Daniel Page 7

  Bengler went out on deck. The Chansonette was sailing in a light wind. The sails were full. He remembered how it had been when he came to Africa on Robertson’s black schooner, when he had felt masts and sails inside himself. He stood by the railing and looked down at the water. The sails flapped like birds’ wings above his head, a play of sunshine and shadow.

  For the first time he seriously asked himself the question: what would he actually do when he got back to Sweden? The beetle with the peculiar legs lay in its jar. And he had Daniel too. In two big leather trunks he had 340 different insects he had collected, prepared and arranged according to Linnaeus’s system. But the question remained unanswered. The thought of returning to Lund was not only repugnant to him, it was impossible. It was tempting to see Matilda again. But it also frightened him, because he was convinced that she had already forgotten him, forgotten their hours of lovemaking, which were never passionate, and the port wine afterwards. He didn’t even know if she was still alive. Maybe she had wound up under Professor Enander’s scalpel too. He didn’t know, and he realised that he didn’t want to know.

  The only thing he knew for sure would be waiting for him was the obligatory trip to Hovmantorp to confirm that his father had really died the same night he had the premonition. But then what?

  He sought the answer in the sea foaming in the wake of the Chansonette.

  A seaman had silently stepped up next to him. He scratched out his pipe, spat, and stared at Bengler. The skin on his face was like leather, his nose was wide, his mouth dry with cracked lips and his eyes squinted.

  ‘What do you want that damned boy for?’ asked the sailor.

  He spoke Norwegian. Bengler had once been friends with a young man from Røros who studied theology in Lund. He had been amused by the language and had learned to imitate it.

  He thought he ought to ignore the question, which largely came from the squinty eyes and not out of the cracked lips.

  ‘Are you going to kill the boy?’

  Bengler considered complaining to the captain. As a paying passenger he shouldn’t have to associate with the crew except on his own terms.

  ‘I can’t see that it’s any of your business.’

  The sailor’s eyes were steady. Bengler got the feeling that he was facing a reptile that might strike him at any time. Just as Daniel had sunk his teeth into his nose.

  ‘I can’t bear it,’ said the sailor. ‘Africa is a continent from hell. There we make our whips whistle, we cut off the ears and hands of people who don’t work at the pace we determine. And now we’re starting to drag home their children even though slavery is forbidden.’

  Bengler grew angry.

  ‘He has no parents. I’m looking after him. What’s so bad about helping a person survive?’

  ‘Is that why you have him on a lead like a dog? Have you taught him to bark?’

  Bengler moved off down the railing. For a brief moment he felt dizzy. The sun was suddenly very strong. He wished he had his revolver. Then he would have shot the damned Norwegian. The sailor was still standing there, his eyes squinting. He had on a striped jumper, trousers cut off just below the knees, and shoes with gaping holes in them.

  ‘The times are changing,’ said the sailor, moving closer.

  ‘You have no right to bother me like this.’

  ‘Let me guess: you bought him. Maybe to exhibit him at the variety show? Or in marketplaces? A Hottentot. Maybe you’re intending to make him puff himself up like an ape. Could be money in that.’

  Bengler was at a loss for words. He thought the sailor must be a revolutionary, a rock-thrower, an iconoclast. Maybe he belonged to that new movement they had discussed during the late nights in Lund. An anarchist? Someone who didn’t throw bombs but flung words at him with the same power?

  The sailor lit his pipe.

  ‘One day people like you won’t exist,’ he said. ‘People have to be free. Not tied up like lap dogs.’

  During the rest of the journey to Le Havre Bengler did not exchange another word with the sailor. He found out that his name was Christiansen and was regarded by most as a competent and friendly man. He also had the virtue of never imbibing strong drink. This information was gathered by Raul, who Bengler had soon learned was a reliable reporter.

  When he took the harness off Daniel he imagined that there would be a reaction of joy, of liberation. But Daniel’s only response was immediately to crawl up into the hammock and go to sleep. As always he had some grains of sand gripped in his fist. Bengler was puzzled. If he saw himself in Daniel, how would he decipher the fact that the boy was sleeping?

  A great pain has left him, he thought. It’s natural to rest when an affliction is over, be it a toothache, colic or headache. That’s what he’s doing, sleeping it off now that the pain has left him.

  Two days before they docked at Le Havre, the man with cancer who was going to Devonshire died. Since the captain was worried about his spices and they were becalmed that day, a burial at sea was arranged. Bengler was very depressed when he thought that the man would never return home. During the funeral itself he locked Daniel in the cabin.

  Besides their regular promenades, Bengler had given Daniel instruction every day. There were two subjects. First, he had to learn Swedish if possible. Second, he had to learn to wear shoes. Initially Daniel was amused by the shoes, but after a while he grew tired of them. On one occasion he flung one of the simple wooden shoes over the railing. Bengler was angry but managed to control himself. He had been given another pair of small worn-out shoes by a carpenter, and he started again. Daniel showed no interest whatsoever, but he did not throw the shoes overboard.

  With the language, on the other hand, no progress was made at all. Bengler realised that Daniel simply refused to take in the words. And he could find no way to counter his refusal.

