The Eye Of The Leopard (28 page)

The terrace roof is covered in blood. He bends down for the
shotgun, turns off the light, and shuts the door. Then he sits
down on the floor in the hallway and starts to reload. His hands
are shaking, his heart is thudding in his chest, and he is concentrating
with all his might on feeding new ammunition into his
guns. What he wants most of all is to be able to sleep.

He sits in the hallway and waits for dawn. In the first morning
light he moves aside the cabinet and opens the kitchen door to
the outside. The headlights of the car are out, the battery dead.
Luka isn't there. Slowly he walks towards the terrace, still holding
the shotgun in one hand.

The body is hanging by one foot from a rain gutter with its
head in some of the cactuses that Judith Fillington once planted.
A bloody leopard skin is draped around the shoulders of the dead
African. With the handle of a rake Olofson pokes at the foot,
loosening it so the body falls down. Even though almost the whole
face has been shot off, he sees at once that it is Peter Motombwane.
Flies are already buzzing in the blood. From the terrace he fetches
a tablecloth and flings it over the body. By the car there is a pool
of blood. A trail of blood leads away into the dense bush. There
it suddenly stops.

When he turns around he sees Luka standing below the terrace.
Immediately he raises the gun and walks towards him.

'You're still alive,' he says. 'But you won't be much longer. This
time I won't miss.'

'What has happened,
Bwana?
' asks Luka.

'You're asking me?'

'Yes,
Bwana
.'

'When did you take off the window grating?'

'What grating,
Bwana
?'

'You know what I mean.'

'No I don't,
Bwana
.'

'Put your hands on your head and walk ahead of me!'

Luka does as he says and Olofson orders him upstairs. He
shows him the gaping hole where the window has been shot away.

'You almost pulled it off,' says Olofson. 'But only almost.
You knew that I never go in this room. You broke off the steel
grating when I was away. I wouldn't have heard when you all
sneaked inside. Then you could have crept down the stairs in
the dark.'

'The grating is gone,
Bwana
. Someone has taken it off.'

'Not someone, Luka. You took it off.'

Luka looks him in the eyes and shakes his head.

'You were here last night,' Olofson says. 'I saw you and I took
a shot at you. Peter Motombwane is dead. But who was the third
man?'

'I was sleeping,
Bwana
,' Luka says. 'I woke up to shots from an
uta
. Many shots. Then I lay awake. Not until I was sure that
Bwana
Olofson had come out did I come here.'

Olofson raises the shotgun and takes off the safety.

'I'm going to shoot you,' he says. 'I'll shoot you if you don't tell
me who the third man was. I'll kill you if you don't tell me what
happened.'

'I was sleeping,
Bwana
,' Luka replies. 'I don't know anything. I
see that Peter Motombwane is dead and that he has a leopard
skin around his shoulders. I don't know who took off the grating.'

He's telling the truth, Olofson thinks suddenly. I'm sure that
I saw him last night. No one else would have had the opportunity
to take off the grating, no one else knew that I seldom go into
that room. And yet I believe he's telling the truth.

They go back downstairs. The dogs, Olofson thinks. I forgot
about the dogs. Just behind the water reservoir he finds them.
Six bodies stretched out on the ground. Bits of meat are hanging
out of their mouths. A powerful poison, he thinks. One bite and
it was over. Peter Motombwane knew what he was doing.

He looks at Luka, who is staring at the dogs in disbelief. Of
course there must be a plausible explanation, he tells himself.
Peter Motombwane knows my house. Sometimes he waited for
me alone. The dogs too. The dogs knew him. It could be as Luka
says, that he was sleeping and woke up when I fired the gun. I
could have been mistaken. I imagined that Luka would be there,
so I convinced myself that I saw him.

'Don't touch anything,' he says. 'Don't go in the house, wait
outside until I come back.'

'Yes,
Bwana
,' says Luka.

They push the car to get it started, the diesel engine catches,
and Olofson drives to his mud hut. The black workers stand
motionless, watching him. How many belong to the leopards? he
wonders. How many thought I was dead?

