For the fact of the matter with Justine was that she always had to go pee, but she forgot to go to the washroom, or dawdled on the way there. More likely the latter, actually. The girls had hindered her there and made her embarrassed.
Flora got angry of course. Held the piss-wet underwear under her nose.
Always being wet down there, she got chafing sores and red marks.
Now she was lying in the snow. No one had pushed her. She lay down willingly and the ring dance continued and their worn snow boots. Lay there like a sacrificial lamb.
Something hard at her side. The snow could be formed; it was a bit warmer now. They were building around her; they were building a well and she was at its bottom.
The bumpy white walls. Far up there the light, gray and whistling. The bell rang. Time to go in.
“We’re going now,” Berit called. She was the archangel, the one who decided everything. “Hurry up, so that teacher doesn’t yell at you.”
She could have gotten up. She could have braced herself against the walls and they would have crumbled; that wouldn’t have been difficult at all.
She didn’t.
The teacher and Flora and herself. The tick of the clock on the wall.
“Look at us when we’re speaking to you!”
“Well, she has lost her mother…”
“But that was many years ago and she has a new mother now. She can’t profit from that old story for the rest of her life. We have to bring her away from that, help her. Otherwise, she is going to have a great deal of problems later on.”
Flora wearing her white blouse.
“We only want the best for you, Justine; you know that.”
The teacher with white chalk on her hands.
“She is not without talent. But she has to try harder. She can’t sit there so quietly during the lessons. I know that she has inner resources. And she has a responsibility for her own life, just as all human beings do; even schoolchildren do.”
“We will have to talk to your father about this, Justine, unless you change your ways. And you don’t want to do that, do you?”
No, there she hit the nail on the head. Pappa had to be spared. He would never have to know. He had enough problems of his own with that witch woman in his house and in his bed.
Flora whipped her, but never when Pappa was home. She locked her in the basement with her school books, but she no longer had the strength to force her into the wash tub.
“I’ll listen to you recite later, even though it won’t make a difference. You’re a real lost cause.”
What does she mean, a “lost cause”?
Sometimes she fled from the schoolyard. But it would be more difficult later on, when they caught up to her. Berit grabbed her, pointing at her body.
“Look at Justine’s French nose!”
“Yuck! What an ugly, disgusting nose!”
“Look at Justine’s French chin!”
“Yuck! What an ugly, disgusting chin!”
“Look at Justine’s French neck!”
“Yuck! What an ugly, disgusting neck!”
Hands pulling at her clothes, buttons, pulling down her zipper. Then she broke free and ran. They didn’t expect her unpredictable movement. She usually played the role of the victim so well.
But now she was in flight, fleeing them.
Uprooted trees and brushwood. She had been there once with the Hunter. When she ran away from school, she would often meet him there. He wore a leather coat and smelled like leaves and earth.
The Hunter squatted and contemplated her.
No one else did that.
He brought her over to his place. There was a cat with white whiskers and an iron woodstove. Out in the back, he chopped wood to feed the stove. The kitchen roared with heat.
He did not say that she should not pay any attention to them. He didn’t say anything at all.
But he stroked her lightly over the back.
They sat at his table and played solitaire. He had extremely small cards with Japanese flowers on the back. They competed to see who would first lay out all the cards. The cat walked on the table with delicate, soft steps. When the cat lay down, the Hunter scratched it under its paw pads with his fingernail. The whole cat body shook.
“Are you just as ticklish, Stina?”
He always called her Stina, not the French Justine. What had the Hunter’s name been?
She would never tell anyone about the Hunter. There was a witch woman in her house. The witch woman’s evil eye could fall on the Hunter and no one could save himself from that look, not even with prayer.
Sometimes Pappa wanted to speak with her about serious things. She could tell by his way of lifting his shoulders. She could tell already at the dinner table and then she would lose her appetite.
In the evening, he would come to her room.
She quickly asked:
“Are you going on a trip again?”
“No, why would you think that?”
“If you’re going on a trip, can I come, too?”
“I’m not leaving, Sweetie.”
“But IF.”
“Someday you can come with me.”
“Where will we go?”
“Maybe to France.”
She fingered the desk pad. She had drawn on it, flowers and sleeping animals. If only he would continue to talk, if he would add details, what we need to travel, passports and suitcases and we need to buy you some clothes to travel in.
But Pappa coughed as if he were catching a cold. “Have you finished your homework properly?” “Yes, I have.”
“And you’re doing fine in school, right, Justine?” “Yes.”
“You must tell me if something is going on. Promise me.” “Yes.”
“The school years are so short, but so important. Take advantage of them. If you understand what I mean.” She didn’t, but she nodded.
“You should also take advantage of your childhood. Unfortunately, you don’t realize this until childhood is over. Childhood problems… they’re small compared to the problems you will have once you are all grown up. Do you understand me, Justine?”
She nodded again.
Once he left the room, she would start to cry immediately. As long as he was in the room, she was filled with expectation, as if he would see right through her and with one movement rip her away from the chair and lift her straight to the light.
Everything was so heavy and soiled.
She lay on her stomach in the bed, and everything was warm and wet.
Justine ran to the forest to the uprooted tree. A swarm of shining threads. The snow had melted. Brown, damp grass. The sound of a woodpecker against a tree.
In the Hunter’s room, the Christmas tree was still up with its soft light-green needles.
He called her Stina.
He once had a wife, a woman named Dora. Something happened. He mentioned it sometimes, and his face
