We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [216]
"Every day I walk past the plots that you've bought, lying vacant. Shamefully so. Perhaps they reflect all too aptly what you have in mind: laying the whole town to waste. But let me tell you this, Mrs. Friis." His voice betrayed months of frustration. "What you call minding your own business, I call neglecting the business of others. We're talking about a whole town. Its history and traditions."
"I hate the sea," she burst out.
If he'd been listening properly, he'd have understood she'd given him a vital clue, and seized his chance. But anger had got the better of him: he now had no doubt that at last he'd come face to face with the cause of his problems and the increasingly inevitable failure of his plans for Marstal. It would be the first failure of his career. And, he hoped, the last.
"What a strange thing to say," he snapped at her. "It's like hearing a farmer say he hates the soil. In that case I can only tell you that you're in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"No, on the contrary. I'm in the right place at the right time."
She was now just as angry as he was. But he heard something more than indignation in her voice: he heard his own wasted opportunity. He heard the bitterness of someone who feels rejected. He'd failed to listen properly.
"If I've accused you unfairly, I regret it," he said, trying belatedly to rectify his mistake by striking a conciliatory tone. "Please, can we try talking sensibly to each other? I think we have a great deal in common."
"I must ask you to leave," she said firmly.
He nodded briefly at her, turned, and left the room. It wasn't until he was back on the street that he realized that she'd never even asked him to sit down. During the entire confrontation they'd been standing up, facing each other. She had a shocking lack of manners, he decided.
Isaksen went back to the widows a second time to request power of attorney, so he could finally carry out his plans for both company and shipyard.
"I must advise you that my demand for power of attorney is an ultimatum."
They asked him what an ultimatum was. Relations between them were becoming so strained that he'd abandoned his much-admired powers of persuasion and was increasingly resorting to the cold formalities of legal language. He explained that an ultimatum meant that if he did not get what he wanted, he would have to hand in his resignation and look for a post elsewhere.
"But good heavens! Aren't you happy here?"
He replied that yes, thank you, he was happy here, but no, he was at the same time most unhappy. He cared about the town. He could see that the shipping company possessed considerable promising potential, but his work was being sabotaged daily. As he spoke, his anger resurfaced. "I understand that you prefer to take the advice of Klara Friis. But I'm warning you. She does not want what is best for the company."
Ellen shot him an outraged look, and he knew that he'd lost.
"Klara Friis, that poor girl. If you only knew what she's been through. How dare you talk about her like that!"
The verdict had been pronounced. It was written all over their faces. He was a bad man. All right, he'd done his duty. Now he could leave. But actually, he'd failed to do his duty, and that was precisely what stung him. He'd spotted an opportunity and he hadn't been allowed to develop it. This was a challenge to his most deeply held values: he'd not carried out his task to the best of his abilities. He'd failed. He'd failed the shipping company, the town, and himself. His persuasive skills had been inadequate. His psychological insight had been found wanting. He, the only one among them who knew which course to follow, had been prevented from taking the wheel and steering the ship, and he had no one to blame but himself. He wasn't the type to need scapegoats, though the town had offered him several.
The following day he submitted his resignation.
When Isaksen left town, he took the ferry, like any other traveler.
He didn't fit in—that was the general verdict.
But not all of us agreed. There were those who realized that