  When they docked at Le Havre on a foggy morning in early August, Bengler felt a growing unrest inside. Why in hell had he let his impulses get the better of him and dragged this boy along?

  At first he had been afraid that the boy would jump overboard. Now he was afraid that he would throw the boy overboard himself.

  The last thing he saw when he went ashore was the sailor squinting at him. His look was as cold as the fog.

  In the middle of August Bengler and Daniel boarded a coal lighter heading for Simrishamn. Bengler was granted passage if he helped with various tasks on board. The ship was dilapidated and smelled foul. For the entire trip Bengler worried that they would never arrive.

  On 2 September the vessel docked at Simrishamn. By then Bengler had been away from Sweden for almost a year and a half.

  When he stepped ashore he realised that the fear he felt was shared by Daniel.

  They had grown closer to each other.

  CHAPTER 8

  The day they landed a strange thing happened. For Bengler it was a sign. For the first time he seriously thought he had deciphered something from all the unclear and often contradictory signals that Daniel sent out.

  From the dock they had walked straight across the muddy harbour square and into a little inn located in one of the alleyways leading down to the water. The innkeeper, who was drunk, had looked in consternation at Daniel, who was standing at Bengler’s side. Could it be a little black-coloured monster that had hopped out of his delirious brain? But the man standing next to the boy spoke in a refined manner. Even though he had arrived from Cape Town, he didn’t seem to be infected with any tropical disease that might prove worrisome. The man gave them a room facing the courtyard. The room was very dark and cramped. It smelled of mould, and Bengler searched his memory; somewhere he had smelled exactly this same smell. Then he recalled that it was the coat worn by an itinerant Jewish liniment pedlar he had met during his last visit to Hovmantorp. He opened the window to air out the room. It was early autumn, just after a heavy rain, and there was a wet smell from the courtyard. Daniel sat motionless on a chair in his sailor suit. He had kicked off the wooden shoes.

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bsp; Bengler poured himself a glass of port to muster his courage for the future and to celebrate the fact that the coal lighter had not sunk during the voyage from Le Havre. In the courtyard children could be heard shrieking and laughing. He was sitting on the creaky bed with the glass in his hand when Daniel suddenly stood up and went over to the window. Bengler started to move from the bed because he was afraid the boy might jump out, but Daniel walked very slowly, almost stalking as if on the hunt, cautiously approaching a quarry. He stopped by the window, half hidden behind the curtain, to watch what was happening in the courtyard. He stood utterly motionless. Bengler cautiously got up and stood next to him.

  Down in the courtyard two girls were skipping. They were about the same age as Daniel. One of the girls was fat, the other very thin. They had a rope, possibly a line from a small sailing boat which they had cut off to a suitable length. They took turns jumping, laughing when they stumbled, and then starting over again. For a long time Daniel stood quite still, as if turned to stone. Bengler watched him and tried to interpret his attentive observation of the game in the courtyard.

  Then Daniel turned to him, looked him straight in the eye, and his face broke into a grin.

  That was the first time Bengler saw his adopted son smile. It was not a broad, pasted-on mask, but a smile that came from within. For Bengler it was as though a long-awaited miracle had finally occurred. At last Daniel had severed the invisible line that bound him to the pen at Andersson’s trading post. A line that bound him to memories which Bengler knew nothing about, except that they contained blood, terror, dead bodies, chopped-up body parts, desperate screams, and then a silence in which all that was heard was the sand rustling in the desert.

  They went down to the courtyard. The girls stopped skipping when they caught sight of Daniel. Bengler realised that they had never seen a black person before. He knew that there was a brand of shoe polish whose lid was decorated with a black man with a broad grin and thick lips, but now these young girls were looking at a real live black person. Here in this dirty courtyard Bengler discovered something that might be a new task for him. To show the unenlightened Swedes that people actually existed who were black. Living people, not just decorated lids on tins.

  He began talking to the girls. They were poorly dressed and their constant jumping had made them smell strongly of sweat. He asked their names and had a hard time understanding what they said. One of them was named Anna, the thin one, and the fat one was called Elin or possibly Elina. Bengler explained that the boy next to him was named Daniel and that he had just landed in Simrishamn from a faraway desert in Africa.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ asked the girl called Anna.

  Bengler was at a loss for words. To this simple question, he had no answer.

  ‘He’s on a temporary visit to Sweden,’ he said finally.

  He wasn’t sure if the girls really understood what he said because of his thick Småland dialect.

  ‘Why does he have such curly hair? Did he have it curled?’ It was still the girl called Anna who was asking.

  ‘It’s naturally curly,’ Bengler replied.

  ‘Can we touch it?’

  Bengler looked at Daniel. He was still smiling, so Bengler nodded. The girls came forward warily and touched Daniel’s head. Bengler was constantly on guard, as if he were watching a dog that without warning might turn hostile and bite. But Daniel continued to smile. When the fat girl who was maybe named Elin put her hand on his head, he stretched out his hand and carefully stroked her mousy-coloured hair. She gave a shriek and jumped away. Daniel kept smiling.

