Transparent City Read online

  Biblioasis International Translation Series

  General Editor: Stephen Henighan

  1. I Wrote Stone: The Selected Poetry of Ryszard Kapuściński (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

  TRANSPARENT CITY

  Transparent city

  Ondjaki

  Translated from the Portuguese

  by Stephen Henighan

  Biblioasis

  Windsor, ON

  Copyright © Ondjaki 2012 by arrangement with Literarische Agentur Mertin Inh. Nicole Witt E. K. Frankfurt am Main, Germany

  First published in Portuguese as Os Transparentes, Caminho, Lisbon, Portugal, 2012.

  Translation copyright © Stephen Henighan, 2018

  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 licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

  FIRST EDITION

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Ondjaki, 1977-

  [Os Transparentes. English]

  Transparent city / Ondjaki ; translated by Stephen Henighan.

  (Biblioasis international translation series ; no. 22)

  Translation of: Os transparentes.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77196-143-1 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-77196-144-8 (ebook)

  I. Henighan, Stephen, 1960-, translator II. Title. III. Title:

  Os Transparentes. English. IV. Series: Biblioasis international

  translation series ; no. 22

  PQ9929.O53T7313 2018 869.3’5 C2018-900214-X

  C2018-900215-8

  Edited by Daniel Wells and Eric M.B. Becker

  Copy-edited by Emily Donaldson

  Typeset by Ellie Hastings

  Cover Designed by Zoe Norvell

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

  for Renata

  and

  for Michel L.

  the time of remembering is finished

  tomorrow i’ll weep

  the things i should have wept today

  [from Odonato’s crumpled ticket]

  “you still haven’t told me what colour the fire is...”

  Blind Man spoke towards the kid’s hand, which was gripping his arm, the two of them terrified of standing still in case the tongues of flame bursting out of the floor in search of the Luanda sky engulfed them

  “if i knew how to explain the colour of the fire, elder, i’d be one of them poets that goes around babbling poems”

  in a hypnotized voice, Seashell Seller moved where the heat pushed him and led Blind Man down more or less safe paths where the water gushing out of the burst pipes opened passageways for anybody who dared to move in the wind-lashed jungle of the blaze

  “please, you with your good vision, go see, i feel it on my skin, but i still want to imagine the fire’s colour”

  Blind Man seemed to be begging, in a voice used to giving more orders than caresses, Seashell Seller felt it showed disrespect not to reply to such a specific request that asked, in a tender voice, for information that simply was about colour,

  though also difficult and perhaps impossible to ascertain

  the kid pulled up hot tears from inside himself that took him back to childhood because it was there, in that realm of unpremeditated thoughts, that a flowery reply might come to life, bright and faithful to what he was seeing

  “don’t let me die without knowing the colour of that warm light”

  the blaze cried out and even those blind to the sight must have felt a yellow sensation that invoked memories of grilled fish with black beans cooked in palm oil, a hot sun over a beach at noon, or the day when battery acid stole away the thrill of seeing the world

  “elder, i’m waiting for a child’s voice to give you a reply”

  seen close up, or far away, the night was braided blackness and enclosure, the hide of a nocturnal beast oozing sludge from its body, there was a timid gleam of stars in the sky, the languor of certain whitecaps and the seashells on the sand popping open in an excess of heat, human bodies undergoing involuntary cremation and the city, sleepwalking, wept without the consolation of moonlight

  Blind Man’s lips trembled into a sad smile

  “don’t wait, lad, our lives are almost broiled”

  the clouds far away, the sun absent, mothers yelling for their children and the blind sons didn’t see this city’s mindless light sweating beneath a bloodthirsty cape, getting re
ady to receive a deep dark night in its skin—as only fire can teach

  the tongues and flames of hell stretched out in the visceral sauntering of a tired animal, rotund and resolute, fleeing from the hunter with a renewed will to go farther, to burn more, to bring on more heat and, exhausted, to try to burn bodies that were losing their human beat, their inhaled harmony, hands that stroked hair and happy pates in a city where, for centuries, love had uncovered, amid the clouds of cruelty

  one or another heart to inhabit

  “elder, what was the question again?”

  the city, bloodied from its roots to the tops of its buildings, was obliged to keel over towards death, and the arrows that announced its passing weren’t lifeless arrows but rather flaming darts which its body, howling, received as a sign of its foreseen destiny

  and the elder repeated his desperate line

  “just tell me the colour of that fire...”

