A Fairy Tale (22 page)

M
y grandmother zigzags around the fallen trees.

In town, tiles are missing from several roofs. Smashed windows have been boarded up with chipboard. I have my rucksack on my lap. I packed it before we drove off; I took my dad's drawings of the bicycle. The catalogue with ladies in lingerie lies under my sweater.

I'm leaving today.

The car deck on the ferry fills quickly; my grandmother says everyone's going to the mainland to buy materials and tools to repair their houses and boats.

When we get up to the lounge, all the tables are taken. People get up and offer us their seats, but my grandmother declines and we go back down to the car. We sit right next to the sign telling passengers to leave their cars during the crossing. No one knocks on the windscreen or tells us to get out.

“Please, would you do an old lady a favour?” my grandmother asks me as we disembark. “Would you visit your grandfather one last time? Say goodbye?”

I nod. We drive past the bus stop, through the town, and out onto the motorway.

The man in the
bed no longer looks like a human being. His skin is waxy. He has blue and purple spots on his face and on his arms. His body thinks he's already dead. We sit there for twenty minutes; my grandmother looks expectantly at him. Then she gets up, puts her coat on.

“Your grandson has been here,” she says. “I know you wanted to talk him. But he has been here and now he's going.”

We walk down the corridor.

“You need something to eat,” she says. “You've a long journey ahead of you.”

I follow her to the cafeteria. I get a cup of coffee and a liver pâté sandwich. Around us people with IV drips dangling from stands are eating. My grandmother takes tiny bites from her cake.

The nurse comes running. Her eyes are so big we can see the white around her pupils.

“He's awake,” she says.

We walk as quickly as my grandmother can manage. Out of the cafeteria, we take the elevator up, we hurry down the corridor.

My grandfather's eyes are open, but blurred. He lies very still. At first I think the nurse must have been mistaken. Or that perhaps he died while we were still in the elevator. Then he moves a tiny bit. My grandmother helps him up on the pillow, holds a glass of water to his mouth. He opens his lips, moistens them.

“I'll leave the two of you alone,” my grandmother says, and closes the door behind her.

The man in the
bed looks straight at me, fixing me with his gaze. A man who is nothing but eyes. I don't think I could look away if I tried.

“You came.” His voice is hoarse and croaky. “I don't have many words left so I hope you'll just listen.”

For a moment I don't think he'll speak again.

“I wanted to be a good person,” he says. “I tried. But I wasn't good to your father.”

His eyes move towards the glass on the bedside table. I hold it up to his lips, he struggles to drink.

“I told myself that it was necessary. A kind of punishment. But I knew very well that it was wrong. I hope that you can forgive me.”

“For what?”

“It was wrong. Isn't it enough to know that?”

“No.”

“Forgive me.”

“What did you do?”

“I can't . . .” His eyelids are half closed; his voice is reduced to a whisper. “Can you forgive me?”

On the windowsill I can see a glass of fruit punch I left there a couple of days ago. On the chair lies the newspaper I was reading.

His eyelids never fully close.

My grandmother is waiting on the bench in the corridor outside. She seems smaller now, sunken into herself. She goes inside to her husband, reappears a couple of minutes later. She avoids my gaze.

We drive down the motorway, through the town. My grandmother slows down when we approach the bus stop.

“I'll stay till after the funeral,” I tell her.

My aunt walks from
room to room. She says we'll have to move the furniture, that we mustn't forget to buy plenty of beer, that if there's not enough beer they'll just start on the hard stuff. My aunt speaks the loudest, but I've no doubt that it's my grandmother's few telephone calls and sparse words down the handset that set the funeral in motion. The next morning my new black suit is hanging over the back of a chair in the drawing room.

T
he priest from the mainland is young. He stands on the pulpit and looks down at his papers. His hands are shaking. He tries to keep them on the pulpit so that no one will notice.

He was late. His tires careered across the gravel when he parked. He looks up, looks around at the fishermen. Big men with big hands, shifting in their pews, making the wood groan. No one's listening to him; halfway through the sermon he realizes this and stops. His gaze seeks out the family that must have come to hear his words. He finds us in the front pew. My grandmother has folded her hands; she looks down at herself. I, too, look away now. Refusing to help him through his sermon. His words lose their conviction as he talks about the priest who devoted his whole life to this island, who never left, who understood how important it is that people can share in God's mercy wherever they are. That this might be the challenge. Staying rather than going. That you can bring God's words to Africa, but you should never forget a small island in Denmark.

The priest keeps his eyes firmly on his papers until he reaches the last full stop. Then he quickly gathers them up.

My grandmother and I
walk in front, then my aunt and her children.

The women follow us, a small group with dull faces and hands with no nails. They carry dishes. Finally the men, the fishermen, heavy-footed; a small army marching out of step on their way home from a battle they didn't win.

The vicarage has been cleared, just like before a child's birthday party that could become boisterous. In the drawing room the armchairs have been moved and replaced with folding chairs. The sideboard has left a mark on the wallpaper. The dining table has been covered with a tablecloth. Here the women put down their dishes; they remove tinfoil and reveal pies, cold cuts, meatballs, and salted fish.

The men walk awkwardly around the room in worn suits with too-short sleeves and old shoes shining with fresh shoe polish. Their dialect is so thick I don't understand them when they speak. They eat food from paper plates. They empty their bottles of beer in three gulps without swilling.

My aunt positions herself so close to me I can feel the weight of her breast against my arm.

She whispers into my ear: “They're animals. That's what Dad used to say. He was their shepherd. He meant it literally; the men on this island are animals.”

One by one the women go over to my grandmother, take her hand, and say a few subdued words. The men follow suit; they stand with their heads bowed like children who've been caught out.

