Fish in the Sky

by Fridrik Erlings

  “But the next morning, he woke me up at four o’clock, ordered me to get going, and all that day we were hauling the nets on his motorboat. When we came ashore, he ordered me to fillet the catch, and when that was over, he sent me to the fishing sheds and told me to stay there until he came to fetch me. And there I stood, long into the evening, threading the bait on the hooks on the line until I could no longer feel my fingers and was dreaming about going back to school. He did exactly the same thing the next day and the day after until I gave in and pleaded with him to let me go back to school.”

  “Was Granddad always so mean?” I ask.

  “He knew it wouldn’t work to tell me anything. I had to figure it out for myself. And I certainly did after those three days.”

  Then he’s silent, and for a while, I hear only the low buzz on the line and look at Christian the Ninth on my desk, illuminated by the light from the lamppost outside.

  “How was the checkup, by the way?” I ask, hoping to keep this conversation going for as long as I can.

  He replies that he is fine now, and that he has resigned from the Orca.

  “You know Suzy is expecting?” he says.

  “Yes, I know,” I say.

  He says he owns a small motorboat and is going to do some fishing in the spring, because nothing is like being out on the boat on a fine bright morning. Then he’s also been laying nets with another guy, and that’s good money. And he’s been fixing motors for some people and is thinking about starting up a small repair shop in the spring. Then he’s silent for a while and clears his throat.

  “It would be nice to have a helping hand around here with this and that,” he says. “I’ll need to paint the boat soon. Then there’s a lot to do when a child comes into the world.”

  “Yes,” I say. “I guess so.”

  “Would you maybe like to try and spend some time with me?” he asks.

  “Me?”

  “You haven’t been here since you were a little boy, when your mother and I went to your granddad’s funeral. Lots of people here are asking after you.”

  “About me?”

  “Your cousins and aunties,” he says.

  “Really?”

  “I’m sure you would love it on the boat with me. You don’t get seasick, do you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You should have enough sailor’s blood.”

  “I guess,” I say.

  We’re silent for a while, and I hear down the phone that he lights his pipe. I can almost smell the scent of his tobacco. I close my eyes and imagine that we’re sitting side by side in his house in the country, where the summer is so warm that you can run in your shorts all day long.

  “When can I come?” I ask.

  He hesitates for a second, and I hear him blow the smoke out slowly.

  “Whenever you want, Josh. Whenever you want.”

  “When are you going to paint the boat?” I ask.

  “Oh, I don’t know. After Easter, I guess,” he says.

  “So soon?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have to come to the city, right after Easter,” he says. “There are things I need for the motor. Then I’m going back the next day.”

  “I see.”

  “If you want to come with me then,” he says thoughtfully and hesitates, “well, then I guess I have to speak to your mom soon.”

  “Yes,” I say. “I guess that’s best.”

  “Well, son,” he says. “It’s settled then.”

  “Yes,” I say.

  We say good-bye and he hangs up, but I hold the phone in my hand for a long time, listening to the dial tone.

  Mom bids me good morning with a smile and strokes my hair like she used to before. This is the first time she’s done this since Pinko visited. And like she used to, she hums along to the radio as she butters my sandwich while Trudy and I crunch our cornflakes. Then she puts on her coat and her hat, and then Trudy stands up. I can hear their footsteps on the path through the open kitchen window, and their voices grow fainter.

  Peter’s seat at school is still empty, and it worries me. I start to think what he must have imagined when my seat was empty day after day. I’m sort of considering running to his house at lunch, but then I notice all the girls have gathered around Clara’s desk, whispering and shooting suspicious glances all over the classroom. Her girlfriends stand around, stretching the chewing gum out of their mouths, swinging it around their fingers, and putting it back into their mouths; then they make a series of cracking sounds, drag it out of the corners of their mouths again, then back in their mouths again, and then they chew with great speed. And now everything is said in secret whispers, and they glance with their suspicious eyes down the row of desks, scrutinizing each boy with their eyes and whispering in one another’s ears. And then there’s the occasional giggle. I’m on tenterhooks because I think I know what they’re talking about. That’s why I don’t dare to move, because it could make me look suspicious. So I sit quiet as a mouse and eat my sandwich.

