Kennedy's Brain

by Mankell Henning

  She tried to watch a film during the night when all the lights had been turned off, but she was constantly being distracted. She pulled the blanket up to her chin, tilted her seat backwards and closed her eyes.

  Almost immediately she gave a start and opened them again in the darkness. What was it she had asked herself? How do you search for something somebody else has been searching for? She was incapable of thinking the question through, it eluded her. She closed her eyes again. She occasionally dozed off, but twice clambered over the sleeping woman by her side to fetch a glass of water.

  Over the tropics they hit a patch of turbulence, the whole aeroplane shuddered, the seat belt light came on. She looked out of the window and saw that they were passing over a violent thunderstorm. Flashes of lightning bored holes through the darkness, as if somebody were holding a giant welding gun in his hands. Vulcan, she thought, in his smithy, hammering away at his anvil.

  As dawn broke she saw the first faint strips of light on the horizon. She had breakfast, felt her angst clenching its fist in her stomach, and was eventually able to make out the brownish-grey countryside down below. But wasn't Africa supposed to be lush green? What she could see looked more like a desert, or fields of burnt stubble.

  She hated landing, it always scared her. She closed her eyes and took tight hold of the armrests. The aircraft thudded down onto the tarmac, slowed down, swung round towards one of the terminal buildings and came to a halt. She remained seated, preferring not to jostle with the rest of the passengers who seemed in a tremendous hurry to get out of their cage. The African heat with all its strange smells filtered slowly through the sterile airconditioning system. She started to breathe again. The heat and the smells reminded her of Greece, even though the details were different. This was not thyme and rosemary. Different spices, perhaps pepper or cinnamon, she thought. The smoke from wood fires.

  She left the aircraft, followed the transfer signs and had her ticket checked. The man behind the desk asked for her passport. He thumbed through it, then looked at her.

  'You don't seem to have a visa?'

  'I was told that I could buy one at the airport in Maputo.'

  'Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't.'

  'What happens if I can't?'

  The man behind the desk shrugged. His black face was dripping with sweat.

  'In that case you are welcome to spend your time here in South Africa. As far as I know there isn't a single lion or leopard or even a hippo in Mozambique for you to see.'

  'I haven't come here to look at animals!'

  I'm screeching, she thought with a sigh. I'm using my tired and shrill voice. I'm exhausted, I'm sweaty, my son is dead. How will he be able to understand that?

  'My son is dead,' she said out of the blue, an unexpected piece of information that nobody had asked for.

  The man behind the desk frowned.

  'You're bound to get your visa in Maputo,' he said. 'Especially if your son is dead. I'm sorry to hear about that.'

  She went to the large departure lounge, exchanged some money for South African rands, and drank a cup of coffee. Looking back, she would recall the hours she spent at the airport in Johannesburg as one long wait, shut inside a vacuum. She could remember no sounds, no music from invisible loudspeakers, no announcements about impending departures or safety regulations. Nothing but unbroken silence, and a vague glimmer of colours.

  Least of all could she remember any people. It was only when she heard the announcement: 'South African Airways flight 143 to Maputo', that she was hurled back into the real world.

  She fell asleep from sheer exhaustion and woke up with a start when they landed in Maputo. She could see through the window that it was greener here. But still pale, shabby, a desert scantily covered by sparse grass.

  The landscape reminded her of Aron's thinning hair on the crown of his head.

  The heat hit her like a clenched fist as she left the aeroplane and walked to the terminal. The bright sunlight forced her to screw up her eyes. What the hell am I doing here? she thought. I'm going to look for a girl called Lucinda. But why?

  She was able to purchase a visa with no problems, although she had a strong suspicion that she had been charged far too much for the stamp in her passport. Sweat was pouring off her as she stood beside her suitcase. I must make a plan, she thought. I need a car and I need a hotel, most of all a hotel.

  A black man in a uniform was standing next to her. He had a badge saying Hotel Polana. He saw that she was looking at him.

  'Hotel Polana?'

  'Yes.'

  'Your name?'

  'I haven't booked a room.'

  By then she had managed to read his name: Rogerio Mandlate.

  'Do you think there might be a room for me even so, Mr Mandlate?'

  'I can't promise anything.'

  She was driven off in a minibus together with four white South African men and women. The city was frazzling in the heat. They passed through extremely deprived areas. People everywhere, children, mainly children.

  It occurred to her that Henrik must have travelled along this road as well. He had seen the same sights as she was seeing. But had he thought the same thoughts? There was no way of knowing. She would never have an answer.

