The Sword and the Spear Page 22

Because they already have, Impibekezane insisted. I’ve spoken with them.

  And do you know why they accepted it? I argued. Because it probably had been their plan all along, to withdraw straight after the Battle of Coolela.

  All the better. It means this is the last fire, the last inferno.

  * * *

  Bertha Ryff listened in silence to Impibekezane’s invitation to me to become her daughter-in-law. And she took advantage of the queen’s presence to make herself heard.

  Think carefully. You’ll give her a throne, but take her life away from her.

  It was not only the war Ngungunyane needed to free himself from. There were other challenges. Bertha recalled that two weeks before, one of Ngungunyane’s newest wives had turned up at the hospital. The king had gone to get her from the mountains of Swaziland. She had been tormented by constant fevers ever since she had arrived at Mandhlakazi.

  It’s the mandikwé, the demons, declared the young virgin.

  She received treatment and the following week she returned to offer them a basket of eggs as a token of her gratitude. Then she addressed the doctor in the following terms:

  Ah, mulungu! Don’t you have a cure that will stop our king from drinking so much?

  If it were true that the king had stopped appearing drunk at his official functions, then in his private life it should also be acknowledged that he was so intoxicated that he was deviating from his conjugal duties.

  If you cannot cure my husband, the young wife said, I would rather you gave me back my old demons. Sometimes being ill is a way of suffering less.

  Georges was categorical in his diagnosis: Drink was depriving the king of his virility, Bertha suggested.

  Don’t pay any attention to people who talk like that, his mother begged me.

  If I was destined to be the king’s wife, Impibekezane argued, I should combine the wisdom of water and fire: to be able to work my way around obstacles, and embrace enemies in order to burn them with the fierceness of a kiss.

  Then the queen spoke in Txizulu: I shouldn’t listen to a white. After all, wasn’t I dreaming of regaining my black, African soul?

  Aware of the growing pressure upon me, Bertha called me aside and shook me as she murmured:

  They make a queen of you. But will you ever become a wife? Or will you never be more than a slave?

  * * *

  All of a sudden Georges Liengme arrived, breathless. A week after having left for Chicomo, he returned without his mule or his traveling companion. He yelled instructions for us to gather our things together and get away from there.

  They set fire to Mandhlakazi. And now they’re on their way here to burn the mission.

  Without panicking, as if she had been expecting this outcome all along, Bertha went into the house to collect her children. Beside himself, her husband hurried to get his cameras and photographic plates while commanding operations at the top of his voice. He told the queen that at the foot of the hill a group of VaNguni soldiers was waiting to accompany her to Txaimiti. The mulata, Elizabete, was ordered to collect the medicines together and to hide the patients in the surrounding bush. The girl shrugged and, in contrast to the commotion that we were going through, smiled at me and muttered:

  It wasn’t me he was talking to, Georges doesn’t speak to me in that way.

  In an instant, as if this were a scene that had been rehearsed, half a dozen servants transferred the contents of the residence to the back of the house, where two carts drawn by mules were waiting. One of the carts was full of effects. The driver commented laconically, “They are the king’s things.” All the belongings of the Swiss family were therefore going to have to fit in the remaining cart. The doctor hurried backward and forward, urging us to abandon the place as quickly as possible. As he passed me, he issued a hurried invitation:

  Come with us, Imani.

  And he held out his arm to stop me. He held me back for a moment as if he knew this would be our last encounter. I pushed him out of the way gently but firmly.

  I’m going to help your wife, I justified myself.

  Without any ceremony, I entered the residence of the Swiss and surprised Elizabete emerging from the couple’s bedroom. She was wearing a fur coat belonging to Bertha Ryff.

  Everyone’s leaving except me. And Georges is going to stay with me, she said. I’m this white man’s true wife. Bertha’s a vanquished woman. She’s got no spark. She’s damp timber. She can’t catch fire.

