africa stack019

Text :

She wished me Bom dia every morning when she came to
do my room, and that was my main conversation of the day,
if I leave out the one in the evening with the friendly gecko,
curious about classical music (he must not have heard much
of it in his gecko’s life in Bissau). Eyes closed, glued vertically
to the wall, he listened to Ravel’s quarter or Schubert’s lieder by
Fischer-Dieskau, while I told him what Ravel was all about, what
Schubert was all about, in those far-off lands where it was cold.
My pretty well-wisher and my music-loving lizard had become
the two indispensable poles of my African life. Until the day
when, shortly after the ritual bom dia, she called me up to the
terrace, and with a triumphant air, certain she had rendered me
a great service, she showed me the cadaver of the gecko.