Dambudzo Marechera's 'dissertation' on language

Language is like water. You can drink it. You can swim in it. You can drown in it. You can wear a snorkel in it. You can flow to the sea in it. You can evaporate and become invisible with it. You can remain standing in a bucket for hours. The Japanese invented a way of torturing people with drops of water.The Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique also used water to torture people. The dead friend Owen, who painted the mural on my wall, used to dream about putting LSD into South Africa’s drinking water. It seems inconceivable to think of humans who have no language. They may have invented gelignite but they cannot do without water. Some take it neat from rivers and wells. Some have it clinically treated and reservoired. Others drink nothing but beer and Bloody Marys and wine but this too is a way of taking your water. The way you take your water is supposed to say a lot about you. It is supposed to reflect your history, your culture, your breeding, etc. It is supposed to show the extent to which you and your nation have developed or degenerated. The word ‘primitive’ is applied to all those who take their alphabet neat from rivers, sewers and natural scenery – sometimes this may be described as the romantic imagination. The height of sophistication is actually to channel your water through a system of pipes right into your very own lavatory where you shake the hand of a machine and your shit and filthy manners disappear in a roaring of water. Being water you can spread diseases like bilharzias and thought. Thought is more fatal than bilharzia. And if you want to write a book you cannot think unless your thoughts are contagious. ‘Do you still think and dream in your first language?’ someone asked me in London. Words are worlds massively shrunk:

In yonder raindrop should its heart disclose,
Behold therein a hundred seas displayed.

When thought becomes wisdom, the scholar can say:

I came like water, and like wind I go.

And the believer can only sing:

Celestial sweetness unalloy’d
Who eat thee hunger still;
Who drink of thee still feel a void
Which only thou canst fill.

The languages of Europe (except Basque, Hungarian, Finnish, Turkish) are descended from one parent language which was spoken about 2500 to 2000 BC. This indo-European group of languages – in their modern form has been carried (by colonization, trade, conquest) to the far corners of the earth. Thus the Indo-European river has quite neatly overflowed its banks like the flood in the Bible has flooded Africa, Asia, America and all the islands. In this case there does not seem to have been any Noah about who built an ark to save even just two words of all the languages and speech, which were drowned. Literacy today is just the beginning of the story. Words are the waters which power the hydro-electricity of nations. Words are the chemicals that H2O human intercourse. Words are the rain of votes which made the harvest possible. Words are the thunderstorm when a nation is divided. Words are the water in a shattering glass when friends break into argument. Words are the acronym of a nuclear test site. Every single minute the world is deluged by boulders of words crushing down upon us over the cliff of the TV, the telephone, the telex, the post, the satellite, the radio, the advertisement, the billposter, the traffic sign, graffiti, etc. Everywhere you go, some shit word will collide with you on the wrong side of the road. You can’t even hide in yourself because your thoughts think of themselves in the words you have been taught to read and write. Even if you flee home and country, sanity and feeling, the priest and mourners, if any, will be muttering words over your coffin; the people you leave behind will be imagining you in their minds with words and signs. And there will be no silence in the cemetery because always there are burials and more burials of people asphyxiated by words. No wonder it is said:

In the beginning was the Word,
And the Word was with God.
And the Word was God,
All things were made by him;
And without him was not any thing made
That was made.

No wonder too it was said:

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into dust descend;
Dust to dust, and under dust, to lie
Sans wine, sans song, sans singer, and-
sans end !

