A Fairy Tale

by Jonas Bengtsson

  “He went to get some panel pins,” I say.

  The boss lingers for a little while and looks at me. “Isn’t there . . .” He doesn’t finish his sentence, he just shakes his head.

  He’ll explode in a moment. Scream and shout. I’m almost sure of it. He might have been pleased with the clocks, but I shouldn’t have carried on working, not on my own. I should’ve waited for my dad to come back so he could supervise me.

  But the boss doesn’t say anything; he just turns around and goes inside the workshop.

  I stand with the drill in my hand, not knowing what to do now. A couple of minutes later I start to feel stupid: we’re rushed and I’m just standing here doing nothing. I start drilling the next hole.

  I have only one more hole to go when the boss reappears. I quickly lift the drill, expecting a walloping. Delayed, but I know it’s coming. He’s been in the workshop thinking: What did I just see, what the hell was that?

  Before he has time to open his mouth, I ask him if he thinks I’ve done a good job on the armchair.

  “Yes,” he replies, without looking at it.

  His eyes are red, it’s probably the cold that has made them water.

  “I want to show you something.”

  He starts walking back to the workshop; he half turns around and gestures for me to follow.

  “It’s important,” he says. “It’s important that you see it.”

  I follow the boss past the wide work table with the tools and the tins of oil and varnish. I follow him to the door at the back of the room. Today it’s ajar; the padlock has been removed and lies on the table.

  “In there,” the boss says.

  I open the door. Behind it is a narrow passage lit up by a single light bulb in the ceiling.

  “You really should go in there and have a look. Your dad will be really proud.”

  The boss walks right behind me, his wide hips scraping against the rough concrete walls.

  At the end of the passage is a small room with no windows; the only light is that which slips past the boss. When my eyes have grown used to the darkness, I can see an oil drum up against the wall. Apart from that the room is empty. Something furry is lying on top of the oil drum.

  “Go to it,” the boss says.

  I take a couple of steps further into the room and now I can see that it’s a toy rabbit. It was probably white once, but now its fur is grey from dirt, with dark stains that could be oil or earth.

  “It’s feeling sad. It needs a home.” The boss’s voice is barely louder than a whisper. “Pick it up.”

  The rabbit’s fur is damp. It smells sour.

  The boss sniffs; he wipes his nose on his sleeve. “I’d promised myself . . .”

  He fumbles with his blue dungarees, pulls down one strap over his shoulder. I can see beads of sweat gleaming on his scalp. Then the other strap comes down; he struggles to get the overalls past his stomach.

  “Four years, seven months, and six days.” His voice is thick.

  Then I see a shadow over the boss’s head. Like a bird has flown in here and now can’t find its way out.

  After four blows I see my dad standing behind him, holding the chair leg in his hand. The boss sinks to his knees and gets stuck like a cork in the doorway. With each blow I can see more of my dad. I’m good at counting, but I wouldn’t be able to keep up even if I tried. My dad keeps hitting him and the sound changes from the hard whack of wood against wood to a much softer, rounder sound. Like a rolling pin slamming into dough.

  “Drop it,” says my dad, who is out of breath. I’m still holding the toy rabbit. He lifts me across the boss so my feet won’t get wet.

  When we’re back in the workshop, my dad pulls off his sweatshirt. His black T-shirt clings to his body, his face and neck are covered with red splashes. He wipes the chair leg with his sweatshirt. Then he puts his sweatshirt and the chair leg in separate plastic bags and ties a knot in them. He washes himself in the sink in the corner. He lifts me up so I sit on the work table.

  “We’ll be going very soon; I’ve just got to do a few things.”

  He puts on a pair of work gloves, gives me a quick peck on my forehead, and starts wiping down the room with an old rag. Just as when he works on the furniture, he looks like he knows exactly what to do.

  When he has finished, he crawls under one of the work tables along the walls. He emerges with a big metal box in his hands. He takes an electric drill from the wall, closes the door to the yard, and tells me to cover my ears. Sparks fly from the metal box. When he has finished, he opens it and empties it of banknotes and coins.

  On the way home we stop three times. The first time to throw the plastic bag with the chair leg into a garbage on a street corner. The second time to throw the bag with my dad’s sweatshirt into a different garbage. We cycle down a few more streets and my dad pulls in at the curb. He gets off the bicycle and helps me out of the basket. He doesn’t say anything; he just sits on his haunches in front of me, looks into my eyes, and holds me tight. His winter coat is buttoned all the way up, but I can feel the top of his wet T-shirt against my neck.

  When we get home, my dad says that we have to take off our clothes. All of them. He stuffs them into several plastic bags and ties knots in them. We take a bath; he scrubs us both thoroughly with soap and a sponge. Then he starts splashing water at me, spouting water out of his mouth like a fountain. I can’t help laughing.

  Every morning my dad asks me what I feel like doing. And then we do it. We go to the zoo. We feed the ducks and go to Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum. We go to the cinema and see a film about a racing car that can talk. We see the film three times in one day, and I eat my body weight in popcorn.

