Boy on the Edge

by Fridrik Erlings

  Limping back to the farm, Henry listened to the grass move in a green whisper. He breathed in the soft fragrance of the tiny flowers nodding their heads in the warm breeze, watched a bee moving lazily from one to the next, while the birds sang and chirped all over the lava field.

  It was a beautiful day indeed, and a happy one too.

  Reverend Oswald stood in the middle of the yard, with John and the boys all around him. When Henry came closer he heard the reverend say that this would be a summer they would never forget, for this summer they would build a church together, dedicated to Jesus Christ our Savior.

  “And all you boys will lend a hand,” he said, smiling down at the eager faces of the young boys. “And when you’re all grown up, you will take your children for a Sunday ride, show them the church, and say: I built this church with my brothers at the Home of Lesser Brethren; together we laid the foundations for Jesus Christ’s new church.”

  The boys chuckled and sniggered, but the reverend was in a good mood and just clapped his hands and shouted, “Follow me!”

  Then he marched ahead of the boys toward a grassy knoll in the lava, a little west of the farmhouses, and Henry followed.

  When they’d all gathered around him he said: “Our good neighbor will be arriving in a little while with lots of shovels, and you’ll start digging right here.” He pointed at four markers, nailed in the ground, that marked out the foundations.

  “For like the good Lord said, ‘A wise man doesn’t build his house upon the sand.’ We must shovel the sand away until we reach the bedrock underneath; the bedrock, which is Jesus Christ himself.

  “Out there,” he continued, and pointed farther west, “is a big fine slab of smooth lava. We’ll break that slab into stones for the foundation. Then we’ll pile the stones on the bedrock, for the stones are like those who stand together with Jesus Christ. And from that foundation, his temple of victory will rise, the house of God himself.”

  The boys stood silent in the breeze, not sure if they had understood him completely. But one thing was certain; there was going to be lots of hard work. The good news was that there wouldn’t be any classes for weeks to come.

  “Thank God,” a few whispered.

  But John frowned and shook his head. Reverend Oswald looked at him sternly.

  “Would you like to say something, John?”

  “Yeah,” John replied, and threw his hair back. “Is this a slave camp or what? I’m not sure it’s legal for you to use us like workers here.”

  Oswald’s eyes became cold, and his sincere joy vanished into thin air.

  “Not legal? What would you know about the law?”

  “I’m just saying,” John said, “that it doesn’t feel right.”

  “If I read your report correctly,” Oswald began with a sly grin playing on his lips, “I recall that the reason you are here is because you broke the law. And so whatever you ‘feel’ might be right or wrong is unlikely to stand up in any court.”

  “That doesn’t make me your slave,” John shot back at him.

  The boys stood absolutely still, not daring to move a muscle. Only their frightened eyes moved, glancing at one another.

  “What you call slavery, my boy, is what normal people consider healthy work. But of course you wouldn’t know much about that, now, would you?” Oswald said with a wicked smile.

  The little boys chuckled shyly, but John looked around him, annoyed that he didn’t have the support of the others.

  “Are you going to let these little boys slave away with a shovel and a crowbar?” John said.

  But now Reverend Oswald had regained his bearings and broke him off with full force. “This is the devil speaking!” he shouted, and pointed an accusing finger at John. “The devil is speaking through his obedient servant, to mock and belittle the great work that awaits us here: to build a church in the name of Jesus Christ!”

  He turned to the boys and gathered them around him, like a mother goose herding her chicks to safety under her wings.

  “Look at him, all of you; look at the devil before you — there you see him. This is what he looks like. This is what he sounds like when he’s bent on destroying the good work of the Lord. Aye! Planting seeds of doubt and suspicion, calling the healthy work of love and humility for the Lord ‘slavery’! How cunningly he turns everything upside down. Look at him! This is the beast that we’re fighting!”

  The boys were stunned. But John’s face was empty of all emotion, as if he didn’t believe his own ears.

  “Are you joking?” he said. “I’m only saying that this is no job for little boys.”

  “So, now you’re the liberating angel of innocent children, are you?” Oswald said, laughing. “That’s the devil’s way all right: constantly changing his shape, trying everything to make you trust his sincerity.”

  Then he raised his fist in the air, shouting, “Be gone, Satan! Be gone, you father of lies, for our souls belong to Jesus Christ, the son of the living God!”

  Henry turned as he heard the Brute’s pickup approach. The shovels rattled back and forth in the back of the truck with a clashing noise, sounding like a thousand church bells ringing at once as it toiled across the rugged lava toward the knoll.

  The Brute distributed the shovels among the boys, but Reverend Oswald had a quiet word with him and pointed at John. Then the reverend turned to Henry.

  “You don’t have to be here, Henry, you have enough to do already, although you’re welcome to join in, whenever you can.”

  Henry just nodded and turned away, but the reverend hadn’t finished.

  “Wait a bit,” he said. “I want you to do me a favor; go to the smithy and find a crowbar and a sledgehammer. They’re supposed to be there; they’re for John.” He glanced at John, who stood there, listening.

  “John will be the foreman in the rock mine,” the reverend added, “for that’s no job for a little boy; that’s a job for a strong man.”

