Milk Teeth

by Helene Bukowski

  “We’re not doing anything,” they replied, simultaneously prodding each other in the side with their elbows.

  “Why didn’t you give our father the knife?”

  “He doesn’t need a knife,” I said.

  “How do you know that?”

  I didn’t respond and wanted to keep moving, but they stood in our way.

  “You won’t have anything else to eat soon if your trees totally wither away.”

  “We have potatoes and rabbits,” I said.

  The twins laughed.

  “Our father said that only people with fruit trees will survive.”

  “How does he know that?” Meisis asked.

  “Our father has always known things before the others knew them.”

  Meisis shrugged her shoulders. I quickly said, “We won’t go hungry,” and pushed past them with Meisis. We took big strides up the hill to the pickup.

  By the time I had turned the truck around, the twins had disappeared back into the house. The white curtains billowed in the breeze. Len once told me that the people here always used to leave a window open in spite of the cold weather, because according to superstition, unwanted strangers would stay away if the wind could get into the house.

  35.

  Back at the house, I hid Meisis in the attic.

  “You will not move from this spot,” I said. Meisis wanted to protest, but I shook my head and said, “I won’t be long.”

  I didn’t pay attention to which way I was going. It helped me that the distance between the house and me was becoming greater and greater. My head emptied out. When I heard a birdcall, I stopped. The birdcall came again. I followed it. The dry branches cracked beneath my feet. Sunlight fell between the straight trunks down to the ground. The quarry appeared before me in the forest. I thought that the bird was to be found there and approached slowly. Between the scrapped cars at the bottom of the pit lay Wolf and Levke. Wolf was on his back and sleeping. Levke, on the other hand, had her eyes open. It was she who was imitating the birdcall. In the next moment she sprang up, came at me, brought me down, and held me to the ground, breathing hard.

  “Do you really think I hadn’t noticed you coming ages ago?”

  “I didn’t mean to sneak up.”

  “Oh no?”

  “I hadn’t heard a bird in such a long time.”

  “It wasn’t just any bird. It was a starling. You really don’t know anything. You’re always acting like you know stuff, but you can’t even recognize a starling.”

  Levke could mimic all the birds that used to be in the territory. As a child she had often walked around outside for hours imitating different kinds of birds. The other children would follow her, loudly yelling, all the while hoping that a real bird would be lured out. I had always watched the procession from afar, until I finally built up the courage to join them. I had to be the very last one in line, those were the rules, but at least they let me follow them.

  To my surprise Levke once really managed to trick a bird. It flapped over our group and seemed to respond to Levke’s voice. One of the girls, who was walking closely behind Levke, drew out her slingshot, but Levke turned around, grabbed her by the collar, and punched her multiple times in the face.

  “You won’t do that a second time,” she said. The girl writhed on the ground, her hands pressed over her face. Blood dripped from her chin onto the sand. None of the others moved. Levke started walking again, and we followed her. We left the girl behind.

  A week later the incident was forgotten. The girl carried on walking with the group, but they shouted at me until they’d frightened me away.

  Levke got off of me and sat cross-legged next to Wolf, who was still sleeping. She waved her hand at me.

  “Now, fuck off.”

  I got to my feet. “Is Wolf okay?”

  “Drank too much. He’ll sleep until it gets dark.”

  “And you?”

  Levke twisted her mouth. “I can hold it more.” She reached for her bottle, which had rolled under one of the cars, and took a swig. “Where’d you leave the child?”

  “At the house.”

  “Are you locking it up now or something?”

  “Just because I didn’t bring it with me this once?”

  Wolf murmured something in his sleep and turned onto his stomach. He buried his bloated face in the crook of his arm. Levke picked her teeth.

  “No one wants the child here, you know that. Why can’t you see it?”

  I didn’t respond, then I said, “It’s not doing anything to you.”

  “Up to now nothing good has happened when a stranger shows up here.”

  “You mean when Edith showed up here?”

  “There are other stories. Even before the bridge was blown up.”

  “What kind of stories?”

  “I heard my grandparents talking about it once. People came and alleged that the houses belonged to them. Showed them important-looking papers. Didn’t do them much good. They didn’t get anyone out of course.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “Man, no idea. Disappeared into thin air or just ended up in the river. Who knows?”

  My stomach tightened.

  “They had their reasons for blowing up the bridge,” Levke said.

  “Are you scared of the child?” I asked.

  Levke stood and came right up to me. Her breath smelled strongly of alcohol. “We want everything to stay how it is, why don’t you get that?”

  “I want that too,” I protested.

  “Then start acting like it.”

  She shoved me out of the way. For a moment I was tempted to lunge at her and hit her in the face with both fists, but I knew I was no match for her in a fight. I glowered at her and took my time climbing back up the slope.

  NO ONE CAN ENDURE THE DARK.

  ITS TRACES STAY IN YOUR HEAD.

  WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A PAIN THAT CANNOT BE SHIFTED?

  36.

  I reached the house, but something seemed different.