  After school, I take the shortcut down the alleyway and go to Peter’s. I ring the doorbell. His mom comes to the door, holding the little one in her arms, and from inside the house, I can hear Peter’s younger sisters arguing. She looks tired but smiles and talks in a happy tone of voice like nothing at all has happened.

  “Hello, Josh, dear. Such a long time since I’ve seen you. Are you better now?” she asks, and strokes my cheek briefly.

  “Yes,” I answer, but when she asks what was wrong with me, I have some difficulty answering, because somehow I can’t lie to Peter’s mom.

  “It was just some kind of flu,” I force myself finally to say.

  “Well,” she says, and gives me a warm smile, “it’s good that’s over then.”

  “Is Peter in?” I ask.

  “No, he’s not,” she says, and her smile becomes somehow stiffer and her eyes a bit colder, like I insulted her in some way by asking.

  “He went to visit our Alice at the hospital,” she says. And suddenly I get the feeling that she’s not at all comfortable answering me.

  “She’s a little sick,” she explains so I won’t go thinking that this is anything serious.

  The little one starts to cry in her arms, and she shushes her gently and looks at me and puts her hand on the doorknob.

  “I’ll tell him you came by,” she says, and closes the door.

  I don’t go home right away but take a long detour into the neighborhood where Clara lives. I stand on a corner and peek my head around the building. From here I can see her house, a large white-stone house with two floors and a flight of steps up to the front door. On the gable at the end facing me is a small balcony on the second floor. A woman pushes a stroller past me, and an old man in a black coat and a gray hat walks carefully on the sidewalk, slow and out of breath.

  Finally I see her coming up the street along with her girlfriends. They’re chatting and laughing and stand for a while outside her house. She’s holding her bag in front of her with both hands, kicking it lightly with her kneecaps every now and then. I purse my lips and clench my fists in my pockets, peeking around the corner with one eye. Eventually they say good-bye, and she runs up the stairs and disappears into the house.

  Her room must be the one with the balcony. In a castle like this, the princess surely has a room with a balcony so she can look over her realm and dream of the prince that will get it all, one fine day, along with her.

  Peter stands on the doorstep when I open the door. He is almost the same as before, but there’s something different about him. He salutes by raising his hand carelessly to his eyebrow, and instead of putting on the hard soldier face like usual, he just smirks and mumbles, “Reporting for duty, sir.”

  I smirk as well but don’t salute. It’s like we’ve both agreed to stop this childish nonsense.

  He sits at my desk as usual and I on my bed.

  “Mom said you came by,” he says.

  “Yeah, I came by,” I say.
r />   He becomes a little awkward, staring for a while at his hands, sighing and smirking.

  “I was really mad the other day,” he says without looking up.

  “Yes,” I say.

  He looks over the desk as if to find something to fiddle with or to examine because he’s not comfortable being the center of attention.

  “How is Alice?” I ask.

  “She’s going to be fine,” he says, and hesitates for a moment and takes a deep breath before all of a sudden blurting it all out.

  “She fell in with a bad crowd. She was killing herself. I didn’t know what to do and no one else knew and then this happened, but now she’s going to be fine. They’re all talking again, Dad and Alice and everyone, you know. And now everything is going to better, much better, you know, for all of us.”

  “Well, that’s good, then,” I say.

  “Yes,” he says. “It’s very good.”

  Then he grabs a copy of Tintin and leafs through it, and I stand up to feed the fish.

  “Hey, are you coming to the costume ball?” he says finally.

  “Maybe,” I say.

  “Should I go as a gorilla?” he asks. “What are you going to go as?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Haven’t thought about it.”

  “Maybe I’ll be too hot being a gorilla. You know, it’s a bodysuit.”

