Resin

by Ane Riel

  Jens woke up the moment he ran out into the sea and felt the water fill his lungs.

  And the nightmares grew more complex.

  They came back: his mother, the doctors, the teachers, the police. Over time, they morphed into anonymous people, random faces he had seen somewhere. What they had in common was that they all wanted to rob him of everything that mattered to him.

  In one dream he was out by the Christmas trees and, when he came back, they had taken everything: Liv, Maria, the animals, the buildings, his things. It was all gone. He saw some people running away, and he chased after them, but nothing could stop them. He kept tripping over grassy knolls, roots and trees, which shot up everywhere in front of him, while the others met with no obstacles. They never stumbled. They increased their lead and always made it to the main island. When he finally reached the Neck, it was cut off by the sea every time. He was all alone on a deserted island.

  In one of the really bad dreams they turned up in white coats, wanting to take Maria. They were there, in her room, when Jens returned from a night-time visit to Korsted; they were standing around her with saws and scalpels, pointing big lights at her. They were going to take her with them, they said, so that they could help her. But she was far too big and heavy to get out of the door, so they were forced to cut her up into smaller pieces. Once they had got her out of the house and far away from Jens, they would help her, they kept assuring him.

  Jens always tried to wake up. But he couldn’t. And he couldn’t stop them. They had already cut off her head and placed it on the bedside table. Maria looked at him with her beautiful eyes and mouthed that she loved him. Despite the smile at the corner of her mouth, she was crying, and sometimes her limbs on the bed would twitch, as if protesting at being severed. There was no blood. She was like china. Her hand kept clutching the pen when it was leaned up against the doorframe, along with the rest of her arm.

  Then they cut her torso into smaller sections, and he pleaded with them not to touch her heart. ‘We’ll take good care of her,’ they kept on saying. ‘We can take better care of her than you can, Jens Horder.’

  He stared at them as they transported her out of the room, one piece at a time. He was allowed to carry her head. ‘I love you,’ he whispered into her ear. Her head was heavy, horribly heavy. But the worst part was that Maria’s body began to disintegrate as they moved it downstairs. Jens was walking behind the doctor who was holding her right leg, and he could see how it was starting to crumble. The same was happening to the other parts of her body. Her heart fell out of a piece of torso and rolled down the stairs until it hit the landing, like a puffball mushroom deflating. Finally, her head disintegrated as well. Jens couldn’t hold on to her. He looked into her eyes before they disappeared between his fingers, and she was gone. Turned to dust.

  ‘Right, we’ll take your daughter instead,’ they said. ‘By the way, does she have any brothers or sisters?’

  Yet again the intruders disappeared towards the Neck with their catch, and Jens couldn’t stop them. He kept stumbling, getting caught in something. It was as if the forces of nature had ganged up against him. They blocked his path and terrified him. The forest, the sea, the animals … they were no longer his friends.

  The intruders ran on unabashed.

  All he wanted to do was to stop them.

  Jens always woke up bathed in sweat and tears. His waking hours, however, were also plagued by nightmares – thoughts of what had been and what might happen next. In the end, he could no longer tell the difference.

  The Postman

  The postman was in a particularly good mood that morning. And he had to admit to having a butterfly or two in his tummy, although it wasn’t the season for that kind of thing.

  He had business at the Head.

  For the first time ever, the letter from M had been sent by registered post. The postman wondered sorely at this sudden upgrade in the postage but was nevertheless delighted at being given an outlet for his curiosity. Surely he could now allow himself to enquire about the sender – who might not be a Mafioso after all, however much he wanted to hang on to the thought.

  He would especially like to know if ‘M’ was the same as ‘M – Inventions for Life’, which was listed as the sender on the big parcel he was also delivering to Jens Horder that day. The business had a mainland address, a place on the east coast. The postmarks on the two items were also from the east coast. Because the postman had investigated the items, of course he had. Then again, the Mafia might have contacts everywhere, which only proved that his idea hadn’t been that far-fetched after all.

  The postman parked his van down by the barrier, then got out and opened the door at the back, where the parcel was ready and waiting, with the registered letter on top.

  He had to hold it with both hands because it was bulky. The parcel measured seventy centimetres square or thereabouts and was barely twenty centimetres high. It was too heavy to be a lavatory seat, although that had been his first thought. He had a hunch that whatever was inside might be round. Square parcels usually had round contents.

  He was particularly happy to pass the No entry sign. Well, that only applies to trespassers, he thought to himself. He was obviously free to enter, because he was bringing a registered letter. And a parcel.

  He needed a signature.

  And there was no way he was leaving the Head without it.

  The postman took a right around the barrier and looked expectantly, albeit a little tensely, up at the house. If he was lucky, he would catch a glimpse of Maria Horder. He would love to know how she looked now.

  He had managed two steps before someone called out.

  ‘You there!’ someone shouted behind him, and he stopped in his tracks. There was a note of aggression in the voice which he didn’t like. When he turned around, he saw Jens Horder marching towards him. ‘Where do you think you’re going? Can’t you read? I thought we had an agreement?’

