Fish in the Sky

by Fridrik Erlings

  “Come here,” she says softly, and I stand up straight. She helps me put on the jacket with a hump on its back.

  “Why do you want to be a hunchback?” she asks absently, with pins in the corner of her mouth, fastening up the hem and folding up the sleeves to figure out the correct length.

  “Like in the movie,” I say. “Don’t you remember?”

  “Quasimodo?” she asks.

  “Yes, Quasimodo.”

  “Well, dear,” she says, and I notice she’s hiding a smile. “Then you’ll have to ask your cousin to paint your face or something, because you’re not that ugly.”

  I nod, but I don’t answer. I have some difficulty talking right now. I can only swallow a couple of times and purse my lips and stand here like a mannequin until she has marked all she needs to mark and takes the jacket off.

  “There,” she says with a gentle sigh, and sits down at her sewing machine, putting on her glasses. “Now you can go to your room. I’ll manage from here.”

  Even though I really just want to sit here in the twilight and listen to the needle tick away, watch her face in the small light, listen to her movements, the rustle of the fabric and the wailing of the wind outside, I go to my room because she asks me to. Because from now on, I’m going to be a good boy.

  A couple of vampires with black top hats are striding across the street in the moonlight, accompanied by a tall mushroom. And from out of cars, elves and trolls appear, along with pirates and soldiers with machine guns, huge honeybees, cowboys, aliens, and knights.

  Peter marches along beside me in a chicken costume. It turned out that the gorilla costume was too big for him. The top half of his beak points out from his forehead and the lower half from under his chin. He is wearing huge chicken feet and laughs hysterically every time he takes a step. He’s completely immersed in character and adds a cluck both before and after everything he says.

  Up on the ceiling, a disco ball is hanging, turning around, throwing white, blue, red, yellow, and green flashes from the stage lights through the darkened school hall, hitting painted faces and masks. The floor trembles along to the heavy bass from the speakers. Everybody here is something that they’re really not, except for the teachers holding their hands over their ears with a smile, while monsters, animals, and famous people from history jump in the sweaty crowd, dancing like mad.

  Up on the stage, two DJs are standing with their boxes full of CDs. They are gradually building up the tension with nonchalant looks on their faces. They’re obviously the center of attention because they are fifteen or sixteen, with a cool air of indifference about them.

  Tommy is determined to get all the attention as usual. He is wearing leopard-print swimming trunks and nothing else, playing King of the Jungle. He shows off his muscles on the dance floor, hits his chest, and yodels like Tarzan himself.

  “I should have worn the pirate costume,” Peter cackles by my side. “Being a chicken isn’t that cool.”

  “But there are four pirates,” I say. “At least you’re the only chicken.”

  I can’t sit straight because my hump juts out like a pyramid between my shoulder blades. Trudy used tons of her makeup to paint my face. My hair is sprayed stiff on end, and my eyebrows are pitch-black, one painted up on my forehead, the other a bit lower so my eyes look crooked on my face. Trudy dampened balls of cotton in makeup, sprayed them stiff, and stuck them to my face, to look like warts. I’ve got a small rubber ball up my left nostril, so my nose is crooked as well.

  “You look terrible,” Peter said when I came to his house. His parents and sisters laughed at us, even Alice. The house seemed still full of noisy children, a happy family again. But when Jonathan called after us, asking if he should pick us up after the dance, Peter called back, “No. We’ll walk.”

  It was the only time tonight he didn’t cluck either before or after the sentence.

  Clara sings loudly with her girlfriends, and they turn and twirl so their gowns and silk scarves fly around them. She has glitter in her black hair, with red lips and painted eyes. Tommy is jumping around her like a monkey, and she flashes him a smile.

  Yes. She’s smiling at him.

  Then the song is over, and she rushes through the crowd with her friends toward Peter and me. They’re sweating and out of breath, and one of them asks if the chairs by us are free.

  “Yes,” Peter says, and clucks, and they laugh at him and sit down, but I look away, determined to make it look like I haven’t noticed them.

