We somehow felt that it wouldn’t be deemed appropriate for us to meet at the sawmill on this particular day, so for the first time in months we left three at a time by our four different routes.
The site was no longer smoldering.
All the embers were extinguished, only ash and charred rubble remained, cold and whitegrayblack. In the place where the heap of meaning had been, the ashes appeared slightly thicker, though it was hard to be sure. The place was littered with pieces of roofing and what was left of the pillars and beams. We helped one another straighten the place up. It was heavy, dirty work and we were black all over, even under our clothes.
We spoke as little as possible. Just indicated with a gesture and pointed when we needed someone to take hold of the other end of a beam or a stone.
In garbage cans close by we found empty bottles, plastic containers, and matchboxes, anything that could be used, and Sofie ran home and took what she could find, so that eventually there was a receptacle for each of us.
We used our hands to gather the ashes together.
The receptacles were carefully closed on the grayish mass that was all we had left of the meaning.
————
And we needed to keep a tight hold of it, for even though Pierre Anthon no longer sat hollering at us in his plum tree at Tæringvej 25, it still felt like we could hear him every time we passed by.
“The reason dying is so easy is because death has no meaning,” he hollered. “And the reason death has no meaning is because life has no meaning. All the same, have fun!”
XXVI
That summer we were scattered to the bigger schools to the north, south, east, and west, and Sofie was sent somewhere where they protect people like her from themselves.
We stopped playing together and never met again apart from by chance on the street, where it couldn’t be avoided. No one has ever tried to bring us together for a class reunion or anything, and I doubt anyone would come if any of the teachers ever got the idea.
————
It’s eight years ago now.
I still have the matchbox with the ashes from the sawmill and the heap of meaning.
Once in a while I take it out and look at it. And when I carefully slide open the worn cardboard box and look into the gray ashes, I get this peculiar feeling in my stomach. And even if I can’t explain what it is, I know that something has a meaning.
And I know that the meaning is not something to fool around with.
Is it, Pierre Anthon? Is it?
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
Tæring is a fictional place. Its name is derived from a verb meaning to gradually consume, corrode, or eat through, for example in the way rust may eat through metal. Keeping its name in the English translation means losing this immediate association, yet allows the reader an important sense of being somewhere foreign.
The children in the story are thirteen to fourteen years old, which puts them in seventh grade in Denmark, though in the United States they would most likely be a grade ahead. Toward the end of the story, the children are dispersed to outlying schools. This is a common occurrence: small local schools in Denmark often provide schooling until the end of seventh grade only, at which point children move on to larger schools in larger communities.
Some of the original children’s names have been altered by the author, making them more amenable to an American tongue, yet retaining their Danish character. Elsewhere, the reader may find it helpful to know that an authentic pronunciation of the final vej (literally: way) in the road names Tæringvej and Tæring Markvej can be approximated by rhyming with and shortening the vowel sound in words like eye, pie, or sky.
JANNE TELLER was born to Austrian-German parents in Denmark, but since 1988 has lived in many countries around the world, such as Mozambique, Tanzania, and Italy. She has written several award-winning and bestselling novels, and her literature—including essays and short stories—has been translated into more than thirteen languages. Her novels for adults include the bestselling modern Nordic saga Odin’s Island, The Trampling Cat, and Come.
Janne Teller has received numerous literary grants and awards over the years, and her controversial books repeatedly spark heated debate in Denmark and elsewhere. Nothing, her first novel for young adults, is the winner of the prestigious Best Children’s Book Prize from the Danish Cultural Ministry, as well as the esteemed Le Prix Libbylit for the best novel for children published in all of the French-speaking world.
These days Janne Teller splits her time between Virginia and Copenhagen. Visit her website at janneteller.dk/?English.
Janne Teller, Nothing
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