Daniel (28 page)

‘I've heard about you,' said the girl. ‘But they wouldn't let me come along and see you. They thought I'd behave badly.'

She spoke rapidly and her words sounded mushy in her thick dialect. Yet he could still understand what she said.

She grabbed hold of his hand.

‘You're completely black,' she said. ‘In the church there's a devil on the wall. He's black too. Do you come from hell?'

‘I come from the desert.'

‘I don't know what that is. But your name is Daniel?'

‘I believe in God.'

‘I don't. But you can't tell anyone that.'

The girl was still holding his hand. He took hold of her wrist, just as he had done with Alma. The girl's heart was beating hard.

‘What were you searching for?' Daniel asked.

‘Sometimes I hear voices in the mud. As if someone is trapped down there. I try to help them. But I never find anyone.'

She let go of his hand and spat out some pebbles.

‘I like to chew on pebbles. Sometimes I can make them clack. Do you chew on pebbles?'

Daniel shook his head.

‘My name is Sanna,' said the girl. ‘And I'm crazy.'

Then she ran off. Daniel watched her go. For the first time since Father left him he felt like laughing.

She ran along the cart track.

He watched her until she disappeared.

Every morning David Hallén repeated the same ritual. Just after seven he would leave the dilapidated parsonage and walk across the road to the church. Inside the sacristy he swept out the mouse droppings that always awaited him. During the night the mice usually tried to nibble at the hymnals and the Bible on the table in the whitewashed room.

Then he would stand in front of the mirror with his head bowed, take a deep breath, and look at his face. Every morning he hoped that it wouldn't be his own face that met him, but the face of the God he served. But it was his own features that looked back at him with eyes wide, a nose that was growing redder all the time and those pale cheeks that were always poorly shaven.

This morning too he encountered his own face in the mirror. Since he still hadn't given up hope that a miracle might occur, he felt the same disappointment he had felt so many mornings before. He had now been the pastor of the congregation for eighteen years. When he was young he had dreamed of the mission, that his poor congregation far out on the wind-lashed plain of Skåne would be one step on a long journey. But he had never gone any further. The fields had become his ocean. He had never reached the foreign lands where the heat was strong, the diseases perilous and the black people thirsted for salvation. He had remained here. The children had come too quickly and there were far too many of them. The years had passed before he actually noticed and now he was too old to start over. The mud would hold him here until he dropped.

David Hallén was a stern pastor, and he had an energy that could sometimes drive him to rage. He was impatient, couldn't stand the inertia he felt all around him, and often wondered whether there was actually any difference between saving black souls and dealing with these dull farmers. Sometimes he felt like giving up, but the face he met in the mirror each morning reminded him of why he was standing
there. He was a servant who could finish his service only when he was dead or so paralysed that he could no longer climb into the pulpit.

He heard the church door close and knew who had come in. Alma, who never fell asleep during a sermon and always sang loudly even if she was off-key, had stood and curtsied in the doorway of the parsonage and told him about the black boy who was living with her and Edvin. Hallén hadn't met him yet. He knew that the boy had come, he knew Dr Madsen well, but he had been away on a long trip to Dalarna to bury his sister when the boy had arrived. Alma had stood there and asked for help. The boy had killed a pig, he refused to wear shoes, and nobody knew exactly what to do with him.

Hallén had told Alma to send the boy to the church by himself. He had also admonished her not to frighten him, just say that the pastor was a friendly man who wanted to meet everyone who lived in the parish.

He stepped out of the sacristy. The light filtering in through the windows was still faint. It was hard to see in the gloom. Then he noticed Daniel standing at the very back by the church entrance. He started down the centre aisle. The boy didn't move. Hallén saw that he had shoes on his feet. When he had almost reached the boy he saw him raise his hand and knock as if there were a door.

‘Come in,' said Hallén. ‘But you don't need to knock when there's no door.'

Daniel fell to his knees and grabbed hold of one of Hallén's muddy shoes.

‘You don't have to kneel down either,' said Hallén. ‘Get up.'

Daniel did as he was told. Hallén looked him over. The boy's eyes were alert. He seemed to be ready for something to happen to him. Hallén hadn't heard the whole story about why the boy had been lodged with Alma and Edvin. All he really knew was that the boy had been adopted by a man who was searching for rare insects and who suddenly felt compelled to set out on a long journey.

‘So you're Daniel,' said Hallén.

‘My name is Daniel and I believe in God.'

Hallén looked at the boy thoughtfully. The boy seemed to be taking his measure. His gaze made him uncertain for a moment. The boy wasn't looking directly at him, but slightly to the side. Hallén turned
round. It was the altarpiece the boy was looking at. The image of Jesus had hung there since the 1700s. A chip of wood had come off one knee but it had never been repaired.

They walked forward to the altar rail. Daniel wanted to climb inside the choir but Hallén held him back.

‘Not yet,' he said.

Daniel looked at the cross. Hallén watched him from the side. The boy was searching for something that was missing.

‘What are you looking for?'

‘The water.'

‘The water?'

‘He could walk on the water.'

Hallén nodded. Actually the boy's knowledge didn't please him. He had wanted to exercise his power by converting this black child: transform the savage into a human being. Now someone seemed to have already begun this work.

‘Did you see him in the desert? Was there a church there?'

‘My name is Daniel. I believe in God. Where is the water?'

Hallén tried to read his thoughts. He could understand that a person from the desert would talk about water, but what was Daniel actually looking for? Hallén decided to proceed carefully. In the drab monotony that was his daily work the boy might still offer him the challenge he had been missing for so long.

‘I'm going to tell you about the water, but first I want to hear about you. Where you come from. And why you don't want to wear shoes on your feet.'

