The fly is back on the hand. Silent. Through the window the boy can see a cut of bleak blue sky.
He can see the road ahead, there, where he met the girl.
He was sitting in the middle of a field. His father’s back was bad. They had found a place to rest under a clump of trees. There he lay. Niels sat in the field.
There was a boy like a statue in a field.
He had not said so out loud, but that’s what he was doing once more: waiting for the one who would not come.
“Ha!” was all the girl said.
He had not heard her come. The sun blinded his eyes. He had to shield them with his hand.
“The scarecrow moves!” she laughed.
Niels got to his feet.
“This is our field,” he said.
“Is that so?” the girl answered. “And I’m carrying this basket for the sake of it.”
“Aren’t you too busy to stand here talking to me?” he asked.
“I’ve been told to watch out for beggars!”
Her cheeks were red. He wanted to say something really smart, but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out.
“You’re the worst beggar I’ve ever met,” she said.
“My father is very sick,” he said. “I think he’s going to die.”
Even Niels was surprised. The last bit he hadn’t meant to say out loud. The girl watched him closely.
“Where do you live?”
He was about to lie, rattle off his lines, but he just shrugged instead. The girl shifted the basket from one hip to the other. Then she pointed to a meadow between a stretch of forest and a field.
“Tonight,” she said, and left.
Niels was there, in the meadow, before the sun went down. He waited. Before him there was a path that split in two. Finally, he saw her coming down one of them. He waved. She did not wave back. She was carrying a bowl of soup.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Do you have your father’s eyes?”
“No. My mother’s.”
“Is she sick too?”
“No, she’s fine,” he said.
“Tomorrow night,” she said, turned, and left.
The boy hears the warden locking someone into the prison. He cannot hear any talk, only steps on the stones. He feels a brush of hope before it disappears, and a family is standing by the cell. They’re staring at him. Their faces are red, their boots are wet. There must still be snowdrifts outside, thinks the boy.
It is only once the mother spits.
The brother says: You child murderer!
The sister hisses: We will be standing in the first row to see the blood gush from your neck!
That he understands: This is the boy’s family.
They damn him to Hell, and they keep on damning him. Outside, the dog begins to bark; perhaps it’s afraid they’ll hurt him. But it doesn’t matter. They have every right to call him whatever they please. Damn him to wherever they please.
He cannot hear the dog anymore. Perhaps someone chased it away. But now he cannot hear the family, either. He looks down at his arms: no, he hasn’t blocked his ears with hands—cannot do so with the one hand anyway. He can feel his head about to burst. Words and sounds twist and turn, become a growling gruel, the rustle of thousands of nails against his skull. They plunge down his throat in a cold clamor; they stay embedded there. He cannot breathe. Red-black dots are dancing before his eyes.
Now I’m going to die, thinks the boy.
But then the howling mass combines into a regular sound, a row of words, like a song, and his gaze rests on the mother’s face. It is still red, distorted by hate and pain, the spray of spit before her mouth, but the words that emerge are like a verse, a poem:
When the night is still and mild
And all things quiet through,
My son, my dearest little child!
Then I shall come to you.
For God has granted me,
When sleep comes over thee,
Now and then
In a dream with you to be.
I see you draw, write,
Read your book so carefully;
You learn to be bright,
Pious, and clever for me.
Your cheeks are red,
Your eyes are blue,
Those sweet lips in your bed
I oft did kiss for you.
Pray, do you think of her
Who mourns her only son?
Pray, does she recur
When evening prayers are done?
Pray, do you remember my call?
Pray, do you remember my face?
Oh, can you forget that hour at all
You left my sweet embrace?
In the forest like a lonesome bird
Only to sing sorrow’s song,
Ever mournful and unheard,
Of you my thoughts prolong.
Oh, if you knew my yearning,
You’d make all haste,
And flee your prison burning,
To her who loves you most.
To her who bore you here
In woe and fear,
Who christened you in tears—
And loves you ever dear!
Farewell, farewell, my darling!
Softly I sigh your name;
Never to think away my yearning,
Your loss never to reclaim.
I close my hands and tend
To you, my son of sorrow!
Each hour to God I send,
To you, my heartfelt prayer!
The boy only shifts his gaze from the mother’s lips when the family turns and leaves.
There are four hours till the boy is to be executed on Gallows Hill, and the mayor is sitting at his desk fiddling with a wooden figurine. This is nearly too much to bear: the way they keep pestering him!
One meeting after another. He spent God knows how many hours with the Bakers’ Guild, which is up in arms about falling bread prices. They claim to be in the direst of straits, they want to raise their prices, but what would have happened if he’d let them? Then the poor folk would’ve been up in arms.
