The Eye Of The Leopard

by Henning Mankell

  'You're thinking about something,' she says. 'I can tell by your face. Your lips are moving as if you're talking to someone. But I can't hear what you're saying.'

  'I'm not thinking,' he says. 'What would I be thinking about? Maybe I'm incapable of thinking!'

  'You don't have to talk if you don't want to,' she says.

  Again he thinks that he's going to go over to her and undo the sash of her robe. Instead, he borrows a jumper from her and vanishes into the frosty landscape of autumn.

  At the People's Hall, Superintendent Gullberg's wife is busy cleaning up. She peevishly opens the back door when he knocks. His coat is still hanging on its hook like an abandoned skin. He hands her his cloakroom number.

  'How can anyone forget his coat?' she asks.

  'It's possible,' replies Hans Olofson and leaves. He realises that there is a kind of forgetfulness that is quite vast.

  The seasons change, the river freezes over and then one day floods its banks. No matter how much his father chops at them, the fir forests remain motionless on the horizon. The tram clatters across the bridge, and season after season Hans trudges to Janine's house. The river of knowledge on which he floats, year after year, reveals no Goal to him. But he keeps waiting.

  He stands outside Janine's house. The notes from her slide trombone trickle out through a half-open window. Every day he stands there and every day he decides to untie the sash of her robe. More and more often he chooses to visit her when he can expect her not to be dressed. Early on Sunday mornings he knocks on her door; other times he stands on her steps long past midnight. The sash tied around her robe glows like fire.

  But when it finally happens, when he grabs with fumbling fingers for her sash, there is nothing that reminds him of what he had imagined.

  It's a Sunday morning in May, two years after he left the horse dealer. The evening before, he was pushed and shoved on the dance floor. But this time he left early, long before Superintendent Gullberg angrily began flashing the lights and Kringström's band started to pack up their instruments. Suddenly he decided he'd had enough, and so he left. For a long time he roamed around in the light spring night before slipping past Egg-Karlsson's door and crawling into bed.

  He wakes early and drinks coffee with his father in the kitchen. Then he goes over to Janine's house. She lets him in and he follows her into the kitchen and loosens her sash. Softly they sink to the floor, like two bodies falling through the sea on their way to a distant bottom. Roughly they unite around each other's desire. This desire had never been completely extinguished for Janine on Hurrapelle's penitential bench. For a long time she feared that it would dry up one day, but her hope never ran out.

  At last Hans steps out of himself, out of his introverted powerlessness. For the first time he feels that he holds life in his hands; from behind his forehead Sture lies motionless in his bed and watches what's happening with a smile.

  But neither of them has any idea that passion is a faithless master when they fling their limbs around each other on the kitchen floor. Now there is only great relief. Afterwards they drink coffee. Hans steals a glance at her and wishes she would say something.

  Is she smiling? And her thoughts? The hands on the wall clock wander their mute circuit. A moment not to forget, he thinks. Possibly life is more than just trouble and suffering after all. Possibly there is also something else. A moment not to forget ...

  Chapter Eighteen

  In a black-and-white photograph he is standing next to Peter Motombwane.

  Behind them is the white wall of the house, and the picture has been taken in bright sunlight. A lizard sits motionless on the wall beside Peter Motombwane's head. It will wind up being part of their shared portrait.

  Both of them are laughing in the picture, at Luka holding Peter's camera. But why did he want to have the picture? Why did Peter suggest that they take the photograph? He can't remember.

  One day Hans Olofson invites his foremen to dinner in his house. Mutely they sit at his table, devouring the food as if they hadn't eaten in a very long time, drinking themselves quickly into a stupor. Olofson asks questions and gets one-syllable replies.

  Afterwards he asks Luka to explain. Why this reluctance? This sulky silence?

  'You are a mzungu, Bwana,' says Luka.

  'That's no answer,' says Olofson.

  'It is an answer, Bwana,' says Luka.

  One of the workers who cleans the feed supply and hunts rats falls from the stacked-up sacks and lands so badly that he breaks his neck. The dead man leaves behind a wife and four daughters in a wretched mud hut that Judith once had ordered built. Her name is Joyce Lufuma, and Olofson begins going to her house quite often. He gives her a sack of maize, a chitenge, or something else she needs.

  Sometimes, when he is very tired, he sits down outside her house and watches the four daughters playing in the red dirt. Maybe this is my lasting contribution, he thinks. Aside from all my great plans, to help these five women.

