Secrets in the Fire Read online

  Hortensia had stepped on a landmine, too. She came from far away – so far that her mother could never come and visit.

  ‘You can borrow my mama,’ Sofia said. ‘Lydia has enough room for you, too.’

  It was true. When Lydia came to visit and saw how happy Sofia was to have Hortensia there, she immediately began treating her as if she were her own daughter.

  The days passed quickly. Although it was difficult learning to walk with new legs, they both noticed it got easier and easier. One day Sofia discovered she could manage with just one crutch. Master Emilio came from time to time to check their progress. He promised that their legs would soon be ready.

  One evening, Sofia told Hortensia how it had been her fault that Maria died.

  Hortensia shook her head.

  ‘You couldn’t possibly have known there was a landmine there,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t your fault. It was the mine’s fault.’

  When she heard Hortensia put it like that, Sofia resolved never to sit under the blanket again.

  They talked about everything. But there was one subject they never mentioned: they knew that one day they would have to part. Hortensia would go home, and Sofia would go home. For Sofia, the thought was unbearable. She didn’t want to lose Hortensia, like she’d lost Maria. Although Hortensia would still be alive, it amounted to the same thing. They would never see each other again.

  It went easier for Hortensia, who needed only one new leg. It was a lot harder for Sofia, and she was sometimes envious that Hortensia had lost only one of her legs. But she kept her envy to herself. Sofia never told anyone how she felt.

  One day, when they’d arrived home and were sitting in the doorway waiting for their meal, a man came and told Hortensia that she didn’t need to practise any more. She was to pack her few belongings and leave straight away. He was there to drive her to a bus that would take her home.

  They barely had time to say goodbye. Everything happened so fast. They clumsily touched hands and then Hortensia was gone.

  Sofia sat in the doorway and watched her leave. Hortensia turned the corner and was gone.

  Sofia closed the door behind her.

  She was alone again.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SOFIA NEVER FORGOT Hortensia.

  But she never saw her again.

  Every morning, when she woke up, she was reminded that Hortensia had gone. Her bed stood empty. Sofia asked Veronica whether another girl would come. But Veronica didn’t know.

  The bed remained empty.

  The days passed, slowly and heavily. Sofia sometimes thought about time and how strange it was – how it both existed and didn’t exist – and how it was like the lazy hippopotamuses she used to see floating in the river when she and Maria washed their clothes.

  Sofia wanted to learn how to walk so she could go home as soon as possible, but she also wondered what the future held. She would never be able to run or dance. And no man would want her when she was grown up and ready to have children.

  Her thoughts would have been less heavy if she’d had someone to share them with.

  But Hortensia was gone for good.

  One day, her new legs were ready. Doctor Raul came to fetch her from the hall where she practised walking with Benthino. Together they went to Master Emilio. He smiled at her and pointed to two legs that stood leaning against the table.

  ‘May I introduce you to your two new friends?’ he said. ‘They’ll be with you for many years to come. Since you’re still growing, you’ll be needing new and longer legs at some stage, but until then these are your best friends.’

  The legs were made of light brown plastic. They were the same thickness as normal legs and had black shoes at the end. One of the legs was longer than the other, since it had to be fastened to her thigh.

  Together Master Emilio and Doctor Raul attached Sofia’s new legs. When she stood up, she felt how well they fitted her. It only hurt a little bit below her left knee. If she let her capulana fall all the way down to her shoes, no one would notice that her legs weren’t really her own.

  Doctor Raul told her to walk around the room.

  ‘Does it hurt?’ he asked.

  Sofia shook her head.

  ‘Can I go home now?’ she asked instead.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Doctor Raul. ‘You will need at least another month here, to practise. But then you can go home.’

  That night, Sofia tried out different ways of arranging her capulana so that the artificial legs couldn’t be seen. She walked back and forth outside the building, and it was almost as if nothing had happened. People who didn’t know wouldn’t see that her legs were made of plastic.

  From then on, Sofia no longer used the wheelchair. Before, she’d always put on her legs when she got to the hospital, but now she did it in the morning and kept them on until she went to bed at night. She took them to bed with her, too, and kept them under the blanket, because she was afraid someone might try to steal them.

  One night, when she’d gone to bed with the legs beside her, she thought she would give them each a name. If Doctor Raul was right about them being her best friends, they had to be called something. She lay in the darkness thinking. What could you call a couple of legs? After thinking back and forth for some time, she called the right leg Kukula and the left leg Xitsongo.*

  She also decided not to tell anyone about the names that she’d given her legs. Old Muazena once had told her that your secrets are safest and best kept if you sit by a fire and throw your thoughts into the flames like firewood. Then they would always be there, even when the fire burnt low and died. They’d come alive again when the fire was relit the next day.

  ‘The fire won’t betray you,’ Muazena had said. ‘It keeps your secrets and never reveals them to anyone.’

  During this period, Mama Lydia and José-Maria came to visit less and less often. They were busy, and Sofia often sat in the doorway waiting in vain for them to come. Sometimes she was so homesick it hurt. There was nothing she found more difficult to endure. If she didn’t get food one night she could sleep off her hunger, but homesickness was worse than hunger.

