Henning Mankell - Chronicler Of The Winds

Yabu Bata sat there for a long time with his head in his hands, brooding over why people dream. Then he straightened up and looked at Nelio.

'What did you want to ask me?' he said.

'Which way should I go?'

Yabu Bata nodded thoughtfully. 'That's the best question you've ever asked me,' he said. 'I wish I could answer it, but only you can say which direction you should take.'

'I want to go somewhere I can find a pair of trousers,' said Nelio firmly,

'You can find trousers anywhere,' Yabu Bata said. 'The best thing you can do is to follow the sea to the south. That's where there are people and towns. That's the way you should go.'

'Is it far?'

'You said you only had one question,' said Yabu Bata. 'As soon as I answer it, you come up with another one. A road can be both long and short. It depends on where you're coming from and where you're going.'

All of a sudden Yabu Bata started laughing. He grabbed a fistful of sand and tossed it over his head, as if he had suddenly lost his mind.

'I'll be damned if I'm not going to miss you!' he said after he calmed down.

He opened the lid of his suitcase and pulled out a little leather pouch. He took out several banknotes, which he gave to Nelio, 'Use these to buy a pair of trousers,' he said. 'Every time you take them off or put them on, you'll think about Yabu Bata.'

'I have nothing to give to you,' Nelio said.

'Give something to someone else when one day you have something to give,' Yabu Bata said, and he put the pouch back into his suitcase.

Then he stood and lifted the suitcase.

'There are only two roads in life. The road of foolishness, which leads a person straight to ruin. It's the road you take if you act against your own judgement. The other road is the one you must follow, the one that leads a person in the right direction.'

Then he started walking along the beach. He did not turn around. Nelio followed him with his gaze until his eyes began to hurt from the harsh sunlight which was flashing against the white sand. The last thing he saw was a blurry dot, finally hovering like a wisp of smoke in the heat.

Nelio followed the sea towards the south. He tried not to think about the great loneliness surrounding him. He missed the suitcase he had carried for so long on his head as much as he missed Yabu Bata. But he knew that he would never see him again, and he would never know whether he found his path or not.

Two days later Nelio came to a little town, which consisted of low buildings along a single street. He stopped outside one of them where clothes were hanging on a rickety wooden rack. An Indian man who was so gaunt that he seemed emaciated, as if he had endured a long period of starvation, came out of the dark interior. Nelio bought from him a pair of trousers made of dark red cotton. After he paid, he went behind the building, pulled off the tattered capulana and put on the trousers. He wrapped the capulana artfully around his head as protection from the blazing sun. When he returned to the street, the Indian was standing outside his door, hanging a new pair of trousers on the wooden rack.

'Where are you headed?' the Indian asked him.

'South,' replied Nelio.

'Those trousers will last for a long journey,' said the Indian dreamily.

Nelio followed the line of the shore. Every night he slept behind a sand dune. At dawn he would take off his trousers, wade into the water, and wash himself the way he had seen Yabu Bata do. When he was hungry he would stop and help the fishermen pull their boats on shore and clean their nets. They gave him food, and he would set off again after he had eaten his fill. The landscape changed, but the sea was always the same. In the distance he saw mountains and plains, forests with toppled grey trees, swamps and deserts. He walked without thinking about where he was headed. He was still moving away from something, and he was waiting for some sign that would tell him where he was going. At night he saw the moon wax from a slender crescent and become full, and then disappear. He thought about how he had already been walking for many days, and the sea seemed to him endless. Occasionally he met people and he would accompany them for a few days, but more often he walked alone. Everybody asked him where he was going. He told them about the bandits and about the burned village, but he always left out the fact that one day he had refused to shoot his brother and had instead killed a man with narrow, squinty eyes. When they repeated their question – where was he going? – he would say that he didn't know. During this time he learned that people always want to know where other people are going. That was the question that bound strangers and wayfarers together.

One day, early in the morning, he reached the mouth of a river. He saw a demolished bridge nearby and was thinking that he would have to find someone with a boat to take him across, when he caught sight of a person sitting on a stone by the water. When he got closer, he felt uneasy. Her skin was scaly and she looked more like an animal than an old woman. But she had heard him, and she turned her head and looked at him with piercing eyes. Then he understood that she was a halakawuma disguised as a human being, a woman. Or maybe the opposite was true – maybe she was an old woman disguised as the wise lizard. He approached, the whole time keeping a safe distance from her tongue. He knew that he was in luck. If you met a halakawuma, you could ask for advice. Even kings listened when the halakawuma whispered its advice about how a land ought to be ruled. Nelio had heard stories about how the first leader of the young revolutionaries had his whole garden full of lizards, which he regularly called upon for advice. Nelio sat down on the ground. The lizard followed his movements with her piercing eyes.

'I don't want to disturb you,' he said, 'but I need some advice. I've been walking for many days without knowing where I'm going. I've been waiting for some sign, but none has appeared.'

'When one is as young as you are, there is only one road to take,' replied the lizard in a voice that rang like bells. 'Your road ought to lead you home.'

Then Nelio briefly recounted what had happened. The whole time he was worried that the lizard would become impatient and, hissing, creep away into the tall grass that grew beside the mouth of the river.

When he fell silent the lizard pulled a bottle out of a bundle at her side and took several vigorous gulps. To his surprise, Nelio noticed the smell of palm wine. The lizard drank and then grimaced. Nelio thought that the world was full of unexpected events. Never had anyone told him that a halakawuma might also be fond of the liquors that people poured down their throats whenever they wanted to get drunk.

'I am old,' the lizard said. 1 don't know how good my advice is any more. People have less and less respect for wisdom. Everyone seems to be taking the fools' roads, no matter what we say, those of us who still possess what is left of the old knowledge.'

The lizard took another gulp and began rocking back and forth on the stone. Nelio was afraid that she would fall asleep before he got his answer.

'Cross the river,' the lizard said at last, somewhat absent-mindedly, as if her brain was already full of other thoughts. 'Cross the river and walk for a few more days. Then you will come to the big city where the houses clamber like monkeys along the steep cliffs facing the sea. So many people are already there that it won't matter if one more arrives. There you can vanish and reappear as the person you want to be.'

Before Nelio had time to ask any more questions, the lizard crept away through the grass with a lumbering gait. He thought about what he had heard, and he decided that this was the sign he had been waiting for.

At the same moment he discovered that a man was just about to push a canoe into the river. Nelio jumped up and ran to the man, who already had a paddle in his hand.