Boy on the Edge

by Fridrik Erlings

  He dreamed he was flying, high in the air; the buildings on the farm like toy houses in the middle of the vast lava field, far below him. He was a bird, a small gray bird with a long black tail. The lava field suddenly became liquid, moving like waves on the ocean; surf made of huge boulders falling around the tiny buildings. It was like the end of the world. He noticed Emily climbing the tall cairn in the middle of the yard, clinging to the white cross on top, crying, “Help me, Henry! Please, help me!” He dived down and realized he wasn’t a small bird after all, but a big bird, big enough for her to climb on his back. “Where to?” he chirped. “Home,” she said. “Let’s go home.”

  She woke him up before dinner and he limped behind her toward the house, dizzy, confused, and sleepy. Twenty little boys stood silently by their chairs around a long table in the dining room. At the head of the table stood Reverend Oswald. Steam rose from a large plate of boiled fish, a bowl full of potatoes, and another bowl full of boiled vegetables. Emily placed a comforting hand on Henry’s shoulder.

  “This is Henry,” she said, and smiled at the boys. “He’s our new farmhand and you will show him respect and courtesy.”

  “Welcome, Henry,” said Reverend Oswald, and the boys echoed his greeting in unison: “Welcome, Henry!”

  Like a disciplined group of little soldiers, the boys took their seats, clasped their hands in prayer, and rested their foreheads on their knuckles. Emily pulled out a chair for Henry. Then she sat down and indicated that he should bow his head as well and clasp his hands. The reverend drew breath and then words began to flow out of his mouth; his passionate tone of voice rising, increasing in volume and power until the words were bouncing off the dining-room walls, hitting Henry’s eardrums like fists, pounding his ears.

  “God Almighty! Heavenly Father! Your Grace Knows No Limits! Your Mercy Is Boundless! Your Love Is The Breath We Breathe! The Beating Of Our Hearts! The Very Soul Of Our Being! You Are Our Father! And We Are Your Children! Humbly We Thank You, O Lord, For Everything You Have Given And For What We Are About To Receive! Amen!”

  “Amen!” the boys cried.

  Then utter silence, until the reverend took a piece of fish, put it on his plate, and everyone began to eat.

  No one said anything; the only sounds were when a fork or a knife touched a plate, an occasional cough or a sneeze, or when someone cleared his throat as quietly as possible. And because of this silence the last words spoken by Reverend Oswald were somehow still flying around the dining room, growing louder and louder in Henry’s head with every minute. Henry finished eating before everybody else and fixed his eyes on Emily, screaming his own prayer, asking that he might leave the table. But she didn’t look up, and he dared not move.

  He glanced around the table. The official had told him on the bus that most of the boys here came from troubled families, their moms or dads either in prison or in mental institutions. Some of the boys had been caught stealing, robbing shops, breaking and entering. A few had no parents at all and were waiting to be taken in by foster parents. Some had wide eyes full of sadness, like it would take nothing to make them start crying. Others had cold eyes and hard faces, as if nothing could surprise them anymore. They were like grown men; perhaps they had experienced too much, too soon. Henry imagined that the sad ones still believed that everything would be all right one day, even though every day of their short lives had been nothing but disappointing. They still had hope. The hard ones had exchanged childish dreams for something more durable: hate.

  Henry could sense their anger. He’d been hopeful once, and later full of hate. And now? Now he was a little confused, because of Emily and her kindness. He wasn’t ready to hope for anything just yet though. No, not at all. He would cling to his hate a little longer, just to be on the safe side. Besides, he didn’t know what to think about the reverend. He was cold all right, harsh, strict, with his mouth full of words, complicated words, terrifying words.

  Finally dinner was over and Henry limped behind Emily to the cowshed. The routine was simple: “First you fetch them fresh hay. Then you scrape the stalls clean and shovel out the dung canal. You empty the wheelbarrow into the heap behind the barn,” Emily explained. “I’ll do the milking tonight, but tomorrow morning I’ll teach you how to do it.”

