The Wax Child by Olga Ravn

Author:Olga Ravn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Directions

These names, throughout the castle, an urge of the common people to leave a mark upon the house of power, to write, carve one’s name in stone or glass, the castle overwritten with words, to say: I was here among the golden orbs and crimson robes of the king; do not believe I did not see the world, do not believe I was of less importance than him, whose self-congratulation did tower above the city, my small name, my trembling signature glows like a flame in his shadow.

When the carriage arrives in Copenhagen on the fourteenth of June 1621, we make directly for the prison of Copenhagen Castle. It’s hot, and we turn down Vimmelskaftet, continue towards the square that is Amagertorv, and swing then in the direction of Slotsholmen. No one speaks. There is an endless sun. Inside the carriage, the dust of Aalborg’s summer lingers still, but now the sounds of Copenhagen reach us, drunken cries, the swish of velvet robes, nasal sneezes snorting into a moustache, the cling-clang of naval weapons. At the castle, the master of the tower stands ready to receive Christenze and me. His name is Niels. He speaks briefly with Otto, who then climbs back into the carriage and drives away. Christenze follows Niels. I sit snugly in her pocket. She feels her way with her face, it seems, as if the air was a tangible material, a kind of jelly, or water through which she walks. Niels lowers her down into the Blue Tower by means of a slender rope. Down there is a platform constructed from planks, somewhat in the manner of a raft. Surrounding it is a deep drainage channel whose dark water runs away into the moat. It is not possible to scale the walls, the Blue Tower is as slippery as the inside of an egg. Rats swim about; their teeth click together. Light from the opening above drops through the shaft and settles upon her, until the lid is shifted into place. Then it is dark.

She is unsure, but I know that we sat there for three days and nights, and I sensed that during that time she was in good spirit.

The first night, she dreams that an angel with rat’s teeth and a rat’s mouth comes to her in the hole. In one hand the angel holds a flaming sword, the other smooths Christenze’s hair, and then the angel opens its rat’s mouth and out falls a human heart, but it is roasted, and Christenze eats it and is filled by a blessed peace, as if something lovely had been there. She wakes when a spider crawls at the corner of her mouth. She allows it to crawl inside then bites down, a small amount of fluid comes out; she is hungry.

The next night, the rat-angel comes to her again, and she sees how the king himself is about to raise a sword above her head, but the rat-angel’s flaming sword is the quicker and chops off the king’s head, and the head rolls into her lap and cries up at her like a hungry infant.

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