Kennedy's Brain

by Mankell Henning

  She hung up, and at the same time noticed that Lucinda was standing by the house wall with a towel wrapped round her head. She got out of the car thinking that the long night was over at last.

  Lucinda was surprised to see her.

  'A bit early, isn't it?'

  'That's what I ought to ask you. When did you get to bed?'

  'I never get much sleep. Perhaps I'm permanently tired? Without noticing it?'

  Lucinda patiently shooed away some children who might have been her brothers and sisters or cousins or nieces and nephews. She shouted to a teenager who was sprucing up some plastic chairs standing in the shadow cast by the house, and shortly afterwards appeared with two glasses of water.

  She noticed that Louise was uneasy.

  'Something's happened. That's why you've come here so early.'

  Louise decided to tell Lucinda the truth. She told her about Christian Holloway and Umbi, the darkness on the beach and the long night in the car.

  'They must have seen me,' Louise said. 'They must have heard what we were talking about at the village. They followed him, and when they realised that he was going to spill the beans, they killed him.'

  It was obvious that Lucinda believed her, every word, every detail. When she had finished, Lucinda sat there for ages without speaking. A man started hammering away at a roofing sheet in order to bend it and make a ridge. Lucinda shouted at him. He stopped immediately and sat down in the shade of a tree, waiting.

  'Are you convinced that Henrik was involved in the blackmailing of Christian Holloway's son?'

  'I don't know anything for certain. I try to think calmly and clearly and logically, but everything is so elusive. I can't imagine Henrik as a blackmailer, not even in my wildest dreams. Can you?'

  'Of course not.'

  'I need a computer and a link to the Internet. I might be able to find those articles, and it might be possible to see if it really was Christian Holloway's son. If so, at least I'll have found something that hangs together.'

  'What?'

  'I don't know yet. Something fits, but I don't know how yet. I have to start somewhere. I keep on starting, over and over again.'

  Lucinda stood up.

  'There's an Internet café not far from here. I went there with Henrik once. Just let me get dressed and I'll take you there.'

  Lucinda disappeared into the house. The children were lined up, looking at Louise. She smiled. The children smiled back. Tears started to run down Louise's cheek. The children continued smiling.

  Louise had dried her eyes by the time Lucinda reappeared. They crossed over the long street; its name was Lenin Street. Lucinda paused outside a bakery that was in the same building as a theatre.

  'I ought to have given you breakfast.'

  'I'm not hungry.'

  'Of course you're hungry, but you don't want to admit it. I've never understood why white people find it so hard to tell the truth about the little things in life. If you've slept well, if you've eaten, if you're longing to change into clean clothes.'

  Lucinda went into the bakery and emerged with a paper bag containing a couple of bread rolls. She took one herself and gave the other to Louise.

  'Let's hope that everything is explained and rounded off in the end.'

  'Umbi was the second dead person I've seen in my life. Henrik was the first. Don't people have a conscience?'

  'People hardly ever have a conscience. Poor people don't because they can't afford it. Rich people don't because they think that if they do, it will cost them money.'

  'Henrik had a conscience. He inherited it from me.'

  'Henrik was no doubt the same as everybody else!'

  Louise raised her voice.

  'Henrik wasn't like everybody else!'

  'Henrik was a good human being.'

  'He was much more than that.'

  'Can you be more than a good human being?'

  'He wished other people well.'

  Lucinda gritted her teeth with a loud clicking noise. Then she ushered Louise into the shade of an awning over the window of a shoe shop.

  'He was like everybody else. He didn't always behave well. Why did he do what he did to me? You tell me that.'

  'I don't know what you're talking about.'

  'He made me HIV-positive. I got it off him. I denied it the first time you asked. I thought you had enough to cope with already. But I can't let it pass any longer. Now I'm going to tell you it as it is. If you haven't caught on already, that is.'

  Lucinda hurled the words into Louise's face. Louise made no attempt to resist, because she knew that Lucinda was right. Louise had suspected the truth from the moment she landed in Maputo. Henrik had kept his illness a secret from his mother, he had never told her about his flat in Barcelona. After his death, now when she also felt that she was dead, she had been forced to admit that she had hardly known him at all. She had no idea when the change had taken place, she had noticed nothing. Henrik had not wanted her to know that he was becoming a different person.

  Lucinda started walking. She didn't expect a reply from Louise. The security guard outside the shoe shop eyed the two women with a degree of curiosity. Louise was so upset that she marched up to him and addressed him in Swedish.