  Now and then, Doctor Raul would give her a couple of banknotes. She usually bought an orange with the money but one day she had an idea. If she saved the money, it might add up to enough for a seat on one of the rusty old trucks that drove people back and forth between the city and the outlying villages. She would surprise her mama and Alfredo by coming home for a weekend, when she wasn’t at the hospital practising with her new legs. She knew she lived near Boane. Once she got that far, she’d be able to find her way home.

  She asked Veronica where she might find the trucks that took people to Boane. To make sure that Veronica wouldn’t suspect that she was thinking of going there – and maybe tell her she wasn’t allowed – Sofia tried to ask as if she wasn’t really interested in the answer. Veronica explained, and Sofia remembered everything she said.

  After about a week, she had saved enough money. She decided to leave early on Saturday morning. To make sure Veronica wouldn’t worry, she would tell one of the old fellows who was always up early that she’d gone home and that she’d be back on Sunday. She had also saved some of the bread she got at mealtimes, and hidden it in a piece of paper in her bed. She grew more and more anxious as the day of her departure neared. What if she got into the wrong truck? If that happened, she might end up in a strange place and be unable to find her way back. And she didn’t know how long the trip would take, either.

  But she’d made up her mind. She had to go home.

  The night before she left, she slept badly. As she had no way of telling the time, she could never work out how long it would be until sunrise. When she couldn’t bear to lie in bed any longer, she got up, attached her legs and got dressed. Carefully she opened the door into the darkness. It was warm and still. She could hear snoring and coughing from the other rooms where the old people lay asleep. Sofia sat in the doorway to wait for the sun. She had knotted the mon
ey and the pieces of bread into a corner of her capulana, and while she waited she thought through Veronica’s directions for finding a truck to Boane.

  At last she caught a glimpse of the first pale streak of dawn. A door opened further along the verandah. A blind old man called Manuel crept out and sat in the doorway. It was time to leave. Sofia helped herself up with her crutch, closed the door and set off. When she passed Manuel she said good morning and asked him to tell Veronica that she’d gone home.

  ‘You should be glad you have a home,’ Manuel said. ‘All I have is this. No family, nothing.’

  Sofia felt sorry for old Manuel. She wondered what was worse – to have two artificial legs, or to be blind.

  She walked as fast as she could, because she wanted to be gone from the compound by the time Veronica arrived. Of course, there was also the risk of meeting her on the road, since she didn’t know from which direction Veronica would be coming.

  It was already daylight. When Sofia left the main gate, many people were already on their way to work. She followed the dusty road in the direction Veronica had described.

  The chapa towards Boane leaves from the market place outside the cathedral. First you turn to the left, then to the right and then just continue straight ahead, down the long hill.

  Sofia turned left and then right. Whenever she crossed a street, the cars beeped their horns at her. But she went as fast as she could. Angrily she told Xitsongo and Kukula to hurry up. From time to time she had to stop to catch her breath. What if it was so far that she couldn’t manage the walk? She set off again, afraid that she might have gone the wrong way. The sun was already high in the sky; sweat ran from her face. But she clenched her teeth and kept going. She wasn’t going to give up; she had to go home.

  At last she arrived. At the far end of the market place was a big white church with a steeple. Trucks were parked along the pavement with people clambering off and on.

  Other trucks arrived, packed with people clinging to the sides for support. They nudged their way forwards slowly because they had so many people on board. Sofia wondered how she would ever manage to get up onto one of those high trucks. And if she did manage, how would she get off again when the truck arrived in Boane? But she pushed her fears aside. She couldn’t give up now. Manuel had probably already told Veronica that Sofia had gone home. She couldn’t change her mind.

  Sofia approached a woman who was sitting on the pavement with a cage full of hens in front of her. She asked about the trucks to Boane. The woman pointed and asked why Sofia was using crutches. Had she fallen and hurt herself ? Sofia nodded. She went in the direction the woman had indicated. The woman hadn’t noticed that Sofia had artificial legs. She was glad, and the thought gave her new strength. There was a boy hanging from the truck’s door calling out to customers, and Sofia asked if he was heading for Boane.

  ‘Matola and Boane,’ he yelled back. ‘Two thousand.’

  Sofia was stunned. Two thousand. She didn’t have that much. She only had fifteen hundred.

  ‘I’ve only got fifteen hundred,’ Sofia shouted to him.

  ‘Then you have to get off outside Matola,’ he answered, and started taking money from other people who were clambering onto the truck. Sofia was jostled back and forth, and almost fell over several times. She tried to call out to the boy again but he didn’t see her: he was busy with the people climbing onto his truck. It would soon be completely full. Sofia didn’t know what to do – she only knew that she had to get onto that truck.

  Suddenly someone touched her. She started and turned around. She recognised one of the nurses from the time she had spent in the hospital room. Her name was Laurinda.

  ‘Sofia,’ she said. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m going home,’ Sofia said. ‘But I’m five hundred short.’

  ‘I’ll give you the money,’ Laurinda said. ‘Some time, when you have the money, you can pay me back.’

  ‘Are you going to Boane too?’ Sofia asked.

