Subject: Swedish Literature, Part II: Stig Dagerman
From: The Laughing Man (the_laughing_man@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Apr 12 2000 - 12:55:12 EDT
I can't help it. This is a classical short story, read aloud in many a
Swede's home. Stig Dagerman is a long time companion of mine. He has a
special place in my heart. "The Island of the Condemned" is an island I've
never left.
I found this translation of it when searching for a Pär Lagerkvist short
story, and I can't help but pasting it in:
To kill a child
It is a fine day and the sun rests over the plain. Soon the bells shall
sound, for it is sunday. Between a pair of wheat fields two youths have
found a path that they've never trod before and in the plain's three
villages the windowpanes are shining. Men shave in front of the mirrors on
the kitchen tables and women slice bread for the coffee and children sit on
the floors buttoning their jackets. It is the happy morning of an evil day,
for this day a child shall be killed in the third village by a happy man. As
yet the child sits on the floor and buttons its jacket and the man who is
shaving says that today they shall take a boat trip down the river and the
woman softly sings and serves the freshly sliced bread on a blue plate.
There falls no shadow over the kitchen and yet the man who shall kill the
child stands by a red gas pump in the first village. It is a happy man who
looks into the camera and in the glass he sees a small blue car and beside
the car a young girl who laughs. While the girl laughs and the man takes the
beatiful picture the gas salesman tightens the lid on the gas tank and say
they will have a fine day. The girl sits down in the car and the man who
shall kill a child takes his wallet out of his pocket and say they shall go
to the sea and by the sea they'll rent a boat and row far, far out. Through
the open windows the girl in the front seat hears what the man is saying,
she closes her eyes and when she does so she sees the sea and the man next
to her in the boat. He's not an evil man, he's content and happy and before
he gets into the car he stands for a moment in front of the radiator which
shines in the sun and he enjoys the shine and the smell of gas and
bird-cherries. There falls no shadow over the car and the shining fender has
no dents and it is not red with blood.
But at the same time as the man in the car in the first village slams shut
the door to his left and starts the car the woman in the kitchen in the
third village opens her cupboard and finds no sugar. The child who has
barely had time to button its jacket and tied its shoes stands on his knees
on the couch and sees the river winding its way between the trees and the
black little boat that lies pulled up on the grass. The man who shall lose
his child is finished shaving and is folding his mirror. On the table stands
the cups of coffee, the bread, the cream and the flies. It is only the sugar
which is lacking and the mother tells her child to run to Larson's and
borrow a few lumps. And while the child opens the door the man shouts after
it to hurry, because the boat waits on the beach and they shall row further
out than they ever have rowed. When the child then runs through the garden
it thinks all the time about the river and the boat and the fish who are
swimming and nobody whispers to it that it has eight minutes to live and
that the boat shall remain where it rests all day and many days thereafter.
It's not far to Larson's, it's only across the road and while the child runs
across the road the little blue car enters the second village. It's a small
village with small red houses and newly awake people who sit in their
kitchens with their coffee cups raised and watch the car drive by on the
other side of the hedge with a large cloud of dust trailing behind it. It
goes very fast and the man in the car sees the apple trees and the freshly
tarred telephone poles glimpse by like grey shadows. Summer flows through
the windows, they race out of the village, they lie in the middle of the
road nice and secure and alone - as yet. It's good to drive all alone on a
soft, broad road and out on the plain it goes even better. The man is happy
and strong and with his right elbow he feels his woman's body. He is not an
evil man. He's hurrying to the sea. He couldn't hurt a wasp, and yet he
shall soon kill a child. While they rush towards the third village the girl
again closes her eyes and plays that she won't open them until they can see
the sea and she dreams in harmony with the soft bumps of the car about how
serene it will be.
For so uncaring is life constructed that a minute before a happy man kills a
child he is still happy and a minute before a woman screams with fear she
can close her eyes and dream of the sea and the last minute of a child's
life this child's parents can sit in the kitchen and wait for sugar and
speak of their child's white teeth and about a rowing boat and the child
itself can close a gate and start walking across a road with a few lumps of
sugar wrapped in white paper in its right hand and this entire last minute
nothing see except a long, shiny river and a broad boat with silent oars.
Afterwards it is all too late. Afterwards a blue car stands on the road and
a screaming woman removes her hand from her mouth and the hand is bleeding.
Afterwards a man opens a car's door and tries to stand upright although he
has a hole of horror inside himself. Afterwards a few lumps of sugar lie
randomly scattered in blood and gravel and a child lies unmoving on its
belly with its face tightly pressed against the ground. Afterwards two
pale-faced people who have not yet had their coffee run out of a gate and
see a sight on the road that they shall never forget. For it is not true
that time heals all wounds. Time does not heal a dead child's wound and and
it heals very poorly the pain of a mother who has forgot to buy sugar and
sends her child across the road to borrow some and just as poorly does it
heal the grief of the once happy man who has killed it.
For he who has killed a child does not go to the sea. He who has killed a
child goes quietly home and beside him he has a silent woman with her hand
bandaged and in all the villages they pass they see not one happy person.
All the shadows are very dark and when they part it is still under silence
and the man who has killed the child knows that this silence is his enemy
and that he will need years of his life to defeat it by shouting that it
wasn't his fault. But he knows that is a lie and in his nights' dreams he
shall instead wish his life back so he could make this single minute
different.
But so uncaring is life against the man who has killed a child that
everything after is too late.
(from http://hem.passagen.se/iblis/dagerman.html)
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