Chapter Eighteen

In a black-and-white photograph he is standing next to Peter Motombwane.

Behind them is the white wall of the house, and the picture has been taken in bright sunlight. A lizard sits motionless on the wall beside Peter Motombwane's head. It will wind up being part of their shared portrait.

Both of them are laughing in the picture, at Luka holding Peter's camera. But why did he want to have the picture? Why did Peter suggest that they take the photograph? He can't remember.

One day Hans Olofson invites his foremen to dinner in his house. Mutely they sit at his table, devouring the food as if they hadn't eaten in a very long time, drinking themselves quickly into a stupor. Olofson asks questions and gets one-syllable replies.

Afterwards he asks Luka to explain. Why this reluctance? This sulky silence?

'You are a mzungu, Bwana,' says Luka.

'That's no answer,' says Olofson.

'It is an answer, Bwana,' says Luka.

One of the workers who cleans the feed supply and hunts rats falls from the stacked-up sacks and lands so badly that he breaks his neck. The dead man leaves behind a wife and four daughters in a wretched mud hut that Judith once had ordered built. Her name is Joyce Lufuma, and Olofson begins going to her house quite often. He gives her a sack of maize, a chitenge, or something else she needs.

Sometimes, when he is very tired, he sits down outside her house and watches the four daughters playing in the red dirt. Maybe this is my lasting contribution, he thinks. Aside from all my great plans, to help these five women.

But usually he keeps his weariness under control, and one day he gathers his foremen and tells them that he will give them cement, bricks, and roofing metal so that they can repair their houses, maybe even build new ones. In return he requires that they dig pits for their refuse and build covered toilet pits.

For a short time he seems to see an improvement. Then everything is the same as it was before. Rubbish whirls across the red earth. The old roofing metal suddenly reappears. But where are the new materials he bought? He asks but receives no answer.

He discusses this with Peter Motombwane as they sit on his veranda in the evenings, and he tries to understand. He realises that Peter Motombwane is his first black friend. It has taken four years.

Why Motombwane first came to visit him on the farm he has no idea. He stood in the doorway and said he was a journalist, that he wanted to write about the egg farm. But Olofson never read anything about it in the Times of Zambia.

Motombwane returns and never asks Olofson for anything, not even a tray of eggs. Olofson tells him about his grand plan. Motombwane listens with his serious eyes fixed on some point above Olofson's head.

'What sort of answer do you think you'll get?' he asks, when Olofson is finished.

'I don't know. But what I do has to be right.'

'You'll hardly get the answers you're hoping for,' says Motombwane. 'You're in Africa now. And the white man has never understood Africa. Instead of being surprised you're going to be disappointed.'

Their conversations are never concluded, because Peter Motombwane always breaks off unexpectedly. One moment he is sitting in one of the deep soft chairs on the terrace, and the next he has stood up to say goodbye. He has an old car, and only one rear door will open. To get behind the wheel he has to crawl over the seats.

'Why don't you fix the doors?' Olofson asks.

'Other things are more important.'

'Does the one have to exclude the other?'

'Sometimes, yes.'

After Motombwane has visited him he feels restive. Without being able to explain what it is, he feels that he has been reminded of something important, something he always forgets.

But other people come to visit too. He gets to know an Indian merchant from Kitwe named Patel.

On an irregular basis and without any apparent logic, various necessities suddenly vanish in the country. One day there's no salt, another day no newspapers can be printed because there's no paper. He remembers what he thought when he first arrived in Africa: on the black continent everything is in the process of running out.

But through Patel he can get hold of whatever he needs. From hidden storerooms Patel fetches whatever the white colony requires. Along unknown transport routes the scarce goods are brought into the country, and the white colony can get what it needs for a reasonable additional fee. In order not to provoke the wrath of the blacks and risk seeing his shop plundered and burned down, Patel makes personal visits to the various farms to hear whether anything is needed.

He never comes alone. He always has one of his cousins with him, or a friend from Lusaka or Chipata who happens to be visiting. They're all named Patel. If I shouted that name I'd be surrounded by a thousand Indians, thinks Olofson. And they would all ask whether there was anything I needed.

