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Hope and joy in a land of sorrow

O Assobiador (The Whistler)
Ondjaki
2002, Caminho, Lisbon
128 pages

Reviewed by Richard Bartlett

There are some books that are surprising because they are so completely unexpected - not in their appearance, but in their method. O Assobiador (The Whistler) is one such book. As a product of Angola, a country riven by civil war and its after effects for the past 30 years, a novel of such laughter and unmitigated hope comes as a welcome shock.

The story is set in an African village, far from the sea, with a church on one side, a smiling baobab tree on the other and filled with inhabitants who treat their many donkeys as Hindus treat cows. The village has no name, and apart from the smiling baobab tree, us readers would have no other way of contextualising the setting. (Of course, having so far only being published in Portuguese is a bit of a give-away when it comes to context).

One October morning, with the rain so dense and so light that it makes no sound, a drenched young man arrives at the church and lets himself in. He then sets to whistling, wandering through the church and discovering the seven points that offer the best acoustics. Such is the beauty of his whistling that the priest is left in tears and the doves flock to the windows and listen in absolute stillness, flying off in a cloud of feathers when the whistling ends.

"The rumours begin to spread thanks to the village madman who was having a shit behind the sacristy when the whistling began"
Then the rumours begin to spread, thanks to the village madman, KaLua, who was having a shit behind the sacristy when the whistling began. But this book is not as much about the Whistler as it is about the village's other characters. There's Dissoxi, who fills her house with sea salt and longs for the ocean, the widow, Dona Rebenta, who has twice received the sacrament of Extreme Unction from the Padre. Yet, as he noted, this anointing with oils as she seemed close to death only seemed to invigorate the old woman in her large bed. There's KoTimbalo, the Gravedigger, who has not buried anything except a dog in more than two years, yet who faithfully refuses to abandon his place of employment during working hours.

And there's the well known stranger, KeMunuMunu, the Travelling Salesman. The novel begins with his arrival (and that of the Whistler) and after a communal climax, in many senses, it ends with their departure. It covers only a week yet it offers a vision of hope, because of people who have the ability to get on with their lives because of/despite the magic they have discovered.

Ondjaki adjectivises his characters. They are never mentioned just by name, they are always followed by their title, or rather their description, as if their identity is more communal than individual, dependent on how they are viewed by others rather than in the first person.

The village's whisperings and gossiping achieves fulfilment when the Padre announces that Sunday mass will be performed with the Whistler, and after an unprecedented closure of the church for three days the pews are fill to capacity when the big day comes. Even the doves, and birds of every other feather, are perched in greater numbers than is usually the case.

Before we witness the climax, we are taken to the end, with a spectacular burial. Three at once. With the hilarious image of eight thin old men bearing, but only just, a large wooden bed on their shoulders because Dona Rebenta's fingers could not be loosened from the edge of the bed. And she smiles in orgasmic delight, frozen in her last instant, while the eight pallbearers slowly follow the ever-so-proud Gravedigger on his village-wide funeral procession.

Then back to the church, and sounds of such beauty, beauty of orgasmic proportions, which the village promptly resorts to. All except the Priest who resorts to sacred wine, and the man whose only companion is a chicken. Tear jerking in its mirth and its passion. Almost worth learning Portuguese for, although hopefully English readers will not have to wait too long for this comic masterpiece from Angola.

Seldom before has a story of such joy and such hope come from a country of such tragedy and such sorrow.

Richard Bartlett is the editor of the African Review of Books