Children of God

by Lars Petter Sveen

  Everything’s black, and I try to find the door without waking up Andrew or Mother. It’s as if I’d been put in a sack and dropped down to the bottom of the lake. Father’s told me that they used to do that, in the old days. They’d take all the children who weren’t any use, put them in a sack full of stones, row them out onto the lake, and throw the sack into the water. That’s why we don’t have a boat, he says, it’s got nothing to do with being rich or poor. You don’t know what the fish in the depths out there have been eating.

  When I get outside, it’s brighter. It’s not light, it’s not black, it’s just night. I thought it would be quiet. I’ve heard the night before, I’ve been out with Father, drawing in the nets. But that was down by the lake. It’s different here. There are sounds everywhere.

  Mother won’t say anything about Father. She has trouble walking on her feet, so recently I’ve been helping her back and forth to the spring. I tell her that I can fetch water myself, without her, but she won’t listen to me. “It’s for your brother,” she says, “for Andrew’s sake, so he’ll think that everything’s the way it should be.”

  I have to get Father back. I know what to say. Mother’s ill, Andrew and I are hungry, we don’t have any food. And if he doesn’t already know, I can tell him about the soldiers, that I’ve seen them, that they were heading back.

  I know the way by heart, how the path twists and turns up the mountainside. When I was younger, I went up there once to help bring in the sheep. We ran after them, shouting and whooping. I asked Father why we didn’t have sheep of our own. He said that all we had was the water, and he seemed neither sad nor happy as he said it. It seemed that was just the way things were. Sheep are sheep, and water is water.

  I fall over several times, but I don’t get hurt. No cuts or gashes, I’m all in one piece. Mother always tells me to be careful. If Andrew or I get cut, even a little bit, the cut might grow and drain us altogether.

  I walk and walk, feeling the ground rise up beneath me. I’m on my way up now. My hands help me to find the way. The moon’s shining, so I can see where I’m going.

  When the path starts to level off, I can hear animals. I stop and wave the stick I’m carrying. If they should come, I’ll be able to see them in the moonlight. The advantage isn’t theirs. Father’s always told me that. Whatever you can see doesn’t have the advantage. That’s how we catch the fish in the shallows.

  I keep walking on, and I see peculiar, large trees sticking up from the ground where the grass grows. On the flats, before the mountain rises again, woods have risen up now that weren’t there before. I stand in the moonlight, looking at the woods. That’s where all the animals are. They snarl and howl, letting out all kinds of sounds. They stand up on two legs, trying to climb up the strange trees. I feel myself holding on to the stick so tightly that my fingers hurt. I can’t go any farther. This is the only way I know, over the flats that have now turned into woods with wild animals. I don’t want to go back: Mother will realize what I’ve done and will lock me up. I’m not going back without Father.

  Morning comes. I’ve been sitting there, watching the light that began as a small, red strip, and that became a whole day rising up above me. The wild animals are quiet now. I climb down alongside the rock where I’ve been sitting, and I start walking toward the unfamiliar woods. I dreamed of the woods, and they called to me.

  As I approach now, I can see stakes and planks thrust down into the ground, splintered, red, damp. There’s a stench. Some of the animals snarl. I hear something buzzing, humming away, and there are people hovering everywhere, I recognize their faces, the buzzing, I know who they are. None of them are saying anything, but there’s that buzzing. Dogs and hyenas have ripped off bones for themselves, one of the poles is bent, there’s just a torn-off hand hanging there, buzzing. I know who they are. I walk on, walking through the buzzing, I’m right among them. They’re a forest. Fingers, feet, noses, nails. Hands, hair. The birds squawk, I’ve never seen birds like them, I’ve never heard such sounds. They’re eating ears, eyes, cheeks, and lips. Some of them fly above me, and I ask them if any of them know where my father is.

  “Father, father,” they squawk. “Who’s your father?”

  I tell them who my father is. Do they know where he is?

  “Father, father,” they squawk. “Follow us, follow us,” and I follow the birds. They show me the way through the woods. A face blinks its eyes at me, some fingers move.

