Free The Eye Of The Leopard by Henning Mankell Page A

true that I hope I'll
meet another Janine at this mission station? A woman who can
replace the one who is dead?
    He lies awake until dawn suddenly breaks through the dark.
Out the window he sees the sun rise like a red ball of fire over
the horizon. Suddenly he notices Louis standing by a tree,
watching him. Even though the morning is already quite warm,
he shivers. What am I afraid of? he thinks. Myself or Africa?
What is Africa telling me that I don't want to know?
    At a quarter past seven he bids farewell to Ruth and takes his
place next to Werner in the front seat of the Jeep.
    'Come back again,' says Ruth. 'You're always welcome.'
    As they drive out through the farm's big gate where the two
Africans helplessly salute, Olofson notices an old man standing
in the tall elephant grass next to the road, laughing. Half hidden,
he flashes past. Many years later this image will resurface in his
consciousness.
    A man, half hidden, laughing soundlessly in the early
morning ...

Chapter Nine
    Would the great Leonardo have wasted his time picking
flowers?
    They're sitting in the attic room of the courthouse,
and suddenly the great silence is there between them. It's
late spring in 1957 and school is almost over for the year.
    For Sture, elementary school is at an end, and middle school
awaits. Hans Olofson has another year before he has to make up
his mind. He has toyed with the idea of continuing his studies.
But why? No child wants to stay a child; they all want to be
grown-ups as soon as possible. Yet what does the future actually
have to offer him?
    For Sture, the path already seems laid out. The great Leonardo
hangs on his wall, urging him on. Ashamed, Hans crouches over
his own hopeless dream, to see the wooden house cast off its moorings
and drift away down the river. When Sture plies him with
questions, he has no idea how to answer. Will he go out in the
forest and chop his way to the horizon like his father? Hang up
his wet rag socks to dry eternally over the stove? He doesn't know,
and he feels envy and unrest as he sits with Sture in the attic room,
and the late spring blows in through the open window. Hans has
come to suggest that they pick flowers for the last day of school.
    Sture sits leaning over an astronomical chart. He makes notes,
and Hans knows that he has decided to discover an unknown star.
    When Hans suggests flowers, the silence spreads. Leonardo
didn't waste his time going out in the fields hunting for table
decorations.
    Hans wonders with suppressed fury how Sture can be so
damned certain. But he doesn't say a word. He waits. Waiting
for Sture to finish one of the important tasks he has set himself
has become more and more common this spring.
    Hans senses that the distance between them is growing. Soon
the only thing left of their old familiar friendship will be the
visits to Janine. He has a feeling that Sture is about to leave. Not
the town, but their old friendship. It bothers him. Mostly because
he doesn't understand why, what has happened.
    Once he asks Sture straight out.
    'What the hell is supposed to have happened?' Sture replies.
    After that he doesn't ask again.
    But Sture is also changeable. Now, he suddenly flings aside
the astronomical chart impatiently and gets up.
    'Shall we go then?' he says.
    They slide down the riverbank and sit under the wide expanse
of the river bridge's iron beams and stone caissons. The spring
flood surges past their feet; the usual soft gurgle has been replaced
by the roar of the river's whirlpools. Sture heaves a rotten tree
stump into the river, and it floats away like a half-drowned troll.
    Without knowing where it comes from, Hans is attacked by
a sudden fury. The blood pounds in his temples and he feels that
he has to make himself visible to the world.
    He has often fantasised about completing a test of manhood,
climbing across the river on one of the curved bridge spans that
are only a couple of decimetres thick. Climbing up to a giddy
height, knowing full well