  Odonato listened to the voice of the fire

  he saw it grow in the trees and the houses, he remembered childhood games, the fire was made with lines of gunpowder stolen from his stepfather’s store, labyrinthine designs in slender quantities, on the ground, then a match setting off the dangerous game until, one day, out of curiosity and determination, he decided to try putting a tiny powder trail in the palm of his left hand, without hesitating, he lit his flesh and the pain–this was the mark that he was running his finger over now while a huge fire consumed the city in a gigantic dance of yellows that echoed to the sky

  the fire roared

  Odonato was no longer strong enough to sketch a minimal expression of horror, or a vulgar smile, with his lips, the heat was burrowing into his soul, his eyes were burning up inside

  in the end crying wasn’t about tears, it was preceded by the metamorphosis of internal actions, the soul had walls–porous textures that could be modified by voices and memories

  “Xilisbaba...” he looked at his hands and didn’t see them, “where are you, my love?”

  on the first floor of the building, Xilisbaba had soaked her body in water to protect herself from the fire, she was breathing with difficulty and coughing slowly as though she didn’t want to make a sound

  in her hand she clutched a small piece of sisal, in imitation of the piece that her husband had tied to his left ankle, Xilisbaba’s movements and her sweat unravelled the threads of the bracelet into sodden fibres that then covered her feet, the others looked in her direction, guided by the sounds they heard and by the image of her floating hair

  outside human voices were shouting

  the women’s hands reached for each other, a delicate, muted gesture, more to share misgivings than body heat

  Strong Maria felt the need to summon other strengths to soothe her friend’s tears

  the tears ran in even streams down Xilisbaba’s face, Strong Maria tried to look at her face, made out her features–salty slopes–detected her sadness from her easy air, tried to take her pulse, but the pumping of Xilisbaba’s heart, thinking about her husband isolated at the top of the building, was only a stealthy murmuring of her veins

  “Maria... i want to see my husband one more time... to talk to him about the things people keep quiet about for their whole lives”

  Strong Maria’s hand gripped her in a comforting clasp and Xilisbaba let herself go and slid—her clothes, her shoes, her hair and her soul—down the wall to the floor

  “just calm down, sis, fire’s like wind, it shouts a lot but it has a tiny little voice.”

  the Building had seven floors and breathed like a living body

  you had to know its secrets, the profitable or pleasurable characteristics of its warm breezes, the workings of its old pipes, the stairs and doors that didn’t lead anywhere, various crooks had felt in their skins the consequences of that accursed labyrinth whose creaks betrayed people’s movements, and even its residents tried to respect each corner, wall and staircase

  on the first floor the burst pipes and an awful darkness discouraged the distracted and intruders

  water flowed in a steady stream and served multiple ends, the whole building’s water came from this floor, the business of selling it by the pail, the washing of clothes and cars,

  Granma Kunjikise was one of the few to cross the flooded territory without wetting her feet or having a tendency to slip

  “that’s a river,” she used to say, always in Umbundu, “all that’s missing are the fish and alligators”

  the old woman arrived in Luanda days after the death of Xilisbaba’s real mother and, unable to endure her hunger, barged into the funeral service confessing her urgent need amid tears, apologized for her attitude and, establishing her firm use of a muttered Umbundu, looked deep into Xilisbaba’s eyes and said

  “i can pray for the death of the one who died, my voice reaches the other side...”

