The Shadow Girls

by Henning Mankell

  ‘Here’s my counter-offer,’ Lundin said. ‘First you write the thriller, then we can talk about this immigrant book.’

  Humlin was enraged by Lundin’s complete lack of vision.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘First the immigrant book. Then we’ll talk about the thriller.’

  ‘The oil executives are not going to be pleased to hear that.’

  ‘Quite frankly I don’t give a damn what they say. I just don’t understand what makes you so cynical.’

  ‘I’m not cynical.’

  ‘You despise these girls.’

  ‘I don’t even know them. How could I despise them?’

  Two men carrying a ladder entered the room at this point. Lundin signalled that their conversation was at an end.

  ‘I will think this over since you are so stubborn about it. Call me tomorrow.’

  Humlin got up.

  ‘There’s nothing to think about. We do as I say or we don’t do anything.’

  He left Lundin’s office and walked down the hall with the soft red carpet and stepped into an office where an older man by the name of Jan Sundström worked. He handled international sales. One of Humlin’s earliest works had been translated into both Norwegian and Finnish. Then there had been nothing for nine years until one book was translated into Egyptian and naturally did very poorly. Sundström was an anxious man who viewed it as a personal victory every time he managed to place a book abroad.

  ‘Norway has shown some interest,’ he said when he saw Humlin. ‘There’s no need to abandon hope just yet.’

  Humlin sat down across from him. He respected Sundström’s opinion.

  ‘What do you think of a book about immigrants? A novel about some immigrant girls and their – in my opinion – rather remarkable stories?’

  ‘That sounds like a wonderful idea.’

  Sundström got up nervously and closed the door.

  ‘I must say I was rather surprised when I heard all this about you writing a murder mystery. What’s happening to the world of Swedish literature?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not writing a murder mystery.’

  ‘But I spent all morning in a long marketing meeting about it. They’re counting on huge international sales. I have to say I think you could have spelled out a little more of the plot.’

  Humlin stared at him.

  ‘What plot?’

  Sundström dug around in the mass of papers on his desk and pulled out a piece of paper. Humlin read the text with a rising sense of desperation.

  ‘Jesper Humlin, one of the most important poets of our time, has taken on the task of renewing the crime novel and giving this genre a deeper philosophical bent. The plot takes place in Sweden with travels to a dark and cold Helsinki as well as bright and warm locales in Brazil. No more shall be said about the actual details of the novel here, but it may be assumed that the protagonist bears a striking resemblance to the author himself . . .’

  Humlin was so furious he started to shake and turn red.

  ‘Who the hell has written this?’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘Me? Says who?’

  ‘Olof.’

  ‘I am going to kill him. I haven’t written this. I don’t understand where this came from.’

  ‘It was Olof who gave us a copy of the text. He said it had been dictated to him by you over a mobile phone line. Apparently it was a little hard to hear what you were saying.’

  Humlin was so angry he couldn’t sit still. He left the office, ran through the hallway and threw open Lundin’s door. But the workmen were the only people still in there. At the reception downstairs Humlin was told that Lundin had just left the building for a meeting and was not expected until the following day.

  ‘Where is he?’ Humlin demanded.

  ‘He is in a closed meeting, sir.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘That is classified information. Is it important?’

  ‘No,’ Humlin said. ‘I’m just going to kill him.’

  *

  The same evening Humlin finally had a long conversation with Andrea about their relationship. He was still fuming over the text he had read at the publishing house. He had left a number of irate messages on Lundin’s voice mail. Now he forced himself with some difficulty not to think about the thriller he was never going to write and to focus on Andrea. He immediately felt pressed into a corner.

  ‘You aren’t listening to me,’ she began.

  He stared at her.

  ‘What do you mean? You haven’t said anything yet.’

  ‘You’re not listening.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m doing.’

  ‘Well, how is it going to be?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know what I mean. We have a relationship. It’s been going on for many years. I want to have a child. I want you to be the father of that child. If you don’t want a child I have to ask myself if I should look around for another man.’

  ‘I want to have children too. I just don’t know if now is the right time.’

  ‘For me it is.’

  ‘But I am in the middle of changing my authorial profile right now. I’m not sure I can combine that with the responsibilities of fatherhood.’

  ‘You are never going to change anything about your profile,’ she said. ‘You are always going to be how you are right now. And important decisions regarding anyone but yourself will always be very low on your list of priorities.’

  ‘I don’t think this will take more than a year.’

  ‘That’s too long.’

  ‘At the very least I need a few more months.’

  ‘Are you going away again?’

  ‘I’m trying to write a book about those girls in Gothenburg.’

  ‘I thought the whole point was that they were going to do that for themselves? Why else are they doing this writing seminar?’

  ‘I’m not sure they’re up to the task of doing it themselves.’

  ‘Why are you doing this then?’

  ‘I’m trying to get the stories out of them, help them. You aren’t listening to me.’

  ‘It sounds to me like you’re stealing something.’

