Borderliners (17 page)

That she
was trying to understand.
That, in a way, we were in the
laboratory when we wrote.
Even though we were prevented
from
talking to each other.

It was easier to
get up in the morning when you had received a
letter and had to reply. Writing to her, I
understood things I had
not previously understood. You were surprised by your own replies.
In a way that is what I have been
trying to do ever since.

Later on,
Binet-Simon did become available to me. I borrowed it from the Danish Teacher
Training College at 101 Emdrup Road
where
they have it in their collection of tests. It is still in use.

It says in the foreword that "if every case of mild
retardation
were
recognized in time, and the child or young person treated in accordance with
the result produced by the psychological exami
nation, the number of mental defectives
committing offenses would
rapidly be reduced."

Still, even today, quoting from it is prohibited.
Nevertheless I am
doing
so. There is no harm intended.

They wanted to help. It is down there in black-and-white, in the
foreword to Binet-Simon, but
this was something you already knew, back then. They wanted to help children
and society.
By pinpointing
those
who were mildly retarded, or downright defective, in order
that they could be sent to residential schools or
homes where they
could be given the
necessary care.
That was
the idea. They wanted
to help the victims of
evolution. They waited, just like Biehl, under
the archway. So that they
could single out those who were on the
borderline,
who could not finish the tests in time, and help them up. They wanted to take
people under their wings.

They
were also the ravens.

This is a contradiction. I have no explanation.

They believed that it was of great help to children to be
assessed.

I suppose they still believe that. In our society
it is a pretty wide
spread
belief. That assessment is a good thing.

I was at the playground with the child. These days I am more often
alone with her, usually we go out.

When you are moving, or at a playground, then you feel
that you
are
achieving something for her. When you are at home, just sitting
with her and not knowing what to
do, then comes the fear; then
you have a clear sense of your own inadequacy.

We were at the
playground,
she
had climbed up onto some rail
road ties. She was maybe about three feet off the ground. She called
to me from there.

"Look!
Look!"

I did not get the answer out. I had no time. It came from
a strange
woman, also
there with her child.

"Aren't you
clever," she said.

I had no time to think. I was on my feet and on my way
over to
bite her
head off. Then I remembered that she was the mother of a
small child and that she was a
woman. I realized that I was having
a relapse.

I sat down, but it
was a long time before I stopped shaking.

The child had wanted attention. She had just asked to be noticed. But
she was given an assessment: "Aren't you clever."

When you assess
others, no harm is ever intended. It is just that
you yourself have been tested so
often. In the end it is impossible
to think any other way.
Maybe it is not so easy to see if you have always
been able to

achieve
more or less what has been required of you. Maybe you
see
it best if you
know that, all through your life, you will always be
on the borderline.

Katarina's
last letter had to do with Raven's progressive matrices.
Those I could not help her with, they were for
highly intelligent
children and
beyond. I had heard rumors about them, but never
seen them.

I managed to receive this
letter, but not to reply to it. It happened
in
church. Where we were found
out,
and where the letter
was
confiscated. After that, the separation
became absolute.

THREE

T
here were four compulsory church services a
year—Advent, Christmas, Easter,
and Ascension Day. You were
escorted to the church by the teacher you had had just before. We had had
Flage Biehl for arithmetic.

Usually you were allowed just to get on with it by
yourself, doing
problems
from your book. They were quiet classes.

Nevertheless, it was important that your work was neat,
and that
you held
the paper steady when you were rubbing out, so it didn't
get creased. That was his weak
spot.

He had the reputation of being a sensitive soul. Often,
when he
had hit
someone because of a messy notebook, he was unable to
proceed—despite the fact that he
had been in the middle of a lesson.
Instead he would remain at his desk, sitting there with
his head bowed for the rest of the period.

Before we became separated I had tried to explain to
August the
importance
of being neat. Then he had become very hard.

"A pigsty," he said,
"that's what she says. When I'm at home I
sleep in the living room, on a cot. I draw when
they're asleep. Sometimes the crayons are crumbly. If she finds even the
tiniest speck she

starts
to cry and says it's a pigsty.
All for
a tiny fleck of crayon.
Apart from that, no one has ever seen her cry."

I had not referred to it again. I
did not want to pry. But I think he tried to do better.
Just
as he had filled in the background.

Even so, it had not been good
enough. When Flage came into the
classroom his face was bright red. He was carrying a
bundle of notebooks which he had corrected. He dropped them onto the desk
and picked up the top one. Then
he came over to our desk.

