Not a night goes by when I don’t forget how one sleeps. My doctor warned me: Insomnia is just another name for depression. The symptoms have been accumulating for quite some time: After the lack of sleep came the loss of memory, muscular tension, and complete breakdown. There are so many symptoms that they don’t all fit in one illness. Just as the colonial city had gone mad in order to defend itself from chaos, I fell ill so as to defend myself from the ruination of my everyday existence.
The truth is that for some months now, I have suffered the worst punishment it is possible to inflict on a writer: my brain and my hand disagree on how to write the simplest sentence. The doctor prescribed two possible cures: a whole bunch of pills and a journey. It might be easier to get to sleep if I was somewhere far away. I have followed both of his recommendations and nothing has changed. I changed cities, I changed my bed, but night is the same dark spider that emerges from the depths of the earth and climbs up onto the roof of the house. Every morning, I destroy its web. Every night, the spider reappears and spins another one.
What’s more, this morning I woke up late, when breakfast had already finished. The hotel manager kindly kept me a table. The dining room is packed for yet another seminar convened by nongovernmental organizations. Once again, they are discussing poverty in one of the most luxurious hotels in the city.
I open a soft drink. I’m not thirsty, but just want to take my antidepressants. Then, still sleepy, and my voice hoarse, I slide out of one of the side doors. I hail a txopela, which takes me to the Beira-Terrace. This is where I have arranged to meet Liana Campos. I look over the stream to see whether the old nightclubs are still there. Sure enough, there are the Campino buildings, and beyond them, the Moulin Rouge.
Are those clubs still operating? I ask the driver.
The lucky ones are still open for business, he answers nonchalantly.
And do prostitutes still work there?
The lucky ones work there, he again answers, this time scrutinizing me in the rearview mirror. Then his tone of voice changes as he says:
I’ll give you my business card. Who knows, you might need some help at night? I’m well-known throughout the city as the man with all the nightlife contacts. And all arranged with the utmost discretion, boss, no one will know anything.
We reach our destination, and while I wait for my change, the driver gives me a final piece of advice: Take care, boss. Those whores are armed to the teeth.
The Beira-Terrace is a downtown promenade on reclaimed land near the port that looks out over the estuary. The land is surrounded by a ruined wall.
Before Independence, colonials would spend Sunday afternoon here. The most well-to-do English and Portuguese frequented a café with outside seating, where they would have their tea, dance, and forget about Africa. Admission to the tearoom was limited to certain categories of people. My family never went there. Our servant, Benedito, commented in surprise: There are racial differences even among whites.
A narrow stream, the Chiveve, flows out into the estuary some hundred meters away. It is small, muddy, and smelly. In spite of this, the people of Beira take great pride in that trickle of water. To such an extent that they refer to themselves as “the Chiveve folk.” They could have chosen as their icon the great River Punguè, which flows out into the ocean next to the city. But they prefer to see themselves in this small stream. They know that this is the name given to the rising tide as it advances across the mudflat, and sounds like a gentle melody: Chi-ve-ve-ve-ve.
When I was a child, this little stream separated the dark caverns of sin from the place where virtue prevailed. Nowadays, the Chiveve no longer claims to divide the world. Four decades later, the same acidic reek of stagnant water prevails there. The idea of paradise as a verdant, sweetly scented place is deceptive. The universe began in a bog just like this one.
Liana is seated on the wall, beyond which fishermen are repairing their old nets. She has her back to the road, but hears my footsteps some way off.
I enjoy watching men sewing, it’s as if they have grown women’s hands, Liana remarks, without even greeting me. They’re not fishermen but tailors. And during the intervals, they do some fishing. What’s more, they fish solely in order to return to the beach and sit sewing.
White herons wander along the muddy shore. The sky is heavy and, according to Liana, this is the calm that heralds the storm.
It was here that my childhood got ripped apart, I confess as I sit down next to Liana. I’ve come here to do what those fishermen are doing: I’ve come to sew it together again.
Stop the poetics, professor, Liana says angrily. So your childhood got torn apart, did it? Talk to me, Diogo, I want to hear your story, and I can do without the metaphors.
I remind her of the episode that occurred nearly half a century ago, in which two sweethearts committed suicide on that promenade. They threw themselves into the river, their wrists bound with a wire. If one of them suddenly had a change of heart, the other would ensure their tragic commitment was fulfilled. They had been stopped from loving each other as they were from different races. They ended their lives like a tropical Romeo and Juliet. The papers were forbidden to report on the incident. The drama of an impossible love might prove more subversive than a thousand political pamphlets. For that simple story destroyed in one fell swoop all the propaganda about a Portugal without races or racism.
