Boy on the Edge (4 page)

“I’ll be in the kitchen, if there’s anything you need,” she said. “Just take your time to settle in. Look around the place if you like. I’ll check on you before dinnertime.”

Her smile lingered in the air long after she had left the room. Henry sat on his bed, breathing in the smell of clean sheets, the fresh scent of the tiny purple flowers standing in a jar on the chest of drawers by the small window. There was a small table and a chair, a colorful rug on the wooden floor, and a couple of pictures on the wall: photographs of a sunny country somewhere, a vineyard perhaps. And there was a tiny bathroom with a shower.

The room had been built inside the cowshed, some years ago, when they’d had a farmhand, Emily had told Henry. There was plenty of space for the cows, so a portion of the barn had been made into simple living quarters for the farmhand. The man had married a widow on a farm in the district, so now he was the farmer there, but he still helped them out from time to time, mowing the fields, moving the hay into the barn.

“Now that you’re here,” Emily had said, “your work will be to feed the cows and clean the stalls and the dung canal. And in a couple of months they will be let out, and you’ll herd them to pasture after morning milking and get them back for the evening milking.”

At that point a sudden spasm of anxiety had whirled around in his stomach. She must have noticed, for she told him not to worry about anything; she would teach him how to milk.

Then she’d shown him the sheep shed. The sheep turned to the open door, wide eyed, bleating loudly, their purple tongues trembling in their open mouths. The stink of their dung was bitter and nasty.

“The sheep, of course, will have to be fed too,” Emily said. “But pretty soon we’ll herd them up on the heath where they’ll be grazing all summer, so we don’t have to worry about them till autumn.”

The door and the window frame in his room were painted white, the walls dark green; a pleasant color that made him somehow feel secure. The soft spicy scent of the hay in the barn tickled his nostrils a little. From the other side of the wall he heard the cows sigh and murmur to themselves, and an occasional bleat from the sheep shed, next door. A low rumbling could be heard in the distance, almost like thunder, but regular like a heartbeat.

From the window, the vast lava field stretched as far as the eye could see. In the distance Henry caught a glimpse of columns of white foam shooting high into the air: the ocean waves exploding on the cliffs. The rumbling he’d heard was the heartbeat of the ocean. He felt tired and a little dizzy. His eyelids were heavy and the soothing rumble was like a lullaby. He rocked his body gently back and forth. Then he lay on the bed, fully clothed, and didn’t even bother to take his shoes off. He fell asleep, instantly, and slept like a babe in a crib, while the sunbeams moved ever so slowly across the colorful rug on the wooden floor.

He dreamed he was flying, high in the air; the buildings on the farm like toy houses in the middle of the vast lava field, far below him. He was a bird, a small gray bird with a long black tail. The lava field suddenly became liquid, moving like waves on the ocean; surf made of huge boulders falling around the tiny buildings. It was like the end of the world. He noticed Emily climbing the tall cairn in the middle of the yard, clinging to the white cross on top, crying, “Help me, Henry! Please, help me!” He dived down and realized he wasn’t a small bird after all, but a big bird, big enough for her to climb on his back. “Where to?” he chirped. “Home,” she said. “Let’s go home.”

She woke him up before dinner and he limped behind her toward the house, dizzy, confused, and sleepy. Twenty little boys stood silently by their chairs around a long table in the dining room. At the head of the table stood Reverend Oswald. Steam rose from a large plate of boiled fish, a bowl full of potatoes, and another bowl full of boiled vegetables. Emily placed a comforting hand on Henry’s shoulder.

“This is Henry,” she said, and smiled at the boys. “He’s our new farmhand and you will show him respect and courtesy.”

“Welcome, Henry,” said Reverend Oswald, and the boys echoed his greeting in unison: “Welcome, Henry!”

Like a disciplined group of little soldiers, the boys took their seats, clasped their hands in prayer, and rested their foreheads on their knuckles. Emily pulled out a chair for Henry. Then she sat down and indicated that he should bow his head as well and clasp his hands. The reverend drew breath and then words began to flow out of his mouth; his passionate tone of voice rising, increasing in volume and power until the words were bouncing off the dining-room walls, hitting Henry’s eardrums like fists, pounding his ears.

“God Almighty! Heavenly Father! Your Grace Knows No Limits! Your Mercy Is Boundless! Your Love Is The Breath We Breathe! The Beating Of Our Hearts! The Very Soul Of Our Being! You Are Our Father! And We Are Your Children! Humbly We Thank You, O Lord, For Everything You Have Given And For What We Are About To Receive! Amen!”

“Amen!” the boys cried.

Then utter silence, until the reverend took a piece of fish, put it on his plate, and everyone began to eat.

No one said anything; the only sounds were when a fork or a knife touched a plate, an occasional cough or a sneeze, or when someone cleared his throat as quietly as possible. And because of this silence the last words spoken by Reverend Oswald were somehow still flying around the dining room, growing louder and louder in Henry’s head with every minute. Henry finished eating before everybody else and fixed his eyes on Emily, screaming his own prayer, asking that he might leave the table. But she didn’t look up, and he dared not move.

He glanced around the table. The official had told him on the bus that most of the boys here came from troubled families, their moms or dads either in prison or in mental institutions. Some of the boys had been caught stealing, robbing shops, breaking and entering. A few had no parents at all and were waiting to be taken in by foster parents. Some had wide eyes full of sadness, like it would take nothing to make them start crying. Others had cold eyes and hard faces, as if nothing could surprise them anymore. They were like grown men; perhaps they had experienced too much, too soon. Henry imagined that the sad ones still believed that everything would be all right one day, even though every day of their short lives had been nothing but disappointing. They still had hope. The hard ones had exchanged childish dreams for something more durable: hate.