  “Follow us, follow us,” the birds squawk. And there’s my father. He’s hanging far, far up.

  I shout out to him: “Father, father.”

  He smiles. “Simon, my boy,” he says. “I knew you’d come. Listen, the pole they’ve fixed me to isn’t dug into the ground properly. Can you see it? Just give the wood a bit of a shove, and be careful not to get splinters in your hands.”

  So I push, leaning my whole body against the pole, which starts to tip over, and then it falls to the ground with a crash. I go over to my father, who’s still smiling at me.

  “Thank you, Simon,” he says. “Thank you for coming to get me. Take my hand, take hold of it, that’s right, and then pull, come on. Yes, that’s right, that’s it. Then the other hand, the same again. Give it a really good pull, pull it there, that’s it, yes, come on, there we go. Then there’s just my feet left. You see they’ve been fixed with the same nail, so maybe you think it’ll be easier. But no, my lad, it’s worse, because the nail’s hammered in harder, and we’ve got to pull it out through two, not one, but two bones! Hit it, son, who’d have thought it? But come on, hold on, get that stick of yours, that was smart of you, that’s my Simon, yes, always ready with the right tools. That’s it, come on, there, now they’re free. But the nail’s still stuck in my feet, it just came free from the wood. I’ll lift my feet up like this and put them on this stone here, and then you hit the other side of the nail. Just like you do when you’re going to reuse a nail. That’s right, you learned it from me, didn’t you, you can tell your mother that, that you learned from your father. Now, take hold of me, help me up. We’d better get home so your mother won’t be too afraid, she’s always been so nervous. We’d better get down from this mountain, we don’t belong in the mountains, my lad. I’ve told you that before, do you remember when we went along to help bring in the sheep? You liked it, I remember how much you liked it and asked if we could get sheep. But I tell you, son, we don’t belong in the mountains, I was wrong, I was. An old man spoke to me, he told me he was blind, and yet he saw many things. He said he was what stayed in the shadows while the light fell somewhere else. He said I should try, said that I belonged in the mountains. I had to do what he said, I had to see if there was something here for us, something that would set us free, but he’d sent me off on the wrong track. All we have is the water, I can see that now, the water’s all we have. Don’t let anybody fool you, my son, there are people who’ll tell you all sorts of stories just to trick you. They start sweet and then, before you know it, they leave you with a bitter and bad taste. If anybody like that comes to you, tell them to go, be true to the Lord, follow the way he’s shown you. Stay by the water, then nobody can touch you. Nobody can touch us, only God can pass judgment over us. Only God leads the way, and he’s given us the water.”

  10 FOUND AND LOST

  Ruth found her little sister on the floor, whimpering, with one hand over her ear. She took it as a sign that things had finished with Aaron, that a new era would begin now. It would just be the two of them again.

  Anna tried to hold back her tears as Ruth leaned over her, but her tears came pouring, and she could not look at her sister.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Ruth. “Just cry. It’ll stop. Everything stops, and then we start again.”

  One of Anna’s ears had been battered. It looked red and tender, twisted and stuck to her hair. Her face didn’t look too bad, just one eye was swollen up and closed, and the skin on one cheek had been grazed. It was only when Ruth undressed Anna that she became
worried. Anna’s neck was swollen, and she breathed heavily and moaned when she moved. There were black, blue, and yellow marks all up her back and down her sides. Ruth felt her, trying to see if there was anything loose, anything that wasn’t as it should be. But she couldn’t find anything and told Anna to lie still.

  “I’m going to get help,” said Ruth. “I’ll find somebody who can see to you better than I can.”

  “I don’t need it,” Anna said softly. “Don’t go, I don’t need any more help, I need you.”

  “It’s fine, Anna,” said Ruth. “Just lie down here. Aaron’s not coming back. He’s finished with you. It was Aaron, wasn’t it?”

