We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [187]
Then the bride, who was still standing right next to Captain Madsen, punched him in the face, and the back of his head smacked against the wall. He staggered, then regained his balance. Tentatively he ran a finger across his split lower lip, staring straight ahead with empty eyes.
The bride looked as if she was getting ready to have a second go at him, but we restrained her and dragged her away. Things had got out of control and we had to put a stop to it, though we didn't understand what had gone wrong. Had we crossed a line? But surely the whole point of Shrovetide was that there were no lines. On this one evening, anything went. And we'd after all done only what we always did, which was to tell a few home truths in an entertaining fashion. There was no need for anyone to get violent.
We put the fallen table back up. There was nothing we could do about the punch bowl. The housekeeper would have to see to that. Then we carried the unconscious pig into the hall and down the steps into Prinsegade.
There we turned and looked up at the bay window. Albert was looking down at us. Our masks were beginning to disintegrate in the cold February rain. The bride waved to the dark shadow in the pane.
"Is the girl too cold? Or are you too old?" she yelled.
One of her sleeves had slipped down to reveal a beefy forearm with a tattoo of a lion crouching to attack. In the dark, you couldn't make out the words.
NORTH STAR
IT HAD RAINED in the morning, but then the weather changed, and the lid of gray clouds that had covered the island gave way to a high, blue sky that warned of frost.
Albert staggered blindly, gripped by despair. "You're ashamed of me!" Klara had screamed after him. No, he wasn't ashamed of her. He was ashamed of himself. He had to get away, take a walk to clear his head and decide on an unambiguous statement, a yes or a no, and then live with it. He wanted to say yes, but couldn't bring himself to. He could have said no, but he didn't want to do that either. This wasn't a case of "where there's a will there's a way." There was nothing but will, but both ways led to a void. He was too old. They were right, these masked Shrovetide revelers who'd so humiliated him, and that was why he struck out at them. He couldn't handle such a big change in his life. He recognized this with savage indignation, a helpless rage that had nowhere to turn but inward.
He headed for the beach. Farther out, a figure appeared. As it came closer, he recognized Herman and braced himself for a confrontation. It hadn't been difficult to figure out who'd played the bride that night, when he'd been ridiculed and struck in his own home.
Despite the cold, Herman's shirt was unbuttoned down to his belt, where his hairy gut, which hadn't shrunk during his many months of the good life at Hotel Ærø, spilled over. His face glowed red from the cold and he was staring ahead with glazed eyes. He passed Albert without so much as glancing at him, walking as if he was set on a distant goal, somewhere beyond the houses of Marstal, and was prepared to walk through every wall in his path to get there.
Relieved to avoid a clash, Albert walked on and was soon consumed by his thoughts again. He wanted to get away from the town, in the hope that out here, surrounded by nothing but sea and sky, a solution would reveal itself. "Ha!" he snorted to himself. "The only answer would be to stay out here forever." He strode forward, half expecting that some refuge really would present itself on the narrow strip of sand, in a limbo where no one could force a decision on him.
Walking on the wet sand was hard work. After some time it gave way to a carpet of pebbles left by the surf, which he stumbled across until he reached the dense shrubbery on the sandy crest of the spit, where well-trodden paths wound through the vegetation. Walking on, he came to the spot where the spit bent like a crooked elbow. Here, between spit and breakwater, the water lay heavy