  “Who are you?” Clara suddenly asks, and turns to me.

  But before I can answer, she’s figured it out.

  “My God! You’re the cripple. Did you all see the movie? It was so sad. Cool costume. Who made it?”

  “Mom,” I say, and am about to add that it was actually my cousin who painted my face, but she’s not listening.

  “Look at Tommy! Is he for real?”

  And she laughs at Tommy’s foolish behavior on the dance floor.

  “What’s with you two?” she asks. “Why aren’t you dancing?”

  Then Peter starts to flap his wings and raise his feet high up and cluck, and the girls laugh. But Clara stands up and walks to me.

  “Dance with me.”

  “Me? N-N-ow?” I stutter, and my face is boiling.

  “C’mon,” she says, and grabs my hand, and before I know it, I’m out on the dance floor for the first time in my life. The one I love is standing before me, and noise is pouring from the speakers and the floor is vibrating, but I’m frozen and can’t move.

  Everybody around me is moving. A jumping horde of fun, but I’m completely paralyzed and just want to run away.

  “Why don’t you dance?” she shouts.

  “I can’t. I don’t know how.”

  “There’s nothing to it!” she calls back reassuringly. “Just do like this!”

  Then she swings lightly, and her movements are soft and self-confident. And I start to stomp my feet and feel like a rhinoceros stuck in the mud. Tommy is on the other side of the room, and I’m hoping he’ll leave us alone. I’m sweating terribly, and the paint is starting to run down my face; one of my warts comes loose and dangles off my cheek. I’m soaking wet, and I don’t look up, afraid that our eyes will meet. I shake and stomp and trample around, trying to move like everybody else. Suddenly she grabs my hand with her right hand but puts her left hand on my shoulder.

  “There,” she says. “Hold me.”

  And I do as she says and let her take control until I finally find the rhythm. Our fingers melt together, and the palm of my hand is resting on her back and our faces are so close that I can feel the heat from her. Her hair swings in front of me, filling my unblocked nostril with the most wonderful scent.

  Then the song is over and I don’t know what to do, so I stand still, holding her.

  “You’re sweating,” she says.

  “I know,” I say.

  “One of your warts is falling off,” she says.

  “I know,” I say.

  “Should I take it off?” she asks.

  “Sure,” I say, and she raises her hand from my shoulder, touches my cheek with her fingertips, takes the wart between them, and pulls it off.

  “Did it hurt?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Should we dance some more?”

  “Sure,” I say, waiting, prepared for the noise to pour out again, determined to show her that I’ve figured out how to do this. But then the hall fills up with fragile guitar plucking and the low humming of a lazy brass band.

  She embraces me, wraps her arms around me, and we’re almost not moving at all.

  The sweat glues our cheeks together, and her hair is in my face. I can feel her jaw move by my cheek as she sings softly with the music, whispering in my ear, and I close my eyes.

  My lips are right by her ear, and I could so easily whisper something to her, anything, everything that I want and yearn to tell her right now. But I don’t. I just melt, dissolve in this lovely embra
ce, and we’re almost not moving at all.

  Then the song fades out, she loosens her arms, throws her hair to the side, and gives me a smile, and her eyes twinkle like two wishing stones in a clear stream. I feel like I’ve fallen asleep. There’s a white mark on her cheek from my cousin’s makeup, and I’m about to stretch my hand out to wipe it off, an excuse for a touch, but at the same instant, she grabs my shoulders, moves quickly close to me, and kisses me with her open mouth.

  The lights are lit in the hall, the DJs put a silly children’s song on and think they’re very funny, and by the time I’ve gathered my senses, she’s gone, and I’m surrounded by cowboys, clowns, and vampires. Tommy is in the middle of the throng, looking in all directions, calling her name. The name of the girl who just kissed me.

  Peter waddles through the crowd and takes a few giant chicken steps toward me.

  “Are you coming?” he asks.

