Resin

by Ane Riel

  Before Roald had time to protest, the brown-and-orange sweater disappeared through the piles, using God knows what route, but she was heading for the barn.

  He sized up the house again. They probably had some time, but not much. The heat pressed against him and his eyes began to sting.

  He spotted Jens Horder’s coat thrown over a barrel in a nearby pile. Roald picked it up. It was heavy and falling apart. The suede had been worn shiny and the lining was fraying in several places. In one of the big front pockets was a thick buff-coloured envelope. Roald stuffed it into his own front pocket and quickly examined the rest of Horder’s coat, while looking out anxiously for Liv.

  In the inside pocket was a folded letter.

  Roald hesitated. He had always respected the confidentiality of other people’s letters and had never read as much as a postcard which wasn’t addressed to him. But then again, this situation was rather …

  He unfolded the letter and started to read.

  Dear Jens

  There’s no denying it has been a long time, and that’s entirely my fault. For that reason, writing this letter isn’t easy …

  When at that very second Liv came running from the barn, he quickly folded the letter and stuffed it into his inside pocket. Behind the girl he saw the clapped-out dapple-grey horse and some smaller shadows disappear in the direction of the forest.

  ‘Come on!’ she called out as she ran past him. Roald forgot about Horder’s coat and followed her across the farmyard, zigzagging between the heaps. He looked back towards the parts of the house where the fire had yet to spread, but it was only a matter of time before flying sparks would reach the piles of junk and the other buildings.

  It was an odd sort of fire. There was howling and hissing from the house and a deep rumble underneath it all. At the same time, thick, dark smoke crept around the building, as if guarding it. Above this scene, however, the sky was bright and blue, ignorant of the pain below. As if the drama didn’t interest it, as if it couldn’t be bothered with the smoke. It seemed simply to have withdrawn from all of it and be waiting patiently for a time when it could spread out again.

  ‘Wait there!’ Liv called out again, and Roald obeyed her orders instinctively. He understood that the child was in charge now. He had come to save her, but the truth was that she would be the one to get them out of here safely. He looked at the old silage harvester. Somehow, he had always believed that contraption to be the least terrifying of all agricultural machinery; it reminded him of a good-natured herbivore from the dawn of time. Now he was sure that he could never see a silage harvester as anything other than a monster ever again.

  He watched her run through a door in the wooden building. It must lead to the workshop people had spoken about. He called out to her, knowing full well that she couldn’t hear him. They really had to leave. For God’s sake. He would have to go and get her.

  Then suddenly she reappeared. ‘I’ve got it,’ she called out. ‘Come on.’

  Roald ran as if pulled by an invisible string. She was holding something in her hand, a small clip frame, he believed, and another item, smaller and different, but he couldn’t see what it was.

  She ran down towards the gravel road but stayed frighteningly close to the fire.

  ‘Don’t you think we had better go the other way round?’ he called out anxiously, but he continued to follow the child. She made no reply, merely beckoned him on.

  ‘Run to the end of the workshop and stay close to it,’ she called out now, doing so herself. He copied her and ran right behind her, with his hand on the cladding. He noticed that she was still armed. A dagger was dangling from a leather sheath in her belt, slapping lightly against her thigh.

  He looked back. The fire had reached a tree near the house where flames stuck out of a small gable window like orange tongues. Some roof tiles fell on to the gravel, and without warning a huge spruce branch swept across the road with enormous force. Roald bellowed in terror as the branch passed him at chest height. It had to be a trap, and if he hadn’t followed Liv’s orders, the branch would have knocked him clean off his feet. He couldn’t get out of this place fast enough.

  And so Roald nearly cried out in despair when the girl didn’t continue down the road which would lead them away but stopped at the big skip.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ she shouted out to him. ‘Hold this.’

  She handed him a small drawing in an old frame. And an hourglass. An hourglass.

  Then she ran alongside the skip and scaled a couple of boxes and a tractor tyre before reaching the furthest hatch.

  ‘Liv, please stop. No more … We have to get out of here.’

  But she had already disappeared inside, having opened the hatch as if she had done it every day of her life. Roald stared after her, speechless, before looking nervously at the buildings.

  The fire had yet to reach a section of the farmyard between the gable end of the burning house and the dark wooden workshop. The old spinning wheel leaning against the wall below the kitchen window had got a new lease of life. The wheel spun while the flames danced underneath it. The fire had also reached the pile which had had the cooker at the top. On the first floor flames were coming out of every window.

  It occurred to Roald that he was staring at a home with two burning parents inside it while waiting for their young daughter to emerge from what amounted to a skip. Her whole world, everything she had ever known, was going up in flames.

  None of this felt real.

  He looked at the framed drawing. It was a portrait of a woman, a beautiful woman. Perhaps it was Maria? It had her mouth. He was reminded of the Mona Lisa. This drawing was signed with a discreet ‘Jens’ in the right-hand corner. Roald stuffed both the portrait and the hourglass into one of the big front pockets of his coat. Then he reached for the letter in his inside pocket and quickly unfolded it. His gaze skimmed the pages without taking anything in. It was not until the final lines that he managed to hook his attention into the text:

  Initially, I would like to visit you and your family. Rekindle our relationship – that is, if you want to. Please would you write to me? Or call me, if that’s an option. I’ve listed my home address and my phone number below.

