Daniel (31 page)

Edvin climbed down from the roof to piss. When he had buttoned his flies he went over to Daniel.

‘Alma says you aren't afraid of the storm, is that right?'

‘I'm not afraid.'

Edvin touched the cheek where he had slapped him.

‘I won't hit you again,' he said. ‘That will never happen again. Even if Hallén tells me to.'

Then he clambered back up the ladder. Daniel watched him go and decided that Edvin meant what he said. If he raised his hand again the blow would never leave his arm.

 

Daniel ran towards the hill. He held out his arms so that his coat was like a sail behind him. Many times Kiko had told him that a human being could not fly but Daniel had never thought that he sounded quite sure of what he was saying. He kicked off his shoes and tried to take off, but his feet kept striking the ground.

When he reached the hill he was disappointed. Sanna wasn't there. He looked towards the house where she lived, but the path was empty. He wondered whether the man who had pulled her by the hair had tied her up, the same way Father had done with him. He decided that he would try to find her if she didn't show up the next day.

He ran back and sat down with his ABC book in the kitchen. Alma was out with the milkmaids in the barn. He read the letters aloud to himself. Neither Kiko nor Be had known how to read. They would often draw with sticks in the sand. Not words, but signs, faces, paths. Daniel put down the book and knelt on the wooden bench by the window. The windowpane was steamed up. With his finger he tried to draw Be's face, but it didn't look like her. He puffed new fog onto the window and tried Kiko's instead, but that didn't turn out any better.

Then he tried to draw the antelope. He imagined that his finger was the stick that Kiko used had. But the fog-covered glass windowpane was no rock face. He grew angry and had to hold himself back from smashing his fist through the glass.

By the next day the storm had abated. The straw lay still on the roof of the barn. Just after seven in the morning Daniel went to the church. The door to the sacristy was closed. He knocked and Hallén answered. Daniel opened the door, entered and bowed. Hallén was sitting on a chair in the middle of the room. He nodded to Daniel to come forward.

‘First you killed a piglet with a shoe,' Hallén said. ‘I heard all about it. And now you put a snake in the offering pouch. All this tells me that you are still a savage. It will take time for you to learn what it means to be a human being. I will show patience, but patience has its limits. If you obey me, good will come to you. If you do not obey, you will be punished. Do you understand what I'm saying?'

Daniel nodded.

‘I want to hear you say it.'

‘I understand.'

‘What is it you understand?'

‘Wear shoes on the feet when there is frost, do not kill pig, and do not put snakes in the offering pooch.'

‘The words are “pigs” and “offering pouch”.'

‘The words are “pigs” and “offering pooch”.'

‘Offering pouch.'

‘Offering pouch.'

Hallén got up from his chair. ‘Let's go and look at Jesus.'

They stood before the altar rail again. The sunlight shining through a window glittered in one of the eyes of the nailed-up man. Daniel gave a start. The same glint had been there in the antelope's eye.

‘Jesus sacrificed his life for you,' said Hallén. ‘No one can become a true human being without believing in him. But one must also know how to behave oneself.'

‘That must hurt,' said Daniel.

Hallén gave him a questioning look. ‘Hurt?'

‘To be nailed to a board.'

‘Of course it hurts. His suffering was appalling.'

Daniel thought that now he could ask his question again.

‘I want to learn walking on water.'

‘Nobody can walk on water. Jesus was God's son. He could do it. But no one else can.'

Daniel knew that the man standing at his side was wrong, but he didn't dare talk back. The slap from Edvin still burned on his cheek.

‘This is where you will stand next Sunday,' said Hallén. ‘In front of the whole congregation. You will beg us all for forgiveness because you violated the holy church by putting a viper in the offering pouch. Do you understand what I'm saying?'

Daniel realised with dread what Hallén meant.

‘Will I be nailed up on boards too?'

Hallén grabbed the collar of Daniel's coat and raised his hand, but he did not strike.

‘You have the gall to compare yourself to our Saviour? You have the gall to compare yourself to the One who suffered for all our sins?'

Hallén let him go and stepped aside, as if he couldn't stand to be too close to Daniel.

‘You are still a savage. I keep forgetting that. The path you must walk is long. We shall walk it together. You may go now. But I want you to come back tomorrow.'

 

Daniel stood motionless until Hallén had vanished behind the tall altarpiece. Then he rushed out of the church. He ran all the way home, and he was soaked with sweat when he reached the hill behind the house. He knew that there were five days left until it was Sunday again. Then he would be nailed up on boards. Before then he had to find out where the sea was. He had to set off, and even if he still couldn't walk on water he had to stay hidden until he had learned how to do it. He called out for Kiko and Be. He yelled as loud as he could, but no reply came except for the unsettled sounds of the black birds.

He fell to the ground and curled up with his head between his knees. The long run had made him tired. It was cold, and he felt exhausted.

 

When he woke up, Sanna was standing beside him.

‘I heard you yelling,' she said. ‘Why are you lying here sleeping? You could freeze to death.'

He didn't know how long he had been asleep. In his dream he had been hanging on two crossed boards. It was the hired hand who had nailed him up, and the milkmaids were lying at his feet, asleep with the covers pulled up to their necks.

‘They will nail me up,' he said.

‘What do you mean?'

‘They will nail me up on boards. And put me in the church.'

Sanna shook her head. ‘Who told you that?'

