I also went to accompany my brother when he boarded the Niassa, a ship of the Colonial Navigation Company.
It was in July 1969, and this time the Niassa was not heading to Mozambique but to Guinea. I remember my mother’s anguish as she watched her eldest son leave for the war. Luís was a Cavalry Captain and was going to command a company in northern Guinea, in a village 10 km far from Senegal with a strange name, a woman’s name: Suzana. Luís was 28 years old. He was already married and had two young children: Tiago and João Luís.
The atmosphere combined the apparent joviality of the young soldiers who were departing and the sadness of the families who were there to say goodbye. I tried to comfort my mother by saying that Luís was prepared for the war. After all, it was his job. And he was a young Captain, but very aware of his responsibilities and well-prepared, very well-prepared. As the ship drifted toward the horizon, we followed it from Alcântara to Cascais in the car of our friend Filipe Matos, who had kindly offered to accompany us. Upon reaching Oeiras, we could still see the Niassa, not far from the coast.
Near the São Julião da Barra Fortress, Maria do Carmo, my mother, asked our friend Filipe to park the car. She got out and climbed over the rocks of the São Julião Fortress to get a little closer to the Niassa. The ship was there, in front of our eyes, but already heading out to the ocean. Maria do Carmo continued walking along the rocks, trying to get a little closer to her dear son who was leaving for war… until the ship disappeared over the horizon. I saw my mother, tears streaming down her face, return to the car.
But Luís came back.
He returned in December. He brought with him his dog, a German shepherd named Askur. With him also came a Black man, his Felupe guide, from the Felupe ethnicity that populates Suzana. His name was António Blata, but we, the brothers, immediately started calling him Mulatto. He, too, had young children back in Guinea. We liked him very much, and he liked us. My younger brothers took him to the circus at Coliseu in Lisbon, and he was really amazed. The whole family came to our house to see Luisinho. That’s how we called him. And so came my grandparents, my uncles, my cousins, and many friends. And my grandmother, full of unease, said to him:
“Luisinho, be careful, be very careful, you know we all want you to come back in good health.”
And he replied to my grandmother:
“I may come back feet first, but I will always return with honour!...”
That phrase still lives in my mind:
“I may come back feet first, but I will always return with honour!”
Luís would return to Guinea a few days later, this time by plane. Considering the pain of his first departure, we begged our mother not to go to the airport because we didn’t want to see her suffering again as Luís left. But she wanted to go and insisted… but eventually gave in… though she cried bitterly as she watched us leaving for the airport. And Luís left. I remember him waving to us as he left through the boarding gate. And that was the last time I saw my brother.
On February 18, 1970, early the following year, before I left for Instituto Superior Técnico (Technical University) to give my first university lectures, I had to tutor Micá, a young girl who hated mathematics. For her, numbers were always a huge complication, and numerical expressions, even more so, were a terrible puzzle. Powers and exponents were, for her, incomprehensible. I tutored this girl three times a week with little visible progress. And there I was, once again, with all my patience and focus, helping Micá with arithmetic when someone knocked on the door of the room where I was teaching. It was unusual for me to be interrupted. I went to open the door, and it was my father with Vítor, a family friend. I immediately saw that something important and serious had happened. My father clung to me and said, “Luisinho has been wounded in combat.” With my father holding onto me, I looked at our friend Vítor, who gave me a nod, and at that moment, just with that signal, I understood that he was not “wounded”… but dead! And without further delay, my father said: “Go tell your mother, I cannot do it!”
My mother was bedridden with a spinal problem. She had been in bed for several days. When I entered the room, she immediately noticed something was wrong and asked me: “What’s happened?” I hugged her, crying. I sobbed as she stroked my hair and kept asking what was wrong. “What’s wrong, my son?” And I murmured: “Luisinho was wounded in combat…” My mother didn’t cry, and she never cried again in her life because her tears had dried in her eyes forever…