A Treacherous Paradise (41 page)

For the first time, they were alone together in a room. Ana sat on the edge of the bed. Moses remained standing.

‘I thought you had gone back to your mines,’ she said. ‘I was angry because you had left without saying anything.’

Moses didn’t respond. His usual calm smile seemed to have deserted him.

I must be bold, Ana thought. I’ve nothing to lose. If I’ve learnt anything from my time between the two gangplanks – the one I crossed when I first arrived here, and the one I’ve crossed now that I’m leaving – it’s that I must dare to do what I want to do, and not allow myself to be held back by what others consider is permissible for a white woman like me.

To her surprise, everything seemed perfectly clear to her now, for the first time. Now, when she was about to place a full stop behind the confused months she had spent in the town by the lagoon. Meeting Isabel had awoken inside her an affection for a black woman whose fate had affected her so profoundly. But Isabel was dead. Just as Lars Johan Jakob Antonius Lundmark, her first husband, was dead. And Senhor Vaz, who had made her rich, was also dead.

Then Moses had crossed her path. The affection she had felt for Isabel had turned into love for her brother. And he was alive, he hadn’t left her.

Ana stood up and walked over to Moses. She leaned her face against his, and felt both gratitude and relief when he put his arms around her waist.

They made love in great haste, half-dressed, anxious but passionate – accompanied by the sound of footsteps on the deck over their heads and in the narrow corridor outside the cabin. She was possessed by the thought – and the desire – that this lovemaking would never end, that they would stay where they were until the ship filled up with water and sank. She appreciated Moses’ sensual pleasure, his tenderness, and then when she heard him sob, Isabel and her children were with them in that cabin.

Afterwards everything was very still. They lay beside each other on the narrow bunk with its high sides of well-worn wood, designed to prevent passengers from falling out during a storm. Ana placed her hand on Moses’ heart, and felt how his breathing slowly subsided from excited passion to deep calm.

Perhaps she thought about Lundmark at that moment, she couldn’t be sure afterwards. But over and over again she thought about how so many aspects of her life kept repeating themselves. Making love in cramped bunks, sudden departures, burials at sea. She hadn’t been prepared for any of this, not by her father or by Elin. In her life by the river, Ana had learnt how to handle a pickaxe, to look after children, to wade through deep snow and endure freezing temperatures and emerge smiling – and even to be afraid of a God who punished you for your sins, according to her grandmother’s angst-filled convictions. Now she had done courageous things without being prepared in the least, and without anybody forcing her to do them.

Time was short. The ship would shortly be leaving.

‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘I want you to come with me.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘You know that, Senhora.’

‘Don’t call me Senhora! Don’t call me Ana either. Call me Hanna. That’s my real name.’

‘I’ll be killed, just like Isabel was.’

‘That will not happen as long as I’m around.’

‘You couldn’t even protect Isabel.’

‘Are you accusing me?’

‘No. I’m just stating the facts.’

Moses sat up, then stood and put on his overalls again. Ana was still lying in bed, half-dressed, her clothes in disorder, her hair all over the place.

At that moment there was a sound of loud footsteps outside the cabin door. Somebody hammered hard on the door, which was then flung open. The officer who had been on duty by the gangplank – a first mate – stood in the doorway, accompanied by another man who Ana assumed was his colleague.

ANA THOUGHT THE
two men looked like rampant beasts of prey.

‘Has he attacked you?’ roared the mate, punching Moses in the face.

‘He hasn’t touched me,’ shrieked Ana, trying to put herself between them. But the mate had already managed to kick Moses on to the floor, and he sat on him with his hands round his throat.

‘I’ll kill the bastard,’ yelled the mate. ‘A porter who dares to attack one of my passengers in her cabin.’

‘He hasn’t attacked me,’ shouted Ana in desperation, pulling at the mate’s hands. ‘Let go of him!’

The raving officer stood up and dragged Moses to his feet. Blood was dripping from Moses’ face.

‘What did he do?’ asked the man in the doorway, who hadn’t spoken so far.

‘He didn’t do anything apart from what I asked him to do,’ said Ana. ‘And I’m disgusted by the way you have treated him.’