Henry could sense their anger. He’d been hopeful once, and later full of hate. And now? Now he was a little confused, because of Emily and her kindness. He wasn’t ready to hope for anything just yet though. No, not at all. He would cling to his hate a little longer, just to be on the safe side. Besides, he didn’t know what to think about the reverend. He was cold all right, harsh, strict, with his mouth full of words, complicated words, terrifying words.

Finally dinner was over and Henry limped behind Emily to the cowshed. The routine was simple: “First you fetch them fresh hay. Then you scrape the stalls clean and shovel out the dung canal. You empty the wheelbarrow into the heap behind the barn,” Emily explained. “I’ll do the milking tonight, but tomorrow morning I’ll teach you how to do it.”

Henry liked the cows at once.

They were big and clumsy like he was, lazy and annoyed: Old Red, Little Gray, Spotty with her large horns, Brandy and Belle; there were Jenny, Maggy, and Nelly. They rose in their stalls and mooed in deep, gentle voices, craving fresh fodder, like little children begging for candy. There was something so soothing about the way they snorted out clouds of warm breath, the sound of their slow munching, their deep grunts of pleasure, and their large, dome-shaped eyes gleaming with carefree happiness.

Then there was the bull. It had no name.

Emily warned Henry to be careful because the bull was always angry and not at all fond of people; it could as easily crush a man as a person can squash a fly under their thumb, she said. She seemed terrified of the bull, even though she had been raised on a farm herself. All around the bull’s stall was a high wooden fence that reached Henry’s chin. When he peeked over it he could just see the black hide. The bull kicked the fence and bellowed angrily. Henry jumped back in fright, his clubfoot crumbling under him so he almost fell to the floor.

“You’d better leave it alone,” Emily said.

She sat on a small stool beside one of the cows, washed its udders with hot water, and applied grease to the teats before she began milking. A white stream of pure milk hit the inside of the bucket, and the cow sighed with pleasure.

Henry grabbed the shovel and turned to the dung canal. The cow dung had a soft, sweet smell. As soon as he began, one of the cows raised her tail in the air and shit, like she’d been given a signal. Henry shoveled it up and moved his wheelbarrow along. He was the King of Dung, collecting the dues from his subjects, filling the wheelbarrow. He pushed the heavy load around the barn, where he emptied it onto the heap in one quick movement.

He breathed in the salty wind coming off the ocean. He felt great. He was a farmhand, a workingman. He was somebody. Who would have thought? The King of Dung couldn’t help but smile a little before turning back inside the cowshed to his subjects.

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were all in the dining room of the farmhouse. Reverend Oswald would say a prayer, and then everyone would eat in silence. Every day the boys had classes with Emily in the garage, which was both a makeshift classroom and a chapel. Henry was relieved when Emily told him he didn’t have to attend her lessons; he was welcome, of course, but it was not a duty.

But there was no way out of Reverend Oswald’s religious lessons. And Henry hated them. When Oswald asked questions, the little ones would compete to answer as fast as they could. Henry wondered if the reverend thought he was retarded, because he never asked him anything, which was the only relief. Oswald’s preaching frightened Henry. He spoke so fast that Henry usually didn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about. All that screaming and shouting; if heaven was anything like this, Henry definitely didn’t want to go there. He’d never seen a grown man shout with such burning conviction before, like a madman watching a soccer game.

Henry didn’t like being among the little boys. None of them were ever going to become his friend, and he didn’t care about that; he’d never had any friends anyway. He just wanted to be on his own.

Sunday services were no better.

When everybody had taken their seat, Emily started to play the pedal organ and the boys began to sing. Reverend Oswald sat still with a bowed head and clasped hands, in silent prayer. When the song was over he stood up and started to preach.

He talked a lot about God. But he talked even more about the devil. He said he loved God but hated the devil, for the devil was always trying to get inside people and take control of them. The devil had to be driven out, so people could go to heaven after they died, instead of going to hell. He talked like that, on and on, faster and louder, until finally he was almost screaming and at last he shouted, “Hallelujah!”

And the little ones echoed his shout with fervor.

“No one is without sin,” he said. “And those who don’t repent will never enter heaven. That’s why you are here: to learn how to repent. I know,” he continued, “that many have already given up on you, and for good reason too.” He looked over the small crowd with his cold blue eyes. “But God will never give up on you and neither will I. The devil may have dug his claws into you, but I will set you free in the name of Jesus! Praise the Lord! Hallelujah!” he shouted, and the boys cried, “Hallelujah!”

Reverend Oswald said that when the devil started to take control of a boy, he had to be punished. What the devil hated most was rebuilding the cairn in the yard, the Cairn of Christ. The punishment started in the evening by taking the top stone from the cairn, and then, one by one, making a cairn just the same next to the old one, stone by stone, before sunrise next morning.

But if the devil had really taken control of a boy, there was one punishment that was much worse. The boy would be locked in the Boiler Room, with no food, to pray, for as long as it took. The devil hated to be starved and hated praying on his knees for days on end.

“Some of you here have rebuilt the Cairn of Christ, and a few of you have been put in the Boiler Room,” the reverend said, looking over the crowd. “To begin with, you thought that you were being punished, and you cried and begged on your knees and you promised to be good. But when you had finished rebuilding the Cairn of Christ, when you had spent a few days and nights in the Boiler Room, you finally realized that you weren’t the ones being punished, but the devil! And because you humbled yourselves before the Lord, the devil gave up! You were saved and brought back to life in union with Jesus Christ! Hallelujah!”

“Hallelujah!” the boys replied.

After that, Oswald said a long prayer, then Emily pressed the pedals on the organ with her feet and raised her voice in song. The little ones sang with her.