Kennedy's Brain

by Henning Mankell

  Christian Holloway nodded thoughtfully. He was watching her all the time. Louise had the impression that he was conducting a conversation with himself about what he saw and heard.

  'I could never have imagined that such an outstanding young man with so much lively energy inside him would die before his time.'

  'Isn't energy always lively?'

  'No. A lot of people drag around burdens comprising unused energy, and that weighs heavily on their lives.'

  Louise decided not to beat about the bush.

  'Something happened here that changed his life.'

  'Nobody who comes here can avoid being affected. Most people are shocked, some run away, others decide to be strong and stay.'

  'I don't think it was the sick and dying people that changed him.'

  'What else could it have been? We look after people who would have died alone in ramshackle huts, in the gutter, among the trees. Animals would have started eating their bodies before they even had time to die.' 'It was something different.'

  'One can never fully understand a person, be it oneself or somebody else. That no doubt applies to Henrik as well. The inner being of a person is a landscape reminiscent of what this continent looked like 150 years ago. Only the areas along the coasts and rivers had been explored, the rest was endless blank patches where it was thought there were cities made of gold and creatures with two heads.'

  'I know that something happened. But I don't know what.'

  'Something is always happening here. New people are carried in, others are buried. There is a cemetery here. We have the priests we need. No dogs will come to chew dead people's bones before we have them interred.'

  'A man I spoke to yesterday is no longer there. He must have died during the night.'

  'For some reason, most of them die at dawn. It's as if they want to be able to see where they are going as they die.'

  'How often did you meet Henrik while he was here?'

  'I never meet people very often. Twice, perhaps three times. No more.'

  'What did you talk about?'

  'As I have learned to remember only things of note, I very seldom remember afterwards what was said. People are often boring and uninteresting. I don't think we ever talked about important things. A few words about the heat, the weariness that affects us all.'

  'Did he never ask any questions?'

  'Not of me. He didn't seem to be that sort of person.'

  Louise shook her head.

  'He was one of the most inquisitive and curious people I have ever met. I can say that despite the fact that he was my son.'

  'The questions one asks here are on a different, inner plane. When you are surrounded on all sides by death, questions are always concerned with the meaning of everything. And they are questions you ask yourself, in silence. Living means having the will to resist. In the end the hunter ants will find their way into your body even so.'

  'Hunter ants?'

  'Many years ago I spent some months in a remote village up in north-western Zambia. There had been Franciscan monks there earlier, but they had left in the mid-1950s and established themselves further south, between Solwezi and Kitwe. What was left of their buildings had been taken over by a couple from Arkansas who wanted to create a spiritual oasis, unconnected to any particular religion. That was where I came into contact with hunter ants. What do you know about them?'

  'Nothing.'

  'Not many people do. We imagine that beasts of prey are powerful. Perhaps not always especially big, but rarely as small as ants. One night I was alone with the guards when I was woken up by shouts in the darkness outside, and a belting on my door. The guards had torches they had used to set fire to the grass. I had nothing on my feet when I went outside. Immediately I felt shooting pains in my feet. I didn't understand what it was. The guards shouted that there were ants, armies of hunter ants were on the march. They eat everything in their path and there is no stopping them, but by setting fire to the grass you can force them to change direction. I put my boots on, fetched a flashlight and saw angry little ants in perfect formation marching by. Suddenly there was a deafening cackling from the henhouse. The guards tried to catch the hens and chase them out, but it was already too late, it went incredibly quickly. The hens tried to defend themselves by eating the ants, but they were still alive in the hens' stomachs and started eating their insides. Not a single hen survived. They were running around in agony as their guts were being eaten by the ants. I've often thought about that. The hens put up resistance, and by doing so ensured that they would suffer an agonising death.'

  'I can imagine what it must be like to be bitten by hundreds of ants.'

  'I wonder if you really can. I certainly can't. One of the guards got a stray ant inside his ear. It was biting away at his eardrum. The guard was screaming with pain until I poured whisky into his ear and killed the ant. One single ant, less than half a centimetre long.'

  'Do you get those ants here in Mozambique?'

  'They exist all over the African continent. They appear after heavy rain, never at other times.'