  ‘I’m not stealing anything. But one of the girls is a pickpocket.’

  ‘You’re still stealing their stories. But that’s not what we were talking about. I can’t wait for you to make up your mind. Not for ever.’

  ‘Can’t you give me a month?’

  ‘I want us to settle this now.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  Andrea got up from the kitchen table.

  ‘Then as far as I’m concerned our relationship looks like it’s ending.’

  ‘Do you always have to be so dramatic? Every time we have a serious talk it’s as if I’ve been thrown into a play where I haven’t even picked my own part.’

  ‘I am not particularly dramatic. In contrast to you I simply say what’s on my mind.’

  ‘So do I.’

  Andrea looked down at him.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m beginning to wonder if you’ve ever really said what you think. I don’t think there’s room for anyone in your head except yourself.’

  She left the kitchen and slammed the door. In her anger and disappointment she also turned off the light. Humlin was left in the dark. He pushed aside all thoughts of Andrea and the child she wanted to have and wondered what Tea-Bag was doing right now. He tried to imagine ten thousand people hidden in church cellars and the like, but without success. He lay down on the couch in the study where Tea-Bag’s sheets were still bundled. It was as if everything inside him had stopped. Thoughts of Lundin kept him from sleeping.

  *

  The following day Andrea called him with an ultimatum.

  ‘One month,’ she said. ‘Not a day more. Then we have to decide if we have a future together or not.’

  The rest of the morning he walked around the apartment and worried about what was going to happen. Later in the afternoon he went out to buy the
evening papers.

  *

  Tea-Bag was sitting in the stairwell when he opened the door. He frowned at her.

  ‘Why don’t you ring the doorbell?’ he asked. ‘I don’t want the neighbours to see you. They will start to wonder.’

  Tea-Bag walked straight to the kitchen and sat down in her thick coat. She shook her head when he asked her if she wanted some coffee.

  ‘If you ask me anything I’m leaving,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not going to ask you anything.’

  ‘When are you going back to Gothenburg?’

  ‘I haven’t decided yet.’

  Tea-Bag was restless and clearly worried. She stood up and Humlin thought she was going to take off.

  ‘Where can I find you?’ he asked.

  ‘You can’t.’

  She hesitated. Humlin sensed that he could use the moment to ask her one of the most pressing questions he had.

  ‘You tell me I’m not allowed to ask you anything,’ he said. ‘But I’m not sure that’s completely true. Maybe you actually want me to ask you questions. There is one thing I’d like to know. And after all you have spent the night here. You and I were on our way to Gothenburg when you left the train. You had been telling me about how you came to Sweden. You told my girlfriend a slightly different story. But they are probably connected somehow. I know this is hard for you.’

  She flinched as if he had hit her.

  ‘It’s not hard,’ she said.

  Humlin took a few steps back.

  ‘But things haven’t been easy for you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It can’t be easy living under a church.’

  Her smile died away.

  ‘You know nothing about me.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘Don’t feel sorry for me. I’m not a victim. I hate pity.’

  Tea-Bag took off her thick coat and laid it on the ground. Her movements were very slow.

  ‘I have a brother,’ she said. ‘I had a brother.’

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Humlin waited. Then the words started coming, finding their way with care, as if the story she had to tell could only be told slowly and with the utmost care.

  *

  I have a brother. He is dead, but I have to think of him as if he is still alive. When he was born I was old enough to know that babies didn’t simply arrive in the middle of the night; that babies were not simply old people who had gone into the forest, spoken with a god and returned as newborns. He was the first sibling that I understood had come from my mother’s body.

  My brother was given the name Mazda. Two days before he was born a truck branded with that name had overturned outside the village, spilling its contents, and my father had carried home two big bags of cornmeal. Mazda, who started crying every morning at dawn just like a cockerel, learned to walk when he was only seven months old. He had crawled earlier and faster than any other child my mother had had or heard of. He had crawled over the sand as fast as a snake. Then at seven months he got up and ran. He never walked. It was as if he knew even then that his time on earth would be limited. His feet could move like no one had seen before.

  Everyone knew there was something special about Mazda. He wasn’t like other children. But no one knew if his life would turn out well or not. The year he was six there was no rain. The earth turned brown and my father spent a lot of time shouting to his unseen enemies from the roof. My mother stopped speaking and we often went to bed hungry.

  It was then, one morning when we had looked in vain for signs in the sky that promised rain, that the woman with the blue hair came walking into the village. No one had ever seen her before. She smiled and her body rocked as she walked, as if she had an invisible drum inside that beat a rhythm for her to dance to. She must have been a stranger from very far away; no one recognised the dances she did. But she could speak our language and glitter fell from her hands and she stopped in the middle of the village. Right by the tree where my father and the other men held their meetings to decide important matters about the problems that inevitably arise when people live so close to one another.