Suddenly the other side of the world is only an alphabet away. Existence itself becomes a description, our lives a mere pattern in the massive universal web of words. Fictions become more documentary than actual documentaries. The only certain thing about these world descriptions is the damage they do, the devastation they bring to the minds of men and children. You do not become a man by studying the species but his language. The winds of change have cooled our porridge and now we can take up our spoons and eat it. Go, good countrymen, have yourselves a ball.
*** This is just my favourite passage of all Marechera literature. It is from 'The Black Insider'

INVITATION TO THE FIRST ZIMBABWE WRITERS GENERAL MEETING

Dear Fellow Writer, Colleague and Stakeholder

The Interim Committee of the proposed new umbrella writers organization of Zimbabwe, in line with the mandate granted to it on 27 August 2010, is inviting you all writers who have been supportive of this initiative from the beginning as well as all other willing writers of Zimbabwe to a meeting on 4 December, 2010 at the Zimbabwe Film and Television School of Southern Africa at 57 Mazowe Road, Harare (Close to Parirenyatwa Hospital and opposite The Sudanese Embassy) from 08:30:00hrs to 13:00hrs.(Photo: Some Zim writers)
The major business of the day will be (a)tabling The Draft Constitution for discussion and adoption, b)adopting the name of the organization and c)mapping the way forward.
Background:
On 29 July 2010, on the sidelines of the Zimbabwe International Book Fair (ZIBF 2010) 33 Zimbabwean writers who attended a Workshop at the Zimbabwe German Society to discuss the status of writers and their organizations in Zimbabwe unanimously agreed to form a new national organization that serves to unite the various associations in one voice where their common welfare is concerned. A few notable experiences may serve as useful examples in this regard:
- The Charles Mungoshi situation
- Ruzvidzo Mupfudza’s problem and subsequent death
- The Unicef-Longman Project
- The National constitutional consultative exercise
- Contractual rights with publishers
- National policy on literature in schools curriculum
- National Book Policy Crisis
- Copyright issues
- Other problems and grievances impacting negatively on writers’ welfare.
In the end, a Steering Committee was set up to consult widely with other writers not present, approaching publishers to provide names and addresses of those writers who were not present at the meeting; enquire if individual writers’ organisations would support the idea of a new national writers’ organisation and if so, what kind of organisation they envisaged and report back to plenary on 27 August 2010. On this date an Interim Executive Committee was elected and given the mandate to:
- Draft a constitution for the new organization
- Raise funds for the initial operations of the organization
- Call a General Meeting to for tabling, discussion and adoption of the Draft Constitution
- Registration of the Constitution with National Arts Council
- Go on a membership drive in preparation for Elections of substantive Executive Committee to subsequently take over from the Interim Committee by end of February, 2011.
To this end The Draft Constitution is now in place and will be put before the members during the meeting of 4 December 2010. The agenda is as follows:
ZIMBABWE WRITERS GENERAL MEETING
DATE: 4th December, 2010
VENUE: ZIMBABWE FILM AND TELEVISION SCHOOL OF SOUTHERN AFRICA
57 MAZOWE ROAD, HARARE
(Close to Parirenyatwa and opposite The Embassy of Sudan)
PROGRAMME:
08:30 Arrival and Registration
09:00 Opening Remarks - Dr Rino Zhuwarara
09:15 Minutes of 27th August, 2010
09:25 Introductions and Report Back(Interim Committee)
10:00 Tea Break
10:15 Discussion of Draft Constitution
11:30 Way Forward
1l:45 Closing Remarks - Mrs Tawona Mtshiya
12:30 Lunch and Networking
Yours Sincerely
Primrose Dzenga
(Secretary, Interim Committee.
Members of the Interim Committee: Mr. Musaemura Zimunya(Chairperson), Ms Primrose Dzenga(Secretary), Ms. Beatrice Sithole(Treasurer), Mr. Memory Chirere, Mr Dakarai Mashava, Ms. Karukai Ratsauka, Mr. George Mujajati(Members)

(Photo: Some Zim writers)

Bongwi the baboon...

A haunted soul put under ban,
A hunted beast that has to roam,
The voiceless image of a man
With neither speech nor home-
Upon the summit of the height,
Where only wind-swept lichens grow,
Bongwi, lit by the dawning-light,
Watches the plain below.

