Henning Mankell - Chronicler Of The Winds

Nelio often thought about Cosmos as he sat in the shade of his tree. He wondered whether he was still alive, whether he had drowned at sea, or whether he had come so close to the sun that he caught fire and burned up. He wondered whether Yabu Bata had found the path he had spent more than nineteen years searching for.

When his thoughts grew too burdensome, he would leave the street and set off on long, solitary wanderings. The others would send someone to follow him, to see that he didn't walk straight into the sea and disappear. Of course, Nelio noticed that someone was following him at a distance. Ordinarily he would have turned round and said that he wanted to be left alone. But he didn't have the energy to do that. He walked and walked, sometimes so far that he reached the place where he had spent the night on the eve of his first entrance into the city. Often he would come back after it was already dark.

It was Mandioca who suggested that they should try to cheer him up by giving him a dog. They often sat and talked anxiously about Nelio's remoteness and melancholy.

'He thinks too much,' Nascimento said. 'Cosmos never had so many thoughts. He's sick in the head. His brain has swollen up from all the walking and brooding that he's doing.'

'What he needs is a dog,' Mandioca said. 'If you have a dog, you don't have time to think.'

'What do you know about dogs?' Deolinda said.

'I had a dog once,' said Mandioca sadly.

'What happened to him?' asked Deolinda.

'He ran away,' replied Mandioca. 'I look for him every day. Maybe he's looking for me.'

'He died a long time ago,' Nascimento said angrily. 'Dogs die taster than people.'

It looked as though a fight would break out between Mandioca and Nascimento. But Pecado stepped between them and said that they should be worrying about Nelio instead of fighting.

After discussing the pros and cons of getting a dog for Nelio, they decided it was worth trying. The next day they captured a brown dog by the harbour. The dog bit Nascimento on the hand, but they succeeded in tying a leash around his neck and dragged him back in triumph. Nelio was sitting in the shade of his tree when they appeared with the dog.

'We want to give you a dog so you'll be in a better mood,' Pecado said. 'He doesn't have a name, and I'm afraid he'll have to be tamed. He bit Nascimento on the hand. But I'm sure he'll be good company.'

Nelio stared at the dog, which was alternately barking and whining. He thought about the dogs that the bandits had killed when they burned the village.

He took the leash that Alfredo Bomba was holding.

'I thank you for catching a dog for me. I accept, and I will call him Rico. A stray dog is even poorer than we are, but I can still give him a good name. I will keep him until tomorrow. Then I'll let him go. But he will still be my dog. Tomorrow I will also be in a better mood. Now go away and leave me in peace.'

That night the dog stood tied up outside the equestrian statue, barking. In the early dawn Nelio let him loose. He ran off at once, and Nelio never saw Rico again. That night, as he lay awake because of the dog's barking, he realised that he would have to do something about his bad mood. He couldn't continue to be the leader of the group if he was always impatient and angry. And yet he couldn't leave them because he had made a promise to Cosmos. And none of the others could take over the leadership.

The only one he could imagine doing it was Deolinda, but that would never work. An albino who was also a girl could never be the leader of a group of wild street kids.

The next day he called them together behind the petrol station.

'I've had a lot to think about lately. And it was hard because you are always making such a commotion, but from now on everything will be different. I won't sit alone in the shade of my tree so often.'

His words had the effect he had hoped for. He could see that they were relieved. To further emphasise that he was back to normal, he told them that they should all work extra hard and not take any unnecessary siestas. Tristeza would be allowed to use the money they earned to go to the shoe shop and choose a pair of trainers. And from now on Deolinda would get the same share as everybody else. And they would also buy her a new dress.

'That we go around in rags is one thing,' Nelio said. 'But Deolinda is a girl. She should be properly dressed. But you have to wash well before you put on the new dress. And keep the old one. That's what you can wear when you climb around the rubbish heaps looking for food.'

A few days later Tristeza, his head held high, went into a shoe shop, and when he came out he was wearing a pair of white trainers. The same afternoon they bought Deolinda a new dress that was red with white trim around the sleeves.

'I thought all gloomy thoughts could be chased away,' Nelio said at last, as dawn drew near on the morning of the eighth day. 'But I was wrong. Because several days later something happened that made Deolinda disappear and never come back. And Alfredo Bomba started acting strangely.'

Nelio fell silent, as if he had said too much.

'Alfredo Bomba,' I said, trying to coax him to continue.

Nelio looked at me for a long rime before he spoke again. With the red glow of the morning on his forehead, I could see that he was sweating. He was slipping once more into a fever.

And then, just as I was starting to fear that he was asleep, he began speaking again.

Alfredo Bomba started acting strangely. And then everything else happened, ending with you finding me and carrying me up here to the roof

Then I knew that we had come to the end of the story. Now I was going to find out what had happened on that night down in the empty theatre. Maybe I would only have to wait one more night before I had the answers to the questions I had been pondering.

Nelio lay there with his eyes shut. I had put a cup of water next to the mattress. I got up carefully to go down to the yard and wash. I also had to wash my clothes, which were starting to smell bad.

Then Nelio began to speak again, without opening his eyes.

'It's not easy to die,' he said. 'It's the only thing that no one can teach us.'

He said nothing more. As I went down the winding stairs, I felt frightened. I could no longer push the thought aside; I could no longer fool myself with false hopes.

Nelio was going to die on the roof. He had known it all along.

I sat down in the dark of the stairs and wept. I don't cry very often. I couldn't even remember the last time it had happened. I am a man who laughs. But on that morning I sat in the dark stairway and cried, and I thought that it was all too late, and that a ten-year-old boy who is an old man is still only a child.

A child should live, not die.

I borrowed money from one of the girls at the bakery counter and then went over to one of the city's barraccas and drank tontonto. It didn't take long before I was quite drunk, and I fell asleep on the ground.

When I woke up many hours later someone had stolen my shoes, and I had to walk barefoot back to the bakery.

I remember that the day was very hot. The sea was dead calm.

I stood at the pump in the backyard for a long time, washing myself.

When Maria came walking towards the bakery I was out on the street waiting for her. I couldn't get enough of her smile. But all my thoughts were with Nelio, who was lying up there on the roof. No one had taught him how to act when he was about to die.

Is there any greater loneliness? When a person realises that he has to die and there's no one to teach him how to do it?

I thought about that great loneliness, and the feelings I had then have never since left me in peace.

At midnight I followed Maria out to the street again. When she had taken a few steps, she turned and waved.