  'I don't know what you're staring at, but we like each other very much. We're friends. We're upset but we like each other very much.'

  She caught up with Lucinda and took her hand.

  'I didn't know.'

  'You thought it was me who'd infected him. You assumed that it was the black whore who'd passed the infection on to him.'

  'I've never regarded you as a prostitute.'

  'White men nearly always regard black women as permanently available, whenever, wherever. If a pretty young black woman tells a fat white man that she loves him, he believes her. He assumes that his power is unlimited when he comes to a poor country in Africa. Henrik told me that the same applies to Asia.'

  'Surely Henrik never regarded you as a prostitute?'

  'To tell you the truth, I don't know.'

  'Did he offer you money?'

  'That's not necessary. A lot of white men think that we should be grateful for the opportunity to open our legs.'

  'That's disgusting,'

  'It can get even more disgusting. I could tell you stories about young girls aged eight or nine.'

  'I don't want to hear.'

  'Henrik did. No matter how unpleasant it was, he wanted to hear. "I want to know so that I understand why I don't want to know." That's what he said. At first I thought he was just trying to make himself important. But later I realised that he really meant what he said.'

  Lucinda stopped. They had come to an Internet café in a newly renovated stone building. Women were sitting on small raffia mats on the pavement and displayed a range of goods they had for sale. Lucinda bought a few oranges before they entered the café. Louise tried to keep her outside on the pavement.

  'Not now. We'll talk about it later. I had to tell you the truth.'

  'How had Henrik discovered that he was infected?'

  'I asked him, but he never answered. I can't tell you about something I don't know. But once it dawned on him that I had caught the virus from him he was absolutely devastated. He talked about committing suicide. I tried to convince him that if he didn't know about it, he wasn't guilty. The only thing I wanted to be sure about was if he ought to have known that he was infected. He denied that he did. Then he promised to ensure that I would receive all the antiretroviral drugs in existence, in order to delay the onset of full-blown Aids. I received five hundred dollars every month. I still do.'

  'Where does the money come from?'

  'I don't know. It's paid into a bank account. He promised that even if anything were to happen to him, I should still receive the money for twenty-five years. It arrives on time on the twenty-eighth of the month in a bank account he opened for me. It's the same as if he were still alive. In any case, it can't be his spirit that is continuing to ensure that t
he money is paid every month.'

  Louise made a quick calculation in her head. Six thousand dollars a year for twenty-five years equals a staggering amount, 150,000 dollars, or about a million kronor. Henrik died a rich man.

  She looked through the window of the Internet café. Had he taken his own life after all?'

  'You must have hated him.'

  'I don't have the strength to hate anybody. Whatever happens might well be preordained.'

  'Henrik's death wasn't preordained.'

  They went inside and were allocated a vacant computer. Young people in school uniforms were sitting at other tables, studying their screens in intense silence. Despite the air conditioning the place was suffused with damp heat. Lucinda was annoyed by the fact that her computer screen was dirty. When the manager came to wipe it, she snatched the cloth from his hand and did it herself.

  'During all our years under colonial rule we learned to do no more than we were instructed to do. Now we're slowly learning how to think for ourselves. But there's still a lot that we daren't do. Wipe a computer screen off our own back, for instance.'

  'You said that you came here once with Henrik?'

  'He was looking for something. It had to do with China.'

  'Do you think you could find it again?'

  'Possibly. If I think about it. Carry on and do what you have to do first. I'll be back shortly. Malocura doesn't look after itself. I have an electricity bill that needs paying.'

  Lucinda went out into the bright sunlight. Sweat was pouring off Louise under her thin jumper. She could smell the sweat from her armpits. When had she last had a wash? She made the Internet connection while ransacking her mind for details of what she and Aron had done in Barcelona. She could remember the newspapers, but not what she had read in which. She was quite sure that the articles had appeared in 1999 and 2000. She started with the Washington Post archive, but there was nothing there about either a Steve Nichols or a Steve Holloway. She wiped the sweat from her brow and found her way into the New York Times archive. It took her half an hour to check all articles published in 1999. She moved on to 2000. Almost immediately she stumbled upon the article they had found in Henrik's Spanish computer. 'A man by the name of Steve Nichols has taken his own life after being subjected to blackmail. The blackmailers threatened to expose the fact that he was HIV-positive, and to reveal how he had become infected.' Louise read the article carefully, followed up various links, but found nothing that suggested a connection between Steve Nichols and Christian Holloway.