I can understand their caution and fear. They are hated more than the whites, since the difference between them and the Africans is so striking. In the shops they have everything that the blacks so seldom can afford to buy. And everyone knows about the secret storerooms, everyone knows that their great fortunes are smuggled out of the country to distant bank accounts in Bombay or London. I can understand their fear. Just as clearly as I can understand the blacks' hatred.

One day Patel stands outside his door. He's wearing a turban and smells of sweet coffee. At first Hans Olofson doesn't believe in accepting the dubious privilege that Patel offers him. Mr Pihri is enough, he thinks.

But after a year he gives in. He's been without coffee for a long time. He decides to make an exception, and Patel returns to his farm the next day with ten kilos of Brazilian coffee.

'Where do you get hold of it?' Olofson asks. Patel throws out his hands and gives him a sorrowful look.

'So much is in short supply in this country,' he says. 'I'm only trying to relieve the worst of the shortages.'

'But how?'

'Sometimes I don't even know myself how I do it, Mr Olofson.'

Then the government introduces harsh currency restrictions. The value of the kwacha drops dramatically when the price of copper falls, and Olofson realises that he will no longer be able to send money to Judith Fillington as required in their contract.

Once again Patel comes to his rescue.

'There's always a way out,' he says. 'Let me handle this. I ask only twenty per cent for the risks I'm taking.'

How Patel arranges it Olofson never knows, but each month he gives him money and a receipt comes regularly from the bank in London, confirming that the money has been transferred.

During this period Olofson also opens his own account in the London bank, and Patel withdraws two thousand Swedish kronor monthly as his fee.

Olofson notices an increasing unrest in the country, and this is confirmed when Mr Pihri and his son begin to pay more frequent visits.

'What's going on?' Olofson asks. 'Indian shops are being burned down or plundered. Now there's talk of the danger of rioting, because there isn't any maize to be had and the blacks have no food. But how can the maize suddenly run out?'

'Unfortunately there are many who smuggle maize to the neighbouring nations,' says Mr Pihri. 'The prices are better there.'

'But aren't we talking about thousands of tonnes?'

'The ones who are smuggling have influential contacts,' replies Mr Pihri.

'Customs officials and politicians?'

They are sitting in the cramped mud hut talking. Mr Pihri lowers his voice.

'It may not be wise to make such statements,' he says. 'The authorities in this country can be quite sensitive. Recently there was a white farmer outside Lusaka who mentioned a politician by name in an unfortunate context. He was deported from the country within twenty-four hours. The farm has now been taken over by a state cooperative.'

'I just want to be left in peace,' says Olofson. 'I'm thinking of those who work here.'

'That's quite as it should be,' says Mr Pihri. 'One should avoid trouble for as long as possible.'

More and more frequently there are forms that have to be filled out and approved, and Mr Pihri seems to be having a harder and harder time fulfilling his self-imposed obligations. Olofson pays him more and more, and he sometimes wonders whether it's really true, what Mr Pihri tells him. But how can he check?

One day Mr Pihri comes to the farm accompanied by his son. He is very solemn.

'Perhaps there is trouble coming,' he says.

'There's always trouble,' says Olofson.

'The politicians keep taking new decisions,' says Mr Pihri. 'Wise decisions, necessary decisions. But unfortunately they can be troublesome.'

'What's happened now?'

'Nothing, Mr Olofson. Nothing.'

'Nothing?'

'Nothing really, not yet, Mr Olofson.'

'But something is going to happen?'

'It's not at all certain, Mr Olofson.'

'Only a possibility?'

'One might put it that way, Mr Olofson.'

'What?'

'The authorities are unfortunately not very pleased with the whites who live in our country, Mr Olofson. The authorities believe that they are sending money out of the country illegally. Of course this also applies to our Indian friends who live here. It is suspected that taxes are not being paid as they should be. The authorities are therefore planning a secret raid.'

'What are you talking about?'

'Many police officers will visit all the white farms at the same time, Mr Olofson. In all secrecy, of course.'

'Do the farmers know about this?'

'Of course, Mr Olofson. That's why I'm here, to inform you that there will be a secret raid.'

'When?'

'Thursday evening next week, Mr Olofson.'

'What shall I do?'

