He fell asleep and when he opened his eyes Father was standing by the bed. Next to him stood another man who smiled with kindly eyes.
‘This is Dr Madsen,’ said Father. ‘He works at the hospital here. We met in the city where we visited a man lying in bed who gave us money. Do you remember?’
Daniel remembered vaguely. Not the man in the bed but a woman who slammed the door too hard.
‘We’re going to take a trip together,’ Father went on. ‘We’ll leave as soon as it stops raining. We’ll be there before evening.’
‘On the sea?’ asked Daniel.
Dr Madsen smiled. Father shook his head.
‘No,’ he said, ‘not the sea. Once again we have to ride behind a horse. But it’s not a long trip.’
Daniel got out of bed and dressed. The rain had stopped. When he looked out of the window he saw the two girls. He waved at them, but they didn’t see him. They didn’t have a skipping rope.
Once again they sat on a wagon. It rolled out of the town, and Daniel wondered where they were going. All around him lay brown fields. Here and there stood some lonely trees full of screeching flocks of black birds. In some of the fields he saw wagons with horses, and people creeping about in the mud. Father shook his head.
‘Can you imagine anything worse? Slogging through mud up to your chin, picking turnips?’
‘Many of them are Poles,’ replied Madsen. ‘They come here for the season. Live with the pigs in the barns. Get the same food. And yet they’re eager for the work.’
‘Mud,’ Father muttered. ‘All that mud they have to crawl around in. From morning to night.’
‘I thought you were going back to the sand,’ said Madsen.
Father looked at Madsen, who nodded without saying anything more. Daniel wondered why. Something gave him a sudden pain in the stomach. Why didn’t Father want to talk about the desert?
They continued on in silence. The flocks of birds were fighting and screeching above the trees. The people were crawling in the mud. Church bells could be heard in the distance. Daniel realised that the landscape scared him. There was no water anywhere. Only this sticky clay that clung to the bottom of his shoes and made them even heavier on his feet. This was what made this journey unlike all the others.
Daniel tried to think about what Father had said. They were going to start a new life. A life that would be better. The only life that could be any better was in the desert. That’s where they would have to go. Daniel knew that he would find Kiko and Be again. Even if they were dead, he would search for them, and there would be other families he could follow on their nomadic wanderings.
He hopped down from the wagon to stretch his legs. The clay began to clump under his shoes so he took them off and ran barefoot.
‘It’s too cold,’ said Father. ‘You might catch a chill.’
‘The boy is healthy,’ said Madsen. ‘He’ll be fine.’
Daniel stopped and looked at a bird of prey hovering motionless on the wind. It dived and caught a mouse only a few metres away from him. The horse gave a start when the bird dived and the driver pulled on the reins. The bird, which was brown, flapped away with its quarry in its beak.
‘A buzzard,’ said Madsen. ‘There’s good feeding here. There are more of them every year.’
‘Right now I feel more like the mouse,’ said Father. ‘A few days ago it was just the opposite. Everything can change very fast.’
Madsen nodded but didn’t reply. Daniel waited in vain for Father to say more.
That afternoon they turned off the main road and came to a town where the houses were low and the mud seemed to creep all the way up their front steps. Madsen pointed and they made another turn onto a track that was barely navigable. They stopped next to a low house that was only just standing. Madsen climbed down and went into the cobblestone yard and banged on the door. A man with his shirt unbuttoned opened it. Madsen went inside and the door closed. The driver had hopped down from his seat and went behind some bushes to take a piss. Daniel climbed up onto the driver’s seat and Father let him hold the reins.
‘Now we just have to wait,’ said Father. ‘Dr Madsen loves people. That’s why he became a doctor. He could have been a professor at a university. But he wanted to go out into the countryside and take care of sick people.’
‘Is someone sick?’ asked Daniel. ‘In the house?’
‘He’s talking to them,’ replied Father. ‘We’ll wait till he comes back out.’
‘Then we’re going on?’
Father didn’t answer. He climbed down from the driver’s seat and started off along the track. Soon he was so far away that he looked like a lone tree out in the field. Daniel held the reins and followed him with his eyes. He still couldn’t get inside Father’s thoughts. Something was very different, but he didn’t know what. The driver came back and took the reins. His flies were unbuttoned and he smelled like piss.
‘You little black devil,’ he said with a menacing smile. ‘You’re not going to hold my reins.’
Daniel quickly moved off the driver’s seat. Father was still standing out in the field. Slowly, as if he were searching for something, he looked all around. Daniel jumped off the wagon and ran over to him. Father held out his hand and Daniel grabbed it eagerly. It was several days now since Father had voluntarily offered his hand.
‘It’s lonely here,’ said Father. ‘Lonely like in the desert. It’s as if heaven and earth are merging. You can’t tell where one begins and the other ends.’
Daniel didn’t understand what he meant. He knew what the words meant, heaven and earth, but not what Father was trying to tell him.
The farmhouse door slammed. In the distance they could see Madsen coming out. Father kept holding Daniel’s hand. When they reached the house Madsen was not alone. By his side stood a man and a woman. They were wearing grey clothes and had pale faces, but they smiled at Daniel.
‘Everything is fine,’ said Madsen. ‘Ten riksdaler per month. They’re good people. Edvin and Alma Andersson. I helped Alma once when she had the quinsy.’
‘I could have died,’ said the woman. ‘But he cut it out without killing me.’
Father let go of Daniel’s hand.
‘Go and fetch your skipping rope.’
‘I don’t feel like skipping,’ Daniel replied.
Now he was starting to get scared again. Father was far away, even though he was standing right next to him.
‘Do as I say,’ said Father impatiently. ‘It will only take a moment.’
‘Then will we keep going?’
Father didn’t reply. ‘Fetch the rope,’ he said. ‘You’ve been sitting still far too much the past few days. That’s not good for a child.’
Daniel went and fetched the rope from the wagon. The driver stood stroking the horse’s mane.
‘You little black devil,’ he snarled. ‘I know what the Devil’s children look like.’
Daniel took the rope and went off along the track. He watched Father shake hands and knew that a great danger was approaching. But where it was coming from he didn’t know. He tried to skip but stumbled and fell. The rope wound like a snake around his legs. His feet were black with mud and he was freezing cold.