RodMer Short Story Package AA Annika's Big Plan
by Merike Lugus	for on-line reading now in your browser

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Here is Short Story Package AA a short story by Merike Lugus.

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This is the first in a series of five stories about an immigrant girl, Annika, who ended up in Germany, then Sweden and then Canada after WWII. This was not an unusual route for tens of thousands of DP's, or Displaced Persons, as they were called.

The challenge in this story was to tell it from the perspective of a four year old. Perhaps more information could have been omitted without losing the sense of the story. It's difficult not to sentimentalize about a very lonely four year old. What helps to keep a balance is to understand the resilience of even very young children. The story is an embellishment on a real experience I had in Sweden. At age four I knew I was onto something big, hence the title.

Approximately 8,300 words

A smile is the chosen vehicle for all ambiguities. -- Pierre Melville

The front door slammed. It meant her brothers had gone off to school. She pretended to sleep. Mama's footsteps came faster that way. She'd felt her warm breath close to her head, the touch of her lips on her forehead. And after she was gone the house was empty and the day spread out like an empty beach. Annika stayed with the pool of light behind her eyelids. There a butterfly flitted in and out like a hazy memory of something -- something she needed to catch and hold on to. Yesterday she had had a big idea. It had almost become a Big Plan, but by morning, there it was, just a butterfly.

She slipped off the green couch, that soft place which is her bed at night and her playground by day. Everything she owns is tucked underneath or behind or inside the drawer that pulls out from it. Quickly she rolled the sheets and blanket to one side and hopped back on the couch, landing on her knees. For a while she bounced her stomach against the back pillows and looked out the window. Fallen leaves were everywhere.

At that moment a woman walked by holding the hand of a girl. Annika had seen this girl many times since moving to this new country. She had tried to speak to her once, using the few words she knew. She had hung from the railing of the stairs outside their apartment and swung underneath it, waiting for the girl to draw nearer, her heart booming, booming, the new language balanced dangerously on her tongue: it might spill out in the right way, or it might roll back and get stuck in her throat.

What is your name? she had finally asked, surprised that the question was over so quickly though it had occupied her mind for so long.

The girl had stared at her as if a wall had spoken. Olga, she had shouted before she ran away.

Another day. The house was silent. Everyone had gone, except Annika, age four, just. The porridge left for her on the table was cold. She broke through the gummy surface to the creamy stuff in the middle and touched it to her tongue. No salt. Some of the shouting had been about that. Some had been about missing shoes or schoolbooks. Carefully she removed some of the porridge from the centre and arranged it in small dots around the edge of the bowl, then measured three spoonsful of sugar into the small excavation site. Gently she poked around with the handle of the spoon, trying to see how far down the sugar could be pushed without disturbing the surface.

When the sweet sugar connected with her tongue, she suddenly remembered the Big Plan.

She rushed back to the window half-thinking The Harmonica Man would be coming down the road. He was in some vague way connected to the Big Plan. He was her friend even though they rarely said anything to each other. But he lived Out There and he was always alone, like her. Instead, it was Olga and her mother coming down the road, returning from the other direction. Annika watched as they passed by her window, their arms swinging, one head stretching up, the other bending down, connecting. They wore hats and mittens and scarves. The morning sun made them squint. Red and yellow leaves floated lazily from the trees, skittered along the sidewalk like worried mice. Annika sunk low in the couch.

She dressed herself, pulled the wool leggings up her thin legs, over what her mother referred to as her hips, though truthfully her torso is as straight as the trunk of a small tree. The elastic at the waist was limp, and the crotch habitually sagged between her legs. The day she had discovered the way to fix the annoying tug, she had been very pleased with herself. All she had to do was to pull her underpants on top of the stockings. She put on the navy blue pleated skirt her mother had made. The fabric was the same as had been used for her brothers' pants. She pulled a red sweater over her head. The elbows were heavily mended with a darker red wool.

Everything was different in the new country. Different since her Papa disappeared in the war. Eventually a man came to live with them. Her mother tried to convince her that it was her Papa and thanked God that he was alive. Her brothers called him Papa too, but Annika didn't. Not that she remembered her real Papa. It was just that she believed a real father would surely smile more. It was difficult to be sure about this one, whether he liked anyone at all. So she didn't call him Papa. She didn't call him anything. Not that he noticed. So-called Papa likes to shout. He doesn't like what his job is doing to his brain, he says, and shows everyone his hands, which are scratched up, dirt living inside the scratches. Annika stares at the rough palms etched with iron dust and wonders where the brain is, but says nothing in case this is one of those times she might ask a stupid question.

