Daniel

by Henning Mankell

  They walked forward to the altar rail. Daniel wanted to climb inside the choir but Hallén held him back.

  ‘Not yet,’ he said.

  Daniel looked at the cross. Hallén watched him from the side. The boy was searching for something that was missing.

  ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘The water.’

  ‘The water?’

  ‘He could walk on the water.’

  Hallén nodded. Actually the boy’s knowledge didn’t please him. He had wanted to exercise his power by converting this black child: transform the savage into a human being. Now someone seemed to have already begun this work.

  ‘Did you see him in the desert? Was there a church there?’

  ‘My name is Daniel. I believe in God. Where is the water?’

  Hallén tried to read his thoughts. He could understand that a person from the desert would talk about water, but what was Daniel actually looking for? Hallén decided to proceed carefully. In the drab monotony that was his daily work the boy might still offer him the challenge he had been missing for so long.

  ‘I’m going to tell you about the water, but first I want to hear about you. Where you come from. And why you don’t want to wear shoes on your feet.’

  Daniel didn’t answer. He kept searching for the water. Hallén waited.

  ‘I’m very patient. There’s no hurry. Why don’t you want to wear shoes?’

  ‘They’re heavy.’

  ‘Shoes are indeed heavy. But if you get cold you might get sick.’

  Daniel said nothing more. Hallén kept asking questions but got no more answers. Nylander, the sexton, came in.

  ‘I have a visitor,’ said Hallén, who detested Nylander. They had been chafing at each other for far too many years. He often looked forward to the day when he could bury Nylander.

  ‘I’ve seen him. People are wondering what he’s doing here.’

  ‘The church is here for everyone. The paths that lead from on high are inscrutable. Also, I don’t want you to keep storing your aquavit underneath the baptismal font.’

  Nylander did not reply, but left the church. Hallén could hear the clatter of spades. Nylander had to dig a grave for an old farmer who had died of gangrene.

  Hallén kept waiting, but Daniel remained silent. He was looking everywhere for what was missing.

  Hallén waited for half an hour, then he decided to show the boy even greater patience. It would take a long time to get close to him.

  ‘Come back here tomorrow,’ he said. ‘If you answer my questions I’ll tell you about the water.’

  Daniel bowed, took his clogs in his hand, and went out of the church door. Hallén went into the sacristy and sat down. Through one of the narrow windows he could see Nylander digging. Hallén immediately felt himself growing irritated. Nylander was lazy. He worked far too slowly. A man digging a grave should do his work with power and tenacity.

  He closed his eyes and imagined that he was in a desert where black people were gathered around him for prayer. He had a white pith helmet on his head and he was very young.

  Daniel ran from the church to the hill behind the house. When he got there Sanna was sitting and digging in the mud. He was happy to see her.

  ‘I saw you. You were at the church. What were you doing there?’

  ‘I asked the pastor about the water.’

  ‘What water?’

  ‘The water Jesus walked on.’

  Sanna stopped digging. Her fingers were caked with dried mud. Daniel couldn’t tell whether she had heard what he said. She took his hands and ran her finger over the back of one of them. She cautiously scraped at his skin.

  ‘You’re black. I can’t scrape it off. Wasn’t he afraid?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The pastor! He must have thought you were a real devil who had climbed down from the wall.’

  Her hands were rough with clay, but Daniel liked the way she held his hands. She didn’t want anything from him, like everyone else who held his hands. She just wanted to hold them. For the first time since he had found Kiko and Be dead in the sand he had discovered something that really made him elated. Father had betrayed him, leaving him as far from the sea as he could, but maybe the girl named Sanna would help him find it again.

  She kept examining his hands. She searched in the lines of his palm, flicked at his fingernails, squeezed hard.

  ‘If we had children they would be grey,’ said Daniel.

  She gave a loud, shrill laugh. ‘We can’t have children,’ she shrieked. ‘You’re only a child and I’m crazy.’

