The Eye Of The Leopard Page 14

  'I'm alone,' she replies. 'Abandoned by a man I never even had a chance to bury. Living in Africa means always being forced to take full responsibility.'

  Much later he will remember his first days at Judith Fillington's farm as an unreal journey into a world he seems to understand less and less, the more his insight grows. Surrounded by the faces of the black workers, he feels that he is in the midst of an ongoing but not yet triggered catastrophe.

  During those days he discovers that feelings secrete different odours. He can sense hate in a bitter smell, like manure or vinegar, everywhere; wherever he follows Judith like a shadow the smell is always nearby. When he wakes in the night, the smell is there, a faint current through the malaria net that hangs above his bed.

  Something has to happen, he thinks. An outbreak of rage at the impotence and poverty. Not having an alternative is like having nothing at all, he thinks. Not being able to see anything beyond poverty except more poverty ...

  He decides that he has to get away, leave Africa before it's too late. But after a month he is still there. He lies in his room with the sloping ceiling and listens to the dogs restlessly patrolling around the house. Every evening before he goes to bed, he sees Judith check that the doors and windows are locked. He sees how she first turns out the light in each room before she goes in to draw the heavy curtains. She is always listening, stopping suddenly in the midst of a step or a movement. She takes a shotgun and a heavy elephant gun into her bedroom every night. During the day the weapons are locked inside a steel cabinet, and he sees that she always carries the keys with her.

  After a month he realises that he has begun to share her fear. With the rapidly falling twilight the strange house is transformed into a bunker of silence. He asks whether she has found a successor, but she shakes her head.

  'In Africa anything important takes a long time,' she replies.

  He begins to suspect that she hasn't written any classified ads, hasn't made contact with the newspapers that Werner Masterton suggested. But he refrains from giving vent to his suspicion.

  Judith fills him with awed respect, perhaps even devotion. Hans follows her from dawn to dusk, follows her unceasing effort, which means that 15,000 eggs leave the farm each day, despite run-down and mistreated lorries, a continual shortage of the maize waste that makes up the primary fodder, and sudden outbreaks of viral diseases which during one night can take the lives of all the hens in one of the oblong, walled-off stone buildings where they are forced into steel cages. One night she wakes him up, pulling open his door and shining a torch into his face, and tells him to get dressed at once.

  Outside the house with its locked doors a frightened night watchman is shouting that hunter ants have got into one of the chicken coops, and when they reach the site Olofson sees terrified Africans using burning bundles of twigs to swat at the endless columns of ants. Without hesitation Judith takes the lead, forcing the ants to change direction, and she screams at him when he doesn't understand what she wants him to do.

  'Who am I?' he asks her early one morning. 'Who am I to the blacks?'

  'A new Duncan Jones,' she replies. 'Two hundred Africans are searching for your weak spot right now.'

  Two weeks pass before he meets the man he has come to replace. Each day they go past the house where he sits locked in with his bottles, transforming himself into a holy man. The house is on a hill right by the river, surrounded by a high wall.

  A rusty car, maybe a Peugeot, is sometimes parked outside the wall. It's always parked as though it had been abandoned in haste. The boot stands open, and the corner of a filthy blanket hangs out of one door.

  He imagines a state of siege, a final battle that will be fought around this hill, between the black workers and the lone white man inside in the dark.

  'The night watchmen are afraid,' says Judith. 'They can hear him wailing in the night. They're afraid, but at the same time they feel a sense of security. They think that his metamorphosis to a holy man will mean that the bandits will stay away from this farm.'

  'The bandits?' Olofson asks.

  'They're everywhere,' she replies. 'In the slums outside Kitwe and Chingola there are plenty of weapons. Gangs spring up and are destroyed, and new ones appear in their place. White farmers are attacked, cars with whites are stopped on the roads. The police are almost certainly involved, as well as workers on the farms.'

  'What if they come here?' he asks.

  'I rely on my dogs,' she says. 'Africans are afraid of dogs. And I have Duncan wailing in the night. Superstition can be good if you know how to use it. Maybe the night watchmen believe he's being transformed into a snake.'

  Then one morning he meets Duncan Jones for the first time. He is standing supervising the loading of empty feed sacks into a battered lorry when the black workers stop working. Duncan Jones comes walking slowly towards him. He is dressed in dirty trousers and a ripped shirt. Olofson sees a man who has slashed his face with his straight razor. A suntanned face, skin like tanned leather. Heavy eyelids, grey hair that is tangled and filthy.

  'Don't ever take a piss before all the sacks are loaded and the back door locked,' says Duncan Jones, coughing. 'If you go to take a piss before that, you have to expect that at least ten sacks will disappear. They sell the sacks for one kwacha each.'

  He holds out his hand.

  'There's just one thing I don't understand,' he says. 'Why has Judith waited so long to find my successor? Everyone has to be put out to pasture eventually. The only ones spared are those who die young. But who are you?'