The mayor feels as if he’s buried in complaints: Townsfolk complaining about the begging on the streets—shall he drag them to the workhouse himself!? Townsfolk complaining about the leaking gutters—shall he go and clean them himself!? Townsfolk wanting to know what he’s doing about the threat of cholera—can he, single-handedly, ward off an epidemic at the city gates?! Townsfolk complaining about the seepage from pig farms that freezes overnight and turns the streets into a skating rink. Choice example: He sent some men to break up the ice—but the tenants didn’t want to pay for it!
The mayor hammers the figurine into the desk, and now he takes a good, long look at it. It was standing on his desk when he took up his post. It’s carved into the shape of a fat monkey. Of course the thought crossed his mind that it was meant to be a spiteful model of him. But he likes it. And who says the town isn’t a fat-bellied monkey—wanting bananas stuck in both hands!
The mayor feels as if he is being pushed and pulled from all sides. That folk keep trying to get money—bananas—out of his pockets. And they won’t stop till they’ve torn the clothes from his body. Nobody will be happy, it seems, till he’s standing on the square stark naked!
The image of him standing naked in the middle of the town square reminds the mayor of something else: the lad who will be executed on Gallows Hill later that day. His mood improves at once. He leans back in his chair and lists three undeniably good things about executions.
One: Executions prove that the mayor is a man of action—that will serve him well for a long time to come!
Two: Folk won’t have time to file any more complaints today—they’ll all be up on Gallows Hill!
Three: A man can’t say it, but a brawling monkey can—that’s one problem less!
The problem calls for radical means. He’s quite clear about that. The mayor has thought about building higher walls around the city, b
uilding a regular city wall. This would be an effective way of keeping the beggars out—especially all those peasant children—who are such a blemish on the town.
A city wall, perhaps more executions. Surely a dumb wooden monkey is entitled to ask: Wouldn’t the elimination of the poor eliminate poverty? A wretched, deranged murderer of a boy—like the one to be executed today—doesn’t have a life worth living. Wouldn’t it be in everyone’s best interests? Wouldn’t the death of one of his kind improve the lives of the rest of us? Isn’t this proof enough of the common good?
The mayor starts at the knock at the door. Who could that be now?! Hardly likely His Royal Highness, the king, here to pin the Medal of Honor to his chest!
“Come in!”
A large man in filthy clothing is standing in the doorway. This does not bode well.
“Stengel, from Odense,” the man presents himself.
It may as well be Stengel from America! thinks the mayor. As if he didn’t have enough townsfolk to take care of. The world is standing at his door, hat in hand.
“Yes?”
“It is me,” says the large man. “Me . . . the executioner.”
Now the mayor looks him over carefully. Does the face of a man reveal that he executes men for a living? All the mayor can see is how mild tempered the man is.
“I need to check the scaffold, Mr. Mayor,” he says. “But I’m looking for an assistant.”
“An assistant?”
The executioner clears his throat.
“Someone to hold the head, Mr. Mayor.”
Me! is the mayor’s first thought. He wants me to do it! Then he thinks: Nonsense! Pull yourself together. Defer him to the chief inspector—let him figure out the rest. The mayor defers to the chief inspector, and bids him farewell.
“Good-bye, Mr. Mayor.”
The man nods in parting.
“How do you do it!?”
The mayor is no less surprised than the executioner. He has no idea why he asks. Why doesn’t he just let the man close the door, so he can have some peace?
“Err . . . with an ax, sir,” says the executioner. “I bought it from my predecessor. First-class quality.”
“Yes, but how do you do it?”
There is a moment of silence. The executioner shifts his weight.
“The ax is exactly as it should be: heavy, but not too hard to handle,” he explains. “It demands your full attention at the start of the swing, but then it takes over; it cuts like a scythe through a blade of grass. It’s a part of me, yet stands apart—like a son. . . .”
But all at once the executioner clams up, looks down at the ground in shame. The mayor is at a loss for words, but feels he ought to take charge. Be pragmatic. Be mayor.
“And what are you thinking of spending your wage on, sir?” the mayor asks.
“On food,” the executioner answers.
The mayor gives him a nod. He is already staring down at the papers in front of him.
“And I’m saving up for a little dinghy I’ve got my eye on, Mr. Mayor,” concludes the executioner.
The mayor winces, ducks his head even farther, and dismisses the executioner with a wave of the hand. The mayor doesn’t look up.
“Good-bye, then, Mr. Mayor.”
Once he hears the door click shut, the mayor leans back in his chair. He stays sitting like this for a long time.
He thinks how easy it would be. He could get up, pack his clothes, walk to the harbor, and set sail on the first available ship!
He rests a hand on the wooden figurine, as if it were the mast of a boat. The whole time he had thought the monkey was staring ahead in blind fury, indeed was blind, or perhaps the artist had simply forgotten to do the eyes. Now he thinks the monkey’s eyes are cast down, staring at its own navel.
The mayor thinks about the time he was a boy, when he used to play in the hills beyond the town. There was something special about the clouds: the way they darted across the heavens in a gray-white belt, the blue behind, the green landscape in the foreground, and the yellow fields—as if layer upon layer had been stacked in a certain way. He used to love standing with his arms hanging down by his sides; he liked to think he was a landmark in that patch of the world.