'Nothing, Mr Olofson. Just don't have any papers from foreign banks lying about. And especially no foreign currency. Then it could be quite troublesome. I wouldn't be able to do anything.'

'What would happen?'

'Our prisons are unfortunately still in very poor condition, Mr Olofson.'

'I'm very grateful for the information, Mr Pihri.'

'It's a pleasure to be able to help, Mr Olofson. My wife has been mentioning for a long time that her old sewing machine is causing her a great deal of trouble.'

'That's not good, of course,' says Olofson. 'Isn't it true that there are sewing machines in Chingola at the moment?'

'I've heard it mentioned,' replies Mr Pihri.

'Then she ought to buy one before they're gone,' Olofson says.

'My view precisely,' replies Mr Pihri.

Olofson shoves a number of notes across the table.

'Is the motorcycle all right?' he asks young Mr Pihri, who has been sitting quietly during the conversation.

'An excellent motorcycle,' he replies. 'But next year there's supposed to be a new model coming out.'

His father has taught him well, Olofson thinks. Soon the son will be able to take over my worries. But part of what I will be paying him in future will always fall to the father. They ply me well, their source of income.

Mr Pihri's information is correct. The following Thursday two broken-down Jeeps full of police officers come driving up to the farm just before sundown. Olofson meets them with feigned surprise. An officer with many stars on his epaulettes comes up on to the terrace where Olofson is waiting. He sees that the policeman is very young.

'Mr Fillington,' says the policeman.

'No,' Olofson replies.

Serious confusion results when it turns out that the search warrant is made out in the name of Fillington. At first the young officer refuses to believe what Olofson says, and in an aggressive tone he insists that Hans Olofson's name is Fillington. Olofson shows him the deed of transfer and title registration, and at last the police officer realises that the warrant he is holding in his hand is made out to the wrong person.

'But you are welcome to search the house anyway,' Olofson adds quickly. 'It's easy to make a mistake. I don't want to cause any difficulties.'

The officer looks relieved, and Olofson decides that now he has made another friend, perhaps someone he may find useful in future.

'My name is Kaulu,' says the police officer.

'Please come in,' says Olofson.

After barely half an hour the officer comes out of the house leading his men.

'Might one ask what you are looking for?' asks Olofson.

'Activities inimical to the state are always under way,' says the officer gravely. 'The value of the kwacha is continually being undermined by illegal foreign exchange transactions.'

'I understand that you have to intervene,' says Olofson.

'I shall tell my supervisor of your accommodation,' replies the police officer and gives him a salute.

'Please do,' says Olofson. 'You're welcome to visit anytime.'

'I'm quite fond of eggs,' shouts the officer as Olofson watches the dilapidated vehicles drive off in a cloud of dust.

Suddenly he understands something about Africa, an insight into the young Africa, the anguish of the independent states. I ought to laugh at this inadequate search of the premises, he thinks. At the young police officer who surely comprehends nothing. But then I would be making a mistake, because this inadequacy is dangerous. In this country people are hung, young policemen torture people, kill people with whips and truncheons. Laughing at this helplessness would be the same as putting my life at risk.

The arc of time grows, and Hans Olofson continues to live in Africa.

When he has been in Kalulushi for nine years, a letter arrives to inform him that his father has died in a fire. One cold night in January of 1978 the house by the river burned down.

The cause was never clarified. You were sought for the funeral, but your whereabouts was not discovered until now. One other person died in the fire, an elderly widow named Westlund. It is also believed that the fire started in her flat. But of course, this will never be known. Nothing was left; the building burned to the ground. What will happen with the inventory of your father's estate, I am not at liberty to say.

The letter is signed with a name that vaguely reminds him of one of his father's foremen at the lumber company.

Slowly he lets the grief seep in. He sees himself in the kitchen, sitting across the table from his father. The heavy odour of wet wool. Célestine stands in her case, but now she is a smoking wreck burned black. There is also the charred sea chart of the approaches to the Strait of Malacca.

He glimpses his father under a sheet on a stretcher. Now I'm alone, he thinks. If I choose not to return, my mother will remain an enigma, in the same way as the fire.

His father's death becomes a burden of guilt, a feeling of betrayal, of having given up. Now I'm alone, he thinks again. I'll have to bear this loneliness as long as I live.

