by Peter Høeg
FOURTEEN
I fell asleep that night, but I must have heard him in my sleep. When I checked he was gone.
He was finished by the time I got there. He stood polishing the stove with his sleeve. The light was on. He was swaying.
I got him onto my back. From there he talked to me.
“There were never any dirty dishes,” he said.
I told him to be quiet, Flakkedam would hear him.
“The fingermarks had to be wiped off,” he said, “she would have spotted them right away.”
I put him down on the bed.
“There must be another way,” I said, “something other than gas.”
His eyes were half-open, but he was sleeping. I closed his fingers around my hand.
“She always looked like a million dollars,” he said.
* * *
After a while his hand fell open, but he was restless. So I shook him gently. That calmed him down a bit.
The thought came to me that, if you ever had a child, it might be like that. It was inconceivable that such a thing could happen, but still, if it did.
Then you would watch over it. If it was restless you would not sleep at night. I would cope without sleep. I would sit by its side, and now and again, when it moved and sighed restlessly, like August, you would stretch out a hand and shake it.
There would be nothing personal in it. But if I was assigned responsibility for a child, I would keep watch.
The room smelled of gas. The thought came to me that August was probably lost. This thought grew as the night went on and finally, became too much to cope with. Around midnight I decided to talk to Katarina about it.
* * *
The girls’ wing was separated from the boys’ by a glass door fitted with an alarm that was activated by a sliding contact with connectors. The duty room, where Flakkedam slept, was just above this. I could have deactivated the alarm, but only if I had had tools.
Instead I jumped from the window of the janitor’s storeroom. I had a blanket with me, and a wire coat hanger, and a cardboard folder stuck to my stomach with a Band-Aid.
* * *
Not long after Flakkedam came to the school, and in connection with the renovations, various things had been done to make the annex more homey. At this juncture, a rose bed had been laid out. No one thought twice about it. Flakkedam had a thing about flowers. He had chosen the houseplants personally, and supplied all the posters that were used to brighten up the indoors. Most of those had had something to do with flowers—a healthy and a sick tulip, that was a warning against drug abuse.
The bed was raked over every afternoon, between the roses, too. It was one of the set chores. One morning, when I had been sitting looking out of the window, and had not slept at night, I saw Flakkedam. It was very early. He walked the length of the rose bed, looking at the soil. If there had been footprints he would have seen them immediately.
The bed was nine feet wide, and came right up against the house. It was difficult, if not impossible, to jump from a window without leaving a print in the soil, which was, of course, always freshly raked. It was a brilliant setup.
So it was necessary to jump from the storeroom window. From there you could jump at an angle onto the stairs leading up to the entrance. It was not the easiest place to land, but it was the only alternative. The main door was locked.
* * *
It was cold and very clear. There were only a few leaves on the trees, you could see stars and the lights of Copenhagen.
At Himmelbjerg House there had been a plan for when you were to run away. It was strictly regulated: two at a time, with a two-week break between. You took a car and saw who could get farthest away and stay out the longest. This was to put pressure on the grownups, but also so you could bum around in freedom.
The first few hours after you had left the building, when it was night, had always felt good. Even after I realized that it would, in the long run, lead to perdition and had stopped, and then had trouble with the others and started working on being transferred to Crusty House—even then I had missed it. The feeling of it being night; of the teacher on duty being asleep; of the world being spread out at your feet; of anything being possible, freedom—absolutely brilliant.
Now it was different. The feeling was there, but it was different. Somewhere above and behind me, August lay sleeping. It made a difference. You knew he was lying there, restless. It was as though a clock had started ticking as I left him, and now the countdown had begun.
You started wondering how people could ever abandon their children. How can you abandon a child?
* * *
I climbed up the drainpipe. There was no risk, the outside of the building had been repaired at the same time as the rose bed and the renovations.
Also at that juncture, they had installed double glazing, but only the standard windows, with a lever that did not lock, just closed them. I opened it with the coat hanger.
I sat for a moment on the window, feeling my way. Three people breathing.
Beneath the window slept the girl with whom she shared the room. She was familiar, she was one of the diplomatic children whose father was an ambassador and away somewhere. In the dark, Katarina was asleep. Behind her breathing there was another’s.
It was Flakkedam’s—deep, quite peaceful, and penetrating. He had to be in the next room, just on the other side of the wall.
I pulled the window to, but without closing it with the lever. Then I climbed across the diplomatic girl and made my way over to Katarina.
I stood by her bedside for a moment.
Sometimes, at Høve, at the vacation home for underprivileged children, you crept into the girls’ dormitory at night, and stood alone in the dark, and felt their presence.
But there had been eighty girls there. That had been almost too much. This was different.
