Boy 23

by Jim Carrington

  So I make a dash for it, across the wooden floor, eyes focused on the doors, my way out of here. And then I’m reaching my hand out, putting it on the door handle and turning. Only it won’t open, will it? I shake it, try and budge the door, but it won’t move at all.

  It’s locked.

  I squizz around the room. Still no one there. But there are other doors, aren’t there? There’s the one that led to the church for a start. I rush across the floor towards it, and when I get there I try the handle and I find that’s locked too. I try all the others and find it’s the same story. I’m trapped. Locked in.

  And then, when I look up, thinking about what to do next, I see I’m not alone after all. Father Frei stands in front of me, arms folded, a smile on his face, and he says, ‘What are you doing, Jesper?’

  Carina

  The morning bell stops tolling. We sit in rows like every morning and evening – silent, heads bowed as if this means something. As if anything matters except what you can see in front of your own eyes. As if there’s a God.

  And while Father Frei leads everyone in prayer – murmuring and crossing himself and wafting his incense around – my lips move but I remain silent, as I do every day. A million thoughts go through my mind that definitely have nothing to do with God or Jesus or Mary. I stopped believing the day I asked for God’s help, the day I really needed it, and He wasn’t there.

  As I think thoughts that would see me burn in hell, someone comes into the church late and sits down beside me on the pew.

  He’s a new one. There’s something wild and animal-like about him. The way his wide, wide eyes dart around, terrified, nervous as hell, not staying on any one thing for more than a second. I hear his short, shallow, panicky breathing above the sound of all the mumbled prayers of Father Frei and the children. The boy looks up and across at me, sees me looking back at him, and straight away he flinches, as though he thinks I’m going to hit him or something. He shifts as far as he can go to the edge of the pew and looks down at the ground. His whole body shakes.

  He’s not the first one I’ve seen in that state. Sometimes when they first come in they’re like that: nervous and trembling and strange-looking. It’s how I looked when I got here, I’m sure.

  But this one’s worse than any of them. He’s so edgy, he looks like he’d have a heart attack if I so much as spoke to him. And every time something happens in the Mass – every time the organ starts or they parade the cross and the candles around the church – he jumps out of his skin and the look in his eyes is pure fear.

  He’s one of the wild ones, that’s for sure.

  I sit and pretend I’m praying, make the sign of the cross at the right time, open my mouth in time to the music as we sing a hymn, but I think my own thoughts. And as soon as it’s over, Father Liebling comes and grabs the boy, and I walk off to the gardens to start work.

  Jesper

  ‘Follow me, Jesper,’ he says.

  We leave the church – the whispering and the smell of dust and burning and whatever that smoke stuff was – and we walk around the outside of the building. I feel relieved to be out of there.

  ‘What happened to your clothes, Jesper?’ Father Liebling says as we walk away from the church. ‘These aren’t the clothes I gave you yesterday.’

  I squizz down at what I’m wearing, cos he’s right. This morning my clothes had gone. I had to search for what I could find and all I got was other people’s dirty clothes that had been left on the floor and they don’t exactly fit me like they should.

  I gawp back at Father Liebling and shrug.

  ‘Did the others take them? While you slept.’

  I nod even though I don’t know for sure.

  ‘You have a lot to learn, Jesper. I’ll find you a lock for your wardrobe.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say.

  ‘You’ll get used to St Jerome’s soon enough. The others will leave you alone if you try not to react to them.’

  We walk on, not stopping until we come to a field with bare earth and fifteen or twenty boys working in it, digging the earth, taking things out of the ground (and I think the things are potatoes) and putting them in sacks. Around the edge of the field on two sides is an enormously tall wall. I gawp at it, wondering whether I could climb it and escape. Only I think it’s too tall, and besides, there are two priests standing beside the wall, prying on the boys working. They’d stop me, wouldn’t they?

