Rebekka Franck - 03 - Five, Six ... Grab Your Crucifix (17 page)

Furthermore polonium was suspected to have killed the French scientist Irène Joliot-Curie. She was accidentally exposed to it in 1946 when a capsule exploded in her laboratory. Ten years later she died from leukemia.

Rumors also had it that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s clothes had unusually high concentrate of polonium, but that was never confirmed.

I looked up and stared at Julie and Tobias. This thing could have long term effects like it had on Irène Joliot-Curie. If Julie had been exposed to it could it cause health issues for her later on in life? I couldn’t bear thinking about it. It was obvious that none of us had suffered from any short term affects, so I wasn’t scared that we were about to all die here and now, but what was this going to mean to all of us in the long run? I felt a pinch in my stomach, a pinch of fear.

Chapter 37

Soren Sejr looked at the young girl in the corner. She was curled up, staring at him with fierce eyes, a fierceness he would soon get out of her. He always did no matter how long it would take.

Soren approached the girl, she was trembling, hissing trying to keep him away, covering her face with her arms. He kneeled in front of her and reached out his hand. He put it on her arm. She pulled it away with a loud hiss.

“Let me out of here,” she groaned. “You have no right to keep me in here.”

Soren Sejr smiled. Like he always did in this situation. Smiled with compassion and empathy, but not without displaying authority and letting them know that they were at his mercy, and he was the one to decide what would happen to them. He liked them like this, just before they were broken down. It was these moments he enjoyed the most, when they still believed they could fight him, when they still thought they could resist and get away, but knew deep down inside that they would eventually cave in and give up. They all came to that point when they realized that it was no use fighting this. Once they gave up he could begin to fill their minds with the right thinking. The kind of thinking that would make them obey his every word.

“You will get out of this room. When you’re ready,” he said with deep assuring voice. “But right now you’re not well, we need to help you get back on your path with God. It’s God’s will. He brought you here.”

Soren stroked the girl’s cheek gently while smiling. Oh the smoothness and freshness of young skin. He always enjoyed touching it especially the new ones. It excited him so.

“Don’t worry. I’m here to help you. You’ll thank me one day.”

The girl was sobbing now, first sign of the brokenness starting in her. She was about to give in now. This one wasn’t going to take long. She was feisty still, but Soren had seen worse cases. He had taken care of them all.

Just like the Priest had taken care of him.

Just arriving at the camp Soren had thought he was only going to stay there for a few days and nights - just until he found a place to live and could take care of himself again. He probably only needed a few days to recover he thought as they showed him a small room at the camp with nothing but a bed, a dresser and a huge wooden cross on the wall over the bed. On the dresser lay a book that Anders Granlund had written and a silver cross that Soren still carried with him wherever he went. Toilet and bathroom was shared with the others in the camp and was down the hallway, they told him. Then they let him alone, let him settle in and get some sleep.

Never in his life had Soren slept better and heavier. This was really a nice place and the people were so nice to him it was almost unbelievable, he thought when he woke up and looked outside the window onto the deep dark pine forest surrounding the camp. Underneath his window was a huge courtyard where he saw people walking and talking, some were alone praying while holding a book out in front of them.

It was nice to know that he always had a place to turn, where friends would welcome him with open arms if he ever found himself in trouble again. He was beginning to think that this God-thing maybe wasn’t so bad after all. The love for your neighbor and the forgiving part, he really liked. Maybe he would look into it some more. If these people were representing God then he wanted God in his life as well. He wanted to be good like them, good to others, taking care of them.

So Soren Sejr stayed at the camp for a few more days than planned and studied the ways of the church members and was very impressed by the way they labored and worked for the community without complaining, without murmuring about the hard work. And they never expected anything from him. Not once did they tell him that he had to do anything. For the first time in his life no one bossed him around, no one told him what to do, no one asked him to take care of them like his girlfriend had done, like his parents had done before her. For the first time the heavy weight of responsibility was lifted off his shoulders. It filled him with relief and great peace at mind.

