‘Good luck,’ said Robertson, stretching out his hand. ‘Everyone has his path to follow. And that cannot be altered.’
Then he was rowed ashore. Tafelberg loomed high like a decapitated neck over the city that lay wedged at the foot of the mountain. On the quay there was great confusion; people yelled and shoved, some black men with rings in their ears began to tear at his chest and he was forced to defend himself with his fists. He spoke German, but nobody understood him; all around him English was being spoken. Robertson had given him two addresses, one for a boarding house which was usually free of lice, and one for an old English pilot who for some reason was the honorary consul for the Union of Sweden and Norway in Cape Town. When, after numerous difficulties, he found his way to the boarding house, he was drenched with sweat. The white woman who owned the establishment yelled at a fat mulatto and told her to give the new guest some water. He drank it, knowing that something was going to happen to his stomach. He was shown to a room where the sheet was ironed yet still wet. Everything seemed damp, the floorboards had pores, and he lay down on the bed and thought: Now I’m here and I have absolutely no idea where I am.
The next day, after he had succumbed to the first bout of diarrhoea, he looked up the Swedish-Norwegian honorary consul. This gentleman lived in a white house next to a road that climbed towards the mountains. He was admitted to the house by a black man with no teeth, and he sat waiting for two hours on a wooden chair until Consul Wackman had finished snoring and got up and dressed. Wackman was completely bald, had no eyebrows, and his protruding ears reminded Bengler of swallows’ wings. His legs were short, his stomach held up by a piece of Indian fabric, and on his bare chest sat two bloodsucking leeches. He glanced over the letter that Robertson had written and then tossed it aside.
‘All these Swedish madmen. Why do they always have to come here? What we need are engineers. Competent people who can solve practical problems, or have raw strength, or a little capital. But not all these madmen who either want to import revival or collect the dung that the elephants leave behind. And now this. Insects. Who needs flies and mosquitoes in catalogues?’
With his fat fingers he grabbed a small silver bell and rang it. A black servant, naked except for a thin loincloth, came in and knelt down.
‘What would you like to drink?’ Wackman asked. ‘Gin or not gin?’
‘Gin.’
The black man disappeared from the room. Outside the window Bengler could see that someone had hung up a vulture by its feet and was beating it with a wooden stick.
They drank.
‘I had thought about making a living from ostriches,’ said the Passenger, who was now slowly feeling his name returning. He was again on his way to becoming Hans Bengler from Hovmantorp.
Wackman regarded him for a long time before he replied.
‘So, you’re a madman,’ he said at last. ‘You think you’re going to hunt ostriches and export feathers for ladies’ hats. It won’t pay. The feathers will rot before the ship has even left the harbour.’
With that, all discussion was over. Wackman did, however, exhibit a certain resigned kindness and promised to help him acquire some oxen, a wagon, and hire some ox-drivers. Then he would have to manage on his own. Wackman thought it would be advisable if he left a will with him, in case there was something to be inherited. Or at least the address of a family member who could be informed that his relative’s bones were now resting in an unknown location in an endless desert.
They kept on drinking gin. He thought about the mellow port wine he had drunk with Matilda. That world now seemed like an enigmatic mirage. Now it was raw gin tearing at his throat. And Wackman, breathless, as if he would give up the ghost at any time, told him the strange story of how he, who was born in Glasgow, had wound up in Cape Town and came to be the owner of a brothel and represent the Swedish-Norwegian Union.
The story was about bears and a lithograph that he had once seen in his younger days in the window of a bookseller’s in Glasgow. Bear Hunting in Swedish Wermland. He had never been able to forget that image. In his twenties he had made his pilgrimage, arriving in Karlstad in the middle of a terrible winter. Several times he had almost died from the terror that the cold aroused in him, not the cold itself. He never saw a live bear, even though he stayed in that awful cold for more than two months. On the other hand, he did see a bear skin at the home of a retired artillery captain who lived by the square. Then he had left Sweden as fast as he could, and by a circuitous route ended up in Cape Town, where he wanted to show his gratitude for seeing the bear skin by taking on the task of serving as the consul of the Swedish-Norwegian Union.
By late afternoon they were both fairly well intoxicated. Wackman ordered his carriage and together they rolled down the steep road and stopped outside the low cement building that housed his brothel. Half-naked black women melted into the darkness in the low rooms and there was a strong smell of unknown spices. Wackman vanished and Bengler suddenly discovered that he was entwined with black snakes: female arms, legs, feet, bellies, and he fled into the gin fog and didn’t know whether it was actually Robertson’s schooner that slowly sank towards the bottom of the sea, or the ship he carried inside himself.
The next day he awoke on the floor of a room with a veil beside his head. When he forced himself to stand up he discovered a blue spider which was busy weaving its web in the corner between two walls. He reminded himself of his mission and walked through the brothel, where everyone now seemed to be asleep, and found Wackman passed out in an antique rocking chair. Although Wackman was sleeping deeply, he seemed to have been waiting for him. When Bengler stood behind him he awoke with a start.
‘I need nine days,’ Wackman said. ‘And all the cash or all the gold dust you have in that pouch that’s bulging under your shirt, which by the way is filthy and should be washed. Nine days, no more. Then you can be on your way. And I will never see you again. But there is one piece of advice I would give you. Advice about the future.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The pianoforte.’
‘The pianoforte?’
‘It’s all the rage in England. It will spread over the entire continent. Those young mamselles play the piano. Black and white keys. Those pianos need keys. And the keys need ivory.’
Bengler understood. Wackman thought that he ought to go in for elephant hunting.
‘I came here for the tiny creatures,’ he replied. ‘Not the big ones.’
‘Blame yourself and die,’ said Wackman. ‘No one will miss you, no one will remember you.’
But Wackman, whose first name was Erasmus, kept his promise. On the ninth day everything was ready. For lack of anything better, Bengler had left Wackman the address of the housekeeper in Hovmantorp. In the event that he died, she would stuff the letter between his father’s grinding jaws and the last memory of him would be eradicated.
And yet he knew this would not happen. Without being able to explain it, not to mention defend it, he was convinced he would survive.
The sand would not sneak up on him.
On one of the first days in July he set off from Cape Town.
The sluggish oxen moved very slowly. He had purchased a tropical helmet and hung a rifle over his shoulder. Insects buzzed around his face, lured by his sweat. He thought that they would lead him in the right direction. They were his most important travelling companions.
The compass, which had been made in London and was encased in brass, showed that his course was due north, perhaps with a deviation of a few hundredths of a degree to the west.