Annika can't go to school until she is six years old, but her two brothers are old enough to be at school all day. She doesn't see them very much either. The things they do, places they go, are kept secret from so-called father. Most things are kept secret from him, the man with black hair who seems to be angry almost always. Most things are kept secret from her, Annika, too. The bedroom door is always closed, the voices muffled behind it.

Mother has become very quiet in the new country.

It's not strictly forbidden, but she knows her mother doesn't like her to go outside while she is gone. The latch on the door is complicated. Sometimes when she pulls on the knob the door opens and sometimes it doesn't, no matter how she twists or pulls. She has noticed that the door often opens if one of her brothers was the last one to leave the house, and that's what happens much of the time. Lately she has let herself out and no one has said a word. It is a problem that she can't figure out how to let herself back in, but her brothers are always home before mother and if they find Annika outside on the doorstep they don't seem upset. Still, going outside is in the gray area between forbidden but very possible.

Across the street and beyond are the woods and the rocks, the pine trees and the paths spongy with pine needles. She knows where to find the huge ant hills. She likes to follow the trails of ants. The rocks are no longer warm as they'd been in summer. It isn't as pleasant any more to sit in the small hiding holes, listening to the wind or picking at lichen. And she has grown tired of looking for the prettiest red leaves, which only disappoint her when they dry up into crumpled brown shells.

The best thing about the place with the rocks is the Harmonica Man. He doesn't talk much, but he always smiles when he sees her. Her brothers call him Cyclops. Her mother calls him the Bogeyman. She says he carries a sack hidden under his coat and when he finds stray children he stuffs them into it. Then he tosses the sack on the back of his bicycle and sells the children to strangers in faraway places. Or he turns them into sausages.

And then what happens? Annika always wants to know. She pumps her mother for information at those brief times when her mother isn't too busy or too sleepy.

Ohhh ... all sorts of things ...

But what? tell me!

Bad things that little girls shouldn't know about.

Harmonica Man has an odd face, half of it splotchy red and oddly wrinkled, one eye looks almost as if it has been sewn shut and one nostril is only a hole, as if the encircling flare had been made of chocolate rather than flesh and had been left to melt in the sun. But the other half-face contains a large brown eye that reaches out to Annika. Most days he keeps out of sight as if he knows what mothers are telling their children. And in truth, seeing his hurried figure in the distance, always in the same black coat, excites Annika in the way that forbidden things do. He is the very reason her mother does not want her out alone on the streets.

She had found him in summer among the rocks where she liked to play. He was sitting on one of them playing on a harmonica, his black coat thrown carelessly to the side. Oh yes, Annika had looked all around for the hidden sack. She had even dared to lift up the black coat and look underneath. It wasn't there. Where was it kept, then? Mother also said he had a bicycle, but Annika had personally never seen it. What did mother know, then? It was quite possible that the Bogeyman kept both his bicycle and his sack hidden in the forest, in a house made of gingerbread.

All the time that Annika had searched for his sack, the Bogeyman had watched her bold actions with his good eye. The smile in his eye told her a different story, as did the half mouth that grinned and pulled away from several perfect white teeth. He let her hold his harmonica. He told her its name slowly: har-mo-ni-ca. His voice was rough and deep, as though it must travel across a mile of gravel.

On the morning in question, just as Annika looked out the window, she heard the sound of the harmonica in the distance. She put on the wool hat her grandmother had knitted for her before she died. She put on the powder blue coat her mother had made. Her fingers fumbled with three large buttons. As an afterthought she took her mother's yellow scarf made of very fine wool and hung it around her neck. She knows this, too, is forbidden, but the excitement of starting out on her journey far outweighs the fear of another spanking. The scarf more than reached the ground and she looped it the way her mother did. Then she stuffed in all the bread and sugar cubes that would fit into her pockets and slipped out into the long corridor with the glass door at the end. She lives on the ground floor and never has to use the elevator that smells of pee and sweat and sour milk. She knows all about the elevator, of course, and has even been as high as she can reach, the third floor, but the way the doors shudder and sometimes don't want to open has made her shy away.

Confidently she lets the big front door close behind her. In the distance she sees the Bogeyman crossing the street towards the place with the rocks, but today she is going somewhere else altogether and she will keep it a secret even from him, should he ask. She waves to the Bogeyman and he waves back.

Today, the Big Plan is to explore a question she's been asking herself for a long time: how far from home can she go before she is Lost?