  'I'm a Swede,' says Olofson. 'I'm only here temporarily.'

  Duncan Jones opens his face in a smile and Olofson looks straight into a mouth full of black stumps of teeth.

  'Why does everyone who comes to Africa have to apologise?' he asks. 'Even those who were born here say that they're only here for a short visit.'

  'In my case it's true,' says Olofson.

  Jones shrugs his shoulders. 'Judith deserves it,' he says. 'She deserves all the help she can get.'

  'She put an ad in the paper,' says Olofson.

  'Who can she get?' says Jones. 'Who would move here? Don't abandon her. Never ask me for advice, I don't have any. Maybe I had some once, advice I should have taken myself. But it's all gone now. I'll live for another year. Hardly longer than that ...'

  Suddenly he bellows at the Africans who are silently watching his meeting with Hans Olofson.

  'Work!' he yells. 'Work, don't sleep!'

  Instantly they grab hold of their sacks.

  'They're afraid of me,' says Jones. 'I know they think I'm about to dissolve and be resurrected in the figure of a holy man. I'm about to become a kashinakashi. Or maybe a snake. How do I know?'

  Then he turns and leaves. Olofson watches him stop and press one hand against the small of his back, as if a pain has suddenly struck him. That evening, as they are eating dinner, Olofson mentions the meeting.

  'Maybe he will succeed in reaching some kind of clarity,' she says. 'Africa has set him free from all dreams. For Duncan, life is an undertaking that has been arbitrarily assigned. He is drinking himself consciously and methodically towards the big sleep. Without fear, I think. Maybe we should envy him. Or maybe we should feel pity that he so utterly lacks hope?'

  'No wife, no children?' asks Olofson.

  'He lies with the black women,' she replies. 'Maybe he has black children. I know that sometimes he mistreats the women he takes to his bed. But I don't know why he does it.'

  'It looked as though he was in pain,' says Olofson. 'Maybe it's his kidneys.'

  'He would say that Africa is taking him from inside,' she says. 'He would never admit to any other illness.'

  Then she asks Olofson to stay a bit longer. He realises that he is listening to a liar when she says that the classified ads in the newspapers in South Africa and Botswana have not yet produced any replies.

  'All right, but not for long,' he replies. 'A month at most, no more.'

  A week
before the time has run out, Judith takes sick one night. He wakes up when she touches his arm and finds her standing in the dark by his bed. What he sees when he manages to light the bedside lamp with a drowsy hand is something he knows he'll never forget.

  A dying woman, maybe already dead. Judith is dressed in an old, stained dressing gown. Her hair is uncombed and tangled, her face shiny with sweat, her eyes wide open as if she were looking at something unbearable. In one hand she holds her shotgun.

  'I'm sick,' she says. 'I need your help.'

  Utterly powerless she sinks down on the edge of the bed. But the mattress is soft. She slides off on to the floor and sits leaning her head against the bed.

  'It's malaria,' she says. 'I must have medicine. Take the car, drive to Duncan's place, wake him up, and ask him for medicine. If he doesn't have any you'll have to drive to Werner and Ruth's. You can find your way all right.'

  He helps her into the bed.

  'Take the shotgun,' she says. 'Lock the house behind you. If Duncan doesn't wake up, fire the gun.'

  When he turns the key in the ignition the night is filled with loud rumba music from the radio. This is crazy, he thinks as he forces the stiff gearstick into position. I've never been this scared in my life. Not even when I was a child and crawled across the river bridge.

  He drives over the potholed sandy road, much too fast and recklessly, jamming the gears and feeling the barrel of the shotgun against his shoulder.

  Outside the hen houses the night watchmen appear in the headlights. A white man in the night, he thinks. It's not my night, it belongs to the blacks.

  Outside Duncan Jones's house he honks the horn wildly. Then he forces himself out of the car, finds a rock on the ground, and begins slamming it against the gate in the wall. He cracks the skin on his knuckles, listens for sounds from inside the house, but he hears only his own heart. He gets the gun from the car, remembers the safety catch, and then fires a shot at the distant stars. The butt slams against his shoulder and the shot booms in the night.

  'Come on!' he yells. 'Wake up from your drunken stupor, bring me the damned medicine!'

  At last he hears a scraping sound on the other side of the gate and Olofson shouts his name. Duncan Jones stands naked before him. He has a revolver in his hand.

  This is insanity, Olofson thinks again. No one would believe me if I described it; I'll probably hardly even believe my own memories. I have to get her some medicine. Then I'll go back home. This is no life, this is madness.

  Jones is so drunk that Olofson has to tell him over and over why he came. Finally he sticks the barrel of the shotgun in his chest.

  'Malaria medicine!' he shouts. 'Malaria medicine ...'

  At last Jones understands, and he staggers back to his house. Olofson steps into an indescribable mess of dirty clothes, empty bottles, half-eaten meals, and piles of newspapers.