  Henry liked the cows at once.

  They were big and clumsy like he was, lazy and annoyed: Old Red, Little Gray, Spotty with her large horns, Brandy and Belle; there were Jenny, Maggy, and Nelly. They rose in their stalls and mooed in deep, gentle voices, craving fresh fodder, like little children begging for candy. There was something so soothing about the way they snorted out clouds of warm breath, the sound of their slow munching, their deep grunts of pleasure, and their large, dome-shaped eyes gleaming with carefree happiness.

  Then there was the bull. It had no name.

  Emily warned Henry to be careful because the bull was always angry and not at all fond of people; it could as easily crush a man as a person can squash a fly under their thumb, she said. She seemed terrified of the bull, even though she had been raised on a farm herself. All around the bull’s stall was a high wooden fence that reached Henry’s chin. When he peeked over it he could just see the black hide. The bull kicked the fence and bellowed angrily. Henry jumped back in fright, his clubfoot crumbling under him so he almost fell to the floor.

  “You’d better leave it alone,” Emily said.

  She sat on a small stool beside one of the cows, washed its udders with hot water, and applied grease to the teats before she began milking. A white stream of pure milk hit the inside of the bucket, and the cow sighed with pleasure.

  Henry grabbed the shovel and turned to the dung canal. The cow dung had a soft, sweet smell. As soon as he began, one of the cows raised her tail in the air and shit, like she’d been given a signal. Henry shoveled it up and moved his wheelbarrow along. He was the King of Dung, collecting the dues from his subjects, filling the wheelbarrow. He pushed the heavy load around the barn, where he emptied it onto the heap in one quick movement.

  He breathed in the salty wind coming off the ocean. He felt great. He was a farmhand, a workingman. He was somebody. Who would have thought? The King of Dung couldn’t help but smile a little before turning back inside the cowshed to his subjects.

  Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were all in the dining room of the farmhouse. Reverend Oswald would say a prayer, and then everyone would eat in silence. Every day the boys had classes with Emily in the garage, which was both a makeshift classroom and a chapel. Henry was relieved when Emily told him he didn’t have to attend her lessons; he was welcome, of course, but it was not a duty.

  But there was no way out of Reverend Oswald’s religious lessons. And Henry hated them. When Oswald asked questions, the little ones would compete to answer as fast as they could. Henry wondered if the reverend thought he was retarded, because he never asked him anything, which was the only relief. Oswald’s preaching frightened Henry. He spoke so fast that Henry usually didn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about. All that screaming and shouting; if heaven was anything like this, Henry definitely didn’t want to go there. He’d never seen a grown man shout with such burning conviction before, like a madman watching a soccer game.

  Henry didn’t like being among the little boys. None of them were ever going to become his friend, and he didn’t care about that; he’d never had any friends anyway. He just wanted to be on his own.

  Sunday services were no better.

  When everybody had taken their seat, Emily started to play the pedal organ and the boys began to sing. Reverend Oswald sat still with a bowed head and clasped hands, in silent prayer. When the song was over he stood up and started to preach.

  He talked a lot about God. But he talked even more about the devil. He said he loved God but hated the devil, for the devil was always trying to get inside people and take control of them. The devil had to be driven out, so people could go to heaven after they died, instead of going to hell. He talked li
ke that, on and on, faster and louder, until finally he was almost screaming and at last he shouted, “Hallelujah!”

  And the little ones echoed his shout with fervor.

  “No one is without sin,” he said. “And those who don’t repent will never enter heaven. That’s why you are here: to learn how to repent. I know,” he continued, “that many have already given up on you, and for good reason too.” He looked over the small crowd with his cold blue eyes. “But God will never give up on you and neither will I. The devil may have dug his claws into you, but I will set you free in the name of Jesus! Praise the Lord! Hallelujah!” he shouted, and the boys cried, “Hallelujah!”

