The Eye Of The Leopard (19 page)

After 'Red Sails in the Sunset' comes 'Diana', and then they
have to speed it up so the audience won't start snarling. And
Kringström's band thumps away at something that's supposed to
be 'Alligator Rock', and he feels as though an evil being is standing
behind him pounding him on the head with a sledgehammer.
On the dance floor the young people are jumping and bounding
like mad, and Kringström feels that he is spending his life in an
insane asylum. After this musical outburst come two slow
numbers, and sometimes Kringström takes his revenge on the
demanding youth by playing a waltz. Then the dance floor thins
out, and the noisy mob crowds through the swinging doors that
lead to the café, where it's easy to mix aquavit from hip flasks
into lukewarm Loranga soda.

Hans Olofson also enters this world. Most often he comes
with the Holmström twins. They still haven't found their chosen
crafts and left the horse dealer to his fate. Their patrimony, the
future planned out for them, will have to wait another year, and
when the autumn evenings start to turn cold they head for the
Saturday dances at the People's Hall. They park their Saab and
bump into Hans Olofson, loitering against a wall, unsure as to
whether he dares go inside. They take him under their wing, drag
him along behind the beauty parlour and offer him some
schnapps. The fact that he stood up to the horse dealer and told
him that he was quitting has made a deep impression. Most who
leave Under's stable are simply kicked out. But Hans Olofson
took a stand, and for that he has earned a snort and their protection.

Hans can feel the schnapps warming his blood, and he follows
the twins into the crowd. Superintendent Gullberg stands by the
ticket cage and watches the hullabaloo with suspicious eyes. He
ejects those who are too obviously drunk, which usually results
only in lame protests. But he knows that one litre after another
of brandy and schnapps is being carried past him in handbags
and roomy overcoats. They slip through the eye of the needle,
step into the smoky heat, the world of malfunctioning lightbulbs.
The Holmström twins are no great dancers, but with sufficient
schnapps in their bellies they can offer a fairly well-executed fox
trot. At once they run into some ladies they know from some
faraway summer lodgings, and Hans finds himself abandoned.

He knows how to dance – Janine taught him that. But she
never taught him to dare ask a girl to dance. He has to go through
this trial by fire alone, and he steps on his own toes in fury over
not being able to ask one of the female flock waiting in desire
and dread along the wall of the dance rotunda, which is never
called anything but 'the mountain wall'. On the dance floor the
Enviable Ones are already gliding past, the Beauties and the
Willing, those who are always asked to dance and hardly ever
manage to return to 'the mountain wall' before they're swept off
again. They dance with the men of sure steps, the men who own
cars and have the right looks. Hans sees last year's 'Lucia' glide
past in the arms of Julin the driver, who operates one of the
Highway Department's big road graders. The sweat stinks, the
bodies are steaming, and Hans rages at standing there like an
oaf.

Next time, he thinks. Next time I'll cross the water.

But once he has decided on the daughter of the district nurse,
taken his bearings and set his feet in the right direction, it's already
too late. Like angels to the rescue the Holmström brothers come
clamouring, flushed and hot after intense efforts on the dance
floor. In the men's room they refresh themselves with some lukewarm
schnapps and dirty stories. From one of the locked toilet
stalls they hear the loud song of someone throwing up.

Then they head out again, and now Hans is in a hurry. Now
it's sink or swim, now he has to conquer the 'mountain wall' to
avoid going under from self-loathing. On unsteady legs he pushes
across the dance floor just as Kringström starts off an infinitely
slow version of 'All of Me'. He stops in front of one of the bridesmaids
from the year before. She follows him out into the fray,
where they shove their way on to the overcrowded dance floor.

Many years later, in his house on the banks of the Kafue, with
a loaded pistol under his pillow, he recalls 'All of Me', the smoking
heat of the stove, and the bridesmaid he pushed along the dance
floor. When he wakes in the African night, drenched with sweat,
afraid of something he dreamed or perhaps something he heard
outside in the dark, he returns there. He can see everything,
exactly the way it was.

