A Fairy Tale

by Jonas Bengtsson

  “You came.” His voice is hoarse and croaky. “I don’t have many words left so I hope you’ll just listen.”

  For a moment I don’t think he’ll speak again.

  “I wanted to be a good person,” he says. “I tried. But I wasn’t good to your father.”

  His eyes move towards the glass on the bedside table. I hold it up to his lips, he struggles to drink.

  “I told myself that it was necessary. A kind of punishment. But I knew very well that it was wrong. I hope that you can forgive me.”

  “For what?”

  “It was wrong. Isn’t it enough to know that?”

  “No.”

  “Forgive me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I can’t . . .” His eyelids are half closed; his voice is reduced to a whisper. “Can you forgive me?”

  On the windowsill I can see a glass of fruit punch I left there a couple of days ago. On the chair lies the newspaper I was reading.

  His eyelids never fully close.

  My grandmother is waiting on the bench in the corridor outside. She seems smaller now, sunken into herself. She goes inside to her husband, reappears a couple of minutes later. She avoids my gaze.

  We drive down the motorway, through the town. My grandmother slows down when we approach the bus stop.

  “I’ll stay till after the funeral,” I tell her.

  My aunt walks from room to room. She says we’ll have to move the furniture, that we mustn’t forget to buy plenty of beer, that if there’s not enough beer they’ll just start on the hard stuff. My aunt speaks the loudest, but I’ve no doubt that it’s my grandmother’s few telephone calls and sparse words down the handset that set the funeral in motion. The next morning my new black suit is hanging over the back of a chair in the drawing room.

  The priest from the mainland is young. He stands on the pulpit and looks down at his papers. His hands are shaking. He tries to keep them on the pulpit so that no one will notice.

  He was late. His tires careered across the gravel when he parked. He looks up, looks around at the fishermen. Big men with big hands, shifting in their pews, making the wood groan. No one’s listening to him; halfway through the sermon he realizes this and stops. His gaze seeks out the family that must have come to hear his words. He finds us in the front pew. My grandmother has folded her hands; she looks down at herself. I, too, look away now. Refusing to help him through his sermon. His words lose their conviction as he talks about the priest who devoted his whole life to this island, who never left, who understood how important it is that people can share in God’s mercy wherever they are. That this might be the challenge. Staying rather than going. That you can bring God’s words to Africa, but you should never forget a small island in Denmark.

  The priest keeps his eyes firmly on his papers until he reaches the last full stop. Then he quickly gathers them up.

  My grandmother and I walk in front, then my aunt and her children.

  The women follow us, a small group with dull faces and hands with no nails. They carry dishes. Finally the men, the fishermen, heavy-footed; a small army marching out of step on their way home from a battle they didn’t win.

  The vicarage has been cleared, just like before a child’s birthday party that could become boisterous. In the drawing room the armchairs have been moved and replaced with folding chairs. The sideboard has left a mark on the wallpaper. The dining table has been covered with a tablecloth. Here the women put down their dishes; they remove tinfoil and reveal pies, cold cuts, meatballs, and salted fish.

  The men walk awkwardly around the room in worn suits with too-short sleeves and old shoes shining with fresh shoe polish. Their dialect is so thick I don’t understand them when they speak. They eat food from paper plates. They empty their bottles of beer in three gulps without swilling.

  My aunt positions herself so close to me I can feel the weight of her breast against my arm.

  She whispers into my ear: “They’re animals. That’s what Dad used to say. He was their shepherd. He meant it literally; the men on this island are animals.”

  One by one the women go over to my grandmother, take her hand, and say a few subdued words. The men follow suit; they stand with their heads bowed like children who’ve been caught out.

  A couple of hours later the food has been eaten and the women pack up the serving plates. They say goodbye to my grandmother and leave the vicarage.

  The men are talking more loudly now. The floor creaks under their feet.

  Out in the passage my aunt is having an argument with Frederik. She orders him and his sister to go upstairs, to go to their rooms. Do it now. They’re not to open the door even if someone knocks. Frederik refuses, he’s standing on the bottom step. When he sees me, he points and asks why I’m allowed to stay. His voice is high-pitched and whiny. Eventually he trudges up the stairs in a sulk, his sister following.

  “I can’t tell you what to do.” My aunt and I are alone in the passage now. “But watch yourself. They’re not drunk yet.”

  The men disperse from the dining room, where the folding chairs sway under their weight, and head for the kitchen, where they sit around the table. They drink clear alcohol from coffee cups and water glasses. The table is covered with bottles from Poland and Germany that have probably been smuggled here.

  When my grandmother passes the doorway to the drawing room or the kitchen, they quickly lower their voices. Once she has gone to bed, the house becomes theirs.

  I stand half-inside the dark passage, looking down into the kitchen where my aunt waits on the men. She empties ashtrays and clears away empty bottles. She smiles all the time and keeps edging away from hands reaching out for her. She drinks with them and when her white wine runs out, she fills her glass with schnapps and beer. She sits on the lap of one of the fishermen and giggles as though she were younger than her daughter. When a man is about to put his arm around her, she quickly gets up and pats his cheek before moving out of range.

