Free Daniel by Henning Mankell Page A

questions or shown the least sign of curiosity. Bengler asked him to inform the crew that Daniel’s unpredictable moods made it necessary to keep him in a harness: it was a safety measure, not a display of cruelty. Michaux called over one of his mates, a Dutchman named Jean, and asked him to tell the crew.
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    They had been given a cabin near the stern, right next to the captain’s quarters. After attempting to break free in a violent fit of desperation, Daniel had sunk into apathy. To calm him, Bengler had strewn a thin layer of sand on the floor. He had tried to explain that the ship was big and safe. The sea was no monster, the slight motion of the hull nothing more than the same motion that Daniel must have felt when he was carried around on his mother’s back.

    A young ship’s boy, barely fifteen years old, had been assigned by Michaux to take care of the five passengers on board. Along on the journey were an elderly bachelor who had terrible smallpox scars on his face, and a very young lady who immediately became the object of the crew’s lustful glances. Except for the fact that the man’s name was Stephen Hartlefield, Bengler knew nothing about him or to what he had devoted his life. Captain Michaux had brusquely informed Bengler that the pockmarked man was an Englishman with cancer in his belly, and he was going home to Devonshire to die.
    â€˜He came to Africa when he was two years old,’ said Michaux. ‘Yet he still talks about travelling home to die in a country that he has no memory of. Englishmen are very strange creatures.’
    The young lady, whose name was Sara Dubois, had been visiting one of her sisters who lived on a big farm outside Cape Town. She belonged to a well-to-do merchant family from Rouen and had a chambermaid with her.
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    The cabin boy’s name was Raul. He was freckled, cross-eyed and alert. Bengler noticed that Daniel watched him for a moment, and caught his eye.
    Raul asked why Daniel was being restrained.
    â€˜Otherwise he might jump overboard,’ Bengler answered, feeling despondent about his reply. Something made him feel ashamed that he had to keep a fellow human being tied up. A human being that he regarded as his son.
    â€˜Will he always be tied up?’ Raul asked.
    Instead of replying, Bengler called over one of the mates and complained about the cabin boy’s nosy curiosity. The mate boxed him twice on the ears.
    Raul didn’t cry, even though the blows were very hard.
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    They left Cape Town in the evening. Heavy rain clouds swept in over Tafelberg. Bengler had decided to keep Daniel in the cabin as they pulled away from land and not let him out until they were on the high seas. The sea was very calm that night and slow swells bore the ship away from the African continent. Daniel slept in the hammock. Bengler had tied the rope to one of the ceiling beams. Even though it was a
low ceiling, Daniel wouldn’t be able to reach the beam and untie it. Bengler had also checked that there were no sharp objects in the cabin that he could use to cut himself loose.
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    When Bengler placed a blanket over Daniel he discovered that in one hand, which was clenched tightly, he held some sand that he had picked up off the floor.
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    That first evening Bengler began to sew a sailor’s costume for Daniel. He had procured the cloth from a nautical outfitter recommended by Michaux. Since he had spent all his money on the passage, he bartered for the cloth with the revolver he had bought in Copenhagen. It had also sufficed for buttons, needle and thread. He borrowed scissors from the sailmaker on board. He spread out the cloth on the table in the cabin and then pondered for a long time over how he could actually make a pair of trousers and a sailor’s blouse. It took a while before he dared begin cutting. He had never before in his life made anything like this. The work proceeded slowly, and he pricked himself with the