  Anna nodded. She looked at Ruth, and then at the door. A chill wind blew straight through the back alley to them. Some birds landed on the ground outside, and Ruth bent down to Anna again and kissed her on the cheek.

  “It’s all right, I’m here with you,” said Ruth.

  Anna got better, but nothing could be done about her ear. Ruth noticed that Anna always covered it up, and she thought that whichever man would lay his hand gently on that ear must love her little sister. Anna could never deal with the way men left her. It was as if she always had to be destroyed, as if the world had come to an end, every time she was abandoned. Anna was hurt, beaten, smashed to pieces. Only to get back up again and start something new with a new man. How many times could she stand it?

  Ruth, on the other hand, was much more used to the ways of the world. “I know the score, and when you know that, it’s not so easy to fall and get hurt,” she used to tell the men who came to her. She wanted to teach this to her sister, but Anna wouldn’t listen. It was as if she were waiting for someone, for somebody or other who would come and touch her like nobody had touched her before. Ruth shook her head when Anna spoke about these beliefs and waiting and being touched. How could you make brothers or sisters listen to you, how could you get them to see what’s best for them? Ruth would do anything so that her little sister could live a good life.

  When they talked, Ruth always stressed that Anna should look for love in a man who respected her. No more than that.

  “No more than that?” said Anna.

  “It means a lot,” said Ruth, “a man who respects you and won’t hurt you. A man who’s with you, who comes back, time after time. A man who stays, who gives you children, who builds a house, who prays to the Lord with you.”

  “That is a lot,” said Anna.

  “It’s no more than other people have around here,” said Ruth, “but it’s a lot more than we’ve had. You can’t go around thinking that any man who comes to you is a good man. The ones who come to us have lost their way, and all they want is to think, just for a short while, that they’ve found the way home.”

  Ruth never told Anna that she thought that the two of them had also lost their way. She was afraid that her little sister wouldn’t be able to stand living like that, wandering about aimlessly. If there was anything Ruth could do as a big sister, it was to nurture and maintain Anna’s belief that somebody would come. The belief that the two sisters were the constant, and that there was somebody out there searching for someone like them.

  When Ruth found Anna with her ear battered, lying on the ground in her own home, she began stitching up what had been torn apart. She took care of her little sister, sat by her side in the evening and washed her in the morning. She told her stories she remembered from when they were small. She said things that were meant to help, to do good, such as:

  “It’s over now, something new and better can begin.”

  “Maybe it was for the best, he was bad, and now he’s no longer here with you.”

  “God is with us, he can see us, he won’t let us be destroyed.”

  “I’m your big sister, I’ll look after you, our love is strong, love that will save you.”

  “You’ll be healed soon, and everybody will see how beautiful you are.”

  “Somebody else will come along, somebody good.”

  “Everything will grow, and soon you’ll have forgotten who he was and what he did.”

  Ruth really thought that this would be a turning point. She didn’t want to see the cuts and the swelling and the marks as traces of evil. No, Ruth thought that this time, finally, they meant liberation. Being torn apart, destroyed, only to get up again and be put back together for a new life. Anna wanted to listen to Ruth, letting her words lead her through the world and into the arms of a good man.

  But the little sister didn’t do as her big sister did.

  Only a short time passed before Anna met a man called Reuben. He frightened Ruth with his stature and his pale, rough hands. The way he ignored Ruth, as if she weren’t part of Anna’s family, not her sister, nothing but dead to him. One time she came to see to Anna, Reuben was sitting on a stool at the door, drinking from a small pitcher. She stopped, but he didn’t say anything to her; he just lifted the pitcher up to his lips and stared right past her.

  “Is Anna here?” she asked.

  He shook his head, turned around on his stool, and looked into the house behind him.

  “Where is she?” said Ruth.

  “Big sister,” he said.

  She was about to say something, but he waved her away, telling her to go.

  “She’s just gone for a walk,” he said. “I’m waiting for her.”

  Ruth didn’t want to wait there with him. Anna might have gone to the marketplace, or to the well, maybe she was there.