Again he thinks: Get up and go.
Just like that.
And meet the world.
One town’s many mouths, a chorus fair,
Whilst a head that still doth stare
Rolls to the ground
Without a sound.
It is past noon, the sun slants down over the town roofs, and there are three hours till the boy is to be executed on Gallows Hill. He looks up to the sun.
“Am I a bad person?” he asks.
The boy cannot tell how much time passes without an answer, but he can see the sun has moved.
He’s been watching it. The sun—or that patch it makes on the floor. He has tried to hold on to, take note of, its slightest move. He cannot remember shifting his gaze, but the light has moved. A great deal, in fact. Can’t we just hold on?
The boy thinks that sometimes it’s just too late. No longer possible. One moment it is, and the next, it isn’t. That’s how it feels, anyway.
He is thinking about his father. About how his father was, when their life was good. His father worked for two men; once, his big hands lifted a stone that everyone else in the field had given a wide berth. Back then his father bore him over sticks and stones, but all the while the boy felt as if he were the one who was in charge.
Then the father’s body was broken. The boy thinks about one of those days when his father had to sit by the road and rest. They had been sitting there for some time:
“Are you feeling better?” asked the boy.
“No.”
The boy was about to ask again, but his father was holding tight to the boy’s leg, just above the knee. There was still vigor in those blue-red fingers.
“Ouch.”
“Sorry,” said the father.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I’m sorry.”
They sat looking down over the town. There are fields, and there is the town, the boy thought. Someone has made this country road, many have walked along this way, and many will walk this way again. Perhaps this was how the boy tried to understand it. That it was too late.
Near the end, the father was so thin it looked like you could stick a hand right through him. The boy carried their mean possessions. Even so, the father had to rest several times. They took whatever came their way. They chewed on whatever took the worst of the hunger.
The father sat down. They were sitting by the roadside. Usually they waded into a field, hiding under cover. Many people passed, either in horse carts or on foot. The father never looked up.
There had to be an end to this. The boy just didn’t want to see it. He watched the father’s face. The pain there became steadily worse.
“Does it hurt really bad?”
“No,” said the father.
“Yes it does,” said the boy.
“No, not at all,” answered the father. “I’ll try to get up.”
The boy looked at him. The father asked:
“But it won’t work, will it?”
The father sat bent forward, a grimace on his face.
“Let me help you,” said the boy.
“That’s just what I thought!” said the father with a short laugh.
“Let me help.”
“No. It’s about you now.”
The boy wanted to pull him up, but the father shook his head.
“No, my boy.”
Then they noticed a uniformed man approaching them. A policeman. Perhaps someone had called him, perhaps it was just a coincidence. Niels remembers his shiny black polished shoes.
“Go!” said the father.
“Come!” said the boy. “I’ll get you up!”
The father removed the boy’s hand from his arm.
“You go along your way now,” he said.
&nbs
p; “But, Dad . . .”
“Do as I say, Niels!”
The father gave him a shove that knocked him off his feet. But the boy was instantly up again. He looked in the direction of the policeman, then back at his father. The father did not look up.
Then the boy ran. Ran for all he was worth. Without looking back.
Ran till he was far out of town.
Now the boy can hear the dog bark. It’s a different kind of bark, as if the dog has seen someone it knows or really likes. It’s such a nutter of a three-legged dog. He wishes he could stroke it.
He can see it now. The sun has shifted on the floor again.
He thinks about the girl. That he ran in that direction.
On the second day he slept in a dike with a view of a little house. He daren’t go closer. He just lay there, staring at the house. You could hardly call it a farm. It was just a hut with a stable joined to it. But he dreamt the house was his. That it was theirs. He had built it for them. She watched from below and waved, one hand resting on her hip; he could see she was pregnant.
Three days later and he was back. In the meadow with the forked path, where he’d last seen her. He had wanted to say good-bye, but she had kissed him. She had grabbed hold of the hair at the nape of his neck with one hand, as if she’d wanted to smack him in the face with the other. But then she had let go, turned round, and disappeared down a fork in the path.
Now that he was back, he could feel the longing for her in every part of his body. He slept in the meadow, and during the day he ran up to the road and back again, in the hope of seeing her. He daren’t go too far for food. It was cold and gusty. Dust particles tore at his eyes; folk remained indoors.
When she did come walking up the path, he stayed on the ground where he was. He could not believe it. But it was her. She stopped walking when he got up. She was carrying a basket, which she put down. She stood a couple of yards behind the basket; he, the same distance away, as if this were a child’s game they were about to play.
“Hi,” he said.
“There is food in the basket,” she answered.
“For whom?”
“Perhaps I’ll meet a nice boy out here.”
It sounded all wrong. She didn’t look at him when she said it. She looked up over the meadow.
“I’m happy to see you again.”
The Last Execution Page 4