Now Kringström is starting up a new dance. 'La Paloma' or
'Twilight Time', he can't remember which. He has danced with
the bridesmaid, had a few more snorts from the Holmström
brothers' flask, and now he's going to dance again. But when he
stops in front of her on his unsteady legs she shakes her head
and turns away. He reaches out his hand to grab hold of her arm,
but she pulls away. She grimaces and says something, but the
drums are banging and when he leans forward to hear what she's
saying, he loses his balance. Without knowing how it happened,
he finds himself all at once with his face among feet and shoes.
When he tries to get back up, he feels a strong hand on his collar
lifting him up. It's Superintendent Gullberg, who vigilantly spotted
the intoxicated youth crawling about on the floor and decided
that he should be put out in the street at once.

In the African night he can recall the humiliation, and it's just
as awful as when it happened.

He staggers away from the People's Hall through the autumn
night, knowing that the only person he can turn to in his misery
is Janine. She wakes up when he pounds on her door, roughly
torn out of a dream in which she was a child again. She opens
the door groggily and there's Hans, standing wide-eyed.

She slowly thaws him out, as always waiting patiently. She can
see that he's drunk and miserable, but she waits, leaving him alone
with his silence. As he sits in her kitchen and the image of his
defeat becomes clearer, it assumes grotesque proportions. No one
could have been subjected to greater disgrace, whether it was
madmen who tried to set fire to themselves or who stood in the
winter night determined to tear down the church with a frozen
crowbar. There he had lain among the feet and shoes. Tossed out
like a cat by the scruff of his neck.

She spreads out a sheet and a blanket in the room with the
gramophone and tells him to lie down. Without a word he staggers
in and falls on the sofa, out cold. She closes the door and
then lies in her own bed, unable to sleep. She tosses restlessly,
waiting for something that never happens.

When Hans wakes up in the morning, with temples pounding
and mouth parched, he is thinking about a dream: the door
opened, Janine came into his room and stood naked looking at
him. The dream is like a polished prism, as clear as an image
from reality. It penetrates the fog of contrition. It must have
happened, he thinks. She must have come in here last night, with
no clothes on.

He gets up from the sofa and goes into the kitchen for a drink
of water. The door to her room is closed, and when he listens he
can hear her snoring softly. The clock on the wall says quarter
to five, and he crawls back on to the sofa to fall asleep and dream
or forget that he exists.

When he wakes up a few hours later it's already dawn and
Janine is sitting in her robe at the kitchen table, knitting. When
he sees her he wants to take the knitting out of her hands, untie
her robe, and bury himself in her body. The door to this house
on the south side of the river will be closed for good; he will
never leave this house again.

'What are you thinking?' she asks.

She knows, he thinks. It won't do any good to lie. Nothing
will do any good; the difficulties of life are looming before him
like enormous icebergs. What is he actually imagining – that he
can find a password that will make it possible to control this
damned life?

'You're thinking about something,' she says. 'I can tell by your
face. Your lips are moving as if you're talking to someone. But I
can't hear what you're saying.'

'I'm not thinking,' he says. 'What would I be thinking about?
Maybe I'm incapable of thinking!'

'You don't have to talk if you don't want to,' she says.

Again he thinks that he's going to go over to her and undo
the sash of her robe. Instead, he borrows a jumper from her and
vanishes into the frosty landscape of autumn.

At the People's Hall, Superintendent Gullberg's wife is busy
cleaning up. She peevishly opens the back door when he knocks.
His coat is still hanging on its hook like an abandoned skin. He
hands her his cloakroom number.

'How can anyone forget his coat?' she asks.

'It's possible,' replies Hans Olofson and leaves. He realises that
there is a kind of forgetfulness that is quite vast.

The seasons change, the river freezes over and then one day
floods its banks. No matter how much his father chops at them,
the fir forests remain motionless on the horizon. The tram clatters
across the bridge, and season after season Hans trudges to
Janine's house. The river of knowledge on which he floats, year
after year, reveals no Goal to him. But he keeps waiting.

He stands outside Janine's house. The notes from her slide
trombone trickle out through a half-open window. Every day he
stands there and every day he decides to untie the sash of her
robe. More and more often he chooses to visit her when he can
expect her not to be dressed. Early on Sunday mornings he knocks
on her door; other times he stands on her steps long past midnight.
The sash tied around her robe glows like fire.

But when it finally happens, when he grabs with fumbling
fingers for her sash, there is nothing that reminds him of what
he had imagined.

It's a Sunday morning in May, two years after he left the horse
dealer. The evening before, he was pushed and shoved on the
dance floor. But this time he left early, long before Superintendent
Gullberg angrily began flashing the lights and Kringström's band
started to pack up their instruments. Suddenly he decided he'd
had enough, and so he left. For a long time he roamed around
in the light spring night before slipping past Egg-Karlsson's door
and crawling into bed.

