The Last Execution (3 page)

This was their life. As he sits in the prison cell, the boy thinks about it all.

He was still quite small when he first asked about his mother; he was still quite small when he stopped asking about his mother.

His father wouldn't have it. Not that he ever said so. There was no need to. Even when he couldn't see his father's face hidden behind the worn cap, the hair, the already bent and buckled back. His body said it all: that now there would be no more talk about that. Else it would be impossible to work. To keep going.

He knew two things about his mother: that she'd died when he was born and that her hair was black. That's it.

At first he'd simply stared long and hard at all women with black hair. Later it happened more fleetingly. It had always been just the two of them: father and son. They tried to get by. Find work. Find food. Avoid the law.

“Remember. We're on our way home,” his father always said.

If a policeman stopped them, Niels should lie. He should tug on his father's sleeve and ask when they could go home, when they could sit in front of their warm oven. Even though they'd never had an oven. Even though they'd never had a house. Or a place to spend the night. Otherwise they'd be sent to the workhouse. Because their kind wasn't wanted loitering 'bout town. Their kind stole, or begged. Nor were they a pretty sight.

And the workhouse. That was the worst. His father, shaking as if he had a fever, had said: “It's like being buried alive.” The boy would never forget the man who'd looked up with eye-pits like two black coins you could look right
through
.

If they were lucky, they slept in barns. If not, in all sorts of places. In summer, under the stars; in winter, in deserted sheds or under a clump of bushes. Here they would lie, talking about America.

They rose early in the morning and looked for work. Any kind of work. The men squinted at a thin boy and a father's bent back. They shook their heads or turned their own backs, without a word. But now and then there was a nod. A nod that meant that now they could get on with it. Like that day with the pile of stones. Or those days they could do something else, take care of something else. Drain marshes. Cart away waste. Work. Live.

But first they had to get a grip on things. In his mind's eye he could see how his father tugged on the cord of his pants in an attempt to fasten them round his thin waist. How he pulled a face. That seemed to help. It was as though the pain in his stomach and the pain in his back balanced each other out in some way when he pulled on the cord. Until the work was done.

His father worked at an even pace. Barely a break, barely a word. As if he daren't stop. He kept going—more and more bent—until the pile of wood or stones was gone.

The boy looked away once their work was done, looked away when his father tried to straighten his back. Shift it into place. The boy never did so, but he wished he could cover his ears with his hands, so he didn't have to hear the sounds his father made. But it was always the same. The sigh: “
Jaja
.” When it was all over. When he could function again. They took turns sipping from a water flask. “
Jaja.
”

The boy can hear the dog on the other side of the prison wall. It is whimpering softly. Either it's in pain or it's uneasy. He says it.

“
Jaja
.”

He doesn't know if the dog can hear him, but it seems to settle down.

The boy can see his hand a little better now. He tries to move it. That's not good. The fly is still perched on what looks to be the back of his hand.

Niels starts thinking about the girl again, although till now he's tried not to.

That day he had met her in the field, a fly, like this one, kept landing on her lip. Again and again. How she had laughed. How she looked at him. How she tossed her head and ran her fingers through her hair—quick, quick, slow. And then the fly again. And the laughter.

“Do you know that fly?” the boy asks now, looking down at his hand. “Is it sitting in the pub bragging its head off?”

The boy remembers how they had tossed burs at each other. The kiss this led to.

White shards of pain shoot through the boy's brain. He'd accidentally bumped his hand against his knee. They dart from the back of his head, to the left temple, and across to the right. The boy bends forward, tries to breathe deeply, eyes closed. He remains in this posture for a long time.

“Now he's thinking about the girl,” says the fly. “Oh, for heaven's sake, now he's thinking of that blond lassie again!”

Niels concentrates on the pain.
Or else I'll disappear
, he thinks.
Or else, I'll disappear
.

The fly is tripping about on the hand in silence. Now it stops dead in its tracks.

“Dare we suggest that the lad think about something else?” says the fly.

Then it struts on. Halts in midstride.

“That he thinks about something else . . . ”

“But what?” whispers Niels.

“What? What! What?” squawks the fly. “As if there weren't anything else to think about! What a waste of a life if there were
nothing at all
worth remembering. Think! For example: How 'bout that time the lad got a peek in that fat book about America?”

“That time my foot got run over?” Niels asks.

“The time the lad's foot got run over by a cart; it recovered, though—
the foot
—and the rich man invited father and son to his home, and they got to sleep in the loft,” says the fly. “But before that, they paged through a book about America. There was a chapter about the Mississippi River.”

Now the boy understands that the fly is talking to the hand.

“Take the crocodiles in the Mississippi, for example,” continues the fly. “You can't always see them, but they're there. The crocodile floats in the water like a log—its eyes like knots in a tree trunk—till the cow tries to cross the river.”

“That was shown in the book,” says the boy.

