The Eye Of The Leopard (32 page)

I carry Africa inside me, drums pounding distantly in the
night. A starry sky whose clarity I have never before experienced.
The variations of nature on the seventeenth parallel. The scent
of charcoal, the ever-present smell of ingrained sweat from my
workers. Joyce Lufuma's daughters walking in a row with bundles
on their heads.

I can't leave Africa before I make peace with myself, he thinks.
With the fact that I stayed here for almost twenty years. Life is
the way it is, and mine became what it became. I probably would
have been no happier if I had finished my studies and spent my
time in the world of Swedish justice. How many people dream
of venturing out? I did it, and one might also say that I succeeded
with something. I'll keep brooding over meaningless details if I
don't accept my eighteen years in Africa as something I'm grateful
for, in spite of everything.

Deep inside I also know that I have to leave. The two men I
killed, Africa which is devouring me, make it impossible to stay.
Maybe I'll simply flee, maybe that's the most natural leave-taking.
I have to start planning my departure right away, tomorrow. Give
myself the time required, but no more.

After he goes to bed he reflects that he has absolutely no
regrets at having run over Lars Håkansson. His death hardly
affects him. But Peter Motombwane's blasted head aches inside
him. In his dreams he is watched by a leopard's vigilant eye.

Olofson's final days in Africa stretch out to half a year. He
offers his farm to the white colony, but to his astonishment no
one bids on it. When he asks why, he realises that the location
is too isolated. It's a profitable farm, but nobody dares take it
over. After four months he has only two offers, and he realises
that the price he will get for it is very poor.

The two bidders are Patel and Mr Pihri and his son. When
word gets out that he is leaving his farm, they both come to visit;
only chance keeps them from appearing on his terrace at precisely
the same moment. Mr Pihri and his son regret his departure.
Naturally, Olofson thinks. Their best source of income is disappearing.
No used cars, no sewing machines, no back seat stacked
full of eggs.

When Mr Pihri enquires about the asking price for the farm,
Olofson thinks it's merely the man's eternal curiosity. Only later
does he understand to his surprise that Mr Pihri is a bidder. Did
I give him that much money over the years? So many bribes that
now he can afford to buy my farm? If that's the case, it's a perfect
summation of this country, perhaps of Africa itself.

'I have a question,' Olofson says to him. 'And I mean this in a
friendly way.'

'Our conversations are always friendly,' says Mr Pihri.

'All those documents,' Olofson says. 'All those documents that had
to be stamped so I wouldn't have problems. Were they necessary?'

Mr Pihri thinks for a long time before he replies. 'I don't quite
understand.'

Well, that would be the first time, Olofson thinks.

'In all friendliness,' he continues. 'I wonder only whether you
and your son have done me such great favours as I have believed.'

Mr Pihri looks distressed; his son lowers his eyes.

'We have avoided trouble,' replies Mr Pihri. 'In Africa our aim
is always mutual benefit.'

I'll never know how much he has fooled me, Olofson thinks.
How much of my money he in turn has paid to other corrupt
civil servants. I'll have to live with that riddle.

The same day Patel drives up to the farm in his rusty car.

'Naturally a farm like this would not be hard to sell,' he says
with a smile.

His humility conceals a predator, thinks Olofson. Right now
he's calculating percentages, preparing his solemn speech about
how dangerous it is to make illegal deposits of currency outside
the control of the Zambian National Bank. People like Mr Pihri
and Patel are among this continent's most deplorable individuals.
Without them nothing functions. The price of corruption is the
usual: the impotence of the poor. Olofson mentions his difficulties
and the price he had in mind.

'Of course it's a scandalously low price,' he says.

'These are uncertain times,' replies Patel.

Two days later a letter arrives in which Patel informs him
that he will be bidding on the farm, but that the price seems a
bit high to him, in view of the difficult times. Now I have two
bidders, Olofson thinks. Both are ready to talk me down, using
my own money.