Without really knowing why, he gets in his car and drives to Joyce Lufuma's mud hut. She is standing there pounding corn, and she laughs and waves when she sees him coming.

'My father is dead,' he says.

At once she senses his grief and begins to moan, casting herself to the ground, wailing out the pain that is actually his.

Other women come over, hear that the white man's father is dead in a distant land, and instantly join the lamenting chorus. Olofson sits down beneath a tree and forces himself to listen to the women's appalling lamentations. His own pain is wordless, an anxiety that digs its nails into his body.

He returns to his car, hears the women shrieking behind him, and thinks that Africa is giving Erik Olofson his tribute. A sailor who drowned in the sea of the Norrland forests.

As if on a pilgrimage he sets off on a journey to the sources of the Zambezi River in the northwest corner of the country. He travels to Mwinilunga and Ikkelenge, sleeps overnight in his car outside the mission infirmary at Kalenje Hill, and then continues along the almost impassable sand track that leads to the long valley where the Zambezi has its source. He walks for a long time through the dense, desolate bush until he reaches it.

A simple stone cairn marks the spot. He squats down and sees how individual drops of water fall from broken blocks of stone. A rivulet no wider than his hand winds through the stones and bush grass. He cups his hand in the rivulet and thus stops the flow of the Zambezi River.

He doesn't leave until late in the afternoon, knowing he must reach his car before it grows dark. By then he has decided to stay in Africa. There is nothing left to return to in Sweden. From his grief he also gathers the strength to be realistic. He will never be able to transform his farm into the political model of his dreams. Even though he once firmly vowed never to lose himself in idealistic labyrinths, he ended up doing just that.

A white man can never help Africans develop their country from a superior position, he thinks. From below, from inside, one can surely contribute to expertise and new working patterns. But never as a bwana. Never as someone who holds all power in his hands. Africans see through words and actions – they see the white man as owner, and they gratefully accept the wage increases he gives them, or the school he builds, or the sacks of cement he is willing to forgo. His thoughts of influence and responsibility they regard as irrelevant whims, random gestures which increase the possibility for the individual foreman to make off with some extra eggs or spare parts that he can later sell.

The long colonial history has freed the Africans from all illusions. They know the capriciousness of the whites, their constant exchange of one idea for another, while demanding that the black man be enthusiastic. A white man never asks about traditions, even less about the opinions of their ancestors. The white man works quickly and hard, and haste and impatience are viewed by the black man as a sign of low intelligence. Thinking long and precisely is the black man's wisdom.

At the source of the Zambezi he seeks the way to a new starting point, free of suppositions. I have run my capitalistic farm under the guise of a socialist dream, he thinks. I have occupied myself with an impossibility, incapable of realising even the most fundamental contradictions that exist. The starting point was always mine: my ideas, never the Africans' thoughts, never Africa.

From the profit that the blacks produce, I pass on a share to those workers that is more than Judith Fillington or the other farmers ever did. The school I built, the school uniforms I pay for, are their own achievements, not mine. My most important function is to keep the farm operating and not permit too much pilfering or absenteeism. Nothing more. The only thing I can do is someday turn over the farm to a workers' collective, transferring ownership itself. But this too is an illusion. The time is not ripe for it. The farm would fall into disrepair, some people would get rich, and others would be shoved out into even greater poverty. What I can do is to continue to run the farm as I do today, but without disrupting the great tranquillity with whims and ideas that will never amount to anything for the Africans. Their future is their own creation. I contribute to the production of food, and that is always time well spent. I know nothing about what the Africans think of me. I'll have to ask Peter Motombwane, maybe also ask him to investigate it by talking to my workers. I wonder what Joyce Lufuma and her daughters think.

He returns to Kalulushi with a feeling of calm. He realises that he will never understand the underlying currents of life. Sometimes it's necessary to stop asking certain questions, he thinks. There are some answers that simply don't exist.

As he turns in the gates to the farm, he thinks of Egg-Karlsson, who evidently survived the fire. In my childhood I lived next door to an egg dealer, he thinks. If anyone had told me back then that one day I would be an egg dealer in Africa, I wouldn't have believed it. That would have been unreasonable to believe.

