We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [149]
Albert wasn't a parent himself. He'd never held a living child in his arms, a baby animal who, when it learned to speak, would call him Father. He was completely out of his depth here. At times he'd felt there was a void in his life, but he had no regrets. That was just the way things had turned out.
When he came ashore at fifty years of age, it had been too late to start a family. Besides, who could you get at fifty? Not even a spinster, unless she came equipped with a serious defect. A widow? Oh yes, there were plenty of those. They were keen to marry too, though mostly for practical reasons. But they were hardly capable of having more children: their wombs were withered, their breasts were dry. And a young woman burdened with an old codger like him wouldn't have much of a future, would she?
That was how he'd explained it to us, in those casual, slightly contemptuous terms that can be so revealing for those who know how to listen. Now he told the widow, "Well, I can't really comment. I never did have children of my own." He took another cookie. "Strange, really. I was so absorbed by matters of kin that I forgot to ensure the continuation of my own."
"I've never really understood that, Captain Madsen. You should have married."
The widow knew nothing of the Chinese lady.
"Despite my long voyages?" he quipped.
"Those are the terms. You'd have made a good husband all the same. You have a sense of responsibility and you have vision. Those qualities aren't as common as we'd like to think. Children are a great gift. You declined that. You shouldn't have."
"And you say that, even though you've had repeated experience of how that gift can be reclaimed?"
She looked down at her lap. "More coffee?" she asked.
He nodded. He felt he might have gone too far by referring to all the children she'd lost. He lifted the china cup to his lips and looked at her through the steam.
She looked up and caught his eye.
"No, Captain Madsen, you don't regret having had a child simply because you lose it. Having a child isn't a deal you strike with life. As I said: a child is a gift. And what remains after a child is gone is the memory of the years it was allowed to live. Not its death."
She stopped and he could see that she was moved. He wanted to do what she'd done for him that day on the pew: place his hand on hers. But in order to do so, he would have to get up and walk around the table. He felt clumsy and shy, and the moment passed. He remained where he was, keeping a silence that might be interpreted as respectful but which he knew was caused by awkwardness.
"I've learned to bend." Again she looked directly at him. "I believe God has a purpose for everything that happens. If I didn't believe that, I could never have endured it. I have my Jesus."
Again he was at a loss for words. There was something in her he couldn't fathom, a gulf between them. He wondered if their contrasting ways of seeing the world were simply something to do with men and women and the differences between them. While he sought meaning in everything and became agitated if he couldn't find it, she accepted life—even when it struck in the hardest possible way, through the loss of a child. There was a fortitude in her that was beyond him. Perhaps he'd never had to be strong in the way she had, though he believed that his dreams gave