  When we come out of the cinema or the zoo, I can’t remember where we’ve been. I know we stood in front of the lion cage, I know I saw the lion cubs play. But I can’t remember what they looked like. As if it happened to someone else, as if it’s something I’ve only been told about. I nod to my dad, yes, the little monkeys were cute.

  My dad stops buying newspapers; we no longer go to the kiosks. He buys his tobacco at the bakery, when he gets bread for breakfast before I get up.

  I lie in bed all night, unable to sleep. My eyelids don’t grow heavy until the sun starts to rise. And then the dreams come. I keep seeing the boss.

  In the morning, I try to draw my dreams, I want to draw a bear in overalls, a big, brown furry bear. I want to look at the drawing, laugh at it, and scrunch up the paper. But every time I try to start it, draw a line on the paper, I stop immediately. I can’t draw it, I feel sick the moment I pick up a pencil. I put my paper and my colouring pencils, watercolours, and brushes as far under my bed as I can. So far that I have to bend down to see them.

  That night I lie on my bed until sunrise; if I close my eyes, I can see the boss dance.

  I don’t say anything to my dad; he wants me to be happy.

  I’m eating a giant ice cream cone as we walk through the city. It wasn’t easy to find an ice cream parlour in the middle of winter, but we kept looking. We walked down to Nyhavn, which my dad tells me was once a busy harbour. Built by Swedish prisoners of war. The strawberry jam on my ice cream runs down the cone and I lick it off. I start to cry and I can’t stop.

  It’s still dark outside. My dad walks around the kitchen in stockinged feet. He does everything as quietly as possible. I see him tiptoe past the doorway to my bedroom with an unlit cigarette in his mouth, his shoes in his hand, his jacket over his shoulder.

  When he realizes that I’m awake, he asks if I want to go back to sleep, he promises to get home before I wake again. I shake my head and he helps me get dressed. Several layers, clean clothes on top of dirty ones.

  It’s just after four o’clock and we’re standing in a parking lot behind a supermarket. Around us, people have congregated in small clusters. My dad pointed them out to m
e last time. Students in one group: they’re the ones with the red eyes. Dark-haired men, many with black moustaches. They speak a language I don’t understand. They’ve brought Thermoses; they drink coffee from small glasses.

  “They came to Denmark because they were told there was work for them. Now they find themselves here,” my dad says.

  The van arrives. People flick away their cigarettes; the groups mingle as they head for the van.

  There are rarely enough newspapers for everyone, but my dad’s sure to get some even when there’s a long line in front of him. The man with the newspapers inside the van waves my dad over.

  “You’ve got to look after your own,” he says, and hands him three or four bundles.

  I’m well aware that I’m not much use. I’m not nearly as fast as my dad. Once we’re inside a stairwell, he disappears. I can hear his footsteps going up; he takes three steps in his stride. The ground floor is my responsibility; I take care not to drop a single section.

  In the morning my dad’s hands are swollen and covered in newspaper ink. When we walk home, we see people going to work. If we’ve finished early, we walk around to the back of the bakeries and knock. The price is different before the shops open and the bread is still warm. Some days we get the bread for free; we get the bread they can’t sell and we stuff ourselves with misshapen poppyseed buns, crusty rolls, and croissants straight out of the oven.

  The next morning my dad tries once again to sneak off without waking me up. When he succeeds, when I open my eyes and the sun fills my room, I lie in bed thinking, Who will deliver to the ground floors for him now?

  I eat bread rolls and drink hot chocolate in bed.

  When I’ve finished my breakfast, my dad tells me to hurry up and get dressed: we’re going out to get my birthday present.

  I drag my dad down the street. I don’t know where we’re going, but we can’t get there soon enough.

  I wonder if he has saved up for the fire engine. The red metal fire engine with flashing lights and jets that spurt water when you press a button on its roof. The toy shop is on the corner and there’s always an old lady behind the counter. We’ve been there a few times, bought a bouncing ball or a couple of stickers if my dad had some spare change in his pocket. The last time we were there I was allowed to take down the fire engine and put it on the floor.

  Or the bicycle, the blue bicycle with leather fringes on the handlebars which will flap in the wind when you ride downhill. We walk past the window of the bicycle shop almost every day, and every time I hope it hasn’t been sold. But I know we can’t afford it. So I hope for the red fire engine, the one that squirts water.

  I know I don’t need either of them. I’m eight years old today. What use is a fire engine to me? It’s also quite expensive. But what if my dad has saved up for it?

  Or perhaps he’ll just take it. The old lady could look straight at him, they could talk about the weather, how the price of butter and milk keeps going up. And he’d still be able to slip the fire engine into his rucksack without her noticing. But I also know that he wouldn’t dream of taking anything from an old lady with a small shop.

  We walk past the toy shop and we keep on going. Could it really be the bicycle? I’m almost certain of it until we also walk past the window of the bicycle shop.

  We’re waiting at the bus stop when my dad asks me if anything is wrong. I shake my head.

  The bus takes us to the city centre. It’s a cold February day; winter jackets brush against coats. I trace the number eight with my finger on the steamed-up window.

  My dad leans close to me.

  “Today you’re going to get a very special birthday present.”

  I look at him, trying to guess what the next word from his lips will be.

  “Today you’re going to see an angel,” he says.

