Another Day of Life (10 page)

General mobilization. Long lines of young men, mostly unemployed. Instead of holding up a wall, it’s better to do your duty—in the army, you get something to eat. They’ll soon be fighting and killing. Work at last, even glory. Packed off by their mothers and wives, a lot of women with big bellies. People will give birth and kill until the end of the world. Those who are now seeing the light of day will be twenty-five in the year 2000. Grand celebrations of the dawn of a new millennium. Meetings between youth and the veterans of the twentieth century. An interview with a spry old dame who lived through World War I. An impressive memory and dauntless coquetry to boot, the old lady mentioning how the army was marching through once and up in the hayloft she and a certain soldier, well, yes sir, I’ve got this straight, I remember it very clearly. Half of humanity will have slant eyes. Half of humanity will not understand what the other half is saying. Time to perfect methods of communicating by signs, time to begin instructions in sign language. The white race will enter the vestigial phase. Barely thirteen percent of the inhabitants of earth will have white skin. Barely two percent will have naturally blond hair. Blondes: a more and more distinctive phenomenon, a rarity of rarities. Which is better—to think or not to think about the future? Future shock: the travails of postindustrial society, luxury. For others, everyday problems: What can we find to eat today? The Bantu language has no future tense; the concept of the future doesn’t exist for the Bantu people, they are not tormented by the thought of what will happen in a month, in a year (see the Reverend Father Placide Tempels,
La Philosophie bantoue
). The inductees are led in groups straight to the front. So raw and green—why? To create a false crowd, more confusion? The registration center closes at 6 P.M. People drift away and disappear into the labyrinths of the
musseques,
the poor quarter. The day, quite ordinary, even peaceful, ends.

Meanwhile it turned humid. The guns fell silent at the approaches to Luanda and there was no news from the other fronts. It seemed that time had stopped, that nothing was happening. The sails of our ship went slack and we found ourselves becalmed. Waiting for the storm. I felt that there was nothing to breathe. This was a special kind of oppressiveness, not to be measured in millibars. You felt it psychologically rather than physically. An invisible vise was tightening, intensifying the sense of danger and fear. I thought that it might be my own private condition, my individual depression. I started observing others. They all had the faces of people who find it oppressive. Dull, expressionless faces with smudged expressions, lacking strength, lacking charm. The feeling of closeness was so acute that all you had to do was start talking on any random topic, and soon you would be hearing that it was stifling. People had trouble talking about anything else. At all events these were unclear, foggy disclosures, because the feeling of oppressiveness is a very difficult state to define. Usually you only say that something is hanging in the air, something has to happen, something is awaiting us. There being a war on, your interlocutor states that blood will flow. This is a lesson drawn from history, and history teaches that crucial events cannot occur without bloodshed. Then comes the moment of silence in which you wonder whether it’s going to be
your
blood. A state of irritation and restlessness accompanies the feeling of closeness. A person unable to grasp the situation and eager to enlighten himself pays heed to the most fantastic rumors. He is afraid, he acts out irrational impulses, the herd instinct in him is easily aroused.

It becomes oppressive when important events, important changes, can’t break through to the surface of life and are continually unable to fulfill themselves. The still invisible and uncrystallized fact that is to be realized in the future is already growing, swelling, beginning to push through into a preexisting reality which, however, doesn’t want to yield. It gets tighter and tighter, and therefore more and more suffocating. The lack of air increases our feeling of helplessness. We watch the gathering of the clouds and wait for a voice to speak from them, reading us the inexorable verdict of fate.

GOOD EVENING

[Warsaw comes through]

COPY PLEASE

UNFORTUNATELY, I STILL HAVE NO INFORMATION. APPARENT CALM PREVAILS AND NOTHING IS HAPPENING, TYPICAL CALM BEFORE THE STORM. WE KNOW THAT THE INVASION IS CONTINUING BUT THERE IS NO NEWS FROM THE FRONT, BAD DAYS ARE COMING BUT THAT IS NOT CONCRETE INFORMATION FOR PRINT. CALL TOMORROW, MAYBE SOMETHING WILL HAPPEN

OK, TILL TOMORROW THEN
TILL TILL TKS
TKS BYE
BYE

Somebody pounded on my door at two in the morning. I snapped out of a deep sleep, and the flesh stood up on the back of my neck because I thought: FNLA!

I trudged on leaden legs to open the door. Three incredibly filthy types tumbled into the room. They threw themselves on me and I threw myself on them and we started hugging and shouting—it was Nelson, Manuel, and Bota! They laid their weapons on the floor and wanted to wash. Then Nelson dived onto the bed and fell asleep in a second, while the others started opening the one can of meat that I’d been saving for my hour of need.

