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By Root 3047 0

he'd remained unchanged, still exuding the same controlled strength. He didn't cut a youthful figure so much as a timeless one, as though he existed in a place where age didn't exercise its tyranny. But now he started to age visibly. He saw it himself, and he knew that people were talking. He still trimmed his beard and kept his thick hair neatly cut, but his broad shoulders began to droop and all of a sudden he seemed smaller. He kept to himself and made no excuses when he declined invitations. People could think what they liked. He found it especially difficult to be in company with men whose death he'd seen in his visions. How could they live their lives so lightly when such a terrible fate awaited them?

How could Captain Eriksen stop him in Prinsegade, just as he left his office, and converse about nothing but freight markets and the dredger lying just outside the harbor as it scooped out Klørdybet channel? Didn't he realize his days were numbered?

Albert greeted him tersely and disappeared toward Havnegade. Then he regretted his brusqueness. Soon people would start saying he had grown strange. Well, never mind about that. What else could he do? Embrace Eriksen and weep for him? Warn him? Yes, but against what? Against the sea, the war?

"What war?" Eriksen would ask, and then decide—with reason—that Albert was deranged. An unbearable burden had settled on Albert's shoulders. He witnessed calamities and disasters whose origin and nature he could not understand. Would it have been easier if he'd been a man of faith? Would he have found comfort in Jesus? But it wasn't comfort that a man needed. It was the chance to act. And that was why the dreams were like a disease. They attacked the core of his being. They sapped his energy and willpower. For the first time in his life, he perceived himself as helpless, and this sensation corroded his soul, draining him of strength.

As Christmas approached a severe snowstorm arrived from the northeast, and the water in the harbor started to rise. He went down to watch the crews attach extra moorings. Over a hundred ships were docked in Marstal, and a howling concerto rose over the town from the many riggings raked by the northeasterly wind. There was the slapping and slamming of ropes against wood, and the sound of hulls bashing against each other and the wharf as they waited to be remoored by the crews. The water level continued to rise and the ships rose higher and higher, their menacing twilight shadows looming in the snowfall, like a fleet of Flying Dutchmen come to announce the destruction of the town. But then the water stopped. The only damage done was to Dampskibsbroen, where the waves had smashed up the paving.

In his ledger, where he continued to keep accounts of the still-living, Albert noted of the breakwater that "the great achievement of our fathers still stood the test." He wrote it in defiance, as if in rebellion against his dreams. The breakwater had prevented the water from rising any farther.

All the same, he knew that the age of the breakwater was over. Other and stronger enemies were coming, which the breakwater couldn't protect us from.

SOMETIMES YOU'D SEE poor Anders Nørre hurrying through the streets, pursued by a gang of jeering boys. He walked in rigid strides that kept getting longer, as if he was desperate to escape but too afraid to run. He probably feared that an obvious attempt at flight would trigger something alarming in his pursuers. In any case he didn't stand a chance of outrunning a gang of boys.

The chase always ended with Anders forced up against a wall, where he'd cower, rubbing his cheek against the rough bricks and moaning softly. Then an impotent rage would take over, and roaring like an animal, he'd turn and chase after the boys, who'd scatter in all directions, like squirrels, shrieking with laughter.

Mostly the adults would intervene, but not always. There were those who found these incidents amusing.

It was on one such occasion that Albert Madsen actually got to know Anders Nørre. Anders was older than he was, but apart