Daniel

by Henning Mankell

  Someone had seen him in the night.

  By early morning the rumour had started to spread, and just after nine o’clock people began gathering at the churchyard wall. The wind was blowing hard that day and the rain came in heavy squalls. Hallén woke up with a sharp pain over one eye. He was lying in bed with a cold facecloth on his forehead when his serving woman came in and announced that people had begun gathering at the church and that someone had carved a picture on the churchyard wall. Hallén had long suspected that the serving woman was growing senile, but he got out of bed because she didn’t seem confused in her usual way. Something had happened or was happening at the church. Hallén pressed one fist against the pain above his eye and left the parsonage. As he walked towards the gate he could see the crowd by the west corner of the churchyard. Hallén wondered anxiously, and with some annoyance, whether a suicide might have chosen this unfortunate place to end his life. The thought was not unreasonable because the old belief that suicides should be buried outside the churchyard was still embraced by many of his parishioners. He grimaced at the pain above his eye and at the thought. If it was a suicide, he hoped that there wasn’t too much blood. He stopped, took a few deep breaths and tried to think of a glass of cognac. He always did this when something unpleasant awaited him. He had never been able to derive the same strength from the Holy Scriptures as he could from the thought of a glass of cognac.

  The crowd parted as he approached. To his relief there was no corpse lying by the wall. What he found there was a poorly carved picture of an animal. Actually it was only an outline with strange proportions and a big eye.

  The eye was red, or really almost black. But it was blood, he could see that at once. The eye stared at him and the pain over his own eye grews sharper. One of the richest parishioners, an unpleasant man by the name of Arnman, stood and pounded on the wall with his stick. The year before he had donated an ugly, heavy, but expensive bridal crown to the parish. Hallén suspected that it was stolen goods that he had acquired on one of his many trips to Poland. Arnman lived there with his mistress on a run-down estate very close to the port where the ferry connection from Ystad reached the Continent. He boasted openly that almost every year he begot a Polish brat, even though his wife in Sweden kept bearing him new children. Hallén felt sad when he gazed from his pulpit at fat Arnman and his skinny wife. Sometimes he also permitted himself the unpleasantness of imagining them naked together. It seemed amazing that Arnman hadn’t crushed his wife to death in bed long ago.

  ‘The Negro,’ said Arnman in his thick voice. ‘It’s the Negro’s doing.’

  There was muttering and buzzing among the crowd. They sounded like angry bees, thought Hallén.

  ‘The Negro,’ Arnman repeated, and Hallén wished he could get rid of him. But Arnman had great influence in the parish. He sat on the church board and nobody could deny that in spite of everything, he had contributed to the needy church with his donations.

  ‘How do you know that?’ asked Hallén, thinking about the boy from the distant dark continent, the boy he had tried to teach manners but who had thanked him for his efforts by putting a viper in the offering pouch.

  Arnman waved his stick. From the dark-clad crowd of people, one of Arnman’s hired hands stepped forward. He was always drunk but according to rumour had a way with sick horses.

  ‘I saw him,’ said the hired hand.

  ‘What did you see?’

  ‘He was sitting here and chipping at the wall.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last night.’

  Arnman rapped the hired hand on the back with his stick, and he slunk off.

  ‘He’s been drinking,’ said Arnman. ‘But you can’t deny what he saw. It was the Negro who sat here chipping away, and cut himself and rubbed blood on the wall. He doesn’t belong here. We know about witchcraft.’

  Hallén gave Arnman a searching look. The pain over his eye increased.

  ‘What is it you know?’

  ‘That people should be careful about who they allow into their community.’

  Arnman uttered these last words in a powerful voice. A murmur of agreement came from the crowd.

  ‘I shall attend to the matter,’ said Hallén. Then he turned to the sexton. ‘Try to scrub this off,’ he said. ‘And the rest of you can go home.’