  Flaunting those absurd clothes, the mestizo woman went out into the yard and showed herself off, spinning around and around as if she were doing a dance, until the coat slipped off her, leaving her breasts exposed. But she did not retreat from her carelessness. On the contrary, she exposed her whole body, and stepped back into the house naked. The queen was amused and applauded her performance. Only I noticed Bertha Ryff making for the cart and, taking her husband’s photographic plates from her bag, she flung them into the long grass. And I shall never forget her fury as she cursed Elizabete and her race:

  Damned mulattoes! Let them burn in Hell!

  Her curse pained me. It was a physical pain, a ripping through my body, a stab with a dagger sharpened by demons. I never thought words could hurt so much. And I crossed my arms over my belly as if, by so doing, I could shut out the white woman’s malediction.

  42

  SERGEANT GERMANO DE MELO’S FOURTEENTH LETTER

  The whites don’t know that stones are planted. And that they die when they are torn up without the gods’ permission. The whites take them away in order to build great cities. They build them with stones that have died, and in this way they cause the soil all around to fester. That is why the cities stink.

  —BIBLIANA TALKING ABOUT PROSPECTORS

  Chicomo, December 24, 1895

  Dear Lieutenant Ayres de Ornelas,

  I fear this letter will never reach you. I am sending it without any great hopes to Lourenço Marques. It is more than likely, however, that you, sir, will have left Mozambique. Be that as it may, I am using the cook, who is leaving Chicomo today, as the bearer of this message. And I am doing all this because the news I bring you bears no relation to that which I have sent you up until now. Let me begin by saying how sorry I am that you were not in the officers’ mess at Chicomo when Mouzinho de Albuquerque summoned Captain Sanches de Miranda. I haven’t the words to describe the burning passion in Mouzinho de Albuquerque’s eyes, and which contrasted with his military composure and calmness. When Miranda appeared, Mouzinho spoke sparingly:

  I’m going ahead with my plan!

  Right now, in the middle of Christmas, Governor?

  The sooner the better. And don’t call me that. I’m a captain and nothing more.

  Mouzinho had just been appointed governor of the military district of Gaza. And as for the attack on Gungunhane’s new headquarters, he had thought of everything: As far as the kaffirs were concerned, the Portuguese military offensive had stalled. Even Lisbon considered the matter closed. Orders had come from the mother country to withdraw our forces.

  Do you want a better opportunity than this one? asked Albuquerque.

  Sanches de Miranda responded with caution to these audacious instructions. He wanted to know what we would do with Gungunhane, whether we would kill him or take him captive. We’d decide that later, Mouzinho answered. Miranda had another opinion, as a result of news just received from the military post at Languene, on the northern bank of the Limpopo. He knew that the goodwill of the population in the vicinity of Chaimite could not be guaranteed. However, Mouzinho was now much more than a mere captain. And he had received very different information: Fifty-three village headmen had sought the protection of the Portuguese flag. After Coolela, most of the local chieftains had sworn loyalty. Don’t confuse loyalty with fear, Captain Miranda argued. The kaffirs were living between two terrors. On the one hand, there was their fear of Gungunhane’s cruelty; on the other, their panic that in the wake of our victory we would punish anyone who wasn’t on
our side.

  It was on these terms, sir, that the conversation between the two officers took place. What made Mouzinho so enthusiastic was precisely what terrified me the most: Imani was in Gungunhane’s final refuge. I found this out from one of the soldiers who set fire to Liengme’s hospital. According to this witness, the queen mother had forced Imani to go with her. The final assault on the king of the Vátuas might, in some form of crossfire, kill the woman who had stolen my heart.

  Can I go with you? I asked timidly.

  And who are you? asked Mouzinho.

  Sanches de Miranda offered the information. He knew who I was and the tasks I had been performing in the infirmary over the last month. Given Dr. Braga’s absence, it would be better if I stayed at the garrison until the expedition’s return. Rodrigues Braga would return the following day and assume the command of the post.

  Then the two captains returned again to debating their views, by now in a more solemn tone. For Miranda, the intervention would merely be an act of temerity that ran the most serious risks. But nothing could shake Albuquerque’s conviction. Gungunhane wouldn’t be expecting them. He had just surrendered up Zixaxa to us, and for this reason he believed he was in our good books. At the end of their discussion, Miranda asked whether the High Command in Lourenço Marques had been informed of the operation. And here, sir, it is worth quoting Mouzinho’s reply word for word:

  High Command? Lourenço Marques? I’ve never heard of either.