Fierce eyes, low brow, protruding mouth,
Short hands that twitch and twitch again,
The hairy gargoyle of the South-
A man without a brain;
Upon the highest krantz he waits
Dim-lit by golden streak of dawn,
Guarding the interests of his mates
Who wreck the fields of corn.

Far down the mealie-gardens lie,
And he, a patient sentinel,
Shouts, ‘Boor-hoom!’ to th’ offended sky
To show that all is well.
A white fish-eagle sails along,
His mighty pinions harping tunes,
Till dawn throbs with Aeolian song
And, far below, the brown baboons

Look up and note the paling East,
The fading moon, the stars that wane,
And, gorg’d, they quit their stolen feast
And seek the open veld again.
And Bongwi sees. But turns his view-
Brown-eyed – towards the breaking morn,
And gazes through the soundless blue,
The golden distance of the dawn.

(By Kingsley Fairbridge)

‘The short story pricks like the doctor’s needle’: Somewhere In This Country and Tudikidiki by Memory Chirere

On 25 October 2010,'The Herald' of Zimbabwe published a piece in which Edmore Zvinonzwa interviews me. Some of you said you could not get to it on The Herald site. Here it is:

Zimbabwean author Memory Chirere enjoys reading and writing short stories and some of these are published in No More Plastic Balls (1999), A Roof to Repair (2000), Writing Still (2003) and Creatures Great and Small (2005).

He has also published short story books: Somewhere in This Country (2006), Tudikidiki (2007); Toriro, his Goats and Other Stories (2010) and together with Maurice Vambe, compiled and edited a critical text on Mungoshi, Charles Mungoshi: A Critical Reader.

Chirere has poems published in Tipeiwo Dariro (1994).

Beyond his creative work, Chirere has compiled and edited various other short story books; Totanga Patsva (an all-women short story book), Children Writing Zimbabwe (a book of short stories for children by children).

Alongside Ignatius Mabasa and Christopher Mlalazi, Chirere is one of the more visible young writers writing from within Zimbabwe today.

He has won various national literary prizes.

Memory Chirere writes with a certain playfulness and sense of mischief and employs satiric humour. The titles of his stories, Three Little Worlds, Jazz, Beautiful Children and Sixteen are enigmatic and enticing. In this interview with our writer, EDMORE ZVINONZWA (EZ), CHIRERE (MC) speaks about Zimbabwean writing in general as well as his own works in particular.


EZ: Would you like to briefly tell readers about yourself and how you evolved into the creative writer that you are today?

MC: It is difficult to tell. I know that I enjoy reading and writing.

EZ: Who and what would you consider as the biggest influences to your writing? Maybe there were different influences for each distinct work?

MC: There is the Mozambican short story writer, Luis Bernardo Honwana. I keep going back to his smallish collection of short stories, "We Killed Mangy Dog". I also keep going back to Charles Mungoshi’s book, Coming of The Dry Season. I also cannot avoid Luanda by Viera of Angola. I have come across many better and bigger books but those three are important to me.

EZ: Having been a student of literature in secondary school (I guess I am right) and at the University of Zimbabwe, that meant you had to read. Did you like reading before university or you became a reader then out of necessity.

MC: It all went on and still goes on, side by side, reading and writing.

EZ: In an interview with Ignatius Mabasa sometime, he mentioned you, the late Ruzvidzo Mupfudza, Eresina Hwede, Zvisinei Sandi, Emmanuel Sigauke and Nhamo Mhiripiri as some of his contemporaries. How exactly did this partnership impact on your development as a creative writer?

MC: It was the best of times under the tutelage of very able people, the likes of T. K. Tsodzo, Rino Zhuwarara, Chenjerai Hove, Musaemura Zimuya and others. We had the opportunity to read literature in the context of a very wide variety of ideas and theories. We have grown into many different directions but I think we still dialogue through what we write.

EZ: What would you finger as the major challenges to you as a writer?

MC: I believe people should be allowed to write what they like. And conversely, the writers should allow people to say what they like about what they write. I do not think we have struck that balance.