  Arnman marched down to the road and the carriage that was waiting for him. The crowd dispersed slowly. Hallén know that he should talk to Alma and Edvin right away, but the pain above his eye made that impossible. He went back to the parsonage and lay in bed for the rest of the day.

  The next morning his serving woman came and told him that the animal with the red eye was back on the wall. Hallén had just woken up, relieved that the pain over his eye was gone.

  That same day he paid a visit to Alma and Edvin. They had heard about what happened. Alma had asked Daniel about it, but she got no reply except a few words in his own strange language. They all went out to the barn together where Daniel lay curled up in the straw.

  ‘He has a fever,’ Alma said. ‘But he refuses to sleep in the house.’

  Hallén observed the boy in silence.

  ‘It’s possible that he should be moved to a mental hospital,’ he said. ‘There are many indications that he has gone insane. It’s not normal to carve animals on churchyard walls. Did he cut himself to get the blood?’

  ‘I think he coughed it up,’ said Edvin.

  ‘He’s killing himself with longing for home,’ Alma said firmly. ‘What business does he have among lunatics?’

  ‘You don’t know anything about these matters. You heard what the pastor said,’ said Edvin.

  Hallén tried to catch Daniel’s eye, but he kept looking away. Every time Hallén looked at the boy he had an eerie feeling that there was something he ought to understand that was escaping him. The child lying there in the straw had a message for him that he couldn’t comprehend.

  ‘It’s causing unrest in the parish, the way he’s carving the wall and daubing blood on it,’ Hallén said. ‘If it happens again we’ll have to consider sending him to St Lars in Lund.’

  ‘Is that a church?’ Alma asked.

  ‘You know quite well that it’s the madhouse,’ said Edvin.

  ‘He doesn’t belong among those people.’

  They left him in the barn. The milkmaid who had been alone since Vanja died went about among the cows, weeping. Daniel thought of Sanna. He still couldn’t grasp how she could have betrayed him. He had felt happy with her, and she had shared her warmth with him. But she had deceived him about who she really was. She had acted the same way as the man who had hit her and dragged her by the hair.

  He lay there until far into the night and tried to understand why she had acted as she did. He didn’t touch the food that Alma brought him.

  ‘I don’t want you to be tied up,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you to end up with crazy people. Can’t you stop going to the church?’

  Daniel didn’t answer. But when Edvin came in she told him that Daniel had promised he wouldn’t go out that night.

  ‘We could always put the boy in the house,’ Edvin said. ‘Or I could stay out here myself.’

  ‘That’s not necessary. He won’t go.’

  Edvin shook his head. ‘The hired hand said that Arnman has stationed some of his boys outside the church.’

  ‘That man is disgusting. He probably told them to attack Daniel if he shows up.’

  ‘If only we knew what he was thinking. He sees something that we don’t see. He’s surrounded by people again. They’re here, I can feel it.’

  ‘Nobody wants to put you in the madhouse,’ Alma replied. ‘But you want to put him there?’

  ‘I’m just trying to puzzle him out, that’s all. It’s as if he’s telling a story. Sometimes I feel like all this mud is being transformed into sand, and that it’s getting hot. But then it’s gone again.’

  Daniel listened to what they were saying. By now he understood most of their speech,
but his old language had taken over almost all his consciousness.

  Alma put her hand on his forehead.

  ‘He’s much too hot,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why Dr Madsen can’t do something. He can’t catch a fever from being homesick, can he?’

  ‘It’s the cough,’ Edvin said. ‘You know that as well as I do. And there’s nothing to be done about that.’

  ‘I don’t want him to die,’ Alma said. ‘I want that man named Bengler to come back and take him home.’

  They left Daniel alone. The cows stirred in their stalls. A rat rustled in a corner. One of the hens fluttered its wings. Daniel kept thinking about Sanna. At last it seemed there was only one possibility. One explanation for why she had let him down. She was an evil spirit. He had no idea who had sent her to destroy him.

