The Eye Of The Leopard (3 page)

'Here the wind murmurs in the trees,' says Erik Olofson. 'But
in the tropics there is no murmuring. The palm leaves rattle.'

He tries to imagine the difference, striking his fork against a
glass, but the palms simply refuse to clatter or rattle. They still
murmur in his ears, like the firs he is surrounded by.

But when he tells his teacher that palms clatter and that
there are water lilies as big as the centre circle on the ice-hockey
rink outside the elementary school, he is ridiculed and called
a liar. Red in the face, Headmaster Gottfried comes storming
out of the musty office where he quells his distaste for teaching
by imbibing vermouth assiduously. He grabs Hans by the hair
and threatens him with what happens to anyone who is on an
excursion to the land of lies.

Afterwards, alone in the schoolyard in the spotlight of derision,
he decides never again to share any of his exotic knowledge.
In this hellhole of filthy snow and wooden houses, no one understands
a thing about the truths that must be sought at sea.

His eyes red and swollen, he comes home, boils potatoes, and
waits for his father. Maybe this is when he makes his decision.
That his life will be an unbroken journey. Standing over the pot
of potatoes, the holy spirit of his journey takes possession of him.
His father's smelly rag socks hang on the stove.

Sails, he thinks. Patched, mended sails ...

That night, as he lies in bed, he asks his father to tell him one
more time about the water lilies on Mauritius. And he falls asleep,
assured that Headmaster Gottfried will burn in hell for not
believing a sailor's report.

Later that evening, Erik Olofson drinks his coffee, sunk in the
rickety chair next to the radio. He lets the waves of the ether
hiss softly, as if he doesn't really want to listen. As if the hissing
is message enough. The breathing of the sea, far away. The photographs
burn in the logbook. All alone, he must guide his son.
And no matter how much he reveals to the boy, the forest still
seems to tighten around him. Sometimes he thinks that this is
the true great defeat of his life, that despite everything he endures.

But for how long? When will he splinter, like a glass that has
been heated for too long?

The ether waves hiss and he thinks again about why she left
him, left their son. Why did she act like a man? he wonders. Fathers
are the ones who leave and disappear. Not mothers. Least of all
after conceiving a precise and premeditated plan of escape. How
much about another person can you ever understand? Especially
someone who lives close to you, in the inner circle of your own life.

In the pale light of the radio Erik Olofson tries to comprehend.

But the questions return, and the next evening are still hanging
on their hooks. Erik Olofson tries to force his way into the core
of a lie. Tries to understand, tries to endure.

Finally both of them are asleep, the sailor from Åmsele and his
twelve-year-old son. The beams writhe in the midwinter darkness.
A lone dog runs along the river in the moonlight. The two elkhounds
lie curled up next to the stove in the kitchen, shaggy, with ears that
prick up and fall again as the beams scrape and complain.

The house by the river sleeps. The dawn is far off on this
night in Sweden in 1956.

He can recall his departure for Africa like a dim shadow
play.

He imagines the memories he bears to be a forest
which was once open and clean, but which has become more and
more overgrown. He has no tools for clearing the brush and scrub
in this landscape. The growth of his memories is constant, the
landscape harder and harder to take in.

Still, something does remain of that early morning in
September 1969 when he left all his horizons behind and flew
out into the world.

The Swedish sky was heavy that morning. An endless carpet
of rain clouds hung over his head as he boarded an aeroplane for
the first time. As he walked across the tarmac the damp seeped
through his shoes.

I'm leaving Sweden with wet socks, he thought. If I ever make
it to Africa I might bring along an autumn greeting in the form
of a cold.

On the way to the plane he had turned around, as if someone
might be there after all, waving goodbye to him. But the shadowy
grey figures on the roof terrace of Arlanda didn't belong to him.
His departure was noticed by no one.

As he checked in he suddenly felt an urge to snatch the ticket
back, yell that it was all a mistake, and leave the airport. But he
said thank you when they handed the ticket back to him, along
with his boarding card and the wish for a pleasant trip.

His first stop on the way to foreign horizons was London.
Then Cairo, Nairobi, and finally Lusaka.

He imagined that he might just as well be on his way to a
distant constellation, the Lyre or one of the faintly glowing fixed
stars in Orion's Belt.