*

She's been walking, oh walking for a very long time, eyes down one foot in front of the other walking, the sun now low enough to shine into her eyes when it isn't stuck behind a building. As she walks she chants softly under her breath: tu-endy tu krik sa-id rodd, tu-endy tu krik sa-id rodd ... It is the address her mother has made her memorize, and she recites it for good luck, for this piece of information has the power to keep her safe. The buildings are taller now. She comes to a spot where the road curves. If she turns back at this moment, she is sure her feet would somehow carry her back home. She's a bit worried that all the bread and sugar is already eaten and she's beginning to feel hungry again. The remaining sugar cubes have worn to powder and she empties the remains into the palm of her hand the best she can and licks at the sweetness. She keeps licking until the stickiness is gone, almost. The rest she wipes off on her coat. Well, she would turn back very soon, she thinks, but she isn't quite sure whether at this point she is lost. Not yet. Tu-endy tu krik sa-id rodd.

The road curves and cars whiz by. More and more cars. On the other side of the road there are black trees and people walking under them, fast and in straight lines. Gray squirrels hop about in the fallen leaves. She wants to get to the other side which looks friendlier than the street with the big buildings.

She comes to a spot where other people are standing. They are all watching the speeding cars and she stops to look too. Suddenly like a flock of birds they rush off. She runs after them and reaches a small cement island. She's about to step off the island when a blue car whips past so close she feels a rush of wind against her cheek. She steps back on the island. Now there are cars behind her as well. Her throat feels achy and her eyes blur. Never cross a street alone, she can hear her mother say. But now this is not very helpful. In a moment she's surrounded by people again. They rush past her to the place where the trees grow but she's too afraid to follow.

When her eyes clear she sees the sign straight ahead just on the other side of the road: WAIT FOR GAP. She sounds the words to herself "wa-eet forr g-up".

She knows the word WAIT. It means she should stay where she is. And GAP--well, it must be an important word.

Another group of people arrive on her island and hurry on across the street. Have they not seen the sign, she wonders? Cars come and go. People come and go. Annika stays put. The sign, it seems, has singled her out. It is meant specifically for her. If she waits for Gap, he, or she, would surely help her. She looks behind her at the tall buildings. The sun is disappearing behind them and the air is getting cooler. She wishes she'd put on her thick socks.

Strangers are standing nearby again. She searches their faces, looking for Gap, but no one seems to notice her. The groups of people are getting smaller but still they come from those buildings which are growing blacker and blacker.

She needs to pee. She wishes someone would notice this so that Gap could be notified. Soon it's the only thing she can think of. She hops on one leg and then the other, squeezing her buttocks together as tightly as she can, but it's of no use. At first it's warm as it seeps into her underpants then down the insides of her legs. It's even warm as it runs into her boots, some of it absorbing into the felt lining. Shame burns in her cheeks but she also feels a great relief, as if now for sure Gap has to come, because she can't stand there forever, the pee puddling inside her boots, turning ice cold, the wet wool stockings getting cold too.

And he comes. He has been watching after all. He has seen it all. He has been sitting on a park bench behind her, his bicycle leaning up against the back of it. He has seen the worry in her eyes, the dark wisps of hair escaping from under the hat. He has noticed the intricate pattern knit into her hat and mittens by a grandmother in another country. Or perhaps all he sees is someone smaller than himself. Lighter than tumbleweed.

He arrives from behind just as all the tall posts along the street light up with a burst of golden light. Golden light means fairies and magic and burrowing into soft blankets. He arrives pushing a bicycle, stands silently at her side for a while as if he hasn't noticed her. She can feel his presence but isn't sure she should look. When at last he speaks, it's in that language she doesn't understand. Still, his voice is warm and Annika is cold.

And then, everything becomes a jumble in Annika's mind and she allows the thing to happen which she has been holding back even harder than the pee. She starts to cry and she cries as if she could never stop. Gap holds out a hand to her, gently, as one would to a kitten. Through her tears, she sees the small candy wrapped in shiny paper with tiny strawberries on it, and she takes it. For a moment she feels herself flying though the air and then she comes down onto something solid. She fits neatly inside the basket at the back of the bicycle. Gap walks her and the bicycle across the street where the black trees grow and they drive off together under them. She unwraps the candy and puts it in her mouth, comforted by familiar sweetness, but it makes her think of a bigger hunger, perhaps for bread and butter and hot thick pea soup, something her mother might be making tonight. For a moment she wishes she were home, but the lights along the path are round and dazzling. They drive past tall pine trees. She sees pine cones along the side of the path just like the ones in her story book.

