Confession of the Lioness by Mia Couto Page B

yearned to be people. The writer calls them, and tries to stroke them. People watch him, puzzled: They don’t expect dogs to be caressed, much less spoken to. These domestic creatures are never addressed by word, nor are they given any scraps of food: They just eat what they can hunt, so that they won’t begin to take existence for granted.
    *   *   *
    Dozens of villagers have gathered together under the mango tree out of curiosity. It’s incredible how someplace so deserted can suddenly fill up with folk who seem to have emerged from the sand. I look at this trading of self-interest with cynicism. The writer is a bird of prey: He seeks tales about the war. The villagers expect some gratification. A gift, in local parlance. How can someone criticize me for my professional activity? I practice hunting. Well, the writer lives on carrion. He embarked on this journey in order to peck at misfortune, among survivors who sorrow in silence.
    Scratching at the wounds of the past: That’s what Gustavo is doing by dragging up memories of the civil war.
    What do you remember most about the war?
    There’s nothing to remember, my good sir , one of the countrymen replies.
    What do you mean by that?
    We all came back from the war, dead.
    I turn my face away. I don’t want anyone to detect the vengefulness in my smile. No war can be recounted. Where there’s blood, there are no words. The writer is asking the dead to show him their scars.
    It’s then that I realize what the pleasure is that I get out of hunting: to delve back beyond life, free from being a person.
    *   *   *
    The blind man who followed us around the night we arrived is in the crowd waiting to be interviewed. At one point, he leans on the shoulders of the person in front of him and salutes us extravagantly. He is still barefoot, wearing the same military fatigues.
    Which army did you fight for? the writer asks.
    I fought in all of them , comes the immediate reply. And pointing toward me, he adds: And I remember that gentleman’s voice very well.
    My voice? That’s impossible.
    Forgive me, I don’t want to offend, but I’d like to ask you a question: Why did they send for a hunter? They should have summoned me, a soldier.
    I don’t understand , the writer argues. What’s this got to do with soldiers?
    Don’t you see? This, my good sir, isn’t a hunt. This is a war.
    It was war that explained the tragedy of Kulumani. Those lions weren’t emerging from the bush. They were born out of the last armed conflict. The same upheaval of all wars was now being repeated: People had become animals, and animals had become people. During battle, bodies had been left in the bush, along the roads. The lions had eaten them. At that precise point, the creatures of the wild had broken a taboo: They had begun to see people as prey. At last, the blind man brought his long speech to a close:
    We men are no longer in charge. Now it’s they who control our fear.
    Then he pontificated eloquently and without interruption:
    The same thing happened in colonial times. The lions remind me of the soldiers in the Portuguese army. These Portuguese took over our imagination so effectively that they became powerful. The Portuguese weren’t strong enough to defeat us. That’s why they organized it so that the victims killed themselves. And we blacks learned to hate ourselves.
    The old man spoke, full of certainty, as if he were giving a speech. At that moment, he was a soldier. An imaginary uniform enveloped his soul.
    *   *   *
    The writer knows this: The real interview will happen during the welcoming reception scheduled for the lunch to be held in the shitala , the open-sided hall in the center of the village. It’s in this patch of shade that the men habitually hold their meetings. Women are excluded. They don’t even dare walk past this covered space. Florindo Makwala