  This is a morgue, he thinks. Here death is busy taking control. He won't be able to find any medicine in this chaos, thinks Olofson, and he prepares to drive the long road to the Mastertons' farm. But then Jones comes wobbling out of what Olofson assumes is his bedroom, and in his hand he has a paper bag. Olofson snatches the bag and leaves the house.

  After he returns and has locked all the doors behind him, he realises that he is drenched with sweat.

  He carefully shakes Judith from a feverish sleep and forces her to swallow three tablets after reading the instructions. She sinks back on to the pillows and he sits down in a chair to catch his breath. He becomes aware that he is still holding the shotgun. This isn't normal, he thinks. I would never be able to get used to a life like this. I would never survive ...

  He stays awake all night, watching her fever attacks subside and then return. At daybreak he feels her forehead. Her breathing is deep and steady. He goes into the kitchen and unlocks the back door. Luka is standing there waiting.

  'Coffee,' says Olofson. 'No food, just coffee. Madame Judith is sick today.'

  'I know, Bwana,' Luka replies.

  Weariness suddenly gets the upper hand in Olofson's mind. He bursts out with a furious question. All these Africans know everything in advance.

  'How can you know?'

  Luka seems unperturbed by his outburst. 'A car drives much too fast through the night, Bwana,' he says. 'All mzunguz drive in different ways. Bwana stops outside Bwana Duncan's house. Fires off his shotgun, yells in the night. Luka wakes up and thinks madame must be sick. Madame is never sick unless she has malaria.'

  'Now fix my coffee,' says Olofson. 'It's too early to listen to long explanations.'

  Just after six o'clock he gets into the Jeep again and tries to imagine that he is Judith. He does her chores, checks off on a roll call that all the workers have arrived, ensures that the eggs are gathered and leave the farm. He makes an estimate of the feed supply and organises a tractor transport to the mill whose turn it is to deliver maize waste.

  At eleven o'clock a rusty car with worn-down shock absorbers pulls up in front of the mud hut where Judith has set up her office. Olofson walks out into the sharp sunshine. A conspicuously well-dressed African comes towards him. Again Olofson finds himself involved in a complicated greeting procedure.

  'I'm looking for Madame Fillington,' says the man.

  'She's ill,' replies Olofson.

  The African looks at him, smiling and appraising him.

  'I'm Mr Pihri,' he says.

  'I'm Madame Fillington's temporary foreman,' says Olofson.

  'I know,' says Mr Pihri. 'It's precisely because you are who you are that I have come here today with some important papers. I'm the Mr Pihri who does small favours for madame now and then. Not large favours. But even small favours are necessary from time to time. To avoid problems that might become bothersome.'

  Olofson senses that he has to be careful. 'Papers?' he says.

  Mr Pihri at once looks sad.

  'Madame Fillington usually offers me tea when I come to visit,' he says.

  Olofson has seen a teapot inside the hut, and he calls to one of the Africans bent over the illegible roll call lists to fix tea. Mr Pihri's sorrowful face is then transformed by a large smile. Olofson decides to smile too.

  'Our authorities are scrupulous about formalities,' says Mr Pihri. 'We learned that from the British. Perhaps our authorities today exaggerate their scrupulousness. But we must be careful with people who visit our country. All papers must be in order.'

  This also applies to me, Olofson thinks. Why did this smiling man have to come today of all days, when Judith is sick?

  They drink tea in the dimness of the hut and Olofson sees Mr Pihri dump eight teaspoons of sugar into his cup.

  'Madame asked me for help in facilitating the processing of your visa,' says Mr Pihri, as he drinks his tea in slow sips. 'Of course it is important to avoid unnecessary impediments. Madame and I usually exchange services to our mutual benefit. It makes me very sad to hear that she is ill. If she died it would be particularly disadvantageous.'

  'Perhaps I can assist you in her stead,' says Olofson.

  'That would be excellent,' replies Mr Pihri. From his inside pocket he takes some papers, typed and stamped.

  'I'm Mr Pihri,' he says again. 'Police officer and a very good friend of Madame Fillington. I hope she doesn't die.'

  'I am of course grateful on her behalf. I would be happy to do you a service in her place.'

  Mr Pihri continues to smile. 'My friends and colleagues at the Immigration Department are quite busy at the moment. The workload is extremely heavy. They also deny many applications for temporary residency. Unfortunately they must sometimes reject people who would like to stay in our country. Naturally it is never pleasant to have to leave a country within twenty-four hours. Especially when Madame Fillington is ill. I only hope she doesn't die. But my friends at the Immigration Department showed great understanding. I'm happy to be able to deliver these papers, signed and stamped in due order. One should always avoid trouble. The authorities take a dim view of
any individuals who lack the required documents. Unfortunately, sometimes they are also forced to incarcerate people for an indefinite period.'