The Last Execution

by Jesper Wung-Sung

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  Everyone wanted to attend that execution; that day was a day of celebration.

  —Hans Christian Andersen, in his diary

  It is the night before the boy is to be executed on Gallows Hill. He is sentenced to death on charges of arson and the murder of the sheriff’s little son with a stone.

  It is cold, damp, and black as the bottom of a well in the prison cell, but the boy is not alone. The boy can feel it. There, against the opposite wall. It squats down low and keeps a close eye on the boy. Lifts a hand, and points a finger at him. Laughs at him.

  Still in a squatting posture, its tail sticking out like a wooden stake, Satan lurches forward. The boy has not slept a wink, but now he pretends to do so. He remains lying still, even though he can hear the straw being shoved across the floor, then suddenly stop. The boy is so scared he cannot breathe, yet he waits, till a warm stench of rotten flesh hangs just before his nose.

  Then the boy strikes. He cannot see a thing, but he swings his arm with all his might. And he hits something. Hard. He hears what must be the sound of a nose being crushed. Feels the blow reverberate up his arm, over his shoulder, and into his chest, before his opponent disappears; it retreats with what can no longer be called a nose.

  It is gone.

  But nothing has changed. It is the night before the boy is to be executed on Gallows Hill.

  It is before dawn on the day the boy is to be executed on Gallows Hill. The first rays of light slowly draw away the dark of night. The dog, which is lying on the ground below the cell window in the February chill, emits a short bark; not so loud that you’d be inclined to chase it down the road on its three legs, but loud enough for the boy to hear it.

  The boy must have slept after all, for he has dreamt. He has dreamt of a wide river bathed in light. The boy was driven down the river on a raft. Lying with one hand tucked under his head, he made no attempt to steer, just drifted along with the current, while his eyes followed the movements of plants and animals, colorful birds, trees with their roots hanging in the water, a rock lizard’s unbelievably long tongue. This he watched with half-closed eyes—how a turtle climbed up onto the raft to sun itself at the tips of his bare toes. His brown knees pointed straight up into the sky. Now and then he dozed off.

  Now the boy is awake. He knows very well which river it was. The one with all the s’s: Mississippi. In America. His father’s America.

  Mississippi. Exactly how it should be. Long and meandering. And for every s on the river, a new adventure. A new opportunity.

  It could be his.

  Or everything—including all the rest—could be just a dream.

  The boy thinks about his father’s large blue-red hands. His gaze under the shade of his cap. His voice, in the evenings, in the hills beyond the town, as he lay in a shed or under a bush, talking about America.

  “Oh come on, tell me, Dad.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Ooh, yes. You’ve done it so many times.”

  “Quite right.”

  “Come on!”

  “No, Niels. Not now.”

  His father tugged gently on his elbow to prevent him from sitting up.

  “Come on! Tell me about the bison! How big they are!”

  “Did I talk about bison?”

  “You know very well that you did! When that big gray bull chased after me. You said it would be no match for the bison. That it would’ve fled like a chicken!”

  “Did I promise that?”

  “Da-ad!”

  His father drew the blanket over him.

  “Okay. But this is a bedtime story.”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  His father’s cough disappeared as he told the story. About their plan. About how they would sail over there, together. The bison, the birds, and the prairies they would see. How they would find a piece of land that was theirs. How the sun would shine, and the rain would fall. How it would all work out. How they would be farmers.

  And then the boy couldn’t help adding to the dream, till he fell asleep. Later, after he meets the girl, he adds more still, that she is with them in America: When he comes home in the evenings after working the fields, she stands in the doorway of the hut with her long, blond hair. She waves. He waves back. In the hut his father sits in a rocking chair by the fire.

  But now the boy catches sight of something strange in the near dark. It is resting on his right thigh. Some time passes before he realizes that it’s his hand. The hand is swollen in hues of yellowish blue and red, as though it were a large turnip. He can neither open nor close the hand. It is not a dream. It is as real as the fly that crawls over the hand.

  “It’s your hand, Niels,” the boy says.

  He was just a small boy when they walked past a workhouse, but he will never forget it. His father dragged him along, as if he were a dumb household pet; they couldn’t pass by fast enough. This just made the boy more curious. He craned his neck to stare. A few shapes sat in the yard weaving straw mats, or arranging some lines of rope. They didn’t look up. But when they were almost out of sight, a big man raised his head, and the boy looked into those dark eye-pits, like two black coins. He will never forget that horrid, sucked-in feeling of being able to see right through them.

  Even when they were long past the yard and he could barely make out the workhouse over his shoulder, his father continued to hurry him along. He pulled so hard on his arm that the boy nearly stumbled.

  The chimney of the workhouse had long since disappeared when his father finally slowed down and came to a halt.

  “It’s like being buried alive,” he said.

  Now he can feel them. His father’s fingers gripping his shoulder. When he talked about the workhouse. How his whole arm shook, as if he had a fever.

  The boy stares at the fly. He cannot feel it moving across his hand.