The telephone in the office is working. He calls the police in
Kitwe.

'Tell everybody that I'm alive,' he says to the black clerks. 'Tell
them all that I killed the leopards. One of them might be only
wounded. Tell them that I'll pay a year's wages to anyone who
finds the wounded leopard.'

He goes back to his house. A swarm of flies hovers over Peter
Motombwane lying under the tablecloth. As he waits for the
police he tries to think. Motombwane came to kill me, he tells
himself. In the same way that one night he went to Ruth and
Werner Masterton. His only mistake was that he came too early.
He underestimated my fear, he thought that I had begun to sleep
at night again.

Peter Motombwane came to kill me, and that's not something
I should ever forget. That is the starting point. He would have
chopped off my head, turned me into a slaughtered animal carcass.
Motombwane's single-mindedness must have been very great. He
knew that I had guns, so he was prepared to sacrifice his life. At
the same time I realise now that he tried to warn me, get me to
leave here to avoid the inevitable. Perhaps his insight had been
transformed to a sorrowful desperation, a conviction that the ultimate
sacrifice was required.

The man who crept across my roof was no bandit. He was a
dedicated man who gave himself what he thought was a necessary
assignment. That too is important for me to remember. When
I killed him, I killed perhaps one of the best people in this
wounded land. Someone who possessed more than a dream for
the future, someone with a readiness to act. When I killed Peter
Motombwane I killed the hope of many people.

He, in turn, viewed my death as crucial. He didn't come here
because he thirsted for revenge. I believe that Motombwane
ignored such feelings. He crept up on my roof because he was
in despair. He knew what was going on in this country, and he
saw no other way out than to join the leopards'movement, begin
a desperate resistance, and perhaps one day have the chance to
experience the necessary revolt. Maybe he was the one who
created the leopards' movement. Did he act alone, with a few
co-conspirators, or did he recruit a new generation before he
took up his own
panga
?

Olofson walks over to the terrace, trying not to look at the
body under the tablecloth. Behind some African roses he finds
what he is looking for. Motombwane's
panga
is polished to a shine,
and the handle has various symbols carved into it. Olofson thinks
he sees a leopard head, an eye which is deeply incised in the
brown wood. He places the
panga
back among the roses and kicks
some dead leaves over it so it can't be seen.

A rusty police car comes along the road, its motor coughing.
At the drive it comes to a complete stop; it seems to be out of
petrol. What would have happened if I had called them last night,
he wonders, if I had asked them to come to my rescue? Would
they have informed me that they had no petrol? Or would they
have asked me to come and fetch them in my car?

Suddenly he recognises the police officer coming towards him
ahead of four constables. The officer who once stood in front of
his house with an erroneous search warrant in his hand. Olofson
recalls his name: Kaulu.

Olofson shows him the dead body, the dogs, and describes the
chain of events. He also says that he knew Peter Motombwane.
The officer shakes his head forlornly.

'Journalists can never be trusted,' he says. 'Now it's proven.'

'Peter Motombwane was a good journalist,' says Olofson.

'He was far too interested in things that he shouldn't have
stuck his nose into,' says the officer. 'But now we know that he
was a bandit.'

'What about the leopard skin?' Olofson asks. 'I've heard vague
rumours about some political movement.'

'Let's go inside,' says the officer hastily. 'It's better to speak in
the shade.'

Luka serves tea and they sit in silence for a long time.

'Regrettable rumours spread much too easily,' says the police
officer. 'There is no leopard movement. The president himself
has declared that it doesn't exist. Therefore it doesn't exist. So it
would be regrettable if new rumours should arise. Our authorities
would not be pleased.'

What is he actually trying to convey? Olofson thinks. A piece
of information, a warning? Or a threat?

'Ruth and Werner Masterton,' Olofson says. 'It would have
looked like their house here if I hadn't shot him and maybe
another man too.'

'There is absolutely no connection,' says the officer.

'Of course there is,' says Olofson.

The police officer slowly stirs his tea.

