes it himself, taking a papaya, piercing it with a fork, then he gets two passion fruit, a banana, raisins, pine nuts, a soupspoon of muesli (an English brand) and a strand of honey.
‘Have I told you about the locusts?’
He had told me.
‘Whenever it rains like this it reminds me of the locusts. It wasn’t here, I’ve never seen anything like it here in Luanda. My father, old Fausto Bendito, inherited a farm in Gabela from his maternal grandmother. We used to go spend our holidays there. I felt like I was visiting Paradise. I used to play all day long with the workers’ children, and one or other of the local white boys from the area, who knew how to speak quimbundo . We used to play cowboys and Indians, with slingshots and spears we made ourselves, and even with air rifles – I had one, and another boy had one, which we loaded up with maças-da-India . You probably don’t know maças-da -India , they’re a little red fruit, about the size of a bullet. They were perfect as ammunition because when they hit their target they’d disintegrate – pluf! – staining the victim’s clothes with what looked like blood. When I see rain like this it reminds me of Gabela. Of the mango trees on the side of the road, even on the road out of Quibala. The omelettes – I’ve never tasted any like them! – the omelettes that they served for breakfast at the Quibala Hotel. My childhood is full of marvellous flavours. It smelled good too. Yes, I remember the locusts. I remember the afternoons when it rained locusts. The horizons woulddarken. The locusts would fall, stunned, into the grasses – one here, then another there, and they’d be eaten right off by the birds, and then the darkness would get closer, covering everything, and the next moment transforming itself into a nervous, multiple thing, a furious buzzing, a commotion, and we’d make for the house, running for shelter, as the trees lost their leaves and the grass disappeared, in just a few minutes, consumed by that sort of living fire. The next day everything that had been green was gone. Fausto Bendito told me he’d seen a little green car disappear like that, consumed by locusts. He was probably exaggerating.’
I like listening to him. Félix talks about his childhood as though he’d really lived through it. He closes his eyes. He smiles:
‘When I close my eyes I can see those locusts again, falling from the sky. The red ants, warrior ants – you know what I mean? – red ants would come down at night, they’d come from some doorway in the night that leads to hell, and they’d multiply, to thousands, millions, as fast as we could kill them. I remember waking up coughing, coughing violently, suffocating, my eyes burning, from the smoke of battle. My father Fausto Bendito, in his pyjamas, grey hair completely dishevelled, his bare feet in a basin of water, fighting that sea of ants with a pump full of DDT. Fausto shouting instructions to the servants through the smoke. I laughed with a child’s amazement. I’d fall asleep and dream of the red ants,
Similar Books