He writes a letter to the bank in London notifying them that
he's selling his farm. The contract that was prepared with the
lawyer in Kitwe stipulates that the entire sale price now falls to
him. The law firm in Kitwe no longer exists; his lawyer has moved
to Harare in Zimbabwe. A reply comes from the bank in London
a couple of weeks later, advising him that Judith Fillington died
in 1983. Since the bank no longer had any business associated
with the old or new owners, it had not deemed it necessary to
inform him of her death.

For a long time he sits with the letter in his hand, remembering
their helpless act of love. Every life is always a completed
whole, he thinks. Afterwards no retouching is permitted, no additions.
No matter how hollow it may have been, at the end it is
still a completed whole.

One day in late November, a few months before he leaves
Africa, Olofson drives Joyce Lufuma and her daughters to
Luapula. They load her few possessions into one of the egg lorries.
Mattresses, cooking implements, bundles of clothes. Outside
Luapula he follows Joyce's instructions, turning down a barely
passable bush track, and finally stops by a cluster of mud houses.

Instantly the car is surrounded by dirty, skinny children. Swarms
of flies engulf Olofson as he climbs out. After the children come
the adults, enclosing Joyce and her children in their community.
The African family, Olofson thinks. In some way they are all
related to each other, prepared to share even though they possess
virtually nothing. With the money I gave Joyce she will be the
most well-to-do person in this community. But she will share it
all; in the remote villages a sense of solidarity lives on that is otherwise
not visible on this continent.

On the outskirts of the village Joyce shows him where she will
build her house, keep her goats, and plant her plots of maize and
cassava. Until the house is built she will live with her daughters
in the house of one of her sisters. Peggy and Marjorie will finish
their studies in Chipata. A missionary family that Olofson
contacted has promised to take care of them, letting them stay
in their house. More I cannot do, he thought. The missionaries
will hardly let them be photographed naked and send their
pictures to Germany. Maybe they will try to convert the girls,
but there's nothing I can do about that.

He has transferred 10,000
kwacha
into a bank account for Joyce,
and taught her how to write her name. He has also transferred
10,000
kwacha
to the missionaries of Mutshatsha. He knows that
20,000
kwacha
is what one of his workers earns in an entire lifetime.
Everything is unreasonable, he tells himself. Africa is a continent
where everything is out of proportion to what I once was accustomed
to. It's quite easy to make a rich woman of Joyce Lufuma.
I'm sure she doesn't realise how much money I have given her.
Maybe it's best that way. With tears in his eyes he says goodbye.
Now is when I'm really leaving Africa, he thinks. Whatever binds
me to this continent ceases with Joyce and her daughters.

When he gets into the car, the daughters are dancing around
him. Joyce beats a drum and the sound follows him away. The
outcome of the future depends on these women, he thinks again.
I can only pass on a part of the money I still have in abundance.
The future is their own.

He assembles his foremen and promises to do what he can so
that the new owner will keep them all on. He buys two oxen and
prepares for a party. A lorry comes to the farm with 4,000 bottles
of beer. The party goes on all night; the fires flare up and drunken
Africans dance to a seemingly endless number of drums. Olofson
sits with the old men and watches the dark bodies moving around
the fires. Tonight nobody hates me, he thinks. Tomorrow the
usual reality will resume. This is a night when no knife blades
glisten. The whetstones are at rest.

Tomorrow reality is once again as it must be, filled to
bursting point with contradictions that one day will explode in
a necessary revolt. In the shadows he thinks he sees Peter
Motombwane. Which one of these people will carry on his dream?
Someone will do it, I'm certain of that.

One Saturday in December he sells off the furniture in the
house at an improvised auction. The white colony has come, along
with a few blacks. Mr Pihri and his son are an exception, Patel
another. None of them places any bids. The books that he once
took over from Judith Fillington are purchased by a mining
engineer from Luansha. His shotgun goes to one of his
neighbours. He decides to keep his revolver. The furniture he
once used for barricades is carried off to vehicles which then drive
to various farms. He keeps two wicker chairs that sit on the
terrace. On this Saturday he receives innumerable invitations to
farewell dinners. He accepts them all.

