The Eye Of The Leopard (23 page)

'But the unrest is there all the time. In the dark the discontent
whispers. People wonder about the corn meal that is suddenly
gone, despite the fact that a succession of record harvests has
been going on for several years. The rumour spreads that lorries
belonging to the authorities drive across the borders at night to
smuggle out corn meal. Why are there no more vaccines and
medicines in the hospitals, even though millions of dollars' worth
are donated to this country every year? People have travelled to
Zaire and been able to buy medicines at a chemist's with the text
'Donation to Zambia' printed on the box. The rumours spread,
the discontent grows, but everyone is afraid of the informers.

'The opposition are forced to make detours. Perhaps some
people have looked at their despair, their hungry children, and
their insight into the betrayal by the politicians, and decided that
the only chance of getting to the rulers is by taking a detour:
murder white people, create instability and insecurity. Execute
whites and thereby warn the black rulers. That may have been
how it happened. Because something is going to happen in this
country. Soon. For over twenty years we have been an independent
nation. Nothing has really improved for the people. It's only the
few who took over from the white leaders that have amassed
unheard-of fortunes. Maybe we have now reached a breaking
point, maybe an uprising is approaching? I don't know anything
for sure; we Africans follow impulses that come out of nowhere.
Our actions are often spontaneous; we replace the lack of organisation
with violence in our wrath. If this is how it happened,
then we will never know who murdered Ruth and Werner
Masterton. Many people will know their names, but they will be
protected. They will be surrounded at once by a superstitious
respect and awe, as if our ancestors had returned in their form.
The warriors of the past will return. Maybe the police will drag
some insignificant thieves out of the dark, say they're the killers,
and shoot them during alleged escape attempts. Faked interrogation
records and confessions can be arranged. Only gradually
will we find out whether or not what I believe is correct.'

'How?' asks Olofson.

'When the next white family is murdered,' replies Motombwane
softly. Luka passes across the terrace; they follow him with their
gaze, see him go out to the German shepherds with some meat
scraps.

'An informer on my farm,' says Olofson. 'Of course I ought to
start wondering who it might be.'

'Let's assume that you succeed in finding out,' says
Motombwane. 'What happens then? Someone else will be selected
at once. No one can refuse, because payment is also involved.
You'll wind up chasing your own shadow. If I were you I'd do
something entirely different.'

'What?' asks Olofson.

'Keep a watchful eye on the man who actually manages the
work on your farm. There's so much you don't know. You've been
here for almost twenty years, but you have no idea what's really
going on. You could live here another twenty years and you still
wouldn't know anything. You think you have divided up power
and responsibility by appointing a foreman. But you don't know
that you have a sorcerer on your farm, a witch-master who in
reality is the one in control. An insignificant man who never reveals
the influence he possesses. You view him as one of many workers
who have been on the farm for a long time, one of those who
never cause you any problems. But the other workers fear him.'

'Who?' asks Olofson.

'One of your workers who gathers eggs,' says Motombwane.
'Eisenhower Mudenda.'

'I don't believe you,' says Olofson. 'Eisenhower Mudenda came
here right after Judith Fillington left. It's just as you say, he has
never caused me any problems. He has never missed work because
he was drunk, never been reluctant to work overtime if necessary.
When I encounter him he bows almost to the ground.
Sometimes I've even felt annoyed by his subservience.'

'Where did he come from?' Motombwane asks.

'I can't recall,' Olofson replies.

'Actually you don't know a thing about him,' says Motombwane.
'But what I'm telling you is true. If I were you I'd keep an eye
on him. Above all, show him that you're not frightened by what
happened to Ruth and Werner Masterton. But never reveal that
you now know that he is a sorcerer.'

'We've known each other a long time,' Olofson says. 'And only
now you're telling me something you must have known for many
years?'

'It wasn't important until now,' Motombwane replies. 'Besides,
I'm a cautious man. I'm an African. I know what can happen if
I'm too generous with my knowledge, if I forget that I'm an
African.'

