The Last Execution (4 page)

Once the messenger has disappeared, the girl dares to come out of the shadows and walks up to the notice of execution. She is standing with her package in her arms. After she has stammered her way through the notice, letter for letter, she disappears.

One town's many mouths, a chorus fair,

Whilst a head that still doth stare

Rolls to the ground

Without a sound.

I
t is seven hours till the boy is to be executed on Gallows Hill, and now he can hear that he is not alone in the world. The sound of a carriage on the other side of the cell window, its bars radiant with evaporating frost; a rummaging somewhere in the building; a door that opens, or closes; a final shuffling of steps, coming closer. The sound of keys in a lock.

The warden is carrying a bucket. He yawns. Then he stops and stares, mouth open wide.

The fear in the warden's face when he spots the boy's hand—it makes the boy lower his head to his chest. As if this could make the fear disappear. The boy remains sitting in this posture. He doesn't know what else to do. To prove that he doesn't have coal-red piercing eyes. He hears the warden's ragged breathing. The boy is quiet as a mouse. Waiting. Until he hears a cough, several coughs, and jangling keys as the warden retreats.

The warden has left the bucket standing outside the cell, but close enough that the boy can stick a hand through the rails and reach. They both know that the warden does not want to get too close.

“It's not true,” says the boy. “That is not who I am.”

The stone knocked against the inside of his teeth. His tongue could shift it from side to side so it made a little melody. The boy doesn't remember how old he was, just that he'd become taller now, his father shorter.

He remembers that he was very hungry. That was why he had the stone in his mouth. To take the edge off the hunger.

It had been days since they'd had work. A place to sleep. A decent meal to eat.

The last time they'd had some money, his father had used it to buy a bottle of brandy. There was no mention of it. It was for the pain—the boy knew—but he couldn't say it. It was autumn. The wind cut into his skin. They were frozen to the bone, even though they were walking.

“What's winter like in America?”

His father didn't answer.

“Do the birds fly away? To the south?”

“I don't know.”

“Or do they stay?”

“If I could, I would,” answered his father.

“Tell.”

“Let's wait, Niels.”

“When, then?”

“Can we decide?” asked his father.

“Yes, don't we always decide, Dad?”

“That's settled, then.”

“When, then?”

“It's up to you.”

His father stopped short, busied himself with tightening the rope around his waist.

“Okay, then,” answered the boy. “After that tree on the barrow!”

His father nodded.

The boy is thinking about the rope around his father's waist. Soon there would be no more than a tight knot, so thin was he. Sweat broke out on his father's forehead each time he pulled the knot a little tighter.

But once in a while the boy felt a glimmer of hope. Like one time they found work: His father got a shilling from the farmer. But best of all, when they were done, the farmer's wife brought two steaming-hot mugs out to them. They stood and drank outdoors like two weary-worn comrades as the warmth spread into their chests. The boy felt himself stretching several inches in height. Even his father could feel it. It was as if his back had unbuckled. Never had the boy seen him stand so tall.

Then followed three weeks of nothing. And after one night spent in a stand of reeds, his father was pitched down into the ground. There his back stayed put.

Niels walked up to the road; his father lay in a deserted barn because of his back. Niels waded into a field and sat down. He looked like a tall local lad, who sat gazing over the yellow-green landscape, daydreaming about things big and small.

He listened for the first sounds of a wagon that would meander its way along the country road: At first, barely the buzz of a bee. Then it became a distant rumbling, which seemed to come and go, yet still mounted evenly. Like his heartbeats, which quickened in time with the beat of hooves. And finally, the voices of people and their possessions. He forced himself not to look in the direction of the wagon when it came closer; but he was like a feather, light, ready to jump up and spurt down to the road. In that instant she called to him.

Niels imagined that his mother sat in one of those wagons. That she suddenly caught sight of him, there in the field.
Stop
, she would cry.
I said stop, dear man!
The driver would yank on the reins, and she would sway to her feet, so tall and beautiful. She would call:
Niels! Is that you, Niels?
And he would turn his head; as if plucked from thought, he would smile and say:
Yes, Mum, it is me.

That day, four or five wagons passed him. Without stopping. Only one called to him. A man: “If you were living under my roof, I'd take the whip to you!”

When Niels got back to the barn, his father was lying on the ground, mouth open wide. He was sleeping with one hand on his chest, the other wrapped round the bottle.

The boy gets up from his seat on the floor. The mere fact that the battered hand must get up with him makes the room swim before his eyes. The fly takes flight, and Niels nearly loses his balance. He waits. But he's so weak, he must lean against the wall. This surprises him. That his legs, for example, aren't stronger. That cannot be. But the first step is an explosion up into his body. Nails scraping to grip the wall, mouth sucking in air for his lungs. The lights cut into his brain.

“So who says you can't remember anything from when you're born!”

It's the fly talking again. It takes a while for the boy to focus. Then he locates the fly against the opposite wall.

“Hah! How can it be, then, that the boy can remember he sat with his mother in a garden?” asks the fly.

Yes, he can. Niels is sure. He can remember that she sat in a garden with him. She sang for him. Perhaps they had a few days together, before she began to bleed. Before she died.

The hand seems to buzz with applause.

“Just like the painting,” says the fly.

He can remember it now. It hung on a wall.

“It pictured a mother and child,” he says.

“Exactly!” cries the fly.

“She's sitting with the child held close to her body, one hand on his head, the other on his stomach.”

“Well done!”

“The child is sleeping, but she is awake. Her cheek is resting on his head.”

“Precisely!”

“They are wrapped in a blanket of some kind. It's just the two of them.”

“Yup!”

The painting hung on a wall somewhere. Somewhere he had been.

The boy moves closer to the prison rails. He fills his good hand with water, moves slowly toward the light, whistles softly, reaches up, and lets the water flow out of the window. A bark in reply. He hopes this means the dog is drinking. He repeats this three times.

The fourth time, he lets the water run over his own scorched lips. The water burns down his throat. Then he sits down again.

Something else comes to mind. It surprises him that he can remember something like this. What he remembers is: If you pour a bucket of water into one end of the Mississippi, it takes a year for the water to reach the other end.

He says: “One year is a long time.”

He sees the almost infinite succession of days snake before his eyes.

He sees the road before his eyes; he links up with the girl.

“Now he's thinking about the girl again!” exclaims the fly. “Will he never be the wiser? Hasn't he burnt his fingers often enough?”

The hand is buzzing, as if it's enjoying itself immensely. It's buzzing like a beehive.

Then he remembers what happened one autumn night, when they had walked along a country road, he and his dad, dead tired. They froze. They were hungry. The boy could feel it, and it gnawed at him: the sweet desire to give up, just to lie down for a while. He didn't say it, but he thought:
Let me lie down in front of the workhouse.
He would never say it out loud, but it seemed as though his father could sense it.