  Laurinda smiled.

  ‘I’m going to the hospital,’ she said. ‘I’ve just arrived.’

  The boy hanging from the truck door started shouting that the truck was about to leave. Laurinda yelled that Sofia was coming and asked the passengers crowding on the back of the truck to help her up. Someone took her crutches, and then she felt strong arms lifting her. She couldn’t do anything about the capulana being pulled up. As she hung there in the air, many people saw that she had artificial legs. Sofia was squeezed in between the mass of people, and someone handed her crutches back. The boy reached out and got his money. A few more people climbed on board with baskets and boxes and a bleating goat. Then the truck jerked into motion. Sofia didn’t need to use her crutches for support – she was tightly pressed between two fat women balancing baskets on their heads.

  Sofia was delighted to be surrounded by so many people. She didn’t want to think about the loneliness she’d suffered for such a long time.

  A fresh breeze blew about her head. The truck swayed and jolted and turned. As soon as they reached the outskirts of the city, the pace picked up. From time to time the truck stopped to let people off and take new passengers on. She asked one of the fat women how much further it was to Boane.

  ‘First we cross the bridge,’ the woman said. ‘Then we go up a hill. And down a hill. And then we’re there.’

  Sofia closed her eyes and felt the wind on her face. She should have been worrying about how she would find home once she’d got off the truck in Boane, and how she would get back to the city although she had no money for the return ticket. But she didn’t want to think about it. Muazena had told her that amongst the secrets in the fire were the solutions to problems. Somewhere, surely, Sofia would be able to find a burning fire where she could sit down and look into the flames.

  The truck braked and pulled over to the side of the road. They had arrived. Lots of people were getting off and Sofia was jostled from all sides. She threw the crutches to the ground and strong arms helped her down from the truck. She knew which direction to take, and as the sun was beating down, she wrapped a piece of fabric around her head and started walking.

  The crutches sank in the gravel and the going was difficult, but she clenched her teeth and struggled on. She knew it was a long way. In the bright glare of the sun, she could see the outline of the mountains on the horizon. They made her feel at home straight away. Those were the mountains she and Maria had always seen when they ran to the fields in the mornings.

  When she had walked herself to a sweat, she stopped in the shade of a tree and ate her piece of bread. She regretted that she hadn’t brought any water and knew she would be very thirsty by the time she got home. Her thighs and left knee hurt, but she didn’t have time to rest in the shade; she had to keep going. From time to time a car passed, but no one stopped to ask if she needed a lift.

  Sofia didn’t arrive in the village until late in the afternoon. By then she was almost dropping with fatigue and thirst. There was a well on the outskirts of the village, and she’d been longing for it for several hours. When she finally reached it there were a number of women and children with plastic containers waiting their turn to get water. Many of them recognised Sofia – many who had believed that she was dead and who were now overjoyed to see her again. They gave her water to drink and she sat down on the edge of the well to catch her breath. Someone gave her a fruit and they all asked about the city and wanted to see her legs. Someone also ran over to Lydia’s hut to tell her that Sofia had come home.

  Sofia had already left the well to walk the last stretch when she saw Lydia approaching with Alfredo. Lydia seemed almost frightened to see her. She stroked her arms and asked if she’d been sent away from the hospital.

  ‘I just wanted to say hello,’ Sofia said. ‘I have to leave again tomorrow.’

  ‘Did you walk all the way?’ Lydia asked. ‘It must have taken you several days.’

  ‘I came on a truck,’ Sofia said. ‘I bought a ticket.’
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  She didn’t mention that she had no money for the return ticket. That would just have worried Lydia even more. Sofia never understood why adults worried about problems that would come later on, some other day.

  When they got home and Sofia sat herself on the straw mat, she was so exhausted that all she wanted to do was lie down. But people kept coming to visit: everyone wanted to say hello to her. Again and again she had to tell about her time in hospital, about the big city, and show off her legs. She forgot she was tired and felt the joy of being home amongst the people she knew. Lydia started cooking, and Alfredo sat by Sofia’s side and stared at her with big eyes.

  Sofia noticed that Mama Lydia had grown thick around the middle, which meant she would soon be having a child, and Sofia would be getting a new brother or sister. She wondered which one of the men who came visiting was the child’s father, but she didn’t want to ask. She would find out soon enough. The idea of having another sibling made her happy because it meant that everything was well with Mama Lydia.

  That night they stayed up by the fire longer than usual. People kept appearing out of the shadows and coming forward to say hello. Alfredo fell asleep next to her and at last there were only Lydia and Sofia left by the fire.

  ‘When are you coming home for good?’ Lydia asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sofia answered. ‘Soon, I hope.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have come on a truck all the way here,’ Lydia said. ‘Who gave you money for the ticket?’

  ‘Doctor Raul.’

  ‘What if you can’t find your way back?’

  ‘The trucks follow the road,’ Sofia answered. ‘And the road leads to the city. I can’t get lost.’

  When Lydia had carried Alfredo inside, Sofia said that she wanted to sit by the fire a little longer before she went to bed. Lydia didn’t ask why, but disappeared into the hut.