‘That won’t get them anywhere. He has no papers. There’s no official record of Jesper Hausmann. He can’t be traced back to the Huber Corporation through his name alone.’
‘But he might talk to them.’
‘He can’t tell them anything,’ I say. But I’m concerned too. The article’s nothing but speculation, but still, I need to get to Jesper. ‘He has no concept of his place in the world. He never met any of us. He doesn’t know who he is or what he is or where he comes from.’
Henwood nods. ‘True. But it seems they’ve already discovered his physical qualities. They know he heals differently.’
‘It says here they think it’s a miracle. They think he’s sent from God. No mention of Huber or the Sumchen project.’
‘But realising he’s different is halfway to knowing what he is and where he comes from. If they run blood tests on him, they could discover his secrets. Huber’s secrets.’
‘Now we know where he is, we can get him back before that happens.’
Henwood folds the newspaper and puts it in the back of his car. ‘This will only make it more difficult. He’s become famous, for the time being at least. People are interested in him. If we decommission him now, people will notice. We’ll have to tread carefully.’
‘So what do we do?’
Henwood gets his scroll from his pocket and swipes his finger across the screen to wake it. ‘I’ll make contact with Mr Huber,’ he says. ‘And then we’ll travel to Manburg.’
Carina
Today I work at the landfill. The sky is grey and miserable as I leave the building. Rain falls in tiny drops and a wagon trundles off down the road. Mine waits for me, already loaded. Father Trautmann sits in the front seat, impatiently holding the reins. One of the horses tosses its head and whinnies, like he’s waiting for me to get there too. I pull up the hood of my coat and walk the last few steps to the wagon.
‘You’re late, Carina,’ Trautmann says as I reach the steps at the back of the wagon. ‘Hurry up.’
As if I care what he says. I’m in no rush.
‘You think any of us want to be doing this?’ Trautmann says. ‘You think I want to spend my day at the landfill?’
I climb the steps as slowly as I can, then sit beside Ralph, a young boy who never says a thing and looks terrified the whole time.
Father Trautmann whips the reins and the wagon heaves into motion, creaking and groaning as it trundles along the road.
We’re pulled through the outskirts of town, past ghostly skeletons of buildings and piles of rubble. We roll past the power station and into countryside – fields at first and then through woodland.
I smell the landfill before I see it. The rain seems to stir the smell up and reinvigorate it. We climb down from the wagon reluctantly. The ground is waterlogged and muddy. Father Trautmann puts on a gas mask and beckons for us to follow him, so we do, heads down, silent, wanting the day to hurry up so we can be back at St Jerome’s or anywhere but here.
He leads us through the landfill, passing the enormous vehicles that dig and lift and move the rubbish on either side of us. We stop at site 3, where a New Dawn officer in a gas mask stands guard and teams of children are already working. They dig out the smelly trash and sort it, ready to be taken off so it can be cleaned and sold and reused. We stop beside our heap, which one of the digging machines has scooped out of the ground – a small mountain of stinking rubbish.
Trautmann lifts the gas mask from his face, wrinkling his nose at the smell. ‘You work here,’ he says. ‘Dig the things out that can be reused: metal, glass, plastic and wood. Put what you find on the trucks. The rest of the rubbish stays here. If you unearth anything of value, you hand it over. Understand?’
It’s always the same: you start the day thinking you’ll be careful not to get covered in dirt and shit and mud, but within minutes it’s everywhere – smeared across clothes and faces and arms and legs and in your hair. The stink gets so ingrained it takes days of scrubbing to shift.
In amongst all the trash, there are animals. Mice. Rats. Foxes. Crows. Gulls. Some of them are dead, but most are alive and scurrying around and they aren’t scared of humans. They dive-bomb or bare their teeth. They bite.
And if they don’t get you, you can be sure you’ll plunge your hands in and there’ll be something sharp that’ll tear your skin – glass, metal, plastic. It happens every time, no matter how careful you are.