‘We’re the ones who decide how to treat the niggers who come on board this ship,’ said the mate.

As if to emphasize what he’d said, he punched Moses again. Ana forced her way between them. She was only half-dressed, and realized that her appearance might have led the mate to jump to conclusions. But she didn’t bother about that now. At one of the happiest moments in her life, she had been more outraged than ever before.

‘Let him go,’ she said. ‘And don’t set hands on him again.’

‘No,’ said the mate. ‘He’s off to jail. The fort can take care of him.’

Ana was struck dumb by the thought of Moses ending up in the same miserable dump in which his sister Isabel had died.

‘In that case you’ll have to take me there as well,’ she said.

Something in her voice was so convincing that the two officers backed off. Ana took out a handkerchief and wiped Moses’ face. The blood clinging to the handkerchief suddenly made her aware of a sticky feeling on the inside of her thigh. She knew what it was, and thought that just now, it was the biggest and most important secret of her whole life.

When they left the cabin, all the passengers and crew stared at the procession, wondering what had happened. Everybody on board knew that something out of the ordinary had taken place inside the ship’s biggest cabin.

Moses walked along the gangplank, not having been able to say a proper goodbye to Ana. She watched him walking along the quay without so much as a backward glance. She continued watching until he was out of sight, then she went back to her cabin and lay down on her bunk, completely exhausted, but also furious about what had happened. She lay there until she heard various commands being issued, felt the shaking as the pressure rose in the boilers, and listened to the rattling of chains as the moorings were shed.

Why hadn’t she left the ship and gone with Moses? Why hadn’t she dared to do that?

For one brief moment I saw everything clearly, she thought. But then I didn’t dare to accept the consequences of what had happened.

After many hours, she went up on deck. She had combed her hair carefully and changed into a different dress. She stood by the rail. The other white passengers on board made room for her – not out of politeness, she felt, but as an indication of their disapproval.

At that last moment I was transformed into a whore in their eyes, she thought. I took a black man with me into my cabin, and performed the most outrageous act a person can imagine.

She contemplated the white town climbing along the hills in the far distance. She watched it fading away in the gathering heat haze. Their course was now almost due north, the sun was high in the heavens, and she was called to the first meal after embarkation. But she declined: she was quite hungry, but she didn’t want to interrupt her leave-taking of the town she would never see again.

Suddenly a man was standing by her side. He was wearing a uniform, and she gathered he was the captain. She had a vague feeling that she recognized him, but couldn’t quite place him. He saluted her, and held out his hand.

‘Captain Fortuna,’ he said. ‘Welcome on board.’

He smelled strongly of beer, and his breath was like a distant memory of Senhor Vaz. He was in his forties, suntanned and sinewy.

‘Thank you,’ she said after shaking hands. ‘What’s the weather going to be like on this voyage?’

‘Calm and tranquil. No rough seas.’

‘Icebergs?’

Captain Fortuna looked at her in surprise, then burst out laughing, thinking she was joking.

‘No ice apart from what we have in the iceboxes,’ he said. ‘There are no underwater reefs around here, nothing dangerous as long as one stays sufficiently far from land. I’ve been in command of this ship for nearly ten years. The most dramatic incident I’ve experienced was when we had a bull on board: it went mad and jumped over the rail. Unfortunately we couldn’t rescue him. He swam at amazing speed towards India. It was night-time, and we couldn’t locate him.’

‘I’ve never been to Beira,’ said Ana. ‘I know nothing about the town, but I know I shall need to book into a hotel.’

‘The Africa Hotel,’ said Captain Fortuna. ‘They’ve just finished building it. It’s a splendid hotel. That’s where you should stay.’

‘Is it a big town?’

‘Not as big as Lourenço Marques. It’s not far at all to the hotel.’

Captain Fortuna saluted her again, then walked over to the rope ladder leading up to the bridge.

It dawned on Ana where she had seen him before. On one occasion, perhaps more, Captain Fortuna had visited her brothel. He hadn’t been wearing his uniform, so that is why she hadn’t recognized him at first.

I’m surrounded by my old customers, she thought. And he knows who I am.