  “I like her,” Reuben said suddenly. “Don’t think you can do anything about it.”

  “I just want you to be good to Anna,” said Ruth.

  “Good,” he said. “I’ll be good.” He mumbled something, and then abruptly got up. Ruth was startled and stepped back. But he didn’t care about her; he just stood there, trying to get his balance, before turning around and going inside the house.

  It was around that time that Ruth met a man she thought would be hers. It wasn’t like all the other times. This time was different. He’d come to her at the market and asked whether she’d help him to keep an eye on some fruit and olive oil he was selling. To thank her for her help, he gave her figs and olives and said that she could come back the next day if she needed work. After a few days like that, he told her that he was living there in Sychar, but only for a short while. Soon he’d be going back to Gaza, where he came from. He asked her to join him, to leave everything and start a new life there. Ruth didn’t tell this man that she wanted to take her sister with her. And she didn’t tell Anna about her new love and his wishes. Ruth couldn’t bring herself to tell this man that she wanted to take her sister with her. But neither could she see how she could explain all this to Anna.

  It was a strange time, and Ruth was constantly torn between the happiness she’d found and the difficult situation she’d ended up in. She told herself that she had to go to Anna and tell her what was going to happen, tell her that she was going to leave, that they’d be parted from each other. That her big sister had been found.

  Still, Ruth couldn’t bring herself to go to her. She didn’t want to meet Reuben again either. He reminded her of men she’d been with too. The sort of men who could hit you on the face just as suddenly as they might scratch at their hair. But Anna was still in one piece anyway, Ruth thought, and she was still surprised at that, as the first times she’d met Reuben, she didn’t think he had it in him to show feelings or love. But she gradually came to think that there was something delicate about the way he spoke about Anna, something reassuring about the way he hung around her house. After what Aaron had done to her little sister, Ruth was happy, in a way, that Reuben was there to look after her.

  But Ruth was wrong, and when she realized it, she cursed herself and her own cowardly, failed dreams.

  It happened when she least expected it, on a day nobody would remember. The sky was gray, the wind was blowing, sudden gusts making people rub their eyes or spit and cough. You could smell the rain, and her man was nowhere to be found. Ruth
returned to an empty house, with only a few things left. A chipped dish, a frayed rug with holes in it, a pair of slippers that were as stiff and hard as planks of wood. Ruth immediately realized what had happened. She realized that he’d gone, she knew that she’d been abandoned. She didn’t go about asking questions or searching for answers, she wouldn’t let questions slip into her mind. That’s the way of the world.

  She went to the well. The damp smell of the water and the hint of scent from the flowers had been blown away. There was no birdsong to be heard, only a soft rustle of bushes and twigs and something beating, going thump, thump, thump in her ears, inside her chest, down inside her stomach. Ruth got up and walked slowly back to the town. She wanted to see Anna, she wanted to hold her sister. The words Ruth said, everything she came up with to keep Anna on the straight and narrow, it all had to be said now. She had to say it loud and clear, so that everything would be fixed and cling to it. So her world would again be a place to belong, a place to be tied to.

  But when she arrived at Anna’s house, it was empty. There were small, dark stains on the floor. Ruth knew what it was even before she brushed her fingers over it and smelled it.

  “God,” she said, “dear God, don’t let him take my sister.”

  Ruth stopped some children who were running past, knocked on neighbors’ doors, asking them if they’d seen anything, if they’d heard anything. Eventually, a woman who lived nearby said that Reuben had come to ask for help. He was carrying Anna, her leg was broken, and the bone was sticking out. Ruth wanted to know where they were going, where they’d gone.

  “I don’t know,” said the woman. “I told them to go to the old man who lives over on the flats toward Shechem. He’s helped us before.”

  Ruth asked where that was, thanked the woman, and went off straightaway. She didn’t know what to think. Reuben had saved Anna, he’d carried her alone to get help. But what had happened? Had Aaron come back? Had Anna fallen and hurt herself? Or was it Reuben, who’d then regretted it and wanted to make everything right again?