  Two men get up from the table and go outside. Ten minutes later they come back: one of them is bleeding from his lip, the other has a swollen eyebrow. Someone fills their glasses with schnapps and passes each of them a beer.

  My aunt comes up from the kitchen and walks in my direction. I take a few steps back into the dark passage and wait for her. Before she reaches the bathroom, I block her path.

  She tries to get around me, so I move again. A small dance, back and forth, she giggles. The men in the kitchen have started singing; it sounds ugly and violent.

  “Why did he want forgiveness?” I ask. “My grandfather asked for my forgiveness. For what?”

  “Move,” she says.

  I grab her arm and drag her through one of the doors in the passage. I find the light switch; the room is narrow, there’s an old sewing machine under the window.

  “What did he do to my dad?” I ask, and close the door behind us.

  “The men are looking for a fight. If I scream, they’ll come running.”

  “Sit down,” I say.

  She remains standing, fists clenched, looking at me. Then she sinks down on the couch by the wall.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “I honestly don’t know.”

  I stand in front of the door, not budging. My aunt sits there for a little while. When she starts talking the island’s dialect is more noticeable than before.

  “I remember the summer when it started. Your dad couldn’t have been more than six, seven years old. He’d done something . . . I think he might have broken a window, so he was called to Dad’s study.”

  She cries silently.

  “There were days when I didn’t even see your grandfather. I’d be in the kitchen, he’d be in the drawing room or in his study.”

  She looks into the wall, looks far away.

  “I don’t know what he did to your dad. But
it wasn’t . . . it wasn’t anything good . . .”

  She wipes her eyes on her sleeve, like a child wiping its nose. It leaves a smear of makeup that reaches her hair.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she says. “That he abused your dad. But I don’t know what he did. For many years I didn’t even consider that possibility. I didn’t know that something like that could happen. These days that’s all people talk about. As if that’s the only way you can abuse a child.”

  She sits for a while, sniffs, and stares into the distance.

  “When your dad ran off, taking you with him . . . I knew that had to be the reason. That’s why he became ill.”

  She stays where she is until the tears stop flowing, then she gets up and walks up the stairs to her room.

  A man sticks a glass in my hand and fills it with alcohol. I sit on the steps leading down to the kitchen. The men raise their glasses and toast me. I’m reminded of nature programs I used to watch on TV with my sister, where a diver in a steel cage was lowered into the sea while sharks attacked the bars.

  I watch the men drink, shout, and sing.

  I draw them in my mind. I draw a man slumped over the table, trying to steer the flow from the bottle into his glass; his back is arched. I draw a man raising a bottle to his lips; the glass and the face merge into one single image.

  I lie in bed. The last guests left less than an hour ago. I listened to their singing grow more and more slurred until it sounded as if everyone was shouting at the top of their lungs. Slowly, the house emptied.

  It’s early in the morning and still dark outside. I get dressed and put the rucksack over my shoulder. I walk downstairs as quietly as I can. The house smells of smoke and something darker. I find my grandfather’s study, open the desk drawer, and take out the cigar box with the money. There are fewer notes than there were a couple of days ago; the funeral has been paid for. I empty the contents into my pocket. I don’t know how much money there is, possibly 10,000 kroner, possibly more. I also take the photographs of my dad as a little boy and put them in my rucksack. I’m walking down the passage when I hear something behind me. The light comes on. In her dark blue nightdress my grandmother isn’t much taller than a child.

  “I’m going now,” I tell her.

  She makes no reply.

  “I’ve taken your money,” I say.

  “Why?”

  “You owe me. You owe me so much more.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “Call the police. I’m happy to repeat everything my grandfather told me before he died.”

  I saw no great reaction in her face when they lowered her husband into the ground. Now her mouth contracts and her eyes narrow.

  I close the door behind me, the morning air is cold. I walk to the ferry.

  As I travel across Denmark, I sleep soundly and I don’t dream. My eyes are still half closed when I show my ticket.

  When I reach Hovedbanegården, I walk to the platform for local trains. My train leaves in twelve minutes.

  I sit on a bench; I tighten my jacket around me.

  When the train arrives, I’ve made up my mind. Perhaps I knew all along what I was going to do. I’d thought I’d taken the money as revenge, but this option was at the back of my mind the whole time. I head for the footbridge and walk away from the station. I go out into the city.

  1999

  First there’s a screech of metal against metal, then a loud buzzing noise. The conveyor belt sets in motion. The first crate of letters comes rolling towards me. I pick it up and carry it over to my workstation.

  Behind me, Kasper’s lips perform a drum solo to the music from his headphones. We work two men to each booth. In this hall we hand-sort all the letters that don’t fit into the machines. Parcels are sorted in one of the halls above us.

  The first hour is always the hardest. After that my eyes find the postal code on the letter and my hands pass it on, instinctively putting it in the right pigeonhole. The pigeonholes are made from blue metal. The conveyor belt keeps moving; the crates are made from yellow plastic.

  “Oi, Turk,” I hear.

