The Last Execution

by Jesper Wung-Sung

  He knew two things about his mother: that she’d died when he was born and that her hair was black. That’s it.

  At first he’d simply stared long and hard at all women with black hair. Later it happened more fleetingly. It had always been just the two of them: father and son. They tried to get by. Find work. Find food. Avoid the law.

  “Remember. We’re on our way home,” his father always said.

  If a policeman stopped them, Niels should lie. He should tug on his father’s sleeve and ask when they could go home, when they could sit in front of their warm oven. Even though they’d never had an oven. Even though they’d never had a house. Or a place to spend the night. Otherwise they’d be sent to the workhouse. Because their kind wasn’t wanted loitering ’bout town. Their kind stole, or begged. Nor were they a pretty sight.

  And the workhouse. That was the worst. His father, shaking as if he had a fever, had said: “It’s like being buried alive.” The boy would never forget the man who’d looked up with eye-pits like two black coins you could look right through.

  If they were lucky, they slept in barns. If not, in all sorts of places. In summer, under the stars; in winter, in deserted sheds or under a clump of bushes. Here they would lie, talking about America.

  They rose early in the morning and looked for work. Any kind of work. The men squinted at a thin boy and a father’s bent back. They shook their heads or turned their own backs, without a word. But now and then there was a nod. A nod that meant that now they could get on with it. Like that day with the pile of stones. Or those days they could do something else, take care of something else. Drain marshes. Cart away waste. Work. Live.

  But first they had to get a grip on things. In his mind’s eye he could see how his father tugged on the cord of his pants in an attempt to fasten them round his thin waist. How he pulled a face. That seemed to help. It was as though the pain in his stomach and the pain in his back balanced each other out in some way when he pulled on the cord. Until the work was done.

  His father worked at an even pace. Barely a break, barely a word. As if he daren’t stop. He kept going—more and more bent—until the pile of wood or stones was gone.

  The boy looked away once their work was done, looked away when his father tried to straighten his back. Shift it into place. The boy never did so, but he wished he could cover his ears with his hands, so he didn’t have to hear the sounds his father made. But it was always the same. The sigh: “Jaja.” When it was all over. When he could function again. They took turns sipping from a water flask. “Jaja.”

  The boy can hear the dog on the other side of the prison wall. It is whimpering softly. Either it’s in pain or it’s uneasy. He says it.

  “Jaja.”

  He doesn’t know if the dog can hear him, but it seems to settle down.

  The boy can see his hand a little better now. He tries to move it. That’s not good. The fly is still perched on what looks to be the back of his hand.

  Niels starts thinking about the girl again, although till now he’s tried not to.

  That day he had met her in the field, a fly, like this one, kept landing on her lip. Again and again. How she had laughed. How she looked at him. How she tossed her head and ran her fingers through her hair—quick, quick, slow. And then the fly again. And the laughter.

  “Do you know that fly?” the boy asks now, looking down at his hand. “Is it sitting in the pub bragging its head off?”

  The boy remembers how they had tossed burs at each other. The kiss this led to.

  White shards of pain shoot through the boy’s brain. He’d accidentally bumped his hand against his knee. They dart from the back of his head, to the left temple, and across to the right. The boy bends forward, tries to breathe deeply, eyes closed. He remains in this posture for a long time.

  “Now he’s thinking about the girl,” says the fly. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, now he’s thinking of that blond lassie again!”

  Niels concentrates on the pain. Or else I’ll disappear, he thinks. Or else, I’ll disappear.

  The fly is tripping about on the hand in silence. Now it stops dead in its tracks.

  “Dare we suggest that the lad think about something else?” says the fly.

  Then it struts on. Halts in midstride.

  “That he thinks about something else . . . ”

  “But what?” whispers Niels.

  “What? What! What?” squawks the fly. “As if there weren’t anything else to think about! What a waste of a life if there were nothing at all worth remembering. Think! For example: How ’bout that time the lad got a peek in that fat book about America?”

  “That time my foot got run over?” Niels asks.

  “The time the lad’s foot got run over by a cart; it recovered, though—the foot—and the rich man invited father and son to his home, and they got to sleep in the loft,” says the fly. “But before that, they paged through a book about America. There was a chapter about the Mississippi River.”

  Now the boy understands that the fly is talking to the hand.

  “Take the crocodiles in the Mississippi, for example,” continues the fly. “You can’t always see them, but they’re there. The crocodile floats in the water like a log—its eyes like knots in a tree trunk—till the cow tries to cross the river.”

  “That was shown in the book,” says the boy.

  “I know that!” says the fly. “The crocodile lies absolutely still, until the cow comes down to the bank of the river.”

  The boy says no more.

  “Then it shoots out of the water, mouth open wide. It digs its hundreds of sharp teeth into the cow’s neck and pulls it down under the water. Swoosh,” quips the fly. “The water is churned foamy-red. Round and round. One second, then everything is quiet again. The Mississippi is as calm as before.”

  The fly turns on its heel again. Halts in midstride.

  “That’s a story from the real world,” it says. “Now it’s over. Bam! Easy-peasy, over and out! That wasn’t so hard, was it?!”

