Borderliners

by Peter Høeg

  The gear wheel was divided up from 1 to 24, with twelve small perforations for every hour. In the perforations corresponding to when the bell rang sat a very tiny screw. The clock had, therefore, a built-in accuracy of better than plus or minus a couple of minutes.

  Also on the casing floor was a little screwdriver. I used this to remove the screws that would have closed the circuit, here, ten seconds later.

  Then the door was unlocked and in came Fredhøj. He looked down the room. Then he went over to the window and looked out. Then he walked back to the door.

  He did not look up, he did not see me.

  It was not luck. It was because he would never have dreamed of it, because the thought never occurred to him.

  He could not. Well, he had never looked upward for children. They had always been beneath him. Down in the class, or down in the playground, or down in the hall, or down in the church, always down. He could no longer lift his face toward the ceiling and the light. Not to catch sight of a child.

  I saw him from above. As I had never before seen a teacher. I saw his dandruff. On his scalp and on his jacket.

  He went out and locked the door behind him.

  I moved the screws. For the rest of the day there were ten more. Ten minutes had now disappeared from the school day and from the universe, as though they had never been. Staying up there was not easy, but I forced myself. There was no strength left, though, for climbing down once it was done. I fell the last part of the way and could not get up right away. Then Oscar Humlum sat down beside me.

  * * *

  I had not seen him, but he must have been there all the time.

  “We’re going home soon,” I said.

  He made me aware of my foot. It had swollen up straight away. There was no way of getting it into the shoe, but I got the sock on.

  I told him that I had better see about getting home now, with August and Katarina, and wouldn’t he like to come, too, how about it?

  He shook his head. Maybe it was that apprenticeship on the Swedish ferries, maybe it was something else. He started to leave.

  I called after him, he stopped and turned.

  “There’s something you should know,” I said. “Since we met, ever since that first time when we each sat on a toilet, up against the radiator, ever since then I have never been completely alone, even after you left me. Before that there had never really been anything in my life. But once someone has stood under the cold shower just so that you can stay under the warm one, then you can never really be totally alone again.”

  * * *

  I let myself out into the corridor and was sure that disaster had struck.

  The door of the office was flung open and the secretary came running out. I knew that now I would have to take her into the clock room and get her to keep absolutely quiet for a while, however that was to be done. That was as far as I got in my thinking.

  She did not look at me at all. She cut across the corridor and ran out onto the south staircase, you could hear her clattering down it.

  Katarina walked out of the office behind her.

  We stood there, face-to-face, in the corridor—the worst of all possible places—caught in a little eddy in the stream of time.

  “I told her a car had been smashed,” she said, “one that looked like hers. I said a Taunus had reversed into it, that I had recognized the director of education, then he had driven off. I said the Mascot looked like a concertina, and didn’t she want to go down and check.”

  She had a big manila folder under her arm. There were some dates marked on the outside. The way she was holding the folder I could not see them, but I knew it would have to do with November and December 1969.

  “Once you start lying,” she said, “it just gets easier and easier.”

  * * *

  August had woken up a bit. When we came in he put his finger to his lips. The loudspeaker.

  Very softly I went up to it. It was giving off sounds, a crackling that rose and fell, there was no way of telling whether they were looking for us, or what was the matter—only that something was going on.

  When I came back, Katarina was standing looking at the filing cabinet.

  “Can it be opened?” she said.

  My first reaction was to deny this, but I opened it anyway.

  She found our files. Then she counted the others.

  “Sixty,” she said. “They’re testing sixty pupils. What for?”

  August said, “I’m cold.”

  * * *

  We shared out what clothes we had. Katarina gave him boots and tights, which left her in a dress and sweater and with bare legs. She got my shoes, which I could not use anyway because of my foot, which had got bigger. August put on his undershirt and I gave him my sweater.

  Plaintive voices were now ascending to us from the depths. Katarina went over to the window. “Klastersen has had our class in the main hall,” she said.

  * * *

  The main hall was used for ball games. A different time applied there. To get the full physical benefit of the PE classes, the breaks on either side were suspended, to allow for showers and changing. So there was no bell in the main hall. Klastersen controlled the periods with a stopwatch. The showers and changing rooms were in the main building, which was locked during classes, to prevent strangers from the outside from getting in and committing acts of vandalism or theft. What had happened now was that Klastersen had sent the pupils over to shower and they had found the main building locked, because the bell had not rung as it should, and so the teacher on playground duty had not unlocked the door. Now they were hanging about in the snow, in shorts and sneakers.

  Then Biehl spoke over the loudspeaker.

  “Andersen,” he said, “report to the office.”

  It was the first time ever that anyone had been summoned over the loudspeaker.

  “He’s off duty,” said Katarina, “Andersen’s off duty.”

  She did not have her timetable with her, but still she knew, she must have memorized it.

  “They want him to open the door to the bell,” I said.

  “Why don’t they do it themselves?”

