Daniel (38 page)

‘How do you know that?' asked Hallén, thinking about the boy from the distant dark continent, the boy he had tried to teach manners but who had thanked him for his efforts by putting a viper in the offering pouch.

Arnman waved his stick. From the dark-clad crowd of people, one of Arnman's hired hands stepped forward. He was always drunk but according to rumour had a way with sick horses.

‘I saw him,' said the hired hand.

‘What did you see?'

‘He was sitting here and chipping at the wall.'

‘When?'

‘Last night.'

Arnman rapped the hired hand on the back with his stick, and he slunk off.

‘He's been drinking,' said Arnman. ‘But you can't deny what he saw. It was the Negro who sat here chipping away, and cut himself and rubbed blood on the wall. He doesn't belong here. We know about witchcraft.'

Hallén gave Arnman a searching look. The pain over his eye increased.

‘What is it you know?'

‘That people should be careful about who they allow into their community.'

Arnman uttered these last words in a powerful voice. A murmur of agreement came from the crowd.

‘I shall attend to the matter,' said Hallén. Then he turned to the sexton. ‘Try to scrub this off,' he said. ‘And the rest of you can go home.'

Arnman marched down to the road and the carriage that was waiting for him. The crowd dispersed slowly. Hallén know that he should talk to Alma and Edvin right away, but the pain above his eye made that impossible. He went back to the parsonage and lay in bed for the rest of the day.

 

The next morning his serving woman came and told him that the animal with the red eye was back on the wall. Hallén had just woken up, relieved that the pain over his eye was gone.

 

That same day he paid a visit to Alma and Edvin. They had heard about what happened. Alma had asked Daniel about it, but she got no reply except a few words in his own strange language. They all went out to the barn together where Daniel lay curled up in the straw.

‘He has a fever,' Alma said. ‘But he refuses to sleep in the house.'

Hallén observed the boy in silence.

‘It's possible that he should be moved to a mental hospital,' he said. ‘There are many indications that he has gone insane. It's not normal to carve animals on churchyard walls. Did he cut himself to get the blood?'

‘I think he coughed it up,' said Edvin.

‘He's killing himself with longing for home,' Alma said firmly. ‘What business does he have among lunatics?'

‘You don't know anything about these matters. You heard what the pastor said,' said Edvin.

Hallén tried to catch Daniel's eye, but he kept looking away. Every time Hallén looked at the boy he had an eerie feeling that there was something he ought to understand that was escaping him. The child
lying there in the straw had a message for him that he couldn't comprehend.

‘It's causing unrest in the parish, the way he's carving the wall and daubing blood on it,' Hallén said. ‘If it happens again we'll have to consider sending him to St Lars in Lund.'

‘Is that a church?' Alma asked.

‘You know quite well that it's the madhouse,' said Edvin.

‘He doesn't belong among those people.'

 

They left him in the barn. The milkmaid who had been alone since Vanja died went about among the cows, weeping. Daniel thought of Sanna. He still couldn't grasp how she could have betrayed him. He had felt happy with her, and she had shared her warmth with him. But she had deceived him about who she really was. She had acted the same way as the man who had hit her and dragged her by the hair.

He lay there until far into the night and tried to understand why she had acted as she did. He didn't touch the food that Alma brought him.

‘I don't want you to be tied up,' she said. ‘I don't want you to end up with crazy people. Can't you stop going to the church?'

Daniel didn't answer. But when Edvin came in she told him that Daniel had promised he wouldn't go out that night.

‘We could always put the boy in the house,' Edvin said. ‘Or I could stay out here myself.'

‘That's not necessary. He won't go.'

Edvin shook his head. ‘The hired hand said that Arnman has stationed some of his boys outside the church.'

‘That man is disgusting. He probably told them to attack Daniel if he shows up.'

‘If only we knew what he was thinking. He sees something that we don't see. He's surrounded by people again. They're here, I can feel it.'

‘Nobody wants to put
you
in the madhouse,' Alma replied. ‘But you want to put
him
there?'

‘I'm just trying to puzzle him out, that's all. It's as if he's telling a story. Sometimes I feel like all this mud is being transformed into sand, and that it's getting hot. But then it's gone again.'

Daniel listened to what they were saying. By now he understood most of their speech, but his old language had taken over almost all his consciousness.

Alma put her hand on his forehead.

‘He's much too hot,' she said. ‘I don't know why Dr Madsen can't do something. He can't catch a fever from being homesick, can he?'

‘It's the cough,' Edvin said. ‘You know that as well as I do. And there's nothing to be done about that.'

‘I don't want him to die,' Alma said. ‘I want that man named Bengler to come back and take him home.'

 

They left Daniel alone. The cows stirred in their stalls. A rat rustled in a corner. One of the hens fluttered its wings. Daniel kept thinking about Sanna. At last it seemed there was only one possibility. One explanation for why she had let him down. She was an evil spirit. He had no idea who had sent her to destroy him.

