Authors: Fridrik Erlings
“Where is it? Where’s the book?” she asked, standing in the middle of his room, looking around her. He had finished the morning milking, and Emily had arrived to change his bedsheets and bring him clean clothes. He didn’t have an answer ready; he’d forgotten all about the book and hadn’t thought of a lie to tell her.
“I l-lost it,” he stuttered.
Emily sighed, obviously disappointed and a little annoyed.
“Oh, that’s a shame,” she said. “That’s a real shame. It’s the only copy I have, and it’s my favorite.”
Henry was in a hurry; it was the day of the week that the milk tanker arrived, and he had to lift the heavy containers full of milk out of the cooling tank, drag them outside, and then lift them up onto the platform on the tanker.
“Sorry,” he murmured, wanting to turn away.
“Do try to find it, Henry dear, would you? It would really mean a lot to me to get it back.”
“Yes,” he breathed, and turned in the doorway.
“It’s almost spring, and some of the boys will be leaving soon,” she said as she folded his duvet neatly.
Henry waited in the doorway, sidestepping between hope and fear.
“And two new boys will be arriving, both your age,” she said, and picked up the dirty bedsheets from the floor, rolling them into a ball in her arms.
“There’ll be a lot of work this summer, so we’ll just hold off on the reading until autumn, all right?”
She walked past him with her arms full of dirty linen. He breathed in the soft fragrance that trailed behind her, of white soap and purple flowers and the warm sun in a clear blue sky. And his heart jumped with relief.
When he lifted the milk containers out of the cooling tank they felt light as feathers, and he carried them outside with no effort at all. When the tanker arrived he grabbed the containers by the handle with one hand, placed the other hand under the bottom, and almost threw them up in the air. The driver stood on a platform, ready to pull up the containers, but he was quite unprepared for having to grab them in midair.
“Whoa! Not so fast,” he cried. “Feeling strong today, are we?” He grinned.
Henry couldn’t help but smile.
“Yeah,” he growled. “Very strong.”
Early spring was the most exciting time for the little ones.
They were happily captivated by the wonder of the little lambs that were being born into the world. Emily had put them on night shifts, two at a time, and if any ewes started to give birth in the middle of the night, one of them was to run to the house and wake her.
Reverend Oswald used the opportunity to talk a lot about the Lamb of God. The boys had seldom understood his preaching so well.
At breakfast they had sleepless, bloodshot eyes from staying awake and watching over the ewes. They had a competition among them over who had delivered the most lambs. Henry didn’t understand their excitement, how they marveled at the fragile state of a newborn lamb barely able to rise on its trembling feet.
He wasn’t put on any night shifts in the lambing season, for he had the cows to take care of, and he fed the sheep twice a day too. He was disgusted by the slimy bugs that the ewes squeezed out of their rears. They woke him up, abruptly, in the middle of the night with their high-pitched bleating, so he had to cover his ears with his arms. And to make matters worse, the bitter stench of sheep shit oozed through the wall, somehow stronger than before.
Finally all the ewes had given birth, and the old farmhand, who now lived on a neighboring farm, came to inspect them.
Henry heard that the boys had nicknamed him the Brute, because of his manners, bulk, and filthy language. He was a tall, tanned man with a cigarette constantly hanging from the corner of his wide mouth, wearing blue overalls that were far too baggy for him, spotted with everything from paint to plain dirt.
The Brute had arrived to brand the lambs.
About half the boys were in the dormitory, packing their bags, for they were leaving on the afternoon bus. Some were going back home, others to new foster parents in another part of the country.
The rest of the boys sat in a row upon the fence inside the sheep shed, unaware of the horror that was about to take place. Henry stood by the door that opened into the barn and watched.
The Brute moved quickly, seizing a lamb in his large hands, kneeling on the slatted floor, holding the trembling animal in his crotch with one hand and brandishing a pair of rusty shears in the other, stroking the white velvet ear with its sharp blade. Then he glanced at the boys on the fence with a murky grin.
“Now I’ll teach you how to do this,” he said. “The brand mark for this farm is: tip-cut left; slant-cut right. Now, how am I to do that?”
