The Eye Of The Leopard

by Mankell Henning

  The curtain goes up three days before Werner is supposed to drive him to Lusaka. By that time he has decided to resume his legal studies, make another try at it.

  One evening the leopard shows itself for the first time in Hans Olofson's life. A Brahma calf is found mauled. An old African who works as the tractor foreman is summoned to look at the dead animal, and he instantly identifies the barely visible marks as being from the paws of a leopard.

  'A big leopard,' he says. 'A lone male. Bold, probably cunning too.'

  'Where is it now?' asks Werner.

  'Nearby,' says the old man. 'Maybe it's watching us right now.'

  Olofson notices the man's terror. The leopard is feared; its cunning is superior to that of men ...

  A trap is set. The slaughtered calf is hoisted up and lashed to a tree. Fifty metres away, a grass blind is built with an opening for a rifle.

  'Maybe it will come back,' says Werner. 'If it does, it will be just before daybreak.'

  When they return to the white house, Ruth is sitting with another woman on the veranda.

  'One of my good friends,' says Ruth. 'Judith Fillington.'

  Olofson says hello to a thin woman with frightened eyes and a pale, harried face. He can't tell her age, but he thinks she must be forty years old. From their conversation he understands that she has a farm that produces only eggs. A farm located north of Kalulushi, towards the copper fields, with the Kafue River as one of its boundaries.

  Olofson keeps to the shadows. Fragments of a tragedy slowly emerge. Judith Fillington has come to announce that she has finally succeeded in having her husband declared dead. A bureaucratic obstacle has finally been overcome. A man struck to the ground by his melancholia, Olofson gathers. A man who vanished into the bush. Mental derangement, perhaps an unexpected suicide, perhaps a predator's victim. No body was ever found. Now there is a paper that confirms he is legally dead. Without that seal he has been wandering around like a phantom, Olofson thinks. For the second time I hear about a man who disappeared in the bush ...

  'I'm tired,' Judith says to Ruth. 'Duncan Jones has turned into a drunk. He can't handle the farm any more. If I'm gone for more than a day everything falls apart. The eggs don't get delivered, the lorry breaks down, the chicken feed runs out.'

  'You'll never find another Duncan Jones in this country,' says Werner. 'You'll have to advertise in Salisbury or Johannesburg. Maybe in Gaborone too.'

  'Who can I get?' asks Judith. 'Who would move here? Some new alcoholic?'

  She quickly drains her whisky glass and holds it out for a refill. But when the servant brings the bottle she pulls back her empty glass.

  Olofson sits in the shadows and listens. I always choose the chair where it's darkest, he thinks. In the midst of a gathering I look for a hiding place.

  At the dinner table they talk about the leopard.

  'There's a legend about the leopards that the older workers often tell,' says Werner. 'On Judgement Day, when the humans are already gone, the final test of power will be between a leopard and a crocodile, two animals who have survived to the end thanks to their cunning. The legend has no ending. It stops just at the moment when the two animals attack each other. The Africans imagine that the leopard and the crocodile engage in single combat for eternity, into the final darkness or a rebirth.'

  'The mind boggles,' says Judith. 'The absolute final battle on earth, with no witnesses. Only an empty planet and two animals sinking their teeth and claws into each other.'

  'Come with us tonight,' says Werner. 'Maybe the leopard will return.'

  'I can't sleep anyway,' says Judith. 'Why not? I've never seen a leopard, although I was born here.'

  'Few Africans have seen a leopard,' says Werner. 'At daybreak the tracks of its paws are there, right next to the huts and the people. But no one sees a thing.'

  'Is there room for one more?' asks Hans. 'I'm good at making myself quiet and invisible.'

  'The chieftains often wear leopard skins as a sign of honour and invulnerability,' says Werner. 'The magic essence of the leopard unites various tribes and clans. A Kaunde, a Bemba, a Luvale; all of them respect the leopard's wisdom.'

  'Is there room?' Olofson asks again, but without receiving an answer.

  Just after nine the group breaks up.

  'Who are you taking with you?' asks Ruth.

  'Old Musukutwane,' replies Werner. 'He's probably the only one here on the farm who has seen a leopard more than once in his life.'

  They park the Jeep a little way off from the leopard trap. Musukutwane, an old African in ragged clothes, bent and thin, steps soundlessly out of the shadows. Silently he guides them through the dark.

  'Choose your sitting position carefully,' whispers Werner when they enter the grass blind. 'We'll be here for at least eight hours.'

  Olofson sits in a corner, and all he hears is their breathing and the interplay of night-time sounds.