All he knew about Lusaka was that the city was named after
an African elephant hunter.

My objective is as unreasonable as it is ridiculous, he thought.
Who in the world but me is on his way to a strange mission
station deep in the bush of northwest Zambia, far beyond the
roads to Kinshasa and Chingola? Who travels to Africa with a
fleeting impulse as his only carry-on luggage? I have no detailed
itinerary, nobody accompanied me to the airport, nobody will be
meeting me. This journey I am about to begin is merely an
escape ...

He remembers that this is what he thought, and then there
are only the vague shadows of memory. The way he sat in the
plane holding on to himself with a cramplike grip. The vibrating
fuselage, the whine of the jet engines, the machine gathering speed.

With a slight bow Hans Olofson made the climb into the air.

Twenty-seven hours later, precisely according to the schedule,
he landed at Lusaka International Airport.

Naturally there was no one there to meet him.

There is nothing remarkable about Hans Olofson's first
encounter with the African continent, nothing unusual.
He is the European visitor, the white man with his pride
and his fear, who defends himself against what is foreign by
instantly condemning it.

At the airport, disorder and chaos reign: incredibly complicated
entry documents to fill out, badly spelled instructions,
African immigration officers who seem unfazed by anything as
mundane as time or organisation. Hans Olofson stands in a queue
for a long time, only to be brusquely shunted to another queue
when he finally reaches the brown counter on which black ants
are hauling invisible particles of food. He realises that he has
joined the queue intended for returning residents, those with
Zambian passports or residence permits. Sweat pours out, strange
foreign smells fill his nose, and the stamp he finally obtains in
his passport is upside down, and he sees that the date of his
arrival is wrong. He is handed a new form by an unbelievably
beautiful African woman, brushes her hand quickly, and then
truthfully fills in the amount of foreign cash he is bringing in.

At customs there is seemingly insurmountable chaos; suitcases
are tossed off noisy carts pushed along by excited Africans. Among
the pile of cardboard boxes he finally finds his suitcase, half
squashed, and when he bends down to pull it out someone bumps
into him and sends him sprawling. When he turns around there
is no one apologising, no one seems to have noticed that he fell,
only a billowing mass of people pushing towards the customs
agents who are angrily ordering everyone to open their bags. He
is sucked into this human surge, shoved back and forth like a
pawn in some game, and then suddenly all the customs agents
vanish and no one asks him to open his battered suitcase. A
soldier with a submachine gun and a frayed uniform scratches
his forehead with the muzzle of his weapon, and Olofson sees
that he is hardly more than seventeen. A creaky swinging door
opens and he steps out on to African soil in earnest. But there
is no time for reflection; porters grab at his suitcase and his arms,
taxi drivers yell out offers of their services. He is dragged off to
an indescribably dilapidated car on which someone has painted
the word TAXI on one of the doors in sloppy, garish letters. His
bag is stuffed into a baggage compartment which already contains
two hens with their feet tied together, and the boot lid is held
in place by an ingeniously bound steel wire. He tumbles into a
back seat with no springs at all, so that it feels as if he is sitting
right on the floor. A leaky plastic container of petrol is leaning
against one knee, and when the taxi driver climbs into the driver's
seat with a burning cigarette in his mouth, Olofson for the first
time begins to hate Africa.

This car will never start, he thinks in desperation. Before we
even get out of the airport it will explode ... He watches the
driver, who can't be more than fifteen years old, join two loose
wires next to the steering wheel; the engine responds reluctantly,
and the driver turns to him with a smile and asks where he wants
to go.

Home, he wants to answer. Or at least away, away from this
continent that makes him feel totally helpless, that has ripped
from him all the survival tools he had acquired during his previous
life ...

His thoughts are interrupted by a hand groping at his face,
stuck in through the window which has no glass in it. He gives
a start, turns around, and looks straight into two dead eyes, a
blind woman who is feeling his face with her hand and wants
money.

The driver shouts something in a language that Olofson doesn't
understand, the woman replies by starting to screech and wail,
and Olofson sits on the floor of the car unable to do a thing.
With a screech of tyres the driver leaves the begging woman
behind, and Olofson hears himself yelling that he wants to be
taken to a hotel in the city.

'But not too expensive!' he shouts.

