A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa Read Free Book Online

running into his eyes, clouding his sight. A bicycle sprang out, suddenly, in front of him. He wasn’t able to dodge past and fell on top of it. He got up, grabbed hold of it, and again managed to gain some distance. He veered right. A dead end. He dropped the bicycle and tried to jump the wall. A stone hit him in the back of the neck, he felt the taste of blood in his mouth, dizziness. The next moment he was in a car, handcuffed, a soldier on each side, and everybody shouting.
    “You’re going to die, reptile!” yelled the one who was driving. “We’ve got orders to kill you all. But first I’m going to pull out your nails, one by one, till you tell us everything you know. I want those fractionists’ names.”
    He didn’t pull out any of his nails at all. A truck crashed into them at the next junction, throwing the car against the pavement. The door farthest from the collision opened and Little Chief was spat out along with one of the soldiers. With some difficulty he got up, scattering blood, his own and others’, and shards of glass. He didn’t even have time to understand what was happening. A stocky guy with a smile that seemed to gleam with sixty-four teeth approached him, put a coat over him to hide the handcuffs, and dragged him away. Fifteen minutes later the two of them went into a building that was elegant, albeit rather dilapidated. They climbed eleven floors on foot, Little Chief limping badly, as his right leg had been nearly broken.
    The elevators weren’t working, the man with the brilliant smile apologized:
    “These hicks toss their rubbish into the elevator shaft. There’s rubbish almost all the way up.”
    He invited him in. On the living-room wall, which was painted shocking pink, there was a very conspicuous oil painting, depicting, with naïve brushstrokes, the happy owner. There were two women sitting on the floor, beside a small battery-powered radio. One of them, who was very young, was breast-feeding a baby. Neither paid him any notice. The man with the brilliant smile pulled over a chair. He gestured to Little Chief to sit down. He took a paper clip from his pocket and straightened it out, then he leaned over the handcuffs, inserted the wire into the lock, counted to three, and opened it. He shouted something in Lingala. The older woman got up, without a word, and disappeared into the apartment. She returned, some minutes later, with two bottles of Cuca beer. An irate voice was yelling on the radio:
We must find them, tie them up, and shoot them!
    The man with the brilliant smile shook his head:
    “This wasn’t what we made our Independence for. Not for Angolans to kill one another like rabid dogs.” He sighed. “Now we must treat your injuries. Then, rest. We have an extra room. You will stay there till the chaos is over.”
    “It could take quite some time for the chaos to be over.”
    “But end it will, comrade. Even evil needs to take a rest sometimes.”

The Rebel Aerial
    In the first months of her isolation, Ludo only rarely did without the security of her umbrella when she visited the terrace. Later, she began using a long cardboard box, in which she had cut two holes at eye level for looking through and two others to the sides, lower down, to keep her arms free. Thus equipped, she could work on the flowerbeds, planting, picking, weeding. From time to time she would lean out over the terrace wall, bitterly studying the submerged city. Anybody looking at the building from another of a similar height would see a large box moving around, leaning out and drawing itself back again.
    Clouds surrounded the city, like jellyfish.
    They reminded Ludo of jellyfish.
    When people look at clouds they do not see their real shape, which is no shape at all, or every shape, because they are constantly changing. They see whatever it is that their heart yearns for.
    You don’t like that word,
heart?
    Very well, choose another, then: soul, unconscious, fantasy, whatever you think best. None