  Warm wishes

  Your loving brother, Mogens

  There was a PS, which he didn’t have time to read because at that moment the hatch of the skip slammed shut. He could feel the metal echo from where he was standing.

  Roald folded the letter and returned it to his pocket as he watched the girl come towards him. She had a book in one hand and a teddy bear in the other. A teddy bear.

  She was still a child, just a child. A brave little child, armed with a dagger and a teddy bear. And now it was his job to take care of her.

  When she reached him Roald tentatively stuck out his hand to her. She stared at it for a moment. Then she tucked the teddy under her left arm, freeing one hand. It cautiously took Roald’s.

  ‘Can we run now?’ he asked. ‘Down to the Neck?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, but we need to avoid another two traps.’

  ‘OK. You lead the way.’

  She nodded again, and they ran.

  His footsteps sounded like heavy explosions in the gravel. Hers made no sound. She ran so silently that he had to look down to see if her feet really touched the ground. She guided him away from the road and around the tall spruces, then back on to the road, then she led him right around the barrier, which they had to sidle past. Her small hand had a firm grip on his now. He felt strangely safe.

  On the other side of the barrier they stopped, as if by prior agreement. As if the barrier were a protective device that could stop flames, death and tragedy. As if they were safe now.

  ‘Any more traps?’ Roald asked his well-informed guide.

  She shook her head and stared up at her burning home. The fire had reached the workshop now. The big skip lay in front of it like a long shadow, awaiting its fate. Several of the trees were ablaze, and around them sm
all fires were burning in the grass.

  It broke Roald’s heart to imagine the girl’s feelings at the sight.

  ‘What’s your book about?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s Robin Hood,’ she replied, looking down at it.

  ‘Would you like me to carry it for you?’

  She nodded and gave him the book, and he found room for it in one of his coat pockets. Under his vest and the lining of his trousers he could feel the green file sticking to his stomach.

  ‘You shot the dog through the heart so that it wouldn’t suffer, didn’t you?’

  She nodded again, and looked sadly at him.

  ‘It was a fine shot. And the kind thing to do. Thank you.’

  Her small face lit up briefly, although the tears were streaming down her cheeks now.

  ‘I can understand why you’re crying,’ Roald whispered.

  And then he noticed that Liv was still clutching something in the hand which had held the book.

  ‘Is there anything else you would like me to hold for you?’

  She carefully unclenched her fist and showed him a small piece of amber. ‘It’s my dad’s. There’s an old ant inside it.’

  ‘Really,’ Roald said. ‘Let’s take a look at it when we get back to my house.’

  She nodded and put the amber into his pocket herself.

  ‘Would you like to carry on holding your teddy?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered, pressing the teddy bear to her chest.

  He spotted the parcel lying on the tree stump. ‘That parcel … Do you know what’s inside?’

  Liv shook her head.

  ‘Shall we take it with us?’ Roald looked anxiously at the fire eating its way towards them. He shouldn’t have asked. They needed to leave now.

  ‘No,’ Liv said, looking back up towards the burning house. ‘I want to get away from here.’

  She grabbed his hand. And they ran.

  They followed the sharp bend to the south and ran down the gravel road along the spruces, through the birch grove, over the small clearing and onwards past the low-growing pines and the large area of wild roses, which were well past flowering for this year. Eventually they reached the Neck. Roald was starting to feel an unaccustomed lightness. His feet danced underneath him in an even rhythm, and her noiseless steps flew past him like a steady pulse in double time.

  When they were almost at the bottom of the Neck they stopped and turned around. A thick black plume of smoke rose from the middle of the Head, and they could see a red glow behind the southernmost trees. Perhaps all of the Head would burn. Perhaps it was the right thing.

  Roald placed his hands on the girl’s shoulders. He could hear her breathing and feel her shoulders rise and fall, so she wasn’t wholly supernatural. She could fly, but she was still breathing.

  ‘I believe that you have a nice uncle and that we need to find him. But I’ll look after you whatever happens, so don’t you worry.’

  ‘I’m not worried,’ she said. ‘Are you?’ She tilted her head and looked up at him.

  He stroked her hair.

  ‘No. Not any more.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Roald.’

  ‘My name is Liv. And I’m not dead.’

  ‘I know that.’ He smiled.

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Down at the pub.’

  ‘I’ve been there.’

  Things Take Time

  The lady with the white name badge says it’ll take time. She has read everything Mum wrote to me. We’ve a lot to talk about, she says.

  She says that I haven’t learned things which other children my age have learned. However, I can do some things which they can’t, and I’ve seen someone get killed.

  She says that my life has been turned upside down. I don’t really get what that’s supposed to mean. It’s to do with me being neither a child nor a grown-up; that sometimes I think like a child and sometimes I think like an adult, and every now and then I do things which no one ought to do. I think they mean to teach me how to think and what to do.