Annika's crying dwindles to sporadic sobs. The world is moving past her too fast for her to see everything, and everything is so new, so different. As they pass a statue of a horse with a man on its back she forgets to sob altogether. She has seen a horse in her alphabet book. Her mother and brothers have seen dead ones along roadsides. But she hasn't known they were this big with such beautifully curved necks and mouths that looked like they were singing.

Horse! she shouts, pleased that she knows the correct word. Horse! Horse! She wants the man to hear. She knocks on his back. He gives no sign of hearing or feeling her message. She wants him to stop, to get off the bicycle and admire the horse. But he doesn't, and Annika keeps her eyes on it and feels sad as it grows smaller and smaller behind them. Vaguely she remembers her Big Plan. For a moment she feels giddy, knowing that she is Lost. She is ready to go back home now.

But everything keeps receding, the pine trees, the pretty lights that illuminate the long winding path under them. The horse fades into the night.

Straight ahead, the square back of the man blots out everything. He's wearing a hat with a broad brim pulled low so that the tops of his ears flare out. His body sways lightly from side to side. The rhythm and the hum of the wheels eventually make Annika drowsy.

All at once she remembers her mother's warning that the Bogeyman comes on a bicycle. Slowly but surely an awful fear squeezes her from the inside. Why hadn't she thought of this until now? This time she has made an enormous mistake. An inexcusable mistake, one that neither her mother or so-called father could ever forgive. The awful truth slides into her: just because she secretly knows that the half-faced man is not the Bogeyman does not mean that one does not exist.

Now her awareness is an immense, silent, slowly turning galaxy, complete with dazzling pin holes of light. How could she possibly have made a mistake this size! Things must turn around. She must make things turn around, and she grabs at the man's coat and pounds at his back with her fists shouting: tu-endy tu krik sa-id rodd! The man's back is immovable, colossal and black. Eventually she gives up, no longer knowing what to think. After all, there is still the possibility that he is, indeed, Gap.

When at last they come to a stop, the man lifts her out of the basket and onto her feet. He looks down at her and offers his hand, but Annika needs both her hands to clutch her coat closer to her. She notices that he is much taller and thinner than so-called father. His mouth is thinner, too, and his eyes are serious and gray like water.

It is a tiny house. Without much furniture, but warm, with wooden floors that glow like caramel in the light. She sits down on a chair in the small kitchen and lets the man take off her boots. She is shivering, her teeth chattering. He sees the dark stains running down the insides of her stockings and he leaves the room and comes back with a green flannel shirt, helps her out of her coat and slips the shirt over her. Annika hesitates. She badly wants to get out of the uncomfortable underwear but she doesn't want the man to see how she had put her underpants over the stockings that morning. She wants to explain that she knows the proper way, but she knows she can't, and she doesn't want him to laugh at her. But the man turns his back and she slips them off and holds them out to him.

Water fills the basin slowly. He washes and wrings out the garments and spreads them out over the back of a chair. He opens the oven door and turns on the heat, then rinses out the boots and arranges them upside down in front of it. He places a chair in front of the open stove next to where her boots are drying and signals for her to sit down. Heat rises and swells about her face.

Eddie, he says, thumb to his chest.

Gap, she says shyly, keeping her eyes on him.

He points at her and cocks his head.

She tells him her name.

While he busies himself with pots and pans, the refrigerator door opening and closing, Annika looks around the room and remembers her mother's yellow scarf. Where is it? Thrown over the back of a chair is her coat. She slides off the chair and tiptoes over and peeks under it but the scarf is not there. Confused and saddened, she returns to her spot by the oven. The green flannel shirt grows softer and warmer as Annika, caught between sleep and hunger, rocks gently back and forth, her hands to her chest as if bundling a rabbit there. The kitchen sounds are familiar, as though her own mother were moving about. But Eddie's hands are not her mother's hands. They are long and thin and almost white, but with straight black hairs on the backs. Still, they move in the same way, handling pots, stirring the contents; and the resulting aroma is familiar.

Eventually they sit down to eat and Eddie ladles two scoops of thick green pea soup into her bowl and four into his own. On a small plate on the side are slices of bread smeared with butter. Annika is not surprised so much as newly informed that this is the evening meal in other homes. Just as she has noticed in every home there is a stove and refrigerator, a pack of cigarettes and an ashtray on the kitchen table. And a deck of cards. There are other things too, like a radio on the window sill and a strange black box next to it. The box has something cylindrical attached to one side and a long strap attached to the other. Piles of papers and boxes in different corners. And the bicycle is now inside, leaning against the wall in the hallway to the kitchen.

You like soup? Eddie asks, pointing to the bowl.