  She stood there and simply waited. Someone ran off and told my father and the other men that a strange woman with blue hair had come to our village. My father was the first to arrive. He stood some distance from her and looked her over. Since she was very beautiful he went home and changed his shirt. The chief of our village, called Mbe, did not have good eyesight and did not like strangers turning up in our village. My father and the other men tried to explain to him that glitter fell from this woman’s hands and that her hair was completely blue and it was probably wise to find out why she had come. So Mbe reluctantly allowed himself to be led over to her and asked the woman to approach him. Then he smelled her.

  ‘Tobacco,’ he announced. ‘She smells of cigarettes.’

  The woman understood him. She took out a packet of thin brown cigarettes and gave them to Mbe, who immediately had one lit for him. Then he asked her who she was, what her name was and where she was from. I was hovering in a group with the other children, as curious as they were, and I heard her say that her name was Brenda and that she had come to help us. Then Mbe shouted out – and he had a strong voice although he was nearly blind – that all women and children should leave at once. He wanted to listen to what Brenda had to say in the company of wise men alone.

  The women did as he asked but hesitantly and with grumbles. Afterwards, when Brenda was resting in one of Mbe’s huts, my father came back and whispered things to my mother for a long time. Mazda seemed restless. It was as if he knew that their conversation had to do with him. We became quiet and fearful when we heard them quarrelling. I still remember all that was said.

  ‘You cannot know who she is.’

  My mother was the one who said that, and her voice was filled with a despair I had never heard there before.

  ‘Mbe says we can trust her. A woman with blue hair is special.’

  ‘How can he know she has blue hair? He’s blind.’

  ‘Don’t shout. We told him about it so he can see what he cannot see.’

  ‘Maybe she eats children.’

  This remark I remember especially well. Mazda stiffened and was so afraid that he bit my hand.

  *

  Tea-Bag held out her hand. Humlin saw the scars from a bite on her wrist.

  *

  It hurt so much I hit him. He curled up in the sand with his head buried in his hands. Shortly afterwards my father came over and said that Mazda had to go with him. Brenda was gathering children from the poverty-stricken villages so that they could go with her to the city and go to school. She paid in cash – father had seen the money himself. What he had first assumed was a drum strapped to her waist had turned out to be a crocodile skin filled with money. After Mazda went to the city he would be able to send money home each month. After going to school he would be able to get a job so good that no one in the family would ever need to worry again about rains that didn’t come and rivers that dried up.

  *

  Tea-Bag stopped her storytelling abruptly, got up and left the kitchen. It was as if she was running from the shadows of her parents’ house, Humlin thought. He followed her out into the living room, but when he saw that she had gone to the bathroom he returned to wait for her in the kitchen. After a while Tea-Bag came back.

  ‘Why do you follow me?’ she asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You were following me when you went to that church in the Valley of the Dogs and you were following me just now when I went to the bathroom.’

  Humlin shook his head, but felt as if he had been found out.

  ‘The Valley of the Dogs?’

  ‘That’s where the church is.’

  ‘Why do you call it the Valley of the Dogs?’

  ‘I saw a dog there one time. A lone dog. It was as if I was seeing myself. It didn’t have anywhere to go. It had not
come from anywhere. You followed me there. And just now you were standing outside the bathroom door.’

  ‘I was worried that you weren’t feeling well.’

  She looked at him incredulously. But then she picked up her story as if nothing had happened.

  *

  A few years later, when my mother had had another son that she had also named Mazda since she was certain that the woman with the blue hair had eaten him up, a man came to the village. His name was Tindo. He told us what had really happened. Tindo was tall and had a beautiful face. All the girls in the village immediately fell in love with him. He came to help us plant our crops in the fields. Mbe had died by then and we had a new chief by the name of Leme. In the evenings I would hide in the shadows and listen to the elders talking. That evening I was hiding behind Leme’s hut. The conversation turned to the woman who had called herself Brenda and who had collected children to take to the city.

  ‘She probably ate them,’ Leme said without trying to hide the fact that he was upset. ‘She gave us money. When one is poor even a little money is a lot.’

  ‘No one in this country eats children,’ Tindo said.

  When Tindo spoke it was as if he was singing. Even when he told them about the pain that Mazda had endured. Tindo knew about the men without conscience who sent out women to collect children from the poorest and most desperate villages. They offered money and promises of schooling and an end to poverty. But no schools awaited the children who were taken to the city. There were simply dark containers where the air was as hot as fire, there were dark stinking cargo holds in rusty ships that left the harbour with the lights turned off. There were long marches where the children were whipped if they tried to run away.

  ‘Leme, I know how much what I am telling you will haunt you,’ Tindo said finally. ‘Especially the question if and how you should tell the parents that they will never see their children again. But nothing is ever improved by concealing the truth. These children were taken away in slave caravans. Long lines of frightened children were herded over the mountains to the lands on the other side where the delicate and most valuable crops grow. There they were locked in huts and kept under constant surveillance. They worked at night and received only one small meal a day. When they no longer had the energy to work they were thrown out onto the city streets to beg for subsistence. No one has ever heard of any one of these children returning. Ever.’