  She went to the counter and bought a bottle of water. Flies buzzed persistently around her sweaty face. She drained the bottle and returned to the computer. She ran a search for Christian Holloway, found her way into various organisations working with Aids patients. She was about to give up when the name Steve Nichols cropped up again. There was a photograph of a young man with glasses, a little mouth and a timid smile, perhaps a couple of years older than Henrik. She could see no similarity at all with Christian Holloway.

  Steve Nichols described the charitable organisation he worked for, A for Assistance, which was active in the USA and Canada, and helped those suffering from Aids to lead a decent life. But he did not reveal that he was suffering from Aids himself. There was nothing about blackmail. It said merely that he was dedicated to working on behalf of the afflicted.

  She was about to give up in despair when she came across a little window with biographical details.

  Steve Nichols. Born in Los Angeles, May 10, 1970,mother Mary-Ann Nichols, father Christian Holloway.

  She slammed her hand down on the desk. The supervisor, a young black man wearing a suit and tie, looked at her with eyebrows raised. She made a reassuring gesture and explained that she had just found what she had been looking for. He nodded, and returned to his newspaper.

  She was shaken by her discovery. It was still not clear what the implications were. Christian Holloway mourned the death of his son, but what was concealed behind his grief? A desire for revenge and a determination to find out who was behind the blackmail and his son's suicide?

  Lucinda reappeared, drew up a chair and sat down. Louise told her about what she had discovered.

  'But I'm sceptical. If it had been twenty years ago it would have been different. But not now. Would a person really commit suicide now, for fear that he was about to be exposed as being HIV-positive?'

  'Maybe he was afraid it would emerge that he'd been infected by a male or female prostitute?'

  Louise could see that Lucinda might be right.

  'I'd like you to try and find out what Henrik was looking for when you were here. Are you familiar with computers?'

  'Even if I'm just a waitress in a bar and have occasionally made a living as a woman for sale, that doesn't mean that I'm computer illiterate. If you must know, it was Henrik who taught me.'

  'That's not how I meant it.'

  'You know best what you meant.'

  It was obvious to Louise that she had offended Lucinda yet again. She apologised. Lucinda nodded curtly without saying anything. They changed places. Lucinda's hand hovered over the keyboard.

  'He said he wanted to read about something that had happened in China. Let me see, what was the home page called?'

  She thought hard.

  'Yes, "Aids Report",' she said. 'That's what it was called.'

  She started searching. Her fingers tripped fast and lightly over the keyboard.

  Louise was reminded of the time when Henrik was a young boy and she had tried to teach him how to play the piano. His hands were transformed in a flash into hammers that thumped down on the keys with gay abandon. After three lessons, Henrik's piano teacher suggested that he should become a drummer instead.

  'It was in May,' Lucinda said. 'It was windy, the sand was being whipped up all over the place. Henrik got something in his left eye. I helped to remove it. Then we came in here and sat over there.'

  She pointed to a corner of the room.

  'This place had only just opened. We sat at a window table. The computers were brand new. The owner himself was here, a Pakistani or Indian, or he might even have been from Dubai. He was walking round nervously, yelling at customers to be careful with the computers. A month after opening he fled the country. The money he'd invested in the café had come from a major drug-smuggling scandal via Ilha de Mozambique. I don't know who owns this café now. Perhaps nobody knows. Which usually means that the owner is some government minister or other.'

  Lucinda ran a search through the archive of articles, and scored the hit she was hoping for almost immediately. She moved her chair to one side and let Louise read the article for herself.

  It was clear and unambiguous. In the late autumn of 1995 some men came to Henan province in China to buy blood. For the peasants in the squalid villages, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to earn quick money. The only way they had ever been able to earn money before was by means of hard labour. Now all they needed to do was to lie down on a bunk and let somebody syphon off half a litre of blood. The purchasers of the blood were only interested in the plasma, and pumped the blood back into the peasants' bodies. But they failed to sterilise the needles. Among the peasants was a man who, some years previously, had made a journey into a province bordering on Thailand. While there he had sold his blood in a similar fashion, and as a result had picked up the Aids virus. And now it found its way into the bloodstream of all his fellow peasants. When a health inspection took place in 1997, doctors discovered that a large proportion of the population of several villages were now HIV-positive. A lot of them had already died, or were chronically ill.