Хеннинг Манкелль - A Treacherous Paradise

‘What does she say?’

‘Not a lot. She mutters away about things that happened when she was a little girl. Her life before Pedro Pimenta entered it.’

‘What about her and Pedro’s children? What will happen to them?’

‘Just now they are on a ship to Portugal. Neither of them will ever come back here. The boy was given a crocodile skin to take back home with him, the girl a piece of cloth like those that women here wrap around themselves. All I hope is that their memories of Africa fade away and eventually disappear altogether.’

‘And what about you, Ana Dolores?’

‘I live here.’

‘Looking after a woman who’s never going to get better?’

‘I also run the place. I sell dogs and harvest crocodile skins. I’ve grown tired of merely looking after people.’

Ana said nothing more, but waited for Ana Dolores to ask a few questions about Isabel’s death. Perhaps she might also be interested in knowing why Ana had made such a determined effort to help Isabel.

But Ana Dolores said nothing. She sat there with a smile on her face, gazing out over the farm she now ruled over. It occurred to Ana that this was the first time she had ever seen Ana Dolores smile.

A car approached in a cloud of dust, and pulled up outside the house.

‘Please excuse me,’ said Ana Dolores, standing up. ‘I have a visitor, a man from Kimberley who’s going to buy one of my dogs. It won’t take long. Wait here for me. Just ring the bell if you want any more tea.’

The man who stepped out of the car was wearing a pith helmet and seemed to be in a hurry. It seemed to Ana that he was one of those white men who had come to Africa to live a short life. He would die like a hunted animal — hunted down by himself.

She and Carlos went to look at the crocodiles. Carlos stayed a respectable distance away from the pools containing the biggest crocodiles, which were almost four metres long. There have never been any crocodiles in my river, Ana thought. But perhaps once upon a time Carlos lived by a river where crocodiles lurked just under the surface of the water. He knows about the threat they pose.

As she stood there watching the crocodiles, Ana suddenly noticed how things had changed since her last visit to the farm. She couldn’t put her finger on it at first, but then it dawned on her that what she was looking at was becoming more and more decrepit: things had deteriorated markedly since Pedro’s death. She noted the cracks in the concrete walls of the pools, the weeds growing up through the stone paths, the troughs of food beginning to rust, broken tools, rubbish that hadn’t been collected and carried away for burning. Wherever she looked there were signs of decay. There was also a smell of death on all sides.

This was a change that had taken place in a very short time.

As she returned to the house she saw more and more signs of decay and decadence. The white sheepdogs in their kennels were not as well cared for as they had been in the past. Pedro Pimenta’s farm was wasting away. When he and Isabel died, what they had built up together had immediately started to crumble away.

Ana Dolores had gone into the house with her customer. Ana sat down on the veranda and Carlos climbed up on to an abandoned dovecote. Ana suddenly had the feeling that she wasn’t alone. When she turned to look she discovered Teresa standing at the point where the veranda branched off along the side of the house. She was very pale, and so thin that she was almost unrecognizable. At first Ana wasn’t sure if it really was Teresa. She was uncertain what to do, but stood up and said hello. Teresa did not reply, but she hurried over and stood close by Ana. She smelled strongly of some oily perfume or other. Ana could see that the roots of her hair were caked in dirt and grease.

‘Were you also married to my husband?’ Teresa asked.

‘No.’

‘I’m sure you were married to my husband. You used to have red hair, but then you had it dyed.’

‘I’ve never had red hair, and I’ve never been married to Pedro.’

Teresa suddenly gave Ana a powerful slap in the face. It was so unexpected that the pain in her cheek and the surprise at being hit struck her dumb.

‘As you know what my husband is called you must have been married to him.’

Teresa turned round and hurried away. Then she suddenly turned round and started to come back. Ana braced herself for another smack, but Teresa turned yet again and disappeared behind the gable end of the house, and started shrieking.

Ana Dolores came running on to the veranda.

‘Where is she?’

Ana pointed. Ana Dolores hurried along the veranda and followed it behind the gable end. When she came back she was holding Teresa by the arm. It was as if she were dragging along a rag doll. They both disappeared into the house.

The man in the pith helmet left with his newly purchased white sheepdog. He didn’t even seem to have noticed Teresa’s presence. Ana Dolores came back again. Ana wondered what she had done in order to calm Teresa down, but she didn’t ask.

‘I’ve come here because there’s something I want you to do,’ said Ana.

She pointed at Carlos, who was sitting on the abandoned dovecote, scratching his fur absent-mindedly. He didn’t seem to have noticed Teresa’s outburst either, something that surprised Ana. Carlos always tried to protect her by screeching and kicking up a row. But not this time.

‘I’m about to leave Lourenço Marques,’ she said, ‘and I can’t take Carlos with me. I thought I would ask if he could stay here on the farm. As long as he gets food and is allowed to do what he wants to do, he’s very calm and no trouble. One day he might well decide to go back to the forest again. He’d be able to do that from here.’

‘You mean that he would be free to wander around and sit wherever he likes, as he’s doing now?’

‘You could give him some rules if you liked. He’s a quick learner.’

‘But you don’t want me to build a cage for him?’

‘Certainly not. Nor should you attach a chain to his neck. Obviously I’m prepared to pay you well for your trouble.’

Ana Dolores looked at her, smiling.

‘When you first came here you were in a pitiful state,’ she said. ‘But you’ve done well for yourself.’

‘I can at least pay you so that Carlos can lead the life he wants to have when I’m no longer here.’

Ana Dolores stood up.

‘Let me think it over,’ she said. ‘If I’m going to take on responsibility for an ape, I want to be sure that I really can and want to do that.’

She stood underneath the dovecote, looking up at Carlos who was still picking away at his skin, searching for ticks. Ana watched them from her seat on the veranda. Ana Dolores left the dovecote and walked to the row of kennels and pens where the sheepdogs that were already trained were jumping up excitedly at the bars. She stopped at one of the pens and seemed to pat the dog through the bars. Then she returned to the veranda.

‘Shout for the ape,’ she said. ‘Or at least get him to come down from the dovecote so that I can introduce myself to him.’

‘So Carlos can stay here?’

‘As long as he doesn’t bite.’

Ana shouted for Carlos, who clambered slowly down from the dovecote. Looking back, it seemed to Ana that he had appeared to hesitate.

What came next happened so quickly that afterwards Ana wasn’t at all sure of the course of events. The sheepdog Ana Delores had just been stroking burst through the bars surrounding its pen and raced towards Carlos, who had just reached the ground. Ana shouted a warning, but it was too late. The dog leapt up and sunk its teeth into Carlos’s throat before he had realized the danger. Ana ran down the steps and began hitting the dog with a sweeping brush that was leaning against the veranda rail, but it didn’t release its grip on Carlos’s throat. Ana screamed and hit out with the brush as hard as she could. Ana Dolores didn’t move a muscle. Only when it was all over did she help to pull the dog away and drag it back to its pen.