When the auction is over only his empty house remains, and
the question of who will take over the farm. Mr Pihri and Patel
make identical offers, as if they had entered into a secret pact.
But Olofson knows that they are bitter enemies, and he decides
once and for all to play them off against each other. He sets a
date, 15 December at midday. Whoever gives him the highest bid
by that deadline will take over the farm.

With a lawyer he has brought in from Lusaka he waits on the
terrace. A few minutes before twelve both Patel and Mr Pihri
arrive. Olofson asks them to write down their bids on slips of
paper. Mr Pihri excuses himself for not having a pen and has to
borrow one from the lawyer. Patel's bid is higher than Mr Pihri's.
When Olofson reads the result, he sees the hatred for Patel flash
in Mr Pihri's eyes. Patel won't have an easy time of it with him,
Olofson thinks. With him or with his son.

'There is one unwritten condition,' Olofson tells Patel when
they are alone. 'One condition that I do not hesitate to impose,
since you have bought this farm for a shamelessly low price.'

'The times are hard,' says Patel.

'The times are always hard,' Olofson interrupts him. 'If you
don't take good care of the employees I will haunt you in your
dreams. It's the workers who know how to run this farm, and it's
they who have fed me all these years.'

'Of course, everything will remain as it has always been,' Patel
replies humbly.

'That's the best way,' says Olofson. 'Otherwise I'll come back
and impale your head on a pole.'

Patel blanches and crouches on the stool where he's sitting at
Olofson's feet. Papers are signed, the title is transferred. Olofson
signs his name quickly to get it over with.

'Mr Pihri kept my pen,' says the lawyer gloomily as he gets up
to go.

'You'll never see it again,' says Olofson.

'I know,' says the lawyer. 'But it was a nice pen.'

Now he is alone with Patel. The transfer is dated 1 February
1988. Patel promises to transfer as much money as he can to the
bank in London. The difficulties and risks he estimates as equivalent
to forty-five per cent.

'Don't you show yourself here before the morning I leave,'
says Olofson. 'When you drive me to Lusaka you can have your
keys.'

Patel quickly gets to his feet and bows.

'Go now,' says Olofson. 'I'll let you know when you can come
to pick me up.'

Olofson uses the time that remains to say goodbye to his neighbours.
He visits farm after farm, gets drunk, returns to his empty
house.

The waiting period makes him restless. He books his ticket,
sells his car cheap to Behan the Irishman, on the condition that
he can use it until he leaves.

When his neighbours ask what he's going to do, he tells them
the truth, that he doesn't know. To his astonishment he discovers
that many of them envy his leaving. Their terror, he thinks. Their
utterly understandable terror. They know that their time is up,
just like mine. And yet they aren't able to leave.

A few days before his departure he has a visit from Eisenhower
Mudenda, who gives him a stone with blue veins running through
it and a brown leather pouch containing a powder.

'Yes,' says Olofson. 'Over me there will be a different starry
sky. I'm travelling to a strange world where the sun sometimes
shines, even at night.'

Mudenda thinks a long time about what Olofson has said.

'Carry the stone and the pouch in your pocket,
Bwana
,' he says
at last.

'Why?' Olofson asks.

'Because I give them to you,
Bwana
,' says Mudenda. 'They will
give you a long life. But it also means that our spirits will know
when you no longer exist. Then we can dance for you when you
return to your forefathers.'

'I shall carry them,' says Olofson.

Mudenda prepares to go.

'My dog,' says Olofson. 'One morning someone chopped off
its head and lashed it to a tree with barbed wire.'

'The one who did that is dead,
Bwana
,' says Mudenda.

'Peter Motombwane?' Olofson asks.

Eisenhower Mudenda looks at him for a long time before he
replies.

'Peter Motombwane is alive,
Bwana
,' he says.

'I understand,' says Olofson.

Mudenda walks away and Olofson looks at his ragged clothes.
At least I'm not leaving Africa with his curses, he thinks. At least
I wasn't one of the worst. And besides, I'm doing what they want,
leaving, acknowledging that I'm defeated.

Olofson is alone in his empty house, alone with Luka. The
end has come. He gives Luka 1,000
kwacha
.