The Eye of the Leopard by Henning Mankell Read Free Book Online Page A

freedom meant that nobody had to work any more. No one gave orders, no one considered they might have to do something that wasn’t demanded of them. Now the country survives on its income from copper mining. But what happens when prices drop on the world market? No investment has been made in any alternatives. This is an agricultural country. It could be one of the world’s best, since the soil is fertile and there is water available. But no efforts are being made. The Africans have grasped nothing, learned nothing. When the British flag was struck and they raised their own, it was the beginning of a funeral procession that is still going on.’
    ‘I know almost nothing about Africa,’ says Olofson. ‘What little I do know I’ve already begun to doubt. And I’ve only been here two days.’
    They give him an inquisitive look and he suddenly wishes he could have offered a different reply.
    ‘I’m supposed to visit a mission station in Mutshatsha,’ he says. ‘But I don’t really know how to get there.’
    To his surprise, the Mastertons immediately take up the question of how he can complete his expedition. He quickly surmises that perhaps he has presented a problem that can be solved, in contrast to the one Werner Masterton has just laid out. Perhapsblack problems have to be solved by the blacks, and the whites’ problems by the whites?
    ‘We have some friends in Kalulushi,’ says Werner. ‘I’ll take you there in my car. They can help you to continue from there.’
    ‘That’s too much to ask,’ replies Olofson.
    ‘That’s the way it is,’ says Ruth. ‘If the
mzunguz
don’t help each other, no one will. Do you think that any of the blacks climbing on the roof of this train car would help you? If they could, they’d steal your trousers right off you.’
    Ruth lays out a meal from her baggage and invites Hans to join them.
    ‘Didn’t you even bring water with you?’ she asks. ‘The train could be a day late. There’s always something that breaks down, something missing, something they forgot.’
    ‘I thought there would be water on the train.’
    ‘It’s so filthy that not even a
munto
will drink it,’ says Werner, spitting into the darkness. ‘This would be a good country to live in if it weren’t for the blacks.’
    Olofson decides that all whites in Africa probably espouse racist views just to survive. But is that true of missionaries too?
    ‘Isn’t there any conductor coming?’ he asks, to avoid responding to this last remark.
    ‘There may not be one,’ replies Ruth. ‘He may have missed his train. Or else some distant relative died and he went to the funeral without letting anyone know. The Africans spend a great deal of their lives going to and from funerals. But maybe he will come. Nothing is impossible.’
    These people are the remnants of something utterly lost, thinks Olofson. Colonialism is completely buried today, with the exception of South Africa and the Portuguese colonies. But the people remain. A historical epoch always leaves behind a handful of people for the following period. They keep looking backwards,dreaming, aggrieved. They look at their empty hands and wonder where the instruments of power have gone. Then they discover these instruments in the hands of the people they previously only spoke to when giving out orders and reprimands. They live in the Epoch of Mortification, in the twilight land of ruin. The whites in Africa are a wandering remnant of a people that no one wants to think about. They have lost their foundation, what they thought was permanent for all eternity …
    One question remains obvious. ‘So things were better before?’
    ‘What answer can we give to that?’ says Ruth, looking at her husband.
    ‘Answer with the truth,’ says Werner.
    A weak, flickering lamp casts the compartment in darkness. Hans sees a lampshade covered with dead insects. Werner follows his gaze.
    ‘For a lampshade like that a cleaning woman would have been given the