I'm still the same person today. My income is large, my farm is solid. But my life is a quagmire.

One day perhaps Mr Pihri and his son will come and tell me that they can no longer handle my papers. The authorities will declare me an undesirable. I live here with no actual rights; I'm not a citizen with roots legally planted in Africa. I could be deported without notice, the farm confiscated.

A few days after his return from the Zambezi he looks up Patel in Kitwe and arranges increased transfers of foreign currency to the bank in London.

'It's becoming harder and harder to handle,' says Patel. 'The risks of discovery are increasing all the time.'

'Ten per cent harder?' asks Olofson. 'Or twenty per cent harder?'

'I would say twenty-five per cent harder,' replies Patel in a worried voice.

Olofson nods and leaves the dark back room with its odours of curry and perfume. I'm putting my trust in an increasingly complex tangle of bribes, illegal financial transactions and corruption, he thinks. I scarcely have any choice. It's hard to imagine that the corruption in this country is more widespread than it is in Sweden. The difference lies in the candour of it. Here everything is so obvious. In Sweden the methods are more evolved, a more refined and well-concealed pattern. But that is probably the only difference.

The arc of time is expanding. Hans Olofson loses a tooth, and just afterwards one more.

He turns forty and invites his many white and few black friends to a party. Peter Motombwane declines and never gives an explanation. Olofson gets very drunk during this party. He listens to incomprehensible speeches from people he scarcely knows. Speeches that praise him, pouring out a foundation of veneration for his African farm. They're thanking me because I've started running my farm without extravagant thoughts about its function as a future model, he thinks. Not a true word is being spoken here.

On wobbly legs he stands up at midnight to thank his guests because so many of them came. Suddenly he realises that he has begun speaking in Swedish. He hears his old language, and he hears himself make a raging attack on the racist arrogance that characterises the whites who still live in this African land. He raves on in Swedish with a friendly smile.

'A pack of scoundrels and whores is what you are,' he says, raising his glass.

'How nice,' an elderly woman tells him later. 'Mixing the two languages like that. But of course we're wondering what you said.'

'I hardly recall,' Olofson replies, and steps outside in the dark alone.

Something whimpers at his feet and he discovers the German shepherd puppy he got as a present from Ruth and Werner Masterton.

'Sture,' he says. 'Your name is Sture from now on.'

The puppy whimpers and Olofson calls Luka.

'Take care of the puppy,' he says.

'Yes, Bwana,' says Luka.

The party degenerates into a Walpurgis Night. Drunken people lie sprawled in the various rooms, an ill-matched couple has taken over Olofson's own bed, and in the garden someone is shooting a pistol at bottles that a terrified black servant is lining up on a garden table.

Olofson suddenly feels aroused, and he begins to hover about a woman from one of the farms that lies furthest from his own. The woman is fat and swollen, her skirt is hitched up above her knees, and her husband is asleep under a table in the room that was once Judith Fillington's library.

'I'd like to show you something,' says Olofson.

The woman gives a start from her half-doze and follows him up to the second floor of the house, to the room where skeletons once filled all the walls. He lights a lamp and closes the door behind him.

'This is what you wanted to show me?' she says with a laugh. 'An empty room?'

Without replying he presses her against the wall, pulls up her skirt, and forces himself inside her.

'An empty room,' she says again and laughs.

'Imagine that I'm black,' Olofson says.

'Don't say that.'

'Imagine that I'm black,' he says again.

When it's over she clings to him and he smells the sweat from her unwashed body.

'One more time,' she says.

'Never,' says Olofson. 'It's my party, and I decide.' He goes quickly, leaving her alone.

Pistol shots echo from the garden and he suddenly can't stay there any longer. He staggers out into the darkness, deciding that the only person he wants to be near is Joyce Lufuma.

He gets in his car and leaves his house and his party with a screech of tyres. Twice he drives off the road, but manages to avoid flipping over, and finally pulls in front of her house.

The yard is silent and dark. He sees the disrepair in the headlights of his car, and he turns off the motor and sits in the dark. The night is warm and he feels his way to his usual spot under the tree.

