Nothing (7 page)

“Chimpanzees have almost exactly the same brain and DNA as us,” he’d hollered the day before, and started swinging around in the branches of the plum tree. “There’s nothing the least special about being human.” And this morning he’d said, “There are six billion people on Earth. Way too many! But in the year 2025 there’ll be eight and a half billion. The best thing we can do for the future of the world is to die!”

He must have gotten all that knowledge from the newspapers. I don’t see the point, collecting all that knowledge others have already discovered.
It’s enough to make anybody lose heart who has not yet grown up and found out anything for themselves. But grown-ups love collecting knowledge, the more the better, and it doesn’t even matter if it’s other people’s knowledge and something you only learn from reading. Sofie was doing right to grin and bear it. There was definitely something that mattered in spite of everything, even if that something was something you had to lose.

————

I don’t know exactly what happened the night Huge Hans helped Sofie give up the innocence. The next day there was just a smidgen of blood and some slime on a checked handkerchief lying at the top of the heap of meaning, and Sofie was walking a bit funny, like it hurt when she moved her legs. Nonetheless, it was Sofie who looked proud and inapproachable, while Huge Hans was running around trying to please her.

“He probably wants to do it again,” Gerda
whispered in my ear and giggled, completely forgetting that she wasn’t talking to me because of the matter of Oscarlittle.

I didn’t reply, but tried later on to get Sofie to tell what had happened and how it had been.

She wouldn’t tell me anything. Just walked around looking like she’d found out a secret that may have been terrible but that nonetheless had handed her the key to something of great meaning.

Great meaning? Greater meaning? Greatest meaning?

————

There were only three to go before we could show the heap of meaning to Pierre Anthon if he promised never again to sit in his plum tree and holler at us: Holy Karl, Pretty Rosa, and Jon-Johan.

Sofie chose Holy Karl. He was to deliver Jesus on the Cross.

Jesus on the Cross wasn’t just Holy Karl’s God almighty, he was also the most sacred thing in Tæring Church, and Tæring Church was itself the most sacred thing there was in Tæring. And so Jesus on the Cross was the most sacred thing any of us could imagine — if any of us believed in all that. Perhaps he was anyway, regardless of what we believed.

Jesus on the Cross was a statue that hung on the wall just behind the altar and made the small kids scared and the old folks teary-eyed with its bowed head and its crown of thorns and the drops
of blood that ran together in majestic streams down the sacred face that was twisted in pain and divinity, and the nails that fixed the hands and feet to the cross, which was made of rosewood and so very, very fine, according to what the priest said. Even I, who insisted that Jesus and Our Lord did not exist and therefore meant nothing, knew that Jesus on the Rosewood Cross meant a great deal. Especially to Holy Karl.

He was going to need help.

Help is thine. Help is ours. Help is us.

Once again I took my playing cards with me to the sawmill, this time the deck with the clowns on the reverse. And once again we drew lots.

This time it was Ursula-Marie, Jon-Johan, Richard, and Maiken who drew the highest cards and who therefore were going to help Holy Karl, regardless of Holy Karl maintaining that this was something we couldn’t and mustn’t do. He softened up some when Jon-Johan said that Karl had the code to the padlock and could come by
and pray to his Jesus on the Cross anytime at the sawmill. And that we would of course be returning Jesus to the church as soon as we were done with him.

I wasn’t a part of it, but what Ursula-Marie without her six blue braids told me in a hushed voice on Monday morning during our music lesson, while the others were listening to Beethoven and nearly drowning her out, was that it hadn’t all worked out according to plan.

————

Holy Karl had hidden himself away in the church as agreed following the late Sunday service. And when the church had grown still and was locked up and everyone had gone, Ursula-Marie, Jon-Johan, Richard, and Maiken had come and given three short and three long knocks at the door, and Holy Karl had let them in. But then it all started going wrong.

First Holy Karl had started to cry.

It was when the others had crawled over the prie-dieu and gone behind the altar, and he sobbed and begged so much that they had to let him stay behind on the other side. And Maiken had to stay with him to make sure he didn’t run off. And it didn’t help, no matter how many times she told him she’d never yet seen Jesus or Our Lord in her telescope, even though she’d looked all over, and neither had any of the great astrophysicists in this entire world. Holy Karl just covered his ears and howled so loudly he couldn’t hear what she was saying, and Maiken eventually just had to give up. She was scared, too, that Holy Karl’s howling would be heard by someone outside the church.

