Хеннинг Манкелль - A Treacherous Paradise

There was something jubilant in Andrade’s voice that scared Hanna. But at the same time she wanted to find out what was actually happening close to her brothel.

‘I’ll come with you,’ she said, standing up. ‘This is naturally more important than the papers I’m supposed to sign.’

‘From the point of view of safety it might be better for you to stay here,’ said Andrade. ‘Niggers running amok are dangerous.’

‘I have the brothel to look after,’ said Hanna. ‘I’m responsible for my employees.’

She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, put on the hat with the peacock feather and picked up her umbrella. Andrade could see that there was no chance of her changing her mind.

They drove through the town, which was unusually quiet. The few blacks in the streets were walking as closely as possible to the house walls. Soldiers from the town’s garrison were everywhere. Even the town’s firemen were carrying weapons, as were many civilians who had formed small groups to protect their neighbourhood if the riot were to spread. During the whole of the drive down to the fires and the centre of the revolt, Andrade talked about what he was going to do. Hanna was disgusted by the way in which he seemed to be looking forward to the opportunity to fire his gun at some of the black rioters.

But nothing turned out as Andrade had hoped. When they came down to the town and the chauffeur turned into a side street leading to the brothel, they found themselves in the midst of a violent confrontation between soldiers and a raging mass of black men. It was bayonets and rifles against cudgels and billhooks, fear versus limitless fury. The car was surrounded by furious Africans who started rocking it from side to side in an attempt to overturn it. There was a smell of burning paraffin everywhere. Hanna was horrified by the thought of being trapped inside a burning car. She tried in vain to force the passenger door open. The sound of rifle shots suddenly rang out. A black face that shortly before had been pressed up against the glass was suddenly transformed into a mess of blood and shattered splinters of bone. Hanna shouted to Andrade to use his revolver, but when she turned to look at him she saw that he was white with terror, and a pool of urine was expanding over his white linen trousers. The chauffeur managed to open the driver’s door, get out of the car, and was then immediately swallowed up by the crowd of people. Hanna was now so scared, she was afraid of losing consciousness. But the fear of being burnt to death was even stronger. She forced herself to clamber over into the front seat and get out of the car just as the chauffeur had done.

She was surrounded by black people, their faces, eyes, smells, cudgels and knives. Hanna remembered something Senhor Vaz had told her. If you were confronted by a lion, the worst thing you could do was to run away. That would only result in the lion taking up the hunt and felling the fugitive with a bite at the back of his head.

Hanna also knew that she shouldn’t look the lion in the eye. So she lowered her gaze and forced herself to begin making her way through the crowd of people. At any moment she expected to be stabbed, or to be hit on the head by a cudgel. But a path opened up for her. She suppressed the urge to start running, and continued walking slowly, her heart pounding inside her blouse. There was still a clatter of rifle shots on all sides. She gave a start after each one. She stumbled over a man lying dead on the street with his chest torn apart, and paused. But then she forced herself to continue.

Suddenly a troop of cavalrymen on agitated, sweaty horses came galloping up. In just a few seconds the mass of people that had been crowding around her melted away. The street looked like a battlefield, filled with burnt rags and broken cudgels, and among them the gleaming cases of the soldiers’ cartridges. The street and pavements were covered in a large number of distorted black bodies, some of them almost naked. A man was howling in pain or in rage, she couldn’t make up her mind which. The white soldiers in their dark blue uniforms were standing with their rifles at the ready, as if they were afraid that the dead would rise again and attack them. White people were now beginning to assemble at a safe distance. They were making a sort of growling noise, as if the hatred they felt could not be satisfied by the sight of the dead, but needed to continue punishing them.

The howling man suddenly fell silent. Hanna began walking slowly back to Andrade’s car. The chauffeur had already returned, and was sitting with his hands round the steering wheel, staring straight ahead, right through her.

Andrade was sitting hunched up in the back seat. The urine stain on his white trousers had begun to dry. He was holding his revolver in his hands as if it were a crucifix.

Hanna looked at him, and thought that she hated him for his cowardice. But at the same time she couldn’t help but be pleased that he had survived and was uninjured. Everything is full of contradictions, she thought. Nothing is as straightforward as I wish it were.

She was surprised to find that she felt nothing at all for the dead black corpses all around her.

Swarms of flies had already begun to gather around the dead bodies. Horses and carts that had been requisitioned by the soldiers stood in the shade. Soldiers with white handkerchiefs over their faces began to gather up the corpses.

Like dead animals, Hanna thought. Just slaughtered, but not yet skinned.

She hurried away. Andrade shouted something after her but she didn’t gather what it was he wanted.

She didn’t stop until she was inside the brothel.

The black women were sitting on the sofas, looking at her. She thought she ought to say something.

But she had no idea what.

Their silence unnerved her, as did the fact that they were looking her in the eye. All she had experienced that morning was so frightening and so overwhelming that she was now the one who averted her eyes. She went back out into the street where an officer she recognized was handing out ammunition to the soldiers standing guard on the street corner. He visited the brothel regularly and promised to drive her back home in his army car as soon as he had finished. She sat down in his car and waited. As there was no roof, she raised her parasol to protect herself from the scorching sun. Swarms of flies were buzzing excitedly around her head as if she were dead as well. She flapped her hand at them, and had the feeling that everything that was happening was a dream she had not yet managed to wake up from.

The young officer sat down at the wheel himself. Next to him was a soldier with a gun at the ready. When they pulled up outside the stone house the officer asked if she would like to have an armed guard outside her front door, but she felt safe in her own home. In addition, she knew full well that the officer was trying to do a deal — he would provide a guard if she allowed him access to one of the women for free. That annoyed her.

And so she declined his offer and went in through the door that Julietta was holding open for her. She took her mistress’s hat, gloves and parasol.

Hanna asked her to come upstairs to the veranda. The smell from the fires in the town below was still noticeable. Anaka brought her a carafe of water. Julietta was waiting a few metres away from the sofa where Hanna was sitting. Hanna pointed to a chair, and Julietta sat down very gingerly, on the extreme edge of the seat.

‘What happened?’ Hanna asked. ‘Don’t make anything up. Just tell me what you know for sure.’

Julietta spoke slowly as she knew Hanna found it difficult to understand what she was saying. Hanna frequently had to ask her to repeat a sentence or two, but out there on the veranda that morning, Julietta spoke more clearly than she had ever done before. Perhaps that was because she knew that what she had to say was very important for her.