  The hand seems to chuckle to itself.

  It is morning, the messenger posts the notice of execution in the town square, and—for those who can read—it is stated: THERE ARE EIGHT HOURS TILL NIELS NIELSEN WILL BE EXECUTED ON GALLOWS HILL.

  The mere mention of his name sends a chill down the messenger’s spine. It’s a blessing he’s finally been caught. The messenger had heard that the man was mad. That he was prone to violent, insane behavior. Set ablaze everything within his reach. Watched folks’ homes burn down to the ground while he stood idly by, hissing a demonic laugh.

  Not to mention the murder of the sheriff’s son. The messenger had heard that the man had held the little lad down with just one arm while he had hammered away at his head with a stone, and the child’s cranium burst like an egg, his brain trickled out like yolk!

  That the likes of him had gone free among men! The messenger gets the shivers just thinking about it, the thought that it could have been him who met that man on a deserted country lane late one night. It could just as easily have been the messenger ending up in a ditch with a cracked skull or a slit throat!

  The messenger senses at once that someone is lurking behind him. Even though he knows it’s just his imagination, he can’t help but peer over his shoulder. But there is someone. Someone watching him. There, in the shadows of the goldsmith’s house. His heart beats faster. Then he sees it: It’s a thin girl. She’s shifting from one foot to the other with something clutched in her arms. Perhaps she’s waiting for someone?

  The messenger thinks she’s a fallen woman. That she has gotten herself pregnant. And she’s waiting for the father of the child, but the father doesn’t show. The messenger thinks this because she seems so desperate. She’s not sluggish like the others on the town square. And then she stares at him. As if she needs his help.

  He yells at her, which only makes her draw back into the shadows.

  “What’s your name?!”

  She doesn’t answe
r; but she doesn’t flee, either. The messenger is confused. He has the feeling that this is what he’s been waiting for, that this moment is essential to life at large. It is now he must do the one and only right thing.

  “The executioner is coming all the way from Odense city,” he finally says. “That’s why it’s going to be so late.”

  He doesn’t know why—of all things—he chooses to say this, whether it’s the right or wrong thing to say. The words come out of his mouth, but it isn’t him who speaks. He goes on, regardless.

  “A whole lot of people are coming to watch. A whole lot,” he says. “But I’m sure that if you stand up real close, you’ll be able to see the chop quite clearly.”

  The girl doesn’t answer, and the messenger can’t tell if he should say any more. He considers offering to arrange a spot for her in the front row. In a flash, his brain imagines how he leads her through the masses: He clears the way before her up to the scaffold, his goal. And he is sweating heavily as he forces his way through the crowd with elbows, shoves, and calls of authority. He leads her by the hand on the final stretch. He feels as if everyone steps aside of their own accord, and they make it to the front of the crowd in good time to see the swing of the ax. And then she turns to him and smiles. Her face and dress, her protruding belly, are splattered with rancid blood and gore. That should take care of it, he thinks. That’s taken care of.

  The messenger is back on the town square, where his heart skips a beat, and he is struck by an insane idea: He is the father of the child! Just because he’s had those thoughts. About doing it. Doing it with Signe from next door. Doing it with other girls—and now, with this lass here.

  The bad conscience wells up inside him. There is so much to be taken care of, so much work to be done. He has dallied on the square for too long, and thought about it. He’s got to get moving! Still, something holds him back. A desire to drop everything he has in his hands. To run to the girl in the shadows. To rob the goldsmith’s! But he’s being pushed and pulled from all sides—being borne down. He can hear the scolding he will receive in the course of the day, feel the raps on his knuckles; he is utterly aroused, yet tired as an old man.

  “Then it could be all the same!” he exclaims.

  It’s not due to anything in particular—not that he can tell, anyway—but now he is near to running down the road.

  With every step the messenger gets more and more agitated. He is resentful and angry, and he directs the brunt of his anger at that man on the poster, the man who is to be executed. The messenger will be there, all right! He’ll buckle down the whole day to make sure of it. Then he’ll fetch the Smith brothers. They’ll need to get over to Gallows Hill in good time. Then they’ll be ready. They can stand right up front, in the first row, and shout. They can yell at him, spit in that demon’s face! He’ll take his knife along. He imagines that he slices an ear off the severed head and hides it, before anyone sees. That he keeps it wrapped in a rag; and that one fine night he gives it to someone or other, who looks at it with flushed cheeks, until she leans her body into him, and they lie down in the corn together. . . .

  Once the messenger has disappeared, the girl dares to come out of the shadows and walks up to the notice of execution. She is standing with her package in her arms. After she has stammered her way through the notice, letter for letter, she disappears.

  One town’s many mouths, a chorus fair,

  Whilst a head that still doth stare

  Rolls to the ground

  Without a sound.

  It is seven hours till the boy is to be executed on Gallows Hill, and now he can hear that he is not alone in the world. The sound of a carriage on the other side of the cell window, its bars radiant with evaporating frost; a rummaging somewhere in the building; a door that opens, or closes; a final shuffling of steps, coming closer. The sound of keys in a lock.