  He dozed off and in his dream he saw Sanna sitting among the black birds in a tree out in the field. At first he thought it was Be, who was waiting there so that she could fly off with him, but then he saw that it was Sanna and that black soot was running out of her nostrils.

  He woke up with a start and thought about what he had dreamed. Whoever had sent Sanna into his path had done it to prevent Be and Kiko from reaching him. Suddenly it all became clear to him: as long as Sanna existed he would never be able to go home. He was never meant to learn to walk on water or to sail with a ship the long way back. Be and Kiko were right next to him.

  And yet he was unsure. He was too small to know everything about the evil spirits who possessed people’s souls. The only thing he could do was to try to trick Sanna into revealing who she really was and who had sent her.

  Daniel slipped back and forth between sleeping and waking. Sometimes he would reach out for the mug of water that Alma always set beside him.

  At dawn he ate all the food he had left untouched the night before. If he was going to find out who Sanna really was, he would have to eat and build up his strength.

  It took him a few days and nights to work out a plan. He searched his memory for everything that Kiko had taught him: about how evil spirits had to be tracked the same way as animals.

  Finally he found the solution.

  In his coat he still had the sliver of wood he had taken from the knee of the Jesus statue.

  The following night he would put his plan into action. As if to convince himself that he was doing the right thing, that he had understood the invisible powers who were preventing him from returning to the desert, his fever suddenly abated, although he was still coughing up blood. Dr Madsen, who came to visit Alma, said that perhaps he might still get well.

  It was completely calm when Daniel left the barn. He stopped in the yard and listened. Everything was quiet. He had taken along one of the lanterns that Edvin lit every evening in the barn. He had put it out, but he had matches with him.

  When he reached the hill he stopped and listened. He opened his nostrils wide as Kiko had taught him to do when he was scenting a spoor. Sanna often smelled bad - she was dirty and her clothes smelled sour. But he didn’t notice anything. He crept cautiously up to the top of the hill, lit the lantern and screwed down the top. At the spot where Sanna most often sat, either still with her eyes closed, or rocking impatiently and digging in the dirt, he stuck the piece of wood into the ground. Then he did as Kiko had taught him, imitating a hyena and laughing out into the darkness. Hyenas always followed the trail of death. They ate not only animal carcasses but also dug up people who had been buried. That was how they drew the spirits of people inside themselves, both the evil ones and the good. Daniel whispered the words in his language that were the most important: that in the piece of wood lived a spirit who would be able to lead Daniel back to the desert. Then he blew out the lantern and went back to the barn.

  In the morning when he woke up, the hired hand stood looking at him.

  ‘There was somebody laughing last night,’ said the hired hand. ‘It sounded like a pig, but also like a person. It must have been you.’

  ‘No,’ Daniel said. ‘It wasn’t me.’

  The hired hand stared at him. Then he ran to fetch Alma and Edvin.

  ‘I heard him,’ he said excitedly. ‘I heard him speak.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said, “No. It wasn’t me.”’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Alma squatted down next to Daniel. ‘Is it true that you’ve started to speak again?’

  Daniel stayed silent. Alma asked him again.

  ‘It’s no use,’ said Edvin. ‘The hired hand must have been imagining things.’

  ‘I heard what I heard.’

  Edvin gave him a shove. ‘Work is waiting.’

  That afternoon Daniel crept out through a hole in the wall at the back of the barn. Before he set off he stuffed the broken-off scythe point into his pocket. He crouched down when he ran across the fields. A fog bank was slowly shrouding the landscape in white. He could feel his heart begin to pound faster when he saw Sanna sitting up on the hill and digging in the mud. When she caught sight of him she was happy. She jumped up and grabbed hold of him. Daniel saw that she had been digging right where he had put the stick. There was no longer any doubt. She smelled like an animal - her clothes were like a pelt - and when she laughed she sounded like an animal, not a human being.