“Just enjoy yourself and let the love of God fill you,” they said.

So he did. He enjoyed the food, the friends, the beautiful surroundings and on his long walks through the forest where he often talked to God and asked him for direction, he never thought once that the high barbed-wired fence could be meant for anything else but keeping people out of the camp. It never occurred to him that it might be there to keep him and the others in.

After two months Soren Sejr thought it was time to move on. He had been living of their generosity long enough he told his new friends. But now he was feeling great and ready to start over. He would never forget their hospitality and all they had done for him and if he ever could repay them, he would.

“Just let me know. You’re my friends and I really see you as my family.”

Anders Granlund whom Soren had learned to call the Priest like the rest did in the camp looked at him while shaking his head slowly, closing his eyes, exhaling deeply.

“Well here you go again leaving people,” he said. “Isn’t that what you always do, Soren? Leave the people you love? I know you’ve done it in the past, first your parents, next your girlfriend. Isn’t it about time you broke that pattern and stayed for once? We feel it is time for you to break those bad behavior patterns in your life and we’re here to help you.”

The Priest had looked to the other three from the leader-group that was present and they nodded in agreement.

“I don’t understand,” Soren said and looked from one face to the other of the camp leaders. He smiled and chuckled insecurely thinking it was like they didn’t understand what he was saying. He felt a little overwhelmed by their love for him, thinking they exaggerated slightly and acted a little overly dramatic. “I mean I will definitely be back to visit every now and then. I just think it’s time for me to get out and get a job and take care of myself for once. I think I’m ready to stand on my own two legs again.”

“Well that’s where we disagree, Soren. We don’t think you’re ready for that world. It’ll just tear you apart again. What kind of a family would we be if we didn’t protect you against such a failure and disaster? We think you should stay,” the Priest said.

“We really think you should,” one of the leaders repeated.

“But … I don’t want to be a burden anymore. You guys have already done so much for me,” Soren said.

“True,” the Priest replied. “We have done much for you. That’s what families do. So why are you repaying us by leaving us?”

“We are very saddened by your decision to leave us,” another leader stated.

Not knowing what to say to not hurt their feelings further, Soren Sejr had stuttered and looked at their faces with helplessness. “I didn’t know you felt this way,” he said. “But I have friends on the outside that I miss and I want to get an education. It’s about time I start taking responsibility for myself and move on with my life. I have decided I want to be a carpenter. I want to start my own business. Maybe I want to find a girlfriend and have children and start a small family of my own.”

The Priest and the three others around the table had stared at Soren Sejr while shaking their heads in disbelief.

“I have to say you really disappoint me, Soren,” the Priest said. “I’m sorry to have to do this, but it is for your own protection. You will never make it out there in the world. You belong here with us now. We’re your family. We only want the best for you.”

Then the Priest signaled the three others and they stood up and grabbed Soren by the arms and dragged him inside, into a bathroom where they locked the door and left him for five days without food or toilet paper. He survived by drinking the water from the tap. Every day the Priest would check on him. He came into the bathroom with a stick in his hand and a crucifix in the other. Then he beat the fierceness out of Soren until he pleaded him to stop.

When they finally unlocked the door and let Soren come out, he knew he had lost. He was defeated and he never talked about leaving the camp again. The humiliation had done him good, just like it would do this girl good too, Soren thought to himself as he slapped her across the face till she fell onto the tiles, bleeding from the mark his ring had made on her cheek. Then he held up his crucifix and kissed it before he pulled off her panty hose.

“I’m so sorry I have to do this to you,” he said as he took out his sex and she screamed. “It’s for your own protection. I only want what’s best for you.”