  She leaned in close to him. She smelled of sweat, but there was also something sweet that reminded him of honey.

  ‘I hear voices in the mud,’ she said. ‘All those people down there are whispering. I can’t help it. I hear them. Only me. Do you hear anything?’

  Daniel listened.

  ‘You have to put your head to the ground.’

  Daniel pressed his cheek and ear to the ground.

  ‘Not your ear,’ she whispered. ‘You can only hear the people down there if you listen with your mouth or your nose.’

  Daniel pressed his face to the ground. But he could only hear through his ears. The wind was whining and the birds shrieking.

  ‘You’ll have to teach me,’ he said.

  ‘I’m too stupid to teach anything.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Everybody.’

  Daniel wondered what stupidity actually meant. The girl who sat holding his hands made him feel quite calm. Even though he still couldn’t see the sea, her eyes seemed to glisten with seawater. Maybe she could tell him what direction to go in to find the sea. A person like that couldn’t be stupid.

  ‘Actually I’m not supposed to be here,’ she said all of a sudden.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I might get lost.’

  Daniel didn’t understand the word lost.

  ‘I don’t know what that is.’

  She laughed harshly again.

  ‘Then you’re even stupider than me. If you go away and can’t find your way home, you sit out in the dark and scream for help but nobody hears. Then you freeze to death. When they find you, you’re so stiff that they’d have to break off your legs to get you into the coffin.’

  Daniel sat silently pondering what she had said. Finally he had found a word for what he felt. What she was describing applied to him. He didn’t know where to go. Even though it wasn’t dark and he hadn’t frozen to death, he was still lost.

  He decided to memorise that word. Some day, when he was old and moved away from the others in the desert, he would remember it. Everything that had happened the time he got lost. Everything that by then might have fallen away and become a mysterious memory.

  ‘I like being quiet,’ said Sanna.

  She still hadn’t let go of his hands. Daniel was starting to get chilly because the ground he was sitting on was cold, but he didn’t want to move. He didn’t want Sanna to let go.

  ‘I do too,’ Daniel said.

  ‘There are so many kinds of quiet. When you’re just about to fall asleep. Or when you’re running so fast that all you can hear is your own heart.’

  She leaned her head against his chest and closed her eyes.

  ‘Do you have a heart too?’ she said in surprise. ‘I didn’t think the Devil did. Damn! I thought there was only a sooty chimney inside the chest of Satan.’

  Daniel gave a start. She had said the word that Father always used when he was angry or impatient. He didn’t like it. The word scared him.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  She let go of his hands and began to slap him in the face. When he tried to protect himself she stopped.

  ‘I don’t like people who lie. You lied. You were thinking of something. ’

  ‘I was wondering where the sea is.’

  ‘What do you want with the sea?’

  ‘I want to go home.�
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  ‘You can’t walk on the sea like it was a road. You’d sink, you’d drown. And float back up with eels swimming out of your eyes.’

  Daniel could tell that Sanna was starting to get restless. She looked around, kicked at the dirt and spat. He thought that she too was a stranger, who came from somewhere far away, even though she wasn’t black. She didn’t look like any of the people he had met when he was with Father. Maybe she was on her way somewhere too, even though she didn’t know that it was possible to walk on water.

  Suddenly she pulled up her dress. She was naked underneath. There was thick black hair between her legs. She pulled down her dress again.

  ‘Now it’s your turn,’ she said.

  Daniel stood up and pulled down his trousers. Since he was cold, his member had shrunk. He pulled on it.

  ‘You shouldn’t do that,’ Sanna shrieked. ‘You shouldn’t touch yourself or it will fall off. On me it would turn into a big wound.’

  Daniel quickly pulled his trousers back up. Sanna stared at him. Then she turned round and ran off. Daniel ran after her. Sanna stopped, picked up a rock and threw it at him.

  ‘You can’t come with me,’ she shouted. ‘Or I’ll get a beating.’

  The rock hit Daniel on the cheek and made a cut that bled. She was holding another bigger rock in her hand.

