We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [204]
No, Vilhjelm couldn't compete with Knud Erik when it came to storytelling. But he had physical prowess. The proof of it came one winter day as they were climbing around a laid-up ship in the harbor, and Vilhjelm suddenly scrambled all the way up the rigging, going higher and higher until he reached the brightly polished acorn at the very top of the mast, twenty-five meters above the deck. Then he lay across it on his stomach and balanced there, stretching out his arms and legs as if in flight. They hadn't seen anything like it since the Dannebrog Circus visited the summer before. And even then no one had climbed as high as twenty-five meters.
None of the other boys dared to match his feat. The bravest went as high as the acorn, then hesitated and backed down—even Anton. Some expected the Terror of Marstal to shrug and say it was nothing: if he didn't care to do it, it was because it wasn't worth doing. But Anton wasn't like that. On the contrary.
"Damn it, that was brave," he said. "Me, I just didn't have the guts when it came to it."
He slapped Vilhjelm on the back in approval and Vilhjelm's fortune was made. He was no longer an outsider.
In fact, Vilhjelm was able to tell a story, but it took him a long time—and time was something we didn't have. Once, though, we heard him out, and he told us how he'd nearly died, and it was only luck that saved him.
It had happened on a Sunday morning, quite early. He'd gone with his father to the harbor to repair their boat. His father was a sand digger. He was also completely deaf, and it was his deafness that gave the story its excitement and set it apart from the usual kind of mishap that befell all of us: to explore the depths before you could swim was a rite of passage.
Vilhjelm was only three or four years old, and his father gave him instructions in his slow voice, which always made him sound like someone speaking into emptiness, concentrating on every word as if not quite sure of its meaning. "Sit down there," he told Vilhjelm. "I want you to sit still, and if you need me you'll have to shake me."
Then he turned his back and started mending a plank on the sail deck. Vilhjelm stared at the clear, calm water; he could still describe to us the impression it had made on him. The rocks on the wharf were green and slimy, and as the rays of sun began to penetrate the water, a wonderland of changing colors emerged, filled with starfish, scuttling crabs, and shrimp that hung motionless, with only their whiskers vibrating. Vilhjelm leaned forward, full of desire to explore further—and suddenly fell headfirst into the water. Most of us had done that. But none of us had a father who was deaf as a post as our only protection against drowning.
Vilhjelm bobbed to the surface like a cork, grabbed hold of the boat's rail, and found a foothold on one of the slimy rocks of the wharf, then lost it and was left clinging there above the murky green depths until an icy undercurrent caught him, and began dragging him under the boat.
His clogs had come off and he saw them floating nearby like the lifeboats of a sinking ship. His sodden clothes, so dry and comfortable a moment before, felt awkward and alien. His father was nothing but a huge, blue-clad back turned away from him. It was like the whole world giving up on him. He screamed in desperation, but his deaf father didn't hear a thing. He screamed a second time, so loudly his voice echoed around the deserted harbor.
"Help! Pa!"
Then his strength ran out. His fingers lost their grip on the rail, and he disappeared into the water. He kicked it, he bit at it, he thrashed about in it as if he were fighting a wild animal, and yet it was only gentle, soft water, which pulled its covers over his head as though it were bedtime and the waters were bidding him good night.
And then—his