  I’m not allowed to lock the door to my room or barricade it. But it’s OK for me to still snap and shake my biscuits, and it’s really good that I write down my thoughts. I’m also allowed to repeat myself. The lady says I’m very good at writing and speaking, and that it doesn’t matter at all if time and things get muddled up a bit.

  When I asked her if it’s also OK that people get muddled up, she looked at me strangely and nodded. But she didn’t understand. I don’t think I’m going to tell her everything.

  She also says that it’s not my fault.

  I already know that.

  Sometimes I dream about Dad. It’s the same dream every time. He’s standing in the doorway of our burning house, and he has an arrow through his heart. I know that it’s my arrow, my best arrow. I also know that he’s dying.

  But he doesn’t fall down immediately. He takes a few steps towards me before he lies down in the gravel in front of me. His hair and beard are as wild as ever before, but when his cap falls off I see that he has started to go bald. His movements are slow, and he seems very calm. Just like the stag in the moonlight. I’m sure that he’s looking into my eyes and that he’s not angry with me. It wasn’t my fault.

  Then he closes his eyes.

  And then I wake up.

  In one way it’s a good dream, although it makes me cry. Perhaps I’ll tell it to the lady one day, but not yet. I would like to dream it a little longer just for me.

  The garden outside the windows is very quiet and full of grass. There’s nothing on the grass – nothing – but at the back of the garden there’s a tree which I go to say hello to every day. Its leaves have fallen off, but they’ll come back.

  Behind the garden is a field with a scarecrow, which I also talk to from time to time. It doesn’t say anything, but that doesn’t stop it from listening. The farmer came to take it away, but agreed to leave it because I asked him to. He smoked a pipe. I liked that. The next time I went to say hello to the scarecrow, it had a pipe.

  Perhaps we’ll have snow soon.

  There’s also a Christmas tree here, but it’s nothing like the Christmas tree at the Head because it’s standing on the floor and the decorations are colourful. I’ll need time to get used to that.

  I’ll also need time to get used to there being so much space.

  When the lady and I have finished talking and writing, I usually go to my room. I like sitting there, reading or sewing or looking at the ant in the amber.

  I also like turning over my hourglass and staring at it. It’s incredible how much sand can trickle through that small neck when you just give it time.

  Things take the time they need, the lady says.

  I wonder whether it shouldn’t be Time takes the things we took. I’ve got plenty of time, but I haven’t got very many things now.

  I would like to know how many hourglasses of time time had to take before the small piece of resin turned into that small piece of amber with the ancient ant inside it. It exists, the ant. Because I can see it. So even though you’re dead, can you still be present? It must be so. After all, I was still alive, although I was dead.

  I can also see Mum. She hangs on the wall over my bed.

  I’ve stopped being angry at them for taking away my dagger. I was allowed to keep Robin Hood. And my teddy bear, fortunately, although everyone says it stinks. I think it has a nice smell. Of the forest.

  Roald has been here with a picture of Mona Lisa. As far as I can tell, it has been on show in another country and used to be very famous, but now it hangs here. He’s right that she smiles just like Mum. They hang next to each other, Mum and Mona Lisa. Mum is nicer, I think. I’ve almost forgotten that she grew so big.

  Almost.

  I miss her. But whenever I pull out a letter from the green file and read what she wrote to me, it’s a little bit like talking to her. Then I reply as best I can and put her letter back. One day, when I’ve read all of
them, I’ll probably start again, so that we can keep talking. There are so many things I want to tell her.

  Sometimes I fetch a book from the common room and read it aloud to Mum and Mona Lisa. I’m not sure if Mona Lisa is listening, but at least she’s looking at me wherever I sit in the room. I know that Mum is listening. She’s the best listener.

  They’ve told me that everything on the Head burned to the ground. It’s not very sad because soon new things will grow, small trees – and new grass and new flowers. Everything comes back. Even the animals. One day my uncle Mogens will build a house up there, he says, and once I’m finished here, I’ll go and live with him. So I, too, will be coming back.

  Mogens is Dad’s big brother. They don’t look very much alike, but I like him all the same because I can feel that he really loved Dad. He seems nice, but also a bit odd. For instance, he keeps talking about how he has invented a clever Christmas-tree stand which you can buy in every shop. I haven’t got the heart to tell him that it’s a much better idea to hang your Christmas tree from the ceiling. And that that costs nothing at all.

  The lady with the white name badge is also nice. She leaves me alone whenever I ask her to, and she lets me sit with my teddy, as long as I don’t sit too close to her. It says ‘Else’ on her name badge, just as it would have done on my granny’s name badge – that is, if she’d had one. I’m going to need time to get used to calling her Else, but that’s quite all right, she says. Things take the time they need.

  Carl is no longer quite as sad as he was when we first got here.

  And, yes, the container went up in flames, along with everything else. It means that my baby sister’s coffin burned as well. It’s OK, though, because I managed to take the most important things with me. I have them right here. The drawing and the hourglass and Robin Hood and the ant in the amber.

  And Carl.

  And my baby sister, too. You see, on the day it all happened, I had just finished sewing her inside my teddy bear. That’s why it smells of resin.