What’s going on at the southern front? I asked.

There is no southern front, Manuel said; they’re already outside Benguela. The second column is headed for Luanda.

Can’t they be stopped?

That’s a tough one. They command enormous firepower. They have a lot of armor, a lot of artillery, they fight well, and they’re determined. We have nothing to fight with. Our men aren’t prepared to stand up to a regular army. We’re withdrawing because the forces are unequal.

What about Farrusco?

We don’t know; he was badly wounded.

Did you see them close up?

Yes. They have Panhard armored personnel carriers, very fast. They’re mobile and they know the terrain well. They split up into groups of five or six vehicles and keep changing positions. They’re everywhere and nowhere, and it’s hard to catch them. We don’t have the resources to organize a defense.

When will they get to Luanda?

In a few days, perhaps.

The pessimistic side of my nature suggested that the moment of annihilation had come and the end was approaching. All they would have to do was take the power plant at Cambamba, close to two hundred kilometers from Luanda. Electricity runs from there to the pumping station; whether the city has water or not depends on that power plant. Without water and light, the surrounded and starved city would have to lay down its arms after a few days.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3 (JUDGMENT DAY)

Morning—nothing.

Noon—Pablo comes for me in the jeep at the assigned point. There are two more Cubans with him. They are wearing green fatigues with no insignia. The only distinguishing mark is the weapons on their shoulders. Nobody asks an armed man what he is doing. As soon as he says
“Cubano,”
the patrols run out of questions and he can drive on. We pass an industrial park thrown up in the fields. Then the pastures—regular, well-maintained rectangles of succulent grass—begin. Herds of stray cows: tons of meat and milk, with nobody watching them. There is hunger in the city, but nobody bothers the cattle—this is Portuguese property, untouchable. A short way down the road, gentle hills begin, heaps of earth, lines of entrenchments, artillery, tents, crates—the northern front, the soft underbelly of the war because these are the approaches to Luanda. The view from the first line of trenches: the countryside spread out green, a river in a shallow valley, an asphalt road, a blown bridge, the shot-up pumping station, a palm grove. On the other side, in the distance, a sunlit hill, the enemy’s fortifications. Through the lenses of powerful binoculars I can see specks of dust and horizontal and vertical scales; figures are running back and forth, and vehicles are moving along the horizontal scale: preparations for an attack. On the side where we are, there is also a great deal of movement, sandbags are being passed about, outposts camouflaged, artillery shunted. They don’t want to be taken by surprise. Then come night, dawn, and waiting—who will strike first? Someone finally does strike, the other side replies, dust rises from the earth, the dance of fire and death begins. Pablo walks around giving orders and checking supplies like a boy with candles on Christmas Eve. I walk behind him, taking pictures. They all want to be photographed. Me now, me now,
camarada,
me, meeeeeeeeee! They stand rigidly and some of them salute. To leave a trace, to fix themselves, to remain somehow. I was here, just yesterday I was here, he took a picture, yes, that’s how I looked. That’s the kind of face I had as a live man. I stand before you at attention: Look at me for a moment before you turn to something else.

Afternoon—we were on our way back to the city, when the jeep drove down a side street and stopped in front of a one-story villa where the Cuban advisers had their headquarters. We had barely managed to sit down when a soldier ran in and handed Pablo a sheet of paper torn out of a notebook with a message written on it in pencil.

Pablo read it and went pale.

Without a word, he went out onto the veranda and sat down on a bench. He took out a handkerchief and began wiping his forehead. We waited for him to say something. He read the message again and remained silent, until at last he said quietly, indistinctly, as if his mouth were stiff:

“They captured Benguela today. All the Cubans died in the fighting for the town. Word was sent by a wounded signalman.”

Then he looked at us and added:

“Now they’re on their way to Luanda. It’s six hundred kilometers from Benguela to Luanda, but there are no strongpoints or defensive lines along the way. If those are gutsy boys and they decide to drive night and day, they can be here tomorrow.”

In the next house a woman called out “Mauro! Mauro!” After a moment, a child’s voice answered. It was 6 P.M. The Angelus sounded somewhere far off.

“Get me the radio operator,” Pablo said to the soldier who had brought the message. “And dismiss the men.”

Military matters were beginning, so I withdrew and went to the hotel. I asked someone to drive me to the edge of the city, to Morro da Luz, where the MPLA headquarters was located in the former residence of the French consul. But the staff was meeting and the sentry didn’t want to admit me. I went back in a truck carrying Portuguese soldiers. These were troops in a state of utter dissoluteness. They wore long beards and had neither caps nor belts. They were selling their rations on the black market and breaking into cars. Their orders were to maintain neutrality, not to shoot, not to get involved. They were loading everything onto the ships. The last unit was to leave in a week.