We all have a lonesome, abandoned dog sitting and barking inside us, he thinks. Its paws are different colours, its tail may be cut off. But we all have that dog inside us.

He wakes up at dawn when one of Joyce's daughters stands looking at him. He knows she is twelve years old; he can remember when she was born.

I love this child, he thinks. In her I can recognise something of myself, the child's magnanimity, an ever-present readiness to show consideration for others.

Gravely she watches him, and he forces himself to smile.

'I'm not sick,' he says. 'I'm just sitting here resting.'

When he smiles she smiles back at him. I can't abandon this child, he thinks. Joyce and her daughters are my responsibility, no one else's.

He has a headache and feels bad; the hangover is pounding in his chest and he shudders when he recalls the hopeless fornication in the empty room. I might just as well have mounted one of the skeletons, he says to himself. The humiliation I subject myself to seems to have no limits.

He drives back to his house and sees Luka picking up shards of glass in the garden, and he realises he also feels ashamed in front of Luka. Most of the guests have disappeared, only Ruth and Werner Masterton are left. They're sitting on the terrace drinking coffee. The German shepherd puppy he named Sture is playing at their feet.

'You survived,' says Werner with a smile. 'The parties seem to be getting more and more intense, as if a day of judgement were imminent.'

'Who knows?' Olofson says.

Luka walks past below the terrace. He's carrying a pail full of broken bottles. They follow him with their gaze, watch him vanish towards the pit in the ground where he dumps the rubbish.

'Drop by and say hello sometime,' says Ruth as she and Werner get up to return to their farm.

'I will,' Olofson says.

A few weeks after the party he comes down with a severe attack of malaria, worse than any he has had before. The fever dreams hound him.

He imagines that he is being lynched by his workers. They rip off his clothes, pound him bloody with sticks and clubs, and drive him before them towards Joyce Lufuma's house. There he senses his salvation, but she meets him with a rope in her hand, and he awakes just as he realises that she and her daughters are coming to hoist him up in the tree, with the rope fastened in a noose around his neck.

When he recovers and pays his first visit to Joyce, he suddenly remembers the dream. Maybe it's a sign after all, he thinks. They accept my assistance, they are dependent on it. They have every reason to hate me, I forget that far too often. I forget the simplest antagonisms and truths.

The arc of time extends further over his life, the personal river he carries inside him. Often he returns in his thoughts to a frozen winter night, to the remote site he has never visited. He imagines his father's grave. Now that he has been in Africa for eighteen years he ought to start looking for a spot for his own grave.

He walks over to the hill where Duncan Jones has already rested for many years, and he lets his gaze wander. It's late afternoon and the sun is coloured red by the invisible soil that whirls over the African continent. He sees his long white hen houses against the light, workers on their way home from the day's work. It's October, just before the long rain begins to fall. The ground is scorched and dry, only scattered cactuses glow like green patches in the desiccated landscape. The Kafue is almost empty of water. The riverbed is laid dry, except for a narrow trickle in the middle of its furrow. The hippopotamuses have sought out distant water holes, and the crocodiles will not come back until the rain has returned.

He clears the weeds from Duncan Jones's grave and squints towards the sun, seeking his own future gravesite. But he won't make a decision; that would be tempting Death to come to him too soon. But what is the past? Who can make sense of his allotted time?

No one remains unaffected for almost twenty years, surrounded by African superstition, he thinks. An African would never search for his gravesite, not to mention select it. That would be like sending a resounding summons to Death.

I'm really standing on this hill because the view from here is beautiful. Here is the treeless landscape, the endless horizons that my father always looked for. Maybe I think it's so beautiful because I know that it's mine.

Here is the beginning and perhaps the end too, a chance journey and even more chance meetings led me here. He decides to pay another visit to Mutshatsha.

In all haste he sets out. It's the middle of the rainy season and the roads are like liquid mud. Yet he drives fast, as if he were fighting to escape from something. A despair breaks through the barriers. Janine's trombone echoes in his mind.

