• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 3214 0

hit by losses at sea, and who suddenly had to say goodbye to a father, a brother, or a son. She had a strange skill. She could lead crying the way some people can lead singing. She'd made it her art. Contrary to what most people think, weeping isn't an uncontrollable emotion that spills into tears. It's the opposite, a channel for feelings, a way to divert them in a healthy direction. Serenity was Anna Egidia's life mission. She'd needed it to deal with her husband, a man of a nervous disposition and a sensitive mind, introverted and prone to brooding. Carl Rasmussen would stand on the beach for hours, staring out to sea, indifferent to the weather and his own health. Finally she'd have to drag him back to their house, chilled to the bone, while between coughing fits he begged her to leave him in peace. Afterward he'd lie feverish in bed, his teeth chattering. At times like that her calm was essential, though it made him accuse her of lacking the imagination to understand his character and failing to share his enthusiasm and vision.

This widow became a second visitor to many houses. Death would be the first, and she would follow in its wake. She was a source of comfort not only to her own family, with its many grandchildren, but to a wide circle around Teglgade. When someone died, the family sent for Anna. She'd arrive in her worn black silk dress, sit down in the middle of the room, send the adults away, and take the children by the hand. When a mother fell ill and was admitted to the hospital while her husband was away at sea, Anna would care for the children in her own home. She was constantly invited to be a godmother to the newborn, as if she'd been charged with keeping watch at life's entrance as well as its exit.

Now the parsonage too has foundered on the coast of bones, Albert thought, when he heard about Pastor Abildgaard's reclusiveness. He could preach about death in a way that moved even me. But he'd never met it. Now that he has, he's fallen silent.

Albert went to the parsonage to volunteer to assist the widow Rasmussen in her work. He felt his dreams obliged him to. He was shown into the minister's study, where Abildgaard was sitting by the window, staring out into the garden. There was a purple beech outside, dark and somber, like a tree that knew neither spring nor summer but grew in an eternal autumn, its leaves burned black around the edges by the frost. Nearby, the rose beds, which were Mrs. Abildgaard's pride and joy, were in bloom.

Abildgaard got up and shook his hand, then returned to his position by the window. When Albert announced the purpose of his visit, the minister didn't speak for a long time. Then all of a sudden he buried his face in his hands.

"My nerves!" he exclaimed.

His narrow shoulders trembled. He took off his steel spectacles and placed them on the desk in front of him. He dug his fists into the hollows of his eyes like a child surrendering to its crying, and the tears rolled down his smooth-shaven cheeks.

"Please, please forgive me," he stammered. "I didn't mean to..."

Albert rose and went over to him. He placed his hand on the minister's shoulder.

"You've got nothing to apologize for."

The minister clasped Albert's hand with both of his and pressed it against his forehead as though he was seeking to ease a pain inside.

Neither of them spoke for a long time. Abildgaard cried himself dry, then put his steel spectacles back on his nose. As Albert rose to take his leave, he noticed a black object on the minister's desk that reminded him of a claw, but not a bird's. No, it looked more like the curled fingers of a severed human hand, with nails as yellow as old bone.

"What's this?" he asked.

"That's the awful thing. I've no idea what to do with it."

Abildgaard sounded as if he might break out in a fresh attack of tears. Albert took the object and peered at it closely.

"No, you mustn't touch it. It's vile."

It was indeed a human hand. Albert was instantly put in mind of the shrunken head. But here the preservation technique was different: the hand seemed to have been