We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [100]
Peter Clausen was the last Marstaller to see Laurids. He was the son of Little Clausen, who had taken part in the battle at Eckernförde Fjord and been held captive with Laurids in Germany. After that, Little Clausen became a ship's pilot and moved to a house in Søndergade, in the southern part of the town. He built a wooden tower on its roof, so he could watch the comings and goings of ships that might need his expert knowledge of local waters.
Peter Clausen arrived on Samoa in 1876 when he and a fellow sailor jumped ship, and Peter took up with a native girl. In the beginning he lived by sponging, malanga-style. Then he bumped into Laurids and realized what could happen if you forgot who you were. Laurids had started to change after his German imprisonment. He hadn't grown any more genial with age. On the contrary: whatever the reason, he'd become even blunter and more closed off. He'd developed a fondness for the local palm wine—which was why you'd often find him in the treetops, where he'd use a machete to hack at the palm trunk to get the sap. But he had to do it in secret because palm wine was banned on Samoa during those years. Laurids had ended up a queer fish, respected neither by his fellow whites nor by the natives he'd chosen to live among.
Peter Clausen decided to become a merchant. He set up his own little trading station and ran the Danish flag up the pole outside. Around that time he took a native wife and and soon had children with her. He followed Laurids's example and gave them Danish names, but he never managed to teach them any Danish. Several years passed. He was just about making ends meet.
His Samoan family, as was the local way, considered his trading station to be a common source of income and settled on his lawn like a swarm of locusts, until he put them in their place. If there was one native habit that Marstallers never shook off, it was thrift. Peter Clausen didn't object to entertaining his relatives on festive occasions—that was entirely appropriate—but not daily. No way. And so he chased them off. If they failed to get the message, he was happy to threaten them with his gun.
Their problem, he said, was that they didn't understand the meaning of daily. They saw every day as one long party and never missed an opportunity to dress up or burst into song. An ordinary day was a concept you had to teach them.
His wife sulked, but when it came to imposing his will, Peter took after his father and eventually—according to him, at any rate—he ended up universally respected. He was no mata-ainga—that's a man who is weak and gives in to his family—nor was he a noa, which means "beggar" or "layabout."
Then came 1889, the year that would turn Peter Clausen into a man of consequence and restore Laurids Madsen's reason.
One event changed both their lives.
At that time the English and the Americans had joined the Germans on Samoa. They'd all laid claim to the island and ended up filling the Bay of Apia with their warships, taking sides among the Kanaks in their internal disputes, and giving them all the guns they could carry on their broad, brown shoulders.
Heinrich Krebs was now an important man. All his plans had come to fruition, and envious competitors claimed he was the only plantation owner in the Pacific with his own private navy. And it was true that Germany indulged his every whim. He was a statesman and a plantation owner rolled into one. His coconut palms were lined up as if on parade, and the way his whip cracked, you'd think his land was a drill ground. People called his plantation simply the Company, as if there was nothing on Samoa but Heinrich Krebs and his dream of straight lines, though at this point Apia had both an American consul and an English-language newspaper.
There was going to be a war. The natives now had plenty of guns and enjoyed firing them—but they never worried much about taking aim first, so they seldom suffered great losses