  ‘I’ll throw it,’ she yelled. ‘Don’t follow me.’

  She turned and kept running. Daniel stood looking after her. He didn’t know what had happened. If Father had thrown a rock at him, he would have been afraid, but he wasn’t now. She wasn’t angry with him. She was angry with somebody else.

  The next day the wind was blowing hard across the brown fields. During the night he had had a dream about the oxen who had pulled him and Father through the desert towards the city where the ship was waiting. The animals were buried in sand. Only their heads were visible. They had bellowed in terror and then the sand had slowly covered their heads too. He stood looking at the animals. He wanted to help them, dig away the sand with his hands, but his hands were gone. His arms were like dry branches hanging down from his shoulders.

  The dream had yanked him out of sleep. At first he didn’t know where he was. Then he heard the milkmaids sniffling and the hired hand muttering and passing wind. He lay utterly still in the darkness and tried to understand what the oxen buried in the sand were trying to tell him. Without being able to explain why, he knew that Be was behind the dream. She was the one who had sent it to him. But he couldn’t understand it. Restlessness drove him out of bed. The floor was cold. He stood carefully on one of the milkmaids’ dresses that had fallen from the end of the bed. For an instant he thought he was surrounded by all the people who had lain dead in the sand when Kiko and Be had left him. Their whispering voices were still there, with someone laughing quietly and the smell of freshly slaughtered meat. He tried to grab their bodies. But it was impossible - there was only the darkness and the voices.

  Afterwards he slept fitfully until dawn. When they had finished breakfast he helped Edvin harness the horse. Alma called him into the kitchen and laid out the soiled ABC book that she had borrowed from Master Kron, who would soon be Daniel’s teacher. Daniel looked at the pictures and tried to learn the alphabet. Usually he thought it was fun, but the anxiety from the dream made it hard for him to concentrate. When Alma left him alone for a moment, he closed the book, wrapped a scarf around his neck and went outside. The cold wind almost took his breath away, but he ran towards the hill that was always waiting for him. When he got there he found Sanna sitting and digging in the dirt. It made him happy. He thought that he would tell her about his dream. Maybe she could explain it to him. When she saw him coming she stood up and waved. She looked at his cheek.

  ‘I didn’t mean it,’ she said. ‘I never do.’

  ‘It didn’t hurt.’

  ‘I prayed to God last night. I asked Him to forgive me. I think He listened to me.’

  Daniel told her about his dream. He grew annoyed when he couldn’t find the right words, but Sanna listened. She listened to him in a way that Father had never done.

  ‘I don’t understand any of it,’ she said. ‘I don’t even know what a desert is. So much sand?’ She pointed out towards the brown fields. ‘Would all this be sand? And hot?’

  ‘You would burn your feet.’

  She rested her head in her hands and thought. ‘So it would be like burying two horses here in the mud,’ she said. ‘And they would be whinnying like the butcher was standing in front of them.’

  She threw a dirt clod at Daniel. It didn’t hurt and she laughed.

  ‘You’re making it up. There aren’t any dreams like that.’

  ‘I dreamed it just like I told you.’

  ‘You’re just as strange as I am. But at least I don’t tell lies.’

  Then everything happened very fast. Daniel saw Sanna react to something and get up. There was something behind him, but he didn’t have time to turn round before a big hand grabbed hold of his coat and jerked him to his feet. The man standing there was big and rough and there was tobacco juice running out of the corner of his mouth. He let go of Daniel and gave him a box on the ear so he fell over. Sanna tried to run away but he grabbed hold of her arm. He slapped her hard in the face several times. She screamed.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you to stay home at the farm? Now I find you with that damn troll that Edvin brought here.’

  He released Sanna, who huddled in the dirt with her hands over her head as if afraid she would be hit again. The man gave Daniel a withering stare.

