Хеннинг Манкелль - The Eye of the Leopard

‘There are a lot of people living here. She must be somewhere.’

‘I don’t understand what you mean.’

‘Then we won’t talk about it any more.’

‘I don’t even know what she looks like.’

‘You’ve seen pictures, though.’

‘But they’re twenty-five years old. People change. Would you recognise her if she came walking down the street?’

‘Of course I would.’

‘The hell.’

‘Then we won’t talk about it any more.’

‘Why have you never tried to find her?’

‘You don’t run after people who just up and leave like that.’

‘But she was your wife! My mother!’

‘She still is.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We never got divorced.’

‘You’re still married?’

‘I should think so.’

When they reach Strandvägen and there’s still half an hour to go before nine o’clock, Hans takes his father into a café.

‘Do they serve pilsner here?’

‘No pilsners. You’ll have coffee. And now let’s take it from the top. I’m twenty-five years old, I’ve never seen my mother other than in bad photographs. I don’t know a thing about her except that she got fed up and left. I’ve wondered, I’ve worried, I’ve missed her and I’ve hated her. You’ve never said a word. Not one word.’

‘I’ve been thinking about her too.’

‘What?’

‘I’m not that good with words.’

‘Why did she leave? You must know. You must have brooded about it for as long as I have. You didn’t get a divorce, didn’t remarry. In some way you’ve continued to live with her. Deep inside you’ve been waiting for her to come back. You must have some explanation, don’t you?’

‘What time is it?’

‘You have to answer!’

‘She must have been someone else.’

‘What do you mean, “someone else”?’

‘Someone other than I thought.’

‘And what exactly did you think?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘Good Lord.’

‘It won’t do any good to worry about it.’

‘For twenty-five years you haven’t had a woman.’

‘What do you know about that?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘That has nothing to do with it. What time is it? You have to show up on the dot with ship owners.’

‘So who?’

‘If you really want to know, I’ve met Nyman’s wife from time to time. But you keep your mouth shut about it. Nyman’s a nice bloke.’

Hans can’t believe his ears. ‘Are those my sisters and brothers?’

‘Who?’

‘Nyman’s children. Are they my sisters and brothers?’

‘Those are Nyman’s children.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘We only saw each other when she was pregnant,’ Erik says simply. ‘You learn these things. There can never be shared paternity.’

‘And you expect me to believe this?’

‘I don’t expect anything. I’m just telling you the truth.’

Hans stays in the café while his father visits the ship owner. My father, he thinks. I evidently never knew a thing about him.

After half an hour Erik comes back.

‘How’d it go?’

‘Good. But I didn’t get a job.’

‘So it didn’t go so well then.’

‘They said they’d let me know.’

‘When?’

‘When they need seamen.’

‘I thought they needed to hire people now?’

‘They must have hired someone else.’

‘Are you satisfied with that?’

‘I’ve been waiting for years,’ says Erik with sudden sharpness. ‘I’ve waited and wished and almost given up. But now at least I’ve tried.’

‘What are we going to do now?’

‘I’m going home tonight. But now I want to have a pilsner.’

‘What are we going to do for the rest of the day?’

‘I thought you were studying at the university.’

‘I am. But now you’re here in town and we haven’t seen each other for a long time.’

‘How are your studies?’

‘All right.’

I see.’

‘You didn’t answer my question.’

‘What question?’

‘What do you want to do today?’

‘I already told you. I want a pilsner. Then I’ll go home.’

They spend the day in the hotel room. A pale autumn sun shines through the curtains.

‘If I find her,’ says Hans, ‘what should I say?’

‘Nothing from me,’ Erik says firmly.

‘What was her name before you married?’

‘Karlsson.’

‘Mary Karlsson or Mary Olofson from Askersund? Anything else?’

‘She had a dog named Buffalo when she was a child. I remember she told me that.’

‘That dog must have been dead for fifty years by now.’

‘Its name was Buffalo anyway.’

‘Is that all you know?’

‘Yep.’

‘A goddamn dog named Buffalo?’

‘That’s what it was called, I remember that clearly.’

Hans accompanies him to the train. I’m going to look for her, he thinks. I can’t have a mother who’s a riddle. Either he’s lying, hiding something, or else my mother is a strange woman.

‘When are you coming home?’ his father asks.

‘In the summer. Not before. Maybe you’ll be a seaman again before that, what do you think?’

‘Could be. Could be.’

Hans takes the train with him as far as Uppsala. He has the moose steak under his arm.

‘So who’s poaching?’ he asks.

‘Nobody you know,’ says Erik.

Hans goes back to the house of the clocks. I can’t give up, he thinks. Nothing can really prevent me from becoming the defender of mitigating circumstance. I’ll build barricades inside of me.

I can’t give up.

He sees the dead snake.

What is it saying? What message does it bring? Sorcerers interpret their ancestors’ voices, and the black masses huddle in terrified submission. He knows he should get going, leave the farm, leave Africa.

Suddenly it’s incomprehensible to him. Almost twenty years in Africa. An unreal, unbelievable life. What was it I thought I could achieve? Superstition is real, that’s what I always forget. I keep deceiving myself with the white point of view. I’ve never been able to grasp the way the blacks think. I have lived here for almost twenty years without realising on what ground I’m actually standing. Ruth and Werner Masterton died because they refused to understand.

With a feeling that he is no longer able to cope, he gets into his car and drives to Kitwe. So he can get some sleep he checks into the Hotel Edinburgh, pulls the curtains and lies naked on top of the sheet. A violent thunderstorm passes through and the lightning flashes flicker across his face. The torrent pounds like the surf against the window.

Suddenly he longs for home, a melancholy hunger for the clear water of the river, the motionless ridges of firs. Maybe that was what the white snake wanted to tell him. Or was it giving him his last warning?

I ran away from my own life, he thinks. In the beginning there was possibility; growing up with the smell of elkhounds, that may have been meagre but that was still my very own heritage. I could have worked towards realising an ambition, watching over the mitigating circumstance. Chance events that were stronger than I was created my confusion. I accepted Judith Fillington’s offer without understanding what it really involved. Now that I’ve already taken off my shoes in the vestibule of middle age, I’m afraid that my life is shipwrecked. There is always something else I want. Right now to go back, to start over from the beginning if it were possible.

Restlessly he gets dressed and goes down to the hotel bar. He nods to some familiar faces and discovers Peter Motombwane in a corner, bent over a newspaper. He sits down at his table without telling him about the events at the farm.