  Father Liebling speaks to the two priests in their words. As they talk, I squizz across the field at the boys working. And I spot the blond boy from my dormitory. Markus. He’s crouching on the ground, picking potatoes from the soil and putting them in his sack.

  ‘You’ll work in this field,’ Father Liebling says to me. ‘Take a fork and a sack and go and work on the row next to Markus. He’ll show you what to do.’

  The other two priests give me the equipment I’ll need, and I trudge across the dirty ground to start work.

  As I get close, Markus stops work to gawp up at me. He says something (I think it’s an insult) and then he spits on the soil between us. And I decide not to ask him to show me what to do.

  Cos it doesn’t look difficult. I dig the soil, then pick up the potatoes and put them in my sack, then move down the line. Easy.

  For a while it’s just me and the soil and the potatoes. No one bothers me and I don’t bother anyone. And before I know it, hours have passed and the priests are whistling at us. When I squizz around the field, I see the rest of the boys are yomping over to a little wooden hut to wash their hands under a tap and then queuing to get into the hut before coming back out with cups of drink and plates with big hunks of bread.

  My guts rumble. I put my tools down and follow the tide of boys over to the hut, where I wash my hands under the trickle coming out of the tap. I join the line for bread and cheese and water, then take it outside, where all the boys are sitting around on a patch of grass, scoffing food and talking and laughing.

  When I get close some of them stop talking and squizz my way. And soon their squizzes become gawps and I don’t like it, so I keep my eyes on the ground and walk till I find a place away from them all, right on the edge of the grassy patch.

  I tear into the bread with my teeth, swallowing it down without hardly chewing, cos all that work’s made me hungry. The bread’s horrible, just like the provisions they gave me in the medical room – it’s dry and hard – but that doesn’t stop me from scoffing it down. And as I’m eating, feeling sunshine on my skin, just for a second everything’s calm. Cos I’m filling my belly and the work wasn’t too bad, and right at this moment no one’s asking me questions or hitting me.

  It doesn’t last though, does it? Cos I hear a soft kind of pattering sound, like something falling or being scattered. I hear it again and again. And then I feel something small and wet land on me. Then more of the same, and some of it falls down the back of my shirt. I grab at my head and my shirt where it landed. And what I see is soil. As I’m reaching for it, more soil lands on me, showering down on me. I turn around, squizzing to see where it came from. It doesn’t take long, cos just a little way from me is Markus with his group of friends. And while his friends are laughing at me, I see that Markus has a look on his face like he hates me. And as he realises that I’m looking at him, he says something angrily in his words. His friends aim more soil at me and some hits me in my eye.

  I turn back around so I’m not looking at them, and for a few stupid seconds I sit there doing nothing except getting embarrassed and angry and covered in dirt. The anger builds inside me, the way it did yesterday just before I hit him.

  And that’s when I catch myself, remember what Father Liebling said. I get up from where I’m sitting, take the rest of my food and I just yomp away from them, don’t even squizz in their direction.

  Even when a big wet lump of soil hits me in the face, I keep walking. And soon I’m away from them and back near the field. And sitting just in front of the wooden hut, there are girls.

 
; Carina

  It’s the new boy from the church earlier.

  He eats his bread and cheese, tearing at it with his teeth like a starved animal, barely even chewing it before he swallows. He avoids looking at me, at anyone. But every now and then he sneaks a furtive, nervous glance from underneath that heavy brow of his, head remaining bowed, eyes darting madly around for a few seconds and then staring back at the ground.

  And it reminds me of when I was brought here. I remember how no one did a thing to help me. I remember how angry and scared I was. I spent the whole time running away and being punished for it.

  I catch his eye – just for a second – and my heart races because it’s like making eye contact with a wild animal. Scary and unpredictable and thrilling. Just as suddenly, he looks away again.

  And I decide to say something to him.

  ‘Hallo. Du bist neu, nicht war?’

  The boy turns to look at me, scared, staring dumbly. He’s stopped chewing the food in his mouth.

  ‘Wie heißt du?’

