The First Stone Read online

  Adam sweats, too.

  “You have to yell!” barks Viktor.

  Adam opens his mouth but nothing happens. It doesn’t want to come out.

  Sometimes Hannah sits down next to him in the mess tent. “How did a Taliban soldier get hold of that backpack?” he asks. Always the same question.

  She offers the same answer as all the others. “He probably bought it or stole it. We’re living in a global economy. Anything you can get in one part of the world you can get in another. He doesn’t have to be born in Denmark just because he has a Fjällräven.” She places her hand on his arm.

  “But what if he was?” Adam pulls his arm away.

  “What if he was? He was there to shoot us—it was you or him. You did the right thing. That’s why we’re here. To stop his kind.”

  Adam doesn’t say anything. Hannah pulls her chair in closer and places one hand on his shoulder. Adam stares down at the table.

  “Whenever I would get really depressed,” says Hannah, “I would walk over to Assistens Cemetery. I lived near there, on Jægersborggade. Do you remember Natasja?”

  Adam nods. Natasja was a singer killed in a car accident in Jamaica.

  “She’s buried at Assistens Cemetery,” says Hannah. “I used to go sit by her grave.”

  “Yeah, that’s going to help,” says Adam sarcastically. “Do you know a cemetery near here where I can sit and stare into space?”

  “Natasja was also a jockey.” Hannah is unfazed. “She fractured her hip bone in a lot of places in a fall. The doctors told her she’d never walk again. But she did. She even rode again, winning several races. She danced onstage.”

  “And what does that have to do with me?”

  “You have to get back in the saddle again. Just like Natasja. But you have to want to. Pull yourself together.”

  No one tells him to see a psychologist. Seeing a psychologist is not only a sign of weakness—it’s a defeat, with discharge usually waiting on the other side of the door. Everything you feel and do is reduced to symptoms of something else. The psychologist never says it’s okay to kill. Instead, she says: It’s okay to feel guilty. It’s okay to feel afraid. It’s okay if you feel you can’t handle it. But that’s not what they need to hear. They don’t need rollerskates when they’re already barreling downhill. They need to get back up the hill. They need to hear that they can handle it—that the defeats, the feeling of despondency and despair, or whatever the hell it is, won’t land them in a permanent black hole. And then comes the inevitable conclusion, every psychologist’s consolation prize, self-acceptance’s phony pat on the shoulder: it’s okay to live in a black hole. Christ, it’s not okay. They haven’t come here to learn to live with their own weaknesses. Nor have they come here to win a war. They came here to win over themselves.

  Adam ends up seeing the army chaplain.

  6

  “Let’s go to my place and have a cup of tea,” says Lukas Møller whenever he notices that one of the soldiers needs to talk. No one ever looks down on anyone because they disappear into his tent. No one makes any comments afterward, and no one asks any questions. They have a saying: Have you had tea with the chaplain? They talk and talk as if he’d put something in their tea. He just listens. Now and then he’ll make a comment or two. There’s something calming about his tone. If he hasn’t slipped something into their tea, then there’s something in his voice—and it isn’t sugar. They don’t know what it is, but it’s there.

  The chaplain really likes tea. He has his own kettle and a large assortment of teas. “A local brew?” he asks. That’s his favorite, a green Afghan tea that turns bright yellow as it steeps. Although he drinks his tea plain, he offers visitors sugar. And he doesn’t serve it in plastic cups, either; he uses ceramic mugs that warm their hands when they hold them.

  They sit facing each other on folding chairs. The altar also functions as a table, draped in the Danish flag, which also serves as an altar cloth. There’s the cross, after all, and the blood-red color, but it is also their national flag. A kind of trinity: cross, war, and homeland. But right now it’s just a tablecloth on which they place their mugs and sometimes even spill some tea, although the chaplain never says anything. Maybe that’s his kind of Christianity, an everyday thing that can be used and even spilled on. What do they know?

  The tent is quite small. There are only fifteen chairs, and it’s never full on Sundays.