  Xilisbaba, who already knew how to read the truth in life, greeted the old woman with a goblet of red wine, gave up her place, asked them to bring a plate of food with the best fish stew from the funeral dinner and took care to warn them not to serve it with cassava flour because the lady was like her, she needed cornmeal to withstand the craziness and the rhythms of Luanda

  “your mother is laughing,” the old woman said

  “you’re my mother now,” Xilisbaba replied

  during the funeral, and after the debts incurred in order that the lady might have the food and drink she deserved in her honour, Odonato became even thinner than the usual limits of penury allowed

  Xilisbaba noted that her husband was growing more silent, he spoke with the children, he talked over trivial matters with the neighbours, he tried to find work and repair the radio’s batteries, which gave off no energy in spite of being set out in the sun

  but all of his gestures, his morning walk, scratching his head while reading the newspaper he’d found in the street, dressing or stretching, all of these gestures had ceased to make a sound

  the woman understood that, in a certain way, it was her husband who was really in mourning,

  in her eyes he was far away, Xilisbaba saw him still young and dreamy, daring with his hands and mouth, in the time when he used to surprise her on the flooded first floor, she coming upstairs with her fruit, he squeezing the fruit against the body of his wife who laughed in the surprise discovered late in the afternoon

  Odonato barely moved his fingers, the fingers of his right hand caressed the ring on his left hand, Xilisbaba saw Odonato slip the ring off his finger and put it in his pocket, the finger’s diameter no longer wide enough to secure the wedding ring

  he breathed deeply

  oxygen molecules flooded his heart, then his veins and his head, renewed energy travelled to his body’s extremities but the phenomenon had already broken loose

  what’s hidden is like a poem—it can come out at any time.

  his feet were accustomed to covering many kilometres a day, they were old feet on a young body

  Seashell Seller enjoyed treading the sand of Luanda Island’s beach and the shimmering earth of his nightly nightmares, he had a house in the neighbouring province of Bengo but he had fallen in love with Luanda early on because of its salty sea

  he called the sea the “salty sea”

  and he stared at it each day with the same love, as though it were only yesterday that he had gotten to know it with his skin and his tongue

  he waded in slowly—as if he were touching a woman—tasting the salt, and relived the ever-present terror of diving down for as long as his lungs allowed and his gaze withstood it, he got to know the rocks and the dories, the fisherman and the hawker women, he carried the hot smell of dried fish ground into his hands and, above all, he got to know the seashells

  the seashells

  he had grown up in Bengo, between river and river, between tilapia and tilapia, but one day he discovere
d the salty sea with dories, oars for rowing, and seashells

  “elder, you could still make me one of those oars”

  “you don’t have a dory and you don’t go out on the sea”

  “...i want an oar to row right here on land: to row through life!”

  on the beach of Luanda Island he was seen as an industrious and honest youth

  he helped to carry fish, always with a congenial, innocently seductive smile, he made sales and deliveries, he sent salt and money to his relatives in Bengo

  Seashell Seller’s feet, over the course of the years, crystalized like the bottoms of the dories’ hulls on Luanda Island, shards and nails were no more than an itch to him, but in spite of this he wore leather flip-flops given to him by his cousin

  the threaded beads around his neck

  the seashell bag on his back, his half-closed eyes, which revealed no secrets

  he had heard people talking about Strong Maria, dedicated to so many financial activities, and he thought that maybe he could interest her in his seashells

  he had them in all colours and shapes, for practical purposes or simple adornment, in so many formats and prices that it was impossible to run into this young man without succumbing to the temptation of keeping a seashell for immediate or future use: to women he spoke softly, to give space to each one’s needs and imagination, to bus conductors he offered seashell pendants that they could offer to their lovers to hang in their hair, to men he made practical suggestions about how to use them at the office or in their cars, to ambassadors’ wives he presented the seashells as exotic objects that no one would ever think of giving as Christmas presents, to makers of lamps he spoke of the advantages of enormous hollow seashells and of the effect of the light on that marine material, to priests he pointed out the difference they could make to an altar, to old women he recommended them as keepsakes, to young women as original trinkets, to children as toys to make other children jealous, to nuns he sold seashells stuck together in the form of a crucifix, to restaurant owners he sold them as appetizer plates, to seamstresses he emphasized the material’s creative potential and its tinkling sounds, to hairdressers he made clear that beads had already gone out of fashion and, to thieves, Seashell Seller hastily excused himself for the fact that he was carrying nothing more than a bag full of worthless junk.