Хеннинг Манкелль - The Eye of the Leopard

Then one morning he meets Duncan Jones for the first time. He is standing supervising the loading of empty feed sacks into a battered lorry when the black workers stop working. Duncan Jones comes walking slowly towards him. He is dressed in dirty trousers and a ripped shirt. Olofson sees a man who has slashed his face with his straight razor. A suntanned face, skin like tanned leather. Heavy eyelids, grey hair that is tangled and filthy.

‘Don’t ever take a piss before all the sacks are loaded and the back door locked,’ says Duncan Jones, coughing. ‘If you go to take a piss before that, you have to expect that at least ten sacks will disappear. They sell the sacks for one kwacha each.’

He holds out his hand.

‘There’s just one thing I don’t understand,’ he says. ‘Why has Judith waited so long to find my successor? Everyone has to be put out to pasture eventually. The only ones spared are those who die young. But who are you?’

‘I’m a Swede,’ says Olofson. ‘I’m only here temporarily.’

Duncan Jones opens his face in a smile and Olofson looks straight into a mouth full of black stumps of teeth.

‘Why does everyone who comes to Africa have to apologise?’ he asks. ‘Even those who were born here say that they’re only here for a short visit.’

‘In my case it’s true,’ says Olofson.

Jones shrugs his shoulders. ‘Judith deserves it,’ he says. ‘She deserves all the help she can get.’

‘She put an ad in the paper,’ says Olofson.

‘Who can she get?’ says Jones. ‘Who would move here? Don’t abandon her. Never ask me for advice, I don’t have any. Maybe I had some once, advice I should have taken myself. But it’s all gone now. I’ll live for another year. Hardly longer than that...’

Suddenly he bellows at the Africans who are silently watching his meeting with Hans Olofson.

‘Work!’ he yells. ‘Work, don’t sleep!’

Instantly they grab hold of their sacks.

‘They’re afraid of me,’ says Jones. ‘I know they think I’m about to dissolve and be resurrected in the figure of a holy man. I’m about to become a kashinakashi . Or maybe a snake. How do I know?’

Then he turns and leaves. Olofson watches him stop and press one hand against the small of his back, as if a pain has suddenly struck him. That evening, as they are eating dinner, Olofson mentions the meeting.

‘Maybe he will succeed in reaching some kind of clarity,’ she says. ‘Africa has set him free from all dreams. For Duncan, life is an undertaking that has been arbitrarily assigned. He is drinking himself consciously and methodically towards the big sleep. Without fear, I think. Maybe we should envy him. Or maybe we should feel pity that he so utterly lacks hope?’

‘No wife, no children?’ asks Olofson.

‘He lies with the black women,’ she replies. ‘Maybe he has black children. I know that sometimes he mistreats the women he takes to his bed. But I don’t know why he does it.’

‘It looked as though he was in pain,’ says Olofson. ‘Maybe it’s his kidneys.’

‘He would say that Africa is taking him from inside,’ she says. ‘He would never admit to any other illness.’

Then she asks Olofson to stay a bit longer. He realises that he is listening to a liar when she says that the classified ads in the newspapers in South Africa and Botswana have not yet produced any replies.

‘All right, but not for long,’ he replies. ‘A month at most, no more.’

A week before the time has run out, Judith takes sick one night. He wakes up when she touches his arm and finds her standing in the dark by his bed. What he sees when he manages to light the bedside lamp with a drowsy hand is something he knows he’ll never forget.

A dying woman, maybe already dead. Judith is dressed in an old, stained dressing gown. Her hair is uncombed and tangled, her face shiny with sweat, her eyes wide open as if she were looking at something unbearable. In one hand she holds her shotgun.

‘I’m sick,’ she says. ‘I need your help.’

Utterly powerless she sinks down on the edge of the bed. But the mattress is soft. She slides off on to the floor and sits leaning her head against the bed.

‘It’s malaria,’ she says. ‘I must have medicine. Take the car, drive to Duncan’s place, wake him up, and ask him for medicine. If he doesn’t have any you’ll have to drive to Werner and Ruth’s. You can find your way all right.’

He helps her into the bed.

‘Take the shotgun,’ she says. ‘Lock the house behind you. If Duncan doesn’t wake up, fire the gun.’

When he turns the key in the ignition the night is filled with loud rumba music from the radio. This is crazy, he thinks as he forces the stiff gearstick into position. I’ve never been this scared in my life. Not even when I was a child and crawled across the river bridge.

He drives over the potholed sandy road, much too fast and recklessly, jamming the gears and feeling the barrel of the shotgun against his shoulder.

Outside the hen houses the night watchmen appear in the headlights. A white man in the night, he thinks. It’s not my night, it belongs to the blacks.

Outside Duncan Jones’s house he honks the horn wildly. Then he forces himself out of the car, finds a rock on the ground, and begins slamming it against the gate in the wall. He cracks the skin on his knuckles, listens for sounds from inside the house, but he hears only his own heart. He gets the gun from the car, remembers the safety catch, and then fires a shot at the distant stars. The butt slams against his shoulder and the shot booms in the night.

‘Come on!’ he yells. ‘Wake up from your drunken stupor, bring me the damned medicine!’

At last he hears a scraping sound on the other side of the gate and Olofson shouts his name. Duncan Jones stands naked before him. He has a revolver in his hand.

This is insanity, Olofson thinks again. No one would believe me if I described it; I’ll probably hardly even believe my own memories. I have to get her some medicine. Then I’ll go back home. This is no life, this is madness.

Jones is so drunk that Olofson has to tell him over and over why he came. Finally he sticks the barrel of the shotgun in his chest.

‘Malaria medicine!’ he shouts. ‘Malaria medicine...’

At last Jones understands, and he staggers back to his house. Olofson steps into an indescribable mess of dirty clothes, empty bottles, half-eaten meals, and piles of newspapers.

This is a morgue, he thinks. Here death is busy taking control. He won’t be able to find any medicine in this chaos, thinks Olofson, and he prepares to drive the long road to the Mastertons’ farm. But then Jones comes wobbling out of what Olofson assumes is his bedroom, and in his hand he has a paper bag. Olofson snatches the bag and leaves the house.

After he returns and has locked all the doors behind him, he realises that he is drenched with sweat.

He carefully shakes Judith from a feverish sleep and forces her to swallow three tablets after reading the instructions. She sinks back on to the pillows and he sits down in a chair to catch his breath. He becomes aware that he is still holding the shotgun. This isn’t normal, he thinks. I would never be able to get used to a life like this. I would never survive...

He stays awake all night, watching her fever attacks subside and then return. At daybreak he feels her forehead. Her breathing is deep and steady. He goes into the kitchen and unlocks the back door. Luka is standing there waiting.

‘Coffee,’ says Olofson. ‘No food, just coffee. Madame Judith is sick today.’

‘I know, Bwana ,’ Luka replies.

Weariness suddenly gets the upper hand in Olofson’s mind. He bursts out with a furious question. All these Africans know everything in advance.