I stretched out an arm and shook her gently. She woke up. As she drew breath to scream I put a hand over her mouth and cut off the sound. “It’s me,” I said. She sat up, but I did not let go of her until she settled down.
“I’ve come about August,” I said.
It was necessary to whisper, very softly, lips right up against her ear. She did not pull away.
“There’s a plan behind the school,” I said, “August won’t be able to cope with it. The idea is that time raises up.”
Until that moment I had held this back from everyone else, even from her. Now I had to trust.
“If you became blind,” I said, “if you were used to finding your way around a house and then, suddenly, one day had an accident—was attacked or something—and became blind, only then would you actually notice the furniture. It would always have been there, but you would never have been aware of it, you would just have gone around it. Only when something becomes hard to cope with do you see it. That’s how you become aware of time—when it becomes hard to cope with.”
Her hair was in the way. I brushed it back and sat holding it for a moment, so it would not fall back. I was resting against the place in the bed where she had been lying. It was still warm. I knew what I wanted to say, I had gone over it in my head beforehand.
“If you can manage to stay on at the school—if you have committed no serious violations or acts of gross negligence—then you’re here for ten years. During those ten years your time will be strictly regulated, there will be very few occasions when you are in doubt as to where you should be or what you should be doing, very few hours altogether where you have to decide anything for yourself. The rest of the time will be strictly regulated. The bell rings—you go up to the classroom; it rings—you come down; it rings—you eat; rings—work; rings—eat; rings—study period; rings—three free hours; rings—bedtime. It’s as if there are these very narrow tunnels that have been laid out and you walk along them and nowhere else. They’re invisible, like glass that has just been polished. You don’t see it if you don’t fly into it. But if you become blind or nearsighted, then you have to try to unders
tand the system. I’ve been trying for a long time. Now I know.”
The other girl felt so close, Flakkedam was just on the other side, their breathing was right beside us the whole time. We were talking in a little space between the breathing of two people or, in fact, three, because somewhere beneath us August lay, breathing restlessly. You could not hear it, but even so, to me he was there anyway.
She drew the quilt over our heads, to muffle our voices. There we sat, as though in a tent or a sleeping bag. I did not let on. I kept going so that she would understand me.
“There is a selection that takes place. People are selected according to the laws of nature. The school is an instrument dedicated to elevation. It works like this. If you achieve in the way you’re supposed to, time raises you up. That’s why the classrooms are arranged as they are. From Primary One to Three you’re on the ground floor, then you move up to the second floor, then the third, then to Secondary on the fourth, until at last—at the very top, in the assembly hall—you receive your certificate from Biehl. And then you can fly out into the world.”
There, I had said it. We were nearing the conclusion.
“I’ve been wondering why it is so hard for them, why there are so many rules. And it occurred to me that it is because they have to keep the outside world out. Because it’s not everywhere out there that it raises up. There are lots of places out there where time drags you down toward destruction. That is what they must keep out. You must be left in no doubt that the world raises you up, otherwise it would be impossible to cope with the expectations. Coping is something you do best when you believe in time. If you believe that the whole world is an instrument through which you become elevated, just so long as you do your best—that is the metaphor the school presents. It’s brilliant.”
She moved her face until her lips were close beside my ear.
“What about you?” she said.
Her voice was husky with sleep. Well, I had woken her up.
It was not absolutely clear what it was she was asking, but I answered anyway.
I said that, as far as I was concerned, special circumstances came into play, since I was ill but at the same time had a personal insight into my illness—according to my record. I brought it out. That was what I had had stuck to my stomach. If she felt like it, she could read it. It was the bit I had been given a copy of at Nødebogård Treatment Home. So it was not complete. You did not get to see the confidential bit, but even so it was enlightening. This made it quite clear, I said, that if you were to have any chance after having grown up in a children’s home, there had to have been one particular grownup to whom you had formed an attachment. In my case, there had not been. For various reasons, within the first ten years of my life, I had been in four different institutions. So I was damaged. It said so, in so many words—that it was difficult, if not impossible, for me to establish stable emotional relationships—in other words, to have any deep feelings. There was nothing personal in my coming here tonight. She could tell that from the record. I had come because of August.
“He sniffs gas,” I said.
That is not what I meant to say. I meant to say that he was like a wild animal that has been cooped up; a bird of prey that keeps flying into the invisible, polished glass; but I could not get it out, I had done too much talking. Even so, it was as if she had understood.
“He drinks from the gas tap in the kitchen so he can sleep,” I said, “he doesn’t fit in at the school, he’ll never be able to cope with it, what can be done?”
She did not answer me. Nor had I expected an answer. It was not clear what it was I was asking. There was August, back in our room, I had to leave. And I was very close to her.
She caught up with me halfway across the floor.