EZ. Zimbabwe’s literary landscape in general? Have Zimbabwean writers been able to tell the Zimbabwean story to the world?

MC: There is a lot of good writing going on inside and outside of Zimbabwe by Zimbabweans. Ignatius Mabasa is intriguing. You think you have got the best from him but he comes back the following day, like a furious in-law, with even better work. With his latest novel, Ndafa Here? he has outdone even the feminist writers. Wonder Guchu’s stories are amazingly simple that you realise they were not simply written. Then you wish you had all day to talk about Noviolet Bulawayo, Christopher Mlalazi, Petina Gappah, Brian Chikwava, Emmanuel Sigauke among others. The Gods have opened a floodgate in Zimbabwean literature!

EZ: Why is it that not many Zimbabwean writers have been able to survive or live on their works or writings? You were at ZIBF 2010 and must have heard Deputy Minister Lazarus Dokora’s comments on Charles Mungoshi.

MC: I am also always asking myself the same question!

EZ: What would you like to see happening in the book industry? Also how would you describe the relationship between writers and publishers?

MC: If you happen to have a publisher who really respects you, you can go very far. The publishing industry in Zimbabwe is reawakening very, very slowly. A book wins a national prize but it is never seen on the shelves. Now that is crazy! I hope one day writers can be able to live on their writings.

EZ: You have written in both Shona and English and it appears the short story is your favourite genre. Which language are you more comfortable with and why do you seem to like the short story?

MC: I have always preferred reading and writing short stories over anything else. Short stories prick like the doctor’s needle. You read and re-read until you do not know whether you are still just reading or are now recreating without the author’s permission. On the issue of language, it is a real blessing to be able to create and publish in more than one language.

EZ: How would you sum up the major concerns of your writings?

MC: In Somewhere in This Country, I had no specific focus because these are stories previously published in very many different places. They were brought together into one volume (now called Somewhere In This country) by the then series editors of Memory and African cultural Productions at UNISA Press, Maurice Vambe and Abebe Zegeye. These stories are about little individuals caught up in various very personal circumstances.

EZ: I find one of your stories in Tudikidiki, Roja Rababa vaBiggie a captivating read? What made you write that satirical piece?

MC: In Bindura where I was staying, an angry lodger went up the towerlight and threatened to fly down to his death. He held to the pillars clumsily and demanded justice from his now shell-shocked landlord and it was painful to watch.Tudikidiki, as the name of the book implies, is a collection of short short stories. With it I was experimenting. I wanted to do stories that would appeal to both the old and the young readers. Each story had to be short enough to be read in one sitting.

EZ: In an article, Beavan Tapureta says of all the writers of your generation, you use laughter most. Tell me about it.

MC: I laugh a lot myself. My characters laugh a lot, too. But they also laugh when they should be crying. I want to do a story that teases the reader by occupying the territory between poem and short story.

EZ: Do you think Zimbabwean writers are producing enough books for children?

MC: Due to the economic hardships even children’s literature has suffered.

EZ: Any comment on Zimbabwe’s writers’ unions — Zimbabwe Writers Union, Zimbabwe Women Writers, Budding Writers Association of Zimbabwe, among others? I remember National Arts Council director Elvas Mari pointing out one day that literary artists are lucky in that they have a distinct advantage over other artists — they are literate. Their associations, unions do not seem to tell the same story? Any recommendations?

MC: Writers in Zimbabwe are in the process of reconstituting their various organisations. We had become very weak on the ground.

EZ: What picture do you have of the future of Zimbabwean writing?

MC: Great.

EZ: Any advice to aspiring Zimbabwean writers?

MC: Do what you can when you are still around.

EZ: Any other comments you may like to make?