  “They can’t,” I said. “I snapped off the key, the end of the key’s stuck in the lock.”

  At that moment the bell rang.

  * * *

  Just as it sounded, there was a pause. Then silence. It was almost absolute.

  It should not have been there, there should have been voices and people in the corridor, but instead the school now seemed dead. I could tell from the others’ faces that they did not understand it.

  “It’s the teachers,” I said, “they’re confused. The bell’s ten minutes late in going off. They don’t know whether it’s rung for a class or a break, and no one’s had recess. Right now they don’t know what they’re supposed to do. It will only take a moment, then people will come out into the corridors.”

  “There’s something else, too,” said August.

  He had gotten to his feet, the sweater came down to his knees.

  “They don’t dare let people downstairs. They know the kind of racket there is in the playground. During periods it’s like you’re dead, but the playground’s jumping. Haven’t you noticed the way the teacher on playground duty keeps to the edge? It only works at all because they have the bell. It’s like a knife, the only thing that can cut through. Without it they would never get people back up. Now they don’t know whether it’s working. They don’t dare send people down.”

  He was not steady on his feet, especially not in Katarina’s boots. But I had noticed before that once he got started—on drawing or something—he did not stop until he ran up against something solid.

  “Right now they’re sitting at their desks, not letting on. But everyone knows there’s something wrong, the pressure in the classroom is rising and rising. Then you get an idea. You remember that there’s only one teacher, but there are twenty of you, no one stands a chance against twenty, not even with the lower grad
es, if they set their minds to it. So you look around and then your imagination lends a hand. Everyone has a pencil sharpener—it’s compulsory, isn’t it—so you work the blade free, it may be small but it’s like a razor blade, then you get up and walk over to the teacher’s desk, and it’s over, a moment more and he’s lying there and then you pelt out into freedom…”

  “Yeah,” said Katarina, “with straps on your arms and legs, two drips, and a rubber tube up your nose.”

  He had been far away, but he came down like a shot and was at her side in a single movement.

  “So what was that about your father and mother, girl?” he said.

  I had managed to get between them. His eyes were fixed on me. He, who rarely looked at anyone.

  Under his skin another person had taken over, danger threatened.

  Even so, I could not strike—I could not strike a child, come what may.

  I stuck my left hand out toward him, with the fingers that were taped together. I did not try to protect myself.

  “Why don’t you just break them in another place,” I said.

  He checked himself and then seized up. He did not look at the hand.

  “It wasn’t me,” he said. “What’re we waiting for, what happens next?”

  At that moment Biehl’s voice came over the loudspeaker once again.

  * * *

  “The time is now 1:00 p.m.,” he said. “All classes will go to the playground immediately. There will be recess until 1:20 p.m.”

  Katarina stood there, listening, leaning toward the sound.

  “He’s scared,” she said.

  She had spoken right beside the loudspeaker, I put a hand over her mouth.

  The voice came again, very clear, as though he was right beside us.

  “Will all teachers, apart from those on playground duty, please report to the staff room immediately.”

  Katarina removed my hand.

  “It was something you said,” she said. “‘Time is something you have to hold on to.’ It’s the pauses they’re scared of.”

  We were still standing right beside the loudspeakers, we should not have spoken.

  “He’s not scared,” I said. “He’s the one who talked about the eloquent pauses.”

  “We’re not talking about them. This is different. These pauses are out of control. Time and planning are falling apart.”

  Then Biehl’s voice came again, but he did not get the chance to finish.

  “To all classes. Anyone having seen, or seeing, Peter from Primary Seven, August Joon—”

  He got no further. August struck just once, but the blow went through the fabric and crushed the grille behind. Then he grabbed the casing and butted it—shattering the membrane and pulling the loudspeaker loose. Then I got to him and led him away. He was bleeding, the loudspeaker dangled by its wires, we had been cut off.

  * * *

  Now we could hear the building. Distant voices, stairs vibrating. We stood absolutely still, listening to this. We looked at Katarina.

  Up until this point it had been her plan. This was as far as we had gotten in the storehouse.

  “Now what?” said August.

  Of course, in a way, we had been depending on her.

  She did not answer him. She just stood there, straight-backed, looking at us. And then I realized that she had no answer.

  “I know what you thought,” said August. “You thought something would probably turn up.”

  I had a grip on him, but he was calm. It was like he had given up.

  “You thought, well … there’s always the family. I bet you have an uncle in some ministry or other who can just come and have a word with Biehl, am I right? And after this school there’ll be another, the one your cousins go to—Busse’s or Classen’s. But, d’you wanna know something? For us, for me, and for Daft Peter, for us there’s…”

  At first he could not get it out. It filled his body and made it seize up, made it hard as stone. Then it relaxed, and he said it.

  “For us there’s nothing,” he said. “Nothing but a black hole.”