  I turn around. Kasper points to his bare arm where his wristwatch should be. I take off my headphones.

  “Break time, Turk.”

  For a couple of years now my name has been Mehmet Faruk. It’s the name on my passport and on my health insurance card. The name on my employment contract when I got the job here in the sorting office. Most people call me Mehmet, others Faruk. Kasper only ever calls me Turk. He says, What’s the difference between a Turk and a hedgehog that has been run over? Then he laughs.

  I follow Kasper along the conveyor belt. His clothes are crumpled; he has stubble and greasy hair. He looks like a homeless guy and has since my first shift here. We walk up the iron steps and down the corridor to the break room, which is only big enough to accommodate a single shift. The small room is already thick with smoke. By the wall are two coffeemakers which are switched on all night.

  “She has to learn,” Kasper says, nodding in the direction of the new girl Erik has pressed up in the corner between the coffeemakers and the fire exit.

  Erik wears thick glasses; he’s short and wide and is among those who have been here the longest. His breath smells of filthy carpets. When he talks about the sorting machines, his arm movements always get wild. Japanese machines, he says. They’ll take over soon and make us redundant. When he isn’t ranting about the sorting machines, he talks about being fired from the council office where he used to work.

  Everyone in the break room has a reason for being here. Sitting at a small table along the wall is Michael, whose band is this close to a record deal. He’s talking to Flemming, who used to be a long-distance lorry driver, but kept falling asleep at the wheel. Dorthe, over by the coffeemakers, had a job in a cheese shop before she developed an allergy to milk.

  The hand on the clock reaches twelve, break time is over. We’ve managed one and a half cigarettes. I follow Kasper down the iron staircase. We put on the white cotton gloves that always makes me think we’re about to perform a mime act on the concrete floor.

  The hours pass, the letters keep on coming.

  Early in the morning we line up at the exit. One hundred and fifty people with their shoulders slumped, their eyes reduced to tiny cracks. The guard sits in his booth behind the glass window; he looks at us, then he nods and presses the button. The lock buzzes.

  I emerge outside in the cold, windy February morning. I walk down the street with my collar turned up.

  The wind always feels icier when my body is tired; it forces itself under my jacket and clings to my bones.

  I walk past Hovedbanegården where the hookers stand outside the entrance, drinking coffee out of paper cups and getting ready for a long day’s work.

  I’m wearing headphones when I wake up. The sun is setting behind the rooftops and casting a reddish light through the small skylight in the roof. The room I’m renting is an attic room in a luxury duplex apartment.

  Two slices of toast are still sitting in the toaster, slightly burned on one side. Once again I fell asleep before I got around to eating them.

  I get dressed. I splash water on my face and walk downstairs. Elsebeth has left her shopping list on the kitchen table. I find money in the metal tin next to the coffeemaker.

  The supermarket is packed with people with tired faces and children tugging at coats and refusing to sit still in shopping carts.

  Elsebeth would never ask me to do her shopping for her, but she’s old and needs very little. Her change has its own special pocket in my jacket.

  I always start with her groceries; I find crispbread and some caraway cheese that I know she likes. I get buttermilk and lemon marmalade. Then ham and cheese for me, food that can fit between two slices of bread.

  No matter how short or long the line is, I always choose till
number three. From there I can watch Petra, who works in the kiosk. She has the whitest hands I’ve ever seen. I know her name is Petra because it says so on her name tag.

  When I’ve paid for the shopping, I go over to buy cigarettes from her. Other days I buy a newspaper or some sweets for my night shift at the sorting office.

  A couple of times I’ve bought football pools coupons, even though I don’t know how to fill them in.

  She asks if there’s anything else.

  I shake my head and find the money.

  I let myself in. I can hear classical music through the door to Elsebeth’s drawing room. First I put her groceries away, then I take my own up the stairs and put them on the windowsill, up against the glass where they will keep cold.

  The radio lies under the bed; I balance it on my stomach, a small short-wave radio with a long antenna. It was the first thing I bought myself when I got the job at the sorting office.

  I put on my headphones. I lie there listening to the news from German, English, and French radio stations. Little snippets. Yesterday there was flooding in a town in Brittany. No one died, but the emergency services rescued a man sitting on the roof of his car. He was clutching a small, black-and-white spotted pig. He said he always drove around with it in the back seat. It had been a struggle to get it up on the roof and its trotters had scratched the paintwork.

  I hear the bell ring and I turn off the radio. Elsebeth is standing at the foot of the stairs, waiting for me. Her legs can’t manage the steps these days so she rings a bell instead. Today we’re having meatballs in a sweet curry sauce.

  “Cooking for two is no more hassle,” she says, “and much more fun. They can keep their ready meals with instant mash and meatballs still frozen in the middle.”

  After dinner we drink coffee and Elsebeth talks about her two husbands, both of whom she survived. The first one walked in his sleep and always managed to find his walking stick, no matter where she hid it. One night he walked out in front of a car. Her second husband was scared of cats; he said they had evil eyes and stole your dreams while you were sleeping. I’ve heard the stories before, laughed at them before.