Daniel (25 page)

The boat gave a lurch. There was a snap of mooring lines and the sound of commands. Then the boat began to vibrate.

Daniel sat down next to Father.

Now he'll tell me, he thought.

But Father just put his hands to his face and began to weep without a sound.

They had tickets to Kalmar, but they got off the evening before in Västervik when the boat landed at Slottsholmen. Because it was dark, Daniel didn't have to put the bandages over his face. While Father ventured into the night to find someone with a horse and wagon, Daniel sat and watched the baggage. A lone dog wandered about by his legs but then vanished into the darkness. A light misty rain was falling but there was no wind at all. Only a few people were boarding or leaving the boat. An argument arose by the gangway when a drunken man was refused passage even though he had a ticket. Finally he left, cursing, and he too disappeared into the darkness that seemed to swallow up everyone.

Daniel felt a cold breeze from the sea. It brought with it the same smell he remembered from the evening he had walked into the water and hoped he would die. It was only a few days ago, but it felt as though he had dreamed it.

During the boat trip Father didn't say a word. His silence finally hardened into a mask over his face. It was a silence that Daniel could not penetrate. He had no idea what Father was thinking. Now and then he would burst into tears but only for brief spells. Daniel merely waited. He still didn't know where they were or where they were headed. During the journey he was not allowed to leave the cabin and no one but Father came in. He brought Daniel food and then took away the empty plates.

The boat rolled heavily the first night, and Father got seasick and threw up several times. Daniel lay in his bunk and imagined he was a very small child rocking on Be's back, wrapped in a piece of cloth that smelled of her body. Occasionally the boat shook violently when it was struck by a big wave. For a few hours they hove to and waited for the wind to die down. Daniel heard cows mooing on deck and people moaning in the cabin next door, but he was completely calm. He was
waiting. His only thought was that they were on their way back across the sea.

Their departure happened very suddenly. Daniel was sleeping and dreaming about the smell of roasted meat when Father shook him awake.

‘We have to get off soon,' he said. ‘You'd better get dressed.'

Daniel looked out through the gilded porthole. Outside it was black. Waves sloshed up towards his face and broke against the glass. He suddenly developed a stomach ache. The trip had gone too quickly, they couldn't be there yet. Besides, it was much too cold. When he pressed his hand against the glass with the drops of water running down the outside, he could feel the cold. He turned and looked at Father, who was busy closing one of their bags.

‘Are we there yet?' Daniel asked.

‘We're going to get off,' said Father. ‘In a town called Västervik. Then we'll continue our journey.'

He put down the bag and stood up. Daniel could see from his eyes that he'd been drinking.

‘We've begun a new life,' he said. ‘But now we have to get off this boat. Everything will be all right.'

 

Father vanished into the night. The gangplank was pulled up and the boat turned slowly in the small harbour basin and then disappeared into the darkness. The last thing Daniel saw was the white lantern that sat atop the foremast. The quay was now deserted. He pulled the blanket round him and huddled down. Father was gone. The lone dog came back and sniffed his legs, but when he tried to pet it, the dog gave a twitch and went away.

Daniel was struck by the thought that Father might have left him, just as the dog and the boat had done. Vanished completely into the night. He was alone now. Alone with the baggage and the dark and the misty rain. He thought about the old ones who died in the desert. When they felt that it was time, they went away. Some lay down in their huts, others in the shade, and Daniel remembered one old man whose name he had forgotten who had leaned against a rock wall. There he had sat, without eating or drinking or speaking for more than a week before he died. Maybe Daniel should prepare himself for the
same thing to happen to him. When the sun came up he would sit on the bags and do nothing but wait for his heart to thump one last time and then he would be dead.

The thought terrified him. He jumped up from the baggage, threw off the blanket, and began running in the direction Father had gone. He didn't want to die, not yet, not here. Without Father he would never get back to the desert. He would die without anyone knowing about it. Be and Kiko would search in vain and never find him.

He ran straight into someone standing in the darkness: Father. Behind him came a clattering horse-drawn wagon.

‘I told you to watch the baggage. What are you doing here?'

‘I heard you coming.'

Father grabbed him hard by the arm.

‘We have to leave right now. We must be far away from here by daybreak. We're already late. I couldn't find anything but this horse, and it doesn't look too strong.'

The man sitting on the driver's seat had only one eye. He was old and his lower lip hung down. He looked at Daniel as if he didn't really exist. Father loaded the baggage and Daniel climbed up and sat among the bags. Father sat next to the driver and pulled an old fur around his shoulders.

 

They left the town and after a few hours stopped to rest in a forest. Whenever other wagon-drivers came down the road, Father would take Daniel with him to hide in the woods.

‘Where are we going?' Daniel asked again. By then it was already afternoon.

‘We'll be there soon,' replied Father. ‘Tomorrow night. As long as this damn horse doesn't fall over.'

They kept going even when it got dark. Now and then Daniel glimpsed the sea on the left side of the road, but it was so far away that he couldn't smell the water. The only thing he smelled was the fear from Father's body as he sat in silence on the driver's seat. When Daniel looked at him from behind, at the fur wrapped around his shoulders, he thought that Father was slowly turning into an animal.

Daniel was asleep when they drove into Simrishamn. He woke when the wagon stopped. He sat up, his body sore all over, and in spite of the darkness he recognised the house where they had spent their first night after they left the coal lighter and came ashore. He wanted to shout. He was right. They were on their way back. There was a ship waiting here that would take them back across the sea. Father turned round. Daniel couldn't resist the impulse to throw his arms around his neck. He had never done that before. Father shrank back as if afraid that Daniel would bite him. He pushed him away.

‘I'll see if they have a free room,' he said. ‘I can't pay, but I'll tell them that you're sick.'

He took the bandage out of his pocket.

‘Moan like you're in pain when anyone looks at you. I'll carry you inside.'

Daniel nodded. He had understood the words, but not what they meant.

Father paid the man with the horse. The baggage was lifted down and the wagon rolled off. Daniel wrapped his head in the cloths. When Father came out he had the proprietor with him. The man had his shirt off and was carrying a lantern in his hand.

‘Did he fall?' he asked.

‘From a cliff.'

The man with the lantern was worried.

‘He's not going to die, is he? Places where people die can get a bad reputation.'

‘No, he's not going to die.'

‘But he's moaning like he'll expire at any minute.'

Daniel understood and stopped groaning at once.

‘What he needs is sleep,' said Father. ‘I guarantee he won't die.'

The man with the lantern nodded dubiously. Then he shouted and a boy sleeping underneath the staircase came stumbling out.

‘Put the baggage in the room with the wood stove.'

 

They had the same room as last time. Father sat down heavily on the bed after carrying Daniel up the stairs. Daniel could see that he was very tired.

‘When do we travel more?' he asked.

Father gazed a while at him before he replied.

‘Tomorrow,' he said. ‘Tomorrow we'll set off. Take off the bandage. Lie down and go to sleep.'

Daniel curled up close to Father's back. Everything was different now. He didn't know what had happened with the woman and the buttons but it must have been something good, since it made Father realise that they had to return to the desert.

 

That night Daniel had a hard time sleeping. He kept getting up and standing by the window and looking down into the courtyard where the two girls had been skipping. A single lantern hung by the gate out to the street. He felt completely calm now.

‘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.