The Half Brother: A Novel (78 page)

The farmer’s wife goes slowly around the table inspecting them all.

No one says anything. All we hear is the sound of cutlery. Philip looks at the overheaped and unsavory plate of food in front of him. He lifts his spoon but can’t swallow. The food swells in his mouth.

SCHOOL DOCTOR’S VOICE: At twelve o’clock — soup with egg, fifty grams of meat and potatoes. Two whole-meal cookies and plum compote.

The two boys we saw in the window,
PREBEN
and
ASLAK,
who are sitting at the top and have grown really fat, start thumping the table. They begin softly, but gradually the thumping becomes harder and harder. In the end everyone’s hammering the table. Philip’s sweating. The tears run from his eyes. He’s on the point of exploding. The hammering reaches a crescendo. Philip hunches over his plate and gulps everything down.

Complete silence reigns once more.

The farmer’s wife stands behind Philip. She puts her hands on his shoulders.

WIFE: You must eat up, Philip. Otherwise God’ll be angry with you.

Philip sticks his spoon in the vomit as the farmer’s wife pats his head.

23. INT. NIGHT. FARM. DORMITORY.

All the boys are lying in bed in a cramped dormitory. The farmer goes past all the beds to make sure everything is as it should be. The boys are all pretending to be asleep. The farmer puts out the light, goes out and locks the door.

The moon shines through the window and is reflected in the lake outside.

Philip’s eyes are open and afraid. He hears steps coming toward his bed. He shuts his eyes.

Preben and Aslak take up position on each side of his bed. They’re dressed in just their underpants. They’re fat and pale.

PREBEN (in a whisper): Philip?

ASLAK (in a whisper): Philip? Come on, come here.

Philip opens his eyes once more, still more frightened now. They drag him out of bed and take him with them over to the wall. There they push him to the floor. Philip kneels there shivering.

PREBEN: Look.

Philip doesn’t understand. He doesn’t dare say anything. Aslak points to a hole in the floorboards.

ASLAK (in a whisper): Look, down there!

Philip puts his eye to the little hole. He sees on the floor below, in the kitchen, the farmer’s wife bending over the stove and the farmer taking her roughly from behind.

24. EXT. DAY. FIELD.

All the boys are bent double in the field lifting potatoes. Philip’s there between Preben and Aslak.

SCHOOL DOCTOR’S VOICE: Day two. A massage, wheat bread with butter and mashed potatoes.

Philip digs in the ground with his hands. Preben and Aslak hurl

potatoes at him. The farmer comes racing over. He boxes their ears, and they obediently bend down to the potatoes once more. The farmer puts his arm around Philip.

FARMER: I reckon you’ve put on weight already, you know, Philip.

Aslak and Preben scowl at Philip.

25. INT. EVENING. FARM. DINING ROOM.

Philip’s sitting alone at the long table eating. He cant manage any more. He lets his knife and fork fall onto his plate. At once the farmer’s wife is there, and she hits him on the back of the head. Philip keeps on stuffing himself with food.

The farmers wife smiles and puts her hands on his shoulders and massages him as he eats.

26. PHILIP’S DREAM

Philip’s lying naked in the lake. The moonlight’s shining on his face. He’s sleeping. Everything is utterly still. Then the water around him goes red and he’s slowly pulled down. Philip panics. He opens his mouth to shout aloud, but his voice is utterly silent and he just sinks down into the murky, red water.

27. INT. DORMITORY.

Philip sits bolt upright in bed, gasping for breath. He’s looking right at Aslak and Preben. They bend down over him. They whisper.

PREBEN: You know what the farmer and his wife are?

Philip shakes his head.

PREBEN: They’re angel makers.

PHILIP: Angel makers?

PREBEN: They put unwanted children out into the woods to die. ASLAK: That’s why you’re here.

PREBEN: Will you tell?

Philip shakes his head.

ASLAK: Will you tell, fanny boy?