  The postman froze. He wasn’t used to being spoken to like that. All right, so the Fuse made a habit of similarly belligerent outbursts – not to mention when she became physical. But Jens Horder had never raised his voice to anyone, certainly no one working for the post office.

  ‘Of course, but …’

  ‘Come here,’ Horder snarled. ‘What have you got for me?’

  Reluctantly, the postman stepped back behind the barrier. He had time to feel cross with himself for not starting his round a little earlier; then he might have had an opportunity to chat to the wife, just the two of them. He was dying to know what was going on at the Horder place.

  ‘I have a registered letter and a parcel,’ he replied. ‘They both need signing for. That’s why I—’

  He stopped himself when he caught a better look at Jens Horder. Horder was carrying seven or eight large plastic bags, stuffed to the brim. The sweat was trickling from his forehead, although it wasn’t a particularly hot November day. And then there was his beard, and his clothes. It was a long time since the postman had seen Horder close up. The man looked dreadful.

  ‘Why haven’t you been down in your pickup, Horder? You usually are.’

  ‘The pickup died. It’s down on the south road. I had to leave it.’

  ‘Gosh. That must have been a long walk home.’

  ‘Give me the letter,’ Horder demanded, setting down the bags. The postman caught a glimpse of something white in one of them. He carefully put the letter and the parcel on a tree stump next to the barrier and then offered Horder his receipt book and a pen. The recipient glared suspiciously at him before signing his name with an angry scrawl.

  ‘By the way, who is M?’ the postman asked, in his most ingratiating voice. He had no intention of letting this opportunity slip through his fingers. ‘You regularly get letters from them. And now a parcel as well. So I’m guessing that—’

  ‘If that’s all, then goodbye.’ Jens Horder cut him off, handing back the receipt book and the pen. The postman had privately hoped that Horder would op
en the parcel there and then.

  ‘You don’t want help with the parcel? I have a craft knife on me …’

  ‘So do I,’ Jens Horder said, again with this inexplicable coldness. Then he planted his hands on his hips and stared at the postman with an expression it was difficult to interpret as anything other than menacing.

  ‘Well … goodbye then,’ the postman said, and walked back to his van. Jens Horder stayed put while the van reversed. As the postman drove down the road towards the Neck, he could still see Horder in his rear-view mirror. He looked like a savage. A crazy savage.

  Now, the postman wasn’t by nature a judgemental man, but he had long entertained a theory that Jens Horder had done something to his mother, possibly even killed her. Perhaps he was hiding her body in the big skip? The idea would never have crossed his mind if it hadn’t been for a casual chat he had had one day with the ferry man in Sønderby, in which he had learned that Else Horder never took the ferry back to the mainland the previous Christmas. And if anyone was certain about anything, the ferry man knew his passengers. However, he had been utterly uninterested in the postman’s suspicions. In fact, absolutely no one cared.

  But then again, no one else had seen Jens Horder looking as he had looked down by the barrier. That was a man with something to hide. Otherwise, why the threatening behaviour?

  What ultimately frustrated the postman more than anything, though, was that he didn’t have any news to share with the others down at the pub, as he had hoped for. Although he had a snippet.

  M – Inventions for Life.

  But it was probably not enough for him to be taken seriously. Or even get anyone to listen. The others would invariably mutter that he should leave Horder alone to his grief. And that people were allowed to be a little eccentric.

  M

  Jens Horder waited until the post van was out of sight. Then he turned his attention to the letter and the big parcel, which was balancing on the tree stump.

  He started with the letter. It was in a padded buff-coloured envelope. As always, it contained an ordinary white envelope with cash inside. He looked at the white envelope, pulled it out and opened it. Business as usual, except this time the letter had been sent by registered post.

  And this time a folded piece of paper had been slipped in alongside the white envelope.

  He slowly pulled it out and felt immediately that it was thick with very fine grooves. When it reached the sunlight, it became ivory-coloured, and when he opened it he saw the watermark.

  It was a commercial letterhead. And it wasn’t just one sheet of paper, but two stapled together.

  It was in his brother’s handwriting.

  Dear Jens

  There’s no denying it has been a long time, and that’s entirely my fault. For that reason, writing this letter isn’t easy, but I hope that you will read it with an open mind.

  I also hope that you can accept that I send you money every month. I send cash, as I assumed that was what you would prefer, and it’s also more discreet. I would so hate to cause problems – even more than I imagine I caused back when I ran away from it all. I don’t know if you can ever forgive me, but I hope so.

  I’m sure you’re doing well with the business, and you and the family have never needed my contributions, but I thought that it was the least I could do, given that I shirked my responsibility. I admit frankly that I also do it for my own sake. Yes, it’s an attempt to make amends and ease my conscience. The latter hasn’t been entirely successful.

  I’ve never forgiven myself for leaving you in the lurch, but I just had to get out. As you probably sensed back then, I couldn’t settle on the Head at all. I had terrible wanderlust and felt suffocated by the never-ending workload and the responsibility and, not least, Mum’s expectations. Something about it all made me claustrophobic. We were so isolated, and there were so many other things that I wanted to do instead. I wanted to see the city, I wanted to invent. You wanted the trees.