  The hand that set fire to Gorm Pedersen’s barn. The hand that threw the stone that made a hole in the blond head of the sheriff’s little son.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

  It is close to dawn, just ten hours till the boy is to be executed on Gallows Hill, and the master baker has baked his bread.

  He delights in standing there, in the bakery door, with the chill to his chest and the warmth at his back. He delights in seeing the sun leaven and redden out there. It fills him with a dual pleasure: The sun is such a strong and powerful oven that its might cannot be conceived by the human mind, and still he feels that this morning, he’s beat it to the post again. It is so big, he is so small, and still he has crossed the line first! This is his delight.

  Suddenly he’s consumed with fear. He falters. Recalculates. At any rate, he, the master baker, will abide. Like the first man on the field. A loyal soldier.

  “If only we had the right to sell our bread for a bread’s price!” he sputters between clenched teeth.

  The price of rye has risen. The same goes for wheat. But can one charge more for a loaf of bread? No! The Bakers’ Guild has tried. The town council—led by the mayor—refuses to budge. Same price. To make allowance for those who can’t afford it: the so-called poor. Despite the fact that even fuel has become dearer!

  Fuel . . . perhaps this day will prove to be a good bread day after all! He thinks about the beheading of the boy on Gallows Hill; that wastrel, that youn
g arsonist and child murderer.

  The master baker summons his apprentice. When the lad arrives, he explains how much bread he should take along and exactly where he should stand on Gallows Hill so he can sell as much of it as possible. The lad nods sleepily. This prompts a grunt from the master baker. It disgusts him that the lad always looks as if he’s just woken up.

  “If you don’t learn to put in an honest day’s work,” he says, “I’ll have to sell the bread atop Gallows Hill myself—at your beheading!”

  This remark seizes the boy with fear. The master baker is well pleased. And the boy knuckles down to work.

  The master baker is standing in his doorway again, thinking. This thing about the bread prices: It’s misguided. The proof is in the lad to be executed today.

  One keeps the prices down to accommodate the likes of him. What on earth for? One could ask oneself: If he hadn’t had the means to buy the bread—so what? He might have starved to death. Exactly—died his death. The same result as today. Only much, much cheaper. First we waste money by filling his belly with cheap bread, and then we waste money by chopping off his head!

  All this talk about children. Where does it all come from, anyway? From overseas? But children don’t even count. They’re like unmixed ingredients: no substance for a living wage. Children are to be kneaded, formed, and baked. Only then can they be called people. Everything else is misguided nonsense. As if one would offer a client a lump of dough when he requests a loaf of bread. He who sees a child sees nothing. Isn’t that the way it is? It’s not like anyone would miss him. Is it really so bad just to say it out loud? What is such a sorry little waif compared with the life-giving rays of the sun?

  But then the master baker is interrupted: The first client of the day is a pale girl asking for flour. So she can bake her own bread. He snorts loudly. He may as well donate the bakery to poor folk like her. Then he would be the beggar who could come in and buy bread for free! And flour!

  “You’re going to be the death of me!” he cries.

  The girl looks up warily, then drops her head.

  “It’s my fault,” she answers, hugging the flour to her chest.

  The master baker is contrite.

  “It wasn’t meant like that,” he mumbles.

  He stares after the girl, who hurries off—her frail body, the blond hair falling down around the thin neck.

  Just one swing. No more, no less to put an end to that frail shape.

  It’s actually rather strange: You’d think that folk would lose their appetite from seeing a head being severed from its body. But no, not at all. Rather the opposite. It’s as though everyone becomes insatiably hungry, feels the need to glut themselves with all sorts of bread. But especially the sweet kind, the dear kind. Raisin bread. Ooh yes, the lad should mind to take plenty of raisin bread up to Gallows Hill.

  The master baker sees the lad stifle a yawn, but doesn’t get upset. He’s in good spirits now. When he thinks about it, there are three things that go together very nicely: sunrise, freshly baked bread, and the soft sound of God’s big, righteous ax swinging through the air.

  One town’s many mouths, a chorus fair,

  Whilst a head that still doth stare

  Rolls to the ground

  Without a sound.

  There are nine hours till the boy is to be executed on Gallows Hill when the first tendrils of sunlight spread over the ceiling of the cell like a gray-white lake.

  The boy is sitting still, looking at it.

  He thinks about the time he sat with his father on the hilltop and gazed over it all: fields, forests, lakes, and meadows, and then, the farms. There they lay, spread over the landscape, big and small, as if it were just a game, and each farm was like a card lying facedown on the earth, and when you flipped a card over, the color or number would decide whether you went to bed hungry or not. In the foreground, small people and cows were moving about; in the distance, just the smoke from a chimney top could be seen. But which card should you choose? Which one of those farms would let a wandering father and son work for a meal and a night in a shed?

