Now they were standing by the staircase as Prinsloo came tumbling down. Vaz followed behind him, followed in turn by Judas, and behind him Carlos, who was chewing Prinsloo’s white handkerchief.
Senhor Vaz stopped on the bottom step and looked sternly at Prinsloo, who had hit his head and was bleeding from one eyebrow and the hand where Carlos had bitten him.
‘Get out of here,’ he said. ‘And never come back again.’
Prinsloo pressed his hand against his eyebrow and seemed at first not to have understood what Senhor Vaz had said. Then he stood up on unsteady legs, made a threatening gesture at the prostitutes who were standing round him, then took a step forward towards Senhor Vaz.
‘You know that I usually bring my friends here with me,’ he said. ‘If you throw me out, you throw them all out as well.’
‘I’ll be only too pleased to explain to them why I don’t want you here.’
Prinsloo didn’t reply. He was still bleeding. He suddenly roared loudly and bent over forwards, as if he was in great pain.
‘Water,’ he yelled. ‘Warm water. I must wipe away the blood.’
Senhor Vaz nodded to one of the women, indicating that she should bring some water. He shooed the others away. They returned quietly to their rooms. Prinsloo sat down on the edge of a sofa. When the girl brought him an enamel washbasin he carefully washed away the blood from his forehead and his hand.
‘Ice,’ he said then.
Senhor Vaz himself went out into the kitchen and chopped a couple of large lumps of ice from the blocks in the icebox, then wrapped them up in towels. Prinsloo pressed them against his wounds. When the bleeding had stopped he stood up, buttoned up his shirt, put on his socks and shoes and left through the door.
He left the lumps of ice in the towels lying on the floor next to the sofa. Senhor Vaz carried them into the kitchen, then went back up the stairs and knocked on the door of room number 4. When he heard Hanna’s voice he opened the door and entered the room. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, and had replaced the torn blouse with a different one.
Senhor Vaz looked for signs that she had been crying, but found none. He sat down on the only chair in the room.
Not a word was spoken, but Hanna had the feeling nevertheless that he was apologizing for what had happened.
When he eventually stood up, bowed and left the room, she was more convinced than ever that she ought to leave this town as soon as possible.
Africa scared the living daylights out of her. It was full of people she couldn’t understand, and who didn’t understand her.
She must get away. But even so, she didn’t regret having abandoned Captain Svartman’s ship. That had been the right thing to do in the circumstances. But what was the right thing to do now?
She didn’t know. There was no answer to that question.
She thought: that dark river is still flowing inside me. The ice hasn’t formed on it yet.
33
That very same day she went down to the harbour. Senhor Vaz didn’t want her to wander around town on her own, and sent Judas as a sort of bodyguard. He walked a few paces behind her. Every time she turned round he stopped and looked down at the ground. He didn’t dare to look her in the eye.
How can he possibly protect me? she thought. When he doesn’t even dare to look me in the eye.
There were a lot of ships berthed by the various quays. Still more were riding at anchor in the roadstead. It was low tide, and large parts of the lagoon that formed the outer harbour were silted up, with old wrecks sticking out of the black mud. She searched for a ship flying the Swedish flag in the inner harbour, but in vain. Nor could she see a Danish one, the only other flag she had learnt to recognize. The ships in the roadstead were all flying flags she couldn’t identify.
It was very busy on the quays, with ships being frantically loaded and unloaded. She watched a net full of elephants’ tusks being hoisted up on a crane and lowered into a hold. Gleaming pianos and motor cars were lifted out of another ship, and in one of the nets deposited on the quays were several elegant sofas and armchairs.
The half-naked workers were dripping with sweat as they carried their burdens along swaying gangplanks. And wherever she looked there were white men in topees keeping watch over their slaves like hungry beasts of prey. She soon decided she could no longer bear to watch all these tortured and torturing people. She left the harbour.
Just as she was leaving the waterfront she decided she would take an indirect route back to the hotel. With the sturdily built Judas behind her, she had no need to feel afraid.
He’s my fifth attendant, she thought: Elin was first, then Forsman, and then Berta, Lundmark, and now this gigantic black man who doesn’t dare to look me in the eye.
She spent a long time wandering around the town that afternoon. For the first time she had the feeling that she was seeing everything clearly. Before, everything seemed to have been shrouded by the strong sunlight. Now at last she was able to become acquainted with this town to which she was originally scheduled to pay merely a fleeting visit in order to take on board fresh water and food supplies before Captain Svartman set off for the long voyage to Australia in his Lovisa.
But she had jumped ship here, and was still here. All the darkness she had experienced was now at last beginning to disperse. She was beginning to see properly the foreign world which now surrounded her.
It suddenly dawned on her that it was Sunday. One of the first days in October. But the seasons had changed places. Now it wasn’t winter and the cold that was in store. On the contrary, the increasing heat indicated that summer had arrived early this year. She had heard Senhor Vaz discussing this with his brothel clients. The sun can burn you just as the cold can burn you, she thought. But perhaps my skin is hardened to the heat, thanks to the fact that I’m used to the cold?
She had come to the end of a street that opened out on to a hill, on the top of which the town’s as yet unfinished cathedral towered up towards the heavens. The bright sunlight was reflected off the white stone walls. She had to screw up her eyes so that what surrounded her was not transformed into a mirage by the heat haze. Wherever she looked, everything seemed to be deserted. There were no other people about. Only the big black man behind her, always motionless whenever she turned round.
She walked up the hill. The cathedral doors were standing open. She stopped in the shadow of the tall tower. It’s like a meringue, she thought as she looked at the white stone. Or a cake that I saw in Forsman’s house when one of his children was having a birthday party.
She stood in the shadows, wiping her face with a handkerchief. Judas was standing in full sunlight. She tried beckoning to him, indicating that he too should come and stand in the shade. But he stayed where he was, with sweat pouring down his face.
She suddenly heard singing coming from the dark interior of the cathedral. Children, she thought — children singing in a choir. The singing was interrupted by an echoing voice, but then it began again, a repetition of the same tune. This was evidently a choir practice. She stepped cautiously into the darkness, unsure as to whether she was allowed to enter this church. Were prayers said to the same God here as in the churches she had previously been to, in the mountains and in Sundsvall? She paused, hesitant, while her eyes slowly got used to the darkness that was in such sharp contrast with the sunlight outside.
Then she saw them. The choir. Children in white robes with a red belt round their waist, boys and girls, all of them black. In front of them a small white man with bushy hair and hands moving like soft wings. Nobody had noticed her yet. She stood there and listened. There were a few more repetitions before the choirmaster was satisfied.