Daniel (29 page)

Daniel could tell that Sanna was starting to get restless. She looked around, kicked at the dirt and spat. He thought that she too was a stranger, who came from somewhere far away, even though she wasn't black. She didn't look like any of the people he had met when he was with Father. Maybe she was on her way somewhere too, even though she didn't know that it was possible to walk on water.

Suddenly she pulled up her dress. She was naked underneath. There was thick black hair between her legs. She pulled down her dress again.

‘Now it's your turn,' she said.

Daniel stood up and pulled down his trousers. Since he was cold, his member had shrunk. He pulled on it.

‘You shouldn't do that,' Sanna shrieked. ‘You shouldn't touch yourself or it will fall off. On me it would turn into a big wound.'

Daniel quickly pulled his trousers back up. Sanna stared at him. Then she turned round and ran off. Daniel ran after her. Sanna stopped, picked up a rock and threw it at him.

‘You can't come with me,' she shouted. ‘Or I'll get a beating.'

 

The rock hit Daniel on the cheek and made a cut that bled. She was holding another bigger rock in her hand.

‘I'll throw it,' she yelled. ‘Don't follow me.'

She turned and kept running. Daniel stood looking after her. He didn't know what had happened. If Father had thrown a rock at him, he would have been afraid, but he wasn't now. She wasn't angry with him. She was angry with somebody else.

 

The next day the wind was blowing hard across the brown fields. During the night he had had a dream about the oxen who had pulled him and Father through the desert towards the city where the ship was waiting. The animals were buried in sand. Only their heads were visible. They had bellowed in terror and then the sand had slowly covered their heads too. He stood looking at the animals. He wanted to help them, dig away the sand with his hands, but his hands were gone. His arms were like dry branches hanging down from his shoulders.

The dream had yanked him out of sleep. At first he didn't know
where he was. Then he heard the milkmaids sniffling and the hired hand muttering and passing wind. He lay utterly still in the darkness and tried to understand what the oxen buried in the sand were trying to tell him. Without being able to explain why, he knew that Be was behind the dream. She was the one who had sent it to him. But he couldn't understand it. Restlessness drove him out of bed. The floor was cold. He stood carefully on one of the milkmaids' dresses that had fallen from the end of the bed. For an instant he thought he was surrounded by all the people who had lain dead in the sand when Kiko and Be had left him. Their whispering voices were still there, with someone laughing quietly and the smell of freshly slaughtered meat. He tried to grab their bodies. But it was impossible - there was only the darkness and the voices.

Afterwards he slept fitfully until dawn. When they had finished breakfast he helped Edvin harness the horse. Alma called him into the kitchen and laid out the soiled ABC book that she had borrowed from Master Kron, who would soon be Daniel's teacher. Daniel looked at the pictures and tried to learn the alphabet. Usually he thought it was fun, but the anxiety from the dream made it hard for him to concentrate. When Alma left him alone for a moment, he closed the book, wrapped a scarf around his neck and went outside. The cold wind almost took his breath away, but he ran towards the hill that was always waiting for him. When he got there he found Sanna sitting and digging in the dirt. It made him happy. He thought that he would tell her about his dream. Maybe she could explain it to him. When she saw him coming she stood up and waved. She looked at his cheek.

‘I didn't mean it,' she said. ‘I never do.'

‘It didn't hurt.'

‘I prayed to God last night. I asked Him to forgive me. I think He listened to me.'

Daniel told her about his dream. He grew annoyed when he couldn't find the right words, but Sanna listened. She listened to him in a way that Father had never done.

‘I don't understand any of it,' she said. ‘I don't even know what a desert is. So much sand?' She pointed out towards the brown fields. ‘Would all this be sand? And hot?'

‘You would burn your feet.'

She rested her head in her hands and thought. ‘So it would be like burying two horses here in the mud,' she said. ‘And they would be whinnying like the butcher was standing in front of them.'

She threw a dirt clod at Daniel. It didn't hurt and she laughed.

