We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [160]
"Like a warship?" the boy asked, though he wasn't old enough to remember the day the torpedo boats called at the harbor.
"Yes, like a warship, only it wasn't one. It was a freighter, a steamer, a bit like the Memory, only gray all over."
"And then what happened?"
"Well, now here's the odd thing. It was the middle of the night. But it was as bright as day. There were dazzling lights high up in the black sky. They didn't hang still like stars. They moved slowly down toward the water and when they hit the sea, they went out. But new ones kept coming. On the shore there were buildings on fire, but they weren't buildings like the ones we know. They were big and completely circular, with no windows. And the flames that shot out of them were even taller than the buildings themselves. Big guns were being fired all over the place. You can't imagine their thunder. And airplanes. Do you know what airplanes are?"
The boy nodded. "What did the airplanes do?"
"They dropped bombs and the ships caught fire and sank."
The boy sat very quiet. Then he asked, "Was it the end of the world?"
"Yes, maybe."
"Do you know something?" the boy said. "That's the best story you've ever told."
Albert smiled at him. Then he looked away, out across the sea. There was a part of the dream he hadn't told the boy. He hadn't been able to see the name of the phantom ship in the dark. But he knew, with the strange certainty his prophetic dreams had taught him to recognize: the boy was on board. Knud Erik was there. Right at the end of the world.
ALBERT HAD THE feeling that something in his life was nearing a close. It wasn't just because of the war. He had accounts to settle. The Negro hand on Pastor Abildgaard's desk kept haunting him. Albert too had the remains of what had once been a human being in his care, and it seemed to him that Josef Isager, who was so contemptuous of his fellow men, had acted with more morality than he had. After all, he'd requested a Christian burial for the hand, which he'd once packed in his suitcase like a cheap souvenir, undisturbed that it had been brutally chopped from a human being.
A severed head in a box—was that any different? Surely he owed James Cook a funeral too?
He walked around to Josef Isager's house in Kongegade and knocked on the door. He heard noises inside, but no one came to answer it. Albert knocked again. The noise continued. It was muted by the door, so he couldn't make out exactly what it was, but it sounded like fighting. Someone was running. Then there was gasping, and the sound of a body smashed heavily into a wall. Albert grabbed hold of the knob, and the door opened instantly. He entered the small, dark hall and knocked hard on the door to the drawing room.
"Is anyone there?"
The noise stopped. He pushed the door handle down. Josef was in the middle of the room, with his stick poised, ready to strike. Maren Kirstine was standing on the sofa, looking like a little girl who'd been caught doing something she shouldn't. She'd clearly scrambled there out of fear. Her hair, which she normally kept under a net, was disheveled; gray strands hung down across her distorted face. She was clasping her mouth with one hand as though trying to suppress a scream.
Josef turned to his unexpected guest.
"Are you next?" he shouted, and stepped forward menacingly.
His face, with its heavy, drooping mustache and cold, arrogant eyes, was as formidable as ever, but his aging body was bent and slumped. Albert snatched the stick from his hand and broke it in two across his thigh. A small feeling of triumph went through him. He still had his strength.
"We don't hit women here," he said, and forced Josef onto the sofa with one hand, while holding out the other to the stunned Maren Kirstine. She took it and clambered off.
"Are you hurt?" he asked.
She shook her head, but her old red-rimmed eyes were brimming. Unsteadily, she dragged herself to the kitchen and closed the door behind her. The sight of her cowed back as she left made Albert incandescent with rage. Josef was too dazed to get up