Annika does not look up at him, does not lose her concentration on her grip on the large spoon, on the warm soup filling her mouth. Her chin reaches the rim of the bowl. Before swallowing she feels with her tongue for the peas that have not boiled to mush. Back home she would slip these into her lap where she would fondle them. Later she would savour the soft crunch as she ate them one by one behind the green couch. But this soup has no such peas. And the smell of it is more complex than the soup at home. It makes her think of the anthills in the woods. The strange smell when she poked about was a bit like that of the yellow soap mother used and it made her wonder if there were trolls nearby.

When she's finished eating Eddie plops down in front of the television and seems to forget about Annika. She crawls onto the only other soft chair, curls up and whimpers softly when she remembers the missing scarf. There will be no way to explain how it got lost and mother will give her that sad look which is worse than a spanking. She thinks of the big horse with the beautiful neck, one front leg gracefully curving through the air. The bronze man sitting on it reaches down for her but Annika is too far down to reach. Now she wishes she had let the Harmonica Man in on her Big Plan.

When Annika awakes, she finds herself on a couch with a brown blanket over her. A man is standing by her side smoking a cigarette, staring down at her. He's holding the black box, the strap around his neck, the cylindrical part cupped in his hand. She remembers slowly how she'd gotten there. The room about her looks gray and cold, not as the night before. But the man smiles and she remembers now that this is Gap. He asks a question, pointing at her with his cigarette, but she doesn't understand.

Throughout breakfast, every time she peeks at him he is already looking at her. The night before she had felt that Gap was someone who would make things right. But this morning, she isn't so sure. She's afraid to look at him. Instead she looks at the black box next to his bowl. He follows her gaze.

Ca-me-ra, he says and puts the box in front of his face. He points at the glass circle in front and then at Annika. He smiles and transfers the smile from his own face to an imaginary one in the air. He puts the box in front of his face and directs it at Annika, then pushes a small silver button with one finger. Click.

Annika watches him with curiosity. She studies his face, its thinness, the spotty stubble on his cheeks and chin, the long nostrils with some hairs poking out. His gray eyes droop at the corners. Mostly she's fascinated by the whiteness of his skin. So-called-father's is more yellow, not like this, not with little black dots along the nose.

After breakfast Gap can't sit still. He's by the window as if waiting for someone. He turns on the radio and listens for a while as a woman speaks rapidly. Then he lights another cigarette and sits next to Annika, but no sooner does he sit down than he shoots up again and looks for something in a cupboard. He tosses a colouring book and some crayons in front of Annika. Then he disappears into the hallway, comes back and stands by the window again, rubbing his chin between thumb and forefinger. For a long while he disappears into another room and Annika turns to the colouring book. Goldilocks. Three bears. They should be brown but she thinks brown is boring. She colours them blue and orange. On the radio people talk in excited voices, and sometimes they sing songs.

When he returns he grabs hold of her hand and leads her to the bathroom. He turns the taps on and starts to fill the tub and he reaches for the buttons on Annika's shirt. She shrugs him off. She wants to show him that she can do it all by herself, and he lets her. He leaves the room. When he comes back, Annika is already sitting in the tub rubbing soap on her arms. He stands by the door with the black box in his hand. Annika keeps her eyes down, shy, but wanting to show him how well she knows how to wash herself. Throughout the demonstration, even as she gets out of the tub and dries herself off, she hears the clicking of the black box. It makes her feel strangely important, but also uncertain of how she should stand, hold her head, or what she should do next. She holds the towel around herself and looks up at Gap. She's ready to get dressed.

But Eddie doesn't hand her her clothes. Instead he lifts her up and carries her into the one room she hasn't seen yet. It is similar to the forbidden room where her mother and so-called father disappear to in that it is mostly taken up by a large bed. It is the room of her mother's tears. Eddie throws her on top of the large bed with a red cover and pulls off the towel. Annika looks up at his face smiling down at her, at the ceiling above him which is painted red. As she looks around, she sees the walls are red too. Most things in the room are either black or red. He puts the black box in front of his face again. Click. But Annika begins to cry. She feels his hand tugging at her leg and she kicks at it blindly, shouting at him to go away. He grasps her by the ankles to restrain her. She feels his hand on the place of her secret feelings, and she screams even louder. Tu-endy tu krik-sa-id rodd! She kicks loose from his grip, bites the hand that tries to cover her mouth. She bites so hard that a stream of angry words comes running at her. When she sees him remove the belt from his trousers she becomes hysterical--she has seen so-called-father do this when arguing with her brothers--and like an eel manages to slip by him and through the bedroom door.

