Children of God
Page 24
In my darker moments, I think that Nadab and Jesus failed. They couldn’t stop what’s come over us now. They couldn’t get us to see how everything would turn out. Perhaps we humans are doomed never to stop before it’s too late, perhaps we’ll never see the truth or the evil we’re doing until the shouts and screams have subsided. Perhaps violence and war are forces that give us meaning and purpose.
I have no way of knowing that. In the same way I know nothing about dying, as I’m still alive. But I do know something about living a life with evil. I’ve lived in an occupied country, surrounded by an army of darkness. I’ve been a thief who stole and killed. And I’ve been somebody who walked hand in hand with those who collaborate with the enemy. What does that make me? Am I evil? Will everything I touch become evil, or can I still do something, if not the work of the Lord, then something that can help the Lord’s light of justice to shine?
This is my last spark I’m offering, all I have left in this world now. I don’t know whether it will make any difference. Maybe this world won’t take any notice of me, maybe everything I’ve been will be forgotten before this year is over. Maybe the world will go on and on, for several thousand years hence. Maybe men will still be sitting up in the mountains, dressed in rags, covered with beards, with weapons in their hands, fighting against a superior force, against an army of darkness, with no hope but to meet the Lord in Heaven. Tonight, tomorrow, in a thousand years, in two thousand years. When will God’s kingdom come to us?
Nadab’s waiting. My brother, Jehoram, is waiting, and Reuben. Even the people I’ve killed, the people I’ve seen killed. They’re all waiting.
But before I’m taken by the Lord: see if my words, the words of an old man, might reach you, might reach all of you, and give you some of the strength that gave Nadab his courage, some of the strength with which Jesus filled the world. For I tell you that not everybody will grow as old as me. I’ve seen many things. That’s why I’m writing this, why I’m begging you to listen to an old man: come together and pray for strength. When somebody wants to make you kill for a good cause, when somebody wants to make you kneel to banners and temples, come together, lift up your hands and shout out against injustice. Fill the streets and take back Jerusalem, take back our land. Don’t let the people in power carry on, and don’t let brutality and violence be the only ways of showing resistance. Don’t let people with blind faith or total power control you. Pray for strength and shout out against injustice. The Lord God will be with you.
The man who owns me won’t show any mercy when he reads this. But Jerusalem, the city of peace, will fall. My master and those like him have played their role in a regime of violence and devastation. They’ve created men who can’t see clearly, men who’ll take up arms to fight for our ways, for our land and our God. It’s as if we’ve all become more fierce than the wolves in the wilderness, flying like eagles hunting their prey, our judgment and pride laws unto themselves. We will fight, and we will fall. As even all of us united can’t stand against the tools of Satan: the army of darkness, the Roman troops. They’ll subdue us, they’ll render us powerless and still as the fish of the sea, and haul us in with dragnets. There’ll be nothing left. They’ll even raze the Temple to the ground.
Dear God, I haven’t shown any mercy, and I’ve been given the gift of a long life. I was nothing, and worse. You read my heart, you see my soul.
All that time, and I’m still here. My gray beard, my thinning hair. My voice is just a spark of the great fire, and as I was lit in the darkness, so shall my flame be put out one evening.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my partner, Tale, and my family for all their support, not least my father for all the books with which he surrounded himself, and for letting me sit on his lap as a child while he was marking essays. I would like to thank my friends and colleagues for taking time to listen to everything. Thank you to the theologians who read through the manuscript: Ståle Johannes Kristiansen, Iselin Jørgensen, and Marianne Bjelland Kartzow. Thank you to Anne Audhild Solberg for kindly reading it too. Thank you to everybody at the Norwegian publisher, Aschehoug, who believed in me and encouraged me, and to everybody who read the manuscript. I would especially like to thank my editor, Benedicte Treider, for the patience and respect with which she treated me and this book.