Jon-Johan and Richard had meanwhile been trying to loosen Jesus on the Rosewood Cross.

But Jesus was well fastened, and however much they sweated over him he wasn’t moving. Then Ursula-Marie had gone over to Jesus. And as she placed her hand on the foot of Jesus with the nail and the blood, it was like she burnt herself.
Ursula-Marie had to admit that even if she didn’t believe in all that hokum, she certainly got a real scare. The church was so strangely empty and infinite inside, and at once it was like the Jesus figure was coming alive. Ever so slowly, without anyone even touching him, Jesus slid on his own with a scraping sound all the way down the wall and hit the floor with a bump and broke that same leg that Ursula-Marie had just touched.

That was about the eeriest thing Ursula-Marie had ever seen in her life.

They all felt like taking to their heels, but now they’d come this far they couldn’t just let Jesus lie there on the floor. So despite his astonishing weight they managed to lift him free and haul him over to the prie-dieu and tip him over onto the other side. It was almost unnatural how heavy Jesus was, and however much Holy Karl was against it, he had to help carry. So now they were five to carry, and still they were barely able to haul Jesus out into the street and the waiting trailer.

By then it was seven thirty and dark as they went through the streets with Jesus on the Rosewood Cross in Holy Karl’s trailer. Even so, they had to stop a couple of times to hide behind trees and hedges so as not to be seen by passersby.

Holy Karl howled all the way through Tæring and out to the old sawmill and kept on repeating that they couldn’t do this. And Ursula-Marie, whose hand was still stinging from the burn, was beginning to agree. And Maiken kept on and on repeating that she’d never seen either Jesus or Our Lord in her telescope, almost like what she was mostly doing was trying to remind herself. And even Jon-Johan, who normally wouldn’t shy at anything, was nervous and abrupt and couldn’t get to the sawmill quick enough. Only Richard seemed unperturbed, though only until they reached the sawmill and the code on the lock didn’t work. Then he went berserk, yelling and screeching and kicking at the door to the sawmill and then at the trailer, so Jesus on the
Rosewood Cross fell and broke his other leg too.

Holy Karl went completely hysterical and said that it was blasphemy to break the legs of Jesus, and now they couldn’t give Jesus on the Rosewood Cross back to the church after they’d convinced Pierre Anthon that Jesus was part of the meaning, and Holy Karl would never be able to show his face in church ever again. Then Jon-Johan barked at Holy Karl and told him to shut his mouth, for wasn’t it Jesus himself who said that all sinners would be forgiven if only they believed in him? And this actually made Holy Karl shut up and almost smile again, and then they got the lock to work, since they’d just remembered the code wrong.

But now a new problem arose.

When they lugged Jesus on the Rosewood Cross into the sawmill, Sørensen’s Cinderella went amok.

Amok. More amok. Amokker-fokker, stupid dog!

Cinderella started barking like crazy and
snapping at them every time they tried to carry Jesus over to the heap of meaning. And eventually they had to go home and leave Jesus lying in the moldy sawdust in the middle of the floor.

————

It was a real problem, the matter of Jesus and the rosewood cross in the sawdust.

There were others besides Holy Karl who didn’t think it proper. Cinderella, however, didn’t care whether it was proper or not and refused to let Jesus anywhere near the heap of meaning. It didn’t matter what we did.

Did. Diddle. Diddly-dog!

No amount of coaxing or tidbits made any impression on her, and none of us wanted to get on the wrong side of those snapping jaws. After several hours we were feeling like giving up and going home. It was getting close to suppertime. But then I remembered the night we’d taken the coffin with little Emil Jensen inside.

“Maybe she thinks it’s Jesus who took Sørensen away from her,” I suggested.

“So it was, too,” Otto said, laughing.

“No, seriously,” I persisted.

“Yeah, seriously.” Otto laughed, and I got mad.

Elise broke in and said I was right, and that we’d never get Jesus and the rosewood cross onto the heap of meaning as long as Cinderella was keeping guard of it.