 

He dozed off and in his dream he saw Sanna sitting among the black birds in a tree out in the field. At first he thought it was Be, who was waiting there so that she could fly off with him, but then he saw that it was Sanna and that black soot was running out of her nostrils.

He woke up with a start and thought about what he had dreamed. Whoever had sent Sanna into his path had done it to prevent Be and Kiko from reaching him. Suddenly it all became clear to him: as long as Sanna existed he would never be able to go home. He was never meant to learn to walk on water or to sail with a ship the long way back. Be and Kiko were right next to him.

And yet he was unsure. He was too small to know everything about the evil spirits who possessed people's souls. The only thing he could do was to try to trick Sanna into revealing who she really was and who had sent her.

 

Daniel slipped back and forth between sleeping and waking. Sometimes he would reach out for the mug of water that Alma always set beside him.

At dawn he ate all the food he had left untouched the night before.
If he was going to find out who Sanna really was, he would have to eat and build up his strength.

 

It took him a few days and nights to work out a plan. He searched his memory for everything that Kiko had taught him: about how evil spirits had to be tracked the same way as animals.

Finally he found the solution.

In his coat he still had the sliver of wood he had taken from the knee of the Jesus statue.

The following night he would put his plan into action. As if to convince himself that he was doing the right thing, that he had understood the invisible powers who were preventing him from returning to the desert, his fever suddenly abated, although he was still coughing up blood. Dr Madsen, who came to visit Alma, said that perhaps he might still get well.

 

It was completely calm when Daniel left the barn. He stopped in the yard and listened. Everything was quiet. He had taken along one of the lanterns that Edvin lit every evening in the barn. He had put it out, but he had matches with him.

When he reached the hill he stopped and listened. He opened his nostrils wide as Kiko had taught him to do when he was scenting a spoor. Sanna often smelled bad - she was dirty and her clothes smelled sour. But he didn't notice anything. He crept cautiously up to the top of the hill, lit the lantern and screwed down the top. At the spot where Sanna most often sat, either still with her eyes closed, or rocking impatiently and digging in the dirt, he stuck the piece of wood into the ground. Then he did as Kiko had taught him, imitating a hyena and laughing out into the darkness. Hyenas always followed the trail of death. They ate not only animal carcasses but also dug up people who had been buried. That was how they drew the spirits of people inside themselves, both the evil ones and the good. Daniel whispered the words in his language that were the most important: that in the piece of wood lived a spirit who would be able to lead Daniel back to the desert. Then he blew out the lantern and went back to the barn.

In the morning when he woke up, the hired hand stood looking at him.

‘There was somebody laughing last night,' said the hired hand. ‘It sounded like a pig, but also like a person. It must have been you.'

‘No,' Daniel said. ‘It wasn't me.'

The hired hand stared at him. Then he ran to fetch Alma and Edvin.

‘I heard him,' he said excitedly. ‘I heard him speak.'

‘What did he say?'

‘He said, “No. It wasn't me.”'

‘Is that all?'

‘Yes.'

Alma squatted down next to Daniel. ‘Is it true that you've started to speak again?'

Daniel stayed silent. Alma asked him again.

‘It's no use,' said Edvin. ‘The hired hand must have been imagining things.'

‘I heard what I heard.'

Edvin gave him a shove. ‘Work is waiting.'

 

That afternoon Daniel crept out through a hole in the wall at the back of the barn. Before he set off he stuffed the broken-off scythe point into his pocket. He crouched down when he ran across the fields. A fog bank was slowly shrouding the landscape in white. He could feel his heart begin to pound faster when he saw Sanna sitting up on the hill and digging in the mud. When she caught sight of him she was happy. She jumped up and grabbed hold of him. Daniel saw that she had been digging right where he had put the stick. There was no longer any doubt. She smelled like an animal - her clothes were like a pelt - and when she laughed she sounded like an animal, not a human being.

‘I thought you were never coming back,' she said.

The fog covered the landscape. Sanna squatted down in the mud. She had the photograph of the King with her and traced his signature with her finger. Daniel carefully pulled the scythe point out of his pocket and plunged it into the back of her neck. She fell forward without a sound. When he turned her over she stared up at him with her eyes wide open. He rubbed mud onto her face until her eyes couldn't see him any longer. So that she wouldn't be able to talk either, he shoved
as much mud into her mouth and throat as he could. He was out of breath and sweaty when he rubbed off the blood that had spattered on his clothes. Then he took the scythe point and the photograph of the King and buried them in the mud.

 

The trees where the birds used to perch could not be seen in the fog. Daniel took hold of Sanna's arms and began to drag her down the hill. Several times he had to squat down. He coughed so violently that he threw up. His mouth was full of blood, but he didn't care. Soon he would be home again. He dragged Sanna's body until he reached the trees. He covered her body with a thin layer of fallen branches and old brushwood. When the birds came back they would peck at her body until nothing was left. Even though he had the fever again, he felt strong. Now he didn't need to do anything but lie down in the barn and wait. Kiko and Be would come soon.