MC: The love for a good story will never die.

edmore.zvinonzwa@zimpapers.co.zw

Kakuwe kedu kaye-e

(from left to right:Ignatius Mabasa, Memory Chirere and the late Stanley Ruzvidzo Mupfudza in the early 1990's)

Taseka kakuwe kedu kaye-e kane tunhopi;
Zvichangopera paya togadzikana,
Tanyarara, nyama dzendangariro dzodzoka,
Ndinotya karunyararo – karufu here?
Kandisingazivi kuti ndodii nako.

Kana zviya ndakukwidza chitima
Kana chogojona sebenzi
kana zviya ndaringa divi
Ndonanaira ndodzokera kwatambenge tiri tose
Ndinotya dima rezvichauya uri kure neni.

Kana zviya takuviga, pfuchepfuche,
Takukanda mukanwa mevhu mawakabva
Ndinotya njere dzinonditokonya, dzichiti:
“Zvinorevei kumbove tose, hochekocheko,
zvizobatsirei kana wondisiya ini ndichikuda?”

Thaph’ uluju!

Title: Thaph’ uluju: Iqoqo lezindatshana, Ilifa lakho
Author: short stories in Ndebele by written by various authors
Editor: by Barbara C. Nkala, 2010
Publisher: Radiant Publishing Company, Harare, 2010
Pages: 275

(A preview by Jerry Zondo)

How I got my stories included in the new Ndebele short story anthology, Thaph’ uluju: Iqoqo lezindatshana, is both a sad and good story.

I attended the Zimbabwe Book Publishers Association Prize giving on a day in 2007 at the Crowne Plaza in Harare and there were winning entries for English and Shona but there was nothing for Ndebele. On asking why, we were all told that there had been no entries for Ndebele in all of 2007. So no literary texts had been published in Zimbabwew in all 2007! That was not enough because another warning came: If Ndebele writers continued to sit on their laurels, they would be nothing again in 2008, 2009 and 2010!

As Ndebele writers, we all felt sombre and started reflecting a lot. We talked at the foyer and resolved that we would do something about it. I had never written a short story before. I had by then published one poem only in Giya Mthwakazi 1990. All my other poems were in school texts books between form 1 and form 4 and in the web site Poetry. A friend would ask me to write a précis on Ndebele Literature and on a couple of prominent authors in Ndebele for his blog and I would agree. I even got an offer to do a chapter for a book on Zimbabwean literature in Ndebele. But writing a short story? A story for someone else to read and review!

The publishing houses in Zimbabwe do not seem to want poetry in Ndebele, and that is where I do well! Thulani Moyo said he would write a novel manuscript and send it to one publisher. I said I would compile short stories for the other publisher and children’s stories for yet another publisher. Eventually it did not work out well with all these publishers. One of them said they had no Ndebele editor in 2007-2008.

Eventually, Virginia Phiri convinced Barbara Makhalisa to use her Radiant Publishing company for a Ndebele publication. Makhalisa took up the challenge and invited short stories in Ndebele. She would only accept stories from the 2008 to 2010 experiences… the economic melt down, the queue culture, the empty shelves, getting petrol through coupons form the UK and many more.

That is how my six short stories came to be part of the Thaph’ uluju manuscript!

I wanted my stories to be different. They probably are, and may provide that element that Ndebele writing has always missed. Short stories in Ndebele have come from Isaac Mpofu in his anthology UMaweni. From Ndebele students of the 2005 stream at UZ on Hiv/Aids. They present the scourge from the sociology and psychology of the student. From Zimbabwe Women Writers organization with 2005’s Vus’ Inkophe edited by Makhalisa. The Zimbabwean Women writers express their views on diverse issues but with an additional voice of advocacy for women’s rights and the democratization of economic, political and social spaces for women in Zimbabwe.

Thaph’ uluju consists of 27 stories in 275 pages, the largest copy in Ndebele to date! The stories are from five men and thirteen women authors, new and established. They look at a wide range of Ndebele experiences (and some sound so actual) connected with the years 2007 to 2010. There will be the story that will of course look at events before that period, like “Ngubani Iqhawe?” (Who is a hero?) which is based on the Zimbabwean liberation war.

