It screeched once again, then started pecking calmly at the invisible seeds that only a peacock’s eye could see.
Hanna had stopped dead. The fact that Captain Svartman was in her brothel confused her. She didn’t know if what she was feeling was joy at seeing somebody from her earlier existence, or if she was scared of actually meeting him.
But most of all she was astonished. For her, Captain Svartman had never been anything other than the resolute captain whose only passion had been the potted plants in his cabin that nobody except him was allowed to tend. She could never have imagined that he would visit whores in an African port. Perhaps he had come so early in the morning so that there was a minimal risk of his meeting anybody from the ship of which he was in command?
The thought of the ship moved her to act. She left the hotel, took with her one of the black watchmen who had been squatting down asleep in the shade outside the front door, and hurried down to the harbour. The Indian traders who were busy rolling up the blinds in front of their stalls eyed her inquisitively, but were careful not to make it obvious. Hanna had realized a long time ago that many of them knew who she was. She sometimes felt embarrassingly pleased at no longer being a nobody. That was why she was careful to dress smartly for her daily walks between her house and the brothel.
Even during the short time she was married to Senhor Vaz she had had two seamstresses who made her clothes for her. Now she had employed another one who, somewhat mysteriously, had ended up in Africa after a long life in the most renowned circles of Parisian fashion. There were rumours of embezzlement, and perhaps something even worse, but she was still a skilled dressmaker, and Hanna didn’t hesitate to pay her whatever she asked for.
Hanna was out of breath by the time she got to the harbour. Berthed at one of the quays furthest out was the ship she knew so well. She stopped in the shadow of one of the enormous cranes that had recently been installed in the harbour. Black labourers in ragged trousers and bare feet were standing in a circle around a white foreman who was assigning work. Hanna had the feeling that he was some kind of priest, preaching the religion of slavery to the black workers.
But her attention was concentrated on the ship. She was filled with contradictory thoughts and feelings. As they were unloading all their cargo of timber in Lourenço Marques, Hanna assumed that must mean the ship was now on its way back to Sweden. She would be able to go back home as a paying passenger, leave everything behind her, sell the brothel that very day. She would obviously lose money on such a deal, but she would still be a very rich woman.
The sight of the ship also put her possible flight in a different perspective. What did she have to return to? Surely her life had turned out to be something she could never have dreamt of?
She returned to the brothel, more unsure than ever about what she wanted. When she entered through the front door she still wasn’t sure whether she would reveal her presence to Captain Svartman. She headed for the bench under the jacaranda tree, but before she could get there the door to Felicia’s room opened, Captain Svartman came out, and suddenly they were face to face.
At first he didn’t seem to recognize her. He paused for a second. Then he knew.
‘Are you here?’ he said.
‘I could say the same about you,’ she said. ‘Is Captain Svartman here?’
They looked each other up and down. Hanna felt that she had the upper hand, because he couldn’t possibly know what she was doing there in the brothel. He would probably jump to the obvious conclusion — that she was there to give pleasure to men in return for money. But surely he would find that difficult to believe?
Hanna felt she ought to make it clear that any such suspicion was unfounded. She shook her head.
‘Things are not what you probably think,’ she said.
She beckoned him to follow her out to the jacaranda tree and the wooden bench. Zé had materialized from nowhere and sat down at the piano. He said nothing but was obviously longing for Carlos, who was probably his only friend now that Senhor Vaz’s heart had stopped beating. Hanna thought he probably regarded her as an evil person who had robbed him of his brother and also the chimpanzee he could always turn to.
Hanna and Captain Svartman drank tea under the jacaranda tree.
‘I wonder who is most surprised,’ she said. ‘You at seeing me, or me at seeing you?’
‘I obviously wondered what happened,’ said Svartman. ‘We spent a whole day looking for you. But then we were forced to continue our voyage.’
‘I had the constant feeling that Lundmark was still there on board the ship,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t cope with that. There was no other way out for me.’
Svartman nodded thoughtfully. Then he started to smile.
‘I’m very pleased, of course. Very glad to see that you are still alive.’
‘A friend of mine was married to the owner of this brothel,’ she said. ‘He died. She is very ill. I look after the money that’s made here — but I hate the whole business, of course, and only do it for the sake of my friend.’
Did he believe her? She couldn’t be sure. The ring she had on her left hand could be a leftover from her marriage to Lundmark.
‘What exactly happened?’ Captain Svartman asked when he had thought about what she said. It still seemed as if he couldn’t really grasp the fact that he had met again the third mate’s widow, who had jumped ship.
‘I booked into a hotel to start with. I had enough money to do that. Then I ended up looking after a house for an elderly man. But all the time I’ve been looking forward to the moment when I can go back home.’
‘What prevents you from doing that?’
‘My sorrow at having lost Lundmark. And my fear of the sea.’
‘I think I can understand,’ said Svartman doubtfully.
As nothing she had said was true, Hanna tried to change the subject. She returned to the moment when she had left the ship under cover of night.
‘What did you think had happened?’ she asked.
‘I thought you might have drowned.’
‘Drowned by accident, or drowned myself?’
‘I suppose I considered both possibilities. But needless to say there were others on board who made wilder guesses. That you had fallen into the hands of white slave traders, for instance. Or been killed by a bite from a poisonous snake that had managed to slither on board, and that you had fallen overboard as the poison began to work.’
‘But nobody suspected that I had left the ship of my own free will?’
Svartman sounded depressed when he replied.
‘I have to admit that not even I could envisage that possibility. And after all, during my many years as captain I’ve seen lots of sailors disappear in ports all over the world.’
She asked about the voyage, and the return route: had they called at Lourenço Marques on the way home as well? Svartman told her they had gone straight to Port Elizabeth to pick up some mixed cargo bound for the French port of Rouen.
She started asking about Halvorsen and the other sailors. And about Forsman and Berta. He answered briefly and suddenly seemed to be in a hurry. Hanna gathered that he didn’t want to stay at the brothel any longer than necessary. His visit to Felicia had been a secret, and nobody in the crew must get to know about it.
Hanna was disappointed to discover that Captain Svartman was just like all other men. They concealed the truth about themselves, the things they did in secret, under cover of darkness.
But was she any better herself? Didn’t she also go sneaking around? They were simply sitting there under the jacaranda tree exchanging half-truths.