‘Have you ever seen teeth like this? Not one cavity.’
‘Cavities are caused by bacteria. But the whiteness of his teeth seems brighter because he’s black.’
Fredholm tugged at his teeth. ‘As strong as a beast of prey. If he bit you it would be like having a mad cat hanging from your wrist.’
Daniel remembered that this was the second time he had been drawn and measured. He wondered whether it was a custom in this country to put a measuring tape around the heads of people who came to visit.
Fredholm kept measuring. Now he pulled on Daniel’s lips. It hurt, but Daniel didn’t flinch.
‘I drew the head of a fox once. Presumably it had rabies and its head had been cut off. I have the same feeling now, that it’s an animal I’m drawing.’
Fredholm blew his nose in his handkerchief and then asked Daniel to raise his arm. He sniffed at his armpit.
‘Bestial,’ he said. ‘Very strong. No normal peasant sweat.’
Edman put down his pad and smelled Daniel’s armpit. ‘I don’t notice any difference.’
‘In what?’
‘The odour of my own sweat and the boy’s. You have to be careful to stay faithful to the facts.’
‘Then I shall note that he perspires the same odour as a human being.’
Edman laughed. ‘He is a human being.’
‘But of a dying race.’
Fredholm put down his measuring tape and sat on a chair. ‘Just imagine this boy a few years older. Copulating with a rosy-cheeked peasant girl.’
‘The thought is repulsive.’
‘But what if? What would be the result?’
‘A mulatto. With low intelligence. Holszten has already written about that.’
Fredholm scratched out his pipe and then lit it. ‘But what if that’s all wrong?’ he said. ‘If the very premise is incorrect. Where does that leave us?’
‘Why should the premise be incorrect?’
‘What if Christian teachings are telling the truth after all? That all human beings are created equal?’
‘Species of animals die out. Why not less successful human races as well?’
‘I have a feeling that he understands everything we’re saying.’
Edman put down the drawing pad. ‘Perhaps. But he doesn’t fully comprehend what he understands. If you’re finished I would like to go outside. It smells rank in here.’
Fredholm shrugged his shoulders. ‘I admit that he reminds me of an ape. But I can’t keep thinking that nevertheless he doesn’t seem like a human being who’s about to die out.’
‘Take up that discussion with Holszten. He doesn’t like being contradicted. He believes that racial biology is the future. Whoever doesn’t follow his path will have to find different ones.’
Fredholm said nothing more, but put his measuring tape and calipers back in a little bag.
‘Where is the sea?’ asked Daniel.
The two men looked at him in astonishment.
‘Did he say something?’ asked Fredholm.
‘He asked about the sea.’
‘Where is the sea?’ Daniel repeated.
Edman smiled. Then he pointed. ‘In that direction is Simrishamn. And that direction is Ystad. In that direction is Trelleborg. And that way is Malmö. The sea lies all around you like a horseshoe. East, south and west. But not north. There is nothing but forest up there.’
Just as Daniel had hoped, they didn’t ask why he was wondering about the sea. They packed up their bags and opened the door to the room where Dr Madsen was waiting with Edvin and Alma.
‘I hope that five riksdaler will be enough,’ said Dr Madsen, placing a banknote on the table. Edvin nodded. ‘More than generous.’
Then he and Alma accompanied the three men out to the waiting carriage.
Daniel was still standing in the middle of the kitchen. He closed his eyes and thought he could hear the roar of the waves.
Now he knew in which direction not to go.
Chapter 24
Two days later Daniel set off. Just after one in the morning, when he was sure that everyone was asleep, he silently got dressed and slipped out of the kitchen with his wooden shoes in his hand. He had packed a bundle containing the sand that was left in Father’s insect cases, and some potatoes and pieces of bread. When he reached the courtyard the cold hit him hard. He hesitated, wondering whether he would survive his walk to the sea. He didn’t know how far it was, or whether the plains would be broken by mountains or bogs. He wrapped his scarf round his head and started off. He sensed that Be and Kiko were calling him. There was no wind and it was overcast. He had decided to head south. The night before he had gone outside and taken a bearing on a star in that direction. He followed the cart track past the house where Sanna lived and ran straight out into a field when a dog started barking. He didn’t stop until it fell silent. The cold stung his lungs.
He had explained to Sanna that he had to leave. They were sitting up on the hill and he told her about it while she dug and searched for the invisible people under the mud. She repeated the same thing she had said before, that he was crazy, that they would find him and bring him back. A person who was destined to be nailed up on boards could never escape.
In the end he realised that she didn’t believe what he was saying. Then he knew that she would never consider coming with him.
When she ran home he watched her until she disappeared. Then he imagined his own disappearance. He would run through the night and he would be gone when Edvin and Alma woke up in the morning. He had poured a little sand into his bed and hoped they would believe that he had turned himself into those grains of sand.
The darkness surrounded him. The cold tore at his chest. He made his way along the narrow tracks that wound through the fields. The soil was frozen and no longer stuck to the bottom of his shoes. Now and then he would stop to catch his breath, but he grew so cold that he forced himself to keep moving.
The plain seemed endless. He felt like he was moving in a trance. The cold had stopped stinging him. Now it burned inside him. He knew that he had to keep going until dawn. Only then could he search for a place where he could get warm and sleep. If he stopped now he would be buried in the darkness, and when the sun returned only his stiff, frozen body would be left. All night long he thought about Be and Kiko. They were inside him and they were as cold as he was. Sometimes he stretched out his arms and asked Kiko to carry him. But Kiko would only shake his head and say that he had to manage for himself.
The dawn came.
At the same time it began to snow. At first scattered snowflakes, then so thick that he couldn’t make out the horizon. He was in the middle of a field. Off in the distance he saw a house surrounded by trees but he couldn’t see the sea anywhere. At the top of a small hill stood the ruin of a windmill. Its sails hung like the remains of a dead bird above the crumbling walls. He walked towards the hill. When he looked back the field had already turned white, and his tracks were clearly visible. He kept on heading for the windmill. He glimpsed a fox, and then it was gone. One corner of the ruin still had part of the roof left. On the floor lay some old sacks. He wrapped the sacks around his body and huddled in the corner. Then he ate one of the pieces of bread and a potato. He wondered why he wasn’t thirsty. If he had walked all night long in the desert he wouldn’t have been hungry, but he would have wanted water. Now it was food he needed.
Did he dare go to sleep? Would the sacks keep him warm enough, or would he freeze to death? He tried to make a decision, but he was already asleep. Kiko lay by his left side, with one arm under his head as usual. Be was somewhere behind him. Without seeing her he knew that she had curled up and was sleeping with her hands clasped under her belly.