  “Yes, maybe,” I say.

  “When do you think you’ll decide?”

  “You mean the costume?”

  “Whether you’re coming.”

  I can tell that he really doesn’t want to go unless I go with him. So I decide to go.

  “I guess I’ll go.”

  “Great!” he says, obviously relieved. “Then we’ll go together.”

  “That’s fine,” I say.

  He laughs about something he sees in Tintin.

  “We could be the Thomsons,” he says, pointing at a frame in the book showing the hilarious detectives wearing some bizarre national costume.

  We discuss it for a while, but finally Peter decides on the gorilla. And while we’re sitting like this, talking, I can feel what has changed. He no longer knows best about everything. Whatever the reason, he is insecure and seems to find some support in me, like I used to in him.

  The way things were before, that was another life, another existence. Peter puts down Tintin and gently strokes the wings of my falcon with his fingertips, the wings that once soared the skies, high above the earth. Now the falcon stands still on my desk. Somewhere out there at this moment, another falcon is stretching its wings, finding its freedom, just like I am, just like Peter will someday soon, I hope.

  The wooden floor creaks and cracks under our feet as we run around and around the old gym. Then the whistle blows, and we stop and form a line by the bars on the wall.

  A short sharp whistle: hang on bar and raise legs.

  We hang on the bars and raise our legs. Raxel inspects the line with his cane, poking the feet of those who have to raise them higher. We hang like this for a long time, our legs horizontal in the air, completely exhausted, until he blows the whistle again and we lower our legs. A couple more times, then we have a breather.

  A whistle, and we jump over the pommel horse, again and again, run back around and get in line, jump again, over and over, running, jumping, running, jumping.

  “Move it, move it,” Raxel growls, and we move it. Out of breath and sweating, blue in the face.

  Whistle: everybody sit down, and we sit.

  Raxel draws out the ropes that hang from a sliding bar on the ceiling, and ten ropes dangle in front of us like cobras. There are two teams. We have to race against the other, up the ropes, hit the ceiling with our hands, back down, next. The teams line up, and the first two boys run for the ropes, jump at them, and start wriggling their way upward to the shouting and the screaming of the others.

  I shout as well. This is exciting. It’s also the last challenge of the class, and this is the last PE class before Easter.

  The boys dangle on the ropes, heaving themselves upward, grip by grip, squeezing the rope with their bare feet. One of them lets out a loud cry as he slams the palm of his hand on the ceiling and then hurls down the rope as fast as he can, jumps on the floor, and runs to the line, where he hits the palm of the next one, who runs for the rope. We’re clapping and stomping our feet in rhythm so the floor booms. I’m the last one in my team, holding my hand out, ready, set, go!

  The floor creaks and groans under my pounding step as I run for the rope, then I jump on it, lock my fingers around it, fold my legs around it, and squeeze. The rope is swinging, soaking with sweat. I can’t hear the shouting anymore, just my own heartbeat in rhythm with my hissing breath, thundering in my ears. I grab the rope tightly above my head and pull myself up, pushing with my feet. The rope burns the skin on my feet as I push faster, trying not to lose my grip on the rope. Grab, pull, push. Grab, pull, push. The ceiling gets closer and closer, and I squeeze the rope between my thighs and wrap it around my ankle as I stretch out my hand, screaming loud, hitting the ceiling of the old gym with the palm of my hand. At once I hear the stomping and the clapping and the shouting and finally, finally the triumphant scream from the damn whistle.

  My heartbeat is still pounding in my ears when I sit on the bench in the locker room out of breath. Tommy is boasting about his achievements, claiming that he was the quickest one to climb the rope, and he could prove it if Raxel had used the stopwatch. Then he starts to run around naked as usual, trying to grab people’s underwear to throw into the showers. Sweat is running all over me, and the only thing I can think about right now is standing for a long time under a hot shower, letting the stream cleanse me completely. I stand up and take off my pants and my shirt.

