‘He wrote to me and asked me to read the letter to you.’
Behind Dr Madsen stood Edvin and Alma. They kept their distance as if the letter demanded great respect.
Dr Madsen read:
To my son Daniel far away in Sweden,
I will always think of you as Daniel Bengler. Sometimes I think the name befits a grown man better. But what surname is actually suitable for a child? At present I am in Cape Town, the city where you and I began our journey. Do you remember? The high mountain that looked like a table? The day we walked along the beach and saw dolphins leaping in the sea? The journey here took a long time because I rode in an inferior carriage through almost the whole of Europe in order to board a ship in a French city called Marseille. I have been in Cape Town four months now. At first I lay ill. I had eaten something that bothered my stomach for a long time. For several weeks I was afraid that the illness would get the better of me. But I am healthy now. Soon I will complete all my preparations to return to the desert. But this time I shall travel in a more north-easterly direction. There are large areas that are mostly unknown, and of course I hope to be able to find insects which will later be a pleasure to exhibit to people in Sweden. My journey commenced abruptly, I know. But it was necessary. Now everything is fine, however. I don’t know when I shall be coming home. Father.
‘An excellent letter,’ said Dr Madsen when he had finished reading and stuffed the paper back in the envelope.
‘He doesn’t even ask how the boy is doing,’ said Alma, upset. ‘He doesn’t even ask how he is.’
‘But now we know he’s alive, at least,’ Edvin said. ‘We didn’t know that before. Now we know that it will be a long time before he returns.’
Dr Madsen placed the letter in the straw next to Daniel’s head.
‘A very fine letter,’ he said.
Then he pressed his hand against Daniel’s forehead. He looked into his eyes and listened to his chest. There was a rattling sound when Daniel breathed.
‘It would have been best, of course, if we could have taken him to a sanatorium,’ he said to Alma and Edvin when he finished his examination. ‘But that’s out of the question.’
‘If it will make him well I’ll sell the horses,’ replied Edvin firmly.
Dr Madsen shook his head. ‘We can always find the money,’ he said. ‘Many people would be moved to tears by a black child who is sick. Besides, he has met the King. But it’s not a question of money. It’s a matter of whether he could stand being moved again to a place that’s completely foreign to him.’
Dr Madsen regarded Daniel lying in the straw.
‘Naturally he should be sleeping in the house. The vapours from the animals may not be dangerous, but neither are they healthy. In addition, he ought to have a diet that consists of only eggs and milk.’
‘That will be easier than moving the animals into the house,’ said Edvin. ‘He’ll stay out here whatever we do. And I refuse to tie him up.’
‘You should still think it over,’ said Dr Madsen as he left.
Daniel heard the conversation continuing in the yard. He took out his wooden shoes, which he had hidden behind his head, and went on whittling. The wood was hard and his arm quickly grew tired. The whole time he kept listening for Be and Kiko. They had come closer, he could feel it, but he still couldn’t hear them.
Two days after Dr Madsen’s visit, Alma came to see Daniel at a time when she rarely went to the barn. He saw immediately that she had been crying and was afraid that she was sick. She sank down into the straw, and he wondered whether she was going to start sleeping there too.
‘I have to tell you this,’ she said. ‘And it’s better that you hear it from me than anyone else. Sanna is dead. Something horrible has happened. One of Nilsson’s boys found her out in the field. Somebody killed her.’
Daniel nodded cheerfully. He couldn’t understand why it made Alma so sad. She gave him an appalled look when he couldn’t help laughing.
‘Are you happy that I’ve told you the girl is dead? I thought you liked her, even though she was retarded.’
Daniel didn’t want Alma to be angry with him and stopped laughing at once.
‘Somebody killed her,’ Alma went on. ‘Someone stabbed her with a knife, violated her and buried her under some bushes out in the field. Somewhere there’s a murderer and no one knows who it is.’
Daniel didn’t know what the word murderer meant. but he thought that it would be best not to tell Alma the truth, that Sanna hadn’t been a human being but an animal, a dangerous animal, which they should be happy to be rid of. There was so much that Alma and Edvin and perhaps even Dr Madsen didn’t understand, about the powers that could conceal themselves in the earth, among the trees, and above all in human beings.
For the next few days no one talked about anything else. Everyone seemed to be afraid of what they called the murderer. Several times Daniel nearly told them, but something held him back.
One morning Edvin stood before him as he lay in the straw.
‘There’s a man sitting in the kitchen,’ he said. ‘He wants to talk to you about Sanna. He’s from Malmö and has come all the way here to search for the damn person who did Sanna such harm.’
That was the first time Daniel had heard Edvin say the word that was so important to Father. Damn. Daniel could see that he was furious.
‘It was me,’ said Daniel.
Edvin stiffened. ‘What did you say?’
‘It was me.’
‘Who did what?’
Edvin’s questions made Daniel confused. He immediately regretted that he had begun to speak again.
‘I’m glad you’re talking. But I don’t understand what you’re saying.’
‘I’m going home soon.’