  Sermons are not Lukas Møller’s forte. He might suddenly expound on The Chronicles of Narnia or The Lord of the Rings. They shake their heads. Maybe this is how he talks to his congregation back on Ærø, but they find it so fucking condescending. One Sunday he compared death to the magic wardrobe leading into Narnia. Who does he think they are? Another time he called them hobbits. “You’re just like Frodo on his way to Mount Doom,” he said. “Small brave men, taking on evil.”

  During that sermon, Mads rose to his full 192-centimeter height. He said, “Give me a fucking break,” and stormed out.

  Møller changes his style. He stops talking about Mordor and Narnia and, instead, talks about the Devil, about dragons and dragon slayers. Now he sounds like World of Warcraft, but his voice still lacks any real passion.

  Møller has thick hair he’s given up trying to control and a full beard that, on the other hand, is well trimmed. He doesn’t care for the wild Taliban look the others sport. He carries a Neuhausen M/49 in his holster—although none of them think he’ll ever use it.

  Møller has accompanied the platoon on foot patrols, but they had to tell him to shut up because he was talking too much. They couldn’t figure out whether he was nervous or he thought they were nervous and the sound of his voice would boost their spirits. It didn’t. They found it distracting, mostly because he kept rambling on about death. “Death comes like a thief in the night,” he said. “The Taliban is the thief.”

  “Thanks a lot, Chaplain. Enough,” said Schrøder.

  One-on-one, the chaplain is completely different. “How’s it going?” he asks casually. None of this business with folded hands and earnest voice. And no one ever replies that everything’s just fine.

  Adam holds on to the mug of green tea as if he’s keeping his hands warm.

  “You were in Northeast Greenland.” Setting his mug down on the Danish flag, Møller looks at Adam. “I’ve often wished Sirius Patrol needed a chaplain. But I assume twenty men is too small for a congregation. I think it’s the thought of all that silence that appeals to me. And the star-filled sky—it must seem all-encompassing. You must lose the feeling of the planet beneath your feet. When you’re nowhere and everywhere, you also lose yourself, your besieged little self.”

  For a moment, Adam feels as if the chaplain has forgotten him.

  “I once heard that more kayakers in Greenland disappear in a calm sea than in a storm. Is that true?”

  “Yes, that’s true.”

  “Would you say it’s the silence that takes them?”

  Adam smiles. “I’ve never thought of it like that. But I guess you could say that.”

  “What were you really looking for up there?”

  “I don’t know if I was looking for anything, but I found something.”

  Embarrassed, Adam looks down at his hands still holding the mug. “I’m not used to talking about it,” he says. “It was a kind of feeling of belonging.” He shakes his head. “No, it sounds crazy . . .”

  “Try anyway. Where did you feel you belonged?”

  “Well, it sounds kind of strange. With the animals.” Adam takes a deep breath, making his large body rise and sink back onto the folding chair. “Yes, the animals.” His voice suddenly sounds determined.

  “Do you mean that we humans are all animals?”

  “No, not in that way. That sounds strange, too. But I learned something from the sled dogs.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know that monument to the Danish expedition that disappeared in Northeast Greenland? That big stone down by Langel
inie?”

  “I know it well. It was Mylius-Erichsen and—” Møller stops, trying to recall a name. “Hagen, I think. And I can’t remember the third man.”

  “Brønlund. His name was Jørgen Brønlund. He was a Greenlander. The only one whose body was found, alone in a cave, where he died. There’s a large relief on the monument. It shows the men pulling the sled, along with the dogs.”

  Møller nods. “I’ve seen it.”

  “Have you ever noticed the expression on the men’s faces?”

  “No, I haven’t. Is there something special about it?”

  “They only have one thing on their minds—to pull that sled, meter by meter. They’ve become draft animals. Just like the dogs. Is that how Brønlund died? Did he see himself as a working animal whose time had come, and nature did the mercy killing? That’s how I’d like to die. Not like all these people constantly praying for postponement. ‘Please, just give me one more minute!’ I say no. Put me out of my misery when the time comes.”