  Her expression did not change. Her eyes seemed to darken, become almost black. Then the tears began to flow. No change in her face, just tears streaming from the dark hollows of her eyes.

  The time had come for me to take charge, to protect them.

  “We’re going home,” I said.

  * * *

  We got ready to leave. She was gathering up the papers. She noticed at once.

  “Where’s August’s file?” she said.

  “I’ve put it back,” I said.

  It was impossible to explain it to her. For her it was so important to know. You would never be able to make her understand that sometimes it may be more of a help not to know.

  She said nothing. Maybe she had understood after all.

  We listened at the door until the last of the teachers had let themselves in to the corridor, then we descended by the south staircase. We met no one. The playground, too, was deserted. There was a risk that we would be spotted from Andersen’s house. But luck was on our side. We got all the way along the main building and the main hall and out into the grounds without being challenged.

  It had been snowing, and now the fog had come down. We walked into the fog and were gone.

  FOURTEEN

  August kept falling down. We held on to him, one on either side. My socks were no use against the snow, but when I stopped feeling my feet, I did not feel the bad foot—the one that had gotten bigger—either.

  We could see nothing but the whiteness. I lost my bearings a couple of times, and then Humlum showed himself—just a glimpse—to let us know we were on the right track.

  From the very beginning it had been written that it would be thus. There would be a journey through the wilderness, but it would be easier to bear because those you hold dear, the woman and the child, are by your side. At last you would reach the promised land.

  Out of the fog it rose. The sign said STOREHOUSE, but we saw now that this had always been to keep people away. We had always been meant to find our way to this place.

  * * *

  Everything was as Katarina and I had left it.

  I bolted the door and arranged boxes around the table, to make it homey. The cold was a problem. I thought of lighting a fire, but there was no flue and they would have been able to see the light, and there were cans of gasoline for the lawn mowers all over the place. But in one of the cabinets I found some old copies of World of Nature. We stuffed these into August’s undershirt and down into his tights. He had got worse, but that would soon pass now that we were able to care for him.

  We sat around the table. They were both tired and kept nodding off. Soon they were asleep.

  * * *

  I kept watch over them. I had brought them here, they were my responsibility now. August was propped up in the corner, Katarina had rested her head on the table. I could hear their breathing: August’s was rapid, hers was slower. I watched over them—the woman and the child—that no evil should befall them.

  Then I saw Oscar Humlum, sort of in the background.

  “Go to sleep,” he said, “I’ll keep watch.”

  So I dozed for a bit, but something woke me. Oscar was sitting looking at me.

  “It’s the hunger,” he said, “that’s why you can’t sleep. It comes in waves. When it comes you have to feel it. Don’t think about anything else, or about food, but look upon it with the light of awareness.”

  I tried and the hunger came and then departed from me.

  “Where did you learn that?” I said. “You didn’t know about it back then.”

  “I’m bigger now, though,” he said, “that’s the chance that comes with the passage of time and growing up. The pain doesn’t get any less. But you become better at dealing with it.”

  I could see now that he did look older, and more peaceful.

  “You can stay here, with us,” I said, “always. No one’s ever going to expel anyone again.”r />
  He did not answer, he just motioned to me to go to sleep.

  * * *

  When I awoke, August had come around. He was sitting reading the applications and the files. Katarina had left them on the table. He was restless.

  He wanted me to take the papers, I refused, he held them out to Katarina.

  “I read them while you were sleeping,” she said.

  He started to read aloud.

  “‘To the Department for Primary and Lower-Secondary Education. Biehl’s Academy hereby requests the permission of the department to proceed with the project, for which provisional plans were submitted to the department at the meeting on November 11, 1969, and of which fuller details are appended.’”

  He lowered the paper.

  “This is the proof,” he said.

  He leafed through the pile, picking out papers at random. When he read, it was slowly and with difficulty, his voice seemed to be fumbling around among the words.

  “‘As headmaster of Biehl’s Academy I take the liberty of applying both for the Ministry of Education’s approval of the experimental project more fully detailed in the enclosed letter, and for a grant from the ministry’s appropriations fund for experimental studies, to cover the costs of implementing the project.’

  “It’s a conspiracy,” he said. “They’ve got it all worked out. They’ve rounded people up. Now they’re to be destroyed.”

  “Integrated,” said Katarina. “They want to take children from the reform schools and reformatories and put them back into ordinary schools. Integration. That’s the plan.”

  Oscar signaled to me, then I heard it. Andersen’s Rottweiler. But he gave me a reassuring wave.

  August’s voice went on and on, he was lost in the papers now. “‘… Following consultation with educational and psychological experts, additional application is hereby made for the defraying, by the Charity Schools Foundation, of those costs incurred in the appointment of an inspector for Biehl’s Academy, inasmuch as—’”

  He stopped.

  “That’s Flakkedam,” he said. “The experiment is supposed to start here. And then it’s to spread. Why is it secret? It says here it has to be kept secret. What is this?”