The Demon of Dakar - Kjell Eriksson [11]
The brothers stared at each other across the room. Patricio’s hair was cut short, almost a buzz cut, just as Manuel had expected, but otherwise he looked different. He had gained weight and there was an expression of sorrowful pessimism around his mouth that reminded Manuel of their father. Patricio had aged. The green shirt was tight around his stomach, the blue pants were too short, and the slippers looked completely foreign.
“Everyone sends their greetings” was the first thing Manuel said.
Patricio immediately burst into tears and was not able to talk for several minutes. Manuel braced himself. He wanted to have the strength of a big brother and somewhere he also had the anger that his brother was crying over a situation that he had brought on himself.
But he embraced Patricio, patted him on the back, and Patricio inhaled deeply at his brother’s shoulder, as if to draw in something of the scent of his homeland. Manuel noticed that Patricio’s ears had become somewhat wrinkled.
They sat down on the cot. Manuel looked around.
“Are they recording this?”
“I doubt it,” Patricio said.
“How are you?”
“I am fine. But what are you doing here?”
“Have you forgotten your family?” His anger made Manuel stand up, but Patricio did not react. “Mama only talks about you and Angel. The neighbors say she is going crazy.”
A bird flew past the barred window. Manuel stopped talking and looked at his brother.
“How do they treat you?”
“They are nice,” Patricio said.
Nice, Manuel thought. What a word to use about people who work in a prison. Now that he had the possibility of satisfying his curiosity, all of his interest in Patricio’s prison life disappeared. Manuel did not want to hear what he did, how he passed the time.
“What happened to Angel?”
Manuel had not intended to ask about his brother immediately, but the words tumbled out of his mouth before he realized how much it must hurt for Patricio to talk about what had happened. In the letters home he had time and again returned to his own guilt, that he was partly responsible for Angel’s death.
Patricio told him the story with a stranger’s voice. The time in prison had not only changed him physically. Perhaps it was the joy of being reunited or the pleasure of speaking Zapotec that made him so open and talkative?
Most likely, Angel had been shadowed all the way from Spain to Germany. He had called Patricio, who was still in San Sebastián, from somewhere in France. They had decided not to contact each other, but Angel had been distraught and told him he was being followed. He wanted to return to San Sebastián, but Patricio had convinced him to continue on to Frankfurt as arranged.
He wanted to throw away the package, but Patricio had urged him to calm down. If he got rid of the cocaine he would end up with big problems.
“How did he die?”
“I think he was trying to escape the police. He ran over some tracks and … the train came.”
“Angelito,” Manuel sighed. He could see his brother in his mind, running, stumbling on. If it had been Patricio with his long legs it would perhaps have been fine, but Angel was not built for running.
“They sent eleven thousand pesos,” Manuel said.
Patricio looked at him and repeated the sum to himself under his breath. His lips formed “eleven thousand pesos” as if it were a spell.
“Is it the fat one who is behind all this?”
Patricio nodded. Manuel saw that he was ashamed, he remembered that day in the village so well. How the tall one, who called himself Armas, climbed into a large van together with a fat white man. What Manuel could remember best was how much the fat one had been sweating.
“Where is he?”
Patricio glanced around the room.
“Do you have a pen?”
Patricio tore off a piece of the wrapping paper that had encased the small ceramic vase from their mother, wrote a few lines, and pushed the note over to Manuel.
“Restaurante Dakar Ciudad Uppsala,” it said.
Manuel looked at his brother. A restaurant.
“The fat