  “What the hell?” Tommy shouts. “Would you look at this!”

  I still have the shirt over my head, so I don’t know what Tommy is referring to. When I’ve undressed, I see that Tommy is pointing at me and the boys are staring.

  “What?” I ask.

  “You’re getting pubes, man!” Tommy yells, laughing, looking around like the leader of the crowd.

  Some laugh with him, but the others sit awkwardly on the bench, blushing and groping for something in their sports bags.

  “So?” I say.

  “It’s just so funny.” He giggles, but the others are silent.

  “It’ll be awfully funny as well,” I say as I walk to the showers, “when all of us are hairy as mammoths and you’re still bald as a baby.”

  And with these words, I walk past dumbstruck Tommy and disappear into the showers to the explosive laughter of the other boys.

  Carol, my fire-breathing auntie, sits in the kitchen with a cup of coffee, talking to Mom. I hear the conversation revolve around the dress that Mom is making her for the annual dinner dance. Carol is asking Mom to join her at the dance.

  “Here he comes, the villain,” Carol calls out when she sees me in the hall.

  “Nice news I hear about you,” she says when I enter the kitchen. Clouds of smoke twirl around her head.

  I fetch the chocolate from the cupboard, put a few spoonfuls in a glass, and add cold milk. I don’t know if she’s waiting for an answer from me or not, and Mom says nothing as usual when Carol is here.

  “Do you really have to smoke that much?” I say, and open the kitchen window.

  “So! We’re a moral preacher now, are we?” Carol chuckles. “You’d be hearing a word or two if you were my child,” she adds.

  I walk past them and stop at the threshold, stirring the cocoa in the glass.

  “Yes, you would certainly know the meaning of discipline if you were mine,” Carol says, and puts out her cigarette.

  When I’m in the hall, I stop by the mirror and decide to say something that she cannot help but hear.

  “I’d be smoking like a chimney too, if I were yours.”

  I hear Mom react and a sudden gasp from Carol, but I hurry up the stairs to my room, sit by my de
sk, and sip the chocolate milk.

  After a while, I hear her say good-bye and leave. And then the sewing machine starts to buzz in the living room.

  The winter after Dad left, Mom and I moved into a small apartment and slept in the same room. Sometimes I woke up beside her as she moaned and sighed from bad dreams, her hands working in the half-light, moving in thin air over the comforter. The hands of a working woman, hands of a mother. But she was the one who sat by my bed and fed me mashed bananas when I had the flu. She was the one who sat by my side after she picked me up from the playground, watched me draw, and listened to everything I had to talk about that was interesting to me. Surely she must have had more than enough on her mind. But still she sat by my side and listened. And she tickled me in her big bed until I was in fits of laughter and cuddled me and called me her little prankster. And she taught me beautiful prayers about Jesus and the angels and sang me songs and read me stories until I fell asleep from her soothing voice. She was like that.

  Sometimes she was annoyed and tired. Sometimes she was angry and scolded me, usually not without good reason. And she believed blindly in Jesus and God’s will to rule her life like a dictator. She sings far too loudly in church and lets Auntie Carol boss her around far too much. But that’s how she is.

  It was also she who called up my dad instead of punishing me and told him that he had a son. That was her. And I know how hard it was for her to talk to him properly for the first time in six years, but she did it for me, since how else could my father have known how I was feeling?

  The light from the little bulb on the sewing machine is the only light on her face where she sits running the material under the needle that ticks away.

  I’m sitting in the old chair, watching her, ready to try the thing on when she tells me to. Just over thirteen years after the day of the great blizzard in the month of February, when the radio played “Love Me Do” and the midwife shouted, “You’re not seriously thinking of giving birth in this weather, are you?” she is sewing a costume for the boy that God lent her, the boy who lied to her and cheated her. Once upon a time, she was young and free and had her dreams. Her heart full of hopes. And there were probably many who wanted to dance with her. But then Dad appeared, and there was no one else. Then I arrived. Then it was just me.