Хеннинг Манкелль - The Eye of the Leopard

Behan tells him that the auction of the farm will be held in a fortnight. Many whites are prospective bidders; the farm will not be allowed to fall into black hands.

There’s a war going on, Olofson thinks. A war that only occasionally becomes visible. But everywhere the racial hatred is alive — whites against the blacks and blacks against whites.

He returns to his farm. A violent downpour makes visibility through the windscreen nonexistent and forces him to stop on the verge just before the farm. A black woman with two small children crosses the road in front of the car, covered with mud and water. He recognises her as the wife of one of the workers on the farm. She doesn’t ask for a ride, he thinks. Nor do I offer her one. Nothing unites us, not even a fierce downpour, when only one of us has an umbrella. People’s barbaric behaviour always has a human face, he thinks vaguely to himself. That’s what makes the barbarity so inhumane.

The rain drums on the roof of the car; he waits alone for it to ease. I could decide here and now, he thinks. Decide to leave. Sell the farm, go back to Sweden. Exactly how much money Patel has weaseled out of me I have no idea, but I’m not penniless. This egg farm has given me a few years’ breathing space. Something about Africa scares me just as much now as the day I stepped out of the plane at Lusaka International Airport. Twenty years’ experience of this continent hasn’t changed a thing, since I never questioned white assumptions. What would I actually say if someone asked me to explain what is happening on this continent? I have my memories — adventurous, gruesome, exotic. But I don’t have any real knowledge.

The rain stops abruptly, a wall of clouds rises and the landscape starts to dry out again. Before he starts the engine he decides to spend an hour each day planning his future.

A perfect calm rests over the farm; nothing seems to have happened. By chance he encounters Eisenhower Mudenda, bowing to the ground. A white man in Africa is someone who takes part in a play he knows nothing about, he thinks. Only the blacks know the next line. Every evening he builds his barricades, checks his weapons, and chooses a different bedroom. Daybreak is always a relief, and he wonders how long he’ll be able to endure. I don’t even know my own breaking point, he thinks. But it must exist.

Lars Håkansson returns one afternoon, pulling up in his shiny car outside the mud hut. Olofson discovers that he’s glad to see him. Håkansson says he’ll stay two nights, and Olofson quickly decides to arrange his internal barricades in silence. They sit on the terrace at dusk.

‘Why does anyone come to Africa?’ Olofson asks. ‘Why does anyone force himself out of his own environment? I assume that I’m asking you because I’m so tired of asking myself.’

‘I hardly think that an aid expert is the right person to ask,’ Håkansson replies. ‘At any rate not if you want an honest answer. Behind the slick surface with its idealistic motives there’s a landscape of selfish and economic reasons. Signing a contract to work overseas is like getting a chance to become well-to-do while at the same time living a pleasant life. The Swedish welfare state follows you everywhere and is elevated to undreamed-of heights when it comes to well-paid aid experts. If you have children the Swedish state takes care of the best education opportunities; you live in a marginal world where practically anything is possible. Buy a car with duty-free import when you arrive in a country like Zambia, sell it on contract, and then you have money to live on and don’t need to touch your salary, which swells and flourishes in a bank account somewhere else in the world. You have a house with a pool and servants, you live as if you had shipped a whole Swedish manor house with you. I’ve calculated that in one month I earn as much as my maid in the house would make in sixty years. I’m counting what my foreign currency is worth on the black market. Here in Zambia there is probably not a single Swedish expert who goes to a bank and changes his money at the official rate. We don’t do as much good as our incomes would lead you to believe. The day the Swedish taxpayers fully realise what their money is going on, the sitting government will be toppled at the next election. The taxpaying Swedish working class has after many years accepted what is called ‘aid to underdeveloped countries’. Sweden, after all, is one of the few countries in the world where the concept of solidarity still holds power. But naturally they want their taxes used in the proper way. And that happens very rarely. The history of Swedish aid is a reef with innumerable shipwrecked projects on it, many scandalous, a few noticed and exposed by journalists, and even more buried and hushed up. Swedish aid smells like a pile of dead fish. I can say this because I feel that my own conscience is clear. After all, helping to develop communications is a way to bring Africa closer to the rest of the world.’

‘People used to talk about Sweden as the self-appointed conscience of the world,’ says Olofson from his chair in the dark.

‘Those days are long gone,’ says Håkansson. ‘Sweden’s role is insignificant; the Swedish prime minister who was murdered was possibly an exception. Swedish money is sought after, of course; political naïveté results in the fact that a huge number of black politicians and businessmen have amassed large private fortunes with Swedish aid funds. In Tanzania I talked with a politician who had retired and was old enough to say what he liked. He owned a castle in France which he had partially financed with Swedish aid money intended for water projects in the poorest parts of the country. He talked about an informal Swedish association among the politicians in the country. A group of men who met regularly and reported on how they most easily had been able to put aid money from Sweden into their own pockets. I don’t know if this story is true, but it’s possible, of course. That politician wasn’t particularly cynical, either. To be an African politician is a legitimate opportunity for developing capital. The fact that it eventually hurts the poorest people in the country is merely an unwritten rule of the game.’

‘I have a hard time believing what you’re saying,’ Olofson says.

‘That’s precisely why it’s possible for it to continue year after year,’ says Håkansson. ‘The situation is too incredible for anyone to believe, let alone do something about.’

‘One question is still unanswered,’ says Olofson. ‘Why did you come out here yourself?’

‘A divorce that was a mental bloodbath. My wife left me in the most banal way. She met a Spanish estate agent in Valencia. My life, which until then I had never questioned, was shattered as if a lorry had driven right into my consciousness. For two years I lived in a state of emotional paralysis. Then I left, went abroad. All my courage to face life had rusted away. I think I intended to go abroad and die. But I’m still alive.’

‘What about the two girls?’ Olofson asks.

‘It’s like I said. They’re most welcome. I’ll watch out for them.’

‘It’s a while yet before their courses start,’ Olofson says. ‘But I imagine they’ll need time to get settled. I thought I’d drive them down to Lusaka in a few weeks.’

‘Please do,’ says Håkansson.

What is it that’s bothering me? Olofson wonders. An uneasy feeling that scares me. Lars Håkansson is a reassuring Swede, honest enough to tell me that he’s taking part in something that could only be described as scandalous. I recognise his Swedish helpfulness. And yet there’s something that makes me nervous.

The next day they both go to visit Joyce Lufuma and her daughters. When Olofson tells the eldest daughters, they start dancing with joy. Håkansson stands by, smiling, and Olofson realises that a white man’s solicitude is a guarantee for Joyce Lufuma. I’m worrying for nothing, he thinks. Maybe because I don’t have any children of my own. But this too represents a truth about this contradictory continent. For Joyce Lufuma, Lars Håkansson and I are the best conceivable guarantee for her daughters. Not merely because we are mzunguz , rich men. She has an utterly unwavering trust in us, because of our skin colour.