He coughed three times and a bomb exploded in his throat, and his mouth filled immediately. He spat into a can what can only be described as a half yellow and half red ball. It could be said that they were fragments of his flesh from inside, but no one wanted to look, imagining his misfortune due to the man’s appearance: thin as a pole, with frizzy but hard hair that stood straight up dancing with the wind, fingers long like nylon threads, invisible, and his face showing holes of an abyss where cheeks would be. The ears were pricked like a rabbit peering into the bells beyond. His lips were thick and came out of his face, shaking each other whenever he coughed, like the noise of hinges at the gates of hell. He coughed once more and, putting his hand over his mouth, spat out insults. Death is selective, he passed his hand over the lips, as if searching for the right word for what he felt like saying, and prejudiced.
As a man, there was only a shadow left of who Vitorino was. A talented trumpet player and vocalist in a band which made ears tire of folklore or dry jazz. His music was alternative, the success was achieved beyond the borders of the land that saw him born. He made great tours, assuming himself as a man of the world. He was applauded for long nights of brass music in Johannesburg and Cape Town clubs. He moved from Nairobi to Kampala, Zanzibar to Dakar. He saw old men in suits and ties tearing their pants and falling into delirium to the sound of metal in their mouths in Addis Ababa, playing to delegations of heads of state at African Union summits.
Otherwise, physically he was an uninteresting figure. Tall, thin, with a bent spine, raised head and shrugged shoulders. His feet were agitated in his style of walking, a walk of someone who has the world at their feet, in his own words. His pop star style, a kind of welcome to the future, the way he dressed, made him ideal for parties from the hot and humid dawns of Nairobi to student houses in the Ethiopian capital. In Maputo, he attracted crowds, including a committee of insatiable muses. But he didn’t have the means to live the eccentric life that his success as a musician allowed him to do. A life that is already a memory. Morbid and depressing memories. People crossing paths with him, when, through some unfortunate incident, they recognize him, they fall into complacency for what he was and hold back tears of sadness. The figure he is today in no way compared to Trumpet Vitorino. He is a soul that haunts those who remember his time of glory.
Alice is what remains of that past. She is the one who listens to him with the attention that no one else gives, in the face of torment. She manages to ignore Vitorino’s tragic appearance and gives the parting man a certain sense of life.
That afternoon she prepared vegetable soup for him. Truth be told, it was a possible mixture of water, salt, chicken paws and amaranth. It was the best it could be, and which deserved recognition from the chief taster. Look at this and tell me if destiny isn’t screwed, she asked. He continued to sip the gastronomic mixture with his spoon, without tasting it. The spoon disappeared into his mouth with the ingredients easily distinguishable, as well digest. The paws, he would put into his mouth and no bone would come out to tell the tragedies of its interior. With so many that this misery could choose from, it chose me, protested Vitorino. Terrible taste. And too much bad luck! He started coughing uncontrollably again. Alice finally moved with a quick gesture. Passed her hand over his mouth and then cleaned herself with the cloth she had on her body. See, there are full lives for death to hold on to. It could land on other bodies, more plentiful, full of meat, on vagrant minds, on guys who take everything from us. Look at this, he hit his chest and cringed to allow the pain, what’s relevant about this? Alice was there, waving her eyes present, every gesture, without saying what she thought. It didn’t also matter. Death has its own reason. He spat on the floor and ran the foot over it. This country is not good, said Vitorino. He coughed again. Hit his chest hard as someone that expels evil from his bowels. Tell me, is this life?
He wasn’t referring to the noises he made by his throat, nor to the dense yellowish liquid that came out of his lungs, where Koch’s bacilli were consuming him. He didn’t realize the worsening of what started out as a nasty flu, before it being diagnosed as tuberculosis. Now it’s late. Flus are a nuisance. He lacked the strength to blow the instrument of his life. But that terrible cough is really killing a guy, he would say in the first moments. He began to lack the strength to even walk, his feet swelled, his breathing was an out-of-tune chorus. Someone sympathized with his impending death in distant lands. He had recently arrived at the ground where his umbilical cord was buried. His parents house. What to do, he became a child again. Had to receive care from his own. Alice, his passion from the beginning of adult life, was the last hope.
– There are always those who say mass for the dead, he commented inaudible. Now he has time to think about things around him, heading towards uncertainty. I could have died anywhere, couldn’t I? Alice listens to him. Consents. She answers him with her eyes red from sleep. She asks, without waiting for answers. She has to grab a chapa. Notice the bus stops. The country is here. Here you can see where this is going. In fact, he thinks, it’s not going anywhere. Passenger recruiters govern their anarchic territory defined by the chapa, by distressed crowds, by scarcity, by precariousness. Even so, people take the transport with an open heart. With your heart in your hand, you wanted to say, said Vitorino, in response to himself. That must be it, he thought. It’s about taking your heart out into the world, at the edge of the mouth. Any day now our guts will come out. See how we move bumping around in the damn truck.
