Rain Read online

  Biblioasis International Translation Series

  General Editor: Stephen Henighan

  1. I Wrote Stone: The Selected Poetry of Ryszard Kapus´cin´ski (Poland)

  Translated by Diana Kuprel and Marek Kusiba

  2. Good Morning Comrades

  by Ondjaki (Angola)

  Translated by Stephen Henighan

  3. Kahn & Engelmann

  by Hans Eichner (Austria-Canada)

  Translated by Jean M. Snook

  4. Dance With Snakes

  by Horacio Castellanos Moya

  (El Salvador)

  Translated by Lee Paula Springer

  5. Black Alley

  by Mauricio Segura (Quebec)

  Translated by Dawn M. Cornelio

  6. The Accident

  by Mihail Sebastian (Romania)

  Translated by Stephen Henighan

  7. Love Poems

  by Jaime Sabines (Mexico)

  Translated by Colin Carberry

  8. The End of the Story

  by Liliana Heker (Argentina)

  Translated by Andrea G. Labinger

  9. The Tuner of Silences

  by Mia Couto (Mozambique)

  Translated by David Brookshaw

  10. For as Far as the Eye Can See

  by Robert Melançon (Quebec)

  Translated by Judith Cowan

  11. Eucalyptus

  by Mauricio Segura (Quebec)

  Translated by Donald Winkler

  12. Granma Nineteen

  and the Soviet’s Secret

  by Ondjaki (Angola)

  Translated by Stephen Henighan

  13. Montreal Before Spring

  by Robert Melançon (Quebec)

  Translated by Donald McGrath

  14. Pensativities: Essays

  and Provocations

  by Mia Couto (Mozambique)

  Translated by David Brookshaw

  15. Arvida

  by Samuel Archibald (Quebec)

  Translated by Donald Winkler

  16. The Orange Grove

  by Larry Tremblay (Quebec)

  Translated by Sheila Fischman

  17. The Party Wall

  by Catherine Leroux (Quebec)

  Translated by Lazer Lederhendler

  18. Black Bread

  by Emili Teixidor (Catalonia)

  Translated by Peter Bush

  19. Boundary

  by Andrée A. Michaud (Quebec)

  Translated by Donald Winkler

  20. Red, Yellow, Green

  by Alejandro Saravia (Bolivia-Canada)

  Translated by María José Giménez

  21. Bookshops: A Reader’s History

  by Jorge Carrión (Spain)

  Translated by Peter Bush

  22. Transparent City

  by Ondjaki (Angola)

  Translated by Stephen Henighan

  23. Oscar

  by Mauricio Segura (Quebec)

  Translated by Donald Winkler

  24. Madame Victoria

  by Catherine Leroux (Quebec)

  Translated by Lazer Lederhendler

  25. Rain and Other Stories

  by Mia Couto (Mozambique)

  Translated by Eric M. B. Becker

  Rain and Other Stories

  Mia Couto

  Translated from the Portuguese by

  Eric M. B. Becker

  BIBLIOASIS

  windsor, ontario

  Originally published as Estórias Abensonhadas: Contos by Editorial Caminho, ­Lisbon, Portugal, 1994.

  Copyright © Mia Couto 1994 by arrangement with Literarische Agentur Mertin Inh. Nicole Witt e. K. Frankfurt am Main, Germany

  Translation copyright © Eric M. B. Becker, 2019

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher or a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright license visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

  FIRST EDITION

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Couto, Mia, 1955-

  [Short stories. Selections. English]

  Rain & other stories / Mia Couto ; translated from the Portuguese

  by Eric M. B. Becker.

  (Biblioasis international translation series ; 25)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77196-266-7 (softcover).-ISBN 978-1-77196-267-4 (ebook)

  1. Couto, Mia, 1955- —Translations into English. I. Becker, Eric M. B.,

  translator II. Title. III. Series: Biblioasis international translation series ; no. 25

  Edited by Stephen Henighan, Daniel Wells, and David Brookshaw

  Copy-edited by Jessica Faulds

  Typeset by Chris Andrechek

  Cover designed by Zoe Norvell

  Funded by the Direção-Geral do Livro, dos Arquivos e das Bibliotecas.

  PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA

  Contents

  The Waters of Time

  Novidade’s Flowers

  Blind Estrelinho

  The Delivery

  The Perfume

  Virigílio’s Heel

  Rain

  Felizbento’s Pipe

  The Flag in the Sunset

  Ninety-Three

  Jorojão’s Cradle of Memories

  Lamentations of a Coconut Tree

  Beyond the River Bend

  Serpent’s Embrace

  High-Heel Shoes

  The Hapless Calculus of Happiness

  Joãotónio, For Now

  That Devil of an Advocate

  War of the Clowns

  Legend of Namaroi

  The Woman Engulfed in Stone

  Drinking the Time By

  The Deaf Father

  The Oracle of Death

  The Shadow’s Departure

  Square of the Gods

  These tales were written after the war. For years without end, gunfire had spilled mourning all across Mozambique. These stories came to me between the banks of anguish and hope. After the war, I thought all that was left was ashes, hollow ruins. Everything weighing on me, definitive and without repair.