  When Mouzinho had moved away, Captain Miranda commented:

  This fellow’s mad. Fifty foot soldiers under these rains are going to get bogged down in Hell. It’s going to be mass suicide.

  I’ll go instead of you, I offered when I saw him organizing his haversack.

  Sanches de Miranda sighed and smiled.

  I have to go, he replied. And my main reason is a sad one. I have to go because I shall be taken for someone else.

  The natives thought that he was Mafambatcheca. They took him for the late Diocleciano das Neves, the Portuguese hunter who had gained so much sympathy among the kaffirs. And because of this mistake, the Negroes welcomed our troops with a great show of hospitality every time they were led by Miranda.

  The advance platoon had already passed the entrance to the garrison’s gunnery when Captain Miranda, as if assailed by some urgent thought, turned back to tell me in an almost desperate tone:

  Do you really want to make yourself useful? Well, send a message immediately to Lourenço Marques. Alert them to the tragedy that is about to happen.

  Then he rejoined the group, which was moving out into the bush. Still puzzled by that strange order, I watched the troops depart from the garrison’s palisade. It was three days before Christmas and it was raining so hard that it was as if those Portuguese were ships crossing an ocean. From the quayside, I watched the sails braving the waves. The scene had the quality of an epic. But it was worrying: The men could scarcely keep to their feet, the skinny mules lacked the strength to pull the carts. It was not an advance guard. It was a procession of sick men on their way to their final resting place. In contrast to this tragic scene was Mouzinho de Albuquerque’s fanatical gaze and godly demeanor as he led the march.

  After that, I returned to my own tasks. In fact, there was only one, and this left my conscience in torment: Sanches de Miranda’s fateful order. How I wish you were here, my dear lieutenant. Because at that moment I had a double-edged blade in my hands. By obeying the captain, I disobeyed the governor. By sending the message, I might prevent a major disaster from affecting the whole nation. By not sending it, I might render the capture of our most powerful enemy even harder. And then there was the practical question: How was I to get a message to Lourenço Marques with sufficient speed? Then I remembered that among the sick in the infirmary there was a telegraph operator. It was he who sent the message, while I supported him in my arms. He was so weak that I had to hold his fingers on the keyboard. The unfortunate soldier occasionally forgot the Morse code. Then, with a flickering glint in his eye, the man began to type again and that annoying clatter of the keys was music to my ears.

  Once back in my room, I thought again about António Enes as the recipient of my telegram. I was aware that by then the Royal Commissioner might have already returned to Lisbon. But then I thought someone in command in Lourenço Marques would have re-transmitted the message to Lisbon. That was my belief. That was what I bet my life on. But my hopes crashed against the barrier of reality. And you, my dear lieutenant, know what I mean here. In the hierarchy of our military command, the idea prevails that as a result of the Battle of Coolela, Gungunhane has been decisively beaten, his headquarters destroyed and his army scattered.

  Who knows, sir, maybe you yourself, along with all the other chiefs of staff, have returned to Lisbon? Maybe the war is over for you as well. Gungunhane may well be able to roam around his lands without having to give himself up. With the exception of Mouzinho, no one seems in a hurry to capture him.

  The following day, an incoming message shook our telegraph. The same patient, now even weaker, gradually transcribed, letter by letter, what an unknown sender had dictated on the other side of the world. Eventually, the message was written out. The messenger hesitated, and then awkwardly handed me the manuscript. He said it was essentially a summary of a much longer text. There were few lines, but the effect they had on me was schismatic. Here is what was written:

  Captain Mouzinho,

  Abort your mission and return immediately with your troops to Chicomo!

  Signed, Acting Governor-General

  In a flash, I had decided what to do. I packed a bag and asked the garrison’s cook to immediately accompany me southward. We had to stop Mouzinho in his tracks. The cook resisted. I might be in charge of the garrison, but he didn’t take orders from me. I promised him more money than I had at my disposal. And along he came.