  'No cigarettes,' whispers Werner. 'Nothing. Speak softly if you do speak, mouth against ear. But when Musukutwane decides, all of us must be silent.'

  'Where is the leopard now?' asks Olofson.

  'Only the leopard knows where the leopard is,' replies Musukutwane.

  The sweat runs down Olofson's face. He feels someone touch his arm.

  'Why are they doing this, anyway?' asks Judith. 'Waiting all night for the leopard, when it probably won't show up?'

  'Maybe I'll figure out an answer myself before dawn,' says Olofson.

  'Wake me up if I fall asleep,' she says.

  'What is required of a foreman on your farm?' he asks.

  'Everything,' she replies. 'Fifteen thousand eggs have to be gathered, packed, and delivered each day, including Sundays. Feed has to be found; 200Africans must be taken by the ear. Every day involves preventing a number of crises from developing into catastrophes.'

  'Why not a black foreman?' he asks.

  'If only it were that easy. But it isn't.'

  'Without Musukutwane there will be no leopard. To me it's inconceivable that an African cannot be promoted to foreman in this country. They have a black president, a black government.'

  'Come and work for me,' she says. 'All Swedes are farmers, aren't they?'

  'Not exactly,' he replies. 'Maybe in the old days, but not any longer. And I don't know anything about chickens. I don't even know what 15,000 hens eat. Tons of breadcrumbs?'

  'Waste from the corn mills,' she says.

  'I don't think I have the temperament to take someone by the ear,' he says.

  'I must find someone to help me.'

  'In two days I'll be leaving on a plane. I can't imagine I'll be coming back.'

  Olofson swats at a mosquito singing in front of his face. I could do it, he thinks hastily. At least I could try until she finds someone suitable. Ruth and Werner have opened their house to me and given me a breathing space. Maybe I could do the same for her. What tempts him is the possibility of escaping his sense of emptiness. But at the same time he mistrusts the temptation; it could just be another hiding place.

  'Is there a lot of paperwork?' he asks. 'Residence permit, work permit?'

  'An unbelievable amount of paperwork is required,' she says. 'But I know a colonel in the Immigration Department in Lusaka. Five hundred eggs delivered to his door will procure the required stamps.'

  'But I don't know anything about chickens,' he says again.

  'You already know what they eat,' she replies.

  A grass blind and a hiring office, he thinks, and he feels as though he has become involved in something very unusual ...

  Cautiously he shifts his position. His legs are aching and a rock is pressing against the small of his back. A night bird screeches a sudden complaint in the dark. The frogs fall silent and he listens to the different people breathing around him. The only one he can't hear is Musukutwane. Werner moves his hand, a faint metallic sound comes from the rifle. Like in the trenches, he thinks. Waiting for the invisible foe ...

  Just before da
wn Musukutwane suddenly emits a faint throaty sound.

  'Starting now,' whispers Werner. 'Not a sound, not a movement.'

  Olofson turns his head cautiously and pokes a little hole in the grass wall. Judith is breathing close to one ear. A faint sound tells them that Werner has taken the safety off his gun. The light of dawn comes softly, like a vague reflection of a distant fire. The cicadas fall silent, the screeching night bird is gone. The night is suddenly soundless.

  The leopard, he thinks. When it approaches it is preceded by silence. Through the hole in the wall he tries to make out the tree to which the cadaver is tied.

  They wait, but nothing happens. Suddenly it is full daylight; the countryside is revealed. Werner locks the safety on his rifle.

  'Now we can go home,' he says. 'No leopard tonight.'

  'It has been here,' says Musukutwane. 'It came just before dawn. But it sensed something and disappeared again.'

  'Did you see it?' asks Werner suspiciously.

  'It was dark,' says Musukutwane. 'But I know he was here. I saw him in my head. But he was suspicious and never climbed up in the tree.'

  'If the leopard was here there must be some tracks,' says Werner.

  'There are tracks,' says Musukutwane.

  They crawl out of the grass blind and walk over to the tree. Flies are buzzing around the dead calf. Musukutwane points at the ground. The leopard's tracks.

  He came from a dense thicket just behind the tree, made a circuit to observe the calf from different directions, before he approached the tree. Then he turned and quickly vanished back into the thicket. Musukutwane reads the tracks as if they were written words.

  'What scared it off?' asks Judith.

  Musukutwane shakes his head and touches the track carefully with his palm.

  'He didn't hear anything. But he still knew it was dangerous. It's an old, experienced male. He has lived long because he is smart.'

