‘I’m coming soon,’ he whispered. ‘I’m coming home soon.’
When Daniel woke up the next day, Father was gone. A heavy rain was falling and the drops drummed against the windowpane. Daniel stayed in bed. He imagined Father was searching for a ship and a captain. Soon they would be on their way. He jumped out of bed and went over to the window. The cobblestone courtyard was flooded. Daniel went back to bed. It was as if the whole building was being turned into a ship. The bed moved, the curtains fluttered as if the ship were slowly starting to roll. He tried to remember everything that had happened since he had lain in this bed the first time. But the memories were gone. He could already see himself wearing only a loincloth, on his way with his family through the desert.
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.
Father called to him and he went back. He y
anked on the rope and hoped it would snap.
Father smiled, but the smile was dangerous.
‘I have to go on a trip,’ he said. ‘A short trip. I’ll be back soon. In the meantime you will live here. With Edvin and Alma. They are good people and they will take care of you. What did I teach you to say?’
‘My name is Daniel. I believe in God.’
‘That’s right. And you will live here until I come back.’
Daniel felt the terror growing.
‘Tomorrow?’ he asked.
His tears began to flow. It was the secret river that broke through all the dams; the river of pain that everyone carried inside, the one Be had told him about.
‘Maybe not tomorrow. But soon.’
Suddenly it was clear to Daniel that Father was leaving right now. They wouldn’t even have time to say a proper goodbye. Madsen had gone over to the wagon and was standing there waiting.
Daniel yelled and clung to Father. If he left, everything would come to an end. Father was leaving him, and he was lying when he said he would come back. He had driven him here, as far away from the sea as possible.
‘Control yourself,’ said Father. ‘It’s for your own good.’
Daniel screamed. He was like an animal being led to the slaughter. When Father tried to prise his arms away he sank his teeth into his wrist. Father jerked away and they both fell over in the mud. The man named Edvin pulled at Daniel, but he wouldn’t let go. His teeth were the last hold on life he had left.
But he couldn’t keep it up. Father got up from the mud. Blood was running from his wrist.
‘This won’t work,’ said the woman, upset. ‘The boy is grief-stricken.’
‘It will be fine,’ said Father. ‘Parting is always dramatic.’
‘You ought to tell him the truth,’ said the man holding Daniel’s arms. ‘You ought to tell him the truth about how long you’ll be gone.’
‘He knows I’ll come back. When I’m gone he’ll settle down.’
Daniel could feel the grip around his arms slacken. He tore himself loose and clung tight to Father again. He knew his hands weren’t enough; he had to sink his teeth into him, act like a desperate animal, hold on tight, and he tried to get to Father’s throat with his teeth. But Father hit him hard in the face so he fell to the ground. The blow had struck his nose and he started to bleed.
‘Now calm down!’ Father yelled. ‘I’m doing everything for your sake. I want you to live here until I come back.’
‘It’s not going to work!’ shouted the woman.
‘It will work,’ said Father. ‘As soon as I’m gone he’ll calm down.’
Then he turned and started towards the wagon. He pressed a handkerchief to his bleeding wrist. Daniel tried to run after him, but the man named Edvin grabbed his arms. The wagon rolled away. Father didn’t look back. Daniel had stopped screaming. Now he was wailing, but softly, as if he had already crept off into a thicket to die.
He closed his eyes.
The last he saw of Father was an image inside his eyelids. He was holding a rifle in his hand and sighting at an antelope that was taking a leap.
The rifle fired.
The antelope was gone.
Daniel opened his eyes.
The wagon had vanished.
A flock of birds was fighting above a solitary tree far out in a field.
The fog came rolling in and enveloped everything in its white silence.
PART III
SON OF THE WIND
CHAPTER 20
One morning Daniel awoke to find the ground completely white. At first he thought it was a dream, that he was still asleep and back in the desert. But when he saw the black birds fighting above the piles of manure and went outside into the yard and stepped barefoot onto the cold white blanket, he knew that he was still with Edvin and Alma. He walked across the yard. The cold penetrated his body quickly, and his footprints looked like those he had left behind in the warm sand.
He left tracks in both the cold white and the warm white. He didn’t understand how that was possible.
Alma had come out in the yard and discovered him.
‘You can’t go barefoot in the frost!’ she shouted. ‘Put on your shoes!’
During the time that had passed since Father left, Daniel had realised that Alma was afraid of him. She liked him, sometimes stroking his head, especially when no one was looking, but she was afraid. Daniel didn’t know why. She avoided looking him in the eye, and when she didn’t think he would notice she kept watch over him.
Daniel and Alma shared a secret. He was sure of that. But as yet he didn’t know what it was.
Edvin came out on the steps.