How old were you? Liana asks.
I’m not even sure. I remember hearing Sandro crying for nights on end. He was crying out of pity for himself.
So why are you telling me this story?
To be honest, I don’t know why.
Next to us, an old fisherman struggles to remove the hook from the mouth of an enormous conger. The fish is thrashing around like a serpent. It wants to bite the world, swallow the sky, it wants to drown in its own blood. It seems to be made of light and water, which is why it escapes through the fisherman’s fingers.
I caught a lot of those, right here, I declare.
Liana seems unimpressed. She runs her fingers through her hair and looks away so as not to witness the spectacle of the fish in its death throes.
I can’t imagine you killing a fish, Liana comments. Tell me, professor, what made you want to fish?
I remain silent. In fishing, it’s not the fisherman who waits: it’s time itself. That’s the pleasure I felt and was never capable of explaining. We would all sit together on that wall, blacks and whites, and what we took from the waters merely followed the dictates of chance. Life was fair for just a few hours.
But you can be sure of one thing, Liana. I wasn’t seeking a fish. I dreamed of one day catching a siren.
There are sirens who dwell on dry land, she murmurs, taking off her dark glasses. It’s then that I notice a green tone in the depths of her eyes.
Let’s get to the point, I say. Let me explain why I wanted to meet you here, Liana . . .
I’m the one who brought you here, professor. Don’t forget I’m the one showing you the city.
No one can show a city, I insist, while Liana gets up and kicks off her shoes, leaning on my shoulder while she does so. Barefoot, she walks toward the water’s edge. And she stands there until I decide to press her:
You told me over the phone you wanted to tell me a painful secret from the distant past. What is this secret, Liana?
A dugout passes by so slowly that the river appears to embrace its timbers, holding the craft back from wherever it is going. Liana asks the fisherman whether he has had a good catch. The man smiles, without answering. The dugout draws away like a sad shadow.
Never ask that kind of question, I warn her. The day a fisherman says his fishing has gone well, the sea will never forgive him.
Liana sits down again on the parapet, her dress a red stain on the gray stone. The man next to us has grown tired of struggling with his fish. He curses out loud, picks up a rock, and crushes the creature’s head. Liana turns away and as she gets up, her dress gets caught in a crack in the stone. I hear the sound of cloth ripping. The woman seems unaware of what has happened to her dress. Her thighs are exposed as she walks toward a hotel that is being built on the ruins of the esplanade where the English once held sway.
I follow her in silence. We climb a dark staircase up onto a wide patio on the top floor of the hotel. From here one can see how the city has spread out whimsically among dunes and marshes. We sit on the parapet surrounding the patio. We are close to each other, our knees touching. The tear in her dress is now at the mercy of my eyes.
The girl who committed suicide here was my mother, Liana reveals.
That can’t be so! Surely not! I reply vigorously.
It was my mother, but she didn’t die.
I can’t believe it. Who told you this?
It was my grandfather, Liana replies. He didn’t tell me the details. He just said that his only daughter was called Almalinda, and that she had managed to free herself from the wires binding her to her lover. She was rescued by a fisherman. That’s all he said.
Liana takes a photo from her pocket and places it on her thigh. It features a young girl surrounded by adults in white uniforms.
Is that you? I ask.
It’s my mother, and her fingers briefly brush across the image.
Is she in a hospital?
It’s the orphanage where she lived in Lisbon, Liana explains. She pauses, and takes a deep breath. You came searching for Sandro, and I came looking for my mother.
What was her name?
Ermelinda. Ermelinda Campos. But everyone called her Almalinda, because of her beautiful soul.
Liana’s life was a repeat version of Ermelinda Campos’s story. Both grew up orphans in Portugal. Her mother was raised in a children’s home, Liana was adopted by a Portuguese couple.
Down below, the fisherman walks home along the road. He looks up at us, and raises the decapitated fish as if it were a trophy. Drops of blood leave a trail on the ground behind him. Liana looks away again.
Did you like the packet I sent you? she asks, and then before I can answer, she continues.
I can imagine you in your hotel room, classifying and ordering all those papers.
So when are you going to give me the rest?
It depends, Liana says.
On what? I ask, insistent.
A gift requires something in return. Liana shoots me a mischievous smile.