  The chaplain waits for him to continue.

  “I’ve heard a story about the Pashtuns. When tribal leaders surrender, they meet their conquerors with a yoke around their necks and grass in their mouths. The message is clear: We’re your oxen now. They’re right. That’s all we are. Beasts of burden.”

  “Is that how you see it? Defeat rather than death? Is that all there is to us?” Møller looks as if he’s about to launch into a longer discussion.

  “I’ve started calling him Jens,” says Adam. “How crazy is that?”

  The chaplain studies him for a moment. His expression is calm. Suddenly there’s a warmth about it reflected in his tone of voice. “I’m not asking this to be evasive. But what do the others say? They must have experienced the same thing you have.”

  “First of all,” says Adam, his voice sounding tired, “we never fucking see them. We drop tons of metal on them—but the assholes always drag their dead off with them. Second, he fucking looked like his name was Jens. Sorry, I know I’m obsessed. But he did.”

  “It’s fine that you call him Jens. You killed a fellow human being. Thou shall not kill—but sometimes we have to. It’s a paradox, and it’s a paradox you have to deal with. You’re strong. Think about your own death. Then you’ll find some balance.”

  “His face is always in the way. And then that fucking backpack. I’m ridiculous, I know.” Adam’s face is contorted, his voice breaking with desperation.

  “You’ve killed another person. That’s not something you’ll ever make peace with. And you really shouldn’t make peace with it. Otherwise you’ll lose your humanity. From now on your life is a battle. You might have to take another life. Each time will be a battle, but you owe it to yourself not to lose it.”

  “That sounds like an invitation to a long, lonely life.” Adam’s voice is full of sarcasm. “I thought your job was to comfort me.”

  “Then you’ve misunderstood. I’m not here to comfort you. I’m here to give you courage. Loneliness doesn’t exist. You can always talk to God.” The chaplain looks imploringly at Adam. “I know you don’t believe in God. It doesn’t matter to me if you do or don’t. When you are plagued by your thoughts, try to replace the word ‘I’ with ‘you.’ Speak to someone, even if no one is there. Your very words will create someone who’s listening. It’s no good talking out loud to yourself. You have to create your own listener—and then you’ll no longer be alone.”

  7

  “I really want to say I’m sorry.” Adam sits down across from Hannah. “What you said about Natasja—it was good. I’m doing better.”

  “Because you talked to the chaplain?”

  “Yeah, maybe. I just wanted you to know I appreciate you trying to help.”

  Hannah looks down. Her cheeks blush a little. “Thanks.”

  “Do you always feel responsible for others?”

  The directness of Adam’s question takes Hannah by surprise, as does her own response. She feels the unexpected urge to open up. In a way she’s the one who started this when she told him about Natasja’s grave site.

  “We’re all responsible for each other out here.” She says it just to buy time.

  “You more than the rest of us.”

  Adam’s teeth shine white in his chestnut-colored beard. “I’ve heard about you and your skates. And I’ve seen those ramps you ride down. They’re really high. When you’re standing on the edge, getting ready, are you ever afraid?”

  “Every time.” Hannah prefers not to lie about it. “There’s no contradiction between being good at something and being afraid of it. That’s something I learned when I was training.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Took a deep breath and stepped off the edge. No one can take the first step for you. You have to do it yourself. The art is in daring.”

  “We’re going to be stepping off the edge a lot in the next few months,” says Adam.

  Hannah nods. She thinks so, too.

  “I saw myself as someone no one could stop, too.” Adam smiles shyly.

  “What did you do?”

  “I ran in the Grib Forest in camouflage pants and an army jacket. Ten kilometers, wearing a backpack that weighed twenty-five kilos. I felt so fucking invincible. I could have run to the end of the world. I wore a bandana tied around my head, and when I took the train, I felt like everyone was staring at me. When I’d get off, I could feel their eyes on my back. I was certain that they all wanted to be me. And so I ran. I never stopped the whole way. And none of this nonsense with headphones, either—I didn’t want to be distracted.”

