The Last Execution Read Free

he realized it was going to be far too heavy. Out of the corner of his eye he could sense the farmer watching him from a distance. He managed to heave the stone onto his lap, and then he tried to walk on casually, pursing his lips in a soundless whistle to hide the effort of it all. Once they had rounded the edge of the barn, his father stepped forward and grabbed the stone, just before it slipped through his fingers. He cast his son a quick smile from under his cap: They’d found work.

    This was their life. As he sits in the prison cell, the boy thinks about it all.
    He was still quite small when he first asked about his mother; he was still quite small when he stopped asking about his mother.
    His father wouldn’t have it. Not that he ever said so. There was no need to. Even when he couldn’t see his father’s face hidden behind the worn cap, the hair, the already bent and buckled back. His body said it all: that now there would be no more talk about that. Else it would be impossible to work. To keep going.
    He knew two things about his mother: that she’d died when he was born and that her hair was black. That’s it.
    At first he’d simply stared long and hard at all women with black hair. Later it happened more fleetingly. It had always been just the two of them: father and son. They tried to get by. Find work. Find food. Avoid the law.
    â€œRemember. We’re on our way home,” his father always said.
    If a policeman stopped them, Niels should lie. He should tug on his father’s sleeve and ask when they could go home, when they could sit in front of their warm oven. Even though they’d never had an oven. Even though they’d never had a house. Or a place to spend the night. Otherwise they’d be sent to the workhouse. Because their kind wasn’t wanted loitering ’bout town. Their kind stole, or begged. Nor were they a pretty sight.
    And the workhouse. That was the worst. His father, shaking as if he had a fever, had said: “It’s like being buried alive.” The boy would never forget the man who’d looked up with eye-pits like two black coins you could look right through .
    If they were lucky, they slept in barns. If not, in all sorts of places. In summer, under the stars; in winter, in deserted sheds or under a clump of bushes. Here they would lie, talking about America.
    They rose early in the morning and looked for work. Any kind of work. The men squinted at a thin boy and a father’s bent back. They shook their heads or turned their own backs, without a word. But now and then there was a nod. A nod that meant that now they could get on with it. Like that day with the pile of stones. Or those days they could do something else, take care of something else. Drain marshes. Cart away waste. Work. Live.
    But first they had to get a grip on things. In his mind’s eye he could see how his father tugged on the cord of his pants in an attempt to fasten them round his thin waist. How he pulled a face. That seemed to help. It was as though the pain in his stomach and the pain in his back balanced each other out in some way when he pulled on the cord. Until the work was done.
    His father worked at an even pace. Barely a break, barely a word. As if he daren’t stop. He kept going—more and more bent—until the pile of wood or stones was gone.
    The boy looked away once their work was done, looked away when his father tried to straighten his back. Shift it into place. The boy never did so, but he wished he could cover his ears with his hands, so he didn’t have to hear the sounds his father made. But it was always the same. The sigh: “ Jaja .” When it was all over. When he could function again. They took turns sipping from a water flask. “ Jaja. ”

    The boy can hear the dog on the other side of the prison wall. It is whimpering softly. Either it’s in pain or it’s uneasy. He says it.
    â€œ Jaja .”
    He