The Tuner of Silences (21 page)

I was already weeping, but only noticed my tears at that point. My mother tried to keep the peace. But she reiterated her misgivings: “No one can save a marriage, only love can.”

—
And who told you there's no love?

—
That's even more serious: love is for whoever is beyond salvation.

The next day, I consulted the newspapers and scanned the classifieds. Before leaving for Africa, I had to make Africa come to me, in what is said to be the most African city in Europe. I would look for Marcelo without having to leave Lisbon. With that conviction, and with the paper opened at the classifieds, my finger paused on Professor Bambo Malunga. Next to the photograph of the soothsayer, his magic skills were listed: “He'll bring back loved ones, find lost friends . . . .” At the end, a note was added: “credit cards accepted.” In my case, perhaps it should have been a discredit card.

The following day, I walked down the narrow streets of Amadora carrying a bag full of the stuff stipulated in the ad: “A photo of the person, seven black candles, three white candles, a bottle of wine or spirits.”

The man who opened the door was almost a giant. His coloured tunic increased his bulk even more. I was uncertain about addressing him by his title when I introduced myself:

—
I'm the one who phoned you yesterday, professor.

Bambo was from a part of Africa where the Portuguese hadn't been, but he wasn't put out: “Africans,” he said, “are all Bantu, all similar, they use the same subterfuges, the same
witchcraft.” I pretended I believed him, as I walked past wooden statuettes and printed cloth wall-hangings. The apartment was cluttered and I took care not to tread on the zebra and leopard skins that covered the floor. They might be dead, but one shouldn't step on animals.

Once he'd shown me to a little round stool, the soothsayer checked the things I'd brought and then noticed that I'd left something out:

—
There's no item of your husband's clothing here. I told you yesterday on the phone that I needed a piece of his intimate clothing.

—
Intimate?
—I repeated blankly.

I smiled to myself. All Marcelo's clothes were intimate, they had all brushed against his body, they had all been touched by my enraptured fingers.

—
Come back tomorrow, lady, with all the materials required
—the soothsayer suggested delicately.

Next day, I emptied Marcelo's wardrobe into a holdall and walked through Lisbon carrying the bundle. I didn't get as far as Amadora. Halfway, I stopped by the river and cast the clothes into the water as if I were emptying them onto the floor of the soothsayer's consulting room. I stood there watching them float away, and suddenly, it seemed as if it were Marcelo adrift in the waters of the Tagus.

At that moment, I felt like a witch. First, clothes are an embrace that welcomes us when we are born. Later, we dress the dead as if they were leaving on a journey. Not even Professor Bambo could imagine my magic arts: Marcelo's clothes floated like some prediction of our re-encounter. Somewhere on the continent of Africa, there was a river that would return my sweetheart to me.

I've just arrived in Africa and the place seems too vast to receive me. I've come to find someone. But ever since I got
here, I've done nothing but get lost. Now that I'm settled in the hotel, I realize how tenuous my connection is with this new world: seven numbers scribbled on the back of a photograph. This number is the only bridge leading me to that other bridge I have to cross in order, perhaps, to find Marcelo. There are no friends, there are no acquaintances, there aren't even any strangers. I'm alone, I've never been so alone. My fingers are only too aware of this solitude as they dial the number and then give up. Then, they dial again. Until a voice on the other end answers softly:

—
Speaking?

The voice left me speechless, I was incapable of saying anything at all. My rival's question was absurd: speaking? I hadn't uttered so much as a word. It would have been more appropriate to ask: not speaking? Seconds later, the voice insisted:

—
It's Noci here? Who is this?

Noci. So that was her name. Up until then, the other woman was just a motionless face. Now, it was a name and a voice. A shudder returned my voice to me: I revealed everything all at once, as if I could only explain myself by blurting it all out. The woman remained silent for a moment and then, unperturbed, arranged to come to the hotel. An hour later, she introduced herself at the poolside bar. She was young, wore a white dress and matching sandals. Something broke within me. I expected someone of regal bearing. Instead, I was faced with a vulnerable young girl, her fingers trembling as if her cigarette were an unbearable weight.

—
Marcelo left me . . .

What a strange sensation: my husband's mistress was admitting she'd been abandoned by my husband. Suddenly. I was no longer the betrayed woman. And we two strangers were being transformed into one-time relatives, sharing a common desertion.

—
Marcelo went off with a married woman.

