The serving woman came towards them from an adjacent room.
‘You stayed far too long,’ she said impatiently. ‘Now he’ll be restless all night.’
‘I promise we won’t come back,’ was Bengler’s friendly reply. ‘We have completed our business.’
When they were out on the street Bengler took a deep breath and looked at Daniel.
‘Now we have the most important thing a person can have,’ he said. ‘Capital. You don’t know what that is. But one day you’ll understand.’
Daniel could see that Bengler was calmer now. His eyes no longer flicked back and forth.
He stroked Daniel’s hair.
‘Tonight we’re going to live the way we deserve. We’ll eat an excellent dinner. And we’ll stay at the Grand Hotel.’
He stretched out his arm to point in the direction they were headed.
‘I knew it the whole time,’ he said and laughed. ‘I’m born to be a commander. Even if my army consists only of you.’
Daniel didn’t understand the words. But he felt that the most important thing was that the man walking in front of him no longer seemed worried.
Chapter 9
They took a corner room on the third floor. The man in the lobby had regarded Daniel with displeasure, but he hadn’t asked any questions. The room had thick curtains and smelled strongly of tobacco smoke. Daniel recoiled when he stepped over the threshold. Bengler thought it felt like stepping into a musty crypt. He was secretly ashamed that Daniel would have to sleep in this heavy smoke. He pulled back the curtains and opened the window. Daniel came over and stood next to him. He was afraid when he saw how high above the ground they were. Bengler realised that for Daniel there was probably no connection between the stairs they had climbed and how high the room was: for Daniel a staircase was a hill going up, not something that left the ground far below them.
‘Tonight we shall sleep here,’ Bengler explained.
He pointed at the bed. Daniel went over to it and lay down.
‘Not yet,’ Bengler said. ‘First I have to give you a wash. Then we’ll go down to the dining room and eat dinner.’
Bengler gestured to Daniel to get undressed. He took off his clothes too and hung up the worn suit on a clothes hanger. Daniel was very thin. Just below his right nipple he had a scar that shone white against his black skin. Bengler looked at his member. It was still undeveloped, but very long. On an impulse he couldn’t resist, he touched it. Daniel at once did the same to him and Bengler gave a start. Daniel gave him a worried look. Bengler thought it was like having a puppy for a companion. He poured water into the washbasin and told Daniel to sit down on the bed and watch how a person washed properly. Bengler placed a towel on the floor and washed himself carefully. He reminded himself of how he had been washed as a child and concluded by scrubbing his buttocks with a brush. Daniel watched him intently. Bengler felt like a heavy and shapeless animal standing naked in front of the basin. When he had dried himself he rang a bell. It took a few minutes before there was a knock on the door. A girl in a starched apron stood there and curtsied. She gave a start when she saw Daniel and quickly looked away. Bengler gave her the empty water pitcher and asked for some more hot water. He wrapped Daniel in the bedspread. When the girl came back with the hot water he gave Daniel the brush and sat down on the edge of the bed. Daniel washed himself. To Bengler’s astonishment the boy had memorised in detail how he had washed himself. First the right leg, then the left arm, armpit, belly and then the left leg. Daniel repeated the movements.
‘You learn very fast,’ said Bengler. ‘You’ve already mastered the art of staying clean.’
When they had dressed they went downstairs to the dining room. It hadn’t changed since the last time Bengler was there. The kerosene lamps shone, on the tables stood candelabra, and Bengler felt a sense of anticipation: would there be anyone here he knew? They were greeted at the door by the maître d’, who regarded Daniel with an astonished expression. He had a Danish accent. Bengler looked around the dining room. On this autumn evening the patrons were sparse: lone bachelors hunched over their bottles of arrack punch; a few small groups. Bengler asked for a window table. As they walked between the tables all conversation stopped. Bengler suddenly felt that he ought to tap a glass and give a brief speech about his trip through the Kalahari Desert, but he refrained. They sat down at the table.
‘He’s short,’ said Bengler. ‘Give him a cushion to sit on.’
The maître d’ bowed and motioned for a waiter. Bengler didn’t recognise him and wondered where all the waiters who were there before had gone. After all, he had only been away for a little over a year. Daniel was given a velvet cushion to sit on. Bengler studied the menu, shocked at how much the prices had gone up, and then ordered pork chops, wine, water for Daniel and orange mousse for dessert.
‘Would the gentlemen care for an aperitif?’
The waiter was old and rheumatic and had bad breath.
‘A shot and a beer,’ replied Bengler. ‘The boy won’t have anything.’
When Bengler had received his shot of aquavit and tossed it back, he at once ordered another. The liquor warmed him and inspired a restless need to get seriously drunk. Daniel sat motionless across the table and followed him with his eyes. Bengler raised his glass and said ‘Skål’ to him.
At that moment he noticed that a man had got up from a table next to the wall and was on his way over to them. As he approached, Bengler saw that it was an old perpetual student they called the Loop. He had been in Lund as long as Bengler had attended the university. Once in the late 1860s he had tried to hang himself outside the cathedral. But the rope, or maybe it was the branch, had broken and he survived. One of his cervical vertebrae had been damaged, which crooked his head rigidly to the left, as if his soul had been given a list that could never be righted. He stopped at their table. Bengler could see that he was extremely drunk. The Loop owed everyone money. When he arrived in Lund from Halmstad in the late 1840s, rumour had it that he was living on an inheritance. The first few years he had attended lectures in the theological faculty, but something had happened that led to the tree and the broken branch. It was intimated that it was the usual matter, an unhappy love affair. But no one knew with certainty. Since that day, the Loop had lived in a wretched garret on the outskirts of Lund. He broke off his studies and didn’t read anything any more, not even the newspapers. He was always borrowing money, could tell a good story from time to time, but for the most part sat hunched over his glass and his bottles and held mumbling conversations with himself. Sometimes he would wave his arms about as if he were bothered by insects, and then sit in silence until the last patron was thrown out. Now he was standing by their table.
‘There’s been talk of an expedition to a faraway desert,’ he said. ‘And one never expected to see the explorer return. Now here he sits as though nothing had happened. He has a black creature sitting across the table. A boy who looks like a shadow.’
‘His name is Daniel,’ replied Bengler. ‘We’re only passing through.’
‘So one’s studies shall not be resumed?’
‘No.’
‘I don’t wish to intrude,’ the Loop went on. ‘But the explorer, whose name has unfortunately slipped my mind, might possibly see his way clear to a small loan of a tenner.’
Bengler felt in his pocket and pulled out two ten-kronor notes. It was too much but the Loop had recognised him. The notes vanished in the Loop’s hand, though he didn’t bother to see how much he had got. Nor did he bother to say thank you.