  The Negro, who was short and tubby, carried a haversack with food and water. Before we had even left the garrison, he announced:

  Langa.

  I don’t understand.

  That’s my name. Don’t call me cook anymore.

  And the newly born Langa, the cook, led me along at a quick pace. He showed himself there and then to be an indispensable traveling companion. For, knowing that I was the bearer of an important piece of paper, he suggested that I take it from my pocket. Sweat envies ink, he said good-humoredly. He was from Lourenço Marques and had served in the army for some ten years. In spite of his bulk, Langa was able to keep up a steady pace, and without slowing he suggested that I should never look down on cooks. The great general of Gungunhane’s army, Maguiguana, was a former cook at the court of Muzila.

  At one stage, we passed a group of women. They confirmed that they had passed some Portuguese soldiers. At that very place, the column had been stopped by a group of Vátuas wearing headdresses. They told us that upon seeing Mouzinho, they had dropped to their knees and saluted him:

  Bayete, Nkosi!

  They spoke with the help of a black Portuguese interpreter. They claimed they had come to join the Portuguese forces.

  We want to see Umundungazi, that blind vulture, defeated, the kaffirs said.

  The Portuguese were unsure whether to accept their help.

  They can come with us, but without any firearms, Mouzinho allegedly declared.

  Then kaffirs and whites set off again toward the south. There must have been about two thousand auxiliaries marching across the Maguanhana plain.

  An hour later, we arrived at the liquor store of some Indian traders who were sitting at the door, sprawled on the shop’s wooden steps, enjoying the morning sun. The drinks trade was in the hands of these Indians.

  The Indians confirmed that Mouzinho’s troops had stopped at the shop to replenish their supplies. On that same veranda, they had received two envoys from Gungunhane, who had offered two large ivory tusks and six gold sovereigns as a gift for the wife of Mafambatcheca, the name by which the natives knew Captain Sa
nches de Miranda. I could not prevent myself from smiling, sir, when I thought about how the mistake would have amused Miranda. The Indians know the local language well, and followed all the negotiations. And they told us that through his messengers, Gungunhane asked Mouzinho de Albuquerque to meet him by the river. There they would discuss the peace that the south of Mozambique needed so much. According to them, Mouzinho declined the proposal.

  We decided to spend the night in the establishment. The traders put the shop at our disposal after spreading cloths over the floor to make it more comfortable for us to lie down. The smell of spices might put off the mosquitoes, but it was so strong that it deprived us of sleep. Outside, the night was as heavy as a liquid sheet, such was the intensity of the rain. I thanked God for the downpour because it would delay the progress of those we were chasing.

  We set off before the first light of dawn. That day, the clouds were covering the sun. I was heartened by Langa’s relaxed manner in that unreadable terrain, for the forest through which we were walking was so dark that our arms reached farther than our eyes. As soon as we moved out into open country, we caught sight of two Portuguese soldiers who were walking with difficulty. They were accompanied by half a dozen blacks. The whites recognized me. They belonged to Mouzinho’s troops but had fallen so gravely ill that they were returning to the garrison at Chicomo. When I told them my intention, they laughed: Stop Mouzinho? It would be easier to stop the wind! The troops we were pursuing were some six miles ahead of us. The sick soldiers remembered that the last place they had reached was a lake, the name of which was Motacane. The Portuguese were dying of thirst and the lake was wide and deep. But the moment they saw that sheet of water, the black auxiliaries dashed forward in their hundreds to bathe. They washed themselves and drank at the same time, churning up the mud and turning the water into a viscous, foul-smelling liquid. The thirsty Portuguese cursed the blacks for their lack of consideration. Concerned about the health of Captain Sanches de Miranda, it occurred to Mouzinho de Albuquerque that his companion in arms should also be evacuated back to Chicomo. Ever since they had left the garrison, Miranda had been suffering from high fevers and vomiting so profusely that his eyes were drying up like two dark stones. But the sick captain refused to turn back. Even in adversity, he would pursue their mad odyssey until the end. Not for what he might be able to do, but for what he might prevent.