The door bell rings. Eddie catches Annika's naked body from behind and throws her back into the bedroom and slams the door. A woman's voice comes from the door. Annika hears Eddie talking to her in a pleasant voice. Annika twists and pulls at the doorknob and to her surprise the door springs open. She rushes towards the front door, her eye on the crack of light between the two bodies there. Eddie catches her just as she prepares to make her leap and he presses her close to his body as if he were hugging her. He rocks her, trying to calm her down, while simultaneously smiling and talking to the woman who is trying to see Annika's face. The black box is caught between their bodies, and is pressing painfully into Annika's ribs. With all her might she pulls at the strap until the box emerges as if ripped from her stomach. The woman takes a step back as Annika holds the thing up in the air.

She cries out for her mother, tells the woman she wants her mother. She even tells her where to find her. Tu-endy tu krik sa-id rodd! The woman half reaches out towards Annika who reaches out for her because she has a kind face and wavy hair just like her mother's.

Eddie talks fast as he smoothes back Annika's hair and kisses her on the cheek while the arm that holds her crushes her thighs close to him, letting her know what sort of pain he can cause to happen.

Annika watches helplessly as the woman turns away and disappears as the door closes, but she wriggles out of Eddie's grasp and runs to the kitchen where she finds the underpants that have dried on the chair and hastily pulls them on. And her sweater flies over her head. She and Eddie face each other across the kitchen table and when she looks straight into his eyes she sees how angry he is. He's no different from so-called father. But Eddie calms down, lights up another cigarette and paces back and forth, just like so-called father, and then plops into a chair. Annika sits across from him as before and pretends to colour but she's afraid to take her eyes off him. If he starts to get up, she gets up, ready to run. If he sits down, she sits down.

But when he at last decides on what to do, he corners her, and, hand over her mouth, drags her to the big cupboard in the hall and roughly throws her inside.

Annika remains where she has fallen, too scared to cry. She hears the heavy click as the door closes. Eddie's footsteps reverberate from one room to another. The cupboard door opens again but just long enough for something else to get tossed inside. At last the front door slams. Silence. As she gets up on her legs she feels things pushing against her from all sides as if darkness itself had arms and legs to trip her. As soon as she's quite sure that Eddie has left the house, she feels for the doorknob and twists and tugs and pushes, but the door will not budge. Some do sometimes and some never do, so she keeps trying, not knowing which kind this door might be. Finally she has to give up. As her eyes adjust, she can make out shoes and piles of boxes filled with stuff on the floor. She is pressed up against jackets and pants and coats on hangers. Everything smells of cigarette smoke. With effort she succeeds in parting the clothes to make more room to breathe. There's a small window behind them, and a stream of light enters the closet. Specks of dust circle about and eventually slow down. But the window is too high up for Annika to see out.

She pushes shoes aside to make a small space where she can sit down. Beside her she notices the little heap of her clothes which Eddie must have thrown in after her. Her stockings and skirt, her coat and boots, but not her mother's yellow scarf. She puts them all on and for a while she feels she is one step closer to going home. As soon as Eddie comes back he will surely see that she is ready now. But she doesn't want Eddie to come back.

Exhausted, she curls up and tries to sleep. She is ashamed of the trouble she's in. She won't be able to explain it to anyone how she let it happen, so therefore, she reasons, she can never go home again. And even if she could, she couldn't all over again because she has lost her mother's yellow scarf. She begins to whimper but quickly feels silly because there is no one to hear her, so she wipes her nose on the sleeve of her sweater. When she wakes up her stomach is gurgling with hunger. She can tell by the light from the little window that her brothers would be returning from school soon.

She lies on the floor, cramped between the boxes and piles of shoes, staring up at the window, concentrating on the light. The only opening to someplace else. There is a maple tree nearby which lends an amber glow to the light. Twice she thinks she sees her mother standing there, that her mother has climbed up the tree and is looking in on her. But her mother doesn't call out to her and she remembers it's more likely Eddie who will eventually come, and he will come through the door. Still, she stares at the rectangle of light knowing it's the only source of anything good that could happen.

When she grows tired she closes her eyes. At first, behind her closed lids, everything turns black. And then, right inside the darkness, a purple light appears. Just a fuzzy dot at first and then it grows and grows until it's as large as the sky. The purple changes to pink, to orange rimmed with turquoise, each colour more vivid, more beautiful than the one before. She opens her eyes and the colours disappear. She closes them again and the colours come back but not quite as vividly. Eventually they fade to gray and she stares hopefully out the window again. Again her eyes close sleepily and again the beautiful world of colours emerge out of the blackness. She is so absorbed by what has happened that she almost forgets about Eddie. She squeezes her eyes shut as hard as she could as if to trap the colours, and to her amazement they grow even more brilliant, and the sky around them sparkles with stars. In the distance, she thinks she hears the faint sound of a harmonica but when it fades she thinks it had been just another colour.