  You had also grown so quiet, Jens. I can’t reproach you for that – I would never reproach you – because I knew that Dad’s death hit you hard. But even so, I was secretly angry with you because I needed to talk to you. I missed you, even though we were together all the time. I couldn’t bear it.

  What happened was that one day I got talking to a holiday resident. He was an engineer from the mainland and very interested in my ideas. He was the one I spent time with when I was gone for hours. He offered me a job with his company, but I said no initially, because I didn’t think that I could leave you. And yet one day, I did just that. I had his business card in my pocket, but I didn’t dare show it to you.

  It was a really good job and the pay was great right from the start. At some point I set up my own business. We made lots of things in metal and steel, mostly filing systems, and so on. But my biggest success – brace yourself – were mechanical Christmas-tree stands. I made so much money that I travelled to Austria and set up a subsidiary down there.

  During all that time I got a trusted employee back home to send money to the Head every month. She has done so faithfully, as far as I can gather. Now I’m back and engaged to that same trusted employee. We live in a wonderful apartment in town, but even so, we talk about moving. And starting a family. Fortunately, my fiancée is a little younger than me.

  I must confess that I’ve started really missing my own family, you and Mum. I think about you often. It has just been so bloody difficult to contact you.

  Once, I plucked up the courage and called the pub in Korsted. I think I spoke to the new owner – I’m guessing Oluf isn’t there any more – or possibly a guest. Whoever he was, they were halfway through the New Year’s Day lunch. I didn’t tell him my name, I just asked general questions. I know how people like to talk and, as I said at the beginning, I didn’t want to cause trouble for you. I learned that Else no longer lived on the Head but that she had visited you around Christmas and had apparently left again.

  Sometime later I was at a dinner and happened to sit next to a lady who asked me about my surname. She told me that she knew an Else Horder. It turned out that Mum had been staying with a friend of hers for a long time; she believed that they were cousins. Unfortunately, her friend had suffered terrible brain damage following a traffic accident, so the lady couldn’t tell me where Mum was now, only that she definitely didn’t live with her cousin any more.

  But I’m guessing that you already know that, and that you also know where Mum lives today. Or is she back with you? You’ve always been good at handling Mum and her desire to control. I admire you for that.

  Anyway, the best bit about my calling the pub was learning that you still lived on the Head – with your wife and your daughter. I’m absolutely delighted to learn that you are married and have a child, Jens. I do so hope that you’re happy.

  I would love to be a father myself. I started thinking about having a family much too late, I was far too busy inventing clever devices and manufacturing them. In one way, I wish I shared the love of nature which you and Dad had. There is something healthy about it, about you. Something real. Today, I miss working with wood, the fresh scent of the forest, and the sea, especially. In fact, I miss it so much that we’re toying with the idea of moving to the island; if not the Head, then the main island. What would you say to that?

  Initially, I would like to visit you and your family. Rekindle our relationship – that is, if you want to. Please would you write to me? Or call me, if that’s an option. I’ve listed my home address and my phone number below.

  Warm wishes

  Your loving brother, Mogens

  PS I’m sure that you grow the country’s finest Christmas trees. And although you obviously prefer wood to metal and plastic, I wanted you to have one of the Christmas-tree stands my business manufactures. I’m taking the liberty of sending you a Christmas-tree stand as well as this letter.

  Jens Horder folded the letter once, then he folded it again before stuffing it into his inside pocket. He placed t
he envelope with the money in the front pocket of his coat. He briefly looked at the cumbersome parcel on the tree stump. Then he picked up the plastic bags and took a left around the barrier.

  The Man on the Head

  Still staying in the forest, I tailed the man as he walked away from the dog. At one point he almost spotted me. He certainly looked in my direction for a long time. But I stood stock-still – I can do that – and in the end he moved on. He walked around the end of the building with the white room. It was strange to see someone walk that way rather than up the gravel road, and I wondered if he knew about the traps, but he couldn’t possibly have done.

  I think he was just lucky.

  But I was scared because I didn’t know what he wanted. Dad hadn’t come back, and Mum was upstairs in the bedroom and couldn’t do anything. And the man had seen the dog and the trap and taken my arrow. He was walking around with it in his hand. I was scared that he was looking for me. But he couldn’t know that I was there. He hadn’t seen me. Besides, I was dead.

  When he reached the farmyard he stopped for a long time with his back to me. I’m sure he was staring at all the things. He probably wasn’t used to seeing so many things gathered in one place, unless he also went to the junkyard.

  I wish I knew what he wanted. I wanted Dad to come, yet at the same time I was scared about him turning up. Most of all, I just wanted the man to go away, I think. But without walking into a trap. And without bumping into Dad.

  He just stood there at the edge of the yard with his back to the forest. I thought that he might make his way to the house, and I held my breath in case he walked past the silage harvester.

  If you wanted to get from the white room to the house, you shouldn’t pick the most obvious route, past the harvester. You should walk around the baker’s pile first, in a zigzag pattern past the barn, then back towards the workshop, and then remember to take a right by the old cooker on the last stretch leading to the front door. I remembered it every single time – mostly because I’d never forgotten the look on Dad’s face when he explained the route to me.