At 3:00 am I received a phone call from the police. Something had happened at the casa de Moraes and could I please come to assist in their investigation.
They wouldn’t tell me anything right off, but my imagination ran wild….
When I arrived I must confess my thoroughly unsuspecting spirit was shocked beyond any possible description. The dinner table was still set, dirty dishes and all, and at the head of the table was my dear friend Antonio with blood all over his curly head which dripped in a languid stretching motion on the flowery white ceramic butter dish. At the opposite side Celeste sat slumped in her chair, her long black hair knotted with shining, crimson blood. And little Sandra, oh, little Sandra had a ragged, powdery black hole in her tiny chest, as her head hung crookedly over the back of the chair. It was unmistakably the most gruesome sight I have ever witnessed.
My belly felt as if it had been struck with a sledge hammer. The room began to spin and I could see a small cloud forming through the window that framed the well-lit room.
The coroner’s report is not yet official but the word from the precinct is that it will be deemed a homicide-suicide. The evidence is overwhelming, they tell me.
Apparently, some twenty minutes or so after I had left, Antonio took down a hunting rifle that was slung on the living-room wall and shot Sandra, Celeste and himself, in that order.
The police found a note pinned to his shirt, over his heart, which, in a frantic scrawl, read ‘tell Charles it found me.’ They, of course, wanted to know about you and why you would know anything about this horrific tragedy. I told them that you had been colleagues and then explained about Antonio’s recent return from Africa. They would like to talk to you, but, given the limitations of the Lisbon police, I do not believe they will cross the ocean to seek you out. However, I’m sure that, should you ever find yourself in Lisbon or environs, you would be a welcome guest at the central precinct for a cup of demitasse and some amicable prattle about my poor departed cousin.
Well, there is not much more that I know, and, from the note, I suspect you may know more about the cause of this misfortune than I do. If so, I would much like to hear from you, and learn of anything at all that could possibly shed light on these events.
Having fulfilled my duty, I remain,
Sincerely,
Amador de
Veiga-Filho
Aside from the letter, there were several clippings from local newspapers, all neatly folded inside the envelope. I sat inert and voiceless, and yet, in my soul, I felt I had no right to be. I should have known that something like this would happen. He had left a note, he had wanted to tell me something; alas, he needed a friend. But why me? I was never a good friend to anyone. I never took anyone else seriously enough to actually care. I never loved anyone. I looked at the soiled envelope and the creamy white writing paper over which the words seemed to hover.
In a rapid and logical succession of thought I arrived promptly at the conclusion that, of the three alien witnesses to the strange ritual, I was now the only one left alive.
I
walked outside where the balmy air and barren wasteland that surrounded
me only enhanced the sense of abandon that I was, by and large, almost
always subject to. I could find no solace under the African sun.
My entire body coiled under the weight of the
earth; my movements were sluggish,
my mind lethargic. Everything I dared look at was
intolerably out of focus. I could not envisage myself anywhere,
doing anything in particular. My spirit had departed, or so it seemed.
Charles
Several days later I awoke unusually early from what must have been a very deep sleep. I don’t remember having dreamed, and the general feeling of bulkiness seemed far greater than before. A stir of pyrexia dwelled inside of me, and the sweat that soaked the sheets was more than I could recall. I tried to stand but found that my knees were shaking too much, my legs could no longer endure the weight of my body, diminutive though it was. A haze of somnolence assaulted my senses, and I lay back down on the bed as though I had been pinned by some formidable force. I was sick, nauseous and shivering as if the temperature in the room had suddenly fallen below zero.
I heard a vacant mumbling as I began to shake the sleep from my ears. I could detect Felix’s baritone, punctuated speech above the other voices, which were more difficult to identify. When the fog lifted I distinguished three people – two men and one woman – standing around the bed: Felix, George, the head of planning, and Marion, the director of the local ex-pat elementary school.
Squinting through my dismal disease, her round, firm figure reminded me of how much I had wanted her stretched across my bed. All the things I had wanted to do with her…
The small window, dingy for lack of care, framed an orange sky, a sunset that swam on the horizon like a wily snake seeking out its prey.
My head was swimming – dizzy and fever-ridden. Marion was asking if I was alright; I didn’t know how to answer. I thought about saying that I felt fine, but the apparent inconsistency bothered me. I have never been able to contradict the obvious – perhaps because I knew that any good lie must be consistent in order to fit the observable facts – I was forced to confirm my unambiguous frailty and my yearning to dive into sheer darkness, to lay forgotten in a world of silent chaos, fruit of my madness, a darkness in which no one would remember my name.