This is the worst of the bad jobs.
But, just occasionally, even this job has an upside. Sometimes there’s something that makes sifting through all this shit worthwhile, and that’s because, years ago, people used to throw everything away. That means, buried amongst all the garbage, there’s treasure. I’ve found all sorts before: money, jewellery, pictures.
It’s after lunch and the rain’s still falling when my spade moves a moulding old cushion aside, and underneath I see something that makes my heart jump. Not a rat this time.
A black handgun.
Just lying in the trash.
I look around me, make sure no one’s watching, and then I bend to the ground and pick it up. I hide it in my pocket before getting back to work.
Blake
I wait in the car. From here I can see the children’s home where the newspaper claims they have Jesper. I watch Henwood as he approaches a blond-haired, grey-uniformed boy and speaks with him. The boy looks shifty. Untrustworthy. I’m not even sure he’s supposed to be outside the home at this moment.
As Henwood speaks, the boy nods.
Their conversation lasts no more than two minutes, and when they’re finished the boy looks furtively around him before slinking back into the building.
Henwood hurries back to the car, his long black coat billowing as he walks.
‘We’re in luck,’ he says as he gets in. ‘That boy’s called Markus. He says he knows Boy 23.’
‘OK. Good.’
‘What’s more, he holds a grudge against him. There’s been an outbreak of the new strain at the home and Markus’s sister died. There’s a rumour circulating that Boy 23 brought the strain to the home.’
‘Really?’
Henwood nods. ‘I’m not sure if it could complicate things further or whether maybe it could work to our advantage.’
‘How?’
‘Markus wants Boy 23 dead. He made that very clear. We could use him to do our dirty work.’
I nod, but a nervous feeling washes over me.
‘Markus also told me that Boy 23 used to be in his dormitory, but since the accident that was reported in the newspaper he’s been kept in a separate room. I’ve asked Markus to find out where and report back to us.’
Carina
By the time the sky’s starting to get darker and Father Trautmann’s telling us it’s time to stop, the truck we’ve been loading with reusable rubbish is almost full and we’re stinking and wet.
We trudge silently back across the landfill, earth movers and diggers and trucks still doing their jobs under floodlights which are just starting to blink into life. I put my hand in my pocket, feeling the cold metal of the gun.
Eventually we reach the wagon and climb aboard, finding everything’s soaked and we have to sit on wet seats. Father Trautmann stops to talk to one of the New Dawn men. Shivering on top of the wagon, none of us children says a word. We just want to get home, so we can get clean and warm and dry.
I sit beside little Ralph, who’s covered head to toe in dirt, smeared right into his skin. His clothes are soaked and he’s frozen. His teeth clack together as he sits and waits to start moving. I give him a nudge, and when he looks my way I smile.
Father Trautmann climbs up to the front seat and at a flick of the reins we roll homewards. Which is when I notice something.
On the front seat of the wagon, beside Trautmann, is his bag. A newspaper sticks out of it and the picture on the front cover catches my eye. Even though it’s upside down, I can clearly see the person in the picture is Jesper. And beneath it, t
here’s a headline: SAVAGE BOY RESCUED FROM FOREST IS A MIRACLE.
I glance around me, check nobody’s watching and then snatch the newspaper. I hide it inside my coat immediately. Beside me I see Ralph’s face. He looks at Father Trautmann’s bag and then at my coat. For a second I fear I’m sunk, but Ralph holds a finger to his lips and smiles. I nod back at him.
The wagon rolls through open countryside, then forest and then past the piles of rubble near the home. Close to St Jerome’s, I see something that makes me do a double take – a shiny black car waits in a side road. It has windows you can’t see in through. I can’t help but wonder what it’s doing there. I can’t remember the last time I saw a car, let alone one as new as that. And I wonder who it belongs to and why they’re there. Could it be an important New Dawn member?