We thought about what she said for a long while, for Jesus on the Cross somehow wasn’t going to matter much in the final count if he didn’t get onto the heap.

“We’ll just chop him up into smaller pieces,” Huge Hans suggested.

“No!” exclaimed Holy Karl.

And even though none of us could care less about Holy Karl as far as this was concerned, neither did any of us think it was a good idea. It was like the meaning would go out of Jesus if we chopped him up into pieces.

“Then we’ll paint him black, so Cinderella won’t recognize him,” Sebastian suggested.

“No, it won’t be the same,” Jon-Johan protested, and all of us agreed with him: A black Jesus wasn’t quite the same.

“What if we put Jesus on the heap while I’m out walking Cinderella?” suggested Elise, and now no one had any objections.

The same evening after supper we went back to the sawmill.

————

Elise put Cinderella on the leash, and as soon as they were out the door, Jon-Johan and Huge Hans took a hold of Jesus and lugged him over to the heap of meaning. Jesus was too heavy to be put on top, so instead they placed him so he stood leaned up against the heap. The Dannebrog was aloft, a boxing glove slid down and disappeared from sight, the snake in formaldehyde rolled ominously, and Oscarlittle squealed.

Jesus on the Rosewood Cross was a part of the heap of meaning!

Out of consideration for Cinderella’s feelings, we’d placed Jesus as far from little Emil’s coffin as he could get, way over on the opposite side of the heap. Not that I think it made any difference where Jesus was put for what Cinderella did next.

Elise gave her three short and three long knocks at the door of the sawmill.

We all moved well away from the heap of meaning. Jon-Johan opened the door and Elise walked in, with Cinderella plodding slowly along behind her. The dog was puffing and panting like a boiled-out kettle and looked like she was going to collapse any minute. But no sooner was the leash removed than she lifted her head, nosed the air like a sprightly young pup, and trotted elegantly and without effort, her tail aloft, over to the heap of meaning, where she sniffed a moment at Jesus on the Rosewood Cross, before squatting
halfway up the cross and peeing on Jesus right about the midriff.

Pee-pee. Piddly-piss. Oh, my Lord!

Gerda giggled. The rest of us uttered not a sound.

————

The consequences of Cinderella’s behavior were quite incalculable. We would never be able to return a pissed-on Jesus statue to the church.

Nevertheless, one by one we all began to laugh. All that piety was just too comical with Cinderella’s yellow fluid running down the sides and onto the broken stumps that had been legs, then dripping on down into the sawdust. And anyway, with two broken legs, Jesus wasn’t doing too good to begin with.

We laughed and laughed, and there was a good feeling now, and after a while Sofie went and got her stereo tape deck so we could have some music. And we sang and screeched and had
a real time for ourselves until we realized it was past nine o’clock.

The tape was turned off and we flew off home in all directions. Imagine if some of the grown-ups had gone out looking for us and heard the noise from the old sawmill.

We weren’t expecting much of Holy Karl, but this time he surprised us: He wanted Cinderella’s head.

Weird.

Especially because Cinderella didn’t belong to anyone.

To be sure, the dog meant most to Elise, but Elise had already given up her baby brother’s coffin. Otherwise, only Pretty Rosa and Jon-Johan were left, and why should giving up Cinderella’s head mean more to either of them than to the rest of us?

Holy Karl insisted.

“Oh, come on, Karl,” said Otto.

“Cinderella’s head,” Holy Karl demanded.

“Get serious, Karl!” said Elise.

“Cinderella’s head,” Holy Karl demanded.

“Quit fooling around, Karl,” said Maiken.

“Cinderella’s head!” Holy Karl demanded, and continued demanding regardless of what the rest of us were saying.

Truth be told, we knew why.

Ever since Jesus had been dragged onto the heap of meaning, five days ago now, Cinderella had been using the rosewood cross as her personal toilet, both for one thing and another. Jesus on the Rosewood Cross had already lost a good deal of his sacredness with the broken legs and all, and now with the dogged efforts of Cinderella there surely wasn’t much hope left for Jesus. But still!

In the end we told Holy Karl that he had to choose something that mattered especially to either Pretty Rosa or Jon-Johan.

“Okay,” he said. “Then Pretty Rosa’s going to cut Cinderella’s throat.”