Хеннинг Манкелль - The Eye of the Leopard

She asks him to write and let her know when Duncan Jones dies, and gives him the address of a bank on the island of Jersey.

Mr Dobson comes with men who pack up Judith’s belongings in huge wooden crates. He checks them off meticulously on a list.

‘Whatever is left is yours,’ he tells Olofson.

They go into the room that is filled with bones.

‘She doesn’t mention anything about this,’ says Mr Dobson. ‘So it’s yours.’

‘What am I going to do with it?’ asks Olofson.

‘That’s hardly a matter for a lawyer,’ replies Mr Dobson amiably. ‘But I suppose there are two choices. Either you leave it be, or you get rid of it. The crocodile can easily be taken back to the river.’

Together with Luka he carries the remains down to the river and watches as they sink to the bottom. The femur of an elephant glints through the water.

‘We Africans will avoid this spot, Bwana ,’ says Luka. ‘We see dead animals who still live on the bottom. The crocodile’s skeleton may be more dangerous than the living crocodile.’

‘What are you thinking?’ asks Olofson.

‘I think what I think, Bwana ,’ replies Luka.

Olofson stretches taut his eighteen-year arc of time, filled with transforming his farm into a political model.

Early one Saturday morning he gathers all the workers outside the mud hut that is his office, climbs up on a petrol tank, and tells them that now he is the one, not Judith Fillington, who owns the farm. He sees their guarded faces but he is determined to carry out what he has decided to do.

During the years that follow, years of ceaseless work, he tries to implement what he has taken on as his great task. He singles out the most industrious workers as foremen and gives them all more responsible assignments. He introduces drastic wage increases, builds new housing, and overseas the construction of a school for the workers’ children. From the start he is met by opposition from the other white farmers.

‘You’re undermining your own position,’ Werner Masterton tells him when they visit one evening.

‘You don’t have a clue,’ says Ruth. ‘I hope it isn’t too late when you come to your senses.’

‘Too late for what?’ Olofson asks.

‘For everything,’ Ruth replies.

Sometimes Duncan Jones stands like a phantom and watches him. Olofson sees how the blacks fear him. One night when he is again awakened by the night watchmen to fight a fierce battle against invading hunter ants, he hears Duncan Jones wailing from his fortified house.

Two years later he is dead. During the rainy season the house begins to smell, and when they break in they find Jones’s half-decayed body on the floor among bottles and half-eaten meals. The house is full of insects, and yellow moths swarm over the dead body. In the night he hears the drums pounding. The spirit of the holy man is already hovering over the farm.

Duncan Jones is buried on a little hill by the river. A Catholic priest comes from Kitwe. Other than Olofson there is no white man at the coffin, only the black workers.

He writes a letter care of the bank in Jersey, announcing that Duncan Jones is dead. He never hears a word from Judith.

The house stands empty for a long time before Olofson decides to tear down the wall and set up a health centre for the workers and their families.

With infinite slowness he seems to sense a change. Metre by metre he attempts to eradicate the boundary between himself and the 200 workers.

The first hint that everything has gone totally wrong, that all his good intentions have backfired, comes after a trip he takes to Dar-es-Salaam. The production figures begin to fall inexplicably. Complaints come in about broken eggs or eggs that are never delivered. Spare parts start disappearing, chicken feed and tools vanish unaccountably. He discovers that the foremen are falsifying roll call lists, and during a night check he finds half of the watchmen asleep, some dead drunk. He calls in the foremen and demands an explanation, but all he gets are peculiar excuses.

He had made the trip to Dar-es-Salaam to buy spare parts for the farm’s tractor. Then the day after the tractor is repaired, it’s gone. He calls the police and fires all the night watchmen, but the tractor remains missing.

This is when he makes a serious mistake. He sends for Mr Pihri and they drink tea in the mud hut.

‘My tractor is gone,’ says Olofson. ‘I made the long journey to Dar-es-Salaam to buy spare parts that are unavailable in this country. I made this long trip so that my tractor would function again. Now it’s gone.’

‘That is naturally very troublesome,’ replies Mr Pihri.

‘I don’t see why your colleagues can’t track down the tractor. In this country there aren’t that many tractors. A tractor is hard to hide. It must also be difficult to drive it over the border to Zaire to sell it in Lubumbashi. I don’t understand why your colleagues can’t find it.’

Mr Pihri all at once becomes very serious. In the dim light Olofson thinks he sees a dangerous glint in his eyes. The silence lasts a long time.

‘The reason my colleagues can’t find the tractor is because it is no longer a tractor,’ replies Mr Pihri at last. ‘Perhaps it’s already been taken apart? How can one distinguish one screw from another? A gear shift has no face. My colleagues would be very upset if they found out that you are displeased with their work. Very, very upset. It would mean trouble that even I could do nothing about.’

‘But I want my tractor back!’

Mr Pihri serves himself more tea before he answers.

‘Not everyone is in agreement,’ he says.

‘In agreement about what?’

‘That whites should still own most of the best land without even being citizens of our country. They don’t want to exchange their passports, but still they own our best land.’

‘I don’t understand what that has to do with my tractor.’

‘Trouble should be avoided. If my colleagues can’t find your tractor, it means that there is no longer a tractor to be found. Naturally it would be quite unfortunate if you were also to upset my colleagues. We have much patience. But it can come to an end.’

He follows Mr Pihri out into the sun. His farewell is unusually brief, and Olofson realises that he has stepped over an invisible boundary. I have to be careful, he thinks. I should never have mentioned the tractor.

In the night he wakes abruptly, and as he lies in the dark listening to the dogs’ restless patrolling of his house, he feels that he is ready to give up. Sell the farm, transfer the profits to Judith, and take off. But there is always something that needs to be done first. The drop in production halts after he takes all decisions into his own hands for a while.

He writes to his father, asking him to visit. Only once does he get an answer, and the inarticulate letter tells him that Erik Olofson is drinking more heavily and more often. Maybe someday I’ll understand it, he thinks. Maybe when I understand why I’m staying here. He looks at his suntanned face in the mirror. He has changed his appearance, let his beard grow.

One morning he realises that he no longer recognises himself. The face in the mirror belongs to someone else. He gives a start. Luka is standing behind him, and as usual he hasn’t heard his bare feet on the stone floor.

‘A man has come to visit, Bwana ,’ he says.

‘Who?’

‘Peter Motombwane, Bwana .’

‘I don’t know anyone by that name.’

‘He has still come, Bwana .’

‘Who is he and what does he want?’

‘Only he knows, Bwana .’

Olofson turns around and looks at Luka.

‘Ask him to have a seat and wait, Luka. I’ll be right there.’