Хеннинг Манкелль - The Eye of the Leopard

Mutshatsha, he thinks. What remains other than you?

The Swedish sky is heavy on that early morning in September 1969 when he leaves all his former horizons behind him and flies out into the world. He has spent his savings and bought the ticket that will fling him out into the upper layers of the air, his dubious pilgrimage to the Mutshatsha of Janine’s dreams.

A motionless sky, an endless wall of clouds hangs over his head, as for the first time in his life he boards an aeroplane. When he walks across the tarmac the dampness soaks into his shoes. He turns around as if someone were there after all to wave goodbye to him.

He observes his fellow passengers. None is on his way to Mutshatsha, he thinks. Right now that is the one thing I know for sure. With a slight bow Hans Olofson makes the ascent up into the air. Twenty-seven hours later, precisely according to the timetable, he lands in Lusaka. Africa receives him with intense heat. No one is there to meet him.

A night watchman comes towards him with a cudgel in his hand. Olofson can see that he is very afraid. Two big German shepherds are running restlessly back and forth across the poorly lit courtyard.

Suddenly he feels a raging disgust at being always surrounded by nervous watchdogs and high walls with crushed glass cemented on top. I travel from one white bunker to the next, he thinks. Everywhere this terror.

He knocks on the door of the servants’ quarters and Peggy answers. She lets him in, and behind her is Marjorie, and they laugh with joy that he has come. And yet he notices at once that something is wrong. He sits down on a chair and listens to their voices in the tiny kitchen where they are fixing tea for him.

I forget that I’m a mzungu even to them, he thinks. Only with Peter Motombwane did I succeed in experiencing a completely natural relationship with an African. He drinks tea and asks how they’re getting along in Lusaka.

‘It’s going well,’ replies Marjorie. ‘ Bwana Lars is taking care of us.’

He doesn’t tell them about the attack in the night, but asks instead whether they are homesick. When they reply that they aren’t, he again senses that something is wrong. There’s an uncertainty behind their usual happiness. Something is troubling them. He decides to wait until Håkansson comes back.

‘Tomorrow I’ll be in town all day,’ he says. ‘We can take the car and drive in to Cairo Road and go shopping.’

As he leaves he can hear them locking the door. In an African village there are no locks, he thinks. It’s the first thing we teach them. Locking a door gives a false sense of security.

The night watchman comes towards him again, his cudgel in hand.

‘Where is Bwana Lars?’ Olofson asks.

‘In Kabwe, Bwana .’

‘When is he coming back?’

‘Maybe tomorrow, Bwana .’

‘I’ll stay here tonight. Open the door for me.’

The night watchman vanishes in the darkness to fetch the keys. I’m sure he’s buried them, Olofson thinks. He strikes one of the German shepherds who sniffs at his leg. Whimpering, it retreats. In this country there are innumerable dogs trained to attack people with black skin, he thinks. How does one train a dog to exhibit racist behaviour?

The night watchman unlocks the house. Olofson takes the keys and locks the door from the inside. First the wrought-iron gate with two padlocks and a crossbar with another lock. Then the outer door with three locks and three deadbolts.

Eight locks, he thinks. Eight locks for my nightly slumber. What was it that was bothering them? A homesickness they’re afraid to admit? Or something else? He turns on the lights in Lars Håkansson’s big house, walks through the tastefully furnished rooms. Everywhere there is shiny stereo equipment, and he lets the music flow from hidden loudspeakers.

He selects a guest room with a bed made up with clean sheets. I feel more secure here than on my own farm, he thinks. At least I think I do, because no one knows where I am.

He takes a bath in a shiny bathroom, turns off the music, and climbs into bed. Just as he is about to slip off into sleep, he is suddenly wide awake. He thinks again about Marjorie and Peggy, and his feeling that something is not quite right. He tries to convince himself that Africa has made him far too sensitive in his judgement, that after all these years he thinks he sees terror in everyone’s face.

He gets up and goes through the house, opening doors, studying the titles in the bookshelves and a drawing of a link station hanging on a wall in Håkansson’s office. Everything is in perfect order. Lars Håkansson has established himself in Africa without a speck of dust, with everything in its place. He pulls out drawers and sees underwear in meticulously arranged piles. One room has been converted to a photography studio; behind another door he finds an exercise bicycle and a table tennis table.

He returns to the big living room. He hasn’t found anything that gives a picture of Håkansson’s past. Nowhere does he see pictures of children or an ex-wife. He imagines that Håkansson makes use of the fact that Africa is a long way from Sweden. The past is the past; nothing needs to remind him unless he wants it to.

He pulls out a drawer in a chiffonier. It contains stacks of photographs. Only when he aims a lamp on them does he see what they depict. Pornographic pictures of black subjects. Pictures of sexual intercourse, individual poses. Everyone in the photos is very young. Peggy and Marjorie are there. Helplessly vulnerable.

Among the pictures is a letter, written in German. Olofson manages to decipher that it’s from a man in Frankfurt thanking Håkansson for the photos he supplied; he wants more and says that three thousand D-marks will be transferred to a bank in Liechtenstein, according to their agreement.

Olofson is scared by his rage. Now I’m capable of anything, he thinks. This fucking man to whom I gave my greatest trust, who has duped or threatened or enticed my black daughters to do this. He doesn’t deserve to live. Maybe he also forces himself on them, maybe one or both are already pregnant.

He takes out the pictures of Peggy and Marjorie and stuffs them in his pocket, slams the drawer shut and decides. Through a window that’s kept open at night he speaks to the night watchman and finds out that Håkansson is staying at the Department Guest House, near the big military bases in Kabwe, on the southern approach to the city.

Olofson gets dressed and leaves the house. The night watchman is surprised to see him get into his car.

‘It’s dangerous to drive that far at night, Bwana ,’ he says.

‘What’s dangerous about it?’ Olofson asks.

‘Men steal and murder, Bwana ,’ says the night watchman.

‘I’m not afraid,’ Olofson says.

It’s true, too, he thinks as he turns out through the gate. What I’m experiencing now is a feeling that’s stronger than all the terror I’ve lived with for so long.

He leaves the city, forcing himself not to drive too fast; he doesn’t want to risk colliding with an African car with no headlights.

I let myself be deceived so easily, he thinks. I meet a Swede and immediately lean on his shoulder. He stood outside my house, asking to buy a hill on my property, and somehow he gained my trust. He was prepared to place a house at the disposal of Peggy and Marjorie much too readily. What did he give them? Money or threats? Or both? There really isn’t any punishment for it, he thinks. But I want to know how anyone can behave as he does.

Midway between Lusaka and Kabwe he comes to a military roadblock. He slows down and stops at the checkpoint. Soldiers in camouflage uniforms and helmets walk towards him in the floodlights, automatic weapons raised. He rolls down his window and one of the soldiers bends down and looks inside the car. Olofson notices that the soldier is very young and very drunk. He asks where Olofson is heading.