Granma Nineteen and the Soviet's Secret by Ondjaki

Author:Ondjaki
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Biblioasis
Published: 2014-03-31T04:00:00+00:00

Often, when I saw Sea Foam come running, I’d start laughing.

“You goin’ crazy, too?” 3.14 would ask me.

I laughed a little less hard. Sometimes I kept my feelings secret; other times I didn’t, I spoke the truth.

“Sea Foam looks like a bird that’s about to take off.”

And so he did. I dreamed about this once: his feet coming closer and closer to not touching the ground, his threads taking on the shape of a MiG’s wings, his dreads standing out straight to indicate the direction of his flight, his feet peddling in the air, and he himself laughing at me, uttering phrases in the crazed Cuban that he spoke.

I saw him come running from the bakery, down that alley we used to go to the Kinanga Cinema, and he accelerated fast. Maybe when he was studying in Cuba he was also one of those athletes: it seems like sports is a duty over there and they wake up early to go swimming or running. I don’t know; that’s what I’ve heard. Foam always wanted to run a race against João Serrador’s 1100 motorcycle, but he didn’t last, the bike went past him faster than a cannon ball. João Serrador only braked when he was already close to the curve, and if he pulled a wheelie—which he did a lot—the stop was even more abrupt and we applauded him, and right there Foam discarded everything he had in his hands to leap up and applaud João Serrador’s manoeuvres.

That morning I saw Foam running in a silence where the only noise was made by his feet hitting the ground. I remembered again the near take-off he failed to achieve because he was carrying an enormous sheaf of newspapers in his arms. The papers made you think of the Delta wings that used to appear during the breaks on television.

He was running very fast in our direction.

“Let’s just split,” 3.14 requested. “Don’t you see he’s coming this way?” He grabbed my hand to pull me.

“Why should we run? He never did a thing to you.”

“He’s got a screw loose. Some day he might think I am an American ship and want to bombard me. Didn’t you hear about that idea of his about finding clues to an American invasion and I don’t know what else?”

“Cool it. He knows you’re Pi, better known in Angola and the far-away Soviet Union as Comrade 3.14. Hahaha!”

“Are you making fun of me? If he attacks you, don’t wait for me to save you. I’ll even tell him to bombard you with napalm, like in the Vietnam movies.”

“Cool it, man. He’s not in that kind of mood.”

“How do you know?”

“Just look at his face. He wants to talk to somebody.”

Sea Foam looked just like João Serrador’s bike. He hit the brakes when he got close to us, and even kicked up dust.

“The plans, compañeros. El futuro is close, a de-fence against el pasado.”

“A fence?”

“Closer.” He lowered the newspaper, spreading it over the ground like a big map. “Not

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