The Last Execution (8 page)

He is thinking about his father. About how his father was, when their life was good. His father worked for two men; once, his big hands lifted a stone that everyone else in the field had given a wide berth. Back then his father bore him over sticks and stones, but all the while the boy felt as if he were the one who was in charge.

Then the father's body was broken. The boy thinks about one of those days when his father had to sit by the road and rest. They had been sitting there for some time:

“Are you feeling better?” asked the boy.

“No.”

The boy was about to ask again, but his father was holding tight to the boy's leg, just above the knee. There was still vigor in those blue-red fingers.

“Ouch.”

“Sorry,” said the father.

“It doesn't matter.”

“I'm sorry.”

They sat looking down over the town.
There are fields, and there is the town
, the boy thought.
Someone has made this country road, many have walked along this way, and many will walk this way again.
Perhaps this was how the boy tried to understand it. That it was too late.

Near the end, the father was so thin it looked like you could stick a hand right through him. The boy carried their mean possessions. Even so, the father had to rest several times. They took whatever came their way. They chewed on whatever took the worst of the hunger.

The father sat down. They were sitting by the roadside. Usually they waded into a field, hiding under cover. Many people passed, either in horse carts or on foot. The father never looked up.

There had to be an end to this. The boy just didn't want to see it. He watched the father's face. The pain there became steadily worse.

“Does it hurt really bad?”

“No,” said the father.

“Yes it does,” said the boy.

“No, not at all,” answered the father. “I'll try to get up.”

The boy looked at him. The father asked:

“But it won't work, will it?”

The father sat bent forward, a grimace on his face.

“Let me help you,” said the boy.

“That's just what I thought!” said the father with a short laugh.

“Let me help.”

“No. It's about you now.”

The boy wanted to pull him up, but the father shook his head.

“No, my boy.”

Then they noticed a uniformed man approaching them. A policeman. Perhaps someone had called him, perhaps it was just a coincidence. Niels remembers his shiny black polished shoes.

“Go!” said the father.

“Come!” said the boy. “I'll get you up!”

The father removed the boy's hand from his arm.

“You go along your way now,” he said.

“But, Dad . . .”

“Do as I say, Niels!”

The father gave him a shove that knocked him off his feet. But the boy was instantly up again. He looked in the direction of the policeman, then back at his father. The father did not look up.

Then the boy ran. Ran for all he was worth. Without looking back.

Ran till he was far out of town.

Now the boy can hear the dog bark. It's a different kind of bark, as if the dog has seen someone it knows or really likes. It's such a nutter of a three-legged dog. He wishes he could stroke it.

He can see it now. The sun has shifted on the floor again.

He thinks about the girl. That he ran in that direction.

On the second day he slept in a dike with a view of a little house. He daren't go closer. He just lay there, staring at the house. You could hardly call it a farm. It was just a hut with a stable joined to it. But he dreamt the house was his. That it was theirs. He had built it for them. She watched from below and waved, one hand resting on her hip; he could see she was pregnant.

Three days later and he was back. In the meadow with the forked path, where he'd last seen her. He had wanted to say good-bye, but she had kissed him. She had grabbed hold of the hair at the nape of his neck with one hand, as if she'd wanted to smack him in the face with the other. But then she had let go, turned round, and disappeared down a fork in the path.

Now that he was back, he could feel the longing for her in every part of his body. He slept in the meadow, and during the day he ran up to the road and back again, in the hope of seeing her. He daren't go too far for food. It was cold and gusty. Dust particles tore at his eyes; folk remained indoors.

When she did come walking up the path, he stayed on the ground where he was. He could not believe it. But it was her. She stopped walking when he got up. She was carrying a basket, which she put down. She stood a couple of yards behind the basket; he, the same distance away, as if this were a child's game they were about to play.

“Hi,” he said.

“There is food in the basket,” she answered.

“For whom?”

“Perhaps I'll meet a nice boy out here.”

It sounded all wrong. She didn't look at him when she said it. She looked up over the meadow.

“I'm happy to see you again.”

“Where is your father?” she asked.

“My mother died when I was born,” he said.

She looked in his eyes for the first time.
Should she be looking at me like that?
he thought as they sat down.

“Eat,” she said.

“How could you know I'd be here?”

“We don't know anything.”

“You do.”

“No, I don't tell the truth.”

But then she touched her hair, tousled it in that special way: quick, quick, slow.

They stayed sitting there till the sun disappeared. She should have been back on the farm long ago.

“I had a dream about you,” he said.

“When was the last time you ate?” she asked.

“I had a dream about you.”

“Don't do that,” she said. “Eat some more.”

“I built a farm.”

“I don't want to hear any more.”

“You were pregnant.”

“Niels. Stop.”

“Okay. So close your eyes.”

“They are closed.”

“Then make as if you've closed them.”

“Eat now.”

“Do it.”

“Yes.”

“Now.”

“Fast or slow?”

“Slowly.”

“Okay.”

“Now we are in America.”

This time he kissed her.

“So why did you leave her?”

It is the fly asking—perhaps in response to a mutter from the hand. The boy stares from the one to the other, still keeping tabs on the light on the floor from the corner of his eye. He feels the dizziness, the sweat like a river between his shoulder blades.

What a strange friendship this is
, he thinks
. Between a swollen, humming hand and a tiny, loudmouthed fly.
The world is the meeting place of the strange.

“Don't try to weasel out of it now!” rasps the fly. “Why?”

“Because she made it impossible for me to lie,” answered the boy.

He saw her, and only her, when she came down the path again. She came whenever she could get away. When she finally did come, he jumped up to meet her and immediately started talking about the farm in America. But he got the feeling she didn't want to hear it.

“Stop it now,” she said.

He went on. She tried to stop him.

“Can't we just sit here together?”

He nodded. And he meant it.

“Smile,” she said.

He tried. It became a grimace. Because he wanted to talk about the future instead.

One day she brought along a baked omelet. It tasted heavenly.

“You must make an omelet like that for our child's birthday,” he said. “We'll lay a table in the yard.”

She shook her head, rested a cheek against his shoulder.

“It doesn't matter,” she said.

Now he can see that he was the one who needed convincing. It was
he
who still needed to see the farm. Not her. For every time he saw her, he knew it was a lie. That he would never build a farm for her. That he was never going to America. That there was only one thing destined for him: Sooner or later he would end up in the workhouse.