A couple of seconds later, we turn in to the gates of St Jerome’s, where a small crowd has gathered. But all I care about is getting out of my stinking clothes.
Jesper
‘Word has spread quickly,’ Father Frei says as we sit in his room. ‘People have heard of your miracle. People have begun to visit St Jerome’s in the hope of seeing you.’
I say nothing, because my mouth is full of food and because I don’t know what to say anyhow.
‘Powerful and influential people are taking an interest in you, Jesper.’
I nod.
‘Many of them are interested in seeing you. Meeting you. Looking after you even,’ he says. He leaves a pause, but I don’t say a thing. ‘Your story seems to have struck a chord. People say you’re a symbol of hope for our times. This could make us both rich, Jesper. Both of us.’
Still he gawps at me with that mad look in his eyes and the grin on his face. There’s something about it I don’t like.
But after a while he squizzes down at his desk, opens a drawer and takes something out. A book. ‘The Bible,’ he says. ‘A book filled with miracles. Do you have a copy?’
I shake my head, swallow the mouthful of food.
‘This is for you then.’ He holds it out to me.
I take it. It has a leather cover and ‘Die Bibel’ written on it in swirly golden letters. That has to be their words for the Bible, doesn’t it? I open the cover and flick through. I don’t understand a word.
‘As you learn to speak German, you can discover the Bible, Jesper.’
I nod, still flicking through. As well as the German words, there are whole pages taken up with pictures. I stop on one: a picture of a man with long hair and a beard gawping at a bush which is on fire. Appearing out of the flames there’s an angel, speaking to the man.
‘You know this story, Jesper?’ Father Frei asks.
I squizz up at him and nod my head. Moses. I heard this story in My Place. I watched it on The Screen. The angel speaks to him, tells him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.
‘There are many unexplained things in the world, Jesper,’ Father Frei says. ‘Many things we cannot understand. Many things we’re not meant to understand.’
I nod my head. Right at this moment, the whole world seems full of things I don’t understand.
‘Sometimes these things are God’s way of sending us a message, of renewing our faith in Him.’
I say nothing.
‘Many years ago, Jesper, I lived a life which I’m not proud of. But then, one day, a miracle occurred. God spoke to me. My life turned around from that very instant.’
I say nothing.
‘The miracle of my faith is nothing compared to you though,’ Father Frei continues. ‘God has sent you to us as a sign. We must spread the word.’
He gets up from his seat and crosses the room towards me. ‘And now, Jesper, I must prepare for evening prayers. I’d consider it an honour if you’d help me.’
Carina
I stand at the cracked sink, turn on the taps and wait for the basin to fill. While I wait, I stare at the faded sign above the sink, the one you find everywhere:
KILL THE VIRUS, NOT YOUR FRIENDS. WASH YOUR HANDS
It always made me think of Mum. Today it makes me think of Sabine too.
I turn the tap off and scrub at the filth on my hands. No matter how hard I scrub, no matter how much soap I use, the stink clings to my skin though.
And sure enough, ten minutes later, when I get into the church for evening prayers and sit at the back, the boy next to me screws up his nose and shuffles away. I do my best to ignore him, looking around the church instead, trying to spot Jesper. Because I need to see him. I want to show him the newspaper I found.
As I stare around the church, fruitlessly searching the sea of dimly lit heads, Father Frei steps out from the side of the church in his robes and stands in front of us all. He makes the sign of the cross.
‘Please be ready for prayer.’
So we all get up off the pews and we kneel.
‘Dear Lord,
As we gather in your presence this evening . . .’
I lift my head, trying again to locate Jesper. But with everyone kneeling and their heads bowed, it’s even more difficult than before. So I bow my head and close my eyes again. And in my pocket I feel the newspaper I took from Father Trautmann’s bag. I wonder whether Jesper has any idea what’s happening out there. I wonder whether he’s locked up somewhere in the home. Since he fell down the stairs, I haven’t seen him. Not in the dining hall. Not in church. Not in the dormitories or at work.