  'Will he come back tonight?' asks Olofson.

  'Only the leopard knows that,' replies Musukutwane.

  Ruth is waiting for them with breakfast.

  'No shots last night,' she says. 'No leopard?'

  'No leopard,' says Judith. 'But I may have found myself a foreman.'

  'Really?' says Ruth, looking at Hans. 'Are you thinking of staying?'

  'A short time,' he replies. 'While she looks for the right person.'

  After breakfast he packs his bag and Louis carries it out to the waiting Land Rover.

  In surprise he realises that he has no regrets at all. I'm not making any commitment, he tells himself. I'm just allowing myself an adventure.

  'Maybe the leopard will come tonight,' he says to Werner when they say goodbye.

  'Musukutwane thinks so,' says Werner. 'If the leopard has any weakness it's the same as that of a human being: an unwillingness to lose prey that is already caught.'

  Werner promises to cancel Olofson's return trip for him.

  'Come back soon,' says Ruth.

  Judith pulls a dirty cap over her brown hair and with great difficulty jams the car into first gear.

  'We never had children, my husband and I,' she blurts out as they drive through the gates of the farm.

  'I couldn't help overhearing,' says Olofson. 'What actually happened?'

  'Stewart, my husband, came out to Africa when he was fourteen,' Judith says. 'His parents left England during the Depression in 1932, and their savings were just enough for a one-way trip to Capetown. Stewart's father was a butcher, and he did well. But his mother suddenly began going out in the middle of the night and preaching to the black workers in the shanty towns. She went insane and committed suicide only a few years after they arrived in Capetown. Stewart was always afraid that he would wind up like his mother. Every morning when he woke up he searched for signs that he was starting to lose his mind. He would often ask me if I thought he was doing or saying anything odd. I never thought he had inherited anything from his mother; I think he fell ill from his own fear. After independence here, with all the changes, and the blacks who could now make their own decisions, he lost heart. Still, I was unprepared when he disappeared. He left no message, nothing ...'

  After a little over an hour they arrive. 'Fillington Farm' Olofson reads on a cracked wooden sign nailed to a tree. They turn in through a gate opened by an African in ragged clothes, pass by rows of low incubation buildings, and stop at last outside a house of dark-red brick. A house that was never completed, Olofson can see.

  'Stewart was always fixing up the house,' she says. 'He would tear things down and add things on. I don't think he ever liked the house; he probably would rather have pulled it down and started again.'

  'A castle out in the African bush,' says Olofson. 'A strange house. I didn't think there were any like this.'

  'Welcome,' she says. 'Call me Judith and I'll call you Hans.'

  She shows him to a large, bright room with odd angles and a sloping ceiling. Through the window he looks out over a partially overgrown yard with dilapidated garden furniture. German shepherds run restlessly back and forth in a fenced dog run.

  'Bwana,' says someone behind him.

  A Masai, he thinks as he turns around. I've always imagined them like this. Kenyatta's men. This is how they looked, the Mau-Mau warriors, the ones who drove the English out of Kenya.

  The African who stands before him is very tall, his face noble.

  'My name is Luka, Bwana.'

  Can one have a servant who is nobler than oneself? Olofson wonders. An African warrior who runs one's bath?

  He notices Judith standing in the doorway. 'Luka will take care of us,' she says. 'He reminds me of what I forget.'

  Later, when they are sitting in the dilapidated wooden furniture drinking coffee, she tells him about Luka.

  'I don't trust him,' she says. 'There's something wily about him, even though I've never caught him stealing or lying. But he does both, naturally.'

  'How should I treat him?' asks Olofson.

  'Firmly,' says Judith. 'The Africans are always looking for your weak point, those moments when you can be talked into something. Give him nothing; find something to complain about the first time he washes your clothes. Even if there's nothing; then he'll know that you make demands ...'

  Two large tortoises are asleep at Olofson's feet. The heat gives him a churning headache, and when he sets down his coffee cup, he sees that his table is a stuffed elephant foot.

  I could live here the rest of my life, he thinks. The impulse is immediate, it overwhelms his consciousness and he can't formulate a single objection. I could put twenty-five years of my life behind me. Never again have to be reminded of what came before. But which of my roots would die if I tried to transplant them here, to this red earth? Why leave the meadowlands of Norrland for the sandy red soil they have here? Why would I want to live on a continent where an inexorable process of eviction is under way? Africa wants the whites out, I've understood that much. But they persevere, build their forts to defend themselves using racism and contempt as their tools. The whites' prisons are comfortable, but they are still prisons, bunkers with bowing servants ...