  But usually he keeps his weariness under control, and one day he gathers his foremen and tells them that he will give them cement, bricks, and roofing metal so that they can repair their houses, maybe even build new ones. In return he requires that they dig pits for their refuse and build covered toilet pits.

  For a short time he seems to see an improvement. Then everything is the same as it was before. Rubbish whirls across the red earth. The old roofing metal suddenly reappears. But where are the new materials he bought? He asks but receives no answer.

  He discusses this with Peter Motombwane as they sit on his veranda in the evenings, and he tries to understand. He realises that Peter Motombwane is his first black friend. It has taken four years.

  Why Motombwane first came to visit him on the farm he has no idea. He stood in the doorway and said he was a journalist, that he wanted to write about the egg farm. But Olofson never read anything about it in the Times of Zambia.

  Motombwane returns and never asks Olofson for anything, not even a tray of eggs. Olofson tells him about his grand plan. Motombwane listens with his serious eyes fixed on some point above Olofson's head.

  'What sort of answer do you think you'll get?' he asks, when Olofson is finished.

  'I don't know. But what I do has to be right.'

  'You'll hardly get the answers you're hoping for,' says Motombwane. 'You're in Africa now. And the white man has never understood Africa. Instead of being surprised you're going to be disappointed.'

  Their conversations are never concluded, because Peter Motombwane always breaks off unexpectedly. One moment he is sitting in one of the deep soft chairs on the terrace, and the next he has stood up to say goodbye. He has an old car, and only one rear door will open. To get behind the wheel he has to crawl over the seats.

  'Why don't you fix the doors?' Olofson asks.

  'Other things are more important.'

  'Does the one have to exclude the other?'

  'Sometimes, yes.'

  After Motombwane has visited him he feels restive. Without being able to explain what it is, he feels that he has been reminded of something important, something he always forgets.

  But other people come to visit too. He gets to know an Indian merchant from Kitwe named Patel.

  On an irregular basis and without any apparent logic, various necessities suddenly vanish in the country. One day there's no salt, another day no newspapers can be printed because there's no paper. He remembers what he thought when he first arrived in Africa: on the black continent everything is in the process of running out.

  But through Patel he can get hold of whatever he needs. From hidden storerooms Patel fetches whatever the white colony requires. Along unknown transport routes the scarce goods are brought into the country, and the white colony can get what it needs for a reasonable additional fee. In order not to provoke the wrath of the blacks and risk seeing his shop plundered and burned down, Patel makes personal visits to the various farms to hear whether anything is needed.

  He nev
er comes alone. He always has one of his cousins with him, or a friend from Lusaka or Chipata who happens to be visiting. They're all named Patel. If I shouted that name I'd be surrounded by a thousand Indians, thinks Olofson. And they would all ask whether there was anything I needed.

  I can understand their caution and fear. They are hated more than the whites, since the difference between them and the Africans is so striking. In the shops they have everything that the blacks so seldom can afford to buy. And everyone knows about the secret storerooms, everyone knows that their great fortunes are smuggled out of the country to distant bank accounts in Bombay or London. I can understand their fear. Just as clearly as I can understand the blacks' hatred.

  One day Patel stands outside his door. He's wearing a turban and smells of sweet coffee. At first Hans Olofson doesn't believe in accepting the dubious privilege that Patel offers him. Mr Pihri is enough, he thinks.

  But after a year he gives in. He's been without coffee for a long time. He decides to make an exception, and Patel returns to his farm the next day with ten kilos of Brazilian coffee.

  'Where do you get hold of it?' Olofson asks. Patel throws out his hands and gives him a sorrowful look.

  'So much is in short supply in this country,' he says. 'I'm only trying to relieve the worst of the shortages.'

  'But how?'

  'Sometimes I don't even know myself how I do it, Mr Olofson.'

  Then the government introduces harsh currency restrictions. The value of the kwacha drops dramatically when the price of copper falls, and Olofson realises that he will no longer be able to send money to Judith Fillington as required in their contract.

  Once again Patel comes to his rescue.

  'There's always a way out,' he says. 'Let me handle this. I ask only twenty per cent for the risks I'm taking.'

  How Patel arranges it Olofson never knows, but each month he gives him money and a receipt comes regularly from the bank in London, confirming that the money has been transferred.

  During this period Olofson also opens his own account in the London bank, and Patel withdraws two thousand Swedish kronor monthly as his fee.

  Olofson notices an increasing unrest in the country, and this is confirmed when Mr Pihri and his son begin to pay more frequent visits.