  The dogs were lying in the hallway; they got up and followed me. The sofa in the living room was empty. Edith had left her coat on the cushions. I called for Meisis but received no reply. The dogs followed me into the kitchen, their claws clicked on the tiles. I called for Meisis again, yet I didn’t hear a sound. I filled a glass with water from the jug. I took a sip; it tasted rusty. The dogs trotted to the window and whined. I looked outside.

  In the garden beneath the cherry tree sat Edith and Meisis on a sheet in the shade.

  I put the glass down and stepped outside through the back door.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. The dogs, who had followed me, lay down next to Edith on the sheet.

  She reached out her hand and ran it through their fur. “Is it forbidden to sit in the garden?”

  Meisis smiled at me. She was wearing a pair of Edith’s silk pajamas.

  “Where’s your T-shirt?” I asked.

  “She can’t wear the same thing every day,” Edith said.

  “That’s why she’s wearing your clothes?”

  “She has to wear something.”

  Edith had shortened the sleeves and trouser legs. Meisis showed me the leftover fabric.

  “Edith said I can have it.”

  “What do you want that for?”

  Meisis lowered her eyes.

  “I might have other things. I’ll look later,” said Edith.

  I nodded, not showing any emotion.

  “Do you want to sit with us?” Meisis asked, trying to shove one of the dogs over.

  I shook my head and went back into the house without another word.

  My body felt heavy. In slow motion I climbed up to the attic, opened the hatch, and went over to the cardboard boxes holding my clothes. I laid them all out on the mattress and lay down.

  37.

  I MOVE THROUGH THE LAND IN CAMOUFLAGE, SO THAT NO ONE CAN FIND ME.

  Even when I was still close to Edith, I was never allowed to wear her
clothes. Instead, she sewed me basic trousers and tops from sheets and bedcovers. I wore them until they fell apart. If they became too short for me, Edith lengthened them with leftover fabric.

  When the other children saw me for the first time, they laughed at me and called me “scarecrow.”

  I asked Len and Gösta for clothes. They immediately understood, no questions asked, and brought me a box over. Inside I found two pairs of loose-fitting pants, three button-downs, two T-shirts, and a sweater. Everything in brown and beige tones. The T-shirts had been washed so many times that their printed slogans could no longer be deciphered. I tried on everything in front of Edith’s wardrobe mirror and tried to walk like the other children in the territory, wide-legged, with a fearless stare.

  Edith saw me for the first time in the new clothes the following day. She was standing with the dogs in the hallway as I came downstairs. The dogs growled and bared their teeth. Edith surveyed me from head to toe. I was wearing a shirt and sweatpants. I had plain sneakers on. I knew that I looked like someone from the territory.

  “Do you like it?” I asked, turning in a circle.

  “I’ve never seen anything so ugly,” she replied. My face remained expressionless.

  I gathered together the things Edith had sewn for me and threw them in a pile in the garden. I was certain that Edith was watching through one of the windows. I turned toward the house and set the clothes on fire. When only smoldering embers remained, I went back inside.

  Edith never found out that I sometimes secretly put on her clothes. I did it only when I was sure she was sleeping.

  That Edith’s clothes were so different from those worn by people in the territory fascinated me. I could spend hours putting them on and taking them off in front of the mirrored wardrobe in her room. While doing so I imagined that the house was different too, the landscape new, the sea no longer far away. I combed my hair with Edith’s brush and read poetry about dunes. When I slipped back into my own things, I felt ashamed and each time swore to myself to never dress up again. But that never lasted long. I stopped only when I found clothes belonging to Nuuel. I was fifteen, maybe sixteen, and tidying the basement. That was when I discovered a cavity behind a hatch; inside were multiple plastic bags.

  I pulled them out and carried them to my room. It was only there that I dared to look inside them. Many pairs of pants made from coarse material. Two thick woolen pullovers. Socks, underwear. A handful of T-shirts, undyed. I knew straightaway that they had belonged to Nuuel.

  They were clothes that other people in the territory wore.

  I carefully pulled on one of the pairs of pants and slipped on a top. The scent was familiar to me, but maybe I had just convinced myself that this was the case. I tried to imagine how my father had moved in them. He seemed not to have been much taller than I was. I had to cuff the legs only once.

  When Edith saw me in them later, she looked at me in disbelief.

  “Take those off right now,” she said.

  “I don’t think Nuuel would mind his daughter wearing his clothes,” I said.

  Edith didn’t respond and left me standing in the hallway.

  She shut herself in the bathroom for weeks. I didn’t see her at all.

  38.

  I was standing at the open window. People were walking across the meadows again. They moved through the heat almost in slow motion. They had dogs with them, but I couldn’t hear any barking. A strange, impenetrable silence lay over the scenery. One by one they disappeared into the forest; only the last person paused and turned in my direction. Even though they were far away, I had the feeling they were looking at me. I didn’t dare move. The person was still too. It seemed like an eternity in which neither of us moved. It was only when a garbled shout was heard that they followed the others into the forest.

  39.

  Kurt was standing motionlessly in our garden, so close to the pool that, if he were to lose his balance, he would fall in. His rabbit fur coat shone wanly in the sunlight. He wasn’t wearing shoes; his bare legs were scratched.