He must have been warned about keeping a safe distance
from
August, but he
was so angry that he had forgotten himself.

"Trash,"
he said, he was having trouble talking.

He hit August with the notebook, from right to left,
knocking
August's
head sideways. Then he hit it from the other side, knocking
it back again. He kept this up for
some time. He never touched
people, he always hit them with their own notebook, wherein lay
the untidiness.

His blows were not in the same class as Biehl's or Karin
Ærø's. Nevertheless they were effective, because the notebook lengthened
his reach, as it were. And, at the same time, the
humiliation was
greater because he would not
touch people.

Afterward he threw
the notebook on the floor.

This
was the first time August had been hit at the school. The
minute the notebook hit the floor he was on his
feet, very fast.

Some people never learned how to take a beating. It was
not so
much a case
of whether you had been brought up in an institution
or with a family, but more
whether you had been getting knocked
around from when you were pretty small, and had learned
that the
best
strategy was just to bear in mind that you take it and then it
is over and done with.

August would never
learn,
that I already knew. When Flage hit
him
that first time, he seized up; the head moved from side to side,
but the
body was rigid. I came up behind
him,
I sensed what
was
going to happen.

He went for Plage's fingers,
which had remained in midair after he had thrown the notebook. He grabbed hold
of the outer two on
his
left hand, but did not get the chance to break them. I stuck a

thumb
over each of his eyes and pulled him back. He did not
utter
a sound, he was hard as wood. Then
I set him down on his chair.
Flage was
looking at his fingers, he had no idea what had happened.

This brought the lesson to a halt. Flage left the
classroom. It had
happened before. It was
unlikely that he would go up to the office
and
report August. He was new in
class,
Flage must have
known
he had gone too far. But he
was compelled to leave, because of his
sensitivity.

I
took August out into the corridor. It was
deserted,
all the other
classes were in the middle of
a lesson. I let him pace along the walls.

"You've
stopped eating," I said.

I had noticed this
a while before but had said nothing.

"It's a trial period,"
he said, "here at the school. I'm here on
trial,
I'm not going to make it."

Of this there had
been no previous mention.

How long was the
trial period, I asked him.

"They
haven't said," he said. "Some decisions have been taken
about me, they've told me that much, but they
haven't said what."

We had not spoken to each other in two weeks. I felt that
we
had better seize
the moment while there was time, and the corridor
was deserted. What had they said
they were after, I asked him,
what
was he supposed to do?

"Make a go of it," he said. "They said it
was a trial period, it
would give me a chance to prove that I can make a go of it."

"Where
will they send you if it goes wrong?"
I said.

"Back
to Sandbjerggård."

There was no chance to ask about anything else. The new
inspector came to get us and walked us down to the church. Flage must have sent
for her.

Two weeks earlier, they had taken over an empty room in the girls'
section, and workmen had been
called in. She had arrived a few
days later, and was bidden welcome at assembly. It was
said that,
among other things, she would
be put in temporary charge of the
girls'
section in the annex, just as Flakkedam was in charge of the

boys
'. It was the first time mention had been made of
Flakkedam's supervisory post being temporary.
No
more had been said.

The church was
just outside the grounds.

We were on our way up the aisle. Katarina came up to us.
Sud
denly she was at
August's side. She reached behind him and put
something in my pocket. It was the letter. I
would not have read it
there and then, but it was some days since I had heard from her, and,
with so many people around, you felt hidden. I unfolded it
right away. It was quite short, she was asking about
Raven's pro
gressive matrices.

I looked up at
her.

"August
is here on trial," I said. "He doesn't know for how long, he doesn't
know what they have decided about him, he's not going
to make it. It's getting worse day by day, what can be done?"

"His
file," she said.

We were squashed up against each other, by everybody
else, so
that no one
could see us.

"Any
decisions they've taken have to be entered in it," she said.

Just as she said
it, there was Fredhoj.

I was the one who should have been on the lookout. I was the only
one who really knew him. But I
had forgotten myself, and he had
always
been very quick—invisible and yet, all of a sudden, right
there.

He took the letter from me. Then
he took me and Katarina and
put us in
separate pews. Then he fetched August. He did not come
at him from the front, but went around behind him, pinned his wrists,
and brought him down to the row in front of me, and sat
him down next to
himself. No one had sensed anything. It had all
been as smooth and casual as if he was showing people to their
seats.