  Reverend Oswald said that when the devil started to take control of a boy, he had to be punished. What the devil hated most was rebuilding the cairn in the yard, the Cairn of Christ. The punishment started in the evening by taking the top stone from the cairn, and then, one by one, making a cairn just the same next to the old one, stone by stone, before sunrise next morning.

  But if the devil had really taken control of a boy, there was one punishment that was much worse. The boy would be locked in the Boiler Room, with no food, to pray, for as long as it took. The devil hated to be starved and hated praying on his knees for days on end.

  “Some of you here have rebuilt the Cairn of Christ, and a few of you have been put in the Boiler Room,” the reverend said, looking over the crowd. “To begin with, you thought that you were being punished, and you cried and begged on your knees and you promised to be good. But when you had finished rebuilding the Cairn of Christ, when you had spent a few days and nights in the Boiler Room, you finally realized that you weren’t the ones being punished, but the devil! And because you humbled yourselves before the Lord, the devil gave up! You were saved and brought back to life in union with Jesus Christ! Hallelujah!”

  “Hallelujah!” the boys replied.

  After that, Oswald said a long prayer, then Emily pressed the pedals on the organ with her feet and raised her voice in song. The little ones sang with her.

  If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.

  If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.

  If you’re happy and you know it and you really want to show it,

  if you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.

  After every service Oswald’s words echoed in Henry’s head for a long time. They fluttered about in his mind with great speed like screeching birds, inches from colliding into one another; shouting words, whispering words, never-ending sentences that he didn’t understand, and then short sharp words, like slaps in the face. Sometimes he didn’t fall asleep until early morning from the racket in his head.

  His anxiety flexed its muscles; it was like a troll, punching him on the inside with fists, gnawing at his heart. He woke up screaming from nightmares that were full of angry words. He was covered in sweat, trembling with fear.

  Lying awake, breathing in the spicy scent of hay and cow dung, Henry thought about stealing away in the night. Maybe he would fall into a deep pit in the lava and never get back out. Perhaps he would die there. Then nobody would have to worry about him anymore. But then he thought of Emily; she would worry. She wouldn’t want him to run away. She was a good person. Besides, where on earth would he go? There was no place for him anywhere in the world but here.

  Still trembling from his bad dreams, he limped out of his room and into the cowshed. The cows looked at him with their large eyes full of surprise, as if they were thinking, Isn’t it too early for milking? Some of them rose in their stalls, sniffing toward him, as if murmuring gently, Go back to sleep, boy.

  Henry stood on the edge of the dung canal and peed.

  Suddenly there was a great noise behind him, from the bull’s stall; heavy breathing and loud kicking as the monstrous animal rose to its feet.

  Henry fell back as a gigantic black head appeared above the fence with an angry frown over its burning eyes. The bull rested its jawbones on the fence and stared at him with its big flappy ears outstretched, spread its nostrils, and knitted its brow. Henry was paralyzed for a moment, overwhelmed by that powerful force of nature measuring him with its angry eyes.

  They stared at each other like that for a long time until the black bull suddenly shot its long wet tongue out of its mouth and dug it deep into each of its huge nostrils.

  At first Henry was startled, for it happened so suddenly and it seemed completely out of character: the huge, threatening monster picking its nose with its tongue! Henry couldn’t help but laugh, a deep, coarse, limping laughter. There was something that tickled him deep inside as he looked at this huge beast with such a dumb expression on its face.

  When the bull saw him laugh, it stretched its head forward and curled its upper lip, causing deep wrinkles to form in the skin above its nostrils and exposing its pink, toothless upper gums. Henry mimicked it and curled his upper lip, breathed hard out of his nose like the bull did, and stretched his neck forward. They stood like this for a while, laughing silently into each other’s faces.

