The Society of Reluctant Dreamers by José Eduardo Agualusa

Author:José Eduardo Agualusa
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473555471
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2020-03-09T16:00:00+00:00

18.

Domingos Perpétuo Nascimento has green, very light eyes. In a city like Luanda, a mulatto with green eyes grows up surrounded by all kinds of privileges. That’s how it was in colonial times, and it’s still that way today. In high school, he must have dated all the prettiest girls. Everybody invited him to their parties. That, perhaps, explains the confidence with which he looks at the world and at other people. The firmness of his convictions. There he was, sitting opposite me, at the editorial office of O Pensamento Angolano, in Quinaxixe, legs crossed, cigarette in the corner of his lips, with the discreet serenity of a champion sharpshooter.

‘I liked the article you wrote about me,’ he said. ‘You seem an honest man. Somebody told me you wrote another article about a plane, a Boeing 727 that disappeared from Luanda airport in 2003.’

‘Yes, they never found the plane …’

‘Do you remember the pilot’s name?’

‘I do.’

‘Charles Padilla.’

‘Yes, Charles Padilla, an American. Why are you asking me this?’

‘He disappeared along with a mechanic. Do you remember the mechanic’s name?’

‘No, I just remember he was Angolan.’

‘No, he wasn’t Angolan. He was Congolese. His name was, or rather, is, Jean Mpuanga. Good mechanic. I was with him the other day.’

‘You were with him? Where?!’

Domingos Perpétuo Nascimento stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. He was clearly pleased at my surprise. Like all good storytellers, he allowed himself to remain silent for a long moment, smiling sweetly, savouring his triumph. Finally he spoke.

‘In Recife.’

‘In Brazil?’

‘Yes. You see, I joined TAAG in 2000. I met Mpuanga, I thought he was a good guy. Pretty special. He liked reading. He read a lot. Books in French with long titles. We played football a few times. I ended up going round to his place to eat a mufete. It was a very good mufete, incidentally. His wife was from Dondo. She knew how to grill the fish. She used cacusso. Proper freshly caught cacusso. Oh, those black beans with the palm oil … Just remembering it makes my mouth water. But to continue – two weeks ago, I went into a little bar, in Recife, to have a beer, and there the guy was, sitting in a corner, about fifteen years older but with the same smile. He had a kind of crooked smile, as if he’d suffered a stroke.’

‘So they stole the plane?

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘You didn’t ask him?’

‘No. I’m not a cop. I’m not a journalist. I just asked him what he was doing there and he said he was Charles’s partner. They’ve got an air taxi company.’

‘An air taxi company?!’

‘Yeah, they’re rich, though Mpuanga still keeps a modest lifestyle. Every evening, around six, he goes to that same bar to drink a caipirinha and read the papers.’

I sat there without speaking, looking into the limpid green eyes of Domingos Perpétuo Nascimento. Outside it was raining, the way it’ll rain at the end of days. Heavy water was punishing the asphalt, beating the cars and windowpanes.

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