The Tower at the Edge of the World

by William Heinesen

  Little Brother wonders at that. But then he goes on riding on White Freja’s back through that strange white world where everything is shiny and stiff and polished and full of things that are strangely not there.

  Little Brother loves White Freja and kisses her gilt snout. But one day a dreadful thing happens: White Freja falls down and is broken. Then all that is left of her lies scattered on the floor in broken pieces of white and gilt, all shiny and golden on the outside but grey on the inside, and then Little Brother starts crying and can’t be comforted. For now White Freja is dead and it’s he who has killed her. It’s no use Mother taking him on her lap and saying that it wasn’t done on purpose and that it doesn’t really matter and that Little Brother can have a rocking horse instead of White Freja, or perhaps a real doggy. There is no end to Little Brother’s bitter tears. Upset and horrified he looks at the sharp fragments that Aunt Nanna is sweeping up. – White Freja’s gilt ear and pieces of her paws and tail.

  When the Wise Virgins came on their next visit and saw no sign of their wedding present, Mother had to tell a lie and say that the beautiful dog had fallen down off the chest of drawers and that she was really sorry about that.

  Then the Virgins gave a kindly smile and brushed it aside.

  “Oh, there are far worse things than that, dear. And now it won’t be long before we ourselves fall to pieces, and that will be the end of us all in this vale of tears.”

  Stare-Eyes in the Snow

  But the white glass world hasn’t quite crumbled away. The winter brings it back.

  Winter has come, icicles are hanging from every eave, the snow swirls through streets and alleyways, and strange pictures appear on the windows, pictures of lovely shining gardens in which all branches and leaves are of glass.

  They are ice flowers. Frost has drawn them.

  Frost, that strange lanky figure with the long arms and the big red flapping ears, rushes around in the dark, or perhaps in the moonlight and the Northern Lights; with busy fingers he draws his array of pictures on all the windows.

  In the frosty gardens it’s as quiet as in the churchyard. But if you listen you can hear they are alive with a gentle ringing as though of a host of tiny distant bells. This is the sound of silence. It is the sound behind all sounds.

  But out on Our Lady’s Hill there is a throng of sledges and skis and wagon seats and shouts and cries of “Mind out! Out of the way!”

  “Stay away from Our Lady’s Hill, Amaldus. It’s too dangerous for children of your age. You stay on the Lamb Slope.”

  But the Lamb Slope is boring, for the only ones sledging here are little children who daren’t join in on Our Lady’s Hill, and so you nevertheless make your way out there to the big, dangerous slope with your sledge.

  And – hey – you’re off at a terrific speed down the steep hill and far out on the frozen lake known as the Abbatjørn.

  Once, twice all goes well, but things go wrong the third time: you are run into by another, much bigger sledge and you come to grief and are swallowed up in a deep snow drift and you get your mouth and eyes full of snow. But the other sledge has come to grief as well, and you are not the only one to be digging yourself out of the white drifts, for the snow is full of heads and hands, and everyone is whining and roaring with laughter. And then: “Hello. Amaldus!” someone shouts, and it is none other than Stare-Eyes. But she is so covered in snow that you hardly recognise her. But then someone calls out, “Come on, Merrit.” And then Stare-Eyes is gone again, and you stand there wondering that she is called Merrit and that she knows your name…

  ***

  Your names encountered each other briefly there in the drifting snow, one white winter’s day long, long go. Then she disappeared in snow and dusk. But wait, she’ll be back, for Merrit has come into your life now…

  Black Christmas

  Now comes a time of gales and cloudbursts; the snow melts and is gone within a single night. All the slopes are transformed into raging torrents and the river through the town into a heavy, gurgling river. Christmas is not white, but wet and black.

  And on Christmas Night itself, the entire town was awakened by a clap of thunder that shook every house.

  Only a single clap of thunder, if it was a clap of thunder, for in the clap there was also a sound like bells complaining…

  It turned out that the lightning had struck the church tower.

  A bad sign! The tower was all black on one side, as though it had been licked by a giant, sooty tongue, and the cross at the top of the spire was all skew-whiff. And the church clock had stopped and was showing five minutes past three. Fearful forces had been at play. But they had nevertheless not been able to set fire to the tower or to destroy the bell. And even though they had managed to bend the sacred cross, they hadn’t managed to break it off.

  The vicar’s Christmas sermon is about that, and in great exultation the congregation sing the joyful words:

  Full many a tower may crumble and fall,

  But bells still survive and ring out and call.

  And on New Year’s Eve the tower was painted a beautiful white again and there it stands beneath nascent Northern Lights, and the cross has been straightened out again.

  But during the coming days, strange stories were told about the fear and commotion occasioned by the strange lightning strike. Many people had almost been out of their minds with fear. The Wise Virgins had behaved in a completely crazy manner, standing outside on the steps leading up to their door, singing and holding lighted candles in their hands.

  And then, down in the Coffee House Aunt Nanna had heard Spanish Rikke talking about a great quarrel there had been in the Hut between the Virgins and Fina and which had ended with Fina threatening her sisters with a pair of garden shears and shouting, “I’ll show you signs in the heavens if you don’t buzz off!”

