After two magical years on the island, my parents had to face the difficult decision of separation. They were forced to be apart due to my sister anemia caused by extreme vegetarianism. Since she had a head and a voice to say no, she couldn’t stand the idea of eating animal products. I also played a role on this sad option my parents were forced to take, because of my exciting imagination.
During a significant part of our stay in the island, we had a Mozambican playing companion, generally called marruce. Marruce is a little maid just to keep us company and play with us. The only “slave” job she had to do for us was tap our bums for a while when we were about to sleep, not because she was told to do it but she had already learned with someone, surely from Arabic culture, the art of pleasing. In fact, we slept quickly rocked by the movement she produced and the sound of the big paddles from the ceiling fan.
My sister was too young at that time, but I do remember her look and the sound of her voice. She was only five years older than me and I was very attached to her. It is difficult to forget the way she talked using a lot of gestures, the way she cared about us, the way she played with us and told us stories. Her stories presented always talking animals, which we found quite funny, or men facing extreme difficulties in the middle of the wilderness, due to unruled nature or fierce beasts.
When she disappeared from our lives, my nightmares started. At the beginning it was the usual stuff: waking up in the middle of the night, talking in the middle of the sleep, crying for my mother or showing restlessness. But my father and mother saw a crescendo and took me to a doctor who for the first time diagnosed me with “terrores nocturnos” (night terrors) and suggested a change of ambience. According to him, the African climate was too strong for a fertile and excitable imagination.
From that period, I remember particularly one night of terror. I can’t say where I was, but I am sure it wasn’t our home because when I waked up I saw faces that were not familiar.
I was in the middle of my peaceful sleep, when I heard the roar of a lion, not far from me. I opened my eyes, perhaps thinking in the possibility of find myself in a zoo or visiting a natural park where we used to go from time to time, but no.
I was inside the room where some hours ago I felt asleep and everything seemed to be in the right place, except for one aspect: over the armoire facing my bed, an enraged lioness was roaring and preparing to jump in my direction.
Not for a single second I doubt of what I was experiencing. I was seating on my bed, in the middle of the dark room, and I was “really” looking at a lion. I started to call for help, desperate enough calls to wake up every single soul in that house and who knows how many other houses next.
As soon I was in my parents arms, I started to cry. I knew that I was close to them, I could see and feel their embrace, but the lioness was still there. My father was repeating frequently “There is no lion there!”, but I insisted in what I was seeing. I even remember that my worry was growing, because from fear I started to worry for my parents that seemed fragile for not being able to see the eminent danger that to me was palpable and visible.
It was really difficult for my parents to calm me down, and I still remember the pain that this particular nightmare left in my little heart. Even so, I could forget everything, as I have forgotten other dreams of almost identical intensity, but something happened a couple of years later that brought back to us that sleepless night of terror.
Photo by T. Veloso.