  Trudy is on the phone when I come in. She’s red in the face and hurries to finish the conversation when I close the front door. She tells me that Mom went to the dance with Carol, then she goes into her room. After a while, I hear music from her stereo. There’s obviously a new boyfriend on the horizon. And for some reason, she’s reluctant to tell me anything about it. But it doesn’t matter because I know how she feels. Because I’m also busy trying not to explode into a thousand pieces or dissolve into thin air or melt down through the floor or something. I know she’ll confide in me sooner or later, when she’s ready. I look in the bathroom mirror at this beaming Quasimodo, the hunchback that has just been kissed by his Esmeralda. I feel like if I wash my face, the dream will go away, so I keep on staring in the mirror, at my lips that she kissed just moments ago. When the sweat has solidified on my body and the makeup is crumbling off my face, I turn on the shower, undress, and stand quite still under the hot stream for a long time.

  I find it almost impossible to fall asleep. My body is filled up with a burning tension that makes it feel like the veins are bursting out of my skin. Then I relax, and sweet emotions fill my heart like helium, and it feels like I’m about to glide up into the air any moment now. My eyes fill with tears, and I kiss my pillow with pure affection.

  Gently, I disappear from this world into another world, where millennia go by in a second and a single moment takes an age to pass. I look around me with astonishment, like a visitor from outer space, watching how life rises and falls, how the ocean deepens and how the sky rises, how stars twinkle, and how new growth springs from the earth. Then I realize that it is me creating this world; it springs up from my footprints, which lie like a crooked path behind me as far as the eye can see. I’m both the creator and the created; I’m both the matter and the spirit, a fish in the sky and a bird in the ocean.

  Mom is sleepy in the bright morning light and yawns heavily. She asks me about the costume ball and laughs when I tell her about Peter in the chicken costume. She asks if I danced, but I quickly fill my mouth with cereal.

  “A little,” I say.

  Trudy comes into the kitchen and says good morning in a happy voice. And now it’s Mom’s turn to answer some questions. Trudy asks her if she had fun and how it was, and I can tell by Mom’s reaction that she doesn’t want go into any details, any more than I do. She hands me my lunch box and reminds me that this is the last day of school before Easter, which makes my heart skip a beat in the bright morning.

  At school I have a hard time pretending that Clara doesn’t exist because if I turn in my seat, her tranquil eyes are fixed upon me.

  The buds on the trees in the school yard are blossoming, the trees bobbing gently in the warm breeze. Peter stands by my side at morning break, talking about the inquest into the accident on the Orca.

  “Does your dad get risk bonus?” he asks.

  “He’s not on that ship anymore,” I say.

  “Oh,” he says, and it seems he’s a little disappointed on my behalf. “What is he doing, then?”

  “He has a fishing boat in the country, up on the lake, you know,” I say.

  “Really?” Peter says, and I can tell he thinks this is not nearly as exciting as having a father on a ship traveling all over the world.

  “He’s having a baby soon.”

  “He is?” Peter says joyfully. “And you’re becoming a big brother,” he says, and punches me on the shoulder. “I could teach you a lesson or two,” he says. “Changing diapers and stuff.” He laughs.

  Then he becomes thoughtful for a moment.

  “Is your dad moving here, then?” he asks suddenly, and I’m sure he’s looking forward to visiting with me and teaching me how to handle babies.

  “No, they’re going to stay in the country,” I say.

  “I see,” he says, and I feel his enthusiasm fade out.

  Headmaster Pinko walks briskly into the classroom, and the math lesson begins. As usual he talks and talks and stands by the blackboard and writes up the example with white chalk or sits on the corner of the desk, loving the sound of his own voice going on and on. He goes over the homework examples one by one, explaining each thoroughly and talking and talking because life is math and math is life. I’m horrified to realize that I have done everything wrong. Not one example in my notebook is right, and I’m miles off even in the most simple ones. I just don’t have a math brain. It’s as simple as that. It’s all right to make one mistake in an example or two — Pinko just finds that endearing and amusing, because it also gives him a chance to let his bright light of wisdom shine forth. But to have every one completely wrong is nothing less than stupidity in his eyes.

