Borderliners (15 page)
ONE
T
ime?
Soon I must say.
But
not yet.
It is still too early
Biehl's podium was wooden, with Greek columns. On it were
carved the words "I and my
house will serve the Lord," and, farther
down, "Under the shadow of thy wings."
So, protection and darkness.
As a hen
gathers her chicks under
her wings.
As if to
protect them from birds of prey.
Above the inscription stood the school crest.
The ever-watchful
ravens.
The ravens seemed to be looking down upon the
inscription.
As
though
they were the birds of prey, gazing down upon the chicks.
At first you understood neither text nor image. Then
it was ex
plained to you and for a while you
thought you understood it.
Then the thought occurred that
the school seemed to be both the protective hen—God, that is—and the birds of
prey—the ravens;
God's messengers; who
preyed on the chicks.
You wound up
understanding none of it.
Behind the podium, and therefore above and behind Biehl when he was
speaking, hung a large painting of Delling, the god who unlocks
the gates of morning. A young man
opens a great gate, and out
across the podium and into the hall springs a white horse,
Skinfaxi—the steed of Light. The
painting also shows a black horse,
Hrimfaxi—Night—moving out of the picture.
Biehl explained all of this. It was a metaphor, both of
assembly
and of
enlightenment and knowledge.
The man, Delling, in the picture was slightly built, like
a child.
Actually, he
looked just like August. Not to make a big thing of
it—there was no way it could be a
painting of him; after all, it was
from the last century. It is just that, after we became
separated, it
struck
me that it looked like him.
So: the door is opened and
knowledge washes over you, like sun
light. That was the explanation that was given.
Meaning that en
lightenment is
something that already exists.
The only achievement
necessary from your side is that of being open to it.
At Biehl's Academy, natural science was seen as the supreme branch
of learning. The same was true of
the Royal Orphanage, and, in
fact, as far back as Himmelbjerg House, mathematical giftedness
was considered the highest level
of intelligence.
Biehl himself had
an
M.Sc. in
biology. Fredhøj taught mathe
matics and physics.
It was not that the other subjects were not worthwhile.
Biehl also
taught
history and mythology.
But natural science
ranked above all.
This had to do with the fact that it was not subject to human
uncertainty.
The other subjects—even written
and oral interpretation, for
which there were strict rules—even these were subject to a degree
of
uncertainty. Even
Diderichsen's grammatical tables did not hold
good
100 percent of the time.
But with the periodic table there were no exceptions.
Step by step you ascended, from the simplest base elements to the precious and
complex and rare. Like climbing a stairway; each step corresponded
to an established increase in the
atomic weight, and another
element.
It was never said in so many words. But you could not help
thinking that it
resembled the evolution of the species.
The ascent
from simple, primitive organisms to the complex
and highly
developed.
It was never said in so many
words. But that is how things were arranged on the charts. An outline of the
evolutionary process resembled the periodic table. At the bottom: oxygen,
hydrogen, and
amoebas.
At the top: gold and mankind. And between them ran the
links, like steps on a stairway.
Alongside and up through this
stairway flowed time. The final
elements
in the periodic table were to be found only in the labo
ratory, produced by man.
Whom it had taken evolution
all this time
to produce.
As
a rule, in physics and mathematics, you were working with
things far removed from yourself.
Because they were very big or
very
small.
Like atomic
weights or the great astronomical discov
eries. Now and again, though,
science could get very close to you.
As with the covert Darwinism, and the golden mean of violence, and the
law concerning the guiding importance of the beginning.
Regarding the great scientific discoveries, Fredhøj had
told us that
these
had been made by great mathematics and physics geniuses
who had not yet turned thirty. It
was something he returned to
again and again. His favorite example was Einstein, who was
twenty-five when he published
his special theory of relativity; when
he had his
annus mirabilis
in 1905. Fredhøj said
,
if you are to
achieve anything in your life, you have to do it before
you turn
thirty.
When he said that you could not help but think of his
own son,
Axel.
That if he was to have any chance
of achieving anything, then
he
had better get a move on. Since he was already thirteen
and had,
as yet, not
really said anything.
