We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [102]
His father, Little Clausen, said, "Laurids saw Saint Peter's bare behind. He went to Heaven and stood at the Gates of Paradise. But then he came back down again, and his mind probably suffered some damage from that. Standing on the threshold of death and then turning back can't do a man any good."
"Well, I wouldn't know about that," said the son. "I don't have a clue what mad people think. But the upshot was he became almost human again. He'd been a palm-wine drunk who'd gone native. His life had been one big malanga. He wasn't exactly respected by the whites on Samoa. Not that they thought much of me either because I had children by a native woman too. Even though they've got good Danish names, they're still called half-blood or half-caste and that's no compliment. The British are the worst when it comes to labels like that. But now I'm a rich man, and the American navy is my customer, so I don't give a damn what they call us. My children will inherit the shop, so they'll be all right.
"The Germans are keeping a low profile these days. Heinrich Krebs has become a quiet man. Not much Bismarck in him now. He's a businessman again. While Laurids grew almost respectable. He trimmed his beard and stopped drinking. I even let him look after the shop from time to time. He built himself a smack and sewed his own sails. He'd sail through the surf and return with fish, just like a local: no more twiddling his thumbs in a palm treetop for him. I only once asked him if he missed his family back home. Perhaps it was stupid of me. What's family, when you haven't seen them for forty years? He turned his back on me and disappeared with a face like a thundercloud. I thought he'd go off on another malanga. But he came back a few days later and he was still the new Laurids. The next day he sailed across the reef in his smack and never came back. The boat was never found. Most people would probably say that was the end of Laurids. But I had the strange notion that he'd set off to start a new life for himself."
Albert hadn't wanted to listen to Peter Clausen's story. We told him anyway, once Clausen had left. He listened in silence and said nothing. He leaned forward and rubbed his boot with the sleeve of his jacket.
"I kept the boots," he said. "The rest is of no interest to me."
He got up. He was still wearing the same boots, thirty years after his visit to Samoa.
II
THE BREAKWATER
WE DIDN'T KNOW for sure that Herman Frandsen was a murderer.
But if he was, we knew what drove him to it.
Impatience.
No one in our town has such a thing as privacy. There's always an eye watching, an ear cocked. Each and every one of us generates a whole archive of talk. Your slightest offhand remark takes on the weight of a lengthy newspaper commentary. A furtive glance is instantly returned and pinned on its owner. We're always coming up with new names for one another. A nickname's a way of stating that no one belongs to himself. You're ours now, it says: we've rechristened you. We know more about you than you know about yourself. We've looked at you and seen more of you than you'll catch in the mirror.
Rasmus Asswhipper, Cat Tormentor, Violin Butcher, Count of the Dunghill, Klaus Bedchamber, Pissy Hans, Kamma Booze, how can any of you imagine we don't know your secrets? Hey, Question Mark: we call you that because you're a hunchback! And Masthead: well, what better name for someone with a tiny head, a long body, and no shoulders?
Everyone in our town has a story—but it's not the one he tells himself. Its author has a thousand eyes, a thousand ears, and five hundred pens that never stop scribbling.
No one saw what Herman Frandsen did. A moment came and went, and with it went