Later, when we are in her car, she returns to the subject. As she is driving, her dress reveals her thighs. Her blouse allows a glimpse of her breasts, and a bead of sweat runs down her chest. When we reach the hotel, she kills the engine and leans her head on her arms folded across the steering wheel. She mutters something unintelligible. She raises her head again, and speaks clearly once more.
Did you notice something about that photograph? she asks. The most important feature wasn’t the people in it. It was those who were missing. There are varying degrees of orphanhood. I’m at the far end of the scale.
There’s something I’ve been waiting to ask: Why did you come back to Mozambique?
That’s the wrong question, Diogo, Liana corrects me.
The real question is: Why was I taken away from here?
Her hands resting, forgotten, on the wheel, Liana confesses: She was the one who decided to return to Mozambique. The box she was left with was a kind of second return.
I hope those papers will enrich your writing, she declares. When you write about that time, you will return my past to me. Your childhood, your father, my grandfather, this city, all of it is part of my life. It’s all mixed up. And my mixed race is all mixed up in that story too.
I’ve read the first documents you sent me, I say through the half-open door. And I have to admit I was overcome by a moment of shameful vanity: I could write well when I was fifteen, too well for my age.
I shut the car door. Liana waves as she drives slowly away.
Do you know who that lady is? the hotel receptionist asks me with an impish grin.
I don’t answer. We watch the car disappear at the end of the avenue.
Do you know who she is? the man presses me.
I don’t say anything. I don’t want to appear anxious. The receptionist leans over and talks in a low voice, obliging me to lean forward to hear him.
That friend of yours, professor, is the fiancée of a police chief.
Should I be worried?
You’re in luck: her boyfriend’s gone to Maputo, the receptionist whispers.
As I walk off, I hear him following me and, as I reach the elevator, his voice echoes down the hallway.
The name’s Idai.
Whose name?
The cyclone, he replies. They say it’ll reach the city in little more than a week.
The man seems to be announcing the disaster with rare enthusiasm. I understand his excitement. That anonymous hotel employee is, at this precise moment, the messenger God has chosen as the harbinger of the apocalypse.
I sit on the bed wondering whether to write or have a siesta. Outside, there is the heavy calm that precedes a storm. I surf the internet for information about the cyclone. There is nothing to confirm the receptionist’s forecast. Everything suggests that the weather front has dispersed over the Indian Ocean.
I leaf through a pile of the inspector’s papers. And I ponder on Liana’s solitude as a woman in search of her history. My situation is the opposite: I have too much history, I suffer from an excess of the past. I want to free myself from a time that doesn’t allow me to exist fully.
Liana calls me. She wants to know what my plans are. I don’t have any plans, I was never able to make plans. From the other end of the line, I seem to hear her tut-tutting. The fact that I am digging into my past, Liana remarks, shouldn’t stop me from fully enjoying the present.
I saw only too well how you looked at me during the event, she affirms.
Was I poorly mannered?
Men, Liana declares, don’t see women. They examine them.
My mother taught me to see a woman.
I’d like to see for myself whether you’ve learned anything, she challenges me. Let’s do a little test: What dress was I wearing last night? You can take your time before answering.
Clothes are only one thing, I claim defensively. I remember people.
You’re mistaken, my dear poet. Clothes are more than just one thing. You told me yesterday that your mother sewed her own clothes. You should have done what my grandfather did with his papers. You should have kept the bits of clothing that your mother sewed.
I put the phone down, and go back to bed. Then I remember the day Benedito and his brother entered our lives. They arrived in the city almost naked, the few clothes they wore were ragged, their skin covered in dust and scabs.
They have scabies, my mother said.
These folks know nothing about hygiene, our neighbor, Rosinda, commented.
These folks take more baths than your whole family put together. What you’ve never seen is the poverty they’re obliged to put up with, my mother shot back.
Dona Virgínia quickly set about sewing shirts and shorts. Those boys are going to leave here fully dressed, she declared firmly. My father drew her attention to the size of her task. I enjoy sewing, my mother argued. If I’m busy, I have no time to fall ill.
It was Sandro who sat beside her and it was as if his hands and my mother’s were sewing in tandem, with the same needle and thread. My mother tried to dissuade him. This isn’t a boy’s work, she said. But Sandro argued: I like it, aunty, for me it’s as if the cloth were sewing us together. My mother agreed with him. And she caressed the bits of fabric as if they were alive. It wasn’t clothes they were sewing, but fragments of their soul that had been torn apart.
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From The Cartographer of Absences by Mia Couto, translated by David Brookshaw. Used with permission of the publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Copyright © 2025 by Mia Couto.