The boys had no idea what he was talking about.
The Brute held the lamb tightly, placing the velvet ear between the rusty blades of the shears, cutting the tip of the left ear in a quick move.
The lamb jumped up, screaming, shaking its head wildly, as the blood ran down its curly cheeks. Its mother bleated loudly on the other side of the fence, furiously trying to climb over to protect her little one. The boys’ faces turned pale. Some covered their ears because of the lamb’s high-pitched screams of pain. Or perhaps they just felt for the little thing, rubbing their own ears to try to soothe those of the lamb.
The Brute grinned and squinted through the cigarette smoke, assessing the boys.
“Here,” he said, pointing the shears to one of the boys. “You’ll do the other ear.”
But the boy shook his head. The Brute shrugged, dug his strong fingers into the curly wool, held the lamb firmly between his thighs, and made a slant-cut to the right ear of the screaming little lamb. Then he ordered the boys to bring him another lamb.
“And keep them coming,” he growled. “We haven’t got all day.”
That afternoon, when all the lambs had been branded this way, the Brute told the boys to herd the flock toward the low mountains in the north. The lambs ran beside their mothers, red blood on their thin little necks, crying with their soft, bright voices.
Henry stayed in the yard and watched the flock go up the road. As they crossed, he saw the bus appear. It had to stop and wait while the sheep crossed, but then it turned toward the farm and eased across the yard, the large wheels crunching the gravel.
Reverend Oswald and Emily were saying farewell to the boys who were leaving. Henry wondered if any of them would return in the autumn, perhaps a little harder in the face, their eyes a little colder.
All of them shook hands with the reverend, but when they turned to Emily she embraced them tightly and they started to cry. Emily was having a hard time saying good-bye as well, Henry noticed, wiping tears from her eyes.
When the bus finally drove off, Henry saw a tall, thin boy standing alone in the yard. He spat through his teeth and threw back his long black hair with a sudden jerk of the head. His thumbs were hooked in the pockets of his tight jeans, and he looked around with an arrogant air.
Emily and the reverend approached him, but Henry noticed that when the reverend offered him his hand, the boy didn’t take it. Emily took the reverend aside and they talked for a while in low voices.
Henry sat on the Cairn of Christ and watched the boy. He seemed to be about the same age as himself, but he was handsome. His face was lean, with a strong jaw, straight nose, thick black eyebrows, and long shiny black hair. He stood, relaxed, right next to his duffel bag, like he didn’t care about a thing in the world, dressed in a thin T-shirt and a short, worn leather jacket, and old cowboy boots.
There was something about him that made Henry curious, perhaps his boldness at refusing to shake hands with the reverend. If only Henry knew the words to start a conversation with him. If only he could somehow show him that they were perhaps of the same mind, that he too wanted nothing more than to give the reverend as much hell as possible, that perhaps the two of them could find a way to make it happen, that the two of them could, perhaps, become friends.
He felt a strong urge to make the boy notice him, so he might, somehow, indicate to him that he wasn’t just an ugly cripple, but someone to be respected, a person with serious responsibilities on the farm, and therefore someone to rely on, to trust.
He had no idea how to put his thoughts into words, and since the boy didn’t even seem to notice him sitting there, Henry began to worry that in a short while Emily would take the boy inside, and he would miss his chance.
Finally he cleared his throat loudly and spat on the gravel.
But the boy didn’t turn around to look. He just stood there, waiting, as if he hadn’t heard a thing.
Emily and the reverend finished their conversation, and Emily walked to the house. The reverend told the boy sternly to follow him. The boy picked up his duffel bag and walked behind the reverend toward the dormitory in the old sheep shed. Henry didn’t see him at dinner and wondered if the reverend had locked him up already for refusing to shake hands with him.
Early next morning, the boys crowded around the breakfast table as Emily introduced the new boy.
“This is John,” she said. “Our new farmhand. You will show him respect and courtesy.”
“Welcome, John,” said Reverend Oswald, and the boys murmured: “Welcome, John!”
