Boy on the Edge (16 page)

“And here’s Ollie,” she said, and turned to the little boy. “He comes from the North, and will be staying with us. He’s a little bookworm,” she said, and ruffled the boy’s hair. He giggled shyly.

“He’s been sitting by your bedside every day, reading for you,” she added with a smile.

The boy smiled nervously. Henry noticed he had freckles on his nose and a crooked front tooth. Emily buttered a warm rye pancake and put it on a plate.

“He’s also been helping me out in the cowshed while you were ill,” she said.

That information didn’t make Henry feel any better. It was obvious that Emily was fond of the little boy. And why shouldn’t she be? He was sweet and pretty, with big blue eyes. Not ugly and crippled. And he was a bookworm as well.

“Find a chair, Henry, and have some pancakes with us,” she said.

But Henry didn’t want to sit down. He looked at the pancake on the plate and felt hunger pangs in his stomach. The scent was as sweet as ever, but somehow he felt like an intruder, as if she didn’t really want him to stay.

“Not hungry,” he whispered, and turned away.

“We’ll be in the cowshed on time,” he heard her say, but he didn’t reply. Why would they come to the cowshed anyway? He was back on his feet now; he’d take care of the cows like he’d always done. He didn’t need any help.

He limped out and for a brief moment he really wanted to slam the door shut behind him. But he didn’t.

He was angry, but there was no particular reason for his anger; nobody had done him any wrong — on the contrary. He suddenly realized that Emily had loved him like a true mother, cared for him like no one else had ever done before, and been so kind and understanding. But now she had turned all her affections toward the new boy. Once again, he was alone in the world. And this time it hurt deeply, because now he knew what he had lost.

For days the lava field was wet and gray, and dark clouds marched over the land. Then came a bright day with no wind and a calm ocean. The golden moss sparkled in the sunlight and yellow leaves on bushes in the lava field gleamed. In the morning there were frost roses on the windowpane, and when the moon appeared, pale in the dark-blue sky, frost sparkled on the Cairn of Christ.

Winter was arriving.

All the little boys had left. Emily told Henry that she and Ollie had stood in the yard, waving good-bye. She said the little boys had pressed their faces against the bus windows, probably hoping that they’d never see the farm again, or perhaps remembering happy days and joyful moments they’d had here, in spite of everything.

Now the only boys left were Henry, John, and Mark — and Ollie, of course. He hadn’t come here through the social system, but rather because his late mother had been Emily’s childhood friend. When his mother died he had been taken in by his grandparents, who cared for him as long as they were able. But now they were moving to a nursing home and there was no relative to take care of Ollie. His grandparents had found out that Emily was running a home for boys, and wrote her a letter, asking her to bring up the son of her childhood friend.

“It wasn’t a difficult decision to make,“ Emily told Henry. “Especially when I knew all the other boys were being taken away. What would have been the point of staying here if this angel hadn’t arrived?” she added, as if to herself.

Henry didn’t dare ask: What of me? What of John and Mark?

He was helping her in the kitchen after dinner. Ollie and the other two were watching television in the living room. Perhaps Emily felt that Henry and John and Mark were too grown up to be in need of her love and attention in the same way Ollie was. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps they should be. Henry didn’t know about the others, but he knew what he longed for: Emily’s love. He never wanted to be parted from her, the woman who was more his mother than his real mother had ever been. But now it seemed that Ollie was the center of her attention. And Henry felt left out.

It had begun to snow.

The land disappeared under a white sheet for as far as the eye could see. And it continued to snow: sometimes delicate grains, sometimes hail, sometimes large heavy flakes that covered everything in an instant. The footsteps of the wind were weighty; it moaned under its burden and poured the thick mass from its bosom with a tired sigh.

But it was warm in the cowshed. Emily had put an electric heater in there for Henry, since his sickness. And it was probably the increased warmth that brought the dung flies. They irritated him constantly when he was working. They sat on his hands and face, heavy and dazed, yellow and furry. Maybe they also had more dirt to feed on, since he didn’t bother to wash the dung canal as thoroughly as before. He didn’t care as much about cleanliness in the cowshed.

It was also a long time since he had cleaned himself properly. It didn’t matter whether he washed or not anyway; the dirt always came back. Emily brought him clean clothes, but he let them lie on the chair. He just milked the cows, and besides that he slept. There were no sheep anymore: the reverend had sold them. Henry couldn’t help feeling a little regret, for feeding the sheep had been a part of his duties. And despite the hateful smell, he had enjoyed their eager bleats when he’d appeared at the door of the sheep shed with his arms full of hay. But now the sheds were empty and silent.

His body went through the motions, his hands did the work that needed to be done; he was still the same old ugly cripple that he’d always been. But inside everything had solidified. The sweet feeling that he had experienced so briefly in the last days of summer had disappeared, buried under the thick snow.

After breakfast each morning John and Mark had to shovel the path to the church so they could continue their work in there, painting the ceiling and the walls. After lunch they spent most of their time in the smithy, making pallets for a moving company in the city. It was a new assignment that the reverend had obtained in order to have some income for the home. The boys were happy with the work, for unlike the slavery in the rock mine, they got their share of every pallet they made. It seemed that the reverend had learned his lesson; he even allowed them to smoke, as long as they did it outside the smithy. Sometimes the reverend stayed in the city for days, only coming back on the weekends. Henry didn’t know why he went, and Emily never talked about it.