‘The boy’s standing here barefoot in the frost,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you tell him to put on his shoes?’
‘I did, but he won’t move.’
By the time Edvin came out, Daniel’s feet had already turned into frozen clumps. He wanted to hurry inside and curl up by the fire burning in the kitchen, but something made him stand still. The cold whiteness under his feet was tugging at him. The earth desired him, wanted to have him.
‘He can’t just stand there,’ said Alma. ‘He’ll freeze to death.’
Edvin shook his head. ‘How can we work out what he’s thinking?’
He walked through the whiteness and stood next to Daniel.
‘You can’t walk outside in the frost barefoot,’ he said. ‘Can’t you feel how everything is freezing?’
Daniel was shaking all over. He tried to be still but couldn’t do it.
‘We’re going back inside,’ said Edvin.
He took hold of Daniel’s hand but Daniel didn’t move. Through the kitchen window Daniel could see the two milkmaids and the hired hand eating breakfast. They were looking out at what was happening in the yard with curiosity.
‘You’ll have to carry him in,’ said Alma.
‘He has to learn to obey. If we tell him to go inside he has to do it. I don’t understand why he won’t wear shoes.’
‘What difference does it make if you understand it or not? He can’t stand out here freezing to death.’
Edvin lifted Daniel up and carried him inside. In the kitchen Alma wrapped him in a blanket and began rubbing his feet. She had strong hands. Daniel liked it when she grabbed him hard. It was almost as if Be’s hands were touching him.
‘What he did outside?’ asked the milkmaid whose name was Serja and who came from Poland. She spoke poor Swedish. Several times Daniel had heard Alma scolding her and calling her lazy. She ought to take lessons from Daniel, who already spoke much better than she did, even though he was black and came from very far away.
‘Don’t talk so much,’ said Edvin. ‘The cows are waiting.’
The girls and the hired hand left. Alma rubbed Daniel’s feet. Edvin sat on a chair by the deal table, staring at his hands.
Daniel gazed into the fire. Far inside among the flames there was another world. He could see Be and Kiko, he could see the snakes gliding through the sand, and the clouds and the rain and the rock face where the antelope had frozen in its leap.
He gave a start at the thought. The antelope was caught in its leap there on the rock the same way that he had started to freeze solid in the white stuff that covered the ground. It must mean that the gods were very close to him. Somewhere underneath his feet. They were the ones who had tugged at him and slowly tried to change him from a human being into an image carved in a mountain wall.
He pulled away from Alma, threw off the blanket and rushed out into the yard again. This time he also took off his clothes and was standing naked by the time Alma and Edvin came after him. Daniel tried to resist when Edvin grabbed hold of him, but Edvin was strong. He lifted the boy up and carried him inside. Daniel tried to bite him on the neck, but Edvin held him far enough away that he couldn’t reach him. He put Daniel down on the floor by the fire.
‘Now you’re not going out again!’ he shouted. ‘Not without clothes and not without shoes. Y
ou live here, and we are responsible for you until Bengler comes back.’
Daniel didn’t answer. He knew that Father would never come back. He also realised that if he ran outside again Edvin might hit him. And he didn’t want that. He let Alma wrap the blanket around him again and rub his feet.
‘If only I understood,’ said Edvin, who had sat down in the chair again. ‘But I can’t see into his head.’
‘We have taken on responsibility for him,’ Alma said. ‘It doesn’t matter whether we understand or not.’
‘But how can you raise a child you can’t understand?’
Alma didn’t reply. Daniel thought about being the only child in the house. Alma and Edvin didn’t have any children of their own, even though they were already starting to get old. Maybe the children were already dead or were so big that they had left. He wanted to know, but he didn’t dare ask.
‘We’ll have to talk to the pastor,’ said Alma. ‘Maybe he can give us some advice.’
‘What will Hallén understand that we don’t?’
‘He is a pastor.’
‘He’s a bad pastor. Sometimes I wonder if he really believes in what he preaches.’
‘Don’t blaspheme. He’s a man of God. Besides, he’s not stuck-up.’
‘Somebody said he was the son of a town whore up in Småland.’
‘Don’t blaspheme. I want you to talk to him.’
Edvin got up from the table. ‘Things might get better when he starts school. It’s not working the way it is now.’
Alma kneaded and rubbed. ‘We must have patience,’ she said. ‘And we have to give it time.’
Daniel looked into the fire again. The flames were dancing. When he closed his eyes the dance continued inside his eyelids. The cold had made him tired. Every night since Father left, Daniel had woken up in the darkness. He had dreamed that Father was standing outside the house, but nobody heard him knocking. But when he opened his eyes there was no one at the door. There was only the snoring hired hand, the milkmaids, and himself sleeping alone in a corner of the kitchen.