  “What do you want?” I called while walking over to him.

  “Levaii’s sisters have gone missing,” he said with a serious expression.

  I stopped. “What do you mean they’ve gone missing?”

  “They can’t be found. As if swallowed up by the ground.”

  “Since when?”

  “Eggert noticed they were missing yesterday morning. He waited until midday, then he sent Levaii to tell the others. Now they’re all looking, but there’s still not been a trace. I wanted to warn you.”

  “They think the child is behind it?”

  Kurt nodded.

  I groaned. “Meisis has got nothing to do with it.”

  “As long as you can’t prove it, they’ll think something different.”

  “When will they come?” I asked.

  “Not before tomorrow. The search isn’t over yet.”

  He fumbled in his coat and brought out a pack of cigarettes from his inside pocket.

  “Brought these for you.”

  “What do you want for them?”

  “Nothing.”

  I was surprised. “Really?”

  Kurt nodded and pressed the pack into my hand. I took out a cigarette.

  “Do you want one?” I asked.

  “Quit years ago.”

  I lit the cigarette and inhaled the smoke.

  “Should I not have taken in the child?” I asked, after we’d been silently staring at the bottom of the pool for a while.

  “If you hadn’t taken it in, it would be dead already.”

  I tapped the ash from the cigarette. “Whether it’s now or later, what’s the difference?”

  “They haven’t come for the child yet. Who knows, sometimes unforeseen things happen.”

  “Like what?”

  Kurt didn’t say anything.

  “I’m going to Eggert’s,” I said, passing him the burning cigarette and walking toward the house.

  “Do you really think that’s such a good idea?” Kurt called after me.

  “We’ll soon see,” I called back.

  I WON’T SURRENDER, BECAUSE I HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE.

  40.

  As I drove into Eggert’s yard, the sheepdogs started barking. Next to the house, the flag hung at half-mast. I took the cloth bag of Gösta’s onions and got out. In the main house the front door opened, and Levaii came out.

  “What do you want?” she shouted, her hand on the handle.

  “I need clothes for the child. I can give you onions for them,” I said, holding up the cloth bag.

  Levaii’s face looked tearstained. “You better go,” she said.

  I acted oblivious. “Is everything all right?”

  Levaii threw a fearful look over her shoulder.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Eggert appeared behind Levaii. His expression darkened when he saw me.

  “You!” he shouted. “You must be crazy showing your face here!”

  “I don’t understand, what’s going on,” I said.

  “Do you think I’m stupid?”

  The dogs started barking again.

  Levaii tugged on her father’s sleeve. “Maybe she really doesn’t know yet,” she said.

  Eggert climbed down the steps and came hobbling over to me. Sweat shone on his bald head.

  “What’s happened?” I asked.

  “My sisters have disappeared,” Levaii said.

  “And you all are responsible,” Eggert said.

  “What do you mean they’ve disappeared?” I asked.

  “She really hasn’t heard,” Levaii said to her father, who suddenly seemed lost in the large yard.

  “Their cars were found abandoned in different parts of the territory,” she told me. “And their rooms are empty, as if they’d never lived in them.”

  She went and stood beside her father.

  “They’re always walking around the territory,” I said.

&nbs
p; Levaii shook her head. “No one’s seen them.”

  “They’ll show up,” I said.

  “Do you think we’re stupid?” Eggert yelled, pushing me up against the pickup. “Go ask that brat you found in the forest why my daughters aren’t here anymore.”

  “You think Meisis is behind this?”

  “Who else?”

  “But Meisis was with me the whole time,” I lied.

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” he said, tightening his grip so that I could barely breathe.

  “Let her go,” Levaii said, and forced herself between us. Eggert let go of me only reluctantly. I rubbed my throat.

  “For years we lived here in peace, then that brat showed up and now this. How can they not be connected, tell me that?”

  I said nothing. Eggert wanted to come at me again, but Levaii held on to him tightly.

  “This won’t bring them back to us,” she said to him.

  “You have three days to deliver the child to us. Otherwise I’m coming to get it,” he said.

  Levaii pulled him back to the house.

  “Three days,” he repeated.

  I got back into the pickup and rushed to drive out of the yard.

  In the rearview mirror I saw them watching me. The sheepdogs began barking again. Even as I reached our house, I still had the feeling that I could hear them. The landscape lost its color in the twilight.

  Edith was listening out for me. She was standing ready in the hallway, the dogs at her side. Exhausted, I let the door snap shut behind me.

  “What were you thinking, taking off and leaving the child here?”

  “Where’s Meisis?”

  “I put her to bed. She asked after you the whole time. Where were you?”

  “Levaii’s sisters have gone missing,” I said.

  Edith didn’t seem surprised. “So now they have a reason?”

  I stepped toward her. “What do you know about it?” I asked.

  “Me?”

  “Are you hiding something from me?”

  “I saw them walking around.”

  “Levaii’s sisters?”

  She shook her head. “The ones looking for them. I knew something must have happened. They never usually come that close to our house. But I wasn’t sure. I thought that maybe I’d just imagined it. It was hard making them out in the dim light.”