Daniel (39 page)

 

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.'

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.

‘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:

 

 

‘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.