Lars Sveen - Children of God

“That’s what it must have been like for our father,” I said.

“Don’t say things like that,” said Anna. “Don’t let that story come back to us now.”

But she didn’t say any more. We put our arms around each other. That was the only way I could get to sleep. I dreamed about the water, about our hands being so cold. Then I woke up and tried to spot Simon, but there was nothing other than the night and the embers of our small bonfire. We didn’t know then that Simon would be the one to lead us onward, that Simon’s trembling hands would fill us with warmth.

Every morning, after our prayers, Mother tells me that I’m not a little boy anymore.

“You’re the eldest here now, Simon,” she says.

Every evening, Andrew asks me to tell him a story. Our father has been gone for several days now. He’s up in the mountains, I know because some of the other children told me everything. So many of them went, and none of them have come back yet. But I saw soldiers today, on their way back where they came from. I haven’t told anybody, not even Andrew, but I think that means it’s over. Father can come home. I’m going to go and tell him, as we’ve hardly got anything left to eat.

Everything’s black, and I try to find the door without waking up Andrew or Mother. It’s as if I’d been put in a sack and dropped down to the bottom of the lake. Father’s told me that they used to do that, in the old days. They’d take all the children who weren’t any use, put them in a sack full of stones, row them out onto the lake, and throw the sack into the water. That’s why we don’t have a boat, he says, it’s got nothing to do with being rich or poor. You don’t know what the fish in the depths out there have been eating.

When I get outside, it’s brighter. It’s not light, it’s not black, it’s just night. I thought it would be quiet. I’ve heard the night before, I’ve been out with Father, drawing in the nets. But that was down by the lake. It’s different here. There are sounds everywhere.

Mother won’t say anything about Father. She has trouble walking on her feet, so recently I’ve been helping her back and forth to the spring. I tell her that I can fetch water myself, without her, but she won’t listen to me. “It’s for your brother,” she says, “for Andrew’s sake, so he’ll think that everything’s the way it should be.”

I have to get Father back. I know what to say. Mother’s ill, Andrew and I are hungry, we don’t have any food. And if he doesn’t already know, I can tell him about the soldiers, that I’ve seen them, that they were heading back.

I know the way by heart, how the path twists and turns up the mountainside. When I was younger, I went up there once to help bring in the sheep. We ran after them, shouting and whooping. I asked Father why we didn’t have sheep of our own. He said that all we had was the water, and he seemed neither sad nor happy as he said it. It seemed that was just the way things were. Sheep are sheep, and water is water.

I fall over several times, but I don’t get hurt. No cuts or gashes, I’m all in one piece. Mother always tells me to be careful. If Andrew or I get cut, even a little bit, the cut might grow and drain us altogether.

I walk and walk, feeling the ground rise up beneath me. I’m on my way up now. My hands help me to find the way. The moon’s shining, so I can see where I’m going.

When the path starts to level off, I can hear animals. I stop and wave the stick I’m carrying. If they should come, I’ll be able to see them in the moonlight. The advantage isn’t theirs. Father’s always told me that. Whatever you can see doesn’t have the advantage. That’s how we catch the fish in the shallows.

I keep walking on, and I see peculiar, large trees sticking up from the ground where the grass grows. On the flats, before the mountain rises again, woods have risen up now that weren’t there before. I stand in the moonlight, looking at the woods. That’s where all the animals are. They snarl and howl, letting out all kinds of sounds. They stand up on two legs, trying to climb up the strange trees. I feel myself holding on to the stick so tightly that my fingers hurt. I can’t go any farther. This is the only way I know, over the flats that have now turned into woods with wild animals. I don’t want to go back: Mother will realize what I’ve done and will lock me up. I’m not going back without Father.

Morning comes. I’ve been sitting there, watching the light that began as a small, red strip, and that became a whole day rising up above me. The wild animals are quiet now. I climb down alongside the rock where I’ve been sitting, and I start walking toward the unfamiliar woods. I dreamed of the woods, and they called to me.

As I approach now, I can see stakes and planks thrust down into the ground, splintered, red, damp. There’s a stench. Some of the animals snarl. I hear something buzzing, humming away, and there are people hovering everywhere, I recognize their faces, the buzzing, I know who they are. None of them are saying anything, but there’s that buzzing. Dogs and hyenas have ripped off bones for themselves, one of the poles is bent, there’s just a torn-off hand hanging there, buzzing. I know who they are. I walk on, walking through the buzzing, I’m right among them. They’re a forest. Fingers, feet, noses, nails. Hands, hair. The birds squawk, I’ve never seen birds like them, I’ve never heard such sounds. They’re eating ears, eyes, cheeks, and lips. Some of them fly above me, and I ask them if any of them know where my father is.

“Father, father,” they squawk. “Who’s your father?”

I tell them who my father is. Do they know where he is?

“Father, father,” they squawk. “Follow us, follow us,” and I follow the birds. They show me the way through the woods. A face blinks its eyes at me, some fingers move.

“Follow us, follow us,” the birds squawk. And there’s my father. He’s hanging far, far up.

I shout out to him: “Father, father.”

He smiles. “Simon, my boy,” he says. “I knew you’d come. Listen, the pole they’ve fixed me to isn’t dug into the ground properly. Can you see it? Just give the wood a bit of a shove, and be careful not to get splinters in your hands.”

So I push, leaning my whole body against the pole, which starts to tip over, and then it falls to the ground with a crash. I go over to my father, who’s still smiling at me.

“Thank you, Simon,” he says. “Thank you for coming to get me. Take my hand, take hold of it, that’s right, and then pull, come on. Yes, that’s right, that’s it. Then the other hand, the same again. Give it a really good pull, pull it there, that’s it, yes, come on, there we go. Then there’s just my feet left. You see they’ve been fixed with the same nail, so maybe you think it’ll be easier. But no, my lad, it’s worse, because the nail’s hammered in harder, and we’ve got to pull it out through two, not one, but two bones! Hit it, son, who’d have thought it? But come on, hold on, get that stick of yours, that was smart of you, that’s my Simon, yes, always ready with the right tools. That’s it, come on, there, now they’re free. But the nail’s still stuck in my feet, it just came free from the wood. I’ll lift my feet up like this and put them on this stone here, and then you hit the other side of the nail. Just like you do when you’re going to reuse a nail. That’s right, you learned it from me, didn’t you, you can tell your mother that, that you learned from your father. Now, take hold of me, help me up. We’d better get home so your mother won’t be too afraid, she’s always been so nervous. We’d better get down from this mountain, we don’t belong in the mountains, my lad. I’ve told you that before, do you remember when we went along to help bring in the sheep? You liked it, I remember how much you liked it and asked if we could get sheep. But I tell you, son, we don’t belong in the mountains, I was wrong, I was. An old man spoke to me, he told me he was blind, and yet he saw many things. He said he was what stayed in the shadows while the light fell somewhere else. He said I should try, said that I belonged in the mountains. I had to do what he said, I had to see if there was something here for us, something that would set us free, but he’d sent me off on the wrong track. All we have is the water, I can see that now, the water’s all we have. Don’t let anybody fool you, my son, there are people who’ll tell you all sorts of stories just to trick you. They start sweet and then, before you know it, they leave you with a bitter and bad taste. If anybody like that comes to you, tell them to go, be true to the Lord, follow the way he’s shown you. Stay by the water, then nobody can touch you. Nobody can touch us, only God can pass judgment over us. Only God leads the way, and he’s given us the water.”