Henning Mankell - Chronicler Of The Winds

'It was your mother,' said the voice that belonged to Nelio, although Alfredo could no longer see his face.

'Where is she?' asked Alfredo Bomba. 'I can't see her.'

'She's standing behind you,' someone said, and now it was the dog lying next to him who was talking.

Alfredo Bomba didn't have the strength to turn his head. But he felt her warm breath on his neck. The wave rippled inside him, he was very tired, and he thought that it was a long time since he had had any sleep. He closed his eyes, his mother was sitting right behind him on the sand, and he now knew that he had been afraid for no reason. What had happened would keep on happening: his friends would always be with him.

Then the suns were extinguished around him, one after the other. He smiled at the thought of the strange dog that had human hands instead of paws. He must remember to tell Nelio when he woke up. A dog that had hands instead of paws…

They stood around him, watching him sleep.

'He's smiling,' Nascimento said. 'But he didn't applaud. I think he was afraid of the monster.'

'Be quiet,' Nelio said. 'You talk too much, Nascimento.'

Nelio looked at Alfredo Bomba's face. He wore an expression that he had never seen before. Then he understood that Alfredo Bomba was dead. He took a step back.

'He's dead,' said Nelio.

At first they didn't understand what he meant. Then they saw for themselves that Alfredo Bomba was no longer breathing, and they backed away.

'Were we that bad?' said Mandioca.

'I think we did the best we could,' replied Nelio, and his voice was thick with sorrow.

None of them said a word. Nascimento had turned his back and fled inside the monster's head.

A rat rustled under the stage.

Then everything happened very fast.

The doors at the back of the theatre were flung open. Someone screamed. In the harsh glare of the spotlights they couldn't see who it was. Everyone except Nelio ran to the wings. Someone kept on screaming. Nelio understood that he should put up his hands, that he should surrender. He stood in front of Alfredo Bomba, who was lifeless in his deckchair, and thought that even a dead street kid deserved to be defended. Nelio walked towards the footlights to explain that nothing was going on. Two shots rang out in rapid succession. Nelio was thrown backwards and lay full-length on the stage, at Alfredo Bomba's feet. He felt his vision grow hazy and he began to sink. He vaguely sensed that someone was looking down at him. Maybe it was Julio, one of the watchmen from outside the theatre. But the face was blurred, and he wasn't positive that he recognised the voice either. It might also be the transparent face of death, which had come for Alfredo Bomba, but had now decided to take him too – that's what he thought.

The face that was bending over him vanished. He heard footsteps running, fading into the distance. Then it was quiet again. The light from the spotlights was dazzling. He closed his eyes. Every time he took a breath, pain sliced through him. It felt as if he had a hole all the way through his body. In spite of the pain, he tried to work out what had happened. It must have been the thunder, he thought. I should have known that the sound of someone rattling and shaking the thunder sheets would be heard out on the street. The watchmen would start to wonder, and they would think we were thieves who had broken in. And they started shooting because they were afraid of being shot themselves. If I had stood perfectly still, they might have noticed that I'm only a child.

He heard footsteps again. This time they were familiar. Thin paws were cautiously treading across the stage. The group had come back. Nelio opened his eyes and saw their terrified faces. He did his utmost to hide from them how much pain he was in.

'You have to take Alfredo Bomba away,' he said. 'You can't leave him lying on the street or in a ditch. You have to see to it that he has a proper burial. Take him to the morgue and give the nightwatchman the money we have left. Then they'll take him to the cemetery tomorrow after it gets light. But before you leave, you have to put everything back the way it was when we came.'

Are you going to stay here?' Nascimento asked him.

'I'm just going to rest,' replied Nelio. 'I'll come later. Now do what I say. Even though I'm bleeding a lot, it's not as serious as it looks. Hurry. Dawn is almost here.'

They did as he said. They hung the costumes back in place, they lifted up Alfredo Bomba, and then they carried him away.

All was quiet around Nelio again. He tried to sense whether he was going to die soon, or whether it was going to take time. The hole in his body didn't seem to be getting bigger. It hurt terribly when he breathed, but he wasn't going to die right away. He was not yet ready to follow Alfredo Bomba.

Nelio had been talking with his eyes closed. Now and then his voice was so faint that I had great trouble understanding what he was saying. But now he opened his eyes and looked at me.

'You know the rest,' he said. 'I lay there on the stage, you came, and you carried me up here to the roof. How long I've been here, I don't know.'

'This is the ninth night,' I said.

'The ninth night, and the last. I can tell I won't be able to hold out much longer. I'm already starting to leave my body.'

'I have to take you to the hospital,' I said. 'There are doctors who can make you well.'

Nelio looked at me for a long time before he replied.

'No one can make me well. You know that.'

I gave him some water. There was nothing else I could do.

Somewhere out in the darkness I could hear two drunks quarrelling. I put my hand on Nelio's forehead and felt that it was very hot.

'I have nothing more to tell you,' Nelio said. 'It feels like my life has lasted so long. I'm glad you were the one who found me and carried me up here to the roof. I also want to ask you to burn my body when I am no longer living.'

He saw that I gave a start at the thought.

'How could you carry me away from here?' he said. 'How could you explain that I've been lying here on the roof and died. You must burn my body in order to get rid of me.'

He was right.

'It will take an hour for me to disappear,' he said. 'My body is so small.'

When he had asked me to do this last favour for him and he understood that I would do as he wished, he asked me again for some water. Then he closed his eyes and turned away from the world. His face was very peaceful.

What were his last words? Did he say anything else?

Even a year later, I am uncertain. But I don't think he said anything else.

My body is so small.

That was the last thing he said.

The night was quiet. I sat and looked at his pale face in the glow from the flickering lamp.

I remember that for some strange reason his face reminded me of the sea. It was etched with the experience of eternity.

An errant gust of wind swept its hand across the roof and brought with it a chill. When it departed, Nelio was gone.

And the ninth night approached its dawn.

I will never forget that morning.

When I left the bakery, I stepped out into a dawn light that I had never witnessed before. Or was it my eyes that had changed, so that they could now take in the secrets of the light, the blush of dawn, coloured by Nelio's invisible spirit, which was floating free in its own space? I stood motionless on the street; the insight that Nelio had given me up there on the roof, that a human being is always at the centre of the world, no matter where he finds himself, now seemed to me quite self-evident.

A rat was sitting beside a cracked manhole cover, watching me with nervous eyes.

A slight tremor passed through the earth. I had never experienced such a thing before, but I knew what it was. The old people who had survived it in Dom Joaquim's first years as governor had recounted how the earth began to shake, how the ground had opened up, and how houses had collapsed. Those who had lived so long that they could remember that time had been waiting ever since for the tremors to come back one day, and for the earth to crack open again. I knew that was why so many old people refused to set foot on stairs or to have their beds on the first or second floor of buildings in the city of stone. They wanted to live on the ground, close to the earth, even though the fissure might open up right at their feet. They would rather be swallowed up by the warm earth than be crushed under a collapsing building.