‘I began to take an interest in insects.’
‘I read what you wrote in your letter. Is your vain father dead?’
‘He is gone.’
‘And you inherited?’
‘Almost nothing.’
‘That’s a shame. Parents who don’t leave anything to their children are worthless. My father was a very unimportant man who nevertheless was clever enough to speculate in British railway stock. That’s why I can now forgive him for his otherwise wretched life.’
The man with no hair knocked his pipe out in a silver bowl.
‘I said back then that you would never amount to anything.’
‘Nor have I. But I did discover a hitherto unknown insect in the Kalahari Desert.’
‘And you have a black boy with you. Do you sleep between his legs?’
Father was upset. Daniel didn’t understand why.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Just what I said. Some men prefer their own sex. Particularly if they’re exotic young men. I had a professor of geology who was forced to cut his own throat. Stable boys used to be called up to his flat. The matter was hushed up, naturally. But everyone knew about it.’
‘He’s an orphan. I’ve adopted him. There’s nothing improper in what I’m doing.’
‘I’m known for asking impertinent questions. Surely you haven’t forgotten that?’
Father threw his arms out and then put one of them protectively around Daniel’s shoulders.
‘I’m leaving him here.’
Father squatted down in front of Daniel and said to him, ‘This man’s name is Alfred Boman, and he’s an artist. He does pictures of people. He draws them. He is also interested in how people look in another way. A scientific way. He measures their heads, the length of their feet, the distance between their mouth and eyes. I’ll leave you here and you must do as he says. I’ll come to get you this evening.’
Then he was alone with the man named Alfred. He smiled and walked all the way round Daniel. Then he turned and went back the other way. His pipe smoke smelled rank. The man was also surrounded by a smell of perfume, but above all he was barefoot. Daniel had sores from the new shoes he had been given before they left the house in the forest.
‘Let’s go inside,’ said the man.
Daniel followed him. The walls were covered with pictures. Stiff, pale people stood on some tables, but compared to the man on the horse they were small and white as if their skeletons had come out through their skin. They entered a room with a big window in the ceiling. Along the walls hung various pictures. On a table lay paints in tubes and tins.
Daniel noticed that one of the pictures showed an animal that resembled the antelope that Kiko had worked on. Unlike the picture that Kiko had carved into the rock, this animal was utterly still. Its face was turned towards Daniel and it looked directly into his eyes. The man who had made the picture was very skilled.
‘A stag,’ said the man. ‘I painted it when I didn’t have anything else to do. I only paint animals when people make me too discouraged.’
Daniel couldn’t tear himself away from the picture.
‘It’s telling you something,’ said the man with the pipe. ‘The only question is what.’
Daniel didn’t reply. He cautiously touched the picture with his fingertips. The eyes were very dark, not red like Kiko’s antelope.
Suddenly Kiko was there with him. Daniel could hear him breathing. Then a cloud of smoke from the pipe hit his face and the breathing was gone.
‘You must stand on this blue cloth,’ said the man, who had put down his pipe. ‘You can put your clothes there on the chair.’
Daniel undressed. There was a fire burning in a stove right next to where he was supposed to stand. The man had put on a pair of gloves and was holding a paintbrush in his hand. He walked around Daniel again, touched his arm, and asked him to stand with his legs further apart.
‘Humans are strange animals,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll call this picture Black Saviour.’
Then he grabbed a piece of paper, stretched it on a wooden easel, and began choosing among drawing pencils and paintbrushes. Daniel stood motionless. Now and then he was given a chance to rest. The woman who had answered the door brought in some food. She avoided looking at Daniel’s naked body. Daniel was hungry, so he ate a lot very fast. The man, who kept smiling all the time, observed his appetite.
‘If I could, I’d help you go back,’ he said. ‘Here you’ll be merely a strange creature that other people pay to look at, not a human being who really exists.’
He kept drawing. Daniel tried to understand what he meant. But it was taking all his strength to stand still.
Late in the afternoon the man put down his brushes and fetched some instruments that he fastened on various parts of Daniel’s head. He made notes in a book, asked Daniel to open his mouth wide, stuck his fingers in his armpits, tickled him on the soles of his feet, spread his buttocks, and pulled on his member to see how long it could stretch, and the whole time he took notes.
Afterwards Daniel was told to put his clothes on. He left off the shoes. The man nodded to him to come and look at what he had drawn.
Daniel went over to the easel. He saw his own face and body.
There he was on the paper. Under his feet was the blue cloth. It was his hair, his eyes, his mouth.
Now I’m like the antelope in the rock, he thought.
I am untouchable.
Behind me are the gods. And they are waiting for me to come back.
Chapter 14
On their second night Daniel left the room in the attic, slipped like a shadow down the stairs and vanished into the darkness outside. Father had not locked the door. He had come home late with shiny eyes and he was reeling. With a guilty conscience he looked at Daniel, but he didn’t say a word before he tumbled into bed, as if he had returned from a long, unsuccessful hunt. Daniel realised that he had to start preparing for his journey back to the desert very soon. The antelope was crying to become complete inside him, and he had to learn to walk on water, before he was completely swallowed up by the world where he was now. He went out at night to look for the water. Each time Father took him out he tried to memorise the many streets, and where the water glistened and where it was swallowed up by the tall buildings that spread out like a shapeless mountain range. He had understood that he was in a ravine; the people in this country lived in caves hollowed out of cliffs which they seemed to build themselves. They hadn’t risen up from underground, hadn’t been cast out of the gods’ invisible ribcages, like the mountains he had known before. He had to find his way out of the ravine, he had to do it himself, and he needed water so he could practise walking on the thin surface.
When he reached the cobblestone street he stopped. The air was cool, in a different way from what he was used to. The nights in the desert could be cold, but there was always the lingering scent of the sun that sooner or later would come up on the horizon and spread warmth again. Here he couldn’t find that scent. The cold came from underground, beneath the soles of his feet. For a moment he almost changed his mind. He would get lost in the dark and the cold, maybe never find his way back. The hissing gaslights illuminated patches of the street. A rat ran quickly past his feet and vanished into a hole in the cliff. He took care not to enter the circles of light. The people who stared at him in the daytime might think he was an animal at night and chase him.
He stood utterly still and tried to remember where the water was. The shortest way was to follow the street in the direction it sloped. He had gone there earlier in the day when Father took him along to a cellar to get food. Just before they went into the cellar he had glimpsed the water. He hadn’t been that close since they arrived in the city.