Boy on the Edge

by Fridrik Erlings

  Henry nodded eagerly, earnestly, like he wanted nothing more in the world than to obey, like he regretted terribly having been such a fool to follow the path. He wiped the sweat off his face with his arm.

  “All right,” the reverend said in a milder voice. “We’ll speak no more of this. If we follow the rules, we feel good. It’s when we break the rules that we start to feel bad. And then we cease to care and we go on breaking the rules until none are left unbroken. You know the Ten Commandments?”

  Henry shook his head.

  “You’ll learn them soon. They are the rules that God himself gave us so we could lead a happy life. It’s the same with the rules of our home. If we obey them we can’t go wrong. But if we break them . . .” The reverend didn’t finish his sentence, as if he was giving Henry a moment to imagine what terrible punishment awaited him if he kept on breaking the rules.

  The reverend was silent for a while. Henry sat on the edge of the chair, waiting with his mouth open, trying to calm down, trying to slow his racing heart.

  “You’re very hardworking, Henry,” the reverend said gently. “And you take good care of the cows, Emily tells me. She sent our report to the Welfare Office, and they’re quite impressed by your improvement here with us. So I have been wondering if I should investigate whether we could get you into the agricultural college. Would you like me to do that?”

  Henry stared at him for a long time, not knowing what to say, how to reply. He wasn’t used to being asked his opinion. Least of all about where he would be sent next. Somebody else had always decided that. But now he somehow felt that the reverend was letting him off the hook, releasing him without punishment, setting him free. So he nodded eagerly and breathed out a reply.

  “Yeah.”

  “Of course, you’d have to join Emily’s lessons; you’d have to improve your reading and writing,” he said, and leafed through the papers on his desk.

  Henry realized that these could only be reports on him — school reports, psychologists’ reports. And his heart sank.

  Reverend Oswald stood up, walked toward him, and patted him lightly on the shoulder, like he was indicating that the interview was over.

  “You don’t have to be ashamed of your stutter, Henry. I have been told that singing can cure a stutter. Have you heard that?”

  Henry stood up slowly, shaking his head.

  “Reading out loud and singing too; that should do the trick,” the reverend said, like the problem had already been solved.

  Emily appeared in the hall and asked Henry to follow her into the kitchen. She poured him a cup of coffee, and he sat on the chair by the stove and wrapped his trembling fingers around the coffee mug, the sweat turning cold on his back.

  She said something about how she had worried about him when he hadn’t shown up for dinner, how much she wanted him to tell her if he was feeling bad, how she longed for him to be happy.

  Then she handed him a small book.

  “I’d like you to have this,” she said.

  Henry glanced at the book in his hand. It had a silly drawing of a little boy on the cover, standing on a ball or a planet or something.

  “It’s a beautiful story; once you start you can’t put it down, I promise you,” she said in a happy tone of voice.

  Holding the book made Henry’s stomach churn instantly. They hadn’t let him go without punishment, after all. He hadn’t been set free. No, not at all. He had been handed the worst sentence he could’ve imagined.

  For the first time, Henry dared to look straight into Emily’s eyes for a brief moment, pleading for her to change her mind about this.

  “I’d like you to read a little every day,” she said, smiling. “And maybe you can come over when I’m in the kitchen and we can talk about the story,” she added, and left the kitchen.

  If only the reverend had locked him in the Boiler Room or made him rebuild the Cairn of Christ. Anything but this; anything but a book.

  Without him realizing it, Henry’s life had found a new rhythm. His daily routine had become so familiar that it was as if he’d been here for years. He had felt secure in his routine; milking every morning and evening, feeding the cows and the sheep, shoveling the cow dung. He had even learned to endure the sermons and the religious lessons, although with some difficulty.

  And the boys never bothered him. They were afraid of him; they thought he was retarded, maybe a dangerous criminal even. Sometimes they shouted rude remarks from a safe distance, calling him names and such. But that was nothing. He didn’t care. He had his work, his routine, and the occasional moment of bliss, sitting in silence beside the warm stove, with a coffee mug in his hands, while Emily cooked rye pancakes.