  The mockery in his voice was laid on so thick that even Henry couldn’t help but notice. The Brute grinned with a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. John frowned and spat, but said nothing.

  Henry had never been inside the smithy before. It had been the realm of the little boys, their playhouse on rainy days, their source of timber and tools for the little huts they’d been building outside.

  The smithy was like three sheds that had been thrust together. In the middle was the working area. On the walls were endless rows of shelves, filled with all kinds of tools, nail packs, screws of various sizes, old radios, motor parts. Most of it was covered in greasy dust, as if it hadn’t been touched for ages.

  There was a heap of tools on the floor, hammers and saws, a pack of nails around a boxcar that the boys were making; tires made of wood with cuts of rubber from real tires fastened with nails.

  But the crowbar and sledgehammer were nowhere to be seen.

  He felt bad having been sent on this errand. John might think he was on the reverend’s side, after all. But right now there was nothing he could do about it.

  At one end were stacks of timber, full of nails and encrusted with hardened concrete. At the other end were things that obviously hadn’t been moved around for a long time. There was old furniture stacked up under a plastic cover that was damp and moldy. But in a corner, behind the stack, he thought he saw the handle of a sledgehammer, or some other tool, right next to three wooden barrels.

  He eased himself past the stack of furniture and began to move the barrels away. They were full of tangled fishing nets. Bits of old seaweed still clung to the nets, crisp and dry as a cracker so it crumbled into dust between his fingers when he touched it.

  When the barrels were out of the way he saw a rusty iron wheel on the floor, with a long steel cable wrapped around it. The wheel was quite heavy, and it took some effort to move it to the side. Then, finally, he saw the crowbar and the heavy sledgehammer that the reverend had mentioned.

  There were two oars as well, standing in the cor
ner.

  Henry was about to pick up the tools when his leg brushed against something that was covered with green sailcloth. He stepped back, dragging the tools with him, and pulled at the sailcloth. It fell to the floor and suddenly the blood rushed to his cheeks.

  He gasped, and the crowbar fell to the floor with a loud clang.

  From under the sailcloth a boat appeared, a small white rowboat.

  He moved closer, touching it gently with his fingertips. The dust twisted and turned in the air, catching the light from the bright sunbeams pouring through the window, causing the boat to glow in a heavenly light.

  Two panels divided the space inside it into three compartments. In the middle one was a fishing line with rusty hooks, rifle shells, and the desiccated corpse of a seagull with empty eye sockets, its beak wide open.

  Henry stood for a long time, with flushed cheeks and gleaming eyes. He had discovered the Miracle Man’s rowboat, the very one he had mysteriously managed to move down the steep sea cliffs without anyone understanding how.

  His mind was moving fast now, like a bird soaring through the air, catching the ocean breeze under its wings, shooting onward, out of sight.

  He glanced at the iron wheel on the floor.

  Through the middle of the wheel was a square hole, as if the wheel was supposed to be fastened to a square-shaped iron bar.

  Henry knew instantly where that iron bar was located, for he had discovered it himself the day he’d gotten rid of the book, the day he’d climbed down the chain and found the cave.

  His eyes moved from the wheel to the boat and back again. He could see how the Miracle Man had done it. Henry had solved the riddle, he alone and nobody else.

  He couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

  Right after dinner, Henry carried the container with the milk for the house inside to the kitchen. There were ten empty bottles on the kitchen table, which had to be filled and stored in the refrigerator. The container had a tap near the bottom, so Henry put it up on a chair, turned the tap, and filled the bottles one by one.

  His mind was occupied with his discovery; he was wondering if he had covered the boat well enough so the little boys wouldn’t find it. This was a most important secret that he would keep to himself, unless, of course, John became his friend. This was the kind of secret to share only with a trusted friend. Still, John’s friendship was only a hope; how to make it happen remained a puzzle.

  He was still trying to come up with a plan of how he could approach John the next day, when he heard voices in the dining room.

  He had thought Emily and the reverend were in the living room, as they usually were in the evenings, when he realized they were still in the dining room, next to the kitchen. Perhaps they’d been talking since he came in, but he hadn’t noticed. He did now though, for Emily was raising her voice.

  “I can’t accept this,” he heard her say. “You sold the sheep without even discussing it with me?”

  “It had to be done,” he said. “With so many of the boys gone, the grant from the state has been cut. And we have a church to build.”

  “What’s wrong with the garage?” she asked. “It’s served us well for almost ten years now. Why suddenly build a church?”

  “We’ve discussed this before, Emily. You know the people here. They won’t come to mass in the garage. But if we had a proper country church, they would feel differently,” he said.

  “Oh no, they won’t,” she sighed. “Even their reverend is preaching to half-empty pews on Sundays, so why on earth would they come to us? And what of the cows?” she asked. “Are you going to sell them too, when the money runs out?”

  “We could manage with fewer cows,” he replied. “Then we could also rent out the other field. We could at least sell the bull.”

  Henry’s heart jumped in his chest. He almost dropped a full bottle of milk on the floor. He put it carefully on the table and moved quietly toward the dining-room door, leaning against it, listening.