REFERENCES
“He said he lights a beacon for everyone in love,” Andrew went on, “for everyone who’s walking around in circles, unable to find the way. He said he lights a beacon for all love that’s lost, lighting a path through the night to the promised land.” —in chapter 5, “The Black Bird,” is based on excerpts from a poem titled “Kalypso” (Calypso), by Åse-Marie Nesse.
“You know when it rains, when the whole sky comes falling down? The next time the rain comes, and if I’m not here, if you’re without me, then I will be the gentle rain falling on you. If you’re in the rain, I will be the lucky droplet running off your nose. I will be the water you catch in your hands. I will beat on the roof over where you sleep. I will be the gentle rain that nobody fears going out into. I will be the crowns of the trees, making puddles for the children. I will be the gentle rain that sends you to sleep. And then I will rise up through the dream, like a shaft of rising sunlight.” —in chapter 5, “The Black Bird,” is based on excerpts from the poem “Jeg vil være det rolige regn” (I would be the gentle rain), by Lars Saabye Christensen.
For Bathsheba VII, a new world was opening, as this was the dream she carried in secret. That something miraculous would happen, that it must happen, that David, her king, would open, that his heart would open, that one morning she would lie in his hands and be saved. —in chapter 8, “A Light Gone,” is based on excerpts from the poem “Det er den draumen,” by Olav H. Hauge, translated by Robin Fulton as “It’s the Dream.”
But even though I had all faith, so that I could remove mountains, I was nothing. Everything was still in pieces. I understood in part, and it was only when Anna came that I was able to know even as also I am known by God. —in chapter 9, “All We Have Is the Water,” is based on excerpts from 1 Corinthians 13 in the New Testament.
“Did you believe yourself when you believed your master? I say that doubting or giving up is natural. I’d like to have a word with you. Could we be alone for a minute? I’m hardly ever sure, I’m doubting even now. Can you believe that? I give you my word.” —in chapter 9, “All We Have Is the Water,” is based on excerpts from the poem “The Book of Lies,” by James Tate. Parts also appear in chapters 2 and 5.
He took me out of a life of devastation and violence. I was brutal and swift, more fierce than the wolves in the wilderness, flying like the eagle hunting its prey, my judgment and pride laws unto themselves. But now I’m powerless and still as the fish of the sea, until the Lord God drags me up with his hook.
and
We came looking for violence, we advanced as a group, we scoffed at those who believed in something bigger, at those who took orders from other men. We derided every city that was built, sneaking in and out, fleeing from guards and soldiers, sweeping on like the wind, and then we were gone. —in chapter 13, “The Great Fire,” are based on excerpts from Habakkuk 1:6–15 and Habakkuk 1:9–11, respectively, in the Old Testament.
My voice is just a spark of the great fire, and as I was lit in the darkness, so shall my flame be put out one evening. —in chapter 13, “The Great Fire,” is based on excerpts from the poem “I dag og i morgon” (Today and tomorrow), by Olav H. Hauge.
Lars Petter Sveen was born and raised on the west coast of Norway. He is the author of four books, and has received outstanding praise for his first two: the collection of short stories Driving from Fræna and the novel I’ll Be Back. Among other awards, he has received Tarjei Vesaas’s Debutant Prize, awarded each year to the best debut author in Norwegian, and the Per Olov Enquist Prize, for a Nordic author demonstrating great artistic value and potential. He was chosen as the featured writer at the 2013 Nynorsk Festival, an
d was named one of Norway’s ten best authors under thirty-five by Morgenbladet in 2015. Children of God is his first book to be translated into English.
Guy Puzey is a lecturer in Scandinavian studies at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He has translated work by a wide range of authors, especially from Nynorsk, the lesser-used of the two official written standards of Norwegian. He was shortlisted for the 2015 Marsh Award for Children’s Literature in Translation for Waffle Hearts (published in North America as Adventures with Waffles), his translation of Maria Parr’s Vaffelhjarte.
The text of Children of God is set in Warnock Pro.
Book design by Rachel Holscher.
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Publisher Services, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Manufactured by Versa Press on acid-free,
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