Хеннинг Манкелль - A Treacherous Paradise

Carlos spent that night lying asleep, looking like a hairy ball, in the bed beside Ana. He touched her arms now and then in his sleep, as if he were climbing. As he didn’t whimper at all she assumed that meant he wasn’t having nightmares. If indeed apes had dreams like humans did. She wasn’t sure, but perhaps by now Carlos had moved sufficiently far away from his life as an ape. She had the impression that more and more often he was having dreams that scared him. Ana herself lay awake, dozing off briefly now and again, but most of the time rehearsing for the meeting tomorrow morning. She needed to prepare them for the difficulties which were going to get worse for as long as she continued trying to secure the release of Isabel. She would tell them that she had no intention of giving up, no matter what problems that might cause. But at the same time she wanted to know what they thought about it all. Did they understand Isabel’s situation? Was there any desire to help her?

During the night Ana got out of bed now and then — quietly in order not to wake Carlos up, even if she was never sure if he was only pretending to be asleep. She leafed through her well-thumbed and shabby Portuguese dictionary in an attempt to find the right words to express what she wanted to say the next morning. She went out on to the veranda in the warm night air. The guards were asleep beside their fires, a solitary dog trotted past without a sound in the street below. From the sea she could see the twinkling lights of ships waiting for high tide so that at dawn they could progress into the harbour and berth.

One of these days I’ll go down to the quayside as well, she thought. With a life newly shattered, in an attempt to mend it. That’s what brought me here. Soon it must also lead me on to the next stage, even if I don’t yet know where my destination will be.

Everybody was already there when Ana arrived at the brothel the next morning. On the way, she had stopped at Pandre’s hotel and handed over an envelope sealed with sealing wax to the half-awake manager. It contained the money Pandre had asked for. As she left the hotel, she wondered if she would ever see him again. She didn’t really know anything about him, apart from the fact that his father was a confidence trickster who used to glue false tail feathers on to pigeons.

There was no sign of O’Neill when Ana entered the brothel for the early-morning meeting. A chair had been placed under the jacaranda tree for her. To her surprise it was Felicia who started talking the moment she sat down. It became obvious to Ana that the women had prepared for the meeting in advance, perhaps just as thoroughly as she had.

Felicia spoke on behalf of them all.

‘We know that Senhora Ana is trying to help Isabel. That is something that surprises us, and we respect you for it. No white man would do that. Probably no other white woman either. But we are also aware that your doing so is causing difficulties for us. We are getting fewer customers, and the ones that do come are not as generous as they were before. We’ve also noticed that they sometimes treat us more roughly than they used to. The word in town is that men are choosing to go to different establishments with different women, as a protest against what you are doing to help Isabel. That means that we are earning less — if it goes on like this we shall soon have no customers at all. In other words, this place would lose altogether the good reputation it used to have.’

Felicia had spoken as if she were reading from a script. Ana knew she was right. The number of customers had indeed gone down — at first only slightly, but lately much more noticeably. Herr Eber was worried and had shown her a graph illustrating how income was falling — not exactly over a precipice, but down a hill that was growing steeper and steeper.

Nevertheless, Ana was both annoyed and disappointed by what Felicia had said. She had hoped for approval and support for her efforts to get Isabel released. She found herself feeling contempt for these black women who sold their bodies without a second thought. All that mattered to them was their income.

She realized immediately that the thought was unfair. She was the one who earned more than anybody else from the activities of the brothel. She was the one who could afford to spend time and money on attempts to help Isabel. She was the one who had the means to bring Pandre to Lourenço Marques from abroad, and she was the one who might eventually be able to bribe somebody to allow Isabel to escape.

But what Felicia had said continued to annoy her. Even during the time when Senhor Vaz was alive, the women in his establishment had earned much more than those in any of the town’s other brothels.

‘The difference in earnings can’t be all that great,’ said Ana. ‘Is there really anybody among you who has cause for complaint?’

Ana noticed that her voice was tense. She wanted them to be aware of her anger.

None of the women spoke. They all stared into space. Nobody reacted even when two orange-sellers in the street outside started quarrelling. The women were normally more interested in fights or noisy quarrels outside the brothel than almost anything else.

‘I want to know,’ said Ana. ‘Is there anybody who has noticed a significant fall in earnings?’

Still nobody spoke — but then, as if in response to an invisible sign, all of them raised their hands.

Ana stood up. She felt she couldn’t bear this any longer.

‘I shall personally pay each of you however much you think you have lost as a result of my helping Isabel,’ she shouted. ‘Come to me every month with bills for what you would have earned from customers who haven’t shown up. I shall pay them. I shall become your new customer!’

Ana stormed out of the brothel without looking back, and was driven straight back to her house. She sat for ages in front of her open diary without actually writing anything. She didn’t yet know how to deal with her big disappointment.

After a while, she went over to a window and looked out over the sea. Small fishing boats with triangular sails were scudding along over the waves, making the most of a fresh following wind. Carlos had climbed up on to the roof and was sitting on the edge of the chimney with an orange in his hands.

Ana was just about to leave the window when she noticed a black man standing in the street down below, looking up at her. She had never seen him before. He was strongly built, and wearing what looked like overalls. When he noticed that she had seen him, he turned round and walked away. She shouted for Julietta.

‘Have you seen a black man standing in the street, looking up at my house?’

‘No,’ said Julietta.

‘I’ve just seen one down below, looking up.’

‘I don’t know who it could have been. But I can ask.’

By the time Ana got into the car that afternoon to be driven down to the fort, Julietta had still not managed to find out the identity of the man in the street. Nobody seemed to have seen him. Ana began to wonder if she’d imagined it.

Sullivan was standing on the steps waiting for her when she arrived.

‘The prisoner was injured last night,’ he said, off-handedly as if it didn’t concern him.

At first Ana didn’t understand what he meant.

‘The woman for whom you bring food was injured during the night.’

‘What happened?’

‘Somebody tried to kill her. But failed. It’s also possible that it was only somebody trying to disfigure her, to make a mess of her face.’

‘How could that happen?’

‘We are investigating the circumstances.’

Ana didn’t wait to hear what else Sullivan had to say. She ran across the open courtyard with the grassy patch where goats were grazing. A soldier had already raised the grating when he saw her come in through the front gate. Ana raced along the dark corridor. The door to Isabel’s cell was standing open. For once she wasn’t sitting on the bunk, but lying down. Ana sat down on the stone floor next to the bunk. Blood was running from one of Isabel’s cheeks and her mouth. It was obvious that she had been slashed with a knife.