This is the story of poverty and corruption in the changing society
of post-colonial Mozambique. It reflects the nature of white/black
relations in the country during colonial times when whites always
assumed supremacy, at independence when a lot of whites fled the country
to Europe or other white lands. The story, a collection of accounts
from selected inmates of a port that had stored slaves in the past, then
prisoners of war, and now old people, told with spicing of traditional
Mozambican beliefs.
Following
the liberation struggle corruption has set in and the old ways are
being abandoned. Old people are being ignored or insulted or robbed even
by their relations. The mulatto head of the fort (Vastsome Excellency)
has died under mysterious circumstances, and a policeman (Izidine) is
sent to investigate. His investigation is a series of interviews with
the old people, a curious mix of characters, including a white man that
refused to flee to Europe with his wife and child, a cursed “man-child”
that aged to an old man the same day he was born, and a witch that
supposedly turned into water at night. Each one claims to have killed
the dead man for his/her own reasons. But then towards the end the truth
is revealed by the witch in a sort of trance: That the fort had
concealed arms and the old people had destroyed the arms with
witchcraft. But when the military men in the know came for the arms and
found it gone, they took out their revenge on Vastsome. And now even the
policeman that was sent was not safe as he too had been penciled down
for elimination. But then again due to witch craft or whatever, the men
that were supposed to come and kill him get blown up in terrible stormy
weather at the end.
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