Ane Riel - Resin

THE WHITE ROOM was completely dark when my dad killed my granny. I was there. Carl was there too, but they never noticed him. It was the morning of Christmas Eve and it had started snowing, but we didnt get a proper white Christmas that year.

Back then everything was different. It was before Dads stuff started taking up so much space that we couldnt get into the living room. And before Mum grew so big that she couldnt get out of the bedroom, but it was after they had reported me dead, which got me out of going to school.

Or maybe it was earlier? Im not very good at remembering when things happen, I get them muddled up. The first few years of your life feel like theyll never end. The lady tells me its because when you try something for the first time, it makes a big impression on you, and those impressions take up a lot of space, she says.

There was definitely a lot going on in my life back then, and I was doing a lot of things for the first time. Like watching my granny die.

So anyway, our Christmas tree was hanging from the ceiling. There was nothing new about that. Dad used to hang stuff from the ceiling so he could cram as much into the living room as possibe. Hed stack our presents underneath it, so we always hoped hed bring home a small tree.

That year the tree must have been quite small because there was room for very big presents underneath it. One of them was an amazing go-kart which Dad had built in his workshop. Mum had made red cushions for the seats. Mum and Dad always made our presents. Back then I didnt know that other peoples children got presents bought from shops. I barely knew that other people had children or that they got presents. It never bothered us. Carl and I were just pleased to get something, and we loved Mum and Dad. Its true there were times when Carl got a bit annoyed with them, but he could never say why.

So what was new about this Christmas was that my granny had just died. We hadnt tried that before, and neither had she, obviously. She certainly looked a bit shell-shocked, sitting there in the green armchair, staring up at the tree, not blinking. I think she was looking at a brown paper heart I made all on my own. She taught me to weave paper hearts before she said all those things to Dad, those things which she probably shouldnt have said.

We thought she should be with us round the tree that evening before her send-off, and she had to have her present, of course. OK, so only me and Dad thought that. And mostly me. Mum only gave in because I kept pestering her.

My grannys feet were on the footstool, I remember, probably because I was sitting on the floor right opposite her. Her purple tights were so thin I could see her knickers through them, and her brown lace-up shoes smelled sort of sweet, like some kind of waterproofing. They were brand new and she had bought them in a shop on the mainland, she told me. She was also wearing a grey skirt, a red blouse and a scarf with white seagulls on it, clothes I found at the bottom of her case. It was me who had insisted on dressing her up nicely for Christmas. Her sitting there in her nightie would have been all wrong.

After that Christmas, no one ever sat in the green armchair again. Soon, we simply couldnt.

It was covered in too much stuff.

As my granny couldnt take the newspaper wrapping off her present, I was allowed to do it. At first I thought Dad had made her a go-kart too, because her present was another long wooden box on wheels, but it turned out hed made her a coffin. With no steering wheel or red cushions. And no lid. It didnt need a lid, he said. The only thing inside it was the pillow shed been smothered with that morning.

When wed put my granny in her coffin with her head on top of the pillow this time rather than underneath it Dad wheeled her out of the back door, around the house, past the log pile and out to the field behind the barn. Carl and I followed in the go-kart. I did the pushing, as usual, or we would have got nowhere. Mum followed behind. She always was a slowcoach.

It was pitch black, but we were used to moving about in the darkness out where we lived. The sky must have been thick with clouds that Christmas Eve because I couldnt see a single star; we could barely make out the forest that surrounded the house and the fields. It had been windy that morning, but nothing stirred now and the earlier snow had melted. Christmas seemed to have made up its mind to be quiet and dark.

We set my granny alight using firelighters, newspaper and the extra-long matches wed been told never to play with but Carl did anyway. We took off her shoes first, of course. They were brand new and waterproofed.

It wasnt long before the heat forced us to step away. Soon the flames were so bright the water trough at the back of the yard emerged from the darkness and we could make out the low scrub at the edge of the wood. When I looked around, I saw my own shadow dancing on the barn wall behind me, and I could see Mum and Dad very clearly in the glow from the fire. They were holding hands.

I looked again at my burning granny with her white hair and my stomach did a somersault.

Does it really not hurt her? I asked.

No, dont you worry, Dad said. She doesnt feel a thing. Shes not here any more.

I was standing up in the go-kart and could still see my granny in her coffin, so his answer seemed a bit strange. Then again, I always believed whatever Dad said with all my heart. He knew everything. It was him who told me that you dont feel pain in the dark. The fish at the bottom of the sea, say, they didnt feel it when they bit on our hooks, and the rabbits didnt feel a thing when they got caught in our traps at night. Darkness takes the pain away, Dad always said. And we only ever take the rabbits we need. Which was why good people like us only went hunting at night.

Besides, the fact that my granny didnt utter a sound as she burned was all the proof I needed. She was always one to cry foul if she got hurt or if something didnt go her way. Ive never heard anyone scream as loud as her that morning when a crate of tinned tuna came down on her head. She could get really cross.

She was still smouldering when we checked on her the next morning. Or checked on what was left of her, I guess I should say, because there wasnt a lot. A part of me was sad that she was gone because living with her was nice sometimes. Her pancakes were yummy.

When I popped by later that day there was nothing left but a bit of dark soil and singed grass. Dad said hed cleared up and buried her. He never told me where.

Later, I often wondered if Dad did the right thing when he smothered her with that pillow. But he insisted that he had. Otherwise, things would have got much worse.

And my granny didnt protest when he did it. She just flopped about on the bed a bit until she was completely dead a bit like a fish choking on air in the bottom of our dinghy. That was why we bashed them on their heads so they wouldnt suffer. After all, none of us is meant to suffer.

Luckily, it was completely dark in my grannys bedroom early that morning on Christmas Eve, so being killed couldnt possibly have hurt her or that was what I thought at the time. Anyway, it was quick because Dad pushed down hard. Selling Christmas trees, carrying planks, lugging things around and making furniture makes you strong. Perhaps even I could have done it; he always said that I was really strong for my age, especially for a girl.

We lived on the Head, a small island beyond a bigger one. We were the only people living there, and we managed all on our own.

The Head was connected to the main island by a narrow strip of land known as the Neck. Like I said, Im not good with times and dates, but Dad used to say it took just under half an hour if you walked fast to get from our house and across the Neck to the nearest clump of houses, and then fifteen minutes to reach Korsted, the biggest town on the island. I thought Korsted was huge, but my granny told me it was very small compared to the towns on the mainland. The thought of so many people in one place frightened me. I didnt feel safe around strangers. You never could tell with them, Dad always said. And you should never let yourself be taken in by their smiles.