He turned back to the piano, took a tuning key out of his pocket and started caressing the keys. Hanna had the impression that he was trying to do it as quietly as possible, so as not to disturb those who were still asleep.
The man lying on the sofa sat up drowsily. When he saw Hanna he gave a start and stared at her as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. Then he tried to talk to her. She just shook her head and went back up the stairs to her room. She sat down on her bed, took the pound notes from among her underclothes and counted them. It was clear that she definitely had enough to enable her to head back home to Sweden. She might not even need to work her passage, but could perhaps be a paying passenger on a ship sailing to her homeland.
There was a knock on the door. Hanna quickly gathered up the money and hid it under the pillow. When there came a second knock, she stood up and opened the door. She thought it would be Laurinda who was already serving up her breakfast tray, but in fact it was the man who had been sleeping on the sofa. He still had his hat on his head and was barefoot. His shirt was unbuttoned and his pot belly hung down over his waistband. He was holding a bottle of cognac in one hand. He smiled, and spoke in a low voice as if he were encouraging a doubtful dog. She was about to shut the door when he put one of his bare feet in the way. Then he pushed her over so that she fell down on the bed. He closed the door, put the bottle on the table and produced a few notes from his trouser pocket. She was just about to get up off the bed when he gave a roar and pushed her back down again. He put the notes on the table, ripped her blouse open and started pulling up her skirt. When she resisted he slapped her hard. She still didn’t understand what he was saying, but she understood what was happening. She managed to wriggle out of his grasp, picked up the bottle he had put on the table and hit him so hard on the arm with it that it broke. At the same time, she shouted for help — as loudly as she could.
The blow and the subsequent shriek made the man hesitate. He let go of Hanna, and stared at her. She heard footsteps and then the door opened.
It was Senhor Vaz standing there, wearing a red silk dressing gown. Carlos was perched on his shoulders, then he launched into an attack on the unknown man. Carlos bit the man’s hand so savagely that he submitted.
31
Senhor Vaz was dishevelled. He must have been woken up by Hanna’s scream. But even if he was half asleep, he realized immediately what had been happening. The man, a Boer by the name of Fredrik Prinsloo, standing there half naked with uncut toenails like the claws on a cat, had been causing trouble for several years whenever he visited O Paraiso. Now he found himself fighting a desperate but losing battle against the ape that was biting him and ripping off his clothes.
Senhor Vaz shouted out a command. Carlos immediately stopped fighting and jumped up on to Hanna’s bed. In one hand he was holding a handkerchief he had managed to snatch from Prinsloo, who was bleeding quite badly.
Fredrik Prinsloo belonged to one of the earliest families to emigrate to Cape Town from Europe. Now he was a major landowner in the province of Transvaal, and had set up a business organizing safaris for rich hunters from America. One of his customers was the then President Theodore Roosevelt, who was a hopeless shot but nevertheless, with the discreet assistance of Prinsloo, succeeded in bagging vast numbers of buffalo, lion, leopard and giraffe.
Senhor Vaz had heard the story about the American president ad nauseam during the many conversations he had been compelled to have with Prinsloo. But despite the Boer’s boasts, he had to be handled with respect. Prinsloo was not just a regular customer, but he also recommended Vaz’s brothel to his friends whenever they felt the need to engage in erotic antics with black women. As Senhor Vaz had realized that the Boer never failed to start quarrelling with other customers, he introduced a special routine whenever Prinsloo indicated that he was on his way. Vaz dug out a notice that he hung on to the front door announcing that a ‘private party’ was taking place. All this meant in practice was that Senhor Vaz himself kept a close check on the number of clients allowed in that evening.
On these occasions wild rumours circulated around the town of abandoned orgies involving activities that no decent person could possibly imagine even in their wildest dreams. Senhor Vaz was well aware of these rumours, and also knew that they created a sort of magic aura around O Paraiso, which increased its appeal and also his income.
But he had also established that Prinsloo often treated black women extremely brutally. For a man like Prinsloo black skin was merely a shell that concealed stupidity, ignorance and idleness. But to do what Prinsloo did and combine this contempt with what seemed at times to be an irrational hatred was something that Vaz couldn’t understand. Why this hatred? Nobody hates animals, apart from snakes, cockroaches and rats. Let’s face it, black people don’t have poisonous fangs. Extremely cautiously, he had often raised the matter with Prinsloo; but he had beaten a hasty retreat when Prinsloo became hot under the collar and refused to answer.
Prinsloo was also an unpredictable person. He could be generous and friendly, but he sometimes reached a tipping point. When that happened, he would start treating the prostitutes and servants with a degree of cruelty that terrified everybody he came into contact with. Senhor Vaz had instructed his most trusted servants to inform him immediately when Prinsloo had one of his attacks. On several occasions, apparently without provocation, the Boer had suddenly started hitting or whipping the black whore he had been bedding at the time. Senhor Vaz would then intervene with the assistance of the burly security officer who for some reason was called Judas. Their combined efforts would be enough to rescue the naked, bleeding woman from Prinsloo’s attacks. The Boer never offered any resistance, but nor did he ever express any regret. What he had done simply didn’t seem to bother him. Prinsloo never gave any extra money to the women he had attacked, nor did he hesitate to ask for their services again the next time he visited the brothel.
But Senhor Vaz had drawn a line there. Nobody who had been subjected to Prinsloo’s brutality need ever go to bed with him again. He simply explained that she was busy with other clients, and would be otherwise occupied all the time Prinsloo stayed at O Paraiso, which was usually three or four days. He wasn’t sure whether or not Prinsloo had seen through him, but the Boer was allowed to choose from all the other women and precautions were taken to act immediately if ever he started mistreating the woman he had selected to satisfy his desires on any given occasion.
Senhor Vaz worried about the hatred that Prinsloo had manifested. He didn’t understand it, and it scared him. It was as if it was warning him about a danger. Something he wasn’t aware of himself.
As he stood there in the doorway, half asleep, and observed the semi-naked Prinsloo squaring up to the white woman with her blouse ripped away, he recognized that things had now gone too far. Prinsloo hadn’t hesitated to attack one of the hotel residents, and a white woman at that. Senhor Vaz could no longer overlook his behaviour. And he felt he had been insulted personally.
As far as he was concerned, there could be nothing worse. Being insulted meant that death was testing his powers of resistance.
32
Senhor Vaz was short in stature and not especially strong. But his anger was such that he didn’t hesitate to grab hold of Prinsloo’s shirt collar, drag him out of the room and then push him down the stairs. The scream from the upper floor had woken up the sleeping whores. Many of the women were not particularly fond of some of their colleagues, but they seldom came to blows, although it did happen now and then. But if the danger came from outside their circle, they were all united against it.