  ‘She’s retarded,’ said the man. ‘She doesn’t know what she’s saying or what she’s doing. It’s a pure pity! That’s what it is! No parents, nothing. But we let her live with us. A pity! But the little bitch won’t do as she’s told. So she has to get slapped. That usually works. At least for a while.’

  The man dragged Sanna up from the dirt and pulled her along with him down the hillside. He had a strong grip on her hair. Daniel thought she looked like a chicken on its way to have its head cut off.

  Then he noticed that he had started to cry. It was as if Sanna’s pain were inside him too.

  He looked all around. The fields were deserted.

  Except for the shrieking black birds.

  CHAPTER 22

  The next day was Sunday. Daniel woke up early as usual. On Sundays the milkmaids took turns sleeping in. Even the hired hand could stay in bed an hour longer than normal. Daniel got up and quietly dressed. The floor was cold under his feet. The hired hand lay watching him with one eye open. He motioned to Daniel to come over to the bed. Daniel didn’t like him, but he didn’t dare disobey.

  ‘Pull the covers off her,’ whispered the hired hand. ‘If we’re lucky, her nightgown will be hitched up.’

  This scene repeated itself every Sunday morning, no matter which of the girls was sleeping in. Daniel had never understood why the hired hand enjoyed spending his free time looking at the girls’ naked legs. But he did as he was told. She stirred a little but didn’t wake up. The nightgown had slipped all the way up to her waist. The hired hand would be pleased. Daniel hurried out of the kitchen.

  It was raining. The fog lay thick over the brown fields. The black birds sat motionless in the grove of trees. Alma stood at the well hoisting up water. Edvin stood next to her, staring straight out into the fog. From far off they could hear a cow bellowing. Daniel had his shoes in his hand. He hurried to the barn where the milkmaid was milking. When he entered the warm building, one of the cats rubbed itself on his leg. He lay down in the straw and covered his body so only his face was visible. During the night he had dreamed that Sanna was calling his name. He had searched for her. Suddenly he was on the ship, rolling heavily in a storm. Sanna was sitting at the top of one of the masts, waving at him. But when he tried to climb up there, someone grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and held him back. He tried to turn his head to see who it was but there was nobody there. Nothing but the wind holding his ne
ck in an invisible grip.

  Daniel lay in the straw and thought about his dream. It was easy to understand what his night-time messenger had wanted to say. Daniel wanted to be close to Sanna but it wasn’t possible. Something was always coming between them.

  He curled up in the straw to keep warm. The horse stamped in its stall.

  As it was Sunday, everyone in the house would soon be going to church. The hired hand would slick his hair down with water, the milkmaids would wrap their best shawls round their shoulders and then they would all set off, with Edvin and Alma in the lead. On the way they would meet others heading in the same direction, and they would all look at Daniel and he would see at once which ones were curious, which ones didn’t like him, and which ones were jealous because Edvin got paid to have Daniel living in his house.

  Hallén was going to preach. He would say a lot of words that made Daniel sleepy because he couldn’t understand them. But Alma would make sure that he didn’t fall asleep and would keep an eye on the hired hand and the milkmaids as well. They would sing, and Daniel would look up at the man who hung nailed on the boards in front of them.

  He had already visited the pastor on two mornings. Daniel was still waiting to hear about the water. Hallén had asked the same question each time he had come. What was he thinking about? And Daniel had refused to answer. He didn’t want to talk about his plan. He was afraid that Hallén might tell Edvin, or forbid him. Daniel was still having a hard time learning what was forbidden. It was a word that he understood was one of the most important for people like Hallén, Edvin and Alma. The others were: damn and may I. Everything that happened between dawn and twilight was controlled by what people were allowed to do and what was forbidden. Going barefoot when the ground was white was one of the things that was most forbidden. Nor could you piss anywhere and especially not if someone was watching. There were rules about everything, and Daniel tried to learn them but without understanding why.

  Sanna would also be at church. She sat right at the back, and Daniel knew that Alma would give him a disapproving look if he turned round to look at her. At church you had to look down or forward. Looking back was one of the things that was forbidden.