Hernán Díaz - In the Distance

“He’s moving, Sheriff,” someone said.

More boots came into the room, and they all lined up in front of Håkan’s cell. A jingle of keys, the turning of a lock, someone standing right by his face. Håkan knew it was the neckless man. Someone poked Håkan in the shoulder with the muzzle of a rifle.

“The Hawk,” said the squeaky voice. “The terrible, the famous Hawk.”

After a pause, he added something that Håkan did not understand. Someone laughed.

“So it’s true,” the sheriff resumed. “Your English is bad. Or is your brain soft? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello?”

Chuckles.

“Tell me. Why did you kill them all?”

Håkan was sucked into an airless abyss. They knew. Everyone knew. Maybe even Linus knew by then.

“No. Wait,” the sheriff burst out, interrupting himself. “Why is not the question. How. How did you kill them all? The brethren, those emigrants, those women, those boys, those girls?”

Håkan heard this from some distant place within himself. He never knew it was so vast and desolate in there.

“You even enjoyed some of them. And still managed to slaughter everyone and flee unharmed. I suppose only a giant, right?”

Snort.

“Another thing I don’t get. Why did you ever leave the territory? No one could get you there. The brethren tried, of course. But where to start? And there’s no law. No law, no crime. Now here. Here we have laws. The laws of the United States. They’re in the Constitution. And you’ve broken most of them. Not to mention the divine laws. You’ll be destroyed and cursed. To come into the States. Ha! It must be your soft brain. You’re going to hang. Upon my soul, I would put you to death myself and burn your beastly bones. But the brethren want you. More money alive. That’s the only reason I haven’t spoiled your features. So they can see it’s you. I even have this tin box here to prove you’re the doctor they say you’re meant to be. The doctor! The giant killer doctor! By Cain’s curse.”

Sniggers.

“Slaughtering good men of God,” the suddenly somber sheriff said. “I can abide an honest murderer. But this? Brethren spreading the good word.” He paused, considering the immensity of the crime. “They sure want you in Illinois. Good men of God.”

Håkan finally managed to turn around and look at the head deposited on the shoulders. It looked down at him with disdain.

“Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello?” the sheriff suddenly croaked in rapid succession.

Laughs.

Space kept swelling within Håkan. He was now an unlit universe. How could he ever have thought the world an enormous place? It was nothing compared to his expanding emptiness. Details that once would have concerned him disappeared into the void. Did the sheriff say he was in a new country? Then where had he been before? Who had fabricated that story about those evil deeds he had not committed? Who were those brethren? All these questions faded behind Helen’s image. She had once touched his hand. Linus looked at him from afar. But these last pictures were shredded into hazy tatters and vanished in the blackness.

“So, the tin box. What do we have here? Little pliers, little knives, little bottles. Funny needles. Thread. You’ve healed so many people. Maybe I can heal you now. Because you’re sick, you know. You have a bad heart. You have a bad heart, and I will fix it.”

Håkan was turned on his back. He realized that he could see only out of one eye. Through a watery veil, he made out the sheriff threading one of his needles with suture.

“I’m no doctor, but I’ll cure your sick heart,” the sheriff resumed after getting the thread through. “Jesus is gone from your heart. That’s why you’re sick. But I’ll stitch him right back there. Grab him, boys.”

The sheriff kneeled over him and stuck the needle into Håkan’s chest, right above his heart. For a moment, the pain obliterated his consciousness, his shame, and his sorrow. But they all came back with his howl. The needle surfaced on the other side, and he could feel the thread burning as it ran through his flesh.

“I know, I know,” the squeaky voice said. “But you’ll feel better.”

Another stitch; another scream.

“You’ll be healed. Purified from the dross of depravity. Cured.”

Another stitch; another scream.

“Dang! That was a rib, right? Say, Doc, should I sew over or under it? Let’s see. Darn it! No. I’ll just have to go over. Hope that’ll do. Just one.” Stitch. “Two.” Stitch. “And.” Stitch. “There. Now we just need to go across.”

Gasping, Håkan stared at a stain on the ceiling that looked like a cloud that looked like a troll. The astonishing pain. The sheriff was the one holding the needle, but the pain was his own. How could his body be doing this to itself?

“Josiah, pour some water here. I can’t see what I’m doing under the slime. All right. We’ll stitch him right back on there.”

This was eternity—this pain, this now with nothing behind and nothing ahead.

“There. Anyone can be saved. You just need to let Jesus back into your heart.”

Before fainting, Håkan managed to lift up his head and see a coarse, irregular cross stitched onto his chest, right over his heart.

A cold, soothing cloth on his forehead woke him up in the middle of the night. One of his captors was gently wiping his brow. He put his finger tips to Håkan’s lips and shushed. They looked into each other’s eyes. There was something imploring and at the same time giving in the man’s gaze. He wiped Håkan’s face and then his chest. Although shorter than Håkan, he was still tall and, judging from the firm hand with which he propped him up, strong. His clearly traced features inspired confidence, as if that orderly and proportional face had been carefully designed by the mind behind it according to its own image.

“I brought your box,” he whispered. “Can you cure yourself?”

Håkan pointed to a salve and with gestures instructed the man to daub it on the stitches. Then he asked him to take the tincture.

“Two drops,” Håkan murmured, opening his mouth.

The bitterness was already a relief.

“I killed those men,” Håkan managed to say under his breath.

“Quiet,” the man said softly.

“But not the girl. Not the friends. Just those men. Nobody else.”

“I know.”

“But I did kill those men.”

He fell asleep in the man’s arms.

The clanging and the pain in his chest woke him at the same time. The sheriff was hitting the bars with a cudgel. Everything was tingly from the drug, as if reality were a limb that had fallen asleep.

“Up! Up! Up! Up! The circus is in town! Up! Up! Up! Up!”

One of his captors, Josiah, giggled. The other one, his benefactor, looked on from a dark corner. The sheriff walked into the cell and unchained Håkan while the giggling man pointed a gun at his head.

“You’ll need your costume,” the sheriff said, tossing Håkan his coat, which landed on his face. “Good Lord, this reeks,” he added as he wiped his hands on the back of Josiah’s shirt.

They dragged Håkan up.

“Asa!” yelled the sheriff. “What the blazes are you doing there? Come over here! The half-wit is a giant, in case you forgot.”

Asa came out of his shadowy corner and helped get Håkan on his feet. They tied his hands with rope, led him, stumbling, down a staircase, and pushed him into the deafening morning light.

The rotten vegetables and eggs hit him before the screams did. Through his single eye, he saw a vociferous mob standing at a prudent distance but close enough to reach him with the garbage they had brought, seemingly for the sole purpose of hurling it at him.

“That’s right!” proclaimed the sheriff, standing on a crate. “That’s him! The giant sinner! Like I said, caught him myself! The giant murderer!”