  The sun was directly overhead when she arrived at the white, palatial hotel. She was given a room with a view over the Indian Ocean. She adjusted the air conditioning in an attempt to cool the room down, and thought about the bitterly cold mornings in Härjedalen. Extreme heat and extreme cold balance each other out, she thought. I learned in Greece that I could tolerate the extreme heat because my body was used to the other extreme. Both Härjedalen and Greece have conditioned me to survive this ridiculously hot climate.

  She undressed, stood naked in the cold air coming from the contraption on the wall, then stepped into the shower. She slowly washed away that long flight.

  Then she sat down on the bed, switched on her mobile and rang Aron. There was no reply, just a voice requesting her to try again later. She stretched out on the bed, pulled the thin cover over her body and fell asleep.

  When she woke up she had no idea where she was. The room was distinctly cool, the clock showed ten minutes to one. She had slept for over three hours, deeply, dreamlessly. She got up, dressed, and could feel that she was hungry. She locked away her and Aron's passports plus most of her money in the safe and tapped in a code, the first four numbers of Artur's telephone number, 8854. She ought to ring him and tell him where she was, but first she needed to have something to eat, and find out what it was like to be in a country she knew absolutely nothing about.

  The only thing in the attractive lobby that reminded her that she was in Africa was several black women shuffling around, dusting. Nearly all the guests were Europeans. She went to the dining room and ordered a salad. She looked round. Black waiters and waitresses, white customers. She found a bank where she could change some money. She explored the hotel. There was a newsstand where she could buy a map of Maputo and a guidebook to Mozambique. In another part of the hotel she discovered a casino. She did not go in, merely peered in at the solitary overweight men operating the one-armed bandits. She walked round the rear of the hotel, past the large swimming pool, down towards the railings marking the limit of the hotel grounds that sloped down towards the beach and the sea. She stood in the shade of an awning. The sea reminded her of the Aegean, the same shade of turquoise, glinting in similar fashion in the bright sun.

  A waiter appeared at her side, and asked if she wanted anything. My son, she thought. I want Henrik alive, and Aron's voice on the telephone, telling me that all is well.

  She shook her head. The waiter had broken her train of thought.

  She walked to the front of the hotel, which faced a car park. Street vendors were flocking outside the hotel entrance. She hesitated for a moment, then continued onto the pavement, past the street vendors with their sculptures made of aromatic sandalwood, their giraffes, playful elephants, little stora
ge boxes, chairs and carved statuettes of people with grotesque faces. She crossed over the street, noted that there was an Avis office on the corner, then walked down a wide avenue named, to her surprise, after Mao Tse-tung.

  A group of street children sat round a fire of burning rubbish. One of them came rushing up to her, his hand outstretched. She shook her head and increased her pace. The boy was an old hand: he did not follow her, but gave up immediately. It's too soon, she thought. I'll cope with the beggars later.

  She turned off into a street with less traffic, then into another one with high walls on each side and behind them dogs barking angrily. The street was deserted, it was the hottest part of the day, siesta time. She was very careful about where she stepped – the paving stones were cracked and potholed. She wondered if it would be possible to walk along these streets after dark.

  Then she was mugged. There were two of them, and they crept up on her from behind. Without a sound one of the men wrapped his arms around her and restricted her movements, the other one pressed a knife against her cheek. She noticed that his eyes were red, his pupils dilated, he was drugged up to the eyeballs. His English consisted mainly of the word fuck. The man pinning her arms to her side, whose face she could not see, shouted into her ear: 'Give me money.'

  A cold shiver ran through her, but she managed to keep the shock at bay. She replied slowly: 'Take whatever you want. I shall not resist.'

  The man behind her snatched her handbag from her left shoulder, and started running away. She never saw his face, gathered only that he was barefooted, his clothes were in rags and he ran very fast. The man in front of her with the dilated pupils stabbed her under the eye, then ran off. He was also barefoot.

  They were both about Henrik's age.

  Then she started screaming. But nobody seemed to hear her, the only sign of life was the invisible dogs behind the high walls. A car approached. She stood in front of it, waving her arms. Blood was pouring from underneath her eye, dripping down onto her white blouse. The car stopped, apparently hesitantly: she saw that the driver was a white man. She continued screaming and ran towards the car. It backed away at racing speed, turned on a sixpence and vanished. She started to feel dizzy, could no longer repress the shock.

  This was something that Aron could have prevented, damn him. He ought to have been here, protecting me. But he's gone, everybody's gone.