  'I find it hard to understand the comparison between life and having ants crawling inside your body.'

  'It's the same as it was for the hens. The tragedy of life is brought to its culmination by the human being him or herself. It doesn't come from the outside.'

  'I don't agree.'

  'I know that there are gods for sale or for borrowing when the pain becomes too great, but that way has never brought me any consolation.'

  'Instead, you try to divert the ants? Drive them as far away as possible?'

  Holloway nodded.

  'You're following my train of thought. Naturally, that doesn't mean that I delude myself into thinking that I shall succeed in resisting the final tragedy. Death is always by our side. The real waiting rooms of death are the wards where women give birth to children.'

  'Did you ever tell Henrik about the ants?'

  'No. He was too weak. The story could have given him nightmares.'

  'Henrik was not weak.'

  'Children don't always act for their parents in the same way as they do when they meet people they don't know. I know that because I have children myself. Despite everything they stretch a thin film of meaning over life.'

  'Are they here?'

  'No. Three are in North America and one is dead. Like your son. I also have a son who died before his time.'

  'In that case you know how painful it is.'

  Holloway looked at her long and hard. He rarely blinked. Like a lizard, she thought. A reptile.

  She shuddered.

  'Are you cold? Shall I turn down the air con?'

  'I'm tired.'

  'The world is tired. We live in an old, rheumatic world, despite the fact that it's teeming with children wherever we turn. Children everywhere while we two sit here and mourn those who chose to give their lives away.'

  It took a moment or two for her to realise the implication of what he had said.

  'Did your son take his own life?'

  'He lived with his mother in Los Angeles. One day when he was on his own, he emptied the swimming pool, climbed up to the highest of the diving boards and threw himself off it. One of the security guards heard him screaming. He didn't die right away, but it was all over before the ambulance came.'

  The waiter in white appeared in the doorway. He gave a signal. Holloway stood up.

  'Somebody needs my advice. That is in fact the only thing I think is important: supporting people by listening and perhaps being able to offer advice. I'll be back in a moment.'

  Louise walked over to the wall and studied the Madonna. It was an original. She realised that it must have been painted by a Byzantine master in Greece during the twelfth or early thirteenth century. No matter how Christian Holloway got hold of it, it must have cost a vast amount of money.

  She wandered round the room. The computer screens were glowing. Both screen savers depicted dolphins jumping out of a turquoise sea. One of t
he desk drawers was half open.

  She could not resist the temptation. She opened it fully. At first she could not make out what was in it.

  Then it dawned on her that it was a dried brain. Small, shrivelled, probably human.

  She closed the drawer. Her heart was pounding. A dried brain. Kennedy's missing brain.

  She went back to her chair. Her hand was shaking when she lifted her teacup.

  Was there a connection between Henrik's obsession with what had happened in 1963 in Dallas, and what she had discovered in the drawer of Christian Holloway's desk? She forced herself to back off. Her conclusion was too simple. Imagined pieces of pot fell into place in imagined patterns. She did not want to be a drunken archaeologist who had gone berserk. The shrivelled brain in the drawer had nothing to do with Henrik. At least, she had no grounds for assuming that it had, until she knew more.

  The door opened, Holloway came back.

  'I apologise for keeping you waiting.'

  He looked her in the eye and smiled. At that moment Louise was convinced that somehow or other he had watched her exploring his office – perhaps there was a peephole in the wall? Or a camera she had failed to notice? He had watched her examining the painting and opening the desk drawer. It had been halfway open, in order to tempt her. No doubt he had left the room to see how she reacted.

  'Perhaps you could give me some advice, too,' she said, forcing herself to keep calm.

  'I can always try.'

  'It's about Henrik and your son. We share an experience that all parents are terrified of.'

  'Steve did something in a moment of fury and desperation. Henrik fell asleep in his bed, if I understand the situation rightly. Steve turned outwards. Henrik turned inwards. Those are two different ways.'

  'Even so, they both led in the same direction.'

  Steve. The name brought a vague memory to life. She had stumbled upon it previously, but could not remember when or where. Steve Holloway?

  She thought hard but came up with nothing.

  She changed tack. Perhaps it was the other way round. Perhaps Holloway knew no more than he said he did, but was trying to prise information out of her, through her questions?