Time
and numbers.
Katarina wrote to me about them.
She wrote about the experi
ments. Which
were
not something she was carrying
out. But which
were
being carried out upon her.
TWO
T
wo weeks after we had become
separated it was
announced
that the school would be offering a certain number of
children in each class the
opportunity of being examined by the
school psychologist. By this they meant normal pupils.
And, in addition, a number of those for whom special circumstances came into
play and who were already going
for examinations or checkups.
The announcement was made in a letter that was sent to
pupils'
homes.
With pupils
under
fifteen—if they had no home, or if there was
no way of contacting the family—no warning was
given. They were
simply
advised that they had been selected for examination.
With pupils over fifteen years of age, the letter was
addressed to
them
personally. That must have been how Katarina knew about
it. She must have received a
letter about it.
The contents of letters from the school were not
something you talked about. It was a rule. Even so it was impossible, in the
long
run, to avoid word getting out. Absence
from class was very rare
and only on
production of a note from home. But now you could
tell that something
was up. You noticed straight away when abso
lutely
normal pupils were suddenly absent during certain periods.
Rumor had it they
were up seeing Hessen.
But even before the rumor had spread, I knew. Katarina had
written to me about it.
"Binet-Simon?"
That was her first letter. That was all it said. She
handed it to me
between
the ground floor and the second floor after the bell had
rung, when we were making our way up the stairs. It
was the only
possible place.
That is
true. It was the only place. Those thirty seconds from when
we left the playground and ascended toward the
second floor, where
we would separate
and she would climb higher up; that was our
only chance, in space and in time.
There was also the lunch period. But then the risk was too
great.
It lasted from 11:40 to 12:30. For
the first twenty minutes you
sat in the
classroom and ate your packed lunch. Lunch was super
vised by a teacher only up to and including Primary Six. From Primary
Seven on, there was no supervision. So it would have been
possible to see each other then.
But we never chanced it, we would have been seen, people
would
have seen us.
Sooner or later we would have been reported.
Tale-telling was frowned upon at Biehl's. But all pupils were en
couraged to report any serious
irregularities to the office or to their
class teacher. Under the heading of serious irregularities
came
stealing—like
if a pupil actually stole from other pupils' schoolbags;
vandalism in the toilets—the
only places not under constant super
vision; smoking; and breaking school rules—like, for
example,
when people
had been forbidden to talk to one another.
At the Royal Orphanage you were also encouraged to report
things
. But there it almost never happened. Those few times
when
it did, you waited for a bit, until
the teachers relaxed their aware
ness, and
then made the informer jump from the willow tree into
the lake, and did
not haul out the person concerned until the point
where he had only just survived.
This rule did not exist at Biehl's. But then, most of the
pupils
came from
caring families, and ran no special risk of being reported for anything. They
had never needed to protect themselves, the way
you do when you are on the borderline.
You never saw anyone being reported, it was done
anonymously.
Even so,
you sensed that it happened pretty often. August and Katarina must have sensed
it, too. We did not talk to one another
in the corridor.
On the stairs she had managed to drop behind the rest of her class.
You could not say that she touched me. But I knew
there would be
a letter.
She always kept her back very straight, even going
upstairs. I
knew I
was no shorter than her.
One year and eleven months and
four days younger—I had looked it up in the
yearbook—but not
shorter.
Taller, more like.
At least, if I
straightened up.
I had tried
but it
did not feel good—like cramps—so I had abandoned the idea.
She was past me even before I was really aware of her. She
was
wearing a black
duffel coat.
Before we became separated, when I saw her in the
courtyard with
Biehl
and then later on, I had never given a thought to the clothes she
wore—other than that they were
brilliant. Since then, the past few
weeks, after we had become separated, perhaps never to
talk to each
other
again, I had noticed how, more often than not, she went around
in old clothes.
Like grownups', but secondhand.
Big
sweaters with
leather patches on the elbows.
Or the black duffel coat.
One day I noticed that there were
some men's things among them.
And then I knew that some of these clothes must have belonged to
her father; her mother too, maybe.
I could not get the
idea out of my head. Every time I saw her.