He never makes it to Mutshatsha. All at once the road is gone. With his front wheels balanced over a precipice, he looks straight down into a ravine that has opened up. The road has collapsed, and there is no longer a road to Mutshatsha. When he tries to turn the car around, it gets stuck in the mud. He breaks branches from bushes and lays them under the wheels, but the tyres can't get a firm purchase. In the brief twilight the rain arrives with a roar, and he sits in his car and waits. Maybe no one will come by, he thinks. While I sleep the car might be invaded by wandering ants and when the rainy season is over only my skeleton, picked clean, will be left, polished like a piece of ivory.

In the morning the rain stops and he gets help with the car from some people in a nearby village. Late in the afternoon he arrives back at the farm.

The arc of time expands but suddenly begins to bend towards the earth again.

In the shadows people are grouping around him, and he doesn't notice what's happening. It is January 1987. He has now been in Africa for eighteen years.

The rainy season this year is intense and drawn out. The Kafue floods over its banks, the torrential rains threaten to drown his hen houses. Transport lorries get stuck in the mud; power poles topple and cause long power cuts. This is a rainy season like none he has ever experienced before.

At the same time there is more unrest in the country. Throngs of people are on the move; hunger riots strike the cities in the copper belt and Lusaka. One of his egg vans is stopped on its way to Mufulira by an excited mob who empties its cargo. Shots are fired in the night and the farmers refrain from leaving their homes.

Early one morning when Olofson goes to his little office, he finds that someone has flung a large rock through a window of the mud hut. He questions the night watchmen but no one has heard or seen anything.

One older worker stands at a distance and watches as Olofson carries out the questioning. Something in the old African's face makes him break off abruptly and send the night watchmen home without any sort of punishment. He senses something menacing but can't say what it is. The work is being done, but a heavy mood rests over the farm.

One morning Luka is gone. When Olofson opens the door to the kitchen at dawn as usual, Luka isn't there. This has never happened before. Mists roll over the farm after the night's rain. He calls for Luka but no one comes. He asks questions, but nobody knows, nobody has seen Luka. When he drives to his house, he finds it open with the door flapping in the wind.

In the evening he cleans the firearms he once took over from Judith Fillington, and the revolver he bought ten years earlier from Werner Masterton, the revolver he always keeps under his pillow. During the night he sleeps restlessly, the dreams are hounding him, and suddenly he wakes up with a start. He thinks he hears footsteps in the house, footsteps upstairs, above his head. In the dark he grabs the revolver and listens. But it's only the wind slithering through the house.

He lies awake, the revolver resting on his chest. In the dark, just before dawn, he hears a car drive up in front of the house and then loud pounding on the front door. With the revolver in his hand he calls through the door and recognises the voice of Robert, Ruth and Werner Masterton's foreman. He opens the door and realises once again that even a black man can look pale.

'Something has happened, Bwana,' says Robert, and Olofson sees that he is terrified.

'What happened?' he asks.

'I don't know, Bwana,' replies Robert. 'Something. I think it would be good if Bwana could come.'

He has lived in Africa long enough to be able to distinguish gravity in an African's enigmatic way of expressing himself.

He dresses quickly, stuffs his revolver in his pocket, and grabs his shotgun. He locks the house carefully, wonders again where Luka is, and then gets into his car and follows Robert. Black rain clouds are scudding across the sky when the two cars turn up towards the Mastertons' house.

I came here once, he thinks, in another time, as a different person. He recognises Louis among the Africans standing outside the house.

'Why are they standing here?' he asks.

'That's just it, Bwana,' says Robert. 'The doors are locked. They were locked yesterday too.'

'Maybe they went on a trip,' says Olofson. 'Where's their car?'

'It's gone, Bwana,' Robert replies. 'But we don't think that they left.'

He looks at the house, its immovable façade. He walks around the house, calls out to their bedroom. The Africans follow him at a distance, expectantly. All at once he is afraid without knowing why. Something has happened.

He feels a vague fear of what he is about to see, but he asks Robert to fetch a crowbar from the car. When he breaks open the front door the alarm sirens don't go off. As the front door yields he discovers that the telephone line to the house has been cut next to the outer wall.

'I'm going in alone,' he says, taking the safety off his gun and pushing the door aside.

What he finds is worse than he could have imagined. As if in a macabre film, he steps into a slaughterhouse, where human bodies lie hacked up all over the floor.

He never will understand why he didn't pass out at the sight of what he saw.