We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [199]
He didn't take offense. He wasn't a patriot. His loyalty was to his ledgers, even if they were forged, and he recognized the wisdom of what she said. He used his Danish citizenship to signal his harmlessness before he struck. He acquired the supple grip and light touch of a woman.
"So why did the two of you part?" Klara asked.
The trust between them had already put them on a more familiar basis, without either of them thinking about it.
"I'll tell you one day. But not now. I've told you this story because I want you to learn something from it: not about me, but about what it's like when a woman runs a business. I've got three children, but my daughter's the only one who takes after me. My sons are complete write-offs. If I left the business to them, it would sink immediately. My daughter's the one with the talent—but her sex works against her. So although she's going to be the real head of the entire company, she'll be working behind a front man. She'll never get any recognition for her achievements. That'll be her tragedy. She'll operate through deceit, which in turn will be her strength. You must do the same thing. From now on, consider yourself a con artist."
KLARA FRIIS RETURNED to Marstal, where she found a new, unexpected ally.
Death.
The Spanish flu had arrived and was making a dent in our population, just as it was everywhere. Influenza was different from the sea, which took only men. This took everyone, but graciously, as they lay in their beds, and it left us graves to visit afterward.
Pastor Abildgaard did his rounds, spoke to the bereaved, and officiated at each graveside ceremony. The flu didn't scare him the way the war had. The cemetery acquired new headstones and flowers that needed watering every Sunday afternoon: the bereaved came along and mumbled to their dead, and from time to time they sobbed, but if they looked up and spotted a neighbor at the next grave, they'd soon strike up an animated discussion of the latest news. Forgetting where they were, children ran around noisily on the newly raked paths until somebody hushed them.
It was tough on the bereaved, but still, that was life. We had to bow our heads and accept it. No one lost control and raged at the heavenly powers or indeed the earthly ones. "We'll manage. We have to," we replied, when we met and asked one another how we did.
Though the Spanish flu struck without regard to age or sex, and made no distinction between rich and poor, it seemed to take a special fancy to the family of Farmer Sofus. Sofus Boye had died many years before, but his shipping company remained in the hands of his descendants. The year after Henckel's bankruptcy, they'd opened a new steel shipyard farther north in the harbor. Every time we heard the boom of hammers knocking glowing rivets into a steel hull, the same thought went through our minds: We can still do it. The Boyes, a family from our own town, had created this shipyard. While all else, these past years, had proved fleeting or doomed to failure, what we created ourselves endured. Like the breakwater that shielded the harbor, we built things to last.
However, Poul Victor Boye, who was head of the shipyard, did not endure. He was a tall and dignified man, with a wavy beard down to his chest. As a ship's carpenter and qualified ship's engineer,