  She slumped down onto the pavement and breathed deeply in order not to faint. When a hand touched her shoulder she screamed loudly. It was a black woman. She was holding a basket of peanuts in her hands, smelled strongly of sweat, her blouse was ragged, the length of fabric wrapped round her body filthy.

  Louise tried to explain that she had been mugged. The woman obviously did not understand, she said something in her own language and then in Portuguese.

  The woman helped Louise to her feet. She came out with the word 'hospital', but Louise insisted 'Polana, Hotel Polana'. The woman nodded, took a firm hold of Louise's arm, balanced the basket of peanuts on her head, and supported the invalid as they started walking. Louise staunched the flow of blood with a handkerchief. The wound was not deep, not really much more than a scratch. But she felt as if the knife had penetrated deep into her heart.

  The woman by her side smiled encouragingly. They came to the hotel entrance. Louise had no money, what she had was in the handbag the muggers had stolen. She opened her arms wide, and the woman shook her head. She was smiling all the time, her teeth were white and even, and she walked off down the street. Louise watched her disappear into the sun-drenched haze.

  When she had got as far as her room and washed her face, everything collapsed. She fainted and fell onto the bathroom floor. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious when she eventually came to. Perhaps only a couple of seconds.

  She lay motionless on the tiled floor. From somewhere or other came the sound of a man laughing, then shortly afterwards a woman squealing in delight. Louise stayed on the floor, thanking her lucky stars that she had not been seriously injured.

  Once, when she was very young and been on a visit to London for a few days, a man had approached her one evening, grabbed hold of her and tried to force her into a doorway. She had kicked and screamed and bitten her way free. That was the last time she had been exposed to violence.

  Was it her own fault? Ought she to have established if it was safe to wander along the streets, even in daylight? No, it was not her fault. She refused to accept responsibility for it. The fact that her attackers had been barefoot and dressed in rags was no excuse for stabbing her in the face and stealing her handbag.

  She sat up. Then got to her feet slowly, and lay down on the bed. She shuddered. She was like a fragile vase that had shattered; the pieces whirling all round her. She realised that Henrik's death had caught up with her. Now she was facing collapse, there was nothing that could keep her in one piece. She sat up in bed in a vain attempt to offer resistance, but then lay down again and just let it hit her.

  The tidal wave she had heard about, the wave that nobody could depict, the wave that developed into a fury that nobody could imagine. I have tried to catch up with him. Now I'm in Africa. But he's dead, and I don't know why I'm here.

  First came the wave, and then impotence. She stayed in bed for more than twenty-four hours. When the chambermaid unlocked the door in the morning, Louise raised her hand and rejected service. There was water in bottles on the bedside table. All she ate was an apple she had taken with her from Madrid.

  At some point during the night she got up, walked to the window and looked out over the illuminated garden with the glittering swimming pool. Beyond that was the bay, a lighthouse flashing through the darkness, and lanterns swaying on invisible fishing boats. A solitary security guard was patrolling in the garden. Something reminded her of Argolis, of the excavations in Greece. But she was a long way away from there, and she wondered if she would ever return. In fact, was there any possibility of her continuing her life as an archaeologist?

  I am as dead as Henrik. A human being can be turned into a ruin once during his or her life, but not twice. Is that why Aron vanished? Because he was afraid of being changed again into a hammer with the task of annihilating me?

  * * *

  She went back to bed. She occasionally dozed off. It was afternoon before she began to feel that her strength was coming back. She took a bath, then went downstairs to eat. She sat outside, under an awning. It was hot, but there was a cooling breeze off the sea. She studied the local map she had bought. She soon found her hotel, but it took her much longer to locate the district known as Feira Popular.

  When she had finished her meal she sat down on a bench in the shade cast by a tree and watched some children playing in the swimming pool. She had her mobile in her hand, and eventually made up her mind to call Artur.

  His voice came from another world. There was a time lag between what they said. They collided, and started speaking simultaneously.

  'Odd that I can hear you so well when you are so far away.'

  'Australia was even further away.'

  'Is everything OK?'

  She was on the point of telling him that she had been mugged, and for a brief moment she felt the urge to lean on his shoulder and cry. But she restrained herself, and said nothing.

  'The hotel I'm staying at is like a palace.'

  'I thought Mozambique was a poor country.'

  'Not for everybody. Being rich opens your eyes to all those who have nothing.'

  'I still don't understand what you are intending to do.'

  'Like I said. I'm going to look for Henrik's girlfriend, a girl called Lucinda.'

  'Have you heard anything from Aron?'

  'I've heard nothing from him nor about him. He's still missing. I think he's been killed.'