– My love, Alice completed.
All together. Hugged. Unity is strength. Unit. Solidarity. Love. My Love, that is, the people left to their own devices, hugging the wind and bumps in a car with an open body. He was about to get ready to cough when the truck suddenly braked and tightened the load of people. The women screaming. Men insulting. Children crying. A man crosses the street, with the rare tranquillity seen on city roads.
– But what the hell could that be? Vitorino rebelled.
– This guy wants to die, quipped a passenger, who hugs Vitorino.
– The bastard doesn’t even care, another continues, doesn’t give a damn.
– To see where life takes us in this country. We’re all crazy, Vitorino started coughing, out of control. Everyone was silent. They turned to the irresponsible passerby.
– Watch where you’re going, do you want to die? shouted at different moments from the passengers.
It’s a blind man walking, wearing only sunglasses. Without the white cane. No one understood where the unfortunate man came from. It may not have even been noticed, if it weren’t for the fierce dispute over the piece of asphalt. The man walked calmly, step behind the past, indifferent to everything and everyone. Arriving at the other end of the road, he turns to the truck and the people in it and shoots, What difference does it make to have eyes if you are unable to see what is right in front of you?
– But what is the man talking about? the furious passengers looked at each other.
– Nobody watches where they are going. Neither me nor you. The difference is that I am aware of it. I don’t have eyes to see. And you? the blind man spoke. You must be crazy. Blindness and dementia, similar misfortunes, no one knows who has it. Luck is a rare whim. It only happens to those who don’t need it.
– Notice how bad luck doesn’t just happen once. The man had to be blind and, as if that weren’t enough, be born and live in this country. And we must put up with it. A life without vision, speaking, Vitorino was like the vibrating trumpet.
Out of habit, cars and pedestrians race to see if they can pass quickly, trying to get ahead of each other. And at junctions, cars squeak as they weave around the center. Pedestrians look at each other perplexed. Finally, a traffic light, finally a pause, was divined. A chorus of horns and voices echo at the same time and everyone in the truck is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Arriving at the house, Vitorino sat on the edge of the bed, wanting to let the anguish leave his body. He wanted to pray. Exhausted. He wanted to let a tear fall. Wanting that to be the farewell.
– Woe to me if I die, woman.
– What death, Vitorino.
– I’m dying, Alice.
– No, you don’t die at all.
– Why do you say it?
– Because I know the perished body.
– It could be, Vitorino laughs. Better to smile in sadness than to face dry anguish.
– See…, Alice is satisfied.
– Death is not good. Maybe it will come when it no longer matters.
– …
– It’s like a new shoe.
– What?
– Death.
– Yes…
– It’s like a new damn shoe, Vitorino chokes. Scrapes the throat for a long time. And gets it together. After all, you have to say what despairs at the core.
– When you try it on in the store, it fits you. Hence you buy it. You keep it for an appropriate occasion. And halfway through, it starts biting the tips of your toes. The pain quickly becomes strong and unbearable. You despair. You hate the world, the time, the voices of those around you, you hate the place where you are. You hate yourself. You think I’m no good for anything. Then the shoe, which was perfect, is your hell. Your coffin.
The speech ended. Alice is reflective. Vitorino sighs, panting. Drool came out and he licked his lips. Alice touches him again. A woman without shame in her soul or in her hands. A woman without disdain, she thinks, where did this come from? Shut up. Censors the thought. Runs her eyes over his face. He kisses her with his eyes, penetrating the interior of her heart, as if searching for answers to questions he hadn’t asked. Where did I find this woman, he asks himself. How long can she endure this? Will she be here when my soul knows the sentence? Is she here now?
– I’m here, love. And I will always be here, Alice tells him, full of intention in her words and body expression. Her firm breasts, her moist, smooth skin, like the dunes, say I want you, Vitorino. Tell of a desire incapable of being understood by the remnants of the man in front of her. He who sails in disbelief, in that complicity.
– You hear my thoughts, Alice.
– I listen to my heart, Vitorino.
Vitorino stretched his skeleton close to Alice’s warm body. He hugs warmly. He feels the blood celebrating in the woman’s veins. Feels the joyful life in the revigorated flesh, eternal youth of those who have never received flowers herself. She welcomes him, from the inside. He cries. Remorse is worse than memory. Memory makes the present distressing. Impotence. He feels stupid and imbecile. He sobs. Feels like a wanderer, lost. Experience another pain. A greater pain than the corroded lung. The pain that surpasses the size of the wounded world. Memories. Remorse. Anguish. Pain. Silence. Absence.
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