‘What the hell is this?’ he asked. ‘What the hell is this?’
The farmhand stank of dirt and aquavit. His eyes were red.
‘His name is Daniel,’ replied Bengler. ‘He’s a foreigner on a visit to our country.’
The farmhand kept staring.
‘What the hell is this?’ he repeated.
Daniel looked at him and then continued drinking the glass of water in front of him.
‘Is it some kind of animal?’
‘He’s a human being from a desert in Africa called the Kalahari.’
‘What’s he doing here?’
‘He’s on the way to Lund in my company.’
The farmhand kept on staring. Then he placed his rough hand very lightly and carefully on Daniel’s head.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen dwarfs and giant women and Siamese twins at fairs. But not this.’
‘He’s here so that we can look at him,’ said Bengler. ‘Human beings are made in different forms. But they’re all the same inside.’
An hour later, just before five in the afternoon, the thunderstorm moved on. They continued into the city. The farmer, who had let them ride along for free, dropped them off near the cathedral. Bengler had no more than a few copper coins in his pocket. He had left his baggage in Simrishamn as a guarantee that he would return and pay the bill. He took Daniel with him into the grove of trees by the cathedral. Since the ground was wet he spread out his coat for them to sit on.
‘What we need now is money,’ he said to Daniel. ‘The first thing we need is money.’
Daniel listened. He seemed preoccupied, but Bengler suspected that he must have begun to understand a few words.
‘Before I travelled to the desert I learned many things from a professor of botany named Alfred Herrnander,’ he went on. ‘He was a good man, an old man. I’m considering asking him for a loan. We can only hope that he’s still alive.’
Bengler had visited Herrnander once at his home north of the cathedral. They went there now. People passing by stopped and turned round.
‘Everyone who sees you will remember you,’ Bengler said. ‘They will tell their families tonight about what they saw. You’re already famous. Merely by walking down the street you’ve become a well-known person. You will be the object of curiosity, suspicion and, unfortunately, also some ill will. People are afraid of what’s foreign to them. And you are foreign, Daniel.’
They stopped outside the low grey house. When the door was opened by a serving woman with a limp, Bengler prayed that Herrnander was still alive.
He was.
But the year before he had had a stroke, the serving woman told him.
‘He’s not seeing visitors. He just lies there drumming his fingers on the blankets.’
‘Does he grind his jaws?’ Bengler asked.
The serving woman shook her head.
‘Why should he do that?’
‘I don’t know. It was only a question. But please go in and tell him that Hans Bengler is out here on the street. In his company he has a boy from the San people, nomads who live in the Kalahari Desert.’
‘Am I supposed to remember all that? All those strange words?’
‘Please try.’
‘Wait just a minute.’
She closed the door. Daniel jumped. Bengler thought that a door being slammed might remind him of a gunshot.
Then she was back with a pen and paper. Bengler wrote everything down. She did not invite them in.
‘The boy has oversensitive ears,’ said Bengler. ‘I would appreciate it if you would not slam the door so hard when you close it.’
They waited. By the time the door opened again, Bengler had begun to lose hope.
‘He will see you. But he can’t speak; with great effort he can write a few words on a slate.’
‘If he can listen that will be sufficient.’
Herrnander lay on a sofa of dark red plush in his study. The curtains were drawn and the room was low-ceilinged, cramped and stuffy. There were bookshelves up to the ceiling, full of etchings and manuscripts. Herrnander looked like a bird under the covers. On a table next to the sofa stood water and a brown bottle of medicine. It took a while before he noticed that they had come into the room. He slowly turned his head; his eyes scanned Bengler’s face and then stopped at Daniel’s. The serving woman who had followed them into the room stood guard by the door. Bengler made an effort to be firm and motioned for her to leave, which she reluctantly did. But she left the door ajar, so Bengler went and closed it. Then he stuffed his handkerchief in the keyhole and returned to the sofa. In order not to tire Herrnander, he summed up his journey in as few words as possible. The whole time Herrnander was gazing at Daniel’s face.
How could he convince Herrnander that it would be a good idea to give him a temporary loan so that he could get on with reporting his insect finds? He would write a scholarly article about the beetle and he would dedicate it to his mentor and teacher. But in order to be able to do this, he needed a small loan. A loan that could equally be regarded as an investment in the progress of science. Of course the loan would be paid back. Papers would be drawn up, signatures notarised. Everything would be done properly. He really needed this loan. And besides, there was the boy to consider. He had a person with him from a distant land: a person who was his responsibility, a celebrity to display.
When Bengler finished speaking his piece there was a long silence. He wondered whether Herrnander had understood anything he had said. Carefully he repeated the words: small loan. No great amount. For science and the boy.
One of Herrnander’s hands dropped to the edge of the sofa. Bengler thought it was a gesture of great weariness. But then he saw that a finger was beckoning. Herrnander was pointing at a portfolio that lay on the floor. Bengler lifted it up. With infinitely slow movements Herrnander opened it and pulled out a wad of notes. When Bengler asked if the money was for him, Herrnander nodded. Bengler started talking again about the importance of written agreements and signatures, but Herrnander struck the portfolio so that it fell to the floor. Bengler could see his irritation. He didn’t want any papers drawn up and signed. Next to the pillow he had his slate. He pulled it over and slowly scrawled one word. Bengler read it. Why. Nothing more. No question mark, just the single word why. Bengler was sure that the question had nothing to do with the money. This why was about Daniel. Bengler told him briefly what had happened before he found Daniel in Andersson’s pen. But Herrnander shook his head impatiently. His ‘why’ was still unanswered.
He wonders why I brought him here, Bengler thought. There was no other explanation. He told him about the need to show mercy, the simple Christian message not to refuse a fellow human being who was in trouble. But these words seemed to annoy Herrnander even more. Bengler abandoned the Christian argument and shifted to science. He wanted to make a study of Daniel and at the same time observe how Swedes reacted to their meeting with this foreigner.
Herrnander groaned. Slowly he crossed out the word why and replaced it with another one. Bengler read it: crazy. When he started to speak again Herrnander closed his eyes.
The conversation was over. Bengler felt insulted. What entitled this old man, with one foot in the grave, to criticise him? He stuffed the money in his pocket, took the handkerchief out of the keyhole and opened the door.