In the evening I spoke with Queiroz. He thinks Luanda will be hard for them to take, because the whole populace will fight and they will have to decide on a mass slaughter that the world might not tolerate. But then he began to have doubts himself: “In the end, how can I know? The world is so far away.”

Ruiz flies the plane to Porto Amboim, carrying a group of sappers and some crates of dynamite. They are to blow all the bridges on the Cuvo River, which will cut the road between Benguela and Luanda. If they make it.

Warsaw calls at midnight.

THE SITUATION IN ANGOLA [I sent] HAS TAKEN A DRAMATIC TURN IN THE LAST TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. THE SOUTH AFRICAN ARMY, SUPPORTED BY UNITS OF MERCENARIES AND THE FNLA AND UNITA, HAS OCCUPIED BENGUELA, THE SECOND LARGEST CITY IN ANGOLA. THESE TROOPS ARE PROCEEDING IN TWO STRONG ARMORED COLUMNS TOWARD THE CAPITAL, WHERE THE DEFENSE OF THE CITY IS BEING ORGANIZED. ACCORDING TO STILL UNCONFIRMED REPORTS JUST RECEIVED HERE, ONE OF THESE COLUMNS HAS OCCUPIED NOVO REDONDO AND IS THREE HUNDRED MILES SOUTH OF LUANDA. IF THESE TROOPS CANNOT BE STOPPED AT THE LINE OF THE CUVO RIVER THEY COULD BE AT THE APPROACHES TO LUANDA WITHIN THE NEXT TWO DAYS. IT IS ANTICIPATED THAT A SIMULTANEOUS ATTACK WOULD THEN BEGIN FROM THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH IN ACCORDANCE WITH PLAN ORANGE, WHICH CALLS FOR THE OCCUPATION OF THE CAPITAL BEFORE NOVEMBER 10. THIS WOULD MEAN THE POLITICAL AND MILITARY LIQUIDATION OF THE MPLA, AT LEAST IN THE SHORT TERM END ITEM.

FRIENDS, CALL ME IN SEVEN HOURS BECAUSE THIS IS THE DECISIVE MOMENT, OK?

YES, OF COURSE, TKS MUCH

TKS BYE BYE

GOOD NIGHT

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4 (NERVES, NERVES)

I got up at three in the morning, to prepare my commentary for PAP in peace. I had barely gone downstairs and got the telex working, however, when in walked five toughs with automatics, heading straight for me: “Sit down and don’t move!” They woke up Felix, who was sleeping like a rock on the couch, and demanded a list of the hotel guests. They were going to conduct a search and take everybody to the police for interrogation. The enemy is inside the city, in this quarter, in this hotel. Fifth column. Infiltration. They brought a dozen or more sleepy, frightened people downstairs. Persuasion was senseless. “No talking!” cried the leader, holding up his pistol like the starter at a track meet. You ought to go blow off some steam on the front, brother, I wanted to tell him. We waited some more, but organization had broken down as usual, and the car that was supposed to take us to the police had not showed up. Almeyda, the MPLA press chief, appeared with the morning. He ordered them to let us go and told them to leave. People walked away dejected and exhausted. Anybody with a pistol could go around terrorizing hotels, doing whatever he wanted.

Quiet reigns on the northern front. They are waiting for the troops from the south to come nearer. Then they will strike from two sides at once—this week, perhaps tomorrow.

Radio communiqués summon the populace to the defense of the city. In this decisive hour. No one can shirk.

The MPLA leadership meets all day.

Help is apparently waiting in Brazzaville and in Cabinda, but it can’t reach Luanda because the airport and the harbor remain in the hands of the Portuguese army until next Monday (November 10). Until next Monday, Angola is formally a Portuguese territory, an overseas province, and also a part of NATO territory. So the MPLA must hold out until next week. And if it is too late? If the Portuguese units suddenly strike Luanda itself, attacking the Angolans? (There are fears that some units, led by rightist officers, will abandon neutrality and begin operating on their own.) Rumors circulate that President Neto has already been arrested. Panic breaks out. It is impossible to get a grip on the situation. A complete lack of information from the southern front. Where is the enemy? Have they halted? Are they coming? Still far away? Already in the suburbs? People are losing their heads. I drop by my room and find that Dona Cartagina has packed my bag herself. And where are the newspaper clippings that I have been collecting for three months, my greatest treasure? Where are the clippings? She threw them into the toilet and flushed them! (It was my misfortune that Ribeiro had fixed the pumps that day and there was water.)