Edvin shook his head. ‘You’re sick,’ he said. ‘And you won’t get well as long as you sleep out here in the barn. You’re raving, but I still have to bring in the man who wants to talk to you.’
The man who came into the barn was young with only a few patches of hair on his head, and he moved quickly, as if he were in a great hurry. Edvin brought over a milk pail for him to sit on. He gave Daniel an inquisitive look.
‘I’ve read about you in the newspapers,’ he said. ‘About your trip with the dead girl on the Sound. And about how you got to meet the King. But I expected you to be bigger. And I didn’t expect that I would meet you like this.’
He moved the pail closer to Daniel and leaned forward.
‘You know what has happened. Someone killed Sanna in a very brutal way. We have to catch the man who did it. Then he will probably be executed in Malmö prison. A man who has committed such a horrible crime might do it again. That’s why we have to catch him. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
Daniel’s face was immobile.
‘He understands,’ said Edvin, who stayed in the background. ‘But he’s ill and doesn’t speak very often.’
‘I have to ask some questions,’ the man went on. ‘Did you see Sanna after you both came back here?’
Daniel didn’t like the man sitting on the pail. He smelled of shaving lotion and tobacco and would never understand what had happened. He had come to get Daniel and then chop off his head. He didn’t have time for that. Soon Kiko and Be would arrive. Each morning when he woke up he knew that the moment would soon be here. He quickly decided that the best way to get the man to leave him in peace was to answer his questions.
‘No.’
‘You never saw her?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know if Sanna ever met someone who was not from around here?’
‘No.’
‘She wasn’t afraid of anybody? I’m not talking about her stepfather, she was terrified of him, I know that. But he didn’t do it. I’ve questioned him hard and he can prove he didn’t do it. Anyone else?’
‘No.’
The man rubbed his hand over his bald head without taking his eyes off Daniel.
‘The two of you tried to leave
Sweden,’ he said. ‘I can understand that you wanted to go back to Africa. My only question is how you managed to lure Sanna into going along. Or did she want to escape from someone she was afraid of?’
‘He dragged her by the hair.’
‘Who?’
‘Her stepfather.’
The man shook his head thoughtfully. ‘I don’t understand it,’ he said. ‘The two of you came back. And suddenly somebody kills her.’
He stood up quickly from the milk pail. ‘We’re going to catch him,’ he said, smiling. ‘A man who commits a crime like this cannot go free.’
Edvin followed the man out. Daniel was overcome by a great weariness that seemed to press him roughly into sleep. He tried to fight it without success.
When he woke a few hours later he had a high fever. His heart was beating very fast. He was sweating and had to squint his eyes to make out Alma, who was anxiously watching him. Behind her stood Edvin and the hired hand.
Alma leaned over close to his face.
‘You will sleep in our bed,’ she said. ‘You’ll be alone in the room.’
Daniel was too tired to resist when Edvin and the hired hand lifted him up. As they carried him across the yard he could feel that it was raining. He opened his mouth and felt the raindrops landing on his tongue, but by the time they put him to bed he was asleep again.
That night his condition grew worse. Only once during the time that remained did he get up from the bed and go out into the yard. It was when he dreamed that Be and Kiko had come and were waiting for him. When he went outside and felt the cold from the ground seep into his body, there was no one there. He went back into the barn and searched for the wooden shoes that he was carving and the knife that lay in the straw. He stuffed them under his nightshirt and returned to the yard. He called out to them, shouted their names, but got no reply. Alma and Edvin came out, roused from their sleep. After he had moved into the bedroom they slept in the kitchen with the milkmaid. He didn’t resist when Edvin lifted him up and carried him back inside.
That was the only time he got out of bed. It was a brief interruption in his decline, which would not end until he was dead.
Now and then he was struck with severe coughing fits that bloodied the sheets, but most of the time he lay quietly in the borderland where dreams and reality meet. He never said a word, never met anyone’s eyes, and recognised only Alma and Edvin. Hallén came to visit regularly, as did Dr Madsen. On one occasion Alma also called in a wise woman from Kivik who, it was said, could cure people of consumption by greasing their chests with cow fat. But Daniel continued to decline. He was not in pain, felt no hunger, had no idea whether it was day or night.
As his condition worsened, he discovered that the way back did not go towards the horizon but inwards, downwards, towards a deep that was drawing him in. There Be and Kiko were waiting. In his dreams he could already glimpse the sand that was completely white in the blazing sun. He was utterly calm now. Nothing would keep him from returning. Be and Kiko had not abandoned him. Kiko would be angry because he had taken so long to come, but not even this worried him. For a few hours every day he managed to keep carving the wooden shoe. He thought that Kiko would be pleased. He had become a better carver. One day Kiko would be able to entrust the antelope and the rock wall to him.
In the last days, after he had already slipped very far towards the desert that awaited him, he finally began to hear their voices. Now they were quite close to him. Gradually he was able to distinguish their faces as well. A boy who was a few years older than Daniel was the first to come up to his bed. Daniel no longer remembered his name, but there was no doubt that it was him, the third son that was born to one of Kiko’s older sisters. When Daniel asked his first question, - whether it would be long before Be and Kiko came - the boy replied that they were out hunting, but they would be back soon.