He never hears the driver's reply. A bus with stinking exhaust
and a violently racing engine squeezes past and drowns out the
driver's voice.

His shirt is sticky with sweat, his back already aches from the
uncomfortable sitting position, and he thinks he should have
settled on the price before he let himself be forced into the car.

The incredibly hot air, filled with mysterious smells, blows
into his face. A landscape drenched with sun as if it were an overexposed
photograph rushes past his eyes.

I'll never survive this, he thinks. I'm going to be killed in a car
crash before I've even understood that I'm really in Africa. As if
he had unconsciously made a prophecy, the car loses one of its
front wheels at that instant and careens off the road into a ditch.
Olofson strikes his head against the steel edge of the front seat
and then heaves himself out of the car, afraid that it's going to
explode.

The driver gives him a surprised look and then squats down
in front of the car and looks at the axle, which is bereft and
gaping. From the roof of the car he then takes a spare tyre, patched
and completely bald. Olofson leans over the red dirt and watches
the driver put on the spare tyre as if in slow motion. Ants are
crawling on his legs and the sun is so sharp that the world turns
white before his eyes.

In order to hold on, regain an inner balance, he searches for
something he can recognise. Something that reminds him of
Sweden and the life he is used to. But he finds nothing. Only
when he closes his eyes are the foreign African odours mixed
with vague memories.

The spare tyre is put on and the journey continues. With
wobbly movements of the steering wheel the driver pilots the car
towards Lusaka, which will be the next stage in the nightmare
that Olofson's first meeting with African soil has become. The
city is a clamorous chaos of broken-down cars, swerving cyclists,
and peddlers who seem to have laid out their wares in the middle
of the street. There's a stench of oil and exhaust, and at a traffic
light Olofson's taxi stops next to a lorry piled high with flayed
animal carcasses. Black and green flies instantly swarm into the
taxi, and Olofson wonders if he will ever find a hotel room, a
door to close behind him.

But finally there is a hotel. The taxi comes to a stop under
blooming jacaranda trees; an African in an outgrown, frayed
uniform succeeds in prising open the door and helping Olofson
to his feet. He pays the driver what he asks, even though he
realises the amount is preposterous. Inside he has to wait for a
long time at the front desk before they can work out whether
there are any vacant rooms. He fills out an endless registration
form and thinks that he'd better learn his passport number by
heart, since this is already the fourth time he has had to repeat
it. He keeps his suitcase between his legs, certain that thieves are
lurking everywhere. Then he waits for half an hour in a queue
to exchange money, and fills out another form with the feeling
that he has seen it before.

A rickety lift transports him upwards and a porter in worn-out
shoes carries his suitcase. Room 212 at the Ridgeway Hotel
at last becomes his first breathing space on this new continent,
and in impotent rebellion he strips off his clothes and crawls
naked between the sheets.

The world traveller, he thinks. Nothing but a scared rabbit.

There's a knock at the door and he jumps up as if he had
committed a crime by getting into bed. He wraps the bedspread
around him and opens the door.

An old, shrunken African woman in a cleaning smock asks if
he has any laundry to be done. He shakes his head, replies with
exaggerated politeness, and suddenly realises he has no idea how
he is expected to behave towards an African.

He lies down in bed again after drawing the curtains. An
air-conditioning unit rattles and all of a sudden he begins to
sneeze.

My wet socks in Sweden, he thinks. The wetness I brought
with me. I'm nothing but an endless string of weaknesses.
Anxiety is hereditary in my life. From the snowstorm a figure
has emerged, someone who is continually threatened by his lack
of inner direction.

In order to shake off his dejection he takes action, picking up
the phone to call Room Service. An incomprehensible voice
answers just as he's about to give up. He orders tea and chicken
sandwiches. The mumbled voice repeats his order and says it will
be brought to his room at once.

After an almost two-hour wait, a waiter appears at his door
with a tray. During these two hours he was incapable of doing
anything but waiting – with a crushing sense of being someone
who does not exist, not even to the person who takes the Room
Service orders.

Hans Olofson sees that the waiter has a pair of shoes that are
almost falling apart. One heel is missing, and the sole of the other
is gaping like a fish gill. Unsure how much to tip, he gives far
too much, and the waiter gives him a quizzical look before
vanishing silently from the room.