Daniel didn't answer. He kept searching for the water. Hallén waited.

‘I'm very patient. There's no hurry. Why don't you want to wear shoes?'

‘They're heavy.'

‘Shoes are indeed heavy. But if you get cold you might get sick.'

Daniel said nothing more. Hallén kept asking questions but got no more answers. Nylander, the sexton, came in.

‘I have a visitor,' said Hallén, who detested Nylander. They had been chafing at each other for far too many years. He often looked forward to the day when he could bury Nylander.

‘I've seen him. People are wondering what he's doing here.'

‘The church is here for everyone. The paths that lead from on high are inscrutable. Also, I don't want you to keep storing your aquavit underneath the baptismal font.'

Nylander did not reply, but left the church. Hallén could hear the clatter of spades. Nylander had to dig a grave for an old farmer who had died of gangrene.

Hallén kept waiting, but Daniel remained silent. He was looking everywhere for what was missing.

 

Hallén waited for half an hour, then he decided to show the boy even greater patience. It would take a long time to get close to him.

‘Come back here tomorrow,' he said. ‘If you answer my questions I'll tell you about the water.'

Daniel bowed, took his clogs in his hand, and went out of the church door. Hallén went into the sacristy and sat down. Through one of the narrow windows he could see Nylander digging. Hallén immediately felt himself growing irritated. Nylander was lazy. He worked far too slowly. A man digging a grave should do his work with power and tenacity.

He closed his eyes and imagined that he was in a desert where black people were gathered around him for prayer. He had a white pith helmet on his head and he was very young.

 

Daniel ran from the church to the hill behind the house. When he got there Sanna was sitting and digging in the mud. He was happy to see her.

‘I saw you. You were at the church. What were you doing there?'

‘I asked the pastor about the water.'

‘What water?'

‘The water Jesus walked on.'

Sanna stopped digging. Her fingers were caked with dried mud. Daniel couldn't tell whether she had heard what he said. She took his hands and ran her finger over the back of one of them. She cautiously scraped at his skin.

‘You're black. I can't scrape it off. Wasn't he afraid?'

‘Who?'

‘The pastor! He must have thought you were a real devil who had climbed down from the wall.'

Her hands were rough with clay, but Daniel liked the way she held his hands. She didn't want anything from him, like everyone else who held his hands. She just wanted to hold them. For the first time since he had found Kiko and Be dead in the sand he had discovered something that really made him elated. Father had betrayed him, leaving him as far from the sea as he could, but maybe the girl named Sanna would help him find it again.

She kept examining his hands. She searched in the lines of his palm, flicked at his fingernails, squeezed hard.

‘If we had children they would be grey,' said Daniel.

She gave a loud, shrill laugh. ‘We can't have children,' she shrieked. ‘You're only a child and I'm crazy.'

She leaned in close to him. She smelled of sweat, but there was also something sweet that reminded him of honey.

‘I hear voices in the mud,' she said. ‘All those people down there are whispering. I can't help it. I hear them. Only me. Do you hear anything?'

Daniel listened.

‘You have to put your head to the ground.'

Daniel pressed his cheek and ear to the ground.

‘Not your ear,' she whispered. ‘You can only hear the people down there if you listen with your mouth or your nose.'

Daniel pressed his face to the ground. But he could only hear through his ears. The wind was whining and the birds shrieking.

‘You'll have to teach me,' he said.

‘I'm too stupid to teach anything.'

‘Who told you that?'

‘Everybody.'

Daniel wondered what stupidity actually meant. The girl who sat holding his hands made him feel quite calm. Even though he still couldn't see the sea, her eyes seemed to glisten with seawater. Maybe she could tell him what direction to go in to find the sea. A person like that couldn't be stupid.

‘Actually I'm not supposed to be here,' she said all of a sudden.

‘Why not?'

‘I might get lost.'

Daniel didn't understand the word
lost
.

‘I don't know what that is.'

She laughed harshly again.

‘Then you're even stupider than me. If you go away and can't find your way home, you sit out in the dark and scream for help but nobody hears. Then you freeze to death. When they find you, you're so stiff that they'd have to break off your legs to get you into the coffin.'

Daniel sat silently pondering what she had said. Finally he had found a word for what he felt. What she was describing applied to him. He didn't know where to go. Even though it wasn't dark and he hadn't frozen to death, he was still lost.

He decided to memorise that word. Some day, when he was old and moved away from the others in the desert, he would remember it. Everything that had happened the time he got lost. Everything that by then might have fallen away and become a mysterious memory.

‘I like being quiet,' said Sanna.

She still hadn't let go of his hands. Daniel was starting to get chilly because the ground he was sitting on was cold, but he didn't want to move. He didn't want Sanna to let go.

‘I do too,' Daniel said.

‘There are so many kinds of quiet. When you're just about to fall asleep. Or when you're running so fast that all you can hear is your own heart.'

She leaned her head against his chest and closed her eyes.

‘Do you have a heart too?' she said in surprise. ‘I didn't think the Devil did. Damn! I thought there was only a sooty chimney inside the chest of Satan.'

Daniel gave a start. She had said the word that Father always used when he was angry or impatient. He didn't like it. The word scared him.

‘What are you thinking about?' she asked.

‘Nothing.'

She let go of his hands and began to slap him in the face. When he tried to protect himself she stopped.

‘I don't like people who lie. You lied. You were thinking of something. '

‘I was wondering where the sea is.'

‘What do you want with the sea?'

‘I want to go home.'

‘You can't walk on the sea like it was a road. You'd sink, you'd drown. And float back up with eels swimming out of your eyes.'