She returned to her cabin and lay down on her bunk again. She ran her hand over her pelvis, and decided that if in fact she had conceived, she would allow the baby to live. No matter where she went after doing what she had to do in Beira, she would avoid going anywhere near a cemetery for foetuses and unwanted babies.

That’s a promise, she thought. I’m swearing an oath that only I know about. So what is its significance?

She took dinner in her cabin, so as not to come into contact with curious and gossiping people.

In the evening, after darkness had fallen, she went out on deck again to breathe in the cooling air. The starry sky was completely clear. She could feel the proximity of Moses. And of Lundmark as well, and perhaps even Senhor Vaz. A coil of rope by her feet could easily be Carlos, curled up and asleep.

In the distance: lanterns, shooting stars, the beam from a lighthouse pulsating into the horizon.

Captain Fortuna suddenly emerged from the shadows. He no longer smelled of beer, now he smelled of wine.

‘Senhora Vaz, I don’t interfere in other people’s lives,’ he said, ‘but please allow me to express my admiration for what you did to try to rescue that black woman they locked up in prison. Pedro Pimenta was a nice man, but he was a scoundrel. He let down all the women he ever came across.’

‘I didn’t do enough,’ said Ana. ‘Isabel died.’

‘People from our part of the world change into insufferable creatures when they come to Africa,’ he said sorrowfully. ‘Here on board this ship I don’t come into close contact with all the suffering and misery that exists on land. But there is no doubt that we treat the blacks in a way that will come back to haunt and punish us, there’s no doubt about that.’

Perhaps Captain Fortuna expected her to respond, but she said nothing for a while, then began to talk about something quite different.

‘Let’s be honest,’ she said. ‘I know you visited the brothel I inherited when my husband died. You paid up as required, and you treated the women well. But there’s one thing I wonder about. Which of the women did you visit?’

‘Belinda Bonita. Never anybody else. If it had been possible, I’d have married her.’

‘That black porter who came on board with me,’ said Ana. ‘I love him. I hope I’m carrying his child.’

Captain Fortuna eyed her in the flickering light of the lantern he was holding in his hand.

He smiled. A friendly smile.

‘I understand,’ he said. ‘I understand exactly what you mean.’

That night Ana slept long and deep. It seemed to her that the sea was like a rocking chair in which she was swaying gently back and forth as the night passed, and another life slowly became possible.

FOR THE SECOND
time in her life Hanna Lundmark walked along a gangplank and left a ship that she would never board again. During the voyage she had abandoned for ever her other names: Ana Branca and Hanna Vaz. She had even considered dropping Lundmark’s name and reverting to what she was at the very beginning: Hanna Renström. She had stood leaning on the rail of the little coaster, occasionally watching dolphins playing in the ship’s wake, and once, just off Xai-Xai, she had even seen a pod of whales spouting in the distance. But mainly she had just stood there with her various names in her hand, dropping them into the water one after another.

She had chosen to stand in the stern of the ship because that’s where the galley was – just as it had been on the
Lovisa
. Working inside the cramped kitchen, oozing with smoke and cooking smells, were an incredibly fat black woman, and two men who might well have been chosen because they were so thin. Otherwise there would never have been room for them as well as the wood-burning stove and all the pots and pans and chipped crockery.

There were not many passengers on board. Hanna had the best cabin, but every evening she had to wage war on masses of cockroaches, which she crushed with a shoe. Over her head she could hear the coughing and scraping noises made by the deck passengers as they wrapped themselves up in their sleeping bags to sleep.

She occasionally spoke to Captain Fortuna. Hanna gathered his origins could be traced back to practically everywhere in the world. On her second day on board he had asked her where she came from.

‘Sweden,’ she had said. ‘A country up in the far north. Where the Northern Lights illuminate the night sky.’

She had not been totally convinced that he knew where her homeland was, but she politely asked where he came from.

‘My mother was Greek,’ he said. ‘My mother’s father came from Persia and his mother was born in India, but she had her roots in one of the South Sea Islands. My father was a Turk, but his ancestry was in fact a mixture of Jewish, Moroccan and a drop of blood from distant Japan. I regard myself as an Arabian African, or an African Arab. The ocean belongs to everybody.’