After the meal he takes a nap, and when he awakes it is already
evening. He opens the window and looks out into the darkness,
surprised that the heat is just as intense as it was that morning,
although the white sun is no longer visible.

A few street lamps cast a faint light. Black shadows flit past,
a laugh comes from an invisible throat in a car park just below
his window.

He looks at the clothes in his suitcase, uncertain what would
be proper for the dining room of an African hotel. Without actually
choosing, he gets dressed and then hides half of his money
in a hole in the cement behind the toilet bowl.

In the bar he sees to his surprise that almost all the guests are
white, surrounded by black waiters, all wearing bad shoes. He
sits down at a solitary table, sinks down into a chair that reminds
him of the seat in the taxi, and is at once surrounded by dark
waiters waiting for his order.

'Gin and tonic,' he says politely.

One of the waiters replies in a worried voice that there isn't
any tonic.

'Is there anything else you can mix it with?' asks Olofson.

'We have orange juice,' says the waiter.

'That will be fine,' says Olofson.

'Unfortunately there is no gin,' says the waiter.

Olofson can feel himself starting to sweat. 'What do you have
then?' he asks patiently.

'They don't have anything,' a voice replies from a nearby table,
and Olofson turns to see a bloated man with a red face, dressed
in a worn khaki suit.

'The beer ran out a week ago,' the man continues. 'Today there
is cognac and sherry. For a couple of hours yet. Then that'll be
gone too. Rumour has it that there may be whisky tomorrow.
Who knows?'

The man finishes his speech by giving the waiter a dirty look
and then leaning back in his chair.

Olofson orders cognac. He has the feeling that Africa is a place
where everything is just about to run out.

By his third glass of cognac an African woman suddenly sits
down in the chair next to him and gives him an inviting smile.

'Company?' she asks.

He is flattered, although he realises that the woman is a prostitute.
But she arrived too early, he thinks. I'm not ready yet.
He shakes his head.

'No thanks. Not tonight.'

Unfazed and still smiling, she gazes at him.

'Tomorrow?'

'Perhaps,' he says. 'But I may be leaving tomorrow.'

The woman gets up and disappears in the darkness by the
bar.

'Whores,' says the man at the next table, who seems to be
watching over Olofson like a guardian angel. 'They're cheap
here. But they're better at the other hotels.'

'I see,' replies Olofson politely.

'Here they're either too old or too young,' the man goes on.
'There was a better arrangement before.'

Olofson never finds out what the prior arrangement consisted
of, since the man again breaks off the conversation, leans back in
his chair, and closes his eyes.

In the restaurant he is surrounded by new waiters, and he sees
that they too all have worn-out shoes. One waiter who sets a
carafe of water on his table has no shoes at all, and Olofson stares
at his bare feet.

After much hesitation he orders beef. Just as the food is set
on the table he feels an attack of severe diarrhoea coming on.
One of the waiters notices that he has put down his fork.

'It doesn't taste good?' he asks anxiously.

'I'm sure it tastes excellent,' says Olofson. 'It's just that my
stomach is acting up.'

Helplessly he sees the waiters flocking around his table.

'There's nothing wrong with the food,' he says. 'It's just my
stomach.' Then he can't hold out any longer. Astonished guests
watch his hasty flight from the table, and he fears he won't make
it to his room in time.

Outside the lift he sees to his surprise that the woman who
had previously offered him her company is leaving the hotel with
the bloated man in the khaki suit who claimed that the prostitutes
weren't any good at this hotel.

In the lift he shits his pants. A terrible stench begins to spread
and the shit runs down his legs. With infinite slowness the lift
takes him to his floor. As he stumbles down the corridor he hears
a man laughing behind a closed door.

In the bathroom he studies his wretchedness. Then he lies
down in his bed and thinks that the assignment he has given
himself is either impossible or meaningless. What was he
thinking?

In his wallet he has the smudged address of a mission station
on the upper reaches of the Kafue. How he's going to get there
he has no idea. He checked that there was a train to Copperbelt
before he left. But from there, another 270 kilometres straight
out into a pathless, desiccated landscape?

At the library back in his home town he had read about the
country where he now found himself. Large parts of it are inaccessible
during the rainy season. But when is the rainy season?