Just as the boy reached him, Edvin opened the door and carried in a wooden mug of milk. He set it on the table next to the bed and stood there. Then he went over to the door and called Alma in a low voice. Daniel explained to the boy who they were, Edvin and Alma, and when Alma came in the boy was sitting on the bed by Daniel’s feet.
‘They’re here again,’ said Edvin.
‘Who?’
‘The voices! Can’t you hear them? He isn’t alone in here.’
Alma listened. ‘You’re imagining things. There’s nobody here.’
‘Can’t you hear them? He isn’t alone here. Damn it all.’
‘You’re tired,’ Alma said, taking Edvin by the hand. ‘You’re not sleeping well because you’re worrying. I’m worried too. But we have to trust in God.’
‘God?’ Edvin said angrily. ‘What does he know?’
‘Don’t blaspheme.’
They left the room. The boy got up from the bed, waved to Daniel and vanished. Daniel closed his eyes and continued to sink. He could feel the warm sand under his feet. If he shaded his eyes with his hand he could see some zebras moving in the shimmering sunlight. Even though he wasn’t hungry, he had an urge to sink his teeth into some meat again from an animal that Kiko had killed.
Only once during these last days did he think that he saw Father again. By then he had already sunk so far that he was surrounded by sand and low bushes. Near a dried-up stream lay a whitened skeleton scraped clean. Right next to one hand, where the finger bones were splayed, was a little wooden box. Daniel recognised it at once. It was the same box that Father had asked Daniel on several occasions to guard because it contained the insects that Father would give his name to one day. Daniel opened it and found a desiccated butterfly that had once been blue. When he touched its wings it disintegrated into a bluish powder. He put the box back next to Father’s skeleton and hoped that someone, maybe the woman with the buttons, would one day find Father and take him back home.
At last he was there. First he saw the hills with the cave where the antelope was carved. In the distance two people were approaching. He waited. Finally he saw that it was Be and Kiko, and Be was carrying a new baby on her back, and she told him that a sister had arrived while he was gone. Kiko wasn’t angry. Daniel held out his present and at the same moment forgot that his name had been Daniel. Now he was Molo again. Nothing more. Kiko admired for a long time what he was holding in his hands.
‘You have gained patience,’ he said then. ‘You have grown up.’
Molo smiled. He was home now. Everything that had happened would soon vanish from his mind.
Daniel died early one summer morning. By then he had lain in a coma for several weeks. Dr Madsen hadn’t been able to do anything for him. There was no hope.
Not until they were about to lay him in the coffin did Alma discover the wooden sculpture. She showed it to Edvin.
‘He carved a deer out of a wooden shoe,’ he said. ‘Why did he do that?’
‘We’ll put it in the coffin with him,’ Alma said. ‘He won’t be lonely any more.’
They placed the sculpture next to his head and then screwed down the lid. Many people came to the funeral. Hallén chose not to speak from a Bible text but instead propagandised for the importance of supporting the mission work under way in Africa.
No one knew that the coffin they buried was actually empty.
EPILOGUE
KALAHARI DESERT, MARCH 1995
On the road between Francistown in Botswana and Windhoek in Namibia, he spent the night at a hotel in Ghanzi. The village consisted of a collection of wind-tormented houses that lay strewn in the middle of the desert. The hotel was full of sand. Even though the menu at the restaurant offered a great variety of dishes, they consisted mostly of sand. It crunched between his teeth even when he drank water. In the hotel’s desolate bar two men sat concluding a deal. They were taking their time and there were frequent long silences before they continued the conversation. In the desert there was no reason to hurry. Since there were no other guests in the bar and the barman had disappeared, he couldn’t avoid hearing what they were talking about.
One of them had got his lorry stuck just past the Namibian border and was now trying to sell both the vehicle and the load, which apparently included bicycle tyres and various wares, such as children’s clothing, stockings and a carton of peaked caps that the man had acquired at a bargain price. The negotiations proceeded slowly, and he didn’t stay long enough to hear whether the two men reached an agreement or not.
Just before dark he took a walk along the only street. Everywhere the desert was present. He went into a shop, mostly to see what there was to buy. The woman behind the counter, who was black and quite young, asked him at once whether he would marry her and take her away. He had a strong feeling that she was serious, and he quickly left the shop.
In the evening, after eating eggs, potatoes, vegetables and sand, he lay awake in his hotel room fighting with the mosquitoes. The desert that surrounded him roared in the darkness, as if he were actually on an island in the middle of an endless sea.
When he awoke in the morning he was covered with mosquito bites. He lay in bed and counted the days. If he had been infected with malaria during the night, it would take about a fortnight before the illness broke out. By then, if everything went as planned, he would already be far away from the desert.
He continued his journey towards the Namibian border. He had been warned that the road was very poor, sometimes almost non-existent, but the jeep with its four-wheel drive and powerful engine drove him on. He wondered when he would pass the lorry that should be out there somewhere, like a shipwrecked boat in the sea of sand.
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