Danistan by Charles P. Helmsville

Author:Charles P. Helmsville
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
Published: 2021-11-20T00:00:00+00:00

Three Weeks Before the Day of Reckoning

I hear about Billy through the tradesmen grapevine and the Imam and Miriam. And, of course, Ahmed. Though Ahmed only knows about the general things going on in the state. It’s mostly from what he’s been told by people he does the odd job for. I don’t take all of it as truth but I know a lot of it is because I can see for myself. Billy is at the port of Helsingabad, 30 miles north of here looking across the Øresund to Swedestan. Helsingabad was once called Helsingør. Swedestan was called Sweden. The Øresund is a stretch of water about six miles long, dividing the old countries, Denmark and Sweden. There’s a cable bridge across the waters too. Billy is helping to build temporary wooden bed-sits wherever space can be found in an open area overlooking the bridge. Where they can be built in straight lines along a narrow track, there they build. There’s just tracks between the rows, left as dirt or gravel.

Billy sees a worker start to paint consecutive numbers on the doors at the end of the first row of bed-sits. He wonders what’s happening. The tradesmen haven’t been told anything. It’s quiet until the painter is noticed by someone else. A guard shouts to him to stop. Billy hears, “Not yet. Not today. It’s too early. Put that back.” The painter looks vacant for a minute, shrugs his shoulders, wipes his brush, taps down the lid on the paint can and bewildered, takes the paint back to a storage shed.

The supervisor at the site encourages all the trades people. He wants them to hurry but reminds them that they’ll all be paid. There’s a sense of urgency to everything. Co-workers have noticed this and speak freely about it. Still, they all want to get the work done, finished, so that they can be relieved of duties. They all complain about lack of time with their families.

Billy is particularly out of sorts, I know it. Day and night he must wander how I am. Where am I. Our baby is about to be born. What if it comes early? All his faith and trust now are in his friends. He wants the project to be completed as soon as possible so that he can get away. He dreams of taking us to England or somewhere else now, somewhere other than Danistan. I can see him pausing for a second before he taps in the tip of a nail. I know he wonders, What if I never see my Jenny again? Why hasn’t anybody confronted me about her? I’m her husband. What about my baby? Do I have one? Is it a boy, a girl? And I can see him slamming the hammer into the nail, the nail plunging into the thick plank of wood in one vicious smash.

The Acquisitions’ lodgings are the makeshift bed-sits they’re building. They’re expected not to complain about the lack of showers. That’s part of the quid pro quo for the building they do – the inconvenience.

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