  Father (with a hearty laugh): “Aye, if it really was Fina the Hut who was responsible for that thunder clap, I take my hat off to her!”

  The Almanac

  The cover of the Almanac is framed with tiny pictures: lions and bulls, fish and crabs, people and horses, and one that is half a man and half a horse and is shooting a bow and arrow.

  The Almanac contains a list of all the days, including the days that haven’t come yet. Every day is someone’s birthday. All the days have strange names.

  “What’s today called?”

  Mother, who is writing a letter to her sister Helene in Copenhagen, looks it up in the Almanac: “Saint Polycarp”.

  “And tomorrow?”

  “Chrysostomus”.

  “Have all the days always been there?” “No, for one day was the first day of Creation. That’s when

  God created light.”

  “But will there always be new days?”

  “No, for one day will be the Last Day. The Last Day is Judgement Day. That’s God’s day.”

  “Then won’t there be any more days after Judgement Day?”

  “No, then there will only be one long day that lasts forever.”

  “But when there’s no more night, will people never sleep?”

  Mother shakes her head, looks up at the ceiling and smiles.

  “Heavens above, boy, what a lot of things you ask about! Will people sleep after Judgement Day?”

  Then Mother bends over her letter: “I must write and tell Auntie Helene about that.”

  “Tell her what?”

  “That you are asking whether there will be any sleeping after Judgement Day.”

  ***

  But then it is the sole long and everlasting day after Judgement Day…

  Then there is no sun, but only a desolate light as it were coming from all around. And there isn’t a single human being left in the whole world, and no animals and no grass, not even as much as a single withered blade. And in the sand down by the vast motionless ocean there isn’t a sign of a single bird. But there are some scattered fragments here and there of a smashed earthenware jar and a broken pipe and a cracked
mirror. And a ball-like herring net buoy of green glass.

  And you yourself are a transparent green glass bird hovering low over the sand on fine, delicate glass wings.

  The bird flies away faster and faster – but where, where?

  Towards the Edge of the Abyss.

  Here, the green bird flies more slowly and stops – here at the Furthermost Edge, where the Tower rises, huge and dark, craggy and grey like a mountain top, and the huge windows right up at the very top stare at you black and empty – like the eye sockets in the dead men’s skulls in the Old Poet’s barrel. It is such an overpowering sight that the green bird has to screech – big, green, tormented glass screeches.

  There is someone moving far out in Eternity: a big, eiderdown-like cloud comes slowly floating along. But it’s no cloud, for now you can clearly see that it has both a face and hands.

  It’s God hovering above the waters. He’s coming closer and closer, and it’s terrible…

  But then you wake up in your bed, bathed in sweat.

  And now it is early morning on Earth and in Normality; the window panes are turning blue in the daylight, and out in the kitchen, where the lamp is lit, your quite ordinary mother is busy filtering the coffee.

  “You look upset, Amaldus. Have you had a nasty dream again?”

  “Yes. All about the time after the end of the world.”

  “Oh, and what was it like?”

  Then you tell her about your dream, in general terms, about the green glass bird and the Edge of the Abyss and the huge tower with the skull at the top and about God who came along like a floating eiderdown.

  Mother is busy and only half listens to your shocking account.

  “Well, you often dream such funny things. But you’ll soon forget it, for dreams are only a funny kind of hocus-pocus.”

  That was the usual comment from the grown-ups when you told them about your dreams. And it made you feel silly and you preferred to keep your dreams to yourself.

  Uncle Harry

  Aunt Nanna is more radiant than ever, for now she has got engaged. Her fiancé is called Harry; he’s a sailor and sails on the sloop the Queen Mary.

  As soon as the Queen Mary has dropped anchor in the roads, Uncle Harry rows ashore and hurries across to kiss Aunt Nanna. He simply can’t wait.

  Then Aunt Nanna hides in the cellar or in some corner of the garden and blushes, for she doesn’t like others to see how Uncle Harry kisses her, and she’s also a bit afraid of him, ’cos he wears sea boots and a greatcoat and a fur cap and he has a big beard and “eyes like a hungry wolf”. He doesn’t say hello, for he simply can’t talk, only puff.

  “Nanna! Nanna!”

  Uncle Harry comes back later, and now he has had a shave and is well dressed, wearing a hat and a dickey bow tie with a watch chain and cigar holder and a rose in his buttonhole and blue tattoos on his wrist, and now he can speak and laugh like everyone else.

  But Aunt Nanna still doesn’t really like him to have his arm round her waist or neck all the time, and so she blows at his face and looks as though she’s tired of him.

  Besides, she thinks he is too old to carry on in such a silly way, for he’s thirty years old. And they aren’t married, only engaged.

  In the evenings they sit on the sofa in the dark living room, and then you can only see the glow of Uncle Harry’s cigar and hear a few sounds of whispering. But sometimes Uncle Harry will sing with a warm, trembling voice, and then it is always something touching that makes Aunt Nanna sigh and sob, especially when he sings:

  And who can forget the dearest one of all?

  But one day, the Queen Mary returned without Uncle Harry.

