Хеннинг Манкелль - A Treacherous Paradise

‘I’ll come with you in any case,’ said the governor. ‘I’m interested to see if you can persuade her to talk at all. So far she hasn’t uttered a word. Perhaps she was born without any vocal cords? I don’t even know if her voice is low or high-pitched.’

‘It’s low,’ said Ana. ‘I shall understand what they say to each other in her native tongue. I can translate for you.’

Pandre looked fleetingly at her. He understood what she was intending to do, and regarded her for the first time with genuine approval.

They walked down the stone steps to the fort’s basement. A half-asleep soldier quickly straightened his back, saluted and began to raise the grating in front of the iron door. The commanding officer turned to Pandre.

‘I assume that you don’t have a gun in your briefcase,’ he said. ‘Whether it’s to shoot the prisoner dead or to set her free.’

Pandre opened the briefcase and took out the stethoscope Ana had imagined might be inside it. How on earth had he managed to get hold of that? He’s prepared himself well, she thought. Perhaps he’s the right man to help Isabel after all.

They stepped into the dark basement where the musty air was motionless. An unshaven, half-naked white man was shaking in his cell as they passed by.

‘He’s going to be moved to a lunatic asylum,’ said the commanding officer. ‘He is convinced he has a large insect in his stomach that is eating him up from the inside. He beat a man to death because he refused to listen to him going on about the insect’s insatiable hunger.’

Pandre listened attentively and politely to what the officer had to say. He doesn’t seem to be affected by the musty air, Ana thought. Perhaps there are similar prisons in the town and the country where he comes from.

They passed by another cell where a man was lying asleep, stretched out on the floor, gasping for air.

‘He’s a Spaniard by the name of Mendoza,’ said the commanding officer as he continued to guide them through the darkness. ‘He killed his brother on a coaster, and now he’s trying to punish himself by refusing to eat. He ought to go to the asylum as well, but they refuse to accept him. I expect him to die within the next few days. Some of my soldiers are placing bets on how long he will live. I don’t like that, but there’s not much I can do about it.’

They entered Isabel’s cell. Ana noted that the basket was empty. Isabel was sitting motionless on her bunk.

‘You have a visitor,’ roared the commanding officer.

Isabel didn’t react. Pandre nudged the officer’s arm to indicate that he shouldn’t yell at her again, then went up to Isabel and sat down beside her. Ana stood by the side of the bunk, while the officer remained in the half-open doorway. Ana had no idea of what Pandre was saying to Isabel, but Isabel bucked up the moment the lawyer started speaking to her, and answered his questions in her own language.

The commanding officer rattled his sabre impatiently. Ana took a step closer to him and began to tell him the story she was making up as she spoke.

‘They’re talking about her children,’ she said. ‘They are discussing her great sorrow at having been deceived by her husband, and her regret for what she has done. She’s telling him how much she wants to leave this dump of a prison and start work in one of the white missionary stations, spreading the true faith among the black population.’

Ana tried her hardest to imbue the story she was making up with as much conviction as she could possibly muster. The commanding officer listened in stony silence. He’s not really interested, she thought. Isabel means nothing to him. It doesn’t matter to him if she lives or dies. He only came along with us because he was bored stiff.

She continued to elaborate on her story while Pandre and Isabel spoke quietly to each other. When the conversation was over — and it stopped suddenly, as if absolutely everything had now been said — Ana rounded off her account by repeating what she had said about Isabel’s longing to devote her life to a Christian missionary station.

When they returned to the hotel they sat down in the shade of some frangipani trees and gazed out over the sea. Pandre had said nothing in the car after saying a polite goodbye to the commanding officer. Now he swayed slowly back and forth in the garden hammock, a glass of iced water in his hand.

‘Isabel is ready to die if she has to,’ he said. ‘She will die rather than admit to any guilt. Her silence is due to her dignity. Her soul. She kept repeating that word over and over again. “It’s all about my soul.”’

‘Doesn’t she want to live for the sake of her children?’

‘Of course she wants to live. Perhaps she might be able to escape. But if her only way out is to admit to being guilty, she would rather die.’

Pandre continued rocking back and forth, gazing out to sea. He stretched out the hand in which he held the glass of water and pointed at the horizon.

‘That’s India over there,’ he said. ‘Thirty years ago my parents came to Africa from there. Perhaps I or my children will go back one of these days.’

‘Why did your parents come to Africa?’

‘My father sold pigeons,’ Pandre said. ‘He heard that there were a lot of white people in southern Africa who were prepared to pay large sums of money for beautiful pigeons. My father had learnt how to glue extra tail feathers on to his pigeons so as to get a higher price for them.’

He looked at Ana with a smile.

‘My father was a confidence trickster,’ he said. ‘That’s probably why I have become his opposite.’

He put down the glass of water.

‘I can’t really give you any advice,’ he said. ‘The only thing that can save her is if she can escape. Perhaps the commanding officer can be bribed? Perhaps one of the soldiers can be persuaded to leave her cell door open one evening? I’m afraid I can’t suggest anything else. But as you have plenty of money, you have access to the one thing that might be able to get her free. I simply don’t know how best you can use your money in this particular case.’

‘I’ll do anything to get her out of that prison.’

‘I suppose that’s what I’m suggesting. That you do anything at all you can.’

Pandre took an envelope out of his inside pocket and gave it to Ana.

‘Here is my bill,’ he said. ‘I’m intending to visit your women tonight. I’d like to be picked up from here at nine o’clock. I’ll have dinner alone in my room.’

He stood up, bowed and walked over to the white hotel building. Ana stayed where she was, thinking over what Pandre had said. She knew that he was right. Isabel was trying to choose between dying and saving her soul.

Is that what I’m doing as well? she asked herself. Or has the possibility of choosing already passed?

She remained sitting there until the sun set. Then she went home, changed her clothes and went to pick up Pandre at nine o’clock. He was now wearing a dark suit with a high stiff collar, and smelled of a perfume Ana had never before come across on a man.

‘That stethoscope,’ she said when they were sitting in the car. ‘Where did you get it from?’

‘I made my preparations,’ said Pandre. ‘Before I was picked up I paid a short visit to the hospital. A friendly doctor let me have an old stethoscope very cheaply.’

They sat in silence for the rest of the journey.

When they arrived at O Paraiso, Pandre sat down on one of the red sofas, was served a glass of sherry, and then started to assess the women carefully, one by one.

Ana sat down on a chair in a corner of the room, and watched him from a distance. She still hadn’t opened the bill he’d given her. They had agreed earlier on £100, but she suspected Pandre would have added considerable extra costs that she would have to pay him.