Ane Riel - Resin

Sometime later their grandfather died. To begin with, Mogens and Jens thought they were meant to be sad, but they were told that there was nothing to be sad about because their grandfather was an old man who was pretty much ready to die. Nor had they known him very well because he had lived in the southern part of the island, rarely visited the Head and barely said a word even when he was there. So it wasn’t as if he left a great void. Even so, Jens couldn’t help wondering what his grandad had hoped to become. And whether he had succeeded.

On the night his grandfather’s coffin was ready, Jens could finally get his concerns off his chest. He was lying snug and comfortable on his father’s soft tummy, with his father’s big, warm hands on his chest. Every now and then he could feel Silas’s beard on his forehead, and though it was a little scratchy, it felt nice. They breathed in unison.

‘What do you think Grandad will become?’

‘He was a nice man. I think he’ll become something good.’

‘So not a mosquito?’

‘No, I would find that hard to believe.’

‘A tree?’

‘Yes, a tree is more likely. A big, tall pine.’

‘Then we’ll have to be careful that we don’t chop him down.’

Jens could tell from the movement of his beard that his father was smiling.

‘It’s fine to chop down a tree if you value the life it has lived. As far as your grandad is concerned, he may not always have made the right decisions, but he was a good and loving person who wouldn’t say boo to a goose. We’ll remember him for that.’

Jens had visited his grandad in Sønderby a couple of times. He had no idea that he had kept geese. All he knew was that his grandad had had a small dog that followed him everywhere and could play dead on command. That was fine until one day when it didn’t get up. Ever since then it was known as the most obedient dog on the island, and Jens’s grandad stopped saying anything. Then he, too, died.

‘He wouldn’t have been mean to his dog, would he? I mean, on purpose?’ Jens asked anxiously.

‘You’re also a good person, Jens. No, your grandad never hurt a fly. And now you’ve inherited his cap. You can wear it even if it’s still a little too big for you. That’s a nice way to remember him, don’t you think?’

Jens nodded in the darkness.

‘Will I be someone’s dad one day?’ he asked out of the blue.

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘If I have a son, I’m going to call him Carl.’

‘Carl? Why Carl?’

‘The poet I chatted to down at the junkyard says his name is Carl and that he’s more than a hundred years old. He says he expects to live to two hundred.’

‘Is that what he says?’ Silas coughed.

‘Yes, if you count the rings in his face it looks about right. He has lots and lots of them.’

‘I see. Well, I’ll try to do that when I see him next. If I have enough time.’

‘And if I have a daughter, I’ll call her Liv, just like the little newborn girl we saw yesterday.’

‘It’s a beautiful name.’ Silas smiled again.

‘Yes.’

They lay for a while listening to the susurration of the trees which came in through a crack in the window. The sound was accompanied by a scent of spruce and wet moss that mixed with the aroma of the wooden coffin. Soon the honeysuckle would join in.

Silas Horder began to stir.

‘Right, I think the coffin is ready for Grandad now. Time for us to go to bed. Mind you don’t wake your brother when you go back.’

‘I’ve never done that.’

‘No, you’re right. Then again, Mogens sleeps like a log.’

That night Jens didn’t sleep a wink. He was thinking. What if a log was really a sleeping person who was too tired to become anything else?

The funeral went well, Else told them when she returned from Korsted church. Mogens and Jens had stayed on the Head with their father. Silas might be fond of coffins, but he hated funerals, and he didn’t like the boys leaving home either. It was bad enough that they sometimes had to go to school rather than help him in the workshop, in the forest or with the animals. There were plenty of things for the two of them to do. Besides, Silas didn’t have much faith in the knowledge his sons acquired at school. Sometimes he didn’t understand a word of what Mogens was talking about. Whoever heard of square roots?

It was enough to make Jens seriously doubt their education. Thankfully, both sons had a considerable talent for carpentry, Mogens probably the more so. Jens, however, had something unique about him which Silas couldn’t put into words but adored.

The first coffin initiation had come about pretty much by chance. He had only intended to let the boy experience the thrill of being enveloped by the wood and the craftsmanship he would himself one day master to perfection. Let him experience the lines, the proportions, the smell of the wood. Tell him how the tree was still alive and working around the body. Stuff his son’s schoolteacher was unlikely to bother with.

He hadn’t intended for their coffin inaugurations to continue but, lying there secretively, holding his younger son and listening to his thoughts and confidences and questions, imbued his life with a purpose it had previously lacked.

Silas wasn’t interested in anyone else’s opinion on the matter. It never even crossed his mind that the ritual might seem a little bizarre in other people’s eyes. He cared only that this – their safe and trusted private place – should endure for as long as possible.

Jens was careful not to breathe a word to his big brother about the important discoveries he had made in the coffin. One question, however, was pressing.

‘Mogens, what do you want to be?’

‘When I grow up? An inventor – an inventor, definitely.’

‘Sure, but what about when you die? Then what do you want to be?’

Mogens stared at him for a moment.

‘But I won’t. I’m not going to die. I’m going to invent something that will keep me alive, and it’s going to make me so much money that I can make a living from it too. But don’t tell anyone. I promise to keep you alive as well.’

There was so much that Jens couldn’t tell anyone.

One autumn night Jens and Mogens were lying awake in their room, listening to the wind tearing at the roof tiles and knocking things over. It was a long-lasting, powerful northern wind that was now culminating in a furious storm. Over in the barn, the half-door squeaked on its hinges until a sudden gust of wind made it fly open with a bang, which was followed by a strange cacophony of whinnying and mooing and braying. Shortly afterwards they heard another door slam and the sound of their father calling out to the animals. And more noises. Something falling from the roof. The weathervane? Something rolled across the gravel and bashed into something else. Mogens guessed it was one of the barrels crashing into the pump, and quickly reassured Jens that the upheaval would have been much worse had the storm come from the south or the west. When the wind came from the north, as it did tonight, the forest would bear the brunt of it for them. Besides, the trees were so far away that they wouldn’t hit the house if they keeled over, so Jens had nothing to worry about.

But Jens wasn’t comforted. On the contrary, he was horrified at the thought of the poor trees giving their lives to protect his home. A loud, ripping sound followed by a hollow thud from the forest made his throat tighten. He pressed himself against Mogens, who held his baby brother in a loving embrace while he fantasized about inventing an effective storm shield to the south and expanding the workshop to the west.

The next morning they walked around the house and the outbuildings with their father to inspect the damage. Nothing serious had happened to the buildings, but stuff had been scattered all over the place, and they spent some time picking it up and piling it up along the walls – pretty much where it had all stood to begin with. The animals had long since settled down and were chewing the cud in their modest quarters.