Chapter 38

It had been a full day, Soren Sejr thought to himself as he prepared for bed. He said his Latin phrases that the Priest had written in his book and told them to say before going to bed, then he repented and asked God to forgive all of his sin and finally he kissed his silver crucifix ninety-nine times like the Priest had taught him to do.

Soren wouldn’t say he actually missed the Priest but he did feel kind of sad that he was gone. He had taught Soren so many valuable lessons and nothing would ever be the same with Isabella Dubois as the leader. Soren knew that much. But luckily for Soren he had been around so long that he had nothing to fear from her. He wasn’t a threat and he had always treated her nicely, always obeying her orders. Even if she was much younger, she had a higher rank than him and Soren had been smart enough to respect that fact from the beginning. He never questioned the Priest’s methods or orders and he wasn’t going to do that with Isabella either. He was way too smart for that. Soren Sejr minded his own business and never got in anyone’s way. As long as he could have his, taking care of the youngsters and newcomers, he was satisfied. As soon as he had broken them he would hand them over to Hans Christian Bille who would begin rebuilding them. That wasn’t Soren’s thing. He enjoyed breaking them. The rest he didn’t care much about. It was beating the resistance out of them, beating their willfulness out of them that was the fun part. That was what he loved and was good at.

But now Hans Christian Bille was no longer there either and that upset Soren. Who was supposed to take over where he left off? Soren sure wasn’t going to do it. He didn’t have it in him to be gentle. That wasn’t his strength.

Well that was Isabella’s headache now, wasn’t it? He thought to himself as he put the head on the pillow and closed his eyes.

That night Soren Sejr had a dream. He was walking towards the isolation room when he realized the iron door was open and someone had escaped. He ran to the courtyard outside where someone stood with their back turned and bent over the ground. He looked down and realized the person was drawing circles in the gravel. Carefully inside of them she placed objects, one in the middle of each. As he slowly approached he saw what it was she was placing inside of them. It was human parts. In one it was teeth that had fallen out, in another hair that looked very similar to his own, in a third it was a finger bearing his ring, then an eyeball that was staring back at him resembling very much his own eye, finally in the last one she placed a drop of something greenish, some liquid that glowed in the dark night. Soren looked at her not understanding what all this meant. Then she turned her head and he staggered backwards. He recognized her crooked face and glowing green eyes.

Then she laughed. A manic hysterical laughter while the green stuff in the circle grew and turned into a huge flood that soon drowned him. Under the surface he felt hands grabbing his feet and pulling him down.

Soren Sejr woke up with a scream.

He gasped for breath and tumbled out of bed, still wheezing, panting breathlessly. Even if the dream was over he still felt like he was drowning, his lungs filled with water. He coughed and coughed trying to get it up and be able to breathe again and soon he spurted blood out all over the floor. He tried to scream again, to call for help, but no sound left his body. Half-choked he reached to the dresser and grabbed his crucifix. He held it high in the air and prayed with spurts and gushes of blood spraying out of him. He felt the skin burning on his fingers and arms and soon he noticed it started to fall off along with his teeth and hair. He squeezed the cross praying, asking God why this was happening.

“Oh but you already know, don’t you?” a voice in the room said.

Soren turned his head and while vomit spurted out of his mouth he tried once again to scream. But not a sound left his body. The little girl with the green eyes standing in front of him smiled and laughed like she had done in his dream.

Yes, Soren Sejr knew perfectly well why this was happening in the seconds before he died.

He only wondered why it hadn’t happened until now.

Chapter 39

We ended up spending the night in Dad’s room at the hospital. The nurses rolled in more beds for us and made sure we had enough to eat. When we woke up the next morning and finished our breakfast the director of the SIS, Gunnar Moll, came into the room and asked to talk to me and Sune.

I told him I appreciated that he spared the kids unnecessary worry as we walked into a small office he had borrowed to the occasion.

“Well, I have kids of my own,” he said.

 Gunnar Moll sat behind a desk and looked at the both of us. I felt nervous and grabbed Sune’s hand.