  But now everything had been ruined because of the book.

  It was like a threatening shadow creeping up behind him every day, everywhere he went. It ruined the pleasure of tending to the cows, milking them, brushing their hides clean. He fumbled clumsily around with his hands while milking, forgetting to grease the udders, pulling too hard on their teats so the cows bellowed in pain and kicked their hind legs, sometimes hitting the bucket so the milk flowed into the dung canal. Not even wrestling with Noah could ease the gnawing anxiety punching his stomach from the inside.

  When he’d gotten to his room that day, he had thrown the book to the floor and kicked it so it flew right under the chest of drawers. He was determined to let it lie there forever.

  But he knew that soon Emily would start to ask him about the story, like she had said. If he told her he had lost the book, she might just give him a new one. She might call on him to attend her lessons and order him to read. Then all the boys would know that he was no threat, he was not dangerous, he was just a stupid cripple who couldn’t read, a stuttering retard.

  They would laugh, they would make jokes about him, and then they would begin to hate him instead of fearing him. Then they would plan to corner him somewhere, perhaps in the barn, and beat him up.

  Each morning at breakfast he became more and more uneasy. He felt he could sense their anger toward him, as if they already knew. Oh, yes, they knew, he was certain. Weren’t Paul and Timothy glancing toward him and then looking at each other, nodding, as if agreeing on something? They were making their plans, that was obvious. And the others, who had hardly seemed to notice him before; now they turned in their seats in Sunday sermons when he entered the garage and gave him a hard look. He had heard some of them behind the barn, right under the window of his room, whispering, giggling. But when he’d limped around the corner as fast as he could, holding the shovel with both hands, ready to strike, they were gone. He heard laughter far off, wicked laughter.

  The pretty boys were plotting against him once more.

  He couldn’t tell Emily, for there was nothing to tell, except for his suspicions, and they were far too complicated to put into words. Besides, she was pushing him toward the inevitable: she was going to make him read out loud. There was no way he could expect any help from her.

  She had been kind, and maybe she didn’t mean any harm; she was just following the reverend’s orders. Why did she do that? Why was she even married to that man? How could such a lovely woman be under the heel of such an awful man, such an angry, screaming madman?

  Perhaps he had forced Emily to stay with him somehow. Perhaps he had something on her, or he had brainwashed her or — and Henry shuddered to think of it — perhaps he beat her up.

  Yes, that’s why she didn’t dare leave, because Oswald would chase her, drag her back, and beat her up. Henry had seen it happen before with his mom, years ago, when they’d lived with this horrible man; he’d locked Henry in a closet while he beat up his mom. No matter how he’d tried to cover his ears, Henry had heard. The screams and the curses and the sound of hard knuckles hitting soft flesh were engraved on his memory.

  So that’s why Emily is stuck here, in her own hell, with that terrible man tormenting her, Henry thought. That scratch on her chin, the other day . . . Had he punched her in
the face? Of course the bastard was clever enough to beat her so nobody would notice. Perhaps she was all bruised under her shirt, perhaps she stayed up all night, sobbing quietly into her pillow, praying to God for some kind of rescue.

  And what of God? Why did he allow all this to happen?

  Of course! Henry clenched his fists and spat in the dung canal: Of course God is on the reverend’s side. After all, the reverend is his man, right?

  Now that Henry had realized the truth, now that the veil of falsehood and lies had been lifted from his eyes, he was fuming with rage. He limped back and forth on the edge of the dung canal, cursing through his teeth. How blind he had been, how utterly blind and stupid. That damned priest was going to get what he deserved. Oh, yes; somehow, Henry was going to make him pay.

  Suddenly he remembered the book and froze in his tracks.

  In an instant he knew exactly what to do.