‘You're making it up. There aren't any dreams like that.'

‘I dreamed it just like I told you.'

‘You're just as strange as I am. But at least I don't tell lies.'

Then everything happened very fast. Daniel saw Sanna react to something and get up. There was something behind him, but he didn't have time to turn round before a big hand grabbed hold of his coat and jerked him to his feet. The man standing there was big and rough and there was tobacco juice running out of the corner of his mouth. He let go of Daniel and gave him a box on the ear so he fell over. Sanna tried to run away but he grabbed hold of her arm. He slapped her hard in the face several times. She screamed.

‘Didn't I tell you to stay home at the farm? Now I find you with that damn troll that Edvin brought here.'

He released Sanna, who huddled in the dirt with her hands over her head as if afraid she would be hit again. The man gave Daniel a withering stare.

‘She's retarded,' said the man. ‘She doesn't know what she's saying or what she's doing. It's a pure pity! That's what it is! No parents, nothing. But we let her live with us. A pity! But the little bitch won't do as she's told. So she has to get slapped. That usually works. At least for a while.'

The man dragged Sanna up from the dirt and pulled her along with him down the hillside. He had a strong grip on her hair. Daniel thought she looked like a chicken on its way to have its head cut off.

Then he noticed that he had started to cry. It was as if Sanna's pain were inside him too.

He looked all around. The fields were deserted.

Except for the shrieking black birds.

The next day was Sunday. Daniel woke up early as usual. On Sundays the milkmaids took turns sleeping in. Even the hired hand could stay in bed an hour longer than normal. Daniel got up and quietly dressed. The floor was cold under his feet. The hired hand lay watching him with one eye open. He motioned to Daniel to come over to the bed. Daniel didn't like him, but he didn't dare disobey.

‘Pull the covers off her,' whispered the hired hand. ‘If we're lucky, her nightgown will be hitched up.'

This scene repeated itself every Sunday morning, no matter which of the girls was sleeping in. Daniel had never understood why the hired hand enjoyed spending his free time looking at the girls' naked legs. But he did as he was told. She stirred a little but didn't wake up. The nightgown had slipped all the way up to her waist. The hired hand would be pleased. Daniel hurried out of the kitchen.

 

It was raining. The fog lay thick over the brown fields. The black birds sat motionless in the grove of trees. Alma stood at the well hoisting up water. Edvin stood next to her, staring straight out into the fog. From far off they could hear a cow bellowing. Daniel had his shoes in his hand. He hurried to the barn where the milkmaid was milking. When he entered the warm building, one of the cats rubbed itself on his leg. He lay down in the straw and covered his body so only his face was visible. During the night he had dreamed that Sanna was calling his name. He had searched for her. Suddenly he was on the ship, rolling heavily in a storm. Sanna was sitting at the top of one of the masts, waving at him. But when he tried to climb up there, someone grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and held him back. He tried to turn his head to see who it was but there was nobody there. Nothing but the wind holding his neck in an invisible grip.

Daniel lay in the straw and thought about his dream. It was easy to
understand what his night-time messenger had wanted to say. Daniel wanted to be close to Sanna but it wasn't possible. Something was always coming between them.

He curled up in the straw to keep warm. The horse stamped in its stall.

As it was Sunday, everyone in the house would soon be going to church. The hired hand would slick his hair down with water, the milkmaids would wrap their best shawls round their shoulders and then they would all set off, with Edvin and Alma in the lead. On the way they would meet others heading in the same direction, and they would all look at Daniel and he would see at once which ones were curious, which ones didn't like him, and which ones were jealous because Edvin got paid to have Daniel living in his house.

Hallén was going to preach. He would say a lot of words that made Daniel sleepy because he couldn't understand them. But Alma would make sure that he didn't fall asleep and would keep an eye on the hired hand and the milkmaids as well. They would sing, and Daniel would look up at the man who hung nailed on the boards in front of them.