  “The cows won’t give any milk,” Emily said. “Not if they don’t have a bull when they’re cycling.”

  “Cycling?” the reverend asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “When they’re in heat and want a calf,” she answered. “When they’re in need of sperm,” she added. “They’ll go sterile.”

  “I see,” he murmured, and cleared his throat. “Then maybe we’ll sell them too.”

  “Why live on a farm if there are no animals?” she asked, her voice almost breaking. “Why did we decide to have a home for young boys on a farm? Have you seen the happiness in their eyes in the lambing season? Have you noticed Henry’s improvement, now that he has a responsibility, a regular routine to live by, caring for the cows? That’s the reason we came here, Oswald; to give young boys a home, teach them how to care for animals, so they would learn new values; to give them a chance. A better chance than their parents had.”

  “We can have a few sheep on loan from our neighbor next spring, if you like,” he said. “Then the boys can experience the lambing season.”

  “You’re missing the point,” she said. “These boys need love and affection, they need to win small victories every day so they’ll begin to believe in themselves; they need tasks to solve to make them proud. This is what our home is all about. Isn’t the boys’ happiness more important than some stupid building?”

  Henry had never imagined that Emily could be capable of such anger. But she was, and Henry was angry now too. He wanted to burst in and punch the reverend in the face.

  “It is a church for Jesus Christ,” the reverend said sternly.

  “And what was it that Jesus once said?” she snapped. “‘Whatever you did for even the least of my brothers, you did for me.’ Do you think he was talking about love or architecture?”

  There was a long silence before the reverend finally spoke.

  “You don’t understand me,” he said. “You never have.”

  Henry heard a door slamming shut. There was a moment of silence. Then he heard footsteps on the gravel outside. A car engine roared and then drove off. The sound of the engine lingered on in the quiet of the evening until it finally disappeared.

  Henry opened the door quietly and peeked into the dining room.

  Emily sat on a chair, her back to the door, her auburn hair flowing, bathed in soft orange light from a wall lamp. She was hiding her face in her hands; her shoulders were trembling.

  Henry felt his throat tighten, his eyes sting. How he longed to comfort her, dry her tears and tell her that everything would be all right, that he was on her side, that he would fight for her, fight with her, that together they would stand firm against the reverend.

  But he couldn’t move. He swallowed the lump in his throat, clenched his fists, and turned away.

  Limping across the yard, he cursed between his teeth, hoping that the reverend would drive off the road and the car would burst into flames. He deserved nothing less than to burn in hell for making Emily cry.

  When Reverend Oswald had been away before, his presence could still be felt all around; in the empty seat at the table and the observation of all the rules, how plates, glasses, and cutlery were gathered after lunch, how the group walked silently out of the dining room in a single row.

  But this time it was different, for after only a short and silent prayer at breakfast, Emily began chatting happily with the boys, so after a while the dining room was full of laughter and jokes, funny remarks and smiling faces. The boys finished the porridge, chatting away, while Emily sat with a broad smile on her face, beaming with joy.

  Henry didn’t smile, at least not on the outside, but he understood what she was doing: she was taking her own revenge on the reverend, breaking the rules while he was away. He felt for her, so much and so deeply that he wanted nothing more than to stand up and embrace her, to hold her in his arms. But he didn’t move.

  At lunchtime he helped Emily carry food to the boys where they were digging. They shoveled sand into sacks, stackin
g the sacks in a heap farther away, as if they were making a fortress. Emily brought a large pot full of steaming goulash, their all-time favorite dish, and announced that there would be no more work today. They sat down happily in the sand and she walked among them, filling their bowls with a large ladle.

  Henry limped toward where John was hacking away at the lava slab with the crowbar in his hand.

  There was a small pile of stones already, which would be used later to build up the foundation, once the bedrock had been reached. John had taken off his T-shirt and was sweating; the muscles moved under his skin as he raised the crowbar and slammed it into the slab. Shards of rock shot out in all directions.

  John didn’t seem to notice him, so Henry cleared his throat and called out, “Lunch!”

  John stopped, breathing hard, and glanced at Henry. His eyes were shining again, and Henry knew why. It was fury.

  “So it’s time to feed the slaves, is it?” he hissed under his breath.

  Henry grinned shyly. He longed to be able to shoot back a snappy answer, something nasty about the reverend, and then he and John would laugh together like friends, and everything would be all right. But he had no idea what to say. John sighed, picked up his T-shirt, and wiped his face. He followed Henry back to where the little ones were and sat down.

  Henry couldn’t help but admire John’s looks, his long black hair moist with sweat, his muscular body, the angry frown on his noble face. John was like a movie hero, an outlaw, wrongfully judged but determined to right all wrongs, to have his just revenge, to win back his rightful place as the true heir of his lost kingdom.

  John looked up, and sparks seemed to fly from his shimmering green eyes as he searched Henry’s face.

  “So, are you related to them or something?” he asked.

  Henry didn’t give a quick answer, and John was impatient.

  “The reverend and Emily?” John said.

  Henry shook his head eagerly and blushed. John looked at him for a thoughtful moment, then he smiled a little.

  “You don’t talk much, do you?”