The Eye of the Leopard by Henning Mankell Page A

off?’
    ‘Missionaries are like other whites,
Bwana
. They demand the same submission.’
    ‘Can’t you be more clear? What would happen?’
    ‘Mzunguz
always think that we blacks are unclear,
Bwana.’
    ‘You speak in riddles, Joseph.’
    ‘Life is mysterious,
Bwana.’
    ‘I don’t believe a word of what you’re saying, Joseph. You won’t be chased away by the missionaries!’
    ‘Of course you don’t believe me,
Bwana
. I’m just telling you the truth.’
    ‘You’re not saying anything.’
    Olofson takes a drink.
    ‘The women,’ he says. ‘They’re your sisters?’
    ‘That’s right,
Bwana.’
    ‘Are they married?’
    ‘They would like to marry you,
Bwana.’
    ‘Why is that?’
    ‘A white man is not black, unfortunately,
Bwana. But
a
bwana
has money.’
    ‘But they’ve never seen me before.’
    ‘They saw you when you arrived,
Bwana.’
    ‘They don’t know me.’
    ‘If they were married to you they would get to know you,
Bwana.’
    ‘Why don’t they marry the missionaries?’
    ‘Missionaries don’t marry blacks,
Bwana
. Missionaries don’t like black people.’
    ‘What the hell are you saying?’
    ‘I’m just saying the truth,
Bwana.’
    ‘Stop calling me
Bwana.’
    ‘Yes,
Bwana.’
    ‘Of course the missionaries like you! It’s for your sake they’re here, isn’t it?’
    ‘We blacks believe that the missionaries are here as a penance,
Bwana
. For the man that they nailed to a cross.’
    ‘Why do you stay here then?’
    ‘It’s a good life,
Bwana
. We will gladly believe in a foreign god if we get food and clothing.’
    ‘Is that the only reason?’
    ‘Of course,
Bwana
. We have our own real gods, after all. They probably don’t like it that we fold our hands several times each day. When we speak to them we beat our drums and dance.’
    ‘Surely you can’t do that here.’
    ‘Sometimes we go far out in the bush,
Bwana
. Our gods wait there for us.’
    ‘Don’t the missionaries know about this?’
    ‘Of course not,
Bwana
. If they did they would be very upset. That wouldn’t be good. Especially not now, when I might get a bicycle.’
    Olofson stands up on his unsteady legs. I’m drunk, he thinks. Tomorrow the missionaries will return. I have to sleep.
    ‘Follow me back, Joseph.’
    ‘Yes,
Bwana.’
    ‘And stop calling me
Bwana!’
    ‘Yes,
Bwana
. I’ll stop calling you
Bwana
after you leave.’
    Olofson gives Joseph some money. ‘Your sisters are beautiful.’
    ‘They would like to marry you,
Bwana.’
    Olofson crawls into his hard bed. Before he falls asleep he hears Joseph already snoring outside the door.
    He wakes up with a start. The pale man is standing over him.
    ‘Father LeMarque has returned,’ he says in a toneless voice. ‘He would like to meet you.’
    Olofson dresses hastily. He feels bad, his head is pounding from the African whisky. In the early dawn he follows the pale man across the red dirt. So the missionaries travel by night, he thinks. What is he going to tell me about why he came here?
    He enters one of the grey buildings. At a simple wooden table sits a young man with a bushy beard. He is dressed in a torn undershirt and dirty shorts.
    ‘Our guest,’ he says with a smile. ‘Welcome.’
    Patrice LeMarque comes from Canada, he tells Hans Olofson. The lame man has brought two cups of coffee and they sit at the back of the building in the shade of a tree. At the Mutshatsha mission station there are missionaries and health care personnel from many countries.
    ‘But none from Sweden?’ Olofson asks.
    ‘Not at the moment,’ replies LeMarque. ‘The last one was here about ten years ago. A Swedish nurse who came from a city I think was called Kalmar.’
    ‘The first one came from Röstånga. Harry Johanson.’
    ‘Have you really come all this way to see his grave?’
    ‘I stumbled upon his story when I was quite young. I won’t be finished with him until I have seen his grave.’
    ‘Harry Johanson sat in the shade of this very