Then everybody sat down, clasped their hands, and bowed their heads. Except for John. He glanced over the table, his eyes a shimmering green, a faint hint of mockery on his lips. Reverend Oswald had hardly begun the prayer when John stretched out his arm and started to scoop porridge into his bowl. The reverend fell silent and looked up. Everyone froze. John continued like nothing had happened, poured milk over the porridge, and began to eat.
“There are rules here, which you will have to follow like everyone else,” the reverend said. “Put that spoon down.”
“But I’m hungry,” John replied.
“We’re all hungry, John,” the reverend said. “But before eating, we give our thanks to God.”
“I don’t believe in God,” John said dryly, and continued eating.
There was a moment of silence, and the little boys sank in their seats. Finally the reverend spoke, obviously trying hard to restrain his anger.
“But we do. So perhaps you would be so kind as to show us some respect and courtesy by not eating while we pray.”
The words were polite enough, but the tone of his voice was not. John shrugged and put the spoon in his bowl with a loud clank.
“Sure,” he said, and leaned back in his chair, smiling, folding his arms on his chest.
Reverend Oswald began the prayer again, his voice trembling a little.
Henry felt a surge of joy; finally here was someone brave enough to challenge the reverend. Finally! Henry couldn’t wait for the chance to talk to John, to let him know that they could be in this together, that he wasn’t on the reverend’s side, but on John’s side.
But he had to be careful so the reverend wouldn’t suspect anything. And Henry had to choose his words carefully, form a clear sentence in his mind before speaking to John. If he started to stutter or forget what he wanted to say, then John might think he was a retard after all, a stupid, worthless cripple.
But the days went by and Henry never found a chance to approach John. He continued to behave stubbornly at breakfast, lunch, and dinner; he even stormed out of the garage in the middle of a Sunday service. The reverend stopped the service and followed him outside. While Emily, Henry, and the rest of the boys sat quietly inside the garage, the two of them had a heated argument out in the yard. The reverend came back alone, said a short prayer, and then left, while Emily played the organ and the boys sang.
For a whole week John was nowhere to be seen: he had been locked up in the Boiler Room.
When he appeared again at breakfast he was pale in the face and his green eyes didn’t shimmer anymore. Now he clasped his hands like everyone else and murmured “Amen” after the reverend’s prayer. Henry knew the power of the reverend’s words. He could well imagine that their influence was even stronger when one was locked up in a small room while the reverend gave thundering speeches, demanding that one should say one’s prayers out loud, the prayers that the reverend had ordered one to learn by heart. John looked tired and worn out. The reverend, on the other hand, had regained his confidence as well as his oratory skills, beaming with energy and power at the head of the table.
That morning, the Brute arrived after breakfast, for the day had come to clean out the sheep sheds. The reverend and the Brute had a short conversation in the yard before the reverend got in his car, an old yellow Volvo with freckles of rust on the paint. The Volvo disappeared in a cloud of dust on the road, and the Brute took John with him to the sheep sheds.
Henry stood in the doorway, which opened into the barn, and watched as they picked up the slatted floorboards and dragged them out into the yard, where the little ones took over and began to scrape them clean.
Below the boards, the cistern was full to the brim with coal-black, tightly packed manure. The stench was bitter and awful. The Brute stood on the firm slab with a cigarette in his mouth and a sharp shovel in his hands. He cut one clod of manure and threw it in the wheelbarrow.
“There,” he said, and handed the shovel to John. “Keep doing that till there’s no shit left in there. And when that’s done, there’s the other shed to be cleaned out.”
Then he walked out and drove away in his red pickup in a cloud of dust.
John cut one clod after the other until he had filled the wheelbarrow. Then he pushed it over the threshold across a plank and emptied it on the heap behind the barn. When he came back inside, he glanced at Henry in the doorway but said nothing.
John was already sweating, the back of his T-shirt drenched. Suddenly he turned around and gave Henry a sharp look and thrust his chin forward.
“What do you want?” he asked brusquely.
For a brief moment Henry was dumbstruck, for he hadn’t decided on his words, hadn’t found a way to say the things he wanted to say. So he said nothing, kept his mouth firmly shut, but his mind was spinning like mad, searching for the right words, for this was an important moment. And he knew he had to seize it.