She is ripped out of her dream-state by the sound of the front door slamming. Well of course Eddie would be back! The sudden fear brings the window back into focus. Quickly she piles up all the boxes, rips coats and jackets from their hangers and piles them on the junk and climbs on top. Even so only her head is level with the window. It overlooks a short driveway where pigeons strut back and forth. She can see a part of the sidewalk in front of the house. She pushes against the window with all her might. It opens just a little and gets stuck. She pushes again and begins pounding on the glass, puts her mouth to the crack and calls out: Hal-loo! She keeps on pounding. Yellow leaves scurry along the sidewalk though the pigeons keep waddling undisturbed. She has heard Eddie's footsteps on the wooden floor and now she senses him standing right outside the closet.

Just then a car pulls up by the front of the house. Annika can't see it but she hears two doors slam and then she hears the voices of two men talking to a woman. At the same time Eddie burst open the closet door. For a moment he doesn't see Annika stretching up towards the window, but when his eyes adjust to the dim light he lunges at her legs and pulls her down. Now there is loud knocking on the front door and a man's voice is shouting stern words. Eddie slaps his hand hard over Annika's mouth and lies on top of her at the bottom of the closet just as the front door crashes open and people run into the house, still shouting. Eddie's body is heavy and his hand slips over Annika's nose so that she can scarcely breathe. In a burst of loathing she manages to bite his hand again, this time so hard that she can taste blood. Both of them scream at once just as the closet light goes on and three faces peer down at them. Two are wearing dark uniforms and the third is the kind one belonging to the lady Annika had appealed to earlier that day. One of the policemen grabs at Eddie's shoulders and forces him onto his feet, and the woman takes Annika into her arms and holds her as though she might never let her go. Eddie breaks loose and runs for the front door, the two policemen close on his heels. The woman, carrying Annika, runs to the door to watch the chase. People from other houses have come out on their porches to watch. Annika is fascinated by the light on top of the police car that rotates and shoots out red sparks in all directions. Other women come to the porch to look at Annika. They touch her cheek and hair and make tender sounds. The woman holding her gives her a good squeeze, speaks to her earnestly and sets her down on the porch. With her finger wagging in front of Annika's face she seems to be explaining something just in the way her mother does, and then she runs next door and disappears through the front door. Annika is left standing among several other women. When she looks up at their faces she sees that they are all intent on what is happening on the sidewalk by the police car. Annika can't see past their skirts, but in the distance, she is almost certain that she can hear the sounds of a harmonica and she slips down the stairs before anyone notices, crosses the lawn, avoiding the police car and the people who have gathered to watch, crosses many other lawns and turns the corner in the direction of the music. The sound of the crowd fades.

The tune in the distance is a sort of polka that Annika knows well. And all at once the Bogeyman appears, his black coat flapping in the wind, his dark hair flying around his head. Pigeons scatter. Annika waves her arms excitedly as though he is her dearest long-lost friend. When he sees her, for a moment he appears frightened but then he lets out a hoarse laugh which comes from deep inside. Annika leaps into his arms and he catches her and holds her tight and rocks her back and forth.

The Bogeyman talks quickly, half his face glowing, the other half dark and cavernous. Annika listens, understanding nothing, but in his arms, face to face, she believes that he knows everything from beginning to end.

I follow, he says gruffly, pointing to himself. She feels his hand trembling as he sets her down. I follow. I follow, he repeats. He points back to where they had come from.

I fol-low, Annika repeats after him, and then, almost as an afterthought asks the only question she knows how: What is your name?

My name is Gabriel, he says. Some call me Gab.

Annika looks up at the half-mouth smiling down at her and lowers her eyes thoughtfully. As she walks beside Gabriel she concentrates on her boots but in the back of her mind she wonders at the mistakes she has made that day. Something soft is touching her cheek. Gabriel is holding a yellow scarf in the air, letting it waft back and forth in front of Annika's face.

I follow, he says again, the good side of his face plump and happy.