  The fresh ocean breeze blew harder as he got closer to the Gallows. He limped down Spine Break Path as fast as his clubfoot allowed, breathing hard, with a sweet feeling of vengeance in his angry heart at going against the reverend’s orders.

  Standing finally on the edge, almost out of breath, drying his nose on the sleeve of his sweater, he gazed over the vast ocean.

  Along the cliffs, the waves plunged through cracks and caves, exploding up through blowholes, gushing high into the air. The water fell around him in heavy drops, hitting the black lava slabs with loud smacks. The birds screeched in the air around him and below him, maybe bidding him welcome again; maybe telling him to be careful on the slippery edge. For a second he could see himself falling through the air, arms outstretched like wings, before he plunged into the roaring waves.

  But this was not the day to give in and surrender. No. Today he was going to fight back.

  He picked up a small rock and pulled the book from under his sweater. He put the rock between the pages and rolled the book around it. Then he threw it as hard as he could. The cover folded out like wings, pages turning, flapping in the wind, soaring through the air, falling, falling, until the book was engulfed by an approaching wave and drowned in white foam.

  Henry couldn’t help but laugh. Let them give me their books! he thought. I know exactly where to put them!

  He lay down like the first time, feeling the rock underneath him tremble against his heart. And he felt again the sensation of becoming one with the cold cliffs, his heart beating in rhythm with the pounding waves. He lay still for a long time until he noticed that the tide was receding.

  Little by little, the surf calmed down as the mighty ocean drew its breath ever more slowly. The surface became soft and tempting, like a warm duvet; the ocean whispered and hummed, breathing gently, almost like it had fallen asleep.

  The wreck of Young Hope was stuck tightly on its side between two rocks that now became visible, covered in longhaired seaweed that moved lazily to and fro on the slow waves. The hollow sound of the waves echoed through the rift in the hull, their force slapping its rusty insides, bending the iron bars that stuck out like ribs on a half-rotten carcass. Right underneath him, a sandbank appeared far below, following the curve of the bay.

  Henry’s heart had become calm, his head was empty; his rage had subsided like the furious waves.

  A little farther along the edge, he noticed a rusty iron bar, which had been drilled into the cliff. He moved carefully closer on his stomach.

  There was a long rusty chain fastened to the iron bar, which ran over the edge and down the steep cliff face. Stretching his neck a little farther, Henry saw that steps had been chiseled here and there into the steep cliff wall, winding along the chain, all the way down to the sandbank far below.

  Who would want to go down there? he thought. And why?

  Then he remembered Emily’s story about the Miracle Man, who had rescued the sailors of the trawler, the one who had rowed his little boat from these very shores, without anyone understanding how he had managed to put the boat to sea or pull it back up on the edge.

  It took Henry a long time to gather enough courage to try and climb down. It was difficult because of his leg; it slipped from underneath him on the wet rocks. He tightened his grip on the rusty chain, his heart beating faster than ever. When he looked down, it seemed so much farther now than when he was up on the edge.

  Gusts of wind pushed him around on the chain or pulled at him, so he tightened his grip and pressed his forehead against the cliff, his legs dangling in the air.

  Midway down he came to a ledge that protruded from the cliff wall. He let the chain go and sat down to rest.

  Drying his nose on his sleeve, he shivered with excitement, sitting alone in the middle of a steep cliff face, surrounded by the white birds hurling themselves into the void. He shivered with excitement and fear, but it was a good fear. He wondered about the Miracle Man; how had he moved the boat up and down the cliff face? And what had become of the boat? It was a puzzle. And he was going to solve it.

  The chain was obviously meant for holding on to while climbing up or down, but it looked like there was something missing. While pondering this he noticed that behind him was an opening in the cliff.

  It was a cave.

  Its mouth was curved and the floor smooth. The ceiling was low and covered in tiny drops and needles, frozen forever in stone. Pulling himself inside, Henry saw that the cave was deep enough to give shelter if it rained, but not high enough to stand upright in. A strange thing happened when he sat down inside. The sounds of the ocean were somehow magnified in there. Its humming voice echoed in the dome of the cave, surrounding him completely. It was as if he became one with the ocean, and the land didn’t exist anymore; nobody existed but him and the almighty ocean.