  “Did you ever run into anyone like you?”

  “Once. He was the same age as me. It was deep in the woods. He had on the same clothes, and just like me he was carrying a backpack. We stood for a moment staring at each other. Neither of us said anything. Then we nodded and went on our way. He had chosen one path, and he wasn’t going to stray from it. And I was just the same. I never saw him again, which annoyed me.”

  “So you were an outsider?”

  “You could say that. What about you?”

  Later, Hannah can’t explain how it happened. Was it because she wanted Adam to feel safe? Or was it because she felt something receptive in him that broke down the wall she had built around herself? She knows full well why she’s always doing the giving—because she doesn’t know how to receive. There’s vulnerability in letting someone get close. Invulnerability is her ideal, and not only as a soldier. Get close to me only on my terms. There’s always an invisible gun in my hands.

  “My mother had me on her own. An alcoholic.” Now she’s said it. She knows what usually follows: compassionate looks accompanied by sympathetic sounds. She scans Adam’s face.

  His gaze is curious. “And how did you deal with that?”

  “There were two kinds of smells in our apartment. Hers—and the smell of cleaning products. I always bought the ones with the strongest scents. When I was little, I asked her once if we had any family. ‘Family is bullshit,’ she said. I wanted to know where my father was. ‘Where’s your father? Yeah, where is he? Does he remember your birthday? Does he send anything at Christmas? Does the doorbell ever ring—and there he is, standing there? Have you gone to Tivoli or the zoo with him?’ Of course I hadn’t done any of those things with her, either. But that’s not why I was about to start crying. ‘Is my father dead?’ I asked her. She turned on the television and cranked up the sound. That was her answer. I wanted to beat her.”

  “Have you ever met your father?”

  Hannah shakes her head. Her gaze is distant, as if she’s far away. “I don’t look like my mother, not at all.” She lifts one hand and moves it around her face. “I have strong eyebrows. My mother’s eyes are gray. Mine are brown. My hands are large. Hers are small.”

  Adam looks at her hands. It’s true—they’re large—but they’re not masculine. They’re long and slender in a way he finds elegant. Although he’d like to take them and hold them in his own hands,
he controls the urge.

  “My legs.” Hannah goes on with her list. “I have muscular legs. And I had them before I ever began skating.”

  “Do you think about him often?”

  Adam already knows the answer. Hannah just gave it. He asks anyway, because he realizes that it’s a sensitive moment.

  Hannah laughs awkwardly. “It’s difficult to think about someone you’ve never met.” She brings her hand up to her face again and plays with her lower lip. She has full, beautiful lips, Adam thinks. “I have this crazy fantasy. I imagine that suddenly I get a text or e-mail—and it’s him. He knows I’m out here.”

  At this point in the conversation, people often feel encouraged to reveal something personal. I know that, too, they’ll say, and once they start, they won’t stop. They’ve been given a pretext to talk about their favorite subject: themselves. Hannah can tell that Adam doesn’t feel that way. He’s listening, so she continues.

  “Know what I said to my mother the last time I saw her before we came out here?”

  Adam shakes his head.

  “‘Thanks for giving birth to me.’ I felt like I had to say something. Once a week everything was okay—on Fridays, when we’d watch The X Factor. I’d make coffee and we’d eat cookies, and for a few hours everything was nice. It was hard to write my will. You know how they give us these forms. “If You Die.” Who should be called, which door should they knock on, who’s most important? First, second, and third relation. I wrote down my mother; otherwise, they’d think there was something wrong with me. My mother! She’d have no idea what they were talking about if they showed up at her door. Afghanistan? Funeral? I couldn’t care less where they toss me into the ground. No one’s coming to visit my grave anyway. I’ll be buried online. All my friends will come. I really wanted to write down my father—and then add that his name, place of residence, and cell phone are all unknown. You find him. You’re the military, for Christ’s sake. You found Osama bin Laden. You should be able to find my father.”