Borderliners by Peter Høeg Page B

had
pointed to the here and now. It had never been explained, the Bible was full of things like that.
Biehl read from it at assembly, but it was never explained.
    What should you do if you want
to enter into life, here and now. This was what Jesus had answered.
That was one of the things I thought about.
    The other was that maybe Jesus had
also tried to touch time, maybe that had
been his plan. In his laboratory, not in the manger but later on, he had
gathered his thoughts to understand the plan behind
it all. Then he had told those who followed him that they must go forth into the world and reveal this plan,
even though the natural aversion of
the people would be roused against them, so that they would be persecuted and isolated. This they should do so that everything that was covered should be
revealed. Then he had descended into the underworld.
    Descent
into the underworld. And so I made up my mind.

Fredhøj sat in
front and a little to the side of me, his hands resting on the ledge for the hymnbook in
front of him. One hand lay across the other, you could smell his after-shave. All in all,
the sense of him
was overwhelming. Across
his left hand lay his key ring. As always.
    All the
locks in the school were linked to a comprehensive master key system. A Ruko system—back then there was
nothing else.
    The keys were in order of precedence. At the top, a master
key —held by Biehl alone—which opened every door in the school. Then came the sub-master keys
held by Fredhøj and Flakkedam and the new
inspector; beneath them came the departmental keys, and, at the bottom, the keys held by the ordinary
teachers.
    It was a good system, with only one flaw. At its lower
levels, for example, with the main door
and the doors to the corridors, it was necessary
that a number of different keys could open each lock. The more keys that have to fit a lock, the weaker it
is, the more receptive to strange keys.
    I could not have done it today. Apart from the fact that today I would never have wanted to, still, it could not have
been done. Advances in technology have made it impossible.
    Back then, they were ordinary five-pin keys, the cuts of
the key fitted into the lock and pushed five bottom pins into place, then the cylinder could move freely.
Nowadays, with the modern systems that time and technology have produced, there are also
side pins. In
addition to which the keys are patented and the designs re stricted. I could not have done it
today.
    I looked at
Fredhøj's keys.
    Of course, I had known they were
there. But I had purposely avoided taking a closer look at them.
    On the bunch were
some standard keys, as well as several smaller

keys to the locks of the
physics closets. Then there were the Yale keys
to his home. And his car keys. The school key was
lying awk wardly, but I just waited.
There came a moment when he shifted position
and it was brought into full view.
    I concentrated on the depth of the cuts—nothing else.
Afterward I closed my
eyes. And sort of tested myself on the key. As though I had been up at the
blackboard.
    At last I had it.
    None of us
were expelled. There was absolutely no accounting for it.
    That very evening they moved August out of the dining
room and served him
his food in his room, in the sickroom. The next day they moved him down a grade and put
Flakkedam on permanent watch over him. To begin with, Katarina was absent—I thought forever —but a few
days later I saw her in the playground, sitting on a bench, looking down at the
asphalt. As for me, I was summoned to the
secretary's office. Fredhøj and Karin Ær ø were there, and Stuus—in his capacity as chairman of the board of
teachers. They advised me that I had been reported to the Children's
Panel and to the Child Welfare Services,
since I was on a scholarship and had been given special permission to attend
the school. There would now be a
pause. When the reply from my guardian and from the Department of Health
and Welfare was available, they