He wakes early and drinks coffee with his father in the kitchen.
Then he goes over to Janine's house. She lets him in and he
follows her into the kitchen and loosens her sash. Softly they
sink to the floor, like two bodies falling through the sea on their
way to a distant bottom. Roughly they unite around each other's
desire. This desire had never been completely extinguished for
Janine on Hurrapelle's penitential bench. For a long time she
feared that it would dry up one day, but her hope never ran out.

At last Hans steps out of himself, out of his introverted powerlessness.
For the first time he feels that he holds life in his hands;
from behind his forehead Sture lies motionless in his bed and
watches what's happening with a smile.

But neither of them has any idea that passion is a faithless
master when they fling their limbs around each other on the
kitchen floor. Now there is only great relief. Afterwards they
drink coffee. Hans steals a glance at her and wishes she would
say something.

Is she smiling? And her thoughts? The hands on the wall clock
wander their mute circuit. A moment not to forget, he thinks.
Possibly life is more than just trouble and suffering after all.
Possibly there is also something else. A moment not to forget ...

In a black-and-white photograph he is standing next to Peter
Motombwane.

Behind them is the white wall of the house, and the picture
has been taken in bright sunlight. A lizard sits motionless on the
wall beside Peter Motombwane's head. It will wind up being part
of their shared portrait.

Both of them are laughing in the picture, at Luka holding
Peter's camera. But why did he want to have the picture? Why
did Peter suggest that they take the photograph? He can't
remember.

One day Hans Olofson invites his foremen to dinner in his
house. Mutely they sit at his table, devouring the food as if they
hadn't eaten in a very long time, drinking themselves quickly into
a stupor. Olofson asks questions and gets one-syllable replies.

Afterwards he asks Luka to explain. Why this reluctance? This
sulky silence?

'You are a
mzungu
,
Bwana
,' says Luka.

'That's no answer,' says Olofson.

'It
is
an answer,
Bwana
,' says Luka.

One of the workers who cleans the feed supply and hunts rats
falls from the stacked-up sacks and lands so badly that he breaks
his neck. The dead man leaves behind a wife and four daughters
in a wretched mud hut that Judith once had ordered built. Her
name is Joyce Lufuma, and Olofson begins going to her house
quite often. He gives her a sack of maize, a
chitenge
, or something
else she needs.

Sometimes, when he is very tired, he sits down outside her
house and watches the four daughters playing in the red dirt.
Maybe this is my lasting contribution, he thinks. Aside from all
my great plans, to help these five women.

But usually he keeps his weariness under control, and one day
he gathers his foremen and tells them that he will give them
cement, bricks, and roofing metal so that they can repair their
houses, maybe even build new ones. In return he requires that
they dig pits for their refuse and build covered toilet pits.

For a short time he seems to see an improvement. Then everything
is the same as it was before. Rubbish whirls across the red
earth. The old roofing metal suddenly reappears. But where are
the new materials he bought? He asks but receives no answer.

He discusses this with Peter Motombwane as they sit on his
veranda in the evenings, and he tries to understand. He realises
that Peter Motombwane is his first black friend. It has taken four
years.

Why Motombwane first came to visit him on the farm he has
no idea. He stood in the doorway and said he was a journalist,
that he wanted to write about the egg farm. But Olofson never
read anything about it in the
Times of Zambia
.

Motombwane returns and never asks Olofson for anything,
not even a tray of eggs. Olofson tells him about his grand plan.
Motombwane listens with his serious eyes fixed on some point
above Olofson's head.

'What sort of answer do you think you'll get?' he asks, when
Olofson is finished.

'I don't know. But what I do has to be right.'

'You'll hardly get the answers you're hoping for,' says
Motombwane. 'You're in Africa now. And the white man has never
understood Africa. Instead of being surprised you're going to be
disappointed.'

Their conversations are never concluded, because Peter
Motombwane always breaks off unexpectedly. One moment he
is sitting in one of the deep soft chairs on the terrace, and the
next he has stood up to say goodbye. He has an old car, and only
one rear door will open. To get behind the wheel he has to crawl
over the seats.

'Why don't you fix the doors?' Olofson asks.

'Other things are more important.'