—
He was involved with a married woman before.

—
Here?

—
No, there. It was me. And who is this new woman?

—
I never found out. But in any case, Marcelo's no longer with her. No one knows where he is.

She cupped her cigarette ash in her hand. It was the ash falling into her palm in this way that made me understand what she wasn't telling me. I made an excuse to go up to my room. I said I'd only be a minute. But the tears I shed in that brief moment were enough for a lifetime.

I returned, having pulled myself together. Even so, Noci noticed my tortured look.

—
Let's forget Marcelo, forget men . . .

—
None of them warrants a woman's sadness.

—
Much less that of two women.

And so we sat talking about those non-existent things that women know so well how to endow with expressiveness. That woman's loneliness hurt me, for she was hardly more than a girl. She chose me as her confessor, and for some time she complained that she'd suffered for being a white man's lover. In public places, looks condemned her:
she's a whore!
But she told me how her relatives had gone to the other extreme and encouraged her to get out of the country and take advantage of the foreigner. While Noci was talking, I still wondered to myself: if I saw her going into a bar with Marcelo, what would I say, what expressions of outrage would erupt from me? In truth, all I felt for that woman now was sympathy and warmth. For every occasion she had been insulted, I had also been affronted.

—
So what do you do now, Noci?

To get a job, she had surrendered to the advances of a trader, the owner of a business. His name was Orlando Macara and he was her boss by day and lover by night. At the
interview for the position, Orlando arrived late. Limping along like the hand on a clock and looking her up and down with a salacious grin, he said:

—
I don't even need to see your CV. I'll take you on as a receptionist.

—
Receptionist?

—
Yes, to give me a reception.

She'd got a job by walking out on herself. Deep within her, a decision had been reached. She would divide in two just as a fruit separates: her body was the flesh; the seed was her soul. She would surrender her flesh to the appetites of this boss and any others. But her seed would be preserved. At night, after being eaten, sucked and spat out, her body would return to the seed and she would eventually sleep, whole and intact like a fruit. But she could find no rest in her slumber, and this was causing her to slide into despair.

—
Women-friends of mine gossip. But I ask you: now that I'm going with a man of my own race, is it no longer prostitution?

She wasn't asking for my opinion. Noci had long been sure that it was no use pondering these afflictions. A whore hires out her body. In her case, it was the opposite: her body was hiring her out.

—
I'm fine like I am, believe me.

The black girl sensed a doubt in my eyes. How can one be happy with a body that is no longer our own? Sex, she said, wasn't done with either our body or our soul. It's done with the body that's under our body. Once again, her fingers trembled, causing her cigarette ash to drop. At that moment, Marcelo's clothes passed before me eyes, floating in the waters of the river. Those clothes had been unbuttoned by those same slender fingers.

—
It's been so long since I made love
— I confessed—
that I can't even remember how to undress a man.

—
Is that so bad?

And we laughed, as if we were the oldest of friends. One man's lie had brought us together. What united us was the truth of two lives.

Orlando Macara, Noci's boss, came to fetch her at the hotel. I was introduced, and from the start, I recognized one thing: the man was the soul of congeniality. He was squat and lame, but exceedingly gracious.

—
How did the two of you meet?
—he asked us.

I had no idea what answer to give. But Noci improvised with surprising ease.

—
We met on the internet.

And she went on about the advantages and dangers of computers.

Orlando wanted to know why I had come, and what my impressions were. When I mentioned Marcelo, he suddenly seemed to remember something.

—
Have you a photograph of him?
—he asked. I showed him the photo I carry in my wallet. While Orlando looked closely at the details, I addressed Noci:

—
Marcelo came out well in this photo, don't you think?

—
I've never seen the man before in my life!
—she answered abruptly.

The trader got up and went over to the window with my wallet. I followed his movements somewhat suspiciously, until he suddenly exclaimed:

—
That's him. I took your husband to the reserve.

—
When was that?

—
It was some time ago. He wanted to take photos of animals.

—
So did you leave him there?

—
Nearly.

—
What do you mean nearly?

—
I left him just before we got there, near the entrance to the reserve. I don't want to worry you, but he looked ill to me . . .

The illness Marcelo suffered from, I could have replied, was himself. In other words, he was a man beyond remedy.

—
So you've never heard any more of Marcelo, whether he came back, or whether he stayed there?

—
Stayed there? My dear lady: it's not a place for anyone to stay . . .