We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [104]
Herman would also come to blame his stepfather for his mother's sudden death. Erna succumbed to blood poisoning after gutting a codfish. A hook, buried in its flesh, had pierced her middle finger, but she hadn't been concerned and simply pulled the hook out without so much as a wince. That was the old Erna, the one Herman liked. But two days later she was dead, even though Jepsen had fetched Doctor Kroman, who'd done all he could.
Herman's view was that his mother wouldn't have died if his father had been alive. At home in Sølvgade she'd have survived, as the big, tough-as-nails woman she'd once been, not the quivering, blushing, mustacheless, lovesick jellyfish Jepsen reduced her to when he moved them to Skippergade. The fact that Herman still said "at home in Sølvgade," long after his father's death, despite the fact that he lived in Skippergade for most of his childhood, should have served as a warning to his stepfather.
Erna and Jepsen never had children of their own. In the convivial company of Weber's Café, our favorite joke was that Jepsen was too short to conquer Erna's majestic thighs, which were as tall and as thick as the mizzenmast on the Two Sisters. But when Erna was gone's and Herman was left alone with no family in the world, Jepsen, who was more softhearted than was good for him, gave the boy all the affection he'd once given Erna, convinced that he needed a father's love and guidance more than anything in the world.
But Herman was of the opposite opinion. There was nothing he wanted more than to get rid of his stepfather.
And he did get rid of him, sooner than anyone had expected.
The way it happened both stirred our admiration and planted a strange, vague feeling of fear.
AS SOON AS Herman Frandsen was confirmed, he was off to sea. Holger Jepsen, who wanted only the best for the boy, made the mistake of signing him on to the Two Sisters rather than another ship. They had some good times, and some bad too—though their disagreements never actually ended in fisticuffs. Jepsen had more authority on the deck of a ship than he did on land. Although he was slight, he had a powerful voice, and he used it to order Herman up and down the ratlines and out on the footropes of the yards.
"Never trust your feet," he shouted at the overgrown Herman, dangling up there like a seasick gorilla. "Feet can slip and ropes can fail, and then you're falling sixty feet and learning the most useless lesson of your life. The sea won't spit you back up, and if you hit the deck we'll be scraping you off it with a shovel."
Herman looked at his feet. If he couldn't trust them, what could he trust? Up on the yard, Herman stalled like a clockwork toy somebody had forgotten to wind. Not from fear or panic, but mistrust. He didn't understand what Jepsen meant.
Jepsen had to climb the rigging himself to get his stepson down. He clambered onto the yard and held out his hand.
"Come here," he said, gently.
Herman scowled and tightened his grip on the ropes.
"Don't be scared," Jepsen said, placing a hand on Herman's arm.
But Herman wasn't scared. He was simply rigid with reluctance.
Jepsen had to prise open his fingers, one by one. It was a test of strength, but Jepsen was the stronger. "There we go. Slowly. One step at a time. One hand at a time." He spoke to Herman as if he were a child learning to walk. Herman looked down