First Published in 1994, only few
years after the civil war ended in Mozambique Rain and Other Stories is a collection of 26 short
stories that span from hopeful realism after the war to fantasy. Some descriptions
are even dreamlike with subtle plots blended with idiosyncratic craft of the
author. Not all stories resonate the war with stark images, and as said by Couto
as a prologue, these stories are from those corners of living where war
couldn't reach, voices that are ever present in the form of folktales, human
complexions and desires. These dramatic tales of baffling outcomes poses
characters in search of something not ordinarily present, and tragedies or even
satires without the war in the center. The solitude of characters and the ways
of finding solace are surprising for their odd ways as well as tenderness. The
elevated language1 of the prose is present throughout the
collection.
1. Every
tale loves to masquerade as the truth. But words are nothing more than smoke,
too weightless to stick to the present reality. Every truth aspires to be a
tale. Facts dream of becoming words, sweet fragrances running from the world.
You’ll see in this case that it’s only in the fiction of our wonderment that
the truth meets the tale.
Some add mystifying quality to
the landscape, both dreamlike and meditative2, with narratives
like folklore as in The Water of Time in which a grandfather takes his grandson
on a voyage to the hinterlands of the marshes to teach him see the Others. Other
stories include a blue eyed girl who'd stay behind amid the outbreak of the war
for her father, with fantastical ending; A more than an ordinary guide parts
with a blind man to enroll in the war, leaving behind the invented details for
the blind man; Infidelity comes to light during a delivery and changes a
husband wife relation forever; A shattered perfume bottle permeates a parting
husband and wife's sorrows; A wife tries to find solace after her husband's
death in odd ways; The title story Rain is a story of hope and doubt taking shape
amid rain falling constantly to mark the end of war; A stubborn old man resist
the evacuation, and starts digging in his backyard; A tragic fate of a boy
under the flag; An old man feeling neglected at his ninety third birthday finds
companion out of the family; A man who always tried to stay out of trouble falls
victim to authorities; Sacred coconut fruit that could speak and is filled with
blood; A hippo appears at a school and starts chewing furniture with tragic and
fantastic outcome and other stories with varied tones and texture3.
2.
I’m no man of the church. I find it impossible
to believe and this causes me distress. Because after all, I hold within me all
the religiosity one could ask of any believer. I’m religious without religion.
I suffer, you’d have to say, from a condition called poetry: I dream up places
where I’ve never set foot, I believe only in that which cannot be proven. And
even if I were to pray today, I wouldn’t know what to ask of God. This is my
fear: only the mad don’t know what to ask of God. Or is it possible that God
has lost faith in man? Anyway, my appetite for visiting churches comes only
from the tranquilitude of these small vaulted spaces, filled with soothing
shadows. Here, I’m able to breathe. Outside the world awaits with its
unresolved calamities.
3.
I’ve been seated at the window watching the rain
fall for three days now. How I’ve missed the soggy rin-a-tin-tin of each
raindrop. The perfuming earth reminiscent of a woman on the eve of affection.
How many years has it been since it last rained like this? Having lasted so
long, the drought had slowly silenced our suffering. The heavens watched the
earth’s progressive decline and saw its own death mirrored. We intirrigated
ourselves: was it still possible to begin anew, was there still a place for
joy?
These stories are almost
fantastic imbued with despair born out of the ambience projecting the melancholy
of being left alone, which the new generation cannot detect; Idiosyncratic
longings of the characters, longings that are very personal of people driven by
passion, rooted in reminiscence and betrayals. Philosophizing the gaps, puzzles
of reality and beyond, deconstructing the silences, fooling about death and
dreams like a shuffling of pictures and subtle play of politics and violence in
the backdrop, culture taking shape, lost love, surprising outcomes, these are
some of the themes found in the stories. Becker's translation offers the best
the language has to offer and fully captures the essence of Couto's luminous prose.
Author: Mia Couto
Translator: Eric M.B. Becker
Publisher: Biblioasis
Page Count: 163
Price: $19.95
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