Philip stares at them in terror. They drag him out of bed and back over to the hole in the floor. They press his face down to the ground. Philip sees the farmer bending over the stove, naked; his wife taking him from behind.

28. INT MORNING. DINING ROOM.

The boys are standing at their places singing in chorus. The farmer is conducting them. They sing
now our land is living.
Philip stands pale and silent between Aslak and Preben, who are both singing lustily.

The farmer stops the singing abruptly and looks at Philip.

FARMER: Aren’t you singing?

Philip doesn’t reply. The farmer goes up to him.

FARMER: Won’t you sing with us? Are you better than us, is that it? Are you better than us?

29. EXT DAY. FIELD.

Philip stands alone in the field digging. We see him from above
—
a little figure on the bare, gray landscape.

SCHOOL DOCTOR’S VOICE: The quantity of food for dinner is increased. Eighty grams of meat, grilled potatoes and butter, kidneys and boiled testicles.

Philip looks up at the sky. It starts raining. He throws the spade away and runs for all he’s worth toward the woods.

30. EXT. AFTERNOON. FOREST

Philip stops out of breath among the trees, and leans against one of the trunks. There’s utter stillness. He turns around. No one’s following him. Then he keeps going.

And then he sees that the wood is full of boys. They’re sitting on the ground, half-naked and blue with cold. Some are already dead. The others are simply waiting to die.

Philip turns around once more. The farmer and his wife are standing hand in hand at the edge of the wood, dressed in their finest garb, smiling at him.

31. INT. EVENING. FARM.

Philip’s standing naked in the communal shower, washing mud and earth from himself. He’s the only one there. He stares at the filthy water swirling into the drain. He feels the rolls of fat around his belly.

Then he hears the strains of
now our land is living.
Philip turns the shower off at once and hears the song more clearly now. It’s coming closer and closer. Philip reaches for his towel, which is hanging on a hook. But he doesn’t get it in time. Preben and Aslak are standing in front of him. They’re singing and looking at him. Then there’s quiet.

Preben takes the towel from the hook.

ASLAK: Are you better than us, huh?

PHILIP
(in a whisper):
No.

PREBEN: Do you need the towel?

PHILIP: Yes, please.

Preben stretches out the towel, but snatches it back again. Philip remains standing where he is. He tries to cover himself with his hands.

ASLAK: Are you sure you aren’t better than us?

PHILIP: I don’t want to get fat. I just want to be taller.

Preben and Aslak look at each other and laugh. Then they drag Philip with them into the dormitory and over to the hole in the floor. They force him onto his knees and press his face to the floor.

Philip sees an empty kitchen. A kettle of waters on the stove, and it’s beginning to boil. Philip screams. The screams muffled. Preben secures the towel tightly over his mouth. Aslak kneels behind him.

SCHOOL DOCTOR’S VOICE: He who does not follow Weir Mitchel’s Remedy will go to thin hell.

Philips face is twisted in agony and fear.

32. INT. EXT. MORNING. DORMITORY.

Philips standing by the window looking down over the yard. Aslak and Preben appear, smartly dressed, each with suitcase in hand, fat and polite, in the company of the farmer’s wife. They stand there, beside the flagpole, the flag waving from it.

Then the truck comes into the yard and stops. The farmer’s wife says a tearful goodbye to Aslak and Preben. They clamber onto the back of the truck and sit there with their luggage.

From the cab there appears an extremely thin and stunted boy with a cardboard suitcase in his hand. It’s Barnum, whom we recognize from the cinema as the boy who was thrown out. He’s frightened and bewildered. The farmer’s wife gives him a hearty welcome.

The farmer drives off with Aslak and Preben.

33. EXT. MORNING. FARMYARD.

At last Barnum frees himself from the arms of the farmer’s wife. She bends down toward his face.

WIFE: Now you’re going to get good and fat, Barnum.

She takes Barnum by the hand and drags him toward the farmhouse. He looks up at the windows. He sees Philip. He sees his fat face up on the top story staring down at him.

THE CHOIRBOYS SING: God is God though every man were dead.

