We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [239]
The two able seamen, Rikard and Algot, were long-haul sailors from Copenhagen. They came from families with no seafaring tradition, as was clear from their kit. They had no sea chest or bedding. Apart from the seaman's classic canvas bag, with its cow horn of grease, sail needle, splicing fid, awl, and sail gloves, neither owned anything but a blanket and a cigar box with shaving gear. Their shore clothes looked just like the clothes they worked in: blue dungarees and sweaters.
Rikard had a tattoo on his right arm of a naked mermaid bearing the Danish flag. Both Rikard and Algot used Polish cigarette holders, fitted with a flat bottom so you could set them upright when there was no ashtray.
The atmosphere of the Kristina was much more convivial than that of the Active, but Knud Erik's old tormentor haunted him. Fighting exhaustion at night, alone at the wheel, with massive, ice-laden waves looming over the ship, he'd think of Pinnerup. He'd hear his curses in the wind's howl and see his face in the foam of a cresting wave. Yet even as he choked with weariness and felt the merciless torture of his saltwater boils, he knew, with a feeling of triumph, that he'd conquered Pinnerup. He could still hate the sea with a child's defiance, but now it held no fear for him.
He'd seen the first mate humbled. He'd sat on the wharf at Frederiksholms Kanal, dangling his legs with studied indifference, not really understanding what he was learning as he watched Pinnerup backing down in his clash with the dockers. Now he knew. Some things you had to pick up the hard way, but there was no need to humiliate someone just because they were new and green. The experienced man might even lend the inexperienced one a helping hand. And so when Helmer, exhausted and seasick, was ready to give up, Knud Erik helped him in the galley.
"Look," he said. "Your bread's too squishy and the crew keep complaining about it. The problem's in the rising. Shop-bought yeast doesn't work, see."
He found a couple of large potatoes and told Helmer to peel them and chop them up into small pieces. "Now get me a bottle," he said.
He stuffed it three-quarters full with potato pieces and topped it up with water. Then he corked it and secured the cork with twine.
"Leave it somewhere warm, and you'll have yeast in a couple of days. You strain it through a sieve into your dough. But be careful. Don't leave the bottle too long, or the cork will force the twine and explode. With an almighty bang."
Helmer looked at him as if he'd just revealed the secret behind a magic trick. This must be what it was like to be an adult, Knud Erik thought. When people looked at you like that.
The Kristina plied the Newfoundland route. It wasn't the voyage Knud Erik had dreamt of, but it was the only work available, and the trip across the cold North Atlantic was a new initiation. They sailed timber from Oskarshamn in Sweden to Ørebakke in Iceland. During the twenty-two-day journey, his seasickness returned and eroded his sense of being an experienced sailor. It took fourteen days to unload the ship.
Afterward they sailed on to Little Bay in Newfoundland with a ballast of volcanic sand from the Icelandic beaches. It was now November, and after a week at sea they hit dense fog. It lifted at noon and lay like a wall on the horizon while the sun shone brightly across the rest of the heavens. Then the fog returned, and the sails turned dark gray with moisture, which dripped heavily onto the deck. One minute they could see far ahead, and the next they couldn't even make out the yardarm of the flying jib boom.
On the third day of the fog, Knud Erik had just taken over at the wheel when the gray mass lifted once more. To one side he