  Henry slipped his hand between the bars and scratched the bull’s chin. A deep purr resounded from within the animal, and it closed its eyes gently. He isn’t bad, Henry thought. He’s not evil; he’s just a little angry being fenced in like this. He’s not bad, not bad at all. Just lonely. He just needs a friend.

  Henry stepped up onto the fence and embraced the bull’s head, while the bull tried to eat Henry’s sweater with his coarse tongue.

  “Good bull,” Henry whispered. “Good bull.”

  He scratched the bull behind the ears, dug his thick fingers into the curls on his forehead. And the bull purred like a kitten.

  Henry wanted to give him a name. He remembered that Reverend Oswald had talked about a great flood the other day, about Noah’s ark and all the animals. Noah! That was a good name.

  Noah purred and pressed himself against the creaking fence, which closed him in on all sides. Carefully, Henry climbed into his stall, squeezing himself into a corner, and stood eye to eye with the bull. Noah sniffed his clothes and pressed his head against Henry’s chest. Henry gasped for breath and saw red, but he wasn’t going to give up. He embraced the large head and squeezed tightly like he was trying to wring Noah’s neck. But Henry knew full well that he wasn’t strong enough to do that. And Noah knew it as well; he rolled his eyes and turned his head to the side, with a hint of a grin around his mouth. It was just a little game between two friends, two kindred spirits who had found each other in the loneliness of the world.

  When Henry heard footsteps on the gravel outside at dawn, he climbed back over the fence and waited. It was the last day Emily would be helping him milk. She arrived with a smile and a bucket full of hot water. He would be doing all the milking this morning; she said she would only be observing, making sure he was comfortable being left on his own in the cowshed from now on.

  He washed Old Red’s udders, put grease on the teats, and started milking. Emily looked around and noticed he had scraped all the stalls clean.

  “They’re so happy when their stalls are clean and dry,” she said. “And they give more milk when they’re happy,” she added.

  Henry wondered how to tell her that the bull wasn’t really that dangerous, that he was just miserable and lonely. But he had difficulty forming the sentence in his mind, a sentence she would understand. Perhaps it would be best not to tell her, not just yet. Maybe she wouldn’t understand, being so afraid of the bull and all.

  So he said nothing.

  Emily asked him how he felt these days, if everything was all right, if he was happy with his room. He nodded and grunted a sort-of yes, deep in his throat.

  “I know this place can be lonely at times,” she said, staring out of the small window. “Isolated, perhaps, especially in winter. But the summers here are lovely, you’ll see.”

  They were both silent for a while.

  Henry poured the first bucket into a container, which floated in a tank full of cold
water, and moved the milking stool next to Little Gray.

  With Emily around, Henry never felt pressured; it was always relaxing.

  “Ages ago, back in pagan times, there were green meadows where the lava fields are today,” Emily said in a low voice, as if talking to herself.

  “An eruption cleared the entire area overnight. The lava ran down the mountains in the north, flowed over the fields, and surrounded the knoll where the old farmhouse stood.”

  For a moment Henry feared that she was about to give him the same lecture he’d been forced to listen to on the bus. But as she continued speaking in her soft voice, her words had a very different effect on him than he had expected.

  She told him how the burning lava had rushed over the outbuildings and chased the sheep and the people, who fled toward the sea cliffs and threw themselves over the edge.

  Then hundreds of years went by.

  Long after the lava had cooled down, there were foreign ships anchoring in the bay below the cliffs, the same bay that came to be known as Shipwreck Bay. Farmers from the countryside traded with the sailors and sold them dried fish and meat, which they transported on horses, their heavy hooves gradually chiseling a path that wound across the lava field.

  About midway it passed the Gallows, two boulders that rose high up above the lava and leaned against each other.

  “They remind me of two friends bidding each other farewell for the last time,” Emily said, almost whispering. “They used to hang thieves and murderers there, you know. It should be a terrible place, but to me it isn’t.”