She came with Ollie every morning to help milk the cows. Somehow that had become the new arrangement, without anyone asking Henry his opinion.

Emily gave Ollie the job of carrying the washing bucket and udder fat from her to Henry as they milked. In between, the boy stroked the cows, patted them on the chin, and said things like, “You poor thing, bless you,” in the sympathetic tone of an old man.

Ollie was extremely fond of the cows, scratching them behind their ears, talking to them. Henry closed his ears to Ollie’s endless chatting and averted his gaze whenever their eyes met. The cows, on the other hand, were happy with the attention they were getting from this little calf. They shot their tongues eagerly into each nostril, their big eyes beaming with affection as they purred.

Then Ollie would fetch a book from the windowsill. He would climb the fence around Noah’s stall, sit on the top board, and lock his toes between the pickets with the book on his knees. Then he would read, haltingly, moving his finger slowly from letter to letter. He read for Emily, the cows, and Henry, and his challenge was to finish a certain number of pages during the milking. But sometimes he had to stop, if the words were too long or he didn’t understand their meaning.

“How do you say this?” he would ask, holding up the book and pointing at the word with his finger.

That was the worst part. Henry tried very hard not to come close to him in case he suddenly asked him a question, but, of course, Ollie couldn’t always be avoided.

“What’s that?” he once asked, pointing out a page to Henry.

Henry was unable to move away without being too obvious. He was right beside Noah’s fence, where Ollie was sitting and leaning forward, holding the book up to Henry’s face.

Henry saw only a whirlwind of letters, and that old troll of anxiety clenched its fist and punched his stomach. He stood on the edge of the dung canal with the shovel in his hands. He couldn’t run away; the book was right in his face, blocking his path. His only other option was to jump across the canal. He rarely did that because he had slipped on his clubfoot more than once and hit the floor.

He clenched his fingers around the handle of the shovel. His forehead was dripping with sweat and his mouth immediately dried up. Henry was certain he would start to stutter as soon as he opened his mouth. He turned abruptly, pushing his shoulder against the book, and growled: “Ask Emily.”

“But I’m asking you,” the boy demanded.

So the cowshed was no longer Henry’s private place; now it belonged to Ollie, who had taken over with his silly cheerfulness, chatting, and nauseating reading sessions. Why couldn’t the worm just read in the house? Why the hell did he have to bring books into the cowshed? Henry sometimes glanced at the stack of books on the windowsill and wondered if he should wash them all to the floor with a powerful spout from the hose, just like he did when there were flies on the glass, before the books had appeared.

Emily even held Ollie’s hand when they crossed the yard, and it was not as though Ollie needed the support, for he didn’t limp. She patted him like a puppy. It was unbearable to watch. And when Ollie didn’t join her in the cowshed she was distracted and in a hurry, as if she just wanted to finish the milking as soon as possible.

Henry could just imagine Ollie sitting on the chair by the stove, Emily making some more cocoa for him as he held the cup in both hands to warm his tiny fingers. Ollie hadn’t just taken over the cowshed; now Henry’s favorite seat had become Ollie’s too.

The darkness grew greater and deeper from one day to the next, the light shorter and thinner, the sun more distant and colder. It sank into the western ocean and bright green streaks of light appeared. As darkness overarched the land, the northern lights danced, changing color all the time, from green to purple, moving in graceful waves like silent surf in the ocean of stars.

Henry wondered what they were, these ghostly bands of light shimmering in the dark silence. Perhaps they were the spirits of the damned, cursed to wander for eternity in the emptiness between heaven and Earth. Yes, the spirits of the damned. And one day he would join them.

He sat under the Gallows in the freezing cold, staring up into the heavenly vault.

The God of Summer had given him the false hope of friendship, only to snatch it away and leave him here, naked and lost in the realm of winter. The God of Winter didn’t pretend to be anything other than what he really was, indifferent in the vast realm of space. He was a God of Truth, who poured his darkness over the world and didn’t care what mortal men said or thought. And for all he cared, a fallen angel could lie where he had fallen.

It was late afternoon and the truck had arrived to collect the milk containers. Henry lifted the containers up to the platform, where the driver stood and stacked them inside the cooler.

When the truck drove off, Henry noticed Mark, standing by the Cairn of Christ. Neither John nor Mark had spoken to him for a long time. Although the rules at breakfast, lunch, and dinner weren’t as strict as before, nobody talked much, except Ollie of course. The boy just couldn’t keep quiet. Reverend Oswald didn’t seem to mind it, and John was rather fond of the little boy. But Mark never said a word. And neither did Henry.

John had changed since he first arrived. Gone was the arrogance, the haughty attitude, his cool way of being. Ever since he’d been locked up in the attic, John had become a fervent believer. It looked like the reverend’s prayer sessions had turned him inside out. Now he sometimes asked the reverend to be allowed to say grace at dinner. His green eyes had become dull and somehow reminded Henry of broken pieces of glass. John seemed to spend much of his spare time in the smithy, carving out small figurines. He had told Ollie that they were chess pieces: Christ, Mary, the apostles, and angels in white, the devil with his host of demons and monsters in black. He had been explaining this to Ollie at dinner, showing him his latest figure, Peter the apostle.