'Once I came here with a mistakenly issued order,' he says.
'You offered great cooperation on that occasion. It's a great
pleasure for me to be able to return the favour now. No leopard
movement exists; our president has determined this. Nor is there
any reason to see connections where there are none. In addition,
it would be extremely unfortunate if rumours should spread that
you knew the man who tried to kill you. That would create
suspicion among the authorities. People might start to think that
it was some type of vendetta. Vague connections between a white
farmer and the sources of rumours about the leopard movement.
You could very easily land in difficulties. It would be best to write
a simple, clear report about a regrettable attack which fortunately
ended well.'

There it is, Olofson thinks. After a rambling explanation I'm
supposed to realise that it will all be covered up. Peter
Motombwane will not be allowed to live on as a desperate resistance
fighter; his memory will be that of a bandit.

'The immigration authorities might be concerned,' the officer
goes on. 'But I shall repay your previous helpfulness by burying
this case as quickly as possible.'

He's unreachable, Olofson thinks. His directive is obvious: no
political resistance exists in this country.

'I presume that you have licences for your weapons,' says the
officer in a friendly tone.

'No,' Olofson says.

'That might have been troublesome,' says the officer. 'The
authorities take a serious view of unlicensed weapons.'

'I never thought about it,' replies Olofson.

'This too it would be my pleasure to ignore,' says the police
officer, getting to his feet.

Case closed, Olofson thinks. His argument was better than
mine. No one will die in an African prison. When they go outside
the body is gone.

'My men have sunk it in the river,' the officer tells him. 'That's
the easiest way. We took the liberty of using some scrap iron we
found on your farm.'

The policemen are waiting by the car. 'Unfortunately our petrol
ran out,' says the officer. 'But one of my men borrowed a few
litres from your fuel supply while we drank tea.'

'Of course,' says Olofson. 'You're welcome to stay a while and
take some cartons of eggs when you go.'

'Eggs are good,' says the officer, extending his hand. 'It's not
often that it's so easy to conclude a crime scene investigation.'

The police car leaves and Olofson tells Luka to burn the bloody
tablecloth. He watches him while he burns it. It still might have
been him, Olofson thinks. How can I keep living with him near
me? How can I keep living here at all?

He gets into his car and stops outside the hen house where
Eisenhower Mudenda works. He shows him Peter Motombwane's
panga
.

'Now it's mine,' he says. 'Anyone who attacks my house will be
killed with the weapon that could not vanquish me.'

'A very dangerous weapon,
Bwana
,' says Mudenda.

'It's good if everybody knows about it,' says Olofson.

'Everyone will soon know,
Bwana
,' says Mudenda.

'Then we understand each other,' says Olofson and goes back
to his car.

He locks himself in his bedroom and pulls the curtains.
Outside the window he sees Luka burying the dead dogs. I'm
living in an African graveyard, he thinks. On the roof of the
terrace is Peter Motombwane's blood. Once he was my friend,
my only African friend. The rain will wash away his blood, the
crocodiles will tear his body to bits at the bottom of the Kafue.
He sits down on the edge of the bed; his body aches with weariness.
How will I be able to endure what has happened? he thinks
again. How do I move out of this hell?

During the following month Olofson lives with an increasing
sense of powerlessness. The rainy season is nearing its end, and
he keeps a watchful eye on Luka. The rumour of the attack brings
his neighbours to visit him, and he repeats his story about the
night Peter Motombwane and his dogs died. The second man
was never found; the blood trail ended in thin air. In his imagination
the third man becomes even more of a shadow; Luka's face
disappears slowly.

He is struck by repeated bouts of malaria and hallucinates
again that he is being attacked by bandits. One night he thinks
he's going to die. When he wakes up the electricity is off; the
fever makes him lose all his internal bearings. He shoots his
revolver straight out into the darkness.

When he wakes again the malaria has passed, and Luka waits
as usual outside his door in the dawn. New German shepherds
are running around his house; his neighbours have brought them
as the obvious gifts of the white community.