Henning Mankell - Chronicler Of The Winds

'Who are you?' the man asked. 'You were sleeping here last night when I came home. I didn't want to wake you up, even though this is my house. I'm a kind man.'

'I didn't know this was anybody's house,' Nelio said.

'All of the houses in this city belong to somebody. There are so many people and so few houses.'

'I'll go,' Nelio said.

'Why are you sitting there staring at my shoes?'

'I thought they were feet,' replied Nelio. 'But now I see that I was mistaken.'

'I always sleep in my shoes,' the man said. 'Otherwise there's a big risk that somebody might steal them. To steal my shoes, the thief would, unfortunately, have to cut off my feet. That would be a great calamity.'

Then he showed Nelio how he had tied a string from his forefinger to the hanger where his suit hung. If anyone tried to steal his suit during the night, he would wake up.

'You can call me Senhor Castigo,' said the man as he got up and began to dress. 'Do you have a name? Do you know how to do anything? Or are you just as sluggish and ignorant as everybody else?'

'My name is Nelio.'

Then he considered what he could actually do.

'I can carry suitcases on my head,' he said.

Senhor Castigo gave him an amused look. 'An excellent occupation,' he said. 'The world needs people who can balance suitcases on the wooden blocks they call their heads. Can you hold a mirror without dropping it?'

Nelio held the mirror while Senhor Castigo skilfully knotted his tie.

When he was satisfied he nodded with pleasure at the mirror, hung it back on the wall and folded his blanket. Then he motioned to Nelio to follow him. Before they passed through the gate, which was hanging crookedly from its hinges, the man with the painted shoes stopped and stared at Nelio.

'You're too clean,' he said after a moment, and he bent down, picked up some dirt and rubbed it on Nelio's face. Nelio tried to resist, but Senhor Castigo hit him hard on the arm.

'Do you want to live? Do you want to survive? Or what?' he said. 'I can tell that you've just arrived in the city. I'm giving you the opportunity to survive – so long as you do as I say. Do you understand?'

Nelio nodded.

'Walk a few paces behind me,' continued Senhor Castigo. 'We don't know each other. Stop when I stop, walk when I walk. Remember this for the time being. I'll teach you the rest later on.'

They walked towards the town. At a street corner Senhor Castigo stopped and bought an onion. Nelio did as he had been instructed. He stopped a few paces away, and then continued to follow the man with the painted-on shoes. They walked along the base of the steep slopes until they reached one of the wide streets that Nelio recognised from the day before. They passed a café where many white people were sitting and drinking from glasses and cups. When they had left the café behind, Senhor Castigo drew Nelio into a dark stairwell that stank of urine,

'Carrying suitcases on your head is honest work, befitting a human being,' he said with a smile. 'But now you're going to learn the basis for all human labour, the most respectable profession that anyone can have.'

'I'd like to learn that,' said Nelio.

'Begging,' said Senhor Castigo. 'To arouse sympathy by means of your filth and your misery and your hunger. To help your fellow men express their generosity. Go out on to the street. When any white people come by stick out your hand, start crying and ask them for money. For food, for your brothers and sisters for whom you have sole responsibility. Your father is dead, your mother is dead, you're all alone in the world. Do you understand?'

'My mother is alive,' Nelio protested. 'My father might be too.'

Senhor Castigo flew into a rage. His eyes blazed. 'Do you want to live? Do you want to survive? Or what?' he shouted as he shook Nelio; his hand on Nelio's arm was like a claw. 'If I say they're dead, then they're dead. Right now, at this moment, while you're begging.'

'I can't cry for no reason,' said Nelio.

Senhor Castigo pulled the onion out of his pocket, bit it in half, and then grabbed Nelio hard by the neck. He rubbed the onion in Nelio's eyes until they stung and burned and his vision grew clouded with tears. Then he shoved Nelio out to the street. Nelio tried to do as he had been instructed. He stuck out his hand to the white people passing by. Mumbling, he tried to explain that he had not eaten for several days, for a week, for a month. A woman stopped. She was very fat and her skin was bright pink.

'Now you're lying,' she said. 'If you hadn't eaten for a month you would have been dead long ago.'

She walked away without giving him a thing.

Senhor Castigo hid in the shadows. Every time anyone stopped and began searching in his pockets to give Nelio a banknote, Senhor Castigo would walk past at exactly that moment, and then go back to the shadows from which he had come.

It wasn't until later that Nelio understood what was going on. In the middle of the day, when the heat was overwhelming, and Nelio was wobbly with fatigue and lack of water, Senhor Castigo said that they should leave and take a rest. They walked down to the harbour area, which Nelio had seen from a distance the day before. In the wall of a building hung a curtain made of white plastic streamers, which Senhor Castigo swept aside. Inside, the room was dark. Nelio had trouble seeing since his eyes still smarted. A woman who was toothless and filthy and smelled of sour wine appeared with a bottle of beer and a plate of food for Senhor Castigo. He told her to bring Nelio a scrap of bread and some water. When he was ready to pay, he took a wallet out of his pocket and smiled.

'Do you remember the man with the blue hat who didn't want to give you anything?' he said.

Nelio nodded. When he saw the wallet he began to suspect something although he still didn't fully understand. Senhor Castigo drank so much with his meal that now he was drunk. Nelio felt a growing uneasiness about being in his company. Even if he didn't know what he was going to do, he knew he didn't want to beg. He couldn't understand how it could be the most respectable profession a person could have. Why had everybody in the burned village talked about beggars with either contempt or pity? It was often hard to distinguish the two feelings.

Senhor Castigo pulled another wallet out of his pocket, and then another, this time a red coin purse that belonged to a woman. Nelio realised, without comprehending how his fingers had done it, that the man with the painted shoes was a pickpocket. That was why he had approached the people who stopped to give Nelio money and then slunk away. Nelio decided at once to run away from Senhor Castigo. There must be some other way for him to survive in the city. But the man on the other side of the table seemed to read his mind. He leaned over the table, grabbed Nelio by the throat with one hand, and looked at him with glazed eyes.

'Don't even think about it,' he said. 'Don't even think of running away. No matter what you do, I'll find you. Every policeman in this city is a friend of mine. If I tell them to look for you, they'll do it.'

He released his grip and then gave his full attention to drinking more beer and to emptying the contents of the wallets. The toothless woman appeared and stood at his side, watching. Now and then she would try to snatch a few of the banknotes, but Senhor Castigo was ever on the alert and slapped her hand. It was a brutal game they were playing. Nelio had slid his chair back, as far into the shadows as he could get. He could not understand how a thief could be such good friends with the police. He wondered if maybe that was the way things were in the city – the opposite of everywhere else. But even so, he was convinced that Senhor Castigo had said what he did only to frighten him. If Nelio didn't escape now, things were bound to get much worse. He would soon be blind from all the onion rubbed into his eyes.