  When he’s gone over all the examples and has explained it all over and over, he wipes the blackboard completely clean, and a knot of anxiety explodes in my stomach. He writes a new example on the board, turns, smiling, faces the class, rubs his hands together, and adjusts his specs on his nose. He’s going to take someone up.

  “Now, this is a real challenge,” he says, and winks at the class while the poor kid who has been picked out stands there racking his brain to the sound of the class giggling. Pinko smirks and whistles a little tune and looks at the boy, who can barely hold the chalk with his trembling fingers.

  “No, no,” Pinko says, laughing, when the boy thinks he’s finished. “You don’t put x² there!” Pinko says. “Not there! Ha, ha!”

  And the class laughs with him, but the eyes of the victim search wildly in vain for the place to put x².

  Pinko’s bald head glistens, and his white shirt stands out, luminous, against his red tie, his gray suit impeccable, the crease on his trousers sharp as a razor blade. Confidently and helpfully, he leads the boy out of the maze and then sends him, shaking, back to his seat, where he quickly wipes the sweat off his head with his sleeve.

  Pinko writes another example on the blackboard and turns around, smiling.

  “Well,” he says brightly. “Who wants to come up here and show us how to solve this?”

  At once everybody tries to lie low except for the math geeks, who raise their hands eagerly, even though they know as well as us, the normal geeks, that they won’t be chosen. He looks from one face to the next, and I’m starting to suspect who this game is meant for. Somewhere in this class is a boy who lets his imagination get the better of him.

  His eyes fall to rest on me.

  “Josh Stephenson. Come here and show us how it’s done,” he says with false pleasantness.

  The silence is buzzing in my ears.

  I stand up slowly. The legs of the chair screech over the floor. I step out of the row, resting my hand on the desk, then put one leg carefully in front of the other. There’s a low creak of the floorboards every time I put my foot down. It’s the only sound I can hear.

  Ahead of me is the teacher’s desk. Pinko stands smiling with the white chalk in his hand. As I get closer I can see the white dust on his fingers and an almost invisible cloud of dust on his gray jacket sleeve. I’m up at the desk, and all eyes are fixed on the back of my head. I stop by the blackboard, a
nd Pinko’s thick fingers hand me the chalk. I raise my hand slowly and take it without looking up.

  “Well. What’s the solution?” he says.

  I can almost hear the corners of his mouth rise and his lips stretch over his teeth as he smiles over the classroom.

  There’s nothing I would like to do more than solve this. Solve it with such a stroke of genius that nothing like it has ever been seen. Solve it completely. Absolutely. Just to show him that I can, just to get my revenge on him. But I know I can’t. And he knows it too.

  “C’mon, now. We’re waiting,” he says, smiling, and his bald head gleams and the swollen artery on his neck beats the rhythm, tight against the snow-white collar of his shirt. He’s like the shark, Carcharodon carcharias, who nibbles on his prey until it stops fighting, killing it slowly just for fun with sharp yellow teeth, all of them pointing into its mouth. When the prey is past the first row of teeth, there’s no hope of escape; it can flee in only one direction: farther down the bloody jaw. So perfect a killing machine is the shark, so merciless and selfish.

  “The bee,” I say in a quiet, trembling voice.

  “Talk louder, Josh, so everyone can hear you.”

  “The bee,” I say louder.

  “Huh? This isn’t natural history, my boy. That was yesterday, ha, ha, ha!”

  A nervous laughter gushes out of the class for a moment, but then everything falls silent.

  “Carry on,” he orders but his smile has gone.

  “The bee is one of the greatest wonders of nature,” I say.

  He knocks softly on the blackboard, and the white clouds of chalk dust twirl from under his fist.

  “The example on the blackboard, Josh.”

  But now all I can see are the pages of Life and Creation, where I wrote down everything the narrator said about the bee, Apis mellifera.