Хеннинг Манкелль - The Eye of the Leopard

People who dress like leopards don’t know what they’re doing. In the name of political discontent they’re pushing their brothers down the precipice.

He shoves the dirty foremen’s reports away, puts his feet up on a pile of egg cartons, and lets his mind work on an idea.

I’ll start a back fire, he thinks. Even if the Africans are evidently no longer afraid of German shepherds, they have great respect and fear of people who show courage. Maybe Werner Masterton’s fate was brought about by the fact that he had softened, turned vague and yielding; an old man who worried about the trouble he was having pissing.

He finds himself thinking a racist thought. The African’s instinct is like the hyena’s, he tells himself. In Sweden the word ‘hyena’ is an insult, an expression for contemptuous weakness, for a parasitic person. For the Africans the hyena’s hunting methods are natural. Prey left behind or lost by others is something desirable. A wounded and defenceless animal is something to pounce on. Perhaps Werner Masterton appeared a wounded man after all these years in Africa. The blacks could see it and they attacked. Ruth could never have put up any resistance.

He thinks back to his conversation with Peter Motombwane, and makes his decision. He calls in one of the clerks waiting outside the hut.

‘Go and fetch me Eisenhower Mudenda,’ he says. ‘At once.’

The man stands there, uncertain.

‘What are you waiting for?’ Olofson shouts. ‘Eisenhower Mudenda! Sanksako ! You’ll get a kick in the mataku if he isn’t here in five minutes.’

A few minutes later Eisenhower Mudenda stands inside the dark hut. He’s breathing hard and Olofson can tell that the man has been running.

‘Sit down,’ says Olofson, pointing at a chair. ‘But wipe yourself off first. I don’t want chicken shit on the chair.’

Mudenda quickly wipes himself off and sits down on the edge of the chair. His disguise is excellent, Olofson thinks. An insignificant old man. But none of the Africans on this farm dares cross him. Even Motombwane is afraid of him.

For a brief moment he hesitates. The risk is too great, he thinks. If I start this back fire, there will be chaos. And yet he knows it is necessary; he has made his decision.

‘Someone has killed one of my dogs,’ he says. ‘His head was nailed to a tree. But you probably know this already, don’t you?’

‘Yes, Bwana ,’ replies Mudenda.

The lack of expression, Olofson thinks. It says everything.

‘Let’s speak openly, Eisenhower,’ Olofson says. ‘You’ve been here for many years. For thousands of days you have gone to your hen house, and countless eggs have passed through your hands. Of course I know you’re a sorcerer, a man who can do muloji . All the blacks are afraid of you, and none of them will say a word against you. But I’m a bwana , a mzungu that your muloji won’t work on. Now I’m thinking of asking you for something, Eisenhower. You must regard this as an order, in the same way as if I tell you to work on your day off. Someone on this farm killed my dog. I want to know who it was. Maybe you already know. But I want to know too, and I want to know soon. If you don’t tell me, I’ll have to assume that you were the one who did it. And then you’ll be sacked. Not even your muloji can prevent that. You’ll have to leave your house, and you will never be allowed to show your face on the farm again. If you do, the police will take you away.’

I should have talked to him outside in the sun, thinks Olofson. I can’t see his face in here.

‘I can give Bwana his answer right now,’ says Mudenda, and Olofson thinks he can hear something hard in his voice.

‘Even better. I’m listening.’

‘Nobody on this farm killed a dog, Bwana ,’ Mudenda says. ‘People came in the night and then left again. I know who they are, but I can’t say anything.’

‘Why not?’ Olofson asks.

‘My knowledge comes to me in visions, Bwana ,’ Mudenda replies. ‘Only sometimes can one reveal his visions. A vision can be turned into a poison that will kill my brain.’

‘Use your muloji ,’ Olofson says. ‘Create a counter-poison, tell me about your vision.’

‘No, Bwana ,’ Mudenda says.

‘Then you are fired,’ says Olofson. ‘At this instant your work on my farm is ended. By tomorrow, at dawn, you and your family must be out of your house. Now I’ll pay you the wages I owe you.’

He places a pile of notes on the table.

‘I will go, Bwana ,’ says Eisenhower Mudenda. ‘But I will come back.’

‘No,’ Olofson says. ‘Not if you don’t want the police to take you away.’

‘The police are black too, Bwana ,’ says Eisenhower Mudenda.

He picks up the stack of bank notes and vanishes into the white sunlight. A test of power between reality and superstition, thinks Olofson. I have to believe that reality is stronger.

That night he barricades himself in his house and again waits for something to happen. He sleeps fitfully on top of the covers of his bed. The dead and dismembered bodies of Werner and Ruth wake him time and time again. Exhausted and pale, he lets Luka in at dawn. Black rain clouds are looming on the horizon.

‘Nothing is as it should be, Bwana ,’ Luka says gravely.

‘What?’ Olofson asks.

‘The farm is silent, Bwana ,’ replies Luka.

Olofson gets into his car and drives quickly towards the hen houses. The work stations are abandoned. Not a person in sight. The eggs are ungathered, the feed chutes empty. Empty egg cartons lean against the wheels of the lorries. The keys are in the ignition.

The test of power, he thinks. The witch doctor and I appear in the arena. In a rage he gets back into his car. With screeching brakes he stops among the low mud houses. The men are sitting in groups at their fires, the women and children in the doorways. Naturally they’ve been waiting for me, he thinks. He calls over some of the older foremen.

‘Nobody is working,’ he says. ‘Why not?’

The reply is silence, hesitant glances, fear.

‘If everyone returns to work at once I won’t even ask the reason,’ he says. ‘No one will be fired, no one will have his wages docked. But everyone has to return to work now.’

‘We can’t, Bwana ,’ says one of the oldest foremen.

‘Why not?’ Olofson asks again.

‘Eisenhower Mudenda is no longer on the farm, Bwana ,’ the foreman goes on. ‘Before he left he called us together and said that every egg that is now laid is a snake egg. If we touch the eggs we will be bitten by poisonous fangs. The farm will be overrun with snakes.’

Olofson thinks for a moment. Words won’t help, he realises. He has to do something, something they can see with their own eyes.

He gets into his car and returns to the hen houses and gathers a carton of eggs. When he comes back he assembles the foremen around him. Without a word he crushes egg after egg, letting the whites and the yolks drip to the ground. The men shrink back, but he continues.

‘No snakes,’ he says. ‘Normal eggs. Who sees a snake?’

But the foremen are unreachable.

‘When we touch the eggs, Bwana , there will be snakes.’

Olofson holds out an egg, but no one dares touch it.

‘You will lose your jobs,’ he says. ‘You will lose your houses, everything.’

‘We don’t believe that, Bwana .’

‘Do you hear what I’m saying?’

‘The hens must have feed, Bwana .’

‘I’ll find other workers. People are queueing up to work on a white farm.’

‘Not when they hear about the snakes, Bwana .’