'Does the one have to exclude the other?'

'Sometimes, yes.'

After Motombwane has visited him he feels restive. Without
being able to explain what it is, he feels that he has been reminded
of something important, something he always forgets.

But other people come to visit too. He gets to know an Indian
merchant from Kitwe named Patel.

On an irregular basis and without any apparent logic, various
necessities suddenly vanish in the country. One day there's no
salt, another day no newspapers can be printed because there's
no paper. He remembers what he thought when he first arrived
in Africa: on the black continent everything is in the process of
running out.

But through Patel he can get hold of whatever he needs. From
hidden storerooms Patel fetches whatever the white colony
requires. Along unknown transport routes the scarce goods are
brought into the country, and the white colony can get what it
needs for a reasonable additional fee. In order not to provoke the
wrath of the blacks and risk seeing his shop plundered and burned
down, Patel makes personal visits to the various farms to hear
whether anything is needed.

He never comes alone. He always has one of his cousins with
him, or a friend from Lusaka or Chipata who happens to be
visiting. They're all named Patel. If I shouted that name I'd be
surrounded by a thousand Indians, thinks Olofson. And they
would all ask whether there was anything I needed.

I can understand their caution and fear. They are hated more
than the whites, since the difference between them and the
Africans is so striking. In the shops they have everything that
the blacks so seldom can afford to buy. And everyone knows
about the secret storerooms, everyone knows that their great
fortunes are smuggled out of the country to distant bank accounts
in Bombay or London. I can understand their fear. Just as clearly
as I can understand the blacks' hatred.

One day Patel stands outside his door. He's wearing a turban
and smells of sweet coffee. At first Hans Olofson doesn't believe
in accepting the dubious privilege that Patel offers him. Mr Pihri
is enough, he thinks.

But after a year he gives in. He's been without coffee for a long
time. He decides to make an exception, and Patel returns to his
farm the next day with ten kilos of Brazilian coffee.

'Where do you get hold of it?' Olofson asks. Patel throws out
his hands and gives him a sorrowful look.

'So much is in short supply in this country,' he says. 'I'm only
trying to relieve the worst of the shortages.'

'But how?'

'Sometimes I don't even know myself how I do it, Mr Olofson.'

Then the government introduces harsh currency restrictions.
The value of the
kwacha
drops dramatically when the price of
copper falls, and Olofson realises that he will no longer be able
to send money to Judith Fillington as required in their contract.

Once again Patel comes to his rescue.

'There's always a way out,' he says. 'Let me handle this. I ask
only twenty per cent for the risks I'm taking.'

How Patel arranges it Olofson never knows, but each month
he gives him money and a receipt comes regularly from the bank
in London, confirming that the money has been transferred.

During this period Olofson also opens his own account in the
London bank, and Patel withdraws two thousand Swedish kronor
monthly as his fee.

Olofson notices an increasing unrest in the country, and this
is confirmed when Mr Pihri and his son begin to pay more
frequent visits.

'What's going on?' Olofson asks. 'Indian shops are being burned
down or plundered. Now there's talk of the danger of rioting,
because there isn't any maize to be had and the blacks have no
food. But how can the maize suddenly run out?'

'Unfortunately there are many who smuggle maize to the neighbouring
nations,' says Mr Pihri. 'The prices are better there.'

'But aren't we talking about thousands of tonnes?'

'The ones who are smuggling have influential contacts,' replies
Mr Pihri.

'Customs officials and politicians?'

They are sitting in the cramped mud hut talking. Mr Pihri
lowers his voice.

'It may not be wise to make such statements,' he says. 'The
authorities in this country can be quite sensitive. Recently there
was a white farmer outside Lusaka who mentioned a politician
by name in an unfortunate context. He was deported from the
country within twenty-four hours. The farm has now been taken
over by a state cooperative.'

'I just want to be left in peace,' says Olofson. 'I'm thinking of
those who work here.'

'That's quite as it should be,' says Mr Pihri. 'One should avoid
trouble for as long as possible.'

More and more frequently there are forms that have to be
filled out and approved, and Mr Pihri seems to be having a harder
and harder time fulfilling his self-imposed obligations. Olofson
pays him more and more, and he sometimes wonders whether
it's really true, what Mr Pihri tells him. But how can he check?

One day Mr Pihri comes to the farm accompanied by his son.
He is very solemn.