All the while, Father Frei calls to his flock, murmuring some prayer or other, and everyone else bleats back to him.
‘Amen,’ I hear him say.
‘Amen.’
‘Please be seated.’
So we all get up from kneeling and sit back on the pews. Father Frei stands in front of the altar, making the sign of the cross, talking excitedly. I tune back in to what he’s saying, because normally when he stands there, all he does is murmur, going through the motions, but right now he’s more animated than I’ve ever seen him.
‘Today, children,’ he says, ‘I have physical proof of God’s power and divinity to lay before you. I have something wondrous to show you, something miraculous which will renew the faith of even the most fallen amongst us.’
I swallow the urge to laugh. If he shows me anything that could convince me of God’s greatness, it really would be a miracle.
He extends his arm and looks to the side of the church, into the transept. And slowly a figure emerges from the gloom.
Jesper.
He stands beside Father Frei, staring down at the ground, so nervous he’s shaking.
‘Here is our miracle,’ Father Frei declares.
And I wonder why on Earth he’s doing this.
Jesper
All I know is Father Frei says loads of words in German and everyone listens, but I have no idea what he’s saying. And all the time I’m standing there, my whole body shakes with nerves, cos there are hundreds and hundreds of people there, and every single one is gawping at me.
Even when it’s done and everyone’s filing out of church again, my heart’s still racing and the church feels like it’s spinning around me.
I walk, taking small steps, not knowing where I’m going or what’s happening.
And then, suddenly, I feel a hand on my arm, grabbing me, and I jump.
It’s Carina. She squizzes nervously around and says, ‘Follow me.’
I don’t have much choice except to do as she says, do I? Cos she has hold of my arm and she pulls me along the aisle and out of the big wooden doors. Outside in the darkness and cold, she pulls me round the side of the church, to a place where there’s no one around.
‘What is it?’
She reaches into her pocket and brings out a piece of paper. ‘Look at this.’
But I’m already looking. Cos right in the centre of the paper there’s a picture of me standing in Father Frei’s room. It’s the photo he took yesterday. All around the picture are words in German.
‘What does it say?’
‘It’s about when you f
ell down the stairs and broke your arm and leg. It says Father Frei prayed over you, and that because of this a miracle happened – your bones and skin started to heal in front of him.’
‘But why? That’s not what happened,’ I say. ‘Is it? You were there . . .’
Carina squizzes at me, nodding.
‘Father Frei wasn’t even there when it started. He didn’t heal me.’
‘I know.’
‘It wasn’t even a miracle. It was just my body repairing itself. What does he expect to happen? For my leg to stay broken?’
Carina’s expression changes, like she’s confused. ‘I don’t understand what happened down in the crypt, Jesper. I don’t know how your body fixed itself like that. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. But I don’t think for a second it was a miracle. And even if it had been, Father Frei had nothing to do with it.’
‘So why does it say Father Frei healed me?’
Carina shrugs. ‘He must have spoken to the newspaper. He wants to make himself seem important. If you ask me, he’s trying to use you to make himself rich and powerful.’
I say nothing. But I’m wondering whether the newspaper could be a good thing. Cos maybe The Voice will see this and he’ll know where I am. Maybe he’ll come and find me.
‘Someone must have told them about your past, Jesper. It says you have no mother or father. That you have no ID or papers; that you didn’t have a medical card. It says you were kept in isolation, with high-specification technology at your disposal. That you never met another human being before you came to St Jerome’s. That you were left for dead; that you were at death’s door before Father Frei took you in and nursed you back to health.’
I say nothing. I squizz at the German words on the paper, gawp as though staring at them for long enough will make them make sense.
‘Is that true?’ Carina asks.
‘Most of it, yeah.’
We hear footsteps approach. Carina hurriedly hides the newspaper away.
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