A Treacherous Paradise by Henning Mankell Read Free Book Online

didn’t understand. He started begging for food – he was hungry, and nobody gave him anything to eat any more.
    Hanna tried again. Explained once again who she was, and talked at length about Elin. But it was no use. The old man in the filthy bed was living in a different world, in which the only thing that mattered was his hunger.
    ‘Come on,’ said Jukka. ‘Let’s go. This is a waste of time. We’ll talk to the old woman downstairs. She might know.’
    If she’d been able to, Hanna would have run out of the house and not stopped until she was back home again with Elin and her brothers and sisters. Nobody wanted to take care of her, the whole journey had been in vain. She didn’t belong in this town. She’d been welcomed by a confused, bewildered old man, nobody else.
    When Forsman heard about the failed expedition, he tore a strip off the cowering Jukka. Was he incapable of ferreting out where the family had gone to? Would that have been
so
difficult?
    Forsman calmed down eventually, and said to Hanna in his usual friendly voice that he would personally take over responsibility for finding out where the family had gone to. She shouldn’t worry. People didn’t just disappear into thin air. He would no doubt be able to find the relatives she had come to meet.
    ‘In the meantime you can stay here,’ he said. ‘You can make yourself useful about the house. Help the other girls!’
    Two days later he had some information to pass on to her. He called her into his office, where he was sitting at a desk, chewing away at a cigar stub.
    ‘That old man you met is just a sort of lodger,’ he said. ‘He’s not even a relative. He’s allowed to lie there in that bed until he dies. Then somebody else will take over the room. A whole family of dockers are lined up to move in. They’re no doubt hoping he’ll die as soon as possible because at the moment that family is living in a cattle shed. But nobody seems to know where the others have gone to.’
    He looked hard at her. She was beginning to feel scared, but braced herself.
    ‘I think you should stay here for the time being,’ said Forsman. ‘We could do with another maid.’
    She closed her eyes, and breathed out. She couldn’t make up her mind if that was due to relief or to joy. She tried to conjure up the sounds from the house by the river: but everything was silent, her thoughts were interrupted only by the noise of a cart clattering past in the street.
    Forsman seemed to gather what she was thinking. He smiled. Hanna curtseyed, and left the room.
    She said silently to herself: well, at least I’ve got something to do here now.

13
    SHE WORKED TOGETHER with Berta from then on. She followed her around, helped her out in her duties, and also allowed her to show her around the town in what little spare time they had. Most of the time was spent washing the clothes of everybody in the very large household, and also the sheets and tablecloths. There was a pump in the inner courtyard, and they fetched water from there to the laundry, which was next to the stables. Hanna couldn’t understand how Berta coped with the strenuous work, which kept her occupied for more than twelve hours a day. Berta had started working for Forsman when she was thirteen years old. She told Hanna that her father had died as a result of an accident at the sawmill in Essvik, her mother had died of consumption the following year, and the children had all gone their different ways. Berta kept coming back to her assertion that she had been lucky to get a job in Forsman’s household. Although it was hard work and not exactly uplifting, she had a roof over her head, a bed to sleep in and a meal three times a day. What had she to complain about? What right had she to do so?
    ‘If I were to leave, there would be at least ten girls queuing up outside in the street, hoping to take over my job,’ said Berta early one morning as they were standing by the pump, filling their buckets. ‘Why