“What is it you want from me?” I ask out loud, and like a match striking its strip, I think I have an answer. The recordings and the transcripts I have made of Pó are an intimate invitation to experience this world through her recollections. Unencumbered. Raw. The question What for? comes back at me. I flick my cigarette over the balcony, orange ember spinning. I don't know how this story will end. But I know how it began. I press my pencil to paper, write They are called children of the moon.
Author Anthony De Sa was raised in Toronto's Portuguese community and is known for his books set within that heritage. With Children of the Moon, De Sa takes this a little further afield, focusing mainly on African characters – with a Portuguese twist. Pó is a Masai woman with albinism, living out the end of her days, ravaged by cancer, squatting in the officially abandoned Grande Hotel Beira in Mozambique. Serafim is a Brazilian journalist who has travelled to Beira in order to get Pó's story, and Ezequiel is an old man living with dementia and Parkinson's in a Toronto basement apartment, suffering PTSD and hallucinations about his time as a child soldier in Africa – first in the charge of guerrilla soldiers and then as an aide to the Commander of the Portuguese forces sent to quell the rebel forces. Point of view rotates between these three characters, and eventually, it is revealed how Pó and Ezequiel were linked in the past. As often happens, I'm a little uneasy about the suitability of a white Westerner writing African voices, but with this slim book, De Sa gives the reader plenty to think about – and the Portuguese aspects make it feel more authentic. (Note: I read an ARC and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)
My mother pushed me out into a warm evening, where I took my first breath. I was told this story countless times by Simu. I never tired of it. The moment I slipped out from my mother I was greeted by the moonlight that crept into the mouth of our mud hut. My pale body dragged across my mother's belly and to her breast. My skin, white as bone. A curse. A moon child, the men muttered, before running away. Simu remained to soothe the concern in her sister's eyes.As an African villager with albinism, Pó's life was in danger from those who believed that her skin and body parts could be used for charms and medicine. After being moved several times for her protection, she ended up at the Grande Hotel in Beira as an adult, where she now lives with thousands of other refugees; acting as an unofficial advocate for those around her and getting just enough notoriety to attract the attention of international journalists. She has always been careful with how she reveals her life story, and as she knows this will be her last chance to get it right, Pó is more forthcoming with Serafim than she ever has been before.
Shortly after I checked into the Hotel Tivoli, I dragged a chair and table out onto the fourth-floor balcony of my corner room, arranging them so that I could see bits of the ocean to my left and the fragile buildings of this poor city to my right. The shouts from shop vendors and street brawls that spilled from bars onto dirt roads, the smell of smoke from outdoor kitchen fires, all reminded me of the favela where I was raised. Like Serrinha and surrounding Florianópolis, there's nothing beautiful about this city; nothing about its architecture inspires me, except at dusk when lights twinkle from apartments or the glow from open storefronts floods the streets, and I think of quieter times.The journalist, Serafim, is a blackout drunk on the run from the fallout over his last big story (in which he revealed the existence and location of a previously uncontacted Amazonian tribe). He is sincere in his desire to honestly capture Pó's story, but he seems equally committed to protecting his own reputation.
I don't deserve to participate in life, not after what I saw and what I did. I used to catch myself smiling – children playing, piri piri shrimp, All in the Family – and I would feel guilty for letting joy creep inside me. They give me risperidone, which dulls the noises in my head and lets me drift off to a time and place where everything seems real. I keep telling myself that it's better not to look back. Nothing good comes from going back. Now, I spend part of my day or what is left of the night in my bed or in my chair staring into the dark until my eyes can pierce the thickness to see clearly through it. I see people, animals, and objects all around me, though they try to hide in the carpet pattern or in the paintings on the wall. I never switch lights on in the basement. I like it this way. “I used to have a dream as a boy – not a nightmare,” I say. Then I realize I am alone. Still, I'm careful not to speak too loudly or to give too much away. You never know who is listening.The chapters from Ezequiel's POV were my favourites – abandoned at a Mission as a baby, this child of a white father and black mother was raised by a European pastor and his wife until Mozambique's war of independence came roaring through. Going on to do whatever it took to survive, Ezequiel's story was even more affecting than Pó's – and as there was nothing very graphic shared about the fates of those with albinism, what Ezequiel's narrative revealed about Mozambique's civil war, guerrilla tactics, and the ugly racism of the Portuguese military was the more engaging story.
Children of the Moon isn't a very long book and there's something very careful and quiet about De Sa's writing. Before Pó speaks, she considers what she'll share; before Serafim begins his writing, he carefully assembles notes (striking through “albino” to replace with “persons with albinism”; striking through “witch doctors” to replace with “healers”), and this carefulness creates distance between the reader and the narrative. However, this is balanced by Ezequiel's uncensored dementia-related memories and hallucinations and these sections provide the book with the necessary heart. In the Acknowledgments at the back of the book, De Sa thanks the people from Under the Same Sun who educated him about people with albinism, people who brought him to Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park, people who got him access to the hallways of the Grande Hotel Beira, and his uncles and those veterans who shared their stories with him: this is obviously a book with extensive factual basis, but it's not a very narrative driven read. Yet, this makes the book feel more respectful of the material and I'm not left with that uneasy feeling of cultural misappropriation; I learned some interesting things and was engaged enough with the three characters to want to know how their stories would develop. I'd give this three and a half stars and am rounding up for Ezequiel.
