A Fairy Tale by Jonas Bengtsson Page A

them.
    That night I lie on my bed until sunrise; if I close my eyes, I can see the boss dance.
    I don’t say anything to my dad; he wants me to be happy.
    I’m eating a giant ice cream cone as we walk through the city. It wasn’t easy to find an ice cream parlour in the middle of winter, but we kept looking. We walked down to Nyhavn, which my dad tells me was once a busy harbour. Built by Swedish prisoners of war. The strawberry jam on my ice cream runs down the cone and I lick it off. I start to cry and I can’t stop.

I t’s still dark outside. My dad walks around the kitchen in stockinged feet. He does everything as quietly as possible. I see him tiptoe past the doorway to my bedroom with an unlit cigarette in his mouth, his shoes in his hand, his jacket over his shoulder.
    When he realizes that I’m awake, he asks if I want to go back to sleep, he promises to get home before I wake again. I shake my head and he helps me get dressed. Several layers, clean clothes on top of dirty ones.
    It’s just after four o’clock and we’re standing in a parking lot behind a supermarket. Around us, people have congregated in small clusters. My dad pointed them out to me last time. Students in one group: they’re the ones with the red eyes. Dark-haired men, many with black moustaches. They speak a language I don’t understand. They’ve brought Thermoses; they drink coffee from small glasses.
    â€œThey came to Denmark because they were told there was work for them. Now they find themselves here,” my dad says.
    The van arrives. People flick away their cigarettes; the groups mingle as they head for the van.
    There are rarely enough newspapers for everyone, but my dad’s sure to get some even when there’s a long line in front of him. The man with the newspapers inside the van waves my dad over.
    â€œYou’ve got to look after your own,” he says, and hands him three or four bundles.
    I’m well aware that I’m not much use. I’m not nearly as fast as my dad. Once we’re inside a stairwell, he disappears. I can hear his footsteps going up; he takes three steps in his stride. The ground floor is my responsibility; I take care not to drop a single section.
    In the morning my dad’s hands are swollen and covered in newspaper ink. When we walk home, we see people going to work. If we’ve finished early, we walk around to the back of the bakeries and knock. The price is different before the shops open and the bread is still warm. Some days we get the bread for free; we get the bread they can’t sell and we stuff ourselves with misshapen poppyseed buns, crusty rolls, and croissants straight out of the oven.
    The next morning my dad tries once again to sneak off without waking me up. When he succeeds, when I open my eyes and the sun fills my room, I lie in bed thinking, Who will deliver to the ground floors for him now?

I eat bread rolls and drink hot chocolate in bed.
    When I’ve finished my breakfast, my dad tells me to hurry up and get dressed: we’re going out to get my birthday present.
    I drag my dad down the street. I don’t know where we’re going, but we can’t get there soon enough.
    I wonder if he has saved up for the fire engine. The red metal fire engine with flashing lights and jets that spurt water when you press a button on its roof. The toy shop is on the corner and there’s always an old lady behind the counter. We’ve been there a few times, bought a bouncing ball or a couple of stickers if my dad had some spare change in his pocket. The last time we were there I was allowed to take down the fire engine and put it on the floor.
    Or the bicycle, the blue bicycle with leather fringes on the handlebars which will flap in the wind when you ride downhill. We walk past the window of the bicycle shop almost every day, and every time I hope it hasn’t been sold. But I know we can’t afford it. So I hope