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“There is a guy,” he said finally. “Still wet behind the ears, but very eager. He wants to make money to save his father, he says.”

“Is he in jail?”

“In Turkey or something,” Rosenberg said, feeling relieved that he could talk about someone other than himself. “He sells to friends and is very diligent.”

“Does he use it himself?”

Rosenberg shook his head.

“What is his name?”

“He is called Zero.”

Lorenzo smiled.

“Now we are starting to get somewhere,” he said and waved the waitress over. “I think we will have cognac.”

Forty-Three

The lid of the dishwasher started to vibrate. Manuel leaned back, regarded the shiny machine, and heard the water rush into it. After the first hour’s initial confusion at everything new, he worked with increasing satisfaction and pleasure. The heat in the dishwashing station did not bother him, quite the opposite. Nor all the dishes that were brought over to him. The towers of plates and all the glasses took his thoughts away from drugs and Patricio and Armas.

In addition, he liked the other staff members. Above all, the Portuguese cook, but also Eva, the waitress, who was also the one he had the most contact with. She knew no Spanish but could make herself understood in broken English.

Manuel had been told that she was also new at Dakar. She had a way of looking at him that made him bewildered. She looked him straight in the eye, with curiosity and a smile on her lips. She asked about Venezuela, what the country looked like, the clothes, climate, and how the food tasted. She wanted to know everything, the questions seemed never to end and she showed such interest that he could not ignore her.

For a moment, he was tempted to tell her the truth, that he was a Mexican. He did not really want to lie to her, the first person in Sweden who he had real contact with and who showed this bold interest. Instead, in order to speak truthfully, he created the country anew, added his experiences from the mountains to the north of Oaxaca and applied them to Venezuela. He described the peasant farmers’ lives and found that Eva liked it, those slight details about how the coffee was dried on the roof and who fired up the stove in the mornings.

Manuel had felt no guilt in this, for he believed that the people in Venezuela and Mexico lived basically under the same conditions. He realized that the driving force behind the waitress’s inquiries was a longing for something else, and in this intense conversation they could join in mutual enthusiasm for a land that in reality was two. Eva made him speak and experience longing, and he looked forward to their brief meetings when she came flying in with more dishes.

Once he had looked out into the restaurant and received a shock. The fat one was sitting at the bar with a beer. He had his attention directed at the bartender and did not notice Manuel, who quickly ducked back inside.

Once he was back at the dishwashing station the old hate, which that had temporarily fallen away in his conversation with Eva, rose up. When Feo came over to see how things were going, Manuel asked what the fat one’s name was and how often he usually came to Dakar.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” Feo said, “we have talked to him and he knows that you have been hired.”

“Is he nice?”

Feo laughed heartily.

“You don’t need to be afraid,” he repeated.

Manuel was not afraid but he was unsure of what he should do. He had looked for a job at Dakar on impulse. He had come here in order to see what the place looked like and perhaps catch sight of the fat one. Now he found himself in the lion’s den.

There was an advantage in working at a restaurant: he could eat his fill. During his first days in Sweden he had not indulged in more than bread and canned corn and it was only now, in the presence of so much food, that he realized how hungry he had been.

He spent the remainder of the evening trying to figure out what he should do. One way out would be to destroy the drugs that he had stolen from the house, say good-bye to Patricio, and fly back home. That was the easiest solution, but he knew he would never attain any peace if he went back with his tail between his legs. The thought of his brother behind bars, while those who had masterminded the drug smuggling would still be free, was unbearable. He wanted to make things easier for Patricio, that was his duty as an older brother. But how should he proceed? To extract ten thousand dollars from Slobodan Andersson in exchange for his silence was perhaps not an impossibility, but it felt inadequate. Manuel did not want to see Slobodan Andersson dead, it was more than enough to have Armas’s blood on his hands. But he wanted to punish him in some way.

He dreamed every night about how he dragged the dead man to the water, how the shirt tore and revealed the tattoo. That had been the worst part, removing Quetzalcóatl from the gringo’s upper arm. A white man could not be allowed to bear such a symbol. That was how he had felt at the time, in his bitterness and confusion. But he regretted it now. What right had he had to mutilate a dead man?

He picked up cutlery, plates, and glasses, rinsed and cleaned with something approaching work satisfaction. He did not do it to win approval. It was the warmth and the movements in themselves that motivated him and lifted his mood. Something that Feo also contributed to when he came out to him. They exchanged a few words and joked a little.

He listened to the talk between the coworkers without understanding a word, and saw how Tessie, the gringa, and the new waitress submitted orders. There were clattering noises from the kitchen, warm steam rose from the pots and pans, and the clouds that wafted into the wash station brought with it the smell of fish, garlic, and other things that made his mouth water. Particularly enticing was the sound of meat hitting the pan. For a few moments Manuel forgot why he was in Sweden and he even hummed a song he had heard Lila Downs sing in the square in Oaxaca.

At eleven o’clock the steady stream of dishes and silverware started to wane and he was able to relax somewhat. Eva and Tessie served the last of their desserts and the cooks started putting things away and cleaning up. Feo called out to him and asked if he was tired, but Manuel felt as if he could have worked all night.

Eva came out with a tray of glasses. She looked at him as if she was wondering if he could take more questions about his homeland. That was at least how he interpreted her appraising glance and hesitant smile, and when he nodded kindly to her she went and stood next to him and helped to load the dishwasher.

“Do you come from a small village?” she started, and Manuel nodded.

“How could you afford to come here?”

“I saved,” Manuel answered, suddenly on his guard.

“I’m also saving,” Eva said, “but I never get anywhere. There is never enough money. I dream of traveling but I have never left Sweden. Well, once my grandfather and I walked into Norway.”

“Norway is another country?”

“Yes, it borders on Sweden.”

“Were you looking for work?”

“No,” Eva laughed, “we were picking berries and grandfather got it into his head that we should visit Norway. I remember how tired I became.”

“Were there no police there? At the border, I mean.”

“Police?”

“You can’t simply walk into another country?”

“Yes, you can. The border between Sweden and Norway is almost completely open,” Eva explained. “You can come and go as you like.”

She told him about the close contact people on either side of the border had always had. She told him her grandfather’s more or less accurate stories about heroic deeds during the Second World War, how Norwegian resistance fighters had been smuggled over the border in each direction. Manuel listened, fascinated.