Read Online The Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa - Free Book Online Page A

a letter, but an email. No one writes letters any more these days. But to tell you the truth, I do miss those days when people communicated by exchanging letters – real letters, on good paper, to which you might add a drop of perfume, or attach dried flowers, coloured feathers, a lock of hair. I feel a flicker of nostalgia for those days, when the postman used to bring our letters to the house, and we were glad, surprised to see what we’d received, what we opened and read, and at the care we took when we replied, choosing each word, weighing it up, assessing its light, feeling its fragrance, because we knew that every word would later be weighed up, studied, smelled, tasted, and that some might even escape the maelstrom of time, to be re-read many years later. I can’t stand the rude informality of emails. I always feel horror, physical horror, metaphysical and moral horror, when I see that ‘Hi!’ – how can we possibly take seriously anyone who addresses us like that? Those European travellers who spent the nineteenth century travelling across the backwoods of Africa always used to refer jokingly to the elaborate greetings exchanged by the native guides when – during the course of a long journey – they happened to cross paths with a friend or relative in some favourably shady spot. The white man would wait impatiently, until after several long minutes of laughter, interjections and clapping had passed, he finally interrupted the guide:
    ‘So what did the men say? Have they seen Livingstone or not?’
    ‘Oh, no, they haven’t said anything about that, boss,’ the guide explained.‘They were just saying hello.’
    I expect just that time-span from a letter. Let us pretend that this is a letter, and that the postman has just handed it to you. Perhaps it would smell of the fear that nowadays people sweat and breathe in this vast, rotting apple. The sky here is dark, and low. I keep making wishes that clouds like these might float over to Luanda, a perpetual mist which would suit your sensitive skin; and wishes too that your business carries on, full steam ahead. I’m sure it must do, as we all so need a good past, especially those people who misgovern us in our sad country, as they govern it.
    I always think of the lovely Ângela Lúcia (I do think she is beautiful) as I beat my way rather disheartened through the anxious chaos of these streets. Perhaps she’s right, perhaps the important thing is to bear witness not to the darkness (as I’ve always done) but to the light. If you’re with our friend do tell her that she did  manage at least to sow the seeds of doubt in me, and that in the past few days I’ve lifted my eyes up to the sky more often than ever before in my life. By lifting our gaze we don’t see the mud, we don’t see the little creatures scrabbling in it. So what do you think, Félix – is it more important to bear witness to beauty, or to denounce horror?
    Maybe my careless philosophising is beginning to annoy you. If you’ve read this far I imagine you’re beginning to understand what it was like being one of those European travellers I referred to earlier:
    ‘So what does this guy want? Did he find Livingstone or didn’t he?’
    No, I didn’t. By consulting the telephone directories I was able to find six Millers called ‘Eva’, but none had been in Angola. I then decided to put an ad in Portuguese in five popular newspapers. Not one response. But then I did find my way onto the trail… I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Small World Theory, also known as Six Degrees of Separation. In 1967 the American sociologist Stanley Milgram of Harvard University set up an odd challenge for three hundred residents of Kansas and Nebraska. His hope was that these people – using only information obtained from friends and acquaintances by letter (this being in the days when people still exchanged letters) – would be able to make contact with two people in Boston, for whom they