Хеннинг Манкелль - The Eye of the Leopard

‘You forget that I’m a journalist,’ says Motombwane. ‘You forget that you’re an important person yourself. You were the first to see what happened.’

Without warning Hans Olofson begins to sob; a violent outburst of sorrow and fear is released from inside him. Motombwane waits with his head bowed, his gaze directed at the cracked stone floor of the terrace.

‘I’m tired,’ Olofson says when the fit has passed. ‘I see my friends dead, the first people I met when I came to Africa. I see their maimed bodies, an utterly inconceivable violence.’

‘Or perhaps not,’ Motombwane says slowly.

‘You’ll get your details,’ Olofson says. ‘You’ll get all the gore you think your readers can stand. But first you have to explain to me what happened.’

Motombwane throws out his hands. ‘I’m no policeman,’ he says.

‘You’re an African,’ Olofson says. ‘Besides, you’re intelligent, you’re educated, and you surely don’t believe in superstition any longer. You’re a journalist. You have the background to explain this to me.’

‘Much of what you say is true,’ Motombwane replies. ‘But you’re wrong if you think I’m not superstitious. I am. With my mind I turn away from it, but in my heart it will always be part of me. One can move to a foreign land, as you have done, one can seek his fortune, shape his life. But no one can ever totally leave his origins behind. Something will always remain, as more than a memory, as a living reminder of who you really are. I don’t pray to the gods carved from wood, I go to doctors in white coats when I get sick. But I also listen to the voices of my ancestors; I wrap a black band around my wrist as protection before I board an aeroplane.’

‘Why Werner and Ruth?’ Olofson asks. ‘Why this senseless bloodbath?’

‘You’re on the wrong track,’ replies Motombwane. ‘You’re not thinking logically because you’ve chosen the wrong starting point. Your white brain is deceiving you. If you want to understand you have to think black thoughts. And that’s not something you can do, in the same way that I can’t formulate white thoughts. You ask why it should be Werner and Ruth who were killed. You might just as well ask why not. You talk about a senseless double murder. I’m not altogether sure that it was. Decapitation prevents people from haunting, severed hands prevent people from taking revenge. It’s perfectly obvious that they were killed by Africans, but it was not as senseless as you imagine.’

‘So you think it was a normal robbery-murder,’ says Olofson.

Motombwane shakes his head. ‘If it had occurred a year ago I would have thought so,’ he replies. ‘But not now, not with the unrest that is growing in our country with each day that passes. Opposing political forces grow in this unrest. I think that Ruth and Werner fell victim to killers who actually wanted to sink their pangas into the heads of the black leaders in this country. There are also black mzunguz . You erroneously think that it means white man , when it actually means rich man . Because it was natural to associate wealth with whites, the original meaning of the word has been lost. Today I think it’s important to reclaim the real meaning of the word.’

‘Give me an explanation,’ Olofson says. ‘Draw me a political weather map, a conceivable picture, of what might have happened.’

‘The first thing you have to understand is that what I do is dangerous,’ says Motombwane. ‘The politicians in our country are unscrupulous. They guard their power by letting their dogs run free. There is one single efficient organ in this country, well organised and constantly active, and that is the president’s secret police. The opposition is watched by a fine-meshed net of informers. In every town, in every company there is someone who is connected to this secret police. Even on your farm there is at least one man who once a week reports to an unknown superior. That’s what I mean when I say it’s dangerous. Without your knowing it, Luka could be the man who reports from here.

‘No opposition must be permitted to grow. The politicians who rule today regard our land as prey. In Africa it’s easy simply to disappear. Journalists who have been too critical and didn’t listen to the words of warning have vanished; newspaper editors have been selected for their loyalty to the party, and this means that nothing is printed about the vanished journalists in the papers. I can’t make it any plainer than that. There is an undercurrent of events in this country that nobody knows about. Rumours spread, but there is no way to confirm them. People are murdered through arranged suicides. Massacred corpses on railway tracks, soaked with alcohol, become accidents due to drunkenness. Alleged robbers who are shot down during escape attempts may be people who tried to take over the state-controlled labour unions. The examples are endless.

‘But the unrest is there all the time. In the dark the discontent whispers. People wonder about the corn meal that is suddenly gone, despite the fact that a succession of record harvests has been going on for several years. The rumour spreads that lorries belonging to the authorities drive across the borders at night to smuggle out corn meal. Why are there no more vaccines and medicines in the hospitals, even though millions of dollars’ worth are donated to this country every year? People have travelled to Zaire and been able to buy medicines at a chemist’s with the text ‘Donation to Zambia’ printed on the box. The rumours spread, the discontent grows, but everyone is afraid of the informers.

‘The opposition are forced to make detours. Perhaps some people have looked at their despair, their hungry children, and their insight into the betrayal by the politicians, and decided that the only chance of getting to the rulers is by taking a detour: murder white people, create instability and insecurity. Execute whites and thereby warn the black rulers. That may have been how it happened. Because something is going to happen in this country. Soon. For over twenty years we have been an independent nation. Nothing has really improved for the people. It’s only the few who took over from the white leaders that have amassed unheard-of fortunes. Maybe we have now reached a breaking point, maybe an uprising is approaching? I don’t know anything for sure; we Africans follow impulses that come out of nowhere. Our actions are often spontaneous; we replace the lack of organisation with violence in our wrath. If this is how it happened, then we will never know who murdered Ruth and Werner Masterton. Many people will know their names, but they will be protected. They will be surrounded at once by a superstitious respect and awe, as if our ancestors had returned in their form. The warriors of the past will return. Maybe the police will drag some insignificant thieves out of the dark, say they’re the killers, and shoot them during alleged escape attempts. Faked interrogation records and confessions can be arranged. Only gradually will we find out whether or not what I believe is correct.’

‘How?’ asks Olofson.

‘When the next white family is murdered,’ replies Motombwane softly. Luka passes across the terrace; they follow him with their gaze, see him go out to the German shepherds with some meat scraps.

‘An informer on my farm,’ says Olofson. ‘Of course I ought to start wondering who it might be.’

‘Let’s assume that you succeed in finding out,’ says Motombwane. ‘What happens then? Someone else will be selected at once. No one can refuse, because payment is also involved. You’ll wind up chasing your own shadow. If I were you I’d do something entirely different.’

‘What?’ asks Olofson.

‘Keep a watchful eye on the man who actually manages the work on your farm. There’s so much you don’t know. You’ve been here for almost twenty years, but you have no idea what’s really going on. You could live here another twenty years and you still wouldn’t know anything. You think you have divided up power and responsibility by appointing a foreman. But you don’t know that you have a sorcerer on your farm, a witch-master who in reality is the one in control. An insignificant man who never reveals the influence he possesses. You view him as one of many workers who have been on the farm for a long time, one of those who never cause you any problems. But the other workers fear him.’