  He doesn’t answer, doesn’t even look like he understands. I wonder for a second whether the fever got to his brain but didn’t kill him. Usually the ones like that don’t survive. They don’t make it to the home. They’re shot or they starve or the animals get them.

  The boy looks away from me, resumes chewing his food. But I can see he’s sneaking looks at me out of the corner of his eye, trying to work out whether I’m safe.

  ‘Ich bin Carina.’

  He hears it, I can tell that, but he doesn’t say a word or even look at me for more than a second. He puts the last of his bread and cheese in his mouth and then picks up his drink as though he’s gonna wash it down. But he looks at the brown water and decides not to drink it, like there’s something wrong with it.

  ‘Ich weiß nicht, wie sie erwarten, dass wir das Zeug zu trinken überleben,’ I say.

  He still doesn’t say a word, but he looks at me. So I smile at him. ‘Ich bin Carina,’ I say again.

  At first he does nothing. But then he nods his head. ‘I am Jesper,’ he says. ‘Jesper Hausmann.’

  It takes a second for his words to sink in, for me to realise the words are English. I haven’t heard anyone speak English for a long time.

  ‘You’re English?’

  He looks back at me, saying nothing, looking like he doesn’t understand.

  ‘You speak English?’

  He nods.

  ‘I speak a little English as well. My dad was born in England.’

  He doesn’t say anything more. He nods, stares at me, glances at the food in my hand.

  ‘Are you still hungry?’

  He nods. I tear my bread in half and hold it out for him. He shuffles closer and grabs it from me, crams it into his mouth, looking at me suspiciously like he thinks this might be a trick. I hold the cheese out for him and he grabs that too.

  ‘Do you come from England?’

  He shakes his head, shoving the cheese into his mouth.

  ‘Where did you come from then?’

  He shrugs. ‘My Place.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  And he shrugs again, chewing.

  ‘Is that where they took you from?’

  He shakes his head again.

  ‘Where then?’

  ‘The forest.’

  ‘Same thing happened to me. Were you on your own?’

  He nods. He stares at the rest of my food and I hold it out for him to take.

  ‘What happened to your parents then? Did the militia get them?’

  He shakes his head, swallows the last of the bread and cheese.

  ‘Marsh Flu?’

  He shakes his head again.

  ‘What then? You ran away?’

  ‘I don’t have any parents.’

  ‘You must have parents. Everyone does. Do you mean you never knew them?’

  He looks at me like he doesn’t understand. He says nothing.

  ‘Did you know them?’

  He shakes his head. But he still looks confused.

  ‘So now you’re here?’

  He nods ever so slightly.

  ‘It’s a shitty place,’ I say. ‘That’s for sure. The work is hard. The food is inedible. The Fathers are mean.’

  ‘Why do you stay here then?’ he says. ‘Why don’t you escape?’

  I shrug. ‘It’s possible to get out of here. But staying out is the difficult part. There’s hardly any food in the woods. And if you’re on your own, there’s no one to look out for you.’

  ‘It’s got to be better than here though,’ he says.

  He’s right about that. I nod. ‘It’s not that easy though. New Dawn always find the escapees. They pick them up and they beat them. Then they bring them back here and the Fathers beat them some more and give them the worst jobs.’

  And before he can say anything to that, Father Henning blows his whistle and everyone stands up and gets ready to go back to work.

  Later, after work has finished and I’m walking through the corridor back to my dorm to wash, I find my way blocked by Sabine’s brother Markus and his gang.

  ‘My sister – you were in the same dormitory as her, weren’t you?’

  I nod. ‘I’m sorry to hear about what happened to her.’

  ‘They’re saying what she died of was something like Marsh Flu.’

  I nod. ‘I heard that.’

  ‘The thing is though, she had the vaccine when we came to St Jerome’s in the first place. So it can’t have been Marsh Flu, can it?’

  I shrug.