  You ask questions about what you do not know. You do not ask about what you do know.

  She had no desire to stay there any longer. Christian Holloway and his secret peephole scared her. She stood up.

  'I won't disturb you any longer.'

  'I'm sorry I haven't been able to be of help.'

  'You've tried, at least.'

  He accompanied her to her car in the scorching heat.

  'Drive carefully. Drink plenty of water. Are you going back to Maputo?'

  'I might stay here until tomorrow.'

  'The beach hotel in Xai-Xai is simple, but usually clean. Don't leave anything valuable in your room. Don't hide anything in the mattress.'

  'I've already been robbed once, in Maputo. I'm careful. The first thing I was forced to acquire here was eyes in the back of my head.'

  'Were you hurt?'

  'I gave them what they wanted.'

  'This is a poor country. People rob and steal in order to survive. We'd have done the same in their situation.'

  She shook hands and sat down behind the wheel. The black dog was still lying in the shade.

  She watched in the rear-view mirror as Holloway turned round and went back to his house.

  When she got back to her hotel room, she fell asleep. It was already dark by the time she woke up.

  Where had she seen the name Steve before? She knew she had come across it somewhere. But Steve was a common name, like Erik in Sweden or Kostas in Greece.

  She went down to the dining room to eat. The albino was still sitting by the wall, playing his xylophone. The waiter was the same one as had served her breakfast that morning. In answer to her question he informed her that the instrument was called a timbila.

  When she had finished her dinner she remained seated. Insects were buzzing around the light over her table. There were not many people in the dining room. Some men were drinking beer, a woman with three children was eating in total silence. Louise slid the coffee cup to one side and ordered a glass of red wine instead. It was ten o'clock by now. The albino stopped playing, slung his instrument over his shoulder and disappeared into the darkness. The woman with the three children paid her bill then waddled off like a ship with three lifeboats tied to its stern. The men carried on talking. In the end they left as well. The waiter started clearing up. She paid and went out into the night air. The water was glistening in the beam of a single light.

  The whistle was very faint, but she heard it immediately. She looked hard into the shadows beyond the circle of light. The whistle was repeated, just as softly. Then she saw him. He was sitting on an upturned fishing boat. She thought of the silhouettes in Henrik's bag. The man waiting for her could have been cut out of the darkness in similar fashion.

  He slid down from the boat and beckoned her to follow him. He walked towards the remains of a building that had once been a beach kiosk. Louise had noticed it earlier in the day. The name was still legible in the crumbling concrete: Lisboa.

  When they came closer she saw that a fire was burning inside the ruined building. The man knelt down by the fire and added some twigs. She sat opposite him. In the glow she could see how thin he was. His skin seemed to be stretched tightly over his cheekbones. He had wounds on his forehead which had not healed.

  'You don't need to worry. Nobody's followed you.'

  'How can you be so sure?'

  'I was watching you for ages.'

  He gestured into the darkness.

  'There are others keeping a look out as well.'

  'Who?'

  'Friends.'

  'What do you want to tell me? I don't even know your name.'

  'I know that you are called Louise Cantor.'

  She wanted to ask how he knew her name, but realised she was hardly likely to get a reply, just a vague gesture into the darkness.

  'I find it hard to listen to people whose names I don't know.'

  'I'm called Umbi. My father named me after his brother who died when he was young, working in the South African mines. A shaft collapsed. His body was never found. I shall also be dead shortly. I want to talk to you because the only thing left for me in this life, the only thing that might be meaningful, is to prevent others from dying in the same way as me.'

  'I gather you have Aids?'

  'I have the poison in my blood. Even if all my blood were to be drained away the poison would remain.'

  'But aren't you getting help? Drugs that delay the onset of the illness?'

  'I get help from those who don't know anything.'

  'I don't follow you.'

  Umbi did not reply. He added more wood to the fire. Then he whistled quietly into the darkness. The faint whistle that followed in response seemed to reassure him. Louise began to feel uncomfortable. The man sitting on the other side of the fire was dying. For the first time she realised the significance of someone being on the way out. Umbi was on the way out from life. His stretched skin would soon split.