  As the tide came in, the surf began to roar below, hurling itself at the cliffs, shooting foam all the way up onto the ledge. The powerful rumble engulfed him, echoing around him, inside him. He was alone in the world and nobody could hear him now.

  Without fear or shame he raised his rusty voice and sang with the ocean, intoning the wordless poem of the rising and falling surf, all day long until his throat hurt and his voice was almost gone.

  “Where is it? Where’s the book?” she asked, standing in the middle of his room, looking around her. He had finished the morning milking, and Emily had arrived to change his bedsheets and bring him clean clothes. He didn’t have an answer ready; he’d forgotten all about the book and hadn’t thought of a lie to tell her.

  “I l-lost it,” he stuttered.

  Emily sighed, obviously disappointed and a little annoyed.

  “Oh, that’s a shame,” she said. “That’s a real shame. It’s the only copy I have, and it’s my favorite.”

  Henry was in a hurry; it was the day of the week that the milk tanker arrived, and he had to lift the heavy containers full of milk out of the cooling tank, drag them outside, and then lift them up onto the platform on the tanker.

  “Sorry,” he murmured, wanting to turn away.

  “Do try to find it, Henry dear, would you? It would really mean a lot to me to get it back.”

  “Yes,” he breathed, and turned in the doorway.

  “It’s almost spring, and some of the boys will be leaving soon,” she said as she folded his duvet neatly.

  Henry waited in the doorway, sidestepping between hope and fear.

  “And two new boys will be arriving, both your age,” she said, and picked up the dirty bedsheets from the floor, rolling them into a ball in her arms.

  “There’ll be a lot of work this summer, so we’ll just hold off on the reading until autumn, all right?”

  She walked past him with her arms full of dirty linen. He breathed in the soft fragrance that trailed behind her, of white soap and purple flowers and the warm sun in a clear blue sky. And his heart jumped with relief.

  When he lifted the milk containers out of the cooling tank they felt light as feathers, and he carried them outside with no effort at all. When the tanker arrived he grabbed t
he containers by the handle with one hand, placed the other hand under the bottom, and almost threw them up in the air. The driver stood on a platform, ready to pull up the containers, but he was quite unprepared for having to grab them in midair.

  “Whoa! Not so fast,” he cried. “Feeling strong today, are we?” He grinned.

  Henry couldn’t help but smile.

  “Yeah,” he growled. “Very strong.”

  Early spring was the most exciting time for the little ones.

  They were happily captivated by the wonder of the little lambs that were being born into the world. Emily had put them on night shifts, two at a time, and if any ewes started to give birth in the middle of the night, one of them was to run to the house and wake her.

  Reverend Oswald used the opportunity to talk a lot about the Lamb of God. The boys had seldom understood his preaching so well.

  At breakfast they had sleepless, bloodshot eyes from staying awake and watching over the ewes. They had a competition among them over who had delivered the most lambs. Henry didn’t understand their excitement, how they marveled at the fragile state of a newborn lamb barely able to rise on its trembling feet.

  He wasn’t put on any night shifts in the lambing season, for he had the cows to take care of, and he fed the sheep twice a day too. He was disgusted by the slimy bugs that the ewes squeezed out of their rears. They woke him up, abruptly, in the middle of the night with their high-pitched bleating, so he had to cover his ears with his arms. And to make matters worse, the bitter stench of sheep shit oozed through the wall, somehow stronger than before.

  Finally all the ewes had given birth, and the old farmhand, who now lived on a neighboring farm, came to inspect them.

  Henry heard that the boys had nicknamed him the Brute, because of his manners, bulk, and filthy language. He was a tall, tanned man with a cigarette constantly hanging from the corner of his wide mouth, wearing blue overalls that were far too baggy for him, spotted with everything from paint to plain dirt.