Various authors now place incidents and events within specific time period. Actual dates are mentioned, a departure from Ndebele writing where publishing houses have been in the past hiding the year of the story (for example by deleting dates on letters written to protagonists or antagonists - leaving the letters timeless for an unknown reason!). The stories now fit and sit in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 bringing a new realism and concretisation of themes in Ndebele.

The story writers are now moving to specific areas of concern that have led to the Diaspora experiences, “Lakanye langenza iphawundi” (The pound has put me in a fix) with the consequent dislocation of family life and the liaisons between maids and husbands when wives have gone to the United Kingdom and the United States of America – “Siphepheli;” the harsh realities of working in foreign lands in fear of arrest and deportation, are painted in lurid and distinct forms that hit the reader with the hard and stubborn impact that draws the reader to the sorry aspect of economic hardships on the Zimbabwean scene.

The slave like toil of the woman against the demands of those “at home” for a satellite dish, is an ironic and filthy relationship that spells out the fate of ‘economic refugees’ in foreign lands. The filth is local too as the city of Bulawayo in “Amarabisi Mpthu!” (Utter rubbish!) with its piles of uncollected rubbish, smelling and polluting the ‘scenery’ is depicted by Makhalisa as the very epitome of utter rubbish. Human actions and decisions have turned into rubbish as males choose rubbish partners in the city with their lawful and wedded wives languishing somewhere in a forbidding country home.

Makhalisa specifically shows a transformation in her narration and a departure from her earlier forms of story telling. The anthology offers this time, a set of mature readings which are providing Ndebele readers with a new aspect to Ndebele thinking and writing.

While the anthology has leaned a lot on the 2007 to 2010 period, a few stories draw inspiration from the war in Matebeleland in the early 1980’s. The Ndebeles express their concern at the kind of world and the kind of people that should occupy it - in “Xolela inja yakho baba” (Please forgive your dog father) schools should work and teachers should commit themselves to their noble calling, (readers will feel a slight discomfort in Mpofu’s short story; Mdluli wants to change the attitude of lazy and incompetent teachers, but he does not seem to see the root cause of their behaviour in the whole of Tsholotsho! The story might underline some now accepted stereotypes on Zimbabwean teachers!) in “Uyisalukazi yini wena baba?” (Are you an old woman dear sir?) Bulawayo City Council should get its water back on track for ratepayers to enjoy that civic privilege.

The anthology Thaph’ uluju provides opportunity for the maintenance of mature and committed writing. When readers and critics of Ndebele complained yesteryear because of the absence of mature reading materials, they can not do so now. The challenge set by Thaph’ uluju is for a new responsible writing that can only mature into the compelling works of literature that spell out a new world with its new order of commitments. Radiant Publishing has introduced a whole new world of short story writing and the short story will never be the same again in Ndebele!

A critic of Ndebele writing will want the anthology Thaph’ uluju to be the pall bearer for new Ndebele writing that will catapult Ndebele to the next level; it is fulfilling that a project of this nature has been successful. The 2011 Book Publishers Association competition will have and entry after all!

I am only glad that I have contributed in my small way towards the development of that enterprise.But, we Ndebele writers are largely responsible for what may or may not happen to Ndebele literature, wherever we are and in whatever circumstances!
** Jerry Zondo lectures in Ndebele Language and Literature at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare.

do you remember Gabriel Marquez?

'One Of These Days'

Monday dawned warm and rainless. Aurelio Escovar, a dentist without a degree, and a very early riser, opened his office at six. He took some false teeth, still mounted in their plaster mold, out of the glass case and put on the table a fistful of instruments which he arranged in size order, as if they were on display. He wore a collarless striped shirt, closed at the neck with a golden stud, and pants held up by suspenders He was erect and skinny, with a look that rarely corresponded to the situation, the way deaf people have of looking.

