We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [225]
We didn't know then that Kristian's wasn't the only fate to be decided that day in Doctor Kroman's surgery. Anton's would be too. Soon we'd lose him as our leader forever.
BY THE TIME we reached the surgery, a large crowd had gathered. The Albert Gang had been joined by twenty to thirty other people. It was outside normal doctor's hours, and Anton had to hammer on the door and call out for Kroman. He opened the door. When he saw Kristian, he immediately put an arm around his shoulder and led him inside. Here Kristian quickly calmed down, as if recognizing he was in safe hands—or perhaps he was just putting on a brave face.
"What do you think you're doing?" Doctor Kroman said, as the rest of us tried to follow them inside. "Get out of here."
He let in only Anton, Vilhjelm, and Knud Erik. Then he asked what had happened, never once taking his eyes off Kristian.
"He got a twig in his eye," Anton said.
"Can't you speak for yourself?" Kroman asked.
"I got a twig in my eye," Kristian Stærk seconded. In this moment we liked him enormously.
Meanwhile Kroman had got Kristian to lie on the couch, and he'd started washing the blood off his face. Carefully he lifted the eyelid to examine the eye fully. We turned away. We had no urge to look.
"Doctor Kroman," Kristian said, and his voice was completely calm. "Will I ever be able to see out of this eye again?"
"I'll be honest with you," the doctor said. "No."
"Will I have to have a glass eye?"
Kristian's voice was still calm, as though the information Kroman had just given him was of no particular importance. Our awe of him soared to new heights.
"No, there's no need for that," Doctor Kroman said.
"Good," Kristian said. "Because I'd prefer to wear a patch."
***
Afterward, when we talked it over, we realized what Kristian's game was. He'd worked out that Anton was finished and he'd spotted an opportunity. He could now become supreme leader of the Albert Gang. He'd have a patch over his eye, and the murdered man's skull would pass to him. But in the surgery, the only thing we grasped was that Kristian Stærk had finally lived up to his name. Our admiration of the way he took the harsh blow that fate had dealt him knew no bounds. We'd completely forgotten that Anton was present too.
But Doctor Kroman hadn't. He stared hard at Anton. "Every time someone gets hurt, you seem to be around," he said. "You brought Henry Levinsen here when he got a flowerpot holder stuck on his head, didn't you?"
"Yes," Anton said. "That's right. But I didn't do it."
"And you didn't try to kill the stork either?" Doctor Kroman pursued his point.
Anton said nothing. He stared straight ahead, as if his thoughts were in a completely different place and he wasn't even listening. Again he narrowed his eyes in that irritating manner we'd noted so often recently, as if he was still taking aim with Shooter.
"And you've got nothing to do with this either?"
"He got a twig in his eye," said Knud Erik.
"I got a twig in my eye," confirmed Kristian from the couch.
"No. It was my fault," Anton blurted. "I shot him."
We couldn't believe our ears. First Anton had invented the lie about the twig. Now suddenly he was telling the whole story, just as it had happened.
"I shot at him with a bow and arrow," he added. "I didn't mean to hit him in the eye. I was aiming for the apple on his head. But it's my fault anyway. I'm the one who did it." He looked straight at Doctor Kroman as he confessed.
A moment ago we'd forgotten all about him. Now we remembered him again, and we knew that no matter what happened, he'd always be our leader. There was only one Anton. And although he might not be the world's