  The warden is carrying a bucket. He yawns. Then he stops and stares, mouth open wide.

  The fear in the warden’s face when he spots the boy’s hand—it makes the boy lower his head to his chest. As if this could make the fear disappear. The boy remains sitting in this posture. He doesn’t know what else to do. To prove that he doesn’t have coal-red piercing eyes. He hears the warden’s ragged breathing. The boy is quiet as a mouse. Waiting. Until he hears a cough, several coughs, and jangling keys as the warden retreats.

  The warden has left the bucket standing outside the cell, but close enough that the boy can stick a hand through the rails and reach. They both know that the warden does not want to get too close.

  “It’s not true,” says the boy. “That is not who I am.”

  The stone knocked against the inside of his teeth. His tongue could shift it from side to side so it made a little melody. The boy doesn’t remember how old he was, just that he’d become taller now, his father shorter.

  He remembers that he was very hungry. That was why he had the stone in his mouth. To take the edge off the hunger.

  It had been days since they’d had work. A place to sleep. A decent meal to eat.

  The last time they’d had some money, his father had used it to buy a bottle of brandy. There was no mention of it. It was for the pain—the boy knew—but he couldn’t say it. It was autumn. The wind cut into his skin. They were frozen to the bone, even though they were walking.

  “What’s winter like in America?”

  His father didn’t answer.

  “Do the birds fly away? To the south?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Or do they stay?”

  “If I could, I would,” answered his father.

  “Tell.”

  “Let’s wait, Niels.”

  “When, then?”

  “Can we decide?” asked his father.

  “Yes, don’t we always decide, Dad?”

  “That’s settled, then.”

  “When, then?”

  “It’s up to you.”

  His father stopped short, busied himself with tightening the rope around his waist.

  “Okay, then,” answered the boy. “After that tree on the barrow!”

  His father nodded.

  The boy is thinking about the rope around his father’s waist. Soon there would be no more than a tight knot, so thin was he. Sweat broke out on his father’s forehead each time he pulled the knot a little tighter.

  But once in a while the boy felt a glimmer of hope. Like one time they found work: His father got a shilling from the farmer. But best of all, when they were done, the farmer’s wife brought two steaming-hot mugs out to them. They stood and drank outdoors like two weary-worn comrades as the warmth spread into their chests. The boy felt himself stretching several inches in height. Even his father could feel it. It was as if his back had unbuckled. Never had the boy seen him stand so tall.

  Then followed three weeks of nothing. And after one night spent in a stand of reeds, his father was pitched down into the ground. There his back stayed put.

  Niels walked up to the road; his father lay in a deserted barn because of his back. Niels waded into a field and sat down. He looked like a tall local lad, who sat gazing over the yellow-green landscape, daydreaming about things big and small.

  He listened for the first sounds of a wagon that would meander its way along the country road: At first, barely the buzz of a bee. Then it became a distant rumbling, which seemed to come and go, yet still mounted evenly. Like his heartbeats, which quickened in time with the beat of hooves. And finally, the voices of people and their possessions. He forced himself not to look in the direction of the wagon when it came closer; but he was like a feather, light, ready to jump up and spurt down to the road. In that instant she called to him.

  Niels imagined that his mother sat in one of those wagons. That she suddenly caught sight of him, there in the field. Stop, she would cry. I said stop, dear man! The driver would yank on the reins, and she would sway to her feet, so tall and beautiful. She would call: Niels! Is that you, Niels? And he would turn his h
ead; as if plucked from thought, he would smile and say: Yes, Mum, it is me.

  That day, four or five wagons passed him. Without stopping. Only one called to him. A man: “If you were living under my roof, I’d take the whip to you!”

  When Niels got back to the barn, his father was lying on the ground, mouth open wide. He was sleeping with one hand on his chest, the other wrapped round the bottle.

  The boy gets up from his seat on the floor. The mere fact that the battered hand must get up with him makes the room swim before his eyes. The fly takes flight, and Niels nearly loses his balance. He waits. But he’s so weak, he must lean against the wall. This surprises him. That his legs, for example, aren’t stronger. That cannot be. But the first step is an explosion up into his body. Nails scraping to grip the wall, mouth sucking in air for his lungs. The lights cut into his brain.

  “So who says you can’t remember anything from when you’re born!”

  It’s the fly talking again. It takes a while for the boy to focus. Then he locates the fly against the opposite wall.

  “Hah! How can it be, then, that the boy can remember he sat with his mother in a garden?” asks the fly.

  Yes, he can. Niels is sure. He can remember that she sat in a garden with him. She sang for him. Perhaps they had a few days together, before she began to bleed. Before she died.

  The hand seems to buzz with applause.

  “Just like the painting,” says the fly.

  He can remember it now. It hung on a wall.

  “It pictured a mother and child,” he says.

  “Exactly!” cries the fly.

  “She’s sitting with the child held close to her body, one hand on his head, the other on his stomach.”

  “Well done!”

  “The child is sleeping, but she is awake. Her cheek is resting on his head.”