We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [147]
December came, and in the twilight the damp winter cold seemed to concentrate itself inside the unheated church.
"We're freezing here," she said one day. "Let's go to my house and have a cup of coffee."
He looked around as they entered the drawing room of the house in Teglgade. A couple of Rasmussen's paintings hung on the walls. He knew she'd sold most of them, but clearly she'd kept a few as well. One was a portrait of a little girl from Greenland. Rasmussen had been one of the first Danish painters to travel to that icy wilderness, but the portrait wasn't typical of his work. His real subject was the sea and its ships; he'd made his name as a marine painter. The other painting showed a man wearing a gown, kneeling in prayer on the desert sand. In the background were a woman and a donkey. The man's face was strangely blurred, as if the painting was unfinished or Rasmussen's talent for human portrayal had fallen short.
"It's the Flight into Egypt," the widow said, entering at that moment with the coffeepot. Albert nodded politely. There had been no need for her to tell him that. Though he was not a believer, he did know his Bible. "It was rare for him to be inspired by stories from the Bible. Such a shame. I think it might have led him in a new direction. But toward the end it seemed as though nothing would come right for him. At any rate, he was very dissatisfied, very dissatisfied indeed. He was a tormented man. Please don't think that I was blind to his real character."
Albert had first met the painter, who'd been a few years older than him, when he was just a boy. Back then Carl Rasmussen had made an indelible impression on him, not just because of his remarkable talent for drawing but also because of his peculiar innocence. He was from the neighboring town of Ærøskøabing, and the first time he showed up in Marstal a hostile gang of boys had instantly surrounded him: he was an outsider and he'd be made to feel it. But something about his attitude kept them at bay. He'd seemed unaware that he was in danger. Instead, a friendship had developed between them, and they'd all spent one long summer roaming the island together. When Carl did his drawings, a crowd of admiring boys would watch. He'd also read aloud to them, awakening a hunger for a world beyond the dead rote-learning of Isager's lessons. Albert could still recall the impact The Odyssey had made on him, with the story of Telemachus who waited for his father for twenty years, never doubting that he was alive. Who knows, perhaps the path of his own life was set that day.
But the idyll had ended with a confrontation. Albert no longer recalled what caused it, only that Carl had left with a bloody nose, and he didn't see him again until as an adult Carl came to settle in Marstal with his family. In the meantime Carl Rasmussen had made a name for himself as a painter and earned plenty of money by it, which he invested in the town's ships. He'd painted the altarpiece in the church and used local skippers as the models for Jesus' disciples. Jesus himself was modeled on a carpenter who ran an illicit pub opposite the church. It was an audacious choice, but Rasmussen got away with it. There was no end to the town's enthusiasm for his talent. His likenesses were uncanny.
He'd asked to paint Albert too. But when Albert brought out James Cook and asked for a double portrait, the sight of the shrunken head had turned Rasmussen's stomach, and he'd had to lie down on the sofa.
Albert always had a feeling that the painter had come to Marstal in search of something he never found. Rasmussen's death was said to have been a suicide. That wasn't malicious rumor, but a conclusion reached through basic sailing knowledge. It was inconceivable that anyone could fall overboard in fair weather. One moment