Death comes knocking

 

AS TIME GOES BY (CHRONICLE) - PAULO REIS

I grew up side by side with war. The first guerilla attacks against Portuguese targets, (mostly civilian population, a barbaric massacre of men, women and children...) was on March 1961. I was four years old, living in Malange, in the centre of Angola. When I was 13 years old, already in Luanda, capital of the Portuguese colony, my world was breaking apart. Paul McCartney just announced, a few days ago, he was leaving the Beatles. After lunch, I went to my room, upstairs, turn the radio on and listened to “Rádio Comercial”, eager to know more about what was happening in London with the Beatles.´

I heard a car driving fast in the street, something strange in that Samba’s quiet area, a residential neighbourhood of middle-class people, with nice two-floor houses. I run to the window and saw my uncle’s Bento car. He had the door of the car open and he was just there, standing, both hands in his waist, head down. I also saw my mother, standing at the gate, and I hear her voice:

“Bento, what happened? You are not working? Why are you here?”

My uncle came to the gate, still silent, opened it and put both hands at my mother shoulders.

“Zé is dead. He was shot early this morning, during an operation near Maria Teresa.” – he said, his voice no more than a whisper, I barely could hear his words. My mother was terribly shaken. She had to sit down on the stairs near the gate, unable to walk. She covered her face with both hands and cried silently for what seemed to be a long, long time, for me.

My uncle took her hand and help her to stand up. They walked back home and we came to the living room at the same time, as I went down from my room in the first floor. My mother looked and me and said what I already knew.

“Zé is dead, Paulo. He was killed this morning.” – Than, she stopped, as she remembered something even more tragic – “Oh my God! His mother! The other son was sent to Mozambique, two months ago! João is in Pemba, is also a very dangerous area!”

We stay there in silence, I can’t remember for how long. The mother of José Maçanita was my mother's cousin. My uncle and my mother were older than him. He was something like a younger brother for them. When he was drafted to the Colonial War, raging since 1961, he volunteered for the “Comandos”, the famous Portuguese Special Forces. My mother’s voice broke the silence.

“I have to call Quim, I have to tell him to call headquarters in Mozambique. They must send the other boy to Lisbon, immediately. Imagine if he also dies!” Quim, the nickname of my father, worked in the intelligence services and had open lines of communication with services from other colonies.

The memory of my cousin was of a young and strong man, who used to pull me up in the air, making me afraid that I could touch the ceiling. He had a dog, a German Shepard, all black and called “White”.

It was the first time in my life I had to face death, a death of somebody that was close to me. I just turned the corner of our home, headed to our backyard and called the dog. He came, jumping and barking, happy as always, not knowing that his owner will never be back again. Just stayed there, for a few minutes, with “White” sitting at my side, quiet and silent. During those few minutes, I had a strange feeling and thought that he knew something wrong happened. Just called him, again, and he got closer, his head on my knees. From that moment on, he was my dog, but also the memory of my dead cousin.