The Last Execution Read Online Free Page A

answered the boy. “After that tree on the barrow!”
    His father nodded.

    The boy is thinking about the rope around his father’s waist. Soon there would be no more than a tight knot, so thin was he. Sweat broke out on his father’s forehead each time he pulled the knot a little tighter.
    But once in a while the boy felt a glimmer of hope. Like one time they found work: His father got a shilling from the farmer. But best of all, when they were done, the farmer’s wife brought two steaming-hot mugs out to them. They stood and drank outdoors like two weary-worn comrades as the warmth spread into their chests. The boy felt himself stretching several inches in height. Even his father could feel it. It was as if his back had unbuckled. Never had the boy seen him stand so tall.
    Then followed three weeks of nothing. And after one night spent in a stand of reeds, his father was pitched down into the ground. There his back stayed put.

    Niels walked up to the road; his father lay in a deserted barn because of his back. Niels waded into a field and sat down. He looked like a tall local lad, who sat gazing over the yellow-green landscape, daydreaming about things big and small.
    He listened for the first sounds of a wagon that would meander its way along the country road: At first, barely the buzz of a bee. Then it became a distant rumbling, which seemed to come and go, yet still mounted evenly. Like his heartbeats, which quickened in time with the beat of hooves. And finally, the voices of people and their possessions. He forced himself not to look in the direction of the wagon when it came closer; but he was like a feather, light, ready to jump up and spurt down to the road. In that instant she called to him.
    Niels imagined that his mother sat in one of those wagons. That she suddenly caught sight of him, there in the field. Stop , she would cry. I said stop, dear man! The driver would yank on the reins, and she would sway to her feet, so tall and beautiful. She would call: Niels! Is that you, Niels? And he would turn his head; as if plucked from thought, he would smile and say: Yes, Mum, it is me.
    That day, four or five wagons passed him. Without stopping. Only one called to him. A man: “If you were living under my roof, I’d take the whip to you!”
    When Niels got back to the barn, his father was lying on the ground, mouth open wide. He was sleeping with one hand on his chest, the other wrapped round the bottle.

    The boy gets up from his seat on the floor. The mere fact that the battered hand must get up with him makes the room swim before his eyes. The fly takes flight, and Niels nearly loses his balance. He waits. But he’s so weak, he must lean against the wall. This surprises him. That his legs, for example, aren’t stronger. That cannot be. But the first step is an explosion up into his body. Nails scraping to grip the wall, mouth sucking in air for his lungs. The lights cut into his brain.
    â€œSo who says you can’t remember anything from when you’re born!”
    It’s the fly talking again. It takes a while for the boy to focus. Then he locates the fly against the opposite wall.
    â€œHah! How can it be, then, that the boy can remember he sat with his mother in a garden?” asks the fly.
    Yes, he can. Niels is sure. He can remember that she sat in a garden with him. She sang for him. Perhaps they had a few days together, before she began to bleed. Before she died.
    The hand seems to buzz with applause.
    â€œJust like the painting,” says the fly.
    He can remember it now. It hung on a wall.
    â€œIt pictured a mother and child,” he says.
    â€œExactly!” cries the fly.
    â€œShe’s sitting with the child held close to her body, one hand on his head, the other on his stomach.”
    â€œWell done!”
    â€œThe child is sleeping, but she is awake. Her cheek is resting on his head.”
    â€œPrecisely!”
    â€œThey are wrapped in