  'What's going on?' Olofson asks. 'Indian shops are being burned down or plundered. Now there's talk of the danger of rioting, because there isn't any maize to be had and the blacks have no food. But how can the maize suddenly run out?'

  'Unfortunately there are many who smuggle maize to the neighbouring nations,' says Mr Pihri. 'The prices are better there.'

  'But aren't we talking about thousands of tonnes?'

  'The ones who are smuggling have influential contacts,' replies Mr Pihri.

  'Customs officials and politicians?'

  They are sitting in the cramped mud hut talking. Mr Pihri lowers his voice.

  'It may not be wise to make such statements,' he says. 'The authorities in this country can be quite sensitive. Recently there was a white farmer outside Lusaka who mentioned a politician by name in an unfortunate context. He was deported from the country within twenty-four hours. The farm has now been taken over by a state cooperative.'

  'I just want to be left in peace,' says Olofson. 'I'm thinking of those who work here.'

  'That's quite as it should be,' says Mr Pihri. 'One should avoid trouble for as long as possible.'

  More and more frequently there are forms that have to be filled out and approved, and Mr Pihri seems to be having a harder and harder time fulfilling his self-imposed obligations. Olofson pays him more and more, and he sometimes wonders whether it's really true, what Mr Pihri tells him. But how can he check?

  One day Mr Pihri comes to the farm accompanied by his son. He is very solemn.

  'Perhaps there is trouble coming,' he says.

  'There's always trouble,' says Olofson.

  'The politicians keep taking new decisions,' says Mr Pihri. 'Wise decisions, necessary decisions. But unfortunately they can be troublesome.'

  'What's happened now?'

  'Nothing, Mr Olofson. Nothing.'

  'Nothing?'

  'Nothing really, not yet, Mr Olofson.'

  'But something is going to happen?'

  'It's not at all certain, Mr Olofson.'

  'Only a possibility?'

  'One might put it that way, Mr Olofson.'

  'What?'

  'The authorities are unfortunately not very pleased with the whites who live in our country, Mr Olofson. The authorities believe that they are sending money out of the country illegally. Of course this also applies to our Indian friends who live here. It is suspected that taxes are not being paid as they should be. The authorities are therefore planning a secret raid.'

  'What are you talking about?'

  'Many police officers will visit all the white farms at the same time, Mr Olofson. In all secrecy, of course.'

  'Do the farmers know about this?'

  'Of course, Mr Olofson. That's why I'm here, to inform you that there will be a secret raid.'

  'When?'

  'Thursday evening next week, Mr Olofson.'

  'What shall I do?'

  'Nothing, Mr Olofson. Just don't have any papers from foreign banks lying about. And especially no foreign currency. Then it could be quite troublesome. I wouldn't be able to do anything.'

  'What would happen?'

  'Our prisons are unfortunately still in very poor condition, Mr Olofson.'

  'I'm very grateful for the information, Mr Pihri.'

  'It's a pleasure to be able to help, Mr Olofson. My wife has been mentioning for a long time that her old sewing machine is causing her a great deal of trouble.'

  'That's not good, of course,' says Olofson. 'Isn't it true that there are sewing machines in Chingola at the moment?'

  'I've heard it mentioned,' replies Mr Pihri.

  'Then she ought to buy one before they're gone,' Olofson says.

  'My view precisely,' replies Mr Pihri.

  Olofson shoves a number of notes across the table.

  'Is the motorcycle all right?' he asks young Mr Pihri, who has been sitting quietly during the conversation.

  'An excellent motorcycle,' he replies. 'But next year there's supposed to be a new model coming out.'

  His father has taught him well, Olofson thinks. Soon the son will be able to take over my worries. But part of what I will be paying him in future will always fall to the father. They ply me well, their source of income.

  Mr Pihri's information is correct. The following Thursday two broken-down Jeeps full of police officers come driving up to the farm just before sundown. Olofson meets them with feigned surprise. An officer with many stars on his epaulettes comes up on to the terrace where Olofson is waiting. He sees that the policeman is very young.

  'Mr Fillington,' says the policeman.

  'No,' Olofson replies.

  Serious confusion results when it turns out that the search warrant is made out in the name of Fillington. At first the young officer refuses to believe what Olofson says, and in an aggressive tone he insists that Hans Olofson's name is Fillington. Olofson shows him the deed of transfer and title registration, and at last the police officer realises that the warrant he is holding in his hand is made out to the wrong person.