'If Eisenhower Mudenda knew about what you're telling me,'
Olofson asks, 'what would happen then?'

'I would probably die,' says Motombwane. 'I would be poisoned,
the sorcery would reach me.'

'There isn't any sorcery,' Olofson says.

'I'm an African,' replies Motombwane.

Again they fall silent as Luka passes by.

'To fall silent is to talk to Luka,' Motombwane says. 'Twice he
has passed by and both times we were silent. So he knows we're
talking about something he's not supposed to hear.'

'Are you afraid?' Olofson asks.

'Right now it's smart to be afraid,' says Motombwane.

'What about the future?' Olofson asks. 'My close friends have
been slaughtered. Next time a finger in the darkness could point
at my house. You're an African, you're a radical. Even though I
don't believe you could chop people's heads off, you're still a part
of the opposition that exists in this country. What do you hope
will happen?'

'Once more you're wrong,' says Motombwane. 'Once more you
draw the wrong conclusion, a white's conclusion. In a certain situation
I could easily raise a
panga
and let it fall over a white man's
head.'

'Even over my head?'

'Maybe that's where the boundary lies,' Motombwane replies
softly. 'I think I would ask a good friend to chop off your head
instead of doing it myself.'

'Only in Africa is this possible,' Olofson says. 'Two friends sit
drinking tea or coffee together and discussing the possibility that
in a certain situation one might chop off the other's head.'

'That's the way the world is,' Motombwane says. 'The contradictions
are greater than ever. The new empire builders are the
international arms dealers who fly between wars offering their
weapons for sale. The colonisation of the poor peoples by superior
powers is just as great today as any time before. Billions in
so-called aid flows from the rich countries, but for every pound
that comes in, two pounds wander back out. We're living in the
midst of a catastrophe, a world that is burning with thousanddegree
flames. Friendships can still form in our time. But often
we don't see that the common ground we stand on is already
undermined. We are friends but we both have a
panga
hidden
behind our backs.'

'Take it a step further,' Olofson says. 'You hope for something,
you dream about something. Your dream might be my nightmare,
if I understand you correctly?'

Peter Motombwane nods.

'You're my friend,' he says, 'at least for the time being. But of
course I wish all the whites were out of this country. I'm not a
racist, I'm not talking about skin colour. I view violence as necessary;
faced with the prolongation of my people's pain there is no
other way out. African revolutions are most often appalling bloodbaths;
the political struggle is always darkened by our past and
our traditions. Possibly, if our despair is great enough, we can
unite against a common foe. But then we point our weapons at
our brothers by our side, if they are from a different tribe. Africa
is a seriously wounded animal; in the bodies of us all hang spears
that were cast by our own brothers. And yet I have to believe in
a future, another time, an Africa that is not ruled by tyrants who
imitate the European men of violence who have always been there.
My anxiety and my dream coincide with the anxiety that you are
noticing right now in this country. You have to understand that
this anxiety is ultimately the expression of a dream. But how
does one re-establish a dream that has been beaten out of people
by the secret police? By leaders who amass fortunes by stealing
vaccines that are supposed to protect our children against the
most common diseases?'

'Give me a word of advice,' Olofson says. 'I'm not sure I'll follow
it, but I'd still like to hear what you have to say.'

Motombwane looks out across the yard. 'Leave,' he says. 'Leave
before it's too late. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it will be many years
before the sun goes down for
mzunguz
of various skin colours on
this continent. But if you're still here by then it will be too late.'

Olofson follows him to his car.

'The bloody details,' he says.

'I've already got those,' Motombwane replies. 'I can imagine.'

'Come back,' Olofson says.

'If I didn't come, people on your farm would start to wonder,'
says Motombwane. 'I don't want people to wonder for nothing.
Especially not in such uneasy times.'

'What's going to happen?'

'In a world on fire, anything can happen,' says Motombwane.

