A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa Page A

have made use of the brilliant retort given by the singer Elza Soares, at the start of her career, aged thirteen, scrawny, badly dressed, when Ary Barroso asked her the exact same question (behind him the audience was laughing at her. At home, one of herchildren was dying):
I’ve come from Planet Hunger
. Sabalu, however, had never heard of Elza Soares, nor of Ary Barroso, so he shrugged and replied with a smile:
    “We live here.”
    “We?”
    “Me and my grandmother.”
    “You live there? There’s an apartment on that side?”
    “Sure is.”
    “And you’ve been living there how long?”
    “Always.”
    “Oh, really? And how do you get out?”
    “We didn’t go out. We just lived here. Now we will, though, we’re going to start going out.”
    Little Chief shook his head, stunned:
    “Very well, very well. You finish breaking down that wall and then clean up the hallway. I don’t want a speck of dust left, understand? This isn’t a slum anymore. It’s a smart building now, well-respected, like in the colonial days.”
    He went back into his apartment, walked over to the kitchen, found a beer in the fridge. He went to drink it on the veranda. Sometimes he felt a kind of nostalgia for the days when, mad and wretched, he would spend his hours dancing out on the streets and the squares. The world, washed in sunlight, was not troubled by mysteries. Everything seemed transparent to him, and lucid, even God, who, assuming a variety of forms, so often appeared to him at evening-time for a couple of thimblefuls of pleasant conversation.

Mutiati Blues
    Today the Kuvale number no more than five thousand, but they occupy a vast area, more than half of the Namibe Province. Nowadays they are a prosperous people, in terms of the things they themselves value: they have copious head of oxen. With the exception of the northeast, their territories were spared almost any direct incidents from the war, there has been rain in recent years, at least enough to keep the cattle (there have even been some good years, and it has been a long time since there has been a really bad one), and yet the course Angola has taken over these years puts them in a position of food poverty. They are unable to trade their oxen for corn. This apparent paradox – so many oxen yet so much hunger – is yet another way in which they are unusual. But isn’t that true of Angola, too? So much oil …?
    Ruy Duarte de Carvalho
    The detective squatted down. He fixed his gaze on the old man, who was sitting, very straight-backed, a few meters ahead of him. The brightness of the sky was dazing him, preventing him from seeing clearly. He turned to the guide:
    “That old man, over there, he’s a mulatto?”
    The guide smiled. The question seemed to unsettle him:
    “Maybe. Some white man who came through here seventy years ago. These things happen. They still happen today. These guys offer their wives to the visitors, didn’t you know that?”
    “I’d heard.”
    “They do it. But if the woman refuses, that’s fine, they’re under no obligation. Women have more power, here, than people think.”
    “I don’t doubt it. Here and everywhere else. Eventually women are going to end up with all the power.” He addressed the old man: “Do you speak Portuguese?”
    The man he’d spoken to ran his right hand over his head, which was covered by a kind of hat, a very nice one, with red and yellow stripes. He looked straight at Monte, in a silent challenge, opened his mouth – which was almost toothless – and gave the tiniest little laugh, a soft laugh that was dispersed like dust into the luminous air. A lad whowas sitting beside him made some comment to the guide. The man translated it:
    “He’s saying the old man doesn’t talk. Never has.”
    Monte got up. He wiped the sweat from his face with his shirtsleeve:
    “He reminds me of a guy I met many years ago. He died. A shame, as I’d have really liked to kill him again. Nowadays, now I’m older, I’m