'Perhaps there is trouble coming,' he says.

'There's always trouble,' says Olofson.

'The politicians keep taking new decisions,' says Mr Pihri.
'Wise decisions, necessary decisions. But unfortunately they can
be troublesome.'

'What's happened now?'

'Nothing, Mr Olofson. Nothing.'

'Nothing?'

'Nothing really, not yet, Mr Olofson.'

'But something is going to happen?'

'It's not at all certain, Mr Olofson.'

'Only a possibility?'

'One might put it that way, Mr Olofson.'

'What?'

'The authorities are unfortunately not very pleased with the
whites who live in our country, Mr Olofson. The authorities
believe that they are sending money out of the country illegally.
Of course this also applies to our Indian friends who live here.
It is suspected that taxes are not being paid as they should be.
The authorities are therefore planning a secret raid.'

'What are you talking about?'

'Many police officers will visit all the white farms at the same
time, Mr Olofson. In all secrecy, of course.'

'Do the farmers know about this?'

'Of course, Mr Olofson. That's why I'm here, to inform you
that there will be a secret raid.'

'When?'

'Thursday evening next week, Mr Olofson.'

'What shall I do?'

'Nothing, Mr Olofson. Just don't have any papers from foreign
banks lying about. And especially no foreign currency. Then it
could be quite troublesome. I wouldn't be able to do anything.'

'What would happen?'

'Our prisons are unfortunately still in very poor condition, Mr
Olofson.'

'I'm very grateful for the information, Mr Pihri.'

'It's a pleasure to be able to help, Mr Olofson. My wife has
been mentioning for a long time that her old sewing machine is
causing her a great deal of trouble.'

'That's not good, of course,' says Olofson. 'Isn't it true that
there are sewing machines in Chingola at the moment?'

'I've heard it mentioned,' replies Mr Pihri.

'Then she ought to buy one before they're gone,' Olofson says.

'My view precisely,' replies Mr Pihri.

Olofson shoves a number of notes across the table.

'Is the motorcycle all right?' he asks young Mr Pihri, who has
been sitting quietly during the conversation.

'An excellent motorcycle,' he replies. 'But next year there's
supposed to be a new model coming out.'

His father has taught him well, Olofson thinks. Soon the son
will be able to take over my worries. But part of what I will be
paying him in future will always fall to the father. They ply me
well, their source of income.

Mr Pihri's information is correct. The following Thursday two
broken-down Jeeps full of police officers come driving up to the
farm just before sundown. Olofson meets them with feigned
surprise. An officer with many stars on his epaulettes comes up
on to the terrace where Olofson is waiting. He sees that the
policeman is very young.

'Mr Fillington,' says the policeman.

'No,' Olofson replies.

Serious confusion results when it turns out that the search
warrant is made out in the name of Fillington. At first the young
officer refuses to believe what Olofson says, and in an aggressive
tone he insists that Hans Olofson's name is Fillington. Olofson
shows him the deed of transfer and title registration, and at last
the police officer realises that the warrant he is holding in his
hand is made out to the wrong person.

'But you are welcome to search the house anyway,' Olofson
adds quickly. 'It's easy to make a mistake. I don't want to cause
any difficulties.'

The officer looks relieved, and Olofson decides that now he has
made another friend, perhaps someone he may find useful in future.

'My name is Kaulu,' says the police officer.

'Please come in,' says Olofson.

After barely half an hour the officer comes out of the house
leading his men.

'Might one ask what you are looking for?' asks Olofson.

'Activities inimical to the state are always under way,' says the
officer gravely. 'The value of the
kwacha
is continually being undermined
by illegal foreign exchange transactions.'

'I understand that you have to intervene,' says Olofson.

'I shall tell my supervisor of your accommodation,' replies the
police officer and gives him a salute.

'Please do,' says Olofson. 'You're welcome to visit anytime.'

'I'm quite fond of eggs,' shouts the officer as Olofson watches
the dilapidated vehicles drive off in a cloud of dust.

Suddenly he understands something about Africa, an insight
into the young Africa, the anguish of the independent states. I
ought to laugh at this inadequate search of the premises, he thinks.
At the young police officer who surely comprehends nothing. But
then I would be making a mistake, because this inadequacy is
dangerous. In this country people are hung, young policemen
torture people, kill people with whips and truncheons. Laughing
at this helplessness would be the same as putting my life at risk.