When he had things arranged on the table, he pulled the drill toward the dental chair and sat down to polish the false teeth. He seemed not to be thinking about what he was doing, but worked steadily, pumping the drill with his feet, even when he didn’t need it.

After eight he stopped for a while to look at the sky through the window, and he saw two pensive buzzards who were drying themselves in the sun on the ridgepole of the house next door. He went on working with the idea that before lunch it would rain again. The shrill voice of his eleven-year-old son interrupted his concentration.

“Papa.”

“What?”

“The Mayor wants to know if you’ll pull his tooth.”

“Tell him I’m not here.” He was polishing a gold tooth. He held it at arm’s length, and examined it with his eyes half closed. His son shouted again from the little waiting room.

“He says you are, too, because he can hear you.”

The dentist kept examining the tooth. Only when he had put it on the table with the finished work did he say:“So much the better.”He operated the drill again. He took several pieces of a bridge out of a cardboard box where he kept the things he still had to do and began to polish the gold.

“Papa.”

“What?”He still hadn’t changed his expression.

“He says if you don’t take out his tooth, he’ll shoot you.”

Without hurrying, with an extremely tranquil movement, he stopped pedaling the drill, pushed it away from the chair, and pulled the lower drawer of the table all the way out. There was a revolver. “O.K.,” he said. “Tell him to come and shoot me.”
He rolled the chair over opposite the door, his hand resting on the edge of the drawer.

The Mayor appeared at the door. He had shaved the left side of his face, but the other side, swollen and in pain, had a five-day-old beard. The dentist saw many nights of desperation in his dull eyes. He closed the drawer with his fingertips and said softly: “Sit down.”

“Good morning,” said the Mayor.

“Morning,” said the dentist.

While the instruments were boiling, the Mayor leaned his skull on the headrest of the chair and felt better. His breath was icy. It was a poor office: an old wooden chair, the pedal drill, a glass case with ceramic bottles. Opposite the chair was a window with a shoulder-high cloth curtain. When he felt the dentist approach, the Mayor braced his heels and opened his mouth.

Aurelio Escovar turned his head toward the light. After inspecting the infected tooth, he closed the Mayor’s jaw with a cautious pressure of his fingers. “It has to be without anesthesia,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because you have an abscess.”

The Mayor looked him in the eye. “All right,” he said, and tried to smile. The dentist did not return the smile. He brought the basin of sterilized instruments to the worktable and took them out of the water with a pair of cold tweezers, still without hurrying. Then he pushed the spittoon with the tip of his shoe, and went to wash his hands in the washbasin. He did all this without looking at the Mayor. But the Mayor didn’t take his eyes off him.

It was a lower wisdom tooth. The dentist spread his feet and grasped the tooth with the hot forceps. The Mayor seized the arms of the chair, braced his feet with all his strength, and felt an icy void in his kidneys, but didn’t make a sound. The dentist moved only his wrist. Without rancor, rather with a bitter tenderness, he said: “Now you’ll pay for our twenty dead men.”

The Mayor felt the crunch of bones in his jaw, and his eyes filled with tears. But he didn’t breathe until he felt the tooth come out. Then he saw it through his tears. It seemed so foreign to his pain that he failed to understand his torture of the five previous nights.

Bent over the spittoon, sweating, panting, he unbuttoned his tunic and reached for the handkerchief in his pants pocket. The dentist gave him a clean cloth.

“Dry your tears,” he said.

The Mayor did. He was trembling. While the dentist washed his hands, he saw the crumbling ceiling and a dusty spider web with spider’s eggs and dead insects. The dentist returned, drying his hands.

“Go to bed,” he said, “and gargle with salt water.”

The Mayor stood up, said goodbye with a casual military salute, and walked toward the door, stretching his legs, without buttoning up his tunic. “Send the bill,” he said.

“To you or the town?”

The Mayor didn’t look at him. He closed the door and said through the screen:
“It’s the same damn thing.”
***By Gabriel García Márquez