The car with its coughing engine and its worn-out shock
absorbers disappears. When Olofson turns around he sees Luka
on the terrace. He stands motionless, watching the car drive away.

Two days later Olofson helps carry Ruth and Werner
Masterton's coffins to their common grave, right next to the
daughter who died many years before. The pallbearers are white.
Pale, resolute faces watch the coffins being lowered into the red
earth. At a distance stand the black workers. Olofson sees Robert,
motionless, alone, his face expressionless. The tension is there, a
shared rage that flows through the whites who are gathered to
say farewell to Ruth and Werner Masterton. Many of them are
openly bearing arms, and Olofson feels that he is in the midst
of a funeral procession that could quickly be transformed into a
well-equipped army.

The night after the burial the Mastertons' house burns down.
In the morning only the smoking walls remain. The only one
they trusted, Robert the chauffeur, has vanished. Only the workers
are left, expectantly waiting for something, no one knows what.

Olofson builds barricades in his house. Each night he sleeps
in a different room, and he barricades the doors with tables and
cabinets. In the daytime he tends to his work as usual. In secret
he watches Eisenhower Mudenda, and receives his still equally
humble greetings.

Yet another egg transport is plundered by people who have
built a roadblock on the way to Ndola. Indian shops in Lusaka
and Livingstone are stormed and burned down.

After darkness falls, nobody visits their neighbours. No headlights
play through the darkness. Pouring rain washes over the
isolated houses; everyone is waiting for a finger to point to them
out of the darkness. Violent thunderstorms pass over Kalulushi.
Olofson lies awake in the dark with his weapons next to him in
bed.

One morning soon after Ruth and Werner's funeral, Olofson
opens the kitchen door for Luka after yet another sleepless night
and sees at once from Luka's face that something has happened.
The inscrutable and dignified face is changed. Olofson sees for
the first time that even Luka can be frightened.

'
Bwana
,' he says. 'Something has happened.'

'What?!' shouts Olofson and feels the panic rising.

Before Luka can reply, he discovers it for himself. Something
is nailed to the mangrove tree that stands facing the drive, a windbreak
planted by Judith Fillington and her husband many years
earlier. At first he can't see what it is; then he has an idea but
doesn't want to believe what he suspects. With his revolver in his
hand he slowly approaches the tree.

Lashed fast with barbed wire to the tree trunk is the severed
head of a German shepherd. The dog he received from Ruth and
Werner, the one he named Sture. The head grins at him, the
tongue cut out, the eyes open and staring.

Olofson feels terror well up inside him. The finger has pointed
in the dark. Luka's terror – he must know what it means. I'm
living among insane savages, he thinks desperately. I can't read
them; their barbaric signs are unintelligible.

Luka is sitting on the stone steps to the terrace. Olofson can
see that he's so scared he's shaking. The sweat is glinting on his
black skin.

'I don't intend to ask you who did this,' Olofson says. 'I know
what answer I will get – that you don't know. Nor do I think it
was you, since I can see that you're afraid. I don't think you would
be trembling over your own actions. Or at least you wouldn't
reveal yourself to me. But I want you to tell me what it means.
Why would someone chop off the head of my dog and lash it
to a tree during the night? Why would someone cut out the
tongue of a dog that's already dead and can't bark any more?
Whoever did this wants me to understand something. Or is the
intention just to frighten me?'

Slowly Luka's answer comes, as if each word he utters were a
mine threatening to explode.

'The dog is a gift from dead people,
Bwana
. Now the dog is
dead too. Only the owner lives. A German shepherd is what
mzunguz
most often use to protect themselves, since Africans are
afraid of dogs. But he who kills a dog shows that he is not afraid.
Dead dogs protect no
mzungu
. Cutting out the tongue prevents
the dead dog from barking.'

'The people who gave him to me are dead,' Olofson says. 'The
gift has had his head cut off. Now only the owner remains. The
last link in this chain is still alive, but he is defenceless. Is that
what you're telling me?'

'The leopards are hunting at daybreak,' Luka mutters.