  ‘I thought you were never coming back,’ she said.

  The fog covered the landscape. Sanna squatted down in the mud. She had the photograph of the King with her and traced his signature with her finger. Daniel carefully pulled the scythe point out of his pocket and plunged it into the back of her neck. She fell forward without a sound. When he turned her over she stared up at him with her eyes wide open. He rubbed mud onto her face until her eyes couldn’t see him any longer. So that she wouldn’t be able to talk either, he shoved as much mud into her mouth and throat as he could. He was out of breath and sweaty when he rubbed off the blood that had spattered on his clothes. Then he took the scythe point and the photograph of the King and buried them in the mud.

  The trees where the birds used to perch could not be seen in the fog. Daniel took hold of Sanna’s arms and began to drag her down the hill. Several times he had to squat down. He coughed so violently that he threw up. His mouth was full of blood, but he didn’t care. Soon he would be home again. He dragged Sanna’s body until he reached the trees. He covered her body with a thin layer of fallen branches and old brushwood. When the birds came back they would peck at her body until nothing was left. Even though he had the fever again, he felt strong. Now he didn’t need to do anything but lie down in the barn and wait. Kiko and Be would come soon.

  That evening he began carving on one of his wooden shoes. He wanted to give Be and Kiko a gift when they came to get him. Above all, he wanted to show Kiko that he had grown better at carving figures. When Alma came in with the food he hid his whittling knife and the shoes. He started eating at once.

  ‘Not too fast,’ she said. ‘Your stomach won’t stand such haste.’ Daniel did as she said. For an instant he felt an urge to tell Alma that everything was going to be all right now. Soon he wouldn’t have to lie out in the barn any more. They wouldn’t need to worry about him at all. Yet he thought it was probably best not to say anything. Dr Madsen and Hallén had both spoken about a house where people were locked in. He never wanted to be tied up again.

  That night, when he was alone with the animals, he took off all his clothes and washed his whole body. Even though the water was cold he rubbed himself hard until all the dirt was gone. He found flecks of blood on his clothes. He scrubbed them with the brush Edvin used for the horses. Then he put his clothes back on and lay down for a while, whittling on his wooden shoe. He took care not to be impatient. He wanted Kiko to be pleased and say that he had begun to learn.

  At daybreak he went out into the yard.

  Thick fog lay over the fields. In the distance he could hear the birds screeching. Edvin came out onto the steps and stood there taking a piss. He didn’t see
Daniel until he was finished. He buttoned his trousers and went over to him.

  ‘Are you starting to get well?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Daniel replied. ‘I will be well soon.’

  CHAPTER 29

  Daniel divided up his last days alive by carving notches on his other shoe, the one he wasn’t trying to turn into a sculpture. Each time he put down the whittling knife and each time he picked it up to continue his work, he would cut a notch on the shoe.

  He was waiting. Now that he had tested his powers against all the evil that surrounded him and shown that he was stronger, time had lost its significance. His waiting involved something different to seeing the light of dawn creeping in through the windows of the barn or seeing the twilight fall. His waiting meant that he was listening. No matter what direction Be or Kiko came from, he would hear them. Their voices would be faint, almost whispering. Maybe they would sound like the cows snorting in their stalls, or like a hen flapping its wings. He didn’t know, and that’s why he had to pay attention to any sounds that might signal their arrival.

  His cough had grown worse from the effort of dragging Sanna’s body through the mud. The fever that came and went made him tired. He slept a lot in these last days.

  When he opened his eyes after dozing off one afternoon, Dr Madsen was standing in front of him. He was smiling. In his hand he held a letter.

  ‘Your father has written,’ he said. ‘A letter has come for you, postmarked Cape Town.’

  Daniel no longer had many memories of the man he called Father. They had faded and turned into vague phantoms. Only with difficulty could he remember how he looked. His voice was already completely lost. The images in his mind were shadows.