Barnum struggles and tries to pull himself away. The farmers wife drags him on.

34. INT. EVENING. MOVIE THEATER.

The
USHER
drags Barnum out of the theater toward the foyer. We hear the sound of the film in the background
—
the boys singing
god is god.
Barnum tears himself loose and rushes up some stairs. The usher pursues him for all he’s worth, but trips on the stairs. Barnum pushes open a door and enters a dark, cramped corridor.

Barnum stops and looks about him. He sees a pillar of light slanting across the darkness. He continues toward it. He fumbles forward toward the light.

35. INT. MORNING. FARM. DINING ROOM.

Philip sits at the head of the table. Now he’s the heaviest of the lot of them. His face is bulging with fat. He’s stuffing himself with food. Fat dribbles from his lips.

The farmer stands behind Philip and pats him on the shoulder.

Barnum comes in and sits at the bottom of the table, thin as a rake and petrified.

SCHOOL DOCTOR’S VOICE: Day one. At six-thirty a pint of milk, to be drunk slowly over three quarters of an hour.

Barnum looks down at the mug of gray, impure milk, swimming with globules of fat.

36. INT. EVENING. MOVIE THEATER.

Barnum’s standing right in the beam of light. He doesn’t have much time. He’s in a panic. He tries to push the light away. He whirls his arms around in the air.

From the theater there’s booing and catcalls and the shouting of insults.

We see Barnum’s moving shadow all but obliterating the screen.

37. INT. EVENING. FARM. DORMITORY.

Philip’s standing beside Barnum’s bed. Philip is naked and fat. Barnum’s awake and terrified.

Philip drags him over to the wall and pushes his face down to the floor.

38. INT. MOVIE THEATER. EVENING.

Barnum opens a low door. The
PROJECTIONIST —
an elderly, friendly man
—
is standing inside a cramped, low room that’s little more than a closet. The man is keeping his eye on the running of the film.

Barnum goes into the projection room.

BARNUM: I don’t want to see any more.

PROJECTIONIST: What’s that?

BARNUM: I don’t want to see it any more.

PROJECTIONIST: I thought you wanted to see it.

BARNUM: Not any more.

The projectionist looks at him sorrowfully.

PROJECTIONIST: I can’t stop the film before it’s finished. You know that well enough.

39. INT. NIGHT. KITCHEN. FARM.

Barnum’s eye is visible in the hole in the ceiling. It presses down into the hole, a wide-open eye. And then it tumbles, the eye tumbles down into the boiling pan of water on the stove.

40. INT. EVENING. MOVIE THEATER.

Barnum has sat down now. The Projectionist is standing beside the reels of film he has to change.

BARNUM: I thought it was you who decided.

PROJECTIONIST: You have to see the rest, Barnum.

BARNUM: But I don’t want to.

PROJECTIONIST: You don’t have any choice.

BARNUM: I thought you were God.

PROJECTIONIST: Yes, unfortunately I am God. But I don’t have any choice either.

The projectionist turns toward Barnum.

PROJECTIONIST: There’s something familiar about you. Haven’t I seen you before?

BARNUM: Haven’t you seen everyone?

PROJECTIONIST: But I have a bad memory you see. I’m starting to get old.

The projectionist peers through his little window once more.

PROJECTIONIST: Come here. Hurry!

Barnum goes over and looks through the window.

Barnum sees the screen down below, a long way off. The beautiful field and the boys working there
—
happy and industrious in the glorious weather. Birdsong. And Barnum, a black patch over one eye, appears with the farmer at his back, and is put to work beside Philip.

In the background the woods are visible like a tall, dense shadow.

PROJECTIONIST: Now I know who you are.

The projectionist glances quickly at Barnum and smiles.

PROJECTIONIST: It’s not what you see that matters most, but rather what you think you see.

Barnum lifts a box in which reels of film have been stored and hits the projectionists head with it for all he’s worth. The projectionist sinks to the floor.

Barnum tears the film from the projector.