  We walk down Strøget, Copenhagen’s main pedestrian street. My dad holds my hand in his, he shows me the way.

  We walk through the doors of one of the big department stores and continue up the escalators to the cafeteria.

  We have to wait in line for a long time to pay for our hot chocolate, coffee, and plate of Danish pastries. In a corner we find a table covered with cups and cake plates from previous guests.

  “This is a good place to see an angel,” my dad says, and drops two lumps of sugar into his coffee. He stirs it with a teaspoon. “Angels follow people, I don’t know why, but they do. That’s why this is a good place; there are lots of people here, and you can drink hot chocolate at the same time.”

  I look around the cafeteria, but I can’t see any angels.

  “No,” my dad says, and laughs so much that his coffee spills over. “No, angels aren’t fat children with wings on their backs. Nor are they tall men holding swords like in the Old Testament. Angels are different; they’re outside our world.”

  My dad takes off his coat and drapes it over the back of a chair. He rolls up his sleeves and takes one of the empty coffee cups from the table. He looks at me and I nod.

  “We can touch this cup,” he says. “If we smash it, it’ll break.”

  My dad presses the cup into my hand.

  “But there’s something more. Something you can’t get a hold of. Something you can’t touch.”

  He takes the plate with the Danish pastries and holds it under the table.

  “Can you see the pastries now?”

  I shake my head.

  “But that doesn’t mean they aren’t there, does it?”

  He breaks off a piece of pastry and hands it to me.

  “There are things in this world you can’t touch. Things you can’t see unless you know what you’re looking for. Most people have forgotten that. Or they’re too scared to open their eyes.”

  We share the Danish pastries and when only crumbs remain, he says: “Finish your chocolate. Do you need the bathroom? No? Good, then let’s get started.”

  He looks around the cafeteria, searching for something. His gaze ends up somewhere to the right of the exit, not far from the woman behind the till and the trays of cutlery and napkins.

  “I want you to look over there. Keep looking that way.”

  I follow his finger; I want to be quite sure that I’m looking in the right direction.

  “Try to relax your eyes,” he says. “Look, but don’t look at anything in particular. Like when we go to the museum.”

  I look as hard as I can, I try really hard.

  “Am I allowed to blink?” My eyes are starting to water.

  “Of course you’re allowed to blink, as long as you keep looking over there. Look without looking. Forget where we are. Forget the girl at the till; forget the sound of knives and forks and coffee cups.”

  I don’t know how long we sit there. All I hear is my dad’s voice.

  “Seek and you will find, says the Bible. But it’s not true. People who look too hard won’t find anything at all. We’re not talking about missing keys. See without seeking.”

  I sit there until my eyes ache and one of my legs has gone to sleep. I open my mouth; I want to ask my dad if we can please go home. Come back another day, perhaps.

  But then it happens. If I hadn’t known that I was looking for something, and what I was looking for, I would’ve missed it.

  It starts like the colour blue. Like smoke floating across people’s heads. Then it grows, gets bigger, the blue tones darken and become less transparent.

  “Look,” my dad whispers.

  The blue grows arms and legs. It’s between the people; it sticks to them briefly as they walk past, then it lets go and returns to a form which now also has a head, a face with no features, neither male nor female.

  Then it’s gone. The sound of forks against cake plates, the ringing of the till and hundreds of words spoken simultaneously, all the noises return quickly and violently.

  My da
d smiles at me. His eyes are moist.

  “I knew you’d see it. Happy birthday.”

  He pulls me up from the chair in a big hug so my feet leave the ground.

  We walk down Strøget. I feel strangely light-headed. In the bus on the way home I ask my dad if I really saw an angel. I was absolutely sure when we were in the cafeteria. Now I’m starting to doubt.

  “Who knows?” he replies. “I think so. But who knows. The important thing is that you saw it.”

  I wait on the bottom step. I wring out the cloths so they’re ready. I run to get clean water for the bucket and I beat the doormats while my dad washes the stairs. I’m no help and I know I’m not.

  One day the sun appears behind the clouds. It’s early May and I can feel the sunbeams through my clothes.

  “Camus was right, starving is easier when the sun is shining,” my dad says.

  “Not that we’re starving,” he quickly adds.

  We walk around parks collecting bottles. I’m good at that even though I can’t carry very many. I don’t have to walk far to get a new bottle. People knock back the last few drops or tip them out on the grass so they can hand the empty bottle to me.

  In the evening my dad says he’s not hungry. He pushes his plate over to me.

  “Eat,” he says. “It’d be a pity to waste it.”

  I’m sitting in the bicycle basket. We ride past the bus stop and keep going until we’re the only ones left on the road, until the road becomes uneven and the gravel crunches under the bicycle tires. My dad stops so I can have a pee in the bushes, then we ride on. My dad stops in front of a rusty old gate. He closes it behind us and we cycle down an avenue with tall trees on either side. The leaves are so dense they look like a green wooden fence. We keep going further down the avenue until I can no longer see the road behind us. Then we emerge from the trees. The house in front of us looks like something out of a Western; it’s on several floors and built from broad planks. It could be the ranch of a rich cattle owner.