Of a moment my entire spirit was dowsed with a sense of limitless freedom, I could go wherever I pleased. The former barriers, whatever they may have been, would have vanished in the blink of an eye. This might have been caused by the infirmity, or by the stifling air, or by hunger; I have heard that extreme hunger causes the release of endorphins which, in turn, produces a very pleasant buzz.
I always knew myself to be a man without country. To what make-believe line or rattlebrained, puppet politician can one, in clear conscience, pledge allegiance? To what unseen power can one knowingly bend when a world of untapped knowledge awaits the curious and inquiring soul that stands upright on the edge and allows all things, even the deadliest poison, to permeate his blood?
I rolled over – tossing my body like a log on a fire – and I lay a long, lusty kiss on the full, moist lips of night. She was my lover. The walls danced before my watery eyes in stark contrast with my parched mouth; heart pounding and sweaty crimson palms that seemed to swell and shrink in alkaloid syncopation. Still pitching and heaving on sweat-soaked sheets I screamed…
Doubtless, delirium had set in. Thoughts appeared to ooze from my sweltering brain, without order or meaning. I could feel a tingling creeping through my limbs, the extremities as brittle as frozen twigs. I saw their faces staring down at me as though I were floating above the mattress.
The voices grew louder but still made no sense. I was prostrate and semi-conscious, every hour or so urinating a brown liquid. I could detect the despondency in the faces hovering at my bedside. Still, I was convinced that I was immortal – this affliction would not, nay, could not kill me.
I was subjugated by a jaundice that, besides the obvious physical suffering, seemed to filter through my very essence. I was losing weight at an alarming pace – the nausea and diarrhea had melted some 15 pounds from my normal body size, which was already rather lean.
They called in a doctor from Dar es Salaam. He was a young, educated Tanzanian who had earned his degree in the U.K. After examining me from head to toe he concluded that I had contracted some rare form of viral hepatitis. I later learned that the popular name was Blackwater Fever. It is always the simple explanation for everything. I was to be moved to a ‘good’ hospital (for whites) in the capital and undergo some tests.
Still ablaze in fever – the last time it had been checked it was somewhere in the vicinity of 105 degrees and rising, and with no drugs known to man capable of bringing it down – I was bundled into a Kombi and, under a torrential rain, set off on a 4 hour odyssey that included twice getting stuck in the mud and, on both occasions, in my thoroughly debilitated condition, I found myself forced to scrounge around in the bush to find branches and leaves to serve as traction so that we could continue our journey. All I could think of was a big ice cream cone, the kind that one only found in the capital. It must have been a reaction to the uncontrollable fever, the body’s attempt to dowse the wrath-laden fire in my brain.
The dreary silence inside the flimsy microbus was broken, only sporadically, by the dry, hacking cough that came from the driver’s seat. Joshua, the chauffeur, originally a Wahehe tribesman and a very likeable sort, was a staunch smoker and an equally enthusiastic drinker. Legend has it he once drove from Arusha, home of Kilimanjaro, to Dar es Salaam, a 14 hour ordeal on slippery, meandering roads, with the container originally meant for windshield wiper fluid brimming with pombe, a local brew distilled from ever abundant corn husk. Apparently, he had rigged a long plastic tube coming from under the hood, through the dashboard and straight into his gullet.
I must have fallen into a deep sleep because, when I awoke, the room was meticulously antiseptic, doors had no knobs, and all the voices were no more than whispers. The bed was bleach-white; the sheets exuded a crisp clean smell of detergent. A tall doctor, whose dark black skin contrasted sharply with the white shirt and pants he sported, spoke slowly, as though I were unable to understand his English – which was perfect, by the way. He prescribed virtually the same remedy as had been previously directed by the first doctor. I needed rest and a saline drip to re-hydrate my body. I would undergo a stout regimen of sweets, bland liquids and non greasy foods along with some antipyretic drugs. In two weeks his diagnosis was proven correct to the letter.
Indeed, of the three, I was the solitary survivor. Or was I?
There it is! I’ve finally told the story.
And from it the sole conclusion is that there must be some reason I was spared; perhaps only to be able to tell this tale. I cannot think of anything I’ve done since that justifies my hollow existence. I do know that it signaled the end of comfort, the end of soothing and healing of wounds. Beauty could no longer inhabit such a world and I needed another toss of the dice.