Daniel by Henning Mankell Page B

during the voyage from Le Havre. In the courtyard children could be heard shrieking and laughing. He was sitting on the creaky bed with the glass in his hand when Daniel suddenly stood up and went over to the window. Bengler started to move from the bed because he was afraid the boy might jump out, but Daniel walked very slowly, almost stalking as if on the hunt, cautiously approaching a quarry. He stopped by the window, half hidden behind the curtain, to watch what was happening in the courtyard. He stood utterly motionless. Bengler cautiously got up and stood next to him.

    Down in the courtyard two girls were skipping. They were about the same age as Daniel. One of the girls was fat, the other very thin. They had a rope, possibly a line from a small sailing boat which they had cut off to a suitable length. They took turns jumping, laughing when they stumbled, and then starting over again. For a long time Daniel stood quite still, as if turned to stone. Bengler watched him and tried to interpret his attentive observation of the game in the courtyard.
    Then Daniel turned to him, looked him straight in the eye, and his face broke into a grin.
    Â 
    That was the first time Bengler saw his adopted son smile. It was not a broad, pasted-on mask, but a smile that came from within. For Bengler it was as though a long-awaited miracle had finally occurred. At last Daniel had severed the invisible line that bound him to the pen at Andersson’s trading post. A line that bound him to memories which Bengler knew nothing about, except that they contained blood, terror, dead bodies, chopped-up body parts, desperate screams, and then a silence in which all that was heard was the sand rustling in the desert.
    Â 
    They went down to the courtyard. The girls stopped skipping when they caught sight of Daniel. Bengler realised that they had never seen a black person before. He knew that there was a brand of shoe polish whose lid was decorated with a black man with a broad grin and thick lips, but now these young girls were looking at a real live black person. Here in this dirty courtyard Bengler discovered something that might be a new task for him. To show the unenlightened Swedes that people actually existed who were black. Living people, not just decorated lids on tins.
    He began talking to the girls. They were poorly dressed and their constant jumping had made them smell strongly of sweat. He asked their names and had a hard time understanding what they said. One of them was named Anna, the thin one, and the fat one was called Elin or possibly Elina. Bengler explained that the boy next to him was named Daniel and that he had just landed in Simrishamn from a faraway desert in Africa.
    â€˜What’s he doing here?’ asked the girl called Anna.
    Bengler was at a loss for words. To this simple question, he had no answer.

    â€˜He’s on a temporary visit to Sweden,’ he said finally.
    He wasn’t sure if the girls really understood what he said because of his thick SmÃ¥land dialect.
    â€˜Why does he have such curly hair? Did he have it curled?’ It was still the girl called Anna who was asking.
    â€˜It’s naturally curly,’ Bengler replied.
    â€˜Can we touch it?’
    Bengler looked at Daniel. He was still smiling, so Bengler nodded. The girls came forward warily and touched Daniel’s head. Bengler was constantly on guard, as if he were watching a dog that without warning might turn hostile and bite. But Daniel continued to smile. When the fat girl who was maybe named Elin put her hand on his head, he stretched out his hand and carefully stroked her mousy-coloured hair. She gave a shriek and jumped away. Daniel kept smiling.
    â€˜He wants to watch while you skip,’ said Bengler. ‘Won’t you show him?’
    The girls skipped. When the fat girl stumbled Daniel started to laugh. It was a lusty laugh that came from deep inside, a dammed-up volcano that had finally found its