  Noises and gruff little groans came from his father as he tried to find the right posture for his back, but that day the boy barely registered a sound. He was consumed by something else. It was a miracle: He had caught sight of his mother. Although the distance was too great to see her expression, the long black hair and movements were hers. No doubt about it. She was quick yet elegant, worked with haste but twirled around on her toes like a ballet dancer. The boy followed her movements without batting an eye. His heart hammered in his chest; but it would hammer even louder the moment he reached the farm, where he’d seen her, the moment he stepped into the yard and she looked up. When he could see how beautiful she was. But perhaps she’d frown. Perhaps she would purse her lips and say: “We don’t want beggars here!” But then her mouth and face would freeze. She’d look and look and look at him, with big round eyes. “Is that . . . is that you, Niels?” He’d nod, and she’d hold him tight; he’d put his arms around her, too. He would feel she was crying. “My dear boy, I have thought of you every day—a thousand times a day! You are the first thing I see before me in the morning, and the last thing I see before I close my eyes at night.” He’d say: “Me too.” She would kiss his face. It would be wet with her tears. He’d say: “I always knew that I would find you!”

  “Shall I choose?”

  Niels startled, interrupted. His father looked at him searchingly. He’d meant: Which farm should they try? The boy looked back at the farm where he’d seen her. The magic was gone. He no longer thought that the woman there moved so gracefully. Wasn’t that more like a waddle than a walk as she walked away? Now you could see that it wasn’t black hair, just a black cloth she’d wrapped round her head. It wasn’t her. His father could sense something was wrong.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Yes you are. Tell. What?”

  “Nothing special.”

  “Who?”

  The boy knew it well enough. His father had told him a thousand times: His mother had died when he was born. This he knew all too well. He could live, and she died.

  Niels grabbed a stone, jumped up, and threw it with all his might in the direction of the farm with the false mother. But the farm was twenty throws away, perhaps more. The stone landed a little farther down the hill, bounced a couple of times, and disappeared into the grass. His father misunderstood.

  “Shall we try that one?”

  “No!” The boy pointed at random to a farm in the opposite direction. His father looked at him again.

  “They’ve got work,” he said. “I’m sure.”

  “I think you’re right,” answered his father, getting up.

  Niels could see he was in pain. His father tightened the rope around his waist and put a hand on his son’s shoulder.

  “You know what? I think tonight we’ll have roasted lamb!”

  All at once the boy realized how hungry he was. He forced himself not to look in the direction of the farm with the woman. As they went down the hill, he tried to focus on their goal: getting a job. If he didn’t think about anything else, it would work. Just think about the one thing. Just hear the one sentence: Yes, we have work.

  The farm was in better shape than you could glean from the hilltop. The boy had learnt to interpret the tiniest clues—what would increase or decrease their chances of getting to work. First and foremost, the farm may neither be too slick nor too shoddy. If it was too pretty, it meant they didn’t need help—not even to sweep the yard. And if everything was too run-down, it meant that the owner either was in a fix or just couldn’t care less. Both scenarios had the same result for father and son: no work.

  That day the boy couldn’t rid himself of the sinking feeling: This farm was a tick too neat. He wrung his cap in his hands hard, as if the desire for a job lay hidden in its folds. Come on! Say yes! Say: “Yes, we could use an extra couple o’ hands.”
Say yes!

  The farmer came out of the stable, and the boy’s dad stepped forward to present their case.

  “Do you have work for two men?”

  The boy stood to attention, strained every muscle, each and every brain cell: Come on! Yes! Say YES!

  “The lad doesn’t look like much . . . ,” said the farmer.

  That hurt. His whole body felt all warm-like and numb, even though he tried to stand on his toes and spread his shoulders. He felt he’d let his dad down—by not being bigger, taller. By not looking like much.

  “We’ve all been small,” said his father.

  “True enough,” answered the farmer, “but that won’t bake us any bread.” The farmer smiled weakly, but his father didn’t flinch and looked him straight in the eye.

  “But isn’t it by hard work that we grow taller?” he asked.

  The farmer’s gaze faltered for a moment. He glanced from father to son and back again.

  “Perhaps you’ve got a point. . . .”

  And then they were given a chance. Yes, they could stay. YES.

  They were to gather stones. His father pointed to a large stone, but as Niels managed to get his fingers in under it, he realized it was going to be far too heavy. Out of the corner of his eye he could sense the farmer watching him from a distance. He managed to heave the stone onto his lap, and then he tried to walk on casually, pursing his lips in a soundless whistle to hide the effort of it all. Once they had rounded the edge of the barn, his father stepped forward and grabbed the stone, just before it slipped through his fingers. He cast his son a quick smile from under his cap: They’d found work.

  This was their life. As he sits in the prison cell, the boy thinks about it all.

  He was still quite small when he first asked about his mother; he was still quite small when he stopped asking about his mother.

  His father wouldn’t have it. Not that he ever said so. There was no need to. Even when he couldn’t see his father’s face hidden behind the worn cap, the hair, the already bent and buckled back. His body said it all: that now there would be no more talk about that. Else it would be impossible to work. To keep going.