 

He had already visited the pastor on two mornings. Daniel was still waiting to hear about the water. Hallén had asked the same question each time he had come.
What was he thinking about
? And Daniel had refused to answer. He didn't want to talk about his plan. He was afraid that Hallén might tell Edvin, or forbid him. Daniel was still having a hard time learning what was forbidden. It was a word that he understood was one of the most important for people like Hallén, Edvin and Alma. The others were:
damn
and
may I
. Everything that happened between dawn and twilight was controlled by what people were allowed to do and what was forbidden. Going barefoot when the ground was white was one of the things that was most forbidden. Nor could you piss anywhere and especially not if someone was watching. There were rules about everything, and Daniel tried to learn them but without understanding why.

Sanna would also be at church. She sat right at the back, and Daniel knew that Alma would give him a disapproving look if he turned round to look at her. At church you had to look down or forward. Looking back was one of the things that was forbidden.

Daniel moved restlessly in the straw. He wondered whether Sanna would come to church, or whether the man who dragged her away would lock her in at home. Maybe he was like Father and tied her up.

The milkmaid was clattering the pails. She was singing. It sounded terrible, but he still liked her voice. Sometimes she would laugh and pat him on the head. She wasn't like the other milkmaid, who never touched him and flinched if he happened to brush against her.

He got up from the straw. The girl was milking the last cow. He sneaked out of the barn. The yard was empty. He ran out onto the cart track. When he turned round he was surrounded by the fog. He tried to catch it in his hands. Then he listened. Sounds were louder in the fog. He turned round slowly and tried to listen for the sound of drums. From somewhere he thought he could hear beasts of prey growling or somebody laughing, but if he headed in the direction the sound was coming from they would move.

He was just about to go back when he stopped short. On the road in front of him lay a snake, frozen stiff. It was brown and had a pattern on its back. At first he thought it was dead. He took a few steps backwards without taking his eyes off it. It didn't move. Then he realised that it was so cold that it couldn't move. It had come up out of the ground too soon. Maybe it had dreamed of the sunshine and then, when it woke up, could not go back to sleep.

It was Father who once told him about the snakes. There weren't any really dangerous snakes in this country. One of them was poisonous but people rarely died from its bite. From his description Daniel gathered that it was a snake like the one that lay before him on the road. He took a stick from the ditch and poked at the snake. It moved sluggishly, but didn't whip about or coil. He hit it with the stick, but it still didn't move.

He thought about the visit they would soon pay to the church.

He made a quick decision, ran back through the fog and fetched a wooden pail that no one was using from the barn. When he came back the snake was still lying there. Cautiously he bent over and grabbed it behind the head. When he lifted it up its body moved weakly. He shivered from the cold and dropped the snake in the pail. Then he hurried back to the barn, where he set the pail behind some spades that the
hired hand used for mucking out. He covered the pail carefully so that the snake couldn't escape if it livened up from the warmth.

He went in the house and sat down by the fire. Alma looked at him.

‘You're not walking about with no shoes on, are you?'

Daniel shook his head.

Edvin stretched as he sat on the stool near the fireplace. ‘He's learning fast. And now it's time to go.'

Daniel got up quickly and ran out to the barn. The snake was still stiff. He wrapped it up in a piece of old burlap and stuffed it in his pocket.

 

The fog was as thick as ever when they reached the church. Daniel had a tight grip on the snake in his pocket. It hadn't moved. He looked around for Sanna. Finally he saw her, standing behind the man who had dragged her off by the hair. She cast down her eyes when Daniel looked at her. She had a big bruise on one cheek. Daniel felt a violent urge to rush up to the man and stuff the snake down his shirt. Maybe the snake wouldn't be able to bite and inject its venom, but the man would have a good fright and understand that there was someone who was prepared to defend Sanna. When the church bells began to ring Daniel tried to shift closer to her, but she moved away and shook her head almost imperceptibly. Daniel understood. She was afraid. The man who had pulled her by the hair had a firm grip on her arm.