  Today, I know that’s not true. Where man remains, a seed, too, survives, a dream to inseminate time. This dream hid in the most inaccessible parts of us, in the space where violence could not strike, where barbarism could not enter. During all this time, the earth protected, intact, its voices. When silence was imposed on them, the voices shifted worlds. In the dark, they remained lunar.

  The tales here speak of this land we are remaking and where we soak our faces in this rain of hope, this water of benedreamtion. Of this land where each man is the same, like this: pretending he’s here, dreaming of going away, imagining his return.

  The Waters of Time

  My grandfather, in those days, would take me down the river, tucked into the tiny canoe he called a concho. He would row, lazurely, barely scraping the oar across the current. The little boat bobbled, wave here, wave there, lonelier, it seemed, than a fallen, forgotten tree trunk.

  —But where are you two going?

  That was my mother’s torment. The old man would smile. Teeth, in his case, were an indefinite article. Grandpa was
one of those men who are silent in their knowing and converse without really saying a thing.

  —We’ll be back in no time, he would respond.

  Not even I knew what he was pursuing. It wasn’t fish. The net remained in place, cushioning the seat. It was a guarantee that when the unappointed hour arrived, the day already twilighting, he would grip my hand and pull me toward the bank. He held me like a blind man. All the same, it was he who guided me, one step ahead of me. I was astonished at his upright gauntness, all of him musclyboned. Grandfather was a man in full-fledged childhood, perpetually enraptured by the novelty of living.

  We would climb into the boat, our feet a stroke on the belly of a drum. The canoe pulleyed, drowned in dreams. Before leaving, the old man would lean over one of the sides and gather up a bit of water with a cupped hand. I imitated him.

  —Always with the water, never forget!

  That was his constant warning. Drawing water against the current could bring misfortune. The flowing spirits won’t be contradicted.

  Later, we’d travel as far as the large lake into which our tiny river emptied. That was the realm of forbidden creatures. All that showed itself there, after all, invented its existence. In that place, the boundary between water and earth disappeared. In the unquiet calm, atop the lily-rippled waters, we were the only ones who prevailed. Our tiny boat floated in place, dozing to the gentle lull. Grandfather, hushed, observed the distant banks. Everything around us bathed in cool breezes, shadows made of light itself, as if the morning were eternally drowned in dreams. We would sit there as if in prayer, so quiet as to appear perfect.

  Then my grandfather would suddenly stand in the concho. With the rocking, the boat nearly tossed us out. The old man, excited, would wave. He’d take out his red cloth and shake it decisively. Whom was he signalling? Maybe it was no one. At no point, not even for an instant, did I glimpse a soul from this or any other world. But my grandfather would continue to wave his cloth.

  —Don’t you see it, there on the bank? Behind the mist?

  I didn’t see it. But he would insist, unbuttoning his nerves.

  —It’s not there. It’s theeeere. Don’t you see the white cloth, dancing?

  All I saw was a heavy fog before us and the frightful beyond, where the horizon disappeared. My elder, later on, would lose sight of the mirage and withdraw, shrunken in his silence. And then we would return, travelling without the company of words.

  At home, my mother would greet us sourly. Soon she would forbid me from doing many things. She didn’t want us going to the lake, she feared the dangers that lurked there. First she would become angry with my grandfather, suspicious of his non-intentions. But afterward, already softened by our arrival, she would test out a joke:

  —You could at least have spotted the namwetxo moha! Then, at least, we’d have the benefit of some good luck…

  The namwetxo moha was a spirit that emerged at night, made only of halves: one eye, one leg, one arm. We were children, and adventurous, and we’d go out looking for the moha. But we never found any such creature. My grandfather would belittle us. He’d say that, when still a youth, he’d come face to face with this certain half-fellow. An invention of his own mind, my mother would warn. But, being mere children, we had no desire to doubt him.

  One time, at the forbidden lake, Grandpa and I waited for the habitual emergence of the cloths. We were on the bank where the greens become reeds, enfluted. They say: the first man was born of these reeds. The first man? For me, there couldn’t be any man more ancient than my grandfather. It so happened that, on this occasion, I hungered to see the marshes. I wanted to climb the bank, set foot on unsolid ground.

  —Never! Never do that!

  He spoke in the gravest of tones. I had never seen my elder look so possessed. I apologized: I was getting off the boat, but only for a little while. Then he retorted:

  —In this place, there aren’t any little whiles. All time, from here on out, is eternity.

  I had a foot half out of the boat, seeking the boggy floor of the bank. I sought to steady myself. I looked for ground where I could put my foot down. It happened that I found no bottom—my leg kept falling, swallowed by the abyss. The old man rushed to my aid and pulled me back toward the boat. But the force sucking me downward was greater than our effort. With the commotion, the boat overturned and we fell backwards into the water. And so we were stuck there, struggling in the lake, clinging to the sides of the canoe. Suddenly, my grandfather pulled his cloth from the boat and began to wave it above his head.

  —Go on, you greet him too!