A couple of hours later the food has been eaten and the women pack up the serving plates. They say goodbye to my grandmother and leave the vicarage.

The men are talking more loudly now. The floor creaks under their feet.

Out in the passage
my aunt is having an argument with Frederik. She orders him and his sister to go upstairs, to go to their rooms. Do it now. They're not to open the door even if someone knocks. Frederik refuses, he's standing on the bottom step. When he sees me, he points and asks why I'm allowed to stay. His voice is high-pitched and whiny. Eventually he trudges up the stairs in a sulk, his sister following.

“I can't tell you what to do.” My aunt and I are alone in the passage now. “But watch yourself. They're not drunk yet.”

The men disperse from
the dining room, where the folding chairs sway under their weight, and head for the kitchen, where they sit around the table. They drink clear alcohol from coffee cups and water glasses. The table is covered with bottles from Poland and Germany that have probably been smuggled here.

When my grandmother passes the doorway to the drawing room or the kitchen, they quickly lower their voices. Once she has gone to bed, the house becomes theirs.

I stand half-inside the dark passage, looking down into the kitchen where my aunt waits on the men. She empties ashtrays and clears away empty bottles. She smiles all the time and keeps edging away from hands reaching out for her. She drinks with them and when her white wine runs out, she fills her glass with schnapps and beer. She sits on the lap of one of the fishermen and giggles as though she were younger than her daughter. When a man is about to put his arm around her, she quickly gets up and pats his cheek before moving out of range.

Two men get up from the table and go outside. Ten minutes later they come back: one of them is bleeding from his lip, the other has a swollen eyebrow. Someone fills their glasses with schnapps and passes each of them a beer.

My aunt comes up from the kitchen and walks in my direction. I take a few steps back into the dark passage and wait for her. Before she reaches the bathroom, I block her path.

She tries to get around me, so I move again. A small dance, back and forth, she giggles. The men in the kitchen have started singing; it sounds ugly and violent.

“Why did he want forgiveness?” I ask. “My grandfather asked for my forgiveness. For what?”

“Move,” she says.

I grab her arm and drag her through one of the doors in the passage. I find the light switch; the room is narrow, there's an old sewing machine under the window.

“What did he do to my dad?” I ask, and close the door behind us.

“The men are looking for a fight. If I scream, they'll come running.”

“Sit down,” I say.

She remains standing, fists clenched, looking at me. Then she sinks down on the couch by the wall.

“I don't know,” she says. “I honestly don't know.”

I stand in front of the door, not budging. My aunt sits there for a little while. When she starts talking the island's dialect is more noticeable than before.

“I remember the summer when it started. Your dad couldn't have been more than six, seven years old. He'd done something . . . I think he might have broken a window, so he was called to Dad's study.”

She cries silently.

“There were days when I didn't even see your grandfather. I'd be in the kitchen, he'd be in the drawing room or in his study.”

She looks into the wall, looks far away.

“I don't know what he did to your dad. But it wasn't . . . it wasn't anything good . . .”

She wipes her eyes on her sleeve, like a child wiping its nose. It leaves a smear of makeup that reaches her hair.

“I know what you're thinking,” she says. “That he abused your dad. But I don't know what he did. For many years I didn't even consider that possibility. I didn't know that something like that could happen. These days that's all people talk about. As if that's the only way you can abuse a child.”

She sits for a while, sniffs, and stares into the distance.

“When your dad ran off, taking you with him . . . I knew that had to be the reason. That's why he became ill.”

She stays where she is until the tears stop flowing, then she gets up and walks up the stairs to her room.

A man sticks a
glass in my hand and fills it with alcohol. I sit on the steps leading down to the kitchen. The men raise their glasses and toast me. I'm reminded of nature programs I used to watch on TV with my sister, where a diver in a steel cage was lowered into the sea while sharks attacked the bars.

I watch the men drink, shout, and sing.

I draw them in my mind. I draw a man slumped over the table, trying to steer the flow from the bottle into his glass; his back is arched. I draw a man raising a bottle to his lips; the glass and the face merge into one single image.

I
lie in bed. The last guests left less than an hour ago. I listened to their singing grow more and more slurred until it sounded as if everyone was shouting at the top of their lungs. Slowly, the house emptied.

It's early in the morning and still dark outside. I get dressed and put the rucksack over my shoulder. I walk downstairs as quietly as I can. The house smells of smoke and something darker. I find my grandfather's study, open the desk drawer, and take out the cigar box with the money. There are fewer notes than there were a couple of days ago; the funeral has been paid for. I empty the contents into my pocket. I don't know how much money there is, possibly 10,000 kroner, possibly more. I also take the photographs of my dad as a little boy and put them in my rucksack. I'm walking down the passage when I hear something behind me. The light comes on. In her dark blue nightdress my grandmother isn't much taller than a child.

“I'm going now,” I tell her.

She makes no reply.

“I've taken your money,” I say.

“Why?”

“You owe me. You owe me so much more.”

“You can't do that.”

“Call the police. I'm happy to repeat everything my grandfather told me before he died.”

I saw no great reaction in her face when they lowered her husband into the ground. Now her mouth contracts and her eyes narrow.

I close the door behind me, the morning air is cold. I walk to the ferry.

As I travel across
Denmark, I sleep soundly and I don't dream. My eyes are still half closed when I show my ticket.

When I reach Hovedbanegården, I walk to the platform for local trains. My train leaves in twelve minutes.

I sit on a bench; I tighten my jacket around me.

When the train arrives, I've made up my mind. Perhaps I knew all along what I was going to do. I'd thought I'd taken the money as revenge, but this option was at the back of my mind the whole time. I head for the footbridge and walk away from the station. I go out into the city.