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Authors: Henning Mankell
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town.
‘Tonight you’ll be our guest,’ says Werner. ‘In the morning I’ll drive you to Kalulushi.’
Ruth shows him to his room. They walk down cool corridors; tiled floors with deep rugs. An elderly man appears before them. Olofson sees that he is barefoot.
‘Louis will take care of you while you’re here,’ says Ruth. ‘When you leave you can give him a coin. But not too much. Don’t upset him.’
Olofson is troubled by the man’s ragged clothes. His trousers have two gaping holes in the knees, as if he has spent his life crawling on them. His faded shirt is frayed and patched.
Olofson looks out a window at a large park extending into the distance. White wicker chairs, a hammock in a giant tree. Somewhere outside he hears Ruth’s excited voice, a door slamming. From the bathroom he hears water running.
‘Your bath is ready,
Bwana’
, says Louis behind him. ‘The towels are on the bed.’
Olofson is suddenly agitated. I have to say something, he thinks. So he understands that I’m not one of them, merely a temporary visitor, who is not used to being assigned a personal servant.
‘Have you been here long?’ he asks.
‘Since I was born,
Bwana,’
Louis replies.
Then he vanishes from the room, and Olofson regrets his question. A master’s question to a servant, he thinks. Even though I mean well I make myself look insincere and common.
He sinks down in the bathtub and asks himself what escape routes are still left to him. He feels like a conman who has grown tired of not being unmasked.
They’re helping me carry out a meaningless assignment, he thinks. They’re ready to drive me to Kalulushi and then help me find the last transport out to the mission station in the bush. They’re going to a lot of trouble for something that’s just an egocentric impulse, a tourist trip with an artificial dream as its motive.
The dream of Mutshatsha died with Janine. I’m plundering her corpse with this excursion to a world where I don’t belong at all. How can I be jealous of a dead person? Of her will, of her stubborn dream, which she clung to despite the fact that she could never realise it? How can an atheistic, unbelieving person take over the dream of being a missionary, helping downtrodden and poverty-stricken people with a religious motive as the foremost incentive?
In the bathtub he decides to return, ask to be driven back to Kitwe. Come up with a credible explanation for why he has to change his plans.
He dresses and goes out into the large park. Under a tall tree that spreads a mighty shadow there is a bench that is carved out of a single block of stone. He scarcely manages to sit down before a servant brings him a cup of tea. All at once Werner Masterton stands before him, dressed in worn overalls.
‘Would you like to see our farm?’ he asks.
They climb into the Jeep, which has been newly washed. Werner puts his big hands on the wheel after pulling a worn sunhat down over his eyes. They drive past long rows of hen houses and fields. Now and then he brakes to a stop and black workers instantly come running. He barks out orders in a mixture of English and a language that is unknown to Olofson.
The whole time Olofson has a feeling that Werner is balancing on an ice floe beneath which an outbreak of rage might erupt at any moment.
‘It’s a big farm,’ he says as they drive on.
‘Not that big,’ says Werner. ‘If it were a different time I wouldprobably have expanded the acreage. Nowadays you never know what’s going to happen next. Maybe they’ll confiscate all the farms from the whites. Out of jealousy, or displeasure at the fact that we’re so infinitely more skilled than the black farmers who started after independence. They hate us for our skill, our ability to organise, our ability to make things work. They hate us because we make money, because our health is better and we live longer. Envy is an African inheritance. But the reason they hate us most is that magic doesn’t
‘Tonight you’ll be our guest,’ says Werner. ‘In the morning I’ll drive you to Kalulushi.’
Ruth shows him to his room. They walk down cool corridors; tiled floors with deep rugs. An elderly man appears before them. Olofson sees that he is barefoot.
‘Louis will take care of you while you’re here,’ says Ruth. ‘When you leave you can give him a coin. But not too much. Don’t upset him.’
Olofson is troubled by the man’s ragged clothes. His trousers have two gaping holes in the knees, as if he has spent his life crawling on them. His faded shirt is frayed and patched.
Olofson looks out a window at a large park extending into the distance. White wicker chairs, a hammock in a giant tree. Somewhere outside he hears Ruth’s excited voice, a door slamming. From the bathroom he hears water running.
‘Your bath is ready,
Bwana’
, says Louis behind him. ‘The towels are on the bed.’
Olofson is suddenly agitated. I have to say something, he thinks. So he understands that I’m not one of them, merely a temporary visitor, who is not used to being assigned a personal servant.
‘Have you been here long?’ he asks.
‘Since I was born,
Bwana,’
Louis replies.
Then he vanishes from the room, and Olofson regrets his question. A master’s question to a servant, he thinks. Even though I mean well I make myself look insincere and common.
He sinks down in the bathtub and asks himself what escape routes are still left to him. He feels like a conman who has grown tired of not being unmasked.
They’re helping me carry out a meaningless assignment, he thinks. They’re ready to drive me to Kalulushi and then help me find the last transport out to the mission station in the bush. They’re going to a lot of trouble for something that’s just an egocentric impulse, a tourist trip with an artificial dream as its motive.
The dream of Mutshatsha died with Janine. I’m plundering her corpse with this excursion to a world where I don’t belong at all. How can I be jealous of a dead person? Of her will, of her stubborn dream, which she clung to despite the fact that she could never realise it? How can an atheistic, unbelieving person take over the dream of being a missionary, helping downtrodden and poverty-stricken people with a religious motive as the foremost incentive?
In the bathtub he decides to return, ask to be driven back to Kitwe. Come up with a credible explanation for why he has to change his plans.
He dresses and goes out into the large park. Under a tall tree that spreads a mighty shadow there is a bench that is carved out of a single block of stone. He scarcely manages to sit down before a servant brings him a cup of tea. All at once Werner Masterton stands before him, dressed in worn overalls.
‘Would you like to see our farm?’ he asks.
They climb into the Jeep, which has been newly washed. Werner puts his big hands on the wheel after pulling a worn sunhat down over his eyes. They drive past long rows of hen houses and fields. Now and then he brakes to a stop and black workers instantly come running. He barks out orders in a mixture of English and a language that is unknown to Olofson.
The whole time Olofson has a feeling that Werner is balancing on an ice floe beneath which an outbreak of rage might erupt at any moment.
‘It’s a big farm,’ he says as they drive on.
‘Not that big,’ says Werner. ‘If it were a different time I wouldprobably have expanded the acreage. Nowadays you never know what’s going to happen next. Maybe they’ll confiscate all the farms from the whites. Out of jealousy, or displeasure at the fact that we’re so infinitely more skilled than the black farmers who started after independence. They hate us for our skill, our ability to organise, our ability to make things work. They hate us because we make money, because our health is better and we live longer. Envy is an African inheritance. But the reason they hate us most is that magic doesn’t
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