A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa

had lost Dublin. Getting rid of
Three Trapped Tigers
, she had incinerated old Havana. There were fewer than a hundred books left. She kept them more out of stubbornness than to make any use of them. Her eyesight was so bad that even with an enormous magnifying glass, even holding the book in direct sunlight, sweating as though she were in a sauna, it took her an entire afternoon to decipher one page. In recent months she had taken to writing her favorite lines from the books she had left in huge letters on those walls of the apartment that were still empty. “It won’t be long,” she thought, “and I really will be a prisoner. I don’t want to live in a prison.” She fell asleep. She was awoken by a quiet laugh. The boy was there again in front of her, a slender silhouette, cut out against the stormy glare of the sunset.
    “Now what? You’ve already taken the cutlery. I don’t have anything else.”
    Sabalu laughed again:
    “Tsh, Grandma! I thought you’d died.”
    He put his rucksack down at the lady’s feet:
    “I bought medicines. Loads of them. They’ll help you.” He sat down on the floor. “I also bought more Coke. And food, grilled chicken. You hungry?”
    They ate just there where they were, sharing the bread and the pieces of chicken. Sabalu showed her the medicines he had brought: painkillers, anti-inflammatories.
    “I went to Roque Santeiro. I talked to this guy. I said my father had hit my mother, he broke her arm, and she’s embarrassed to go tothe doctor. Then he sold me all this. I paid with the money from the cutlery. There was loads left over. Can I sleep in your house?”
    Sabalu helped the old lady up, took her to her room, and lay her down on the mattress. Then he lay beside her and fell asleep. The next morning he went to the market and came back carrying vegetables, matches, salt, various spices, and two kilos of beef. He also brought a portable stove, the kind for camping, with a small butane gas canister. He did the cooking himself, on the bedroom floor, following Ludo’s instructions. They both ate with gusto. Then the boy washed the dishes and put away the crockery. He roamed about the house, curious:
    “You know, you’ve got a lot of books.”
    “A lot of books? Yes, I did have a lot. There aren’t many now.”
    “I’ve never seen so many.”
    “Can you read?”
    “I’m not very good at putting the letters together. I only did one year at school.”
    “Would you like me to teach you? I’ll teach you to read, and then you can read to me.”
    Sabalu learned to read while Ludo convalesced. The old lady also taught him to play chess. The boy took to the board naturally. While he played he talked to her of his life out there. For the woman it was like having an extraterrestrial revealing the secrets of a distant planet to her. One afternoon, Sabalu discovered that the scaffolding was being taken down.
    “How am I going to leave now?”
    Ludo was fretting:
    “I don’t know!”
    “Well, how did you come in?”
    “I didn’t come in. I’ve always lived in this house.”
    The boy looked at her, confused. Ludo gave in. She took him to the front door. She opened it and showed him the wall she herself had put up, thirty years before, separating the apartment from the rest of the building:
    “On the other side of this door is the world.”
    “Can I break through the wall?”
    “You can, but I’m afraid. I’m very afraid.”
    “Don’t be afraid, Grandma. I’ll protect you.”
    The boy went to fetch a pickax, and with half a dozen violent blows opened a hole in the wall. Looking through it, he saw, on the other side, the astonished face of Little Chief:
    “Who are you?”
    Sabalu widened the hole with two more blows. He introduced himself:
    “My name’s Sabalu Estevão Capitango, senhor. I’m busy breaking through this wall.”
    The businessman shook the plaster dust off his jacket. He took two steps back.
    “Jesus! What planet have you come from?”
    The boy could