“I know
that
!” says the fly. “The crocodile lies absolutely still,
until
the cow comes down to the bank of the river.”

The boy says no more.

“Then it shoots out of the water, mouth open wide. It digs its hundreds of sharp teeth into the cow's neck and pulls it down under the water.
Swoosh
,” quips the fly. “The water is churned foamy-red. Round and round. One second, then everything is quiet again. The Mississippi is as calm as before.”

The fly turns on its heel again. Halts in midstride.

“That's a story from the real world,” it says. “Now it's over.
Bam!
Easy-peasy, over and out! That wasn't so hard, was it?!”

The hand seems to chuckle to itself.

I
t is morning, the messenger posts the notice of execution in the town square, and—for those who can read—it is stated:
THERE ARE EIGHT HOURS TILL NIELS NIELSEN WILL BE EXECUTED ON GALLOWS HILL.

The mere mention of his name sends a chill down the messenger's spine. It's a blessing he's finally been caught. The messenger had heard that the man was mad. That he was prone to violent, insane behavior. Set ablaze everything within his reach. Watched folks' homes burn down to the ground while he stood idly by, hissing a demonic laugh.

Not to mention the murder of the sheriff's son. The messenger had heard that the man had held the little lad down with just
one
arm while he had hammered away at his head with a stone, and the child's cranium burst like an egg, his brain trickled out like yolk!

That the likes of
him
had gone free among men! The messenger gets the shivers just thinking about it, the thought that it could have been
him
who met that man on a deserted country lane late one night. It could just as easily have been the messenger ending up in a ditch with a cracked skull or a slit throat!

The messenger senses at once that someone is lurking behind him. Even though he knows it's just his imagination, he can't help but peer over his shoulder. But there
is
someone. Someone watching him. There, in the shadows of the goldsmith's house. His heart beats faster. Then he sees it: It's a thin girl. She's shifting from one foot to the other with something clutched in her arms. Perhaps she's waiting for someone?

The messenger thinks she's a fallen woman. That she has gotten herself pregnant. And she's waiting for the father of the child, but the father doesn't show. The messenger thinks this because she seems so desperate. She's not sluggish like the others on the town square. And then she stares at him. As if she needs his help.

He yells at her, which only makes her draw back into the shadows.

“What's your name?!”

She doesn't answer; but she doesn't flee, either. The messenger is confused. He has the feeling that this is what he's been waiting for, that this moment is essential to life at large. It is now he must do the one and only right thing.

“The executioner is coming all the way from Odense city,” he finally says. “That's why it's going to be so late.”

He doesn't know why—of all things—he chooses to say this, whether it's the right or wrong thing to say. The words come out of his mouth, but it isn't him who speaks. He goes on, regardless.

“A whole lot of people are coming to watch. A whole lot,” he says. “But I'm sure that if you stand up real close, you'll be able to see the chop quite clearly.”

The girl doesn't answer, and the messenger can't tell if he should say any more. He considers offering to arrange a spot for her in the front row. In a flash, his brain imagines how he leads her through the masses: He clears the way before her up to the scaffold, his goal. And he is sweating heavily as he forces his way through the crowd with elbows, shoves, and calls of authority. He leads her by the hand on the final stretch. He feels as if everyone steps aside of their own accord, and they make it to the front of the crowd in good time to see the swing of the ax. And then she turns to him and smiles. Her face and dress, her protruding belly, are splattered with rancid blood and gore.
That should take care of it
, he thinks.
That's taken care of.

The messenger is back on the town square, where his heart skips a beat, and he is struck by an insane idea: He is the father of the child! Just because he's had those thoughts. About doing it. Doing it with Signe from next door. Doing it with other girls—and now, with this lass here.

The bad conscience wells up inside him. There is so much to be taken care of, so much work to be done. He has dallied on the square for too long, and thought about
it
. He's got to get moving! Still, something holds him back. A desire to drop everything he has in his hands. To run to the girl in the shadows. To rob the goldsmith's! But he's being pushed and pulled from all sides—being borne down. He can hear the scolding he will receive in the course of the day, feel the raps on his knuckles; he is utterly aroused, yet tired as an old man.

“Then it could be all the same!” he exclaims.

It's not due to anything in particular—not that he can tell, anyway—but now he is near to running down the road.

With every step the messenger gets more and more agitated. He is resentful and angry, and he directs the brunt of his anger at that man on the poster, the man who is to be executed. The messenger will be there, all right! He'll buckle down the whole day to make sure of it. Then he'll fetch the Smith brothers. They'll need to get over to Gallows Hill in good time. Then they'll be ready. They can stand right up front, in the first row, and shout. They can yell at him, spit in that demon's face! He'll take his knife along. He imagines that he slices an ear off the severed head and hides it, before anyone sees. That he keeps it wrapped in a rag; and that one fine night he gives it to someone or other, who looks at it with flushed cheeks, until she leans her body into him, and they lie down in the corn together. . . .