We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [235]
For Knud Erik, the man who'd sent him up there personified the rule of law at sea. But Pinnerup was also the sea itself: rapacious and dangerous. Unless you toughened up, you'd go under. He stopped worrying about the injustices, the beatings, and the insults. Instead, he allowed himself to be filled with a new sensation: hatred. He hated the first mate. He hated the ship. He hated the sea. It was hatred that kept him on his feet when he staggered across the seesawing deck with the coffeepot in the pitch-dark and scalded his hands. It was hatred that helped him endure the saltwater blisters on his neck and wrists where his permanently wet woolen sweater chafed the unprotected skin, causing huge fluid-filled pustules. It was hatred that kept him silent and stoical when the first mate grabbed him by the neck and twisted his wrist, just where the worst boils were ready to burst.
Hatred was his apprenticeship, and in serving it, he grew up.
It was hard to become a man. But he wanted to. He dug in his heels and made himself stupid, pigheaded, and tough. He became a human battering ram. He'd gain access to life, he realized, only if he kicked its door in.
The skipper of the Active was Hans Boutrop, who came from Søndergade. He was a jolly, rotund man whose considerable girth was no thanks to the fare from the Marstal ships' cookbook, which, had it existed, would have had THRIFT stamped all over it in giant letters. As cabin boy, Knud Erik had to help out in the galley, where the captain taught him to make broth. His recipe, he said, was similar to pork broth but with a crucial difference: no pork was involved. Instead, you flavored it generously with brown sugar and vinegar, which you flung into the boiling water along with a handful of rusks.
On Sundays, if the ship was in port, the galley served pot roast. This festive dish was made in its own special pot, whose wooden lid was blackened with age, and the recipe followed the same principle as all other meat dishes: cook for a solid three hours. Period.
On rare occasions they had a pudding, which was left to set in coffee cups, then tipped out and served on plates in small individual wobbling domes that would fit in the palm of your hand. The crew called them nun's titties. The stringy tinned meat from Argentina they called cable yarn, while salt meat was known as red Indian's ass, and salami was never referred to as anything but Roskilde high road.
Often the smell of cooking and the enclosed atmosphere of the galley made him seasick, and he'd open the door and throw up on deck. In bad weather the waves usually washed the puke away, so no one knew about the half-digested meals he routinely sacrificed. When he wasn't seasick, his appetite for his own food was good, and he continued to be amazed that he could cook.
The fo'c'sle was so small that only two men could get dressed at the same time. Below the floor was the coal for the galley oven, and behind the ladder was the potato crate: when its contents began to rot, it exuded a penetrating stench like fermenting shit. A strange smell also emanated from the box where the anchor chain was stored: it was the odor of dried mud and old anchor weed that the broom couldn't dislodge. But from the rope berth came the good, strong smell of brown tar.
The crew relieved themselves into a beer barrel that had been cut in half. The seat was a rough iron ring that scratched the buttocks, and when the sea was bad and waves crashed onto the deck, you'd sometimes get knocked over as you sat on it. In fine weather Knud Erik would climb out on the bowsprit and shit directly into the bow splash. It reminded him of the flushing china bowl at home in Prinsegade.
Fresh water was for drinking only, so he never washed. The deck was cleaner than he was. Once a week, he and