  I looked toward the bank but saw no one. But I obeyed my grandpa, waving without conviction. Then something astonishing happened: all of a sudden, we stopped being pulled into the depths. The whirlpool that had seized us vanished in an immediate calm. We returned to the boat and sighed in shared relief. In silence, we split the work of the return voyage. As he tied up the boat, the old man told me:

  —Don’t say a word about what happened. Not even to no one, you hear?

  That night, he explained his reasons. My ears opened wide to decipher his hoarse voice. I couldn’t understand it all. He said, more or less: We have eyes that open to the inside, these we use to see our dreams. It so happens, my boy, that nearly all are blind, they no longer see those others who visit us. Others, you ask? Yes, those who wave to us from the other bank. And so we provoke their complete sadness. I take you there to the marshes so you might learn to see. I must not be the last to be visited by the cloths.

  —Understand me?

  I lied and said that I did. The following afternoon, my grandfather took me once more to the lake. Arriving at the edge of dusk, he sat there watching. But time passed with unusual sloth. My grandfather grew anxious, propped on the boat’s bow, the palm of his hand refining the view. On the other side there was less than no one. This time, my grandfather, too, saw nothing more than the misty solitude of the marshes. Suddenly, he interrupted the nothing:

  —Wait here!

  And he jumped to the bank as fear stole my breath. Was my grandfather stepping into the forbidden country? Yes. In the face of my shock, he kept walking with confident steps. The canoe wobbled in disequilibrium with my off-balance weight. I witnessed the old man distancing himself with the discretion of a cloud. Until, enveloped in mist, he sank into dream, at the margin of the mirage. I stood there, in shock, trembling in the shivering cold. I recall seeing an enormous white egret cut across the sky. It looked like an arrow piercing the flanks of the afternoon, making all the firmament bleed. It was then I beheld on the bank, from the other side of the world, the white cloth. For the first time, I saw the cloth as my grandfather had. Even as I doubted what I saw, there, right alongside the apparition, was my grandfather’s red cloth, still waving. I hesitated, disordered. Then, slowly, I removed my shirt and shook it in the air. I saw the red of his cloth becoming white, its colour fading. My eyes misted until the visions became dusk.

  As I rowed a long return, the old words of my old grandfather came to mind: water and time are twin brothers, born of the same womb. I had just discovered in myself a river that would never die. It’s to that river I now return, guiding my son, teaching him to glimpse the white cloths on the other bank.

  Novidade’s Flowers

  Novidade Castigo was the daughter of Veronica Manga and the miner Jonasse Nhamitando. She gained the nickname Castigo because, true to the moniker, she came into the world like a punishment. That much could be surmised shortly after her birth, from the blue that shone in her eyes. A black girl, the daughter of black parents: Where had this blue come from?

  Let’s begin with the girl: she was astonishingly beautiful, with a face to incur the envy of angels. Not even water was more pristine. Her one drawback, though: she was slow in the head, her thoughts never seemed to stay the night. She’d become that way—amiss—when one day, already a young woman, she suf
fered a fit of convulsions. That night, Veronica was sitting on the veranda when she felt insomnia’s spider-crawl across her chest.

  —Tonight I’m going to count stars, she predicted.

  The night was already biting its fingernails toward dawn when, in one corner of the house, the young girl awoke in spasms and convulsions, as though her flesh were trying to break free from her soul. Her mother, predicting the future from the shadows, sensed a muted warning: What had happened? Light as a fright, she ran to young Novidade’s bedside. In the houses of the poor all is well according to the degree of tidiness or disarray. Veronica Manga cut through the dark, dodged crates and cans, leapt over hoes and sacks, until she drew closer to her daughter and saw her arm, hoisted like a flag drooping at full-mast. Veronica didn’t call for Novidade’s father. It wasn’t worth interrupting his rest.

  Only the next morning did she relate what had happened. Jonasse was preparing to take off for his job on the eve of his descent into the belly of the mountain. He stopped at the door, reconsidering his intentions. Jonasse Nhamitando, all father-like, went to his daughter’s room and found her lying still, her only wish to rest. Without removing his rough, worn glove, he tenderly stroked her face. Was he saying goodbye to another girl, the one who had been his little daughter? Then, the young girl’s father left the way a cloud parts from the rain.

  The years passed in less than a blink of an eye. Novidade grew up, nothing new there. Her parents had acknowledged and assented to the idea: their daughter had sealed Veronica’s womb. She wasn’t an only child: she was a none-ly child, a creature of singular stock. Jonasse was a kind man, he refused to abandon Veronica. And the couple’s daughter, in a pact with the void, showered her father with love and tenderness. Not that she put this into words. Rather, she did so by the way she would wait, suspended in time, for the miner’s return home. For the duration of each of the miner’s shifts, the girl remained apprehensive, neither eating nor drinking. Only after the father returned would the girl reassume her normal expression, and, in her voice like a stream, they discovered tunes that no one, save the girl, knew. And then there were the gifts she would pick for him: bizarre little flowers of no other colour than the blue found in her eyes. No one ever learned where she plucked such petals.