It's getting dark and more and more lights turn on inside the houses. Streetlights light up, each one casting a warm circle on the pavement. Crumpled leaves scuttle across their path. The sun is sinking and Annika sees the deep pink-yellow glow between the earth and the sky, and the turquoise glow above that. And the purple clouds above that. The colours are not nearly as vivid as the ones that had appeared to her, which seemed to have visited her from another world. But she knows these colours well. Mother should be home soon. As they walk, Gab pulls out surprises from the huge pockets of his coat. Half a loaf of bread. A chunk of cheese. A chocolate bar in a gold wrapper. They eat as they walk and when they grow tired of walking they find a place to sit down and Gab plays on his harmonica.

Eventually they come to the part of the city where buildings grow bigger and the streets wider and there are more cars: the place where the tall black trees grow. Annika recognizes the globes of lights along the path. Sleepiness is beginning to take the edge off her excitement. And yet she feels she could never stop walking. Not far off there is the silhouette of the horse she had seen the day before. She pulls at Gabriel's hand and points to it.

They walk across the grass to where the horse stands waiting and they look up at its enormous head, into its open mouth and flared nostrils. Annika claps her hands in delight. She tugs at Gabriel's hand and explains quickly and excitedly. His head goes back as if he knows what she was saying. His good eye grows large as he looks from Annika to the horse, back and forth. He lifts her high up in the air towards the saddle. Annika giggles and thrusts out her arms to embrace the horse. She feels the cold metal against her belly, and pushing her feet against Gabriel's shoulders she manages to slide herself into a sitting position right in front of the man in the saddle. The bronze man leans back slightly to make room for her. The space between him and the front of the saddle forms a sort of cradle, the reins supplying the sides. Annika waves down at Gabriel. Gabriel waves back. For a while he stands guard.

It's a warmer evening than the one before and the wind has died down. Annika wraps the long yellow scarf around her head and shoulders and lays the ends in her lap like a blanket. Her knitted hat cushions her head against the metal. She looks around her, at the criss-cross patterns of branches, at the lights from buildings in the distance, the long winding path like a golden ribbon at the feet of the trees, and she is happy. Through the canopy of treetops she can see a few stars. She leans back against the body of the bronze man and feels the long journey settle like a gentle vibration into her body. It makes her sleepy.

When her eyes finally close, Gabriel backs into the shadows and sits down on a bench nearby. He pulls his coat tightly around him and begins to play a slow lullaby that Annika's mother sometimes sings to her. It's the last thing Annika hears before she drifts off and she simply accepts that this is the evening's song throughout the world.

She wakes with the sun in her eyes, under a canopy of yellow and russet leaves. At first she thinks the leaves are talking to her, then slowly she takes in the sky, and ahead of her the great head of the singing horse. But the sound is not coming from it's mouth either. Then she sees the pigeons settled on the horse's head and all at once she recognizes the sound of their cooing. But there is yet another sound. When she looks down she sees that people had gathered around the horse to look at her and are speaking softly among themselves. She looks beyond them, slowly remembering the night before. The bench where she had last seen Gabriel is empty, and her heart sinks. But in the distance she hears the faint sound of his harmonica. Also from the distance comes the sound of a siren, and as it comes closer, the people around the horse begin to clap. Car doors slam and a path is created to guide two policemen to the centre of everyone's attention.

The policemen ask her many questions and Annika shakes her head many times but once she's sitting in the front seat of the police car, and feels confident that they would be interested, she tells them the carefully rehearsed words: tu-endy tu krik sa-id rodd.

*

She never told her mother about the Bogeyman, or about Gabriel either. And she certainly didn't tell so-called father, even though she had been surprised that he was not angry that she had lost herself in the city. He never mentioned it at all and acted as though it had never happened. Soon enough Annika herself would wonder if it had happened, except for three things she couldn't forget. Her mother's tears and the wonderful smell of her skin and hair when she pulled her into her arms. The feel of the large horse before she fell asleep in its rider's lap. And the Bogeyman, of course.

Day after day Annika went back to the place where she had first met him. Then winter really settled in and it was too cold to venture out that far. She worried that he had gone away forever. But she did see him one more time. Or she believes she did. When spring came she returned to play among the rocks overlooking the lake. It was towards evening just as the sun was settling into the horizon, enormous, dazzling and vermilion, the only thing more brilliant than the colours that had appeared that black day inside the closet. He skipped along the rocks, a black agile form. She couldn't look at him without looking into the sun itself, so it was difficult to tell what happened. For many years she believed she saw him leap into the sky where he shattered into pieces and was swallowed by the sun. She believed that just as he had come into her life like a visitor, he returned to the world of colours. And colours lived inside the world of hope.

http://www.rodmer.com/Stories/PkgAA.html -- Revised Aug 19, 2005
Copyright © 2005 Rod Anderson and Merike Lugus
rod@rodmer.com