  Where is Uncle Harry now? He’s not dead. He’s in England. He no longer sails on the Queen Mary, but on an English ship.

  One day, Aunt Nanna received a letter from England, and then she was not seen for several days, but sat alone in her room. She was not in bed, but simply sitting on a chair. Neither did she weep. She was simply overcome.

  When she appeared again, Aunt Nanna was pale and downcast, and she was no longer radiant and she said not a word.

  Then that winter passed.

  But one day, who should come rushing through the garden in a greatcoat and with a full beard? Uncle Harry! His eyes are full of tears, and he can’t talk, only puff, “Nanna, Nanna.”

  But Aunt Nanna flees to her room and locks the door.

  Uncle Harry stood for a long time knocking and weeping at the locked door until Mother came and spoke to him seriously:

  “I think you should leave, Harry, for you are a feckless idiot.”

  Then Uncle Harry threw his arms round Mother’s neck so she had to sit down, and then he knelt and wept with his head on her lap. But none of this was any use. Father turned up and gave him a thorough dressing down and then showed the feckless idiot the door.

  Bowed down and sobbing loudly, Uncle Harry stumbled out through the garden, while up in her room, Aunt Nanna sat sobbing.

  The Poppies

  In the corner of the Hut garden, where the red poppies stand resplendent in the summer, there is only black earth during the winter. But new poppies are on the way, and each time you go past the Hut garden you look at the poppy bed to see whether anything is starting to happen.

  Then, one day there is a tiny eye to be seen. A hard, white eye in the black earth.

  Then, in the coming days, some pale fingers come into view, pushing their way forward with eager knuckles and growing and developing into bulging shoots.

  Then it’s spring.

  Then, one day, some shaggy buds have raised their whiskered heads from the green confusion. They stand there holding tight on to something they don’t want to let go of.

  But see, a curly red creature peeps out of the cracks in the fierce buds. Then it looks as though they have been wounded and are bleeding.

  But then, suddenly, the poppies have unfolded their flaming red tops and stand there gently waving in the wind, so fiery red, so fiery red in all the greenery.

  Then it is summer.

  The Organ Grinder

  Something remarkable happened that summer: an organ grinder came to town.

  Was that really so remarkable? Yes, for us children, who had never seen an organ grinder before or heard a barrel organ, it was an event.

  No one knew where he came from, but it was said that a Norwegian ship on its way to Iceland had put him ashore because he had no money to pay for his journey. But there he was: suddenly, one sunny summer afternoon this organ grinder was standing out in the middle of Doctor Square grinding his barrel organ, and on top of the organ there was a little monkey dressed up as a lady in a frock and bonnet and wearing a pair of light blue glasses. And it could dance a little and blow kisses.

  The organ grinder was neither Norwegian nor Icelandic, and neither was he Danish – but there were those who said that he might have come from Spain or Turkey, or perhaps he was a gypsy. He was a pathetic figure to see, with a yellowish face and a hump back, with a black beard and a black patch over one eye, and several people came along and put a few coins in the old hat standing on the ground in front of the barrel organ. But no one, not even the little children, could really enjoy his music because he looked so pitiful. Nor was there anyone who would have him living in their home because he might carry some infection and, besides, he might steal from them.

  Then Mother went into action and gave the organ grinder a place to live in our cellar; he was given a bed to sleep in and plenty to eat and drink, both for himself and his monkey. He also had his old patched jersey exchanged for one of Father’s discarded jackets, and he was so grateful and he bowed courteously like a man who had known better days. But then he fell ill and had to stay in his bed. And Doctor Fridericia was sent for, but he couldn’t find anything particularly wrong with the foreign visitor.

  “He’s just pretty wretched and needs looking after a bit, but the way you are feeding him he’ll soon recover.”

  And the organ
grinder really did recover and get a warm glow in his cheeks and a gleam in the eye that could see, and there was no end to his gratitude. There was no one who really understood what he said in that foreign language of his, but that they were words of praise was obvious from his eyes and the caressing movements of his long hands. Finally, he was able to come up from his cellar and to sit at the kitchen table and have his meals there together with his little monkey lady. He began to look better, and you could see that in spite of his hump he was a quite good-looking and decent person with nice laughter lines around his eyes and lovely splashes of silver in his coal black beard. It was also revealed that the organ grinder could do more than play his barrel organ. He was good at riveting. He was able to fix the Three Graces that had fallen down from the shelf so well that they looked like new, and he took a dirty old dish that had long been lying upside down in the slush in the poultry run, cleaning it and polishing it and as though by magic transforming it into a shining copper bowl. And he could also carve patterns in wood and make little figures and funny dolls from seaweed fronds that we children brought to him.

  A couple of weeks passed in this way in peace and quiet until Father came home on the Christina, at which time it all came to a sudden end. It turned out that Father could understand quite a lot of the organ grinder’s language. They talked for a long time together alone down in the stranger’s cellar room, and it didn’t sound nice: Father banged on the table, and it sounded as though the organ grinder was moaning and pleading.

  When Father emerged from the cellar again, his hands were shaking and his cheeks flushed, but he said nothing. Mother took him in both her arms, and she, too, was very upset and had tears in her eyes.