  ‘He wants to watch while you skip,’ said Bengler. ‘Won’t you show him?’

  The girls skipped. When the fat girl stumbled Daniel started to laugh. It was a lusty laugh that came from deep inside, a dammed-up volcano that had finally found its release.

  ‘Can he skip?’

  Bengler nodded at Daniel and pointed at the rope. Without hesitation Daniel took it in his hands. He jumped very lightly, did double hops and turned the rope backwards and forwards at a rapid tempo. Bengler was astonished. He had never imagined that Daniel could skip. The experience filled him with shame. Had he really believed that Daniel could master nothing but silence and introversion? Had he regarded him more as an animal than a human being?

  ‘He doesn’t even get sweaty,’ shrieked the fat girl.

  Daniel kept on skipping. He never seemed to tire. Bengler had a feeling that Daniel wasn’t really hopping up and down, but that he was on his way somewhere, as if he were actually running.

  He’s back in the desert, thought Bengler. That’s where he is. Not here, in a filthy back courtyard in Simrishamn.

  When the game was over, Daniel wasn’t even out of breath. He put down the rope and took Bengler’s hand. That was something that hadn’t happened before either. Before it was always Bengler who took his hand. Something has happened, Bengler thought. From now on something will be different between us. But what has changed, I don’t know.

  That evening, after Daniel had fallen asleep, Bengler started a new diary. He decided to call it ‘Daniel’s Book’ and printed the title carefully on the cover. From a nearby inn he could hear a tremendous racket of bellowing voices and a screeching fiddle. Daniel was asleep. Through the thin walls Bengler could hear a couple making love in the room next door. He tried to shut out the sounds, but they were loud and he started to feel excited. He tried to imagine the bodies, the man grunting and the woman squealing, picturing himself in there with Matilda or Benikkolua. After he had printed the title he took off his trousers and masturbated. He tried to follow the rhythm from the creaking bed and came at the same time as the squealing and grunting reached a crescendo.

  Then he began to write. The book was going to be a study of the encounter between Daniel and Europe. The starting point was a distant desert and a dirty courtyard where a black boy was skipping with two girls.

  What is a human being exactly? Bengler wrote at the top of the first page. That question could not be answered. God was inscrutable, He was a mystery, in the same way the Holy Scriptures were labyrinths and riddles that concealed more riddles. The only answer that existed was that which could be proven, which could be deduced from observations.

  The example of Daniel, he continued. Today, 2 September 1877, I have seen a black boy from the desert playing with two girls in a back courtyard in the town of Simrishamn. From this point a journey begins, perhaps it can be called an expedition, which deals with Daniel and his meeting with a specific country in Europe.

  That night Bengler slept peacefully. In his dreams the bed moved as if he were still on board a ship. Occasionally he woke up and opened his eyes. In the light autumn night he could see Daniel’s face quite clearly against the white sheet. He was sleeping. His breathing was calm. Just before three o’clock Bengler got up and sat next to Daniel and took his pulse.

  It was regular, fifty-five beats per minute.

  After a difficult and bumpy journey they arrived in Lund two days later. During the trip Bengler had been struck several times by acute diarrhoea. His stomach had always been the most sensitive organ in his body. At the slightest sign of anxiety it rebelled. He remembered this from when he was very small: from the fear of certain teachers at Växjö Cathedral School to his years at the university in Lund. Without explanation, these stomach cramps had almost entirely vanished during his time in the desert. But now that he was approaching Lund the pain and cramping were coming back. Daniel sat next to the cart driver and a few times was allowed to hold the reins. Sometimes he ran alongside the cart, sometimes in front of the horses. Bengler realised that something decisive had happened to Daniel since he had skipped in the back courtyard in Simrishamn.

  He still didn’t speak, but now he had a smile on his face, a smile that came from very far away, and Bengler believed that he would understand soon enough what sort of miracle had played out in that back courtyard. Even if there was a rational explanation, if Daniel was simply happ
y to meet some children his own age, Bengler suspected that the boy’s reaction was based on something alien. Something which he did not as yet understand.

  Just before they reached Lund it began to rain. A heavy thunderstorm was passing through. They stopped at a dilapidated inn and took shelter from the weather. People gaped at Daniel, as usual, but he didn’t seem to notice. Not even when a drunk farmhand came up and stood there staring at him.

  ‘What the hell is this?’ he asked. ‘What the hell is this?’

  The farmhand stank of dirt and aquavit. His eyes were red.

  ‘His name is Daniel,’ replied Bengler. ‘He’s a foreigner on a visit to our country.’

  The farmhand kept staring.

  ‘What the hell is this?’ he repeated.

  Daniel looked at him and then continued drinking the glass of water in front of him.

  ‘Is it some kind of animal?’

  ‘He’s a human being from a desert in Africa called the Kalahari.’

  ‘What’s he doing here?’

  ‘He’s on the way to Lund in my company.’

  The farmhand kept on staring. Then he placed his rough hand very lightly and carefully on Daniel’s head.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen dwarfs and giant women and Siamese twins at fairs. But not this.’