“There’s something I don’t understand,” she said.
She was right behind me, she had forgotten herself and had spoken out loud.
“He is chaos,” she said. “If their plan is order, why have they taken him?”
* * *
Order.
When the child was about one year old she started talking. At first it was just single words, but pretty soon they formed into strings. Into lists.
She would come and sit close beside me. You had the feeling that there was something she wanted to explain. I said nothing.
Then she would start reciting all the words she knew. First the objects around us, but, after that, things she had seen and heard the names of, some of them just the once.
Very rarely did she ask a question. It was rather as though there was something she wanted to say; that something being these long lists.
They took two forms. In the afternoon it was objects, in the evening people. Before she went to sleep, before the woman came in to her, I would sometimes sit on her bed. She lay on her back, she would be close to dropping off. Then she would start to name the names of all the people she knew, or who she had met, or who she had only heard of—a very great number of names.
She could go on for a long time, perhaps as much as half an hour. It was impossible to understand how one child could contain so many people.
From the start I knew that in what she was saying lay a message.
The first thing you realized was that she did it all of her own accord. There was no external prompting, no encouragement or reward. It was the first thing you noticed.
There had to be pleasure simply in using the words. It was the first time I understood this. That, if no one hinders a person, or assesses them, then maybe there is pleasure in just being allowed to use the words.
There is no explanation for this pleasure. It is like the questions in the laboratory—that is to say, uncertain and impossible to put more clearly.
Besides this pleasure there was yet another, profound, message. I understood this the first time I was left alone with her.
* * *
The woman had gone out. Just as she was leaving, she looked at me for a moment and I knew that perhaps she was doing this—I mean, leaving us alone—for my sake.
The child sat beside me on the sofa. I looked at her and the thought occurred to me that now this was my responsibility. For the first time.
* * *
I had looked after people before; looked after some of the ones you went to school with. That had been easier. They had been a bit older, and most of them were having a pretty bad time of it. You had known that no matter what you did, things could not get much worse for them. Even with August it had been simpler, all you could do for him was try to find the last resort.
With the child it is different. You have this idea that maybe there is a chance for her. That no one has ruined anything for her yet. That she can eat what she wants and she has the woman and is with a family, and she has never been hit.
Then comes a time when you are alone with her, and then it is difficult to know what you are supposed to do.
You know that the only thing in her life that means anything is the woman, and now she has gone. The only one left is you. Who are pretty much worthless. And who have nothing special to give to other people.
It was unnerving, you have no idea what you are supposed to do. I grew pretty uneasy.
To begin with I said nothing, did nothing.
She had walked over to the door through which the woman had left. She called to me from there. I went over to her.
She was very grave. The skin of her face seemed very thin, ready to split, like paper. Beneath it lay an unfathomable sorrow.
But she did not cry. It was like she was trying out something.
“We’ll wait here,” she said.
We sat down, with our backs against the door. The hallway was cold. We sat side by side. Then she looked up at me.
“Mommy’s coming back soon,” she said.
Soon. It was the first time she had ever referred to time.
Then I understood the message in her lists.
* * *
It was order. The message was order. What she had told me was
that she was trying to put the world in order.
On the floor, when I had sat down beside her, I had seen, as if through her eyes, how the world seemed to her. Big. Overwhelming. Through this chaos, by way of the words, she tried to lay tunnels of order.
To organize is to recognize. To know that, in an endless, unknown sea, there is an island upon which you have set foot before. It was islands such as these that she had been pointing out. With the words she had created for herself a web of familiar people and objects.
“Mommy’s coming back soon.”
She had introduced order into the chaotic sorrow at being separated from the woman by explaining that there was a time limit, that this was temporary, that it would come to an end. She had used time in order to cope with the pain of separation.
Around a child, people come and go, objects appear and are taken away, surroundings take shape and disintegrate. And no explanation is given, because how can you explain the world to a child?
So she had used the words. Words call forth and secure that which has gone away. With her lists she had ensured that whatever she had once known would come back.
She looked up at me. Her eyes were full of tears, but she was not crying, it was like she was coping with the sorrow.
Wordlessly her face told me that we belonged together. That we both knew something about loss. Even she—who had so much more than I had ever had—even she already knew that this was a world where people and things were taken away from you; where you are shifted from where you want to be; where someone switches off the light and you tumble into fear. There may be no harm intended, but it is unavoidable.
I suppose that, up until that moment, I had not really understood that she was a person. I had thought of her, rather, as something especially precious that you could protect in the way that you had never been protected.
Now I saw that in a way she was like me. Much more pure and precious, but still, in a way, like me.
Then the thought occurred that maybe I could be of benefit to her anyway, that I still might be able to reach her.
