‘I see your sorrow,’ she said. ‘But I don’t know if you know what that word means.’
Daniel didn’t answer. He was dreaming.
‘What are you thinking about?’ she asked.
‘I have to learn to walk on water,’ he said. ‘I’m going to walk home across the back of the sea and I have to learn to move so carefully that the animal won’t be upset and swallow me.’
She asked what he meant. But by then he was already asleep.
A thunderclap came out of nowhere. The lightning and the rumbling crashed right above his head. He gave a start.
Father was standing in the doorway.
He had glazed eyes and stared incredulously at the scene before him. Daniel had raised his head from the woman’s breast. She still had her arms around him.
Father started yelling.
‘Intolerable!’ he shouted. ‘A woman is devouring my son. What the hell is this?’
Daniel bored his face into her embrace again. Now her breasts were rocks that could give him a hiding place. Be was still close to him. The warmth came from her, and he thought it would soon catch fire and scare Father into flight the way animals were scared with burning torches.
‘I’ve been talking to the boy,’ said the woman. ‘I have listened to his story. It isn’t the same as what you told me.’
‘Then he’s lying. He’s only a child. A Hottentot from the desert. What does he know about truth and lies? He’s telling you what he thinks you want to hear. Besides, he can’t tell a story. His vocabulary is too limited. What did he say?’
‘The truth.’
‘Which truth?’
‘His own.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘That there wasn’t any lion.’
Daniel was listening. He could hear from Father’s voice that he was uncertain, but the woman was utterly calm. He could feel that her heart wasn’t beating any faster than before.
‘One might regard this situation as extremely indecent,’ said Father. ‘A grown woman who undresses and seduces a child. A black child, besides, who might be carrying diseases no one knows about. If this came out, a trial or mental hospital would be a likely consequence.’
‘I’m not afraid.’
She carefully moved Daniel’s head so that it rested on the carpet. Then she stood up and buttoned her dress.
‘I call this sick and dangerous,’ said Father. ‘You have a man close at hand but you are raping a child.’
Daniel heard the smack and he knew at once what it was. She had slapped Father in the face with her slender white hand.
But what happened after that he couldn’t have imagined. A man who is slapped by a woman is supposed to collapse, draw back, cringe. But Father cast himself over her with a roar. He didn’t try to unbutton her dress, but tore and ripped at her clothes so the seams split open. Daniel got up. He tried to get between them but Father tossed him aside and dragged her towards the bed. Daniel thought he should defend her but at the same time he remembered the men who came riding and killed Be and Kiko and then cut off their ears. Father was the same. He would kill her and cut off her ears, and there was nothing for Daniel to do but hide again.
He rushed out of the room, down the stairs and into the street. It was raining but he didn’t feel it. He ran down towards the water and when he came to the quay he waded out.
He would never learn to walk on this water. Father would cut off his ears and then there wouldn’t be anything but a dead Daniel far away from those who lay buried in the sand waiting for him.
He waded into the water. He might as well plunge his head under the surface and then be gone.
The cold penetrated his body.
The last thing he thought of was the antelope.
Chapter 18
The water spoke to him.
He had expected that death would be a silence, or perhaps the faint echo of rustling grains of sand, but the water had a powerful voice that forced him upwards, forced him to keep breathing. He had walked straight out, deeper and deeper, and he had turned his back to the town and to Father, but when the water forced his head above the surface, his body turned round and he saw the faint lights that still glittered in the darkened streets.
Then came the cold. He was so cold he was shaking. His muscles cramped and knotted up. He waded ashore as fast as he could and hurried back towards the red-brick building where Father had thrown himself at the woman and torn at her buttons. He had no idea what awaited him but he had to get out of his cold, wet clothes. The water had spoken to him and told him he wasn’t supposed to die. He had to learn to walk on its surface, return to the desert and tell his strange story to all those who might be dead but were still waiting for him. He was alive and had to keep on living. That’s what he understood when his head went under the water. A dead person could never learn to stroke the wet pelt so carefully that he would be allowed to walk on the surface without breaking through. He had to go on living.
When he reached the red-brick building he saw Father standing outside the gate. A covered coach with two horses hitched to it had driven up. Father stared at him as if he were seeing a ghost.
‘Into the coach,’ he said. ‘We’re leaving.’
‘I need dry clothes,’ said Daniel.
Father shook his head. ‘You can change later. We have to leave.’
The old night porter stood holding a piece of paper and waited for Father to notice him. Without looking at the paper he gave the man some banknotes. The last of the baggage was loaded. Father looked about nervously.
‘We’re heading for Örebro,’ he told the man who took the money. ‘To Örebro. Nowhere else.’
A young boy sat on the coach box. He had an odd-looking fur cap pulled down over his forehead, and Daniel couldn’t see his eyes. Father shoved Daniel into the coach, shouting to the boy on the driver’s seat.
‘To Örebro. The main road.’
Daniel wondered what had happened. A small lamp was lit inside the coach. The flame flickered over Father’s sweaty face and Daniel saw that he had a bloody wound just above one eye. He killed her, Daniel thought. He killed her and now he’s running away.
Father looked at him. Then he tore open one of the bags inside the coach and pulled out some dry clothes.
‘I don’t know what you did,’ he said. ‘Whether you fell into the water or jumped in. Right now I only know one thing.’
Daniel took off his clothes in the rattling coach. The whole time he heard Father muttering. It sounded like some sort of prayer, but he was just repeating that single word, damn, damn, damn.
After they had left the town behind, Father pounded on the roof of the coach. The boy stopped the horses. Father opened the door and yelled at him.
‘Turn round. We’re going to Stockholm.’
‘I haven’t been paid for that,’ replied the boy.
‘You will be,’ Father roared in fury. ‘More money than you’ve ever seen in your life.’
The boy began to pull the reins so the coach turned round. One of the horses whinnied. Daniel shivered. He was still freezing. Father took out one of the bottles he always carried in his luggage.
‘Drink this,’ he said.
Daniel tasted it. It was strong and burned his throat, but he swallowed it and felt the warmth quickly come back into his body. Father wrapped him up in a blanket. His hands were rough and shaking. The coach picked up speed. Now and then they would hear the sound of a whip cracking. Father kept muttering and hissing between tight lips. Daniel waited. What had happened? Why did they have to leave in the middle of the night? He knew it had something to do with the woman, with the buttons that Father had torn off.