  ‘People are saying there’s a new strain of the disease,’ he says. ‘That’s why people are getting ill again. That’s what killed Sabine.’

  I say nothing. I gulp. I heard the same thing too.

  ‘The word is, a new boy from the forest brought the disease to St Jerome’s. Jesper Hausmann. He was found by New Dawn near the meteorite landing spot. He must be the carrier. He killed my sister.’

  The news hits me with a jolt. That’s the boy I ate with at lunchtime.

  ‘I saw you with him today,’ Markus says.

  I say nothing. My stomach knots up.

  ‘If you want my advice, you should stay away from him,’ Markus says. ‘God knows what disease he’s carrying. You don’t want to be associated with scum like that.’

  I stare at Markus. Can this be true? My mind races with thoughts that maybe I’ve already contracted the disease.

  ‘They say there’s no cure. He could be infecting all of us, and there’s no way of making us well,’ Markus says. ‘He’s a danger. Pass it on.’

  Jesper

  The bell tolls as I follow the crowd of hurrying boys and girls into the church. A hum of noise fills the air, even though no one seems to be speaking. Candles glow in their holders at the ends of the pews and on the walls, filling the air with soft light and the smell of burning.

  I find an empty pew at the back of the church and sit. Children continue streaming inside, finding somewhere to sit, filling up all the pews. Only no one comes and sits at my pew. Children come near, but when they see me, they all of a sudden look shocked and go to sit somewhere else.

  And I don’t mind.

  I don’t want to sit next to them, do I?

  I’d rather be on my own.

  Except in the end, when all the other pews are filled, the priests make people come and sit on my pew. The children sit, warily, staying as far away from me as they can.

  Eventually the service starts and Father Frei comes out wearing robes and starts doing all the same stuff he was doing this morning – the prayers and the smoke and the chanting. And I watch what the children do and try to do the same.

  After the final ‘Amen’, the children all get up again, start walking back out of the church silently and I follow, trying not to catch anyone’s eye.

  Only, as I’m about to walk out of the door, Father Liebling limps towards me. By his side he has Markus and Carina.

  ‘Come with me, Jesper,’ Fathe
r Liebling says. ‘Father Frei has chosen you three to clear away.’

  Carina

  The church empties of people in a few moments. Only Jesper, Markus, Father Liebling, Father Frei and I remain. Our footsteps echo around the church as we follow Father Liebling to the altar, where Father Frei is standing. Markus’s words bounce around my head, and I keep my distance from Jesper.

  Father Frei starts to tell us what to do, like we don’t already know – snuff out the candles, collect the prayer books, sweep the floors, take the extra chairs and store them down in the crypt, etc. etc. It’s like a double punishment – first we have to do extra work, and second we’ll be last in the food hall and we’ll likely get the dregs or nothing at all.

  After he’s done telling us what to do – in English as well as German – Father Liebling hands us brooms. We set to work, sweeping along between the pews, silent but for the scraping of the brooms’ twigs on the stone floor.

  And still I stay my distance from Jesper, wondering if it’s true. I watch him though, trying to catch his eye. He keeps his gaze fixed on the floor, as though he’s in another world and he doesn’t want to be reached. So I concentrate on getting this done as quickly as I can, so I can get out of here.

  When the floor’s swept and the candles are snuffed and the prayer books are stacked, all that’s left are the chairs to be taken to the crypt. I sigh. The crypt is dark and dirty and dusty. There are bats and rats and graves and secrets. Being down there gives me the creeps.

  I end up picking a chair up and folding it closed just as Jesper does the same, unable to avoid being close to him this time. My heart beats quickly. And this time he gives me a glance. I smile at him, but his eyes dart away and he follows Markus towards the stairway down to the crypt.

  Our footsteps echo along the spiral staircase as we walk down into the gloom. In the crypt, Father Liebling lights a torch and hangs it on one of the stone walls, shedding a dim light across the nearest pillar, casting shadows, making the rest of the room dark and unseeable. I shiver.