‘Hallén.'

‘So the pastor is going to nail you up on boards? He can't do that. It's forbidden. It's permitted to chop off people's heads, but not to nail people up on boards.'

‘He said so.'

Sanna gave him a pensive look. She chewed on her lip while she thought.

‘Maybe it's not the same for people who are black,' she said. ‘Maybe they're allowed to nail up people like you.'

Then she shrieked so shrilly that the black birds lifted off from the treetops.

‘He can't do that!'

‘I'm going to leave.'

‘Where can you go? They'll come after you. They'll catch you.'

‘I'll hide.'

‘But you're black. You can't hide.'

‘I'll make myself invisible.'

Sanna started chewing on her lip again. ‘Can you do that?'

‘I don't know.'

She sat down close to him and took his hand.

‘If you start to scream when they nail you up, I promise I'll scream too. Then it might not hurt as much.'

‘Thanks.'

‘But you can't hang there too long. Because you're a human being and dead people smell bad. But I can put flowers on your grave.'

‘Thanks.'

Sanna sat in silence for a moment. Daniel tried to decide when he should make his escape. Should he wait or should he leave tonight? He realised that Sanna would never dare come with him. She certainly didn't have the patience necessary to learn to walk on water, either. But he would still tell her about it. He had to share his thoughts with somebody. Maybe she could help him by steering the people who would be searching for him in the wrong direction.

He told her the truth. He was going to leave. Maybe even that very night. He would find his way to the sea, and when he had learned what he had to do for the water to support him, he would walk until he reached his home. Sanna listened with her mouth hanging open.

‘You're crazy,' she said when he was finished. ‘I don't understand half of what you're talking about. But I know this much - you're just as insane as I am.'

‘What does it mean to be insane?'

‘Like me. I'm stupid in the head. I don't understand what people say to me. I can't learn to read or write. Sometimes they say that I'm stupid, sometimes that I'm retarded, but I'm not dumb enough to be locked in a madhouse.'

‘Why did your pappa drag you by the hair?'

Sanna pinched his nose so hard that he got tears in his eyes.

‘He's not my pappa. My pappa is dead. My mamma too. I live with them because I was auctioned off.'

Daniel didn't understand the word.

‘Is he your pappa's brother?'

‘His name is Hermansson and he grabs me under my skirts when Elna isn't looking. At night he comes and grabs me under the covers. I don't want to but he tells me I can't say anything. Otherwise I'll end up in the madhouse and have to lie all day long in a tub full of cold water.'

Daniel didn't understand the meaning of her words. But he could see in her face that she bore a pain that reminded him of his own. He thought that when he finally got home he would remember her and he would certainly dream about her at night.

‘I will carve your face in the rock wall,' he said. ‘Next to the antelope. '

‘What's that?'

‘An animal.'

Daniel got up from the dirt, crossing his arms over his head like the crown of a kudu buck.

Sanna laughed. ‘That looks like an animal.'

‘The antelope
is
an animal.'

‘But you're a human being. Even though you're just as crazy as me.'

As she talked she kept looking around. Suddenly she pointed.

‘Someone's coming up the path.'

Daniel saw that it was Edvin.

‘I'll come back tonight,' he said. ‘I want to see you one more time before I leave.'

‘But they'll find you! They'll send dogs after you.'

‘They will never find me.'

Sanna ran off down the hill. Daniel went to meet Edvin.

‘Who was that you were talking to?'

‘Nobody.'

‘You don't have to lie to me. Was it Sanna?'

Daniel didn't answer.

‘Dr Madsen is here,' said Edvin. ‘He has two gentlemen from Lund with him. They want to meet you.'

Daniel stopped short.

‘It's nothing dangerous. They just want to draw you. They're going to write about you in a book.'

 

The two men waiting in the kitchen were both young. They stood up, shook Daniel's hand and smiled kindly. He noticed that they weren't staring at him. They looked at him with a curiosity that held no fear. Then they said their names. The shorter one, who had a pale face and yellow hair, was named Fredholm, and the other, who was bald with a moustache, was named Edman. Dr Madsen, who frightened Daniel since he was to blame for Father's departure, squatted down in front of him.

‘Herr Fredholm and Herr Edman are students,' he said. ‘Do you know what a student is?'

Daniel shook his head. When Madsen was there he didn't want to say too many words. Every time he spoke he revealed his thoughts. He didn't want Madsen to know what he was really thinking.

‘They study at the university in Lund,' Madsen went on. ‘I don't suppose you know what that means either. But you have been there, and you have certainly heard that people go there to seek knowledge. A biology professor there, Professor Holszten, studies people - why we're all different. The noticeable differences between the races. Those that are inferior, dying out, and the races that have a future ahead of them. It was Professor Holszten who sent these gentlemen to visit you.
The results will be published in a journal of racial biology that has just been started.'

Dr Madsen led Alma and Edvin out of the kitchen. The man named Edman with the bald head took out a drawing pad and began to sketch a likeness of Daniel. Fredholm wrapped a measuring tape around Daniel's head. Daniel felt like laughing but knew that he should be serious. He couldn't understand why it was so important to measure his nose or the distance between his eyes. The two men reminded him of Father. They devoted themselves to actions that were difficult to comprehend. Father had almost lost his life in the desert, searching for beetles and butterflies, and here stood grown men measuring his nose in all seriousness.