Henning Mankell: Chronicler Of The Winds

On that morning, when Nelio lay up there on the roof breathing fitfully, I couldn't go home. I had to stay. Hastily I washed up at the pump and then went to see Senhora Muwulene, who lived in a garage behind the courthouse, several blocks from the theatre. Senhora Muwulene had been a famous feticheira back when the white colonisers, clumsily and with increasing resignation, had tried to outlaw what they scornfully regarded as our primitive superstitions. The whites had never understood the importance of the spirits in a person's life. They had never understood the necessity of staying on good terms with the souls of your ancestors; they had never grasped that a person's life involves a constant struggle to keep the spirits in a good mood. No doubt that's why the whites lost the war in the end and were forced to return to their own country. It was the offended spirits who won the war, more than it was the young revolutionaries.

But to the amazement of Senhora Muwulene and all the rest of us, the young revolutionaries were even stronger in their condemnation of our tradition of worshipping the spirits and regulating our lives in accordance with their wishes. At that time Senhora Muwulene used snakes to make pronouncements about the future and people's health. She lived outside the city, on the island which on a clear day can be seen from the bakery roof. At a huge public rally on the island, the local police inspector, who couldn't have been more than seventeen years old, had obeyed a directive issued by the young revolutionaries. All sorcerers and medicine women, including Senhora Muwulene, were to renounce immediately all their supernatural powers and to undergo extensive health-care training instead. Otherwise they would be thrown into prison. Everyone except Senhora Muwulene complied at once, since the police inspector had announced that the prison would be set up in the ice house of the fish factory, which the whites had hurriedly relinquished when the young revolutionaries seized power. Before they left, however, they destroyed the ice machines. The stench of rotten fish hovered over the island for years afterwards. But Senhora Muwulene had no intention of renouncing her supernatural powers. She turned up at the public rally with a number of snakes in her basket, and the ominous snarl that rose up from the crowd when the police inspector attempted to arrest her finally made him give way.

Later, Senhora Muwulene moved to the city and established herself and her snakes in the garage behind the courthouse. Sometimes the snakes would escape and slither into the rooms where court proceedings were under way. Panic would break out and the proceedings would come to a halt as Senhora Muwulene crept about, gathering up her snakes, which were usually hiding in the dark corners behind the heavy tables of the prosecutors and attorneys. The tables were made of the black, iron-like wood that is found only in our country.

So it was Senhora Muwulene that I was on my way to see, and she smiled her toothless smile when she saw me coming. I told her straight out that I needed herbs to treat a young man who had been shot in the chest and had lost a great deal of blood. Senhora Muwulene didn't ask any questions about what had happened. But she did want to know whether Nelio was left-handed and whether he had been born on a Sunday or on a day when the wind was blowing from the north. I told her honestly that I didn't know. Senhora Muwulene sighed and complained of my ill-prepared visit. Then she mixed some crushed leaves with a thin clear liquid that she poured from a bottle which had previously contained aftershave lotion. I paid her and then hurried back to the bakery. Following Senhora Muwulene's instructions, I diluted the contents of the bottle with water and went up to the roof. Nelio hadn't moved since I left him; he was lying motionless on the mattress. But when I knelt beside him, he opened his eyes and looked up at me.

Does the face of a dying person seem more distinct? Is it only in the proximity of death that a person's features appear as they really are? I thought about this as I gave him the diluted potion to drink. Still, I was worried that if he drank anything it would seek out forbidden paths in his wounded chest. But I knew that I had to take the risk; there was no alternative as long as he refused to let me bring help or to take him on a cart to the hospital, which stood on the highest hill in the city. When he had finished drinking I lowered his head back down to the mattress. He closed his eyes after the exertion, and I looked at him and thought that even totally black people, like him and me, could turn pale. I touched his forehead and could tell that he had a fever; I hoped that Senhora Muwulene had mixed the best herbs she had.

Nelio was ten years old, maybe eleven. And yet I had the feeling that it was a very old man who lay there on the mattress. Did the hard life of a street kid induce a different kind of ageing than for the rest of us ordinary people? A dog that is fifteen is already extremely old. Did the same apply to Nelio? I had no answer to my own questions, and I realised with despair that in a short time he would be dead. But soon I could tell from his breathing that he had slipped into a deep sleep again. It looked as if Senhora Muwulene's herbs had already brought down his fever; his forehead felt much cooler. I stood up and looked out over the city as I ate a piece of the bread I had baked during the night.

Since it was still early in the morning, I knew that the theatre would be empty. The actors seldom arrived to start rehearsals before ten o'clock. Nelio was asleep and his breathing was steady now, so I went down the winding staircase, back to the stage where the night-time drama had been played out. The old cleaning woman, Cashilda, was slapping the seats with a rag, making clouds of dust. She was so old that she could neither see nor hear. On several occasions she had confused morning and night; she had arrived at the theatre in the middle of a performance and set about slapping at the seats while the audience was sitting in them. When the actors heard the continuous slapping sounds and the angry protests coming from the dark theatre, they stopped the play. Some of them went down to explain to Cashilda that it was evening, not morning, and that she shouldn't be slapping at the seats when people who had paid for tickets were sitting in them. Then the performance continued. The theatre was always dirty because Cashilda was old and tired. But Dona Esmeralda didn't have the heart to get rid of her. When I entered the theatre, she didn't notice my presence. I looked at the stage and discovered that the set from the night before was gone. I stared at the stage in disbelief. Could I have been mistaken? No, I was positive. It was not my imagination or a dream. A set had definitely stood there: an endless blue sky and a landscape of rippling elephant grass. But now it was gone. A solitary door stood on the stage, intended for the new play that Dona Esmeralda had lately started to rehearse.

Why had Nelio been lying on the stage in the spotlight? What had happened in the empty theatre the night before? Who had shot him? I climbed on to the stage and could see the dark patch of blood. It was real blood, not a theatrical illusion left over from some previous performance.

My thoughts were interrupted by Cashilda, whose dim eyes had caught sight of me. She thought I was one of the actors and that the rehearsals were about to begin. She always talked very loudly because she was deaf, and she started shouting her apologies because she hadn't yet finished the cleaning.

'It doesn't matter,' I shouted back. 'I'm not an actor. I'm a baker.'

But she didn't understand what I said. To her, I was an actor who had arrived early. I left the stage and went back to the roof. Nelio was still asleep. I thought I should put a new bandage on his chest, but I didn't want to touch him; I didn't want to wake him. I sat in the shadow of one of the chimneys and gazed out over the city. From far off came the sounds of all those people who for one more day were doing their utmost to survive.