We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [256]
However, little was said about Vilhjelm's time alone on the Ane Marie. Whenever Knud Erik asked about it, Vilhjelm fell silent and looked down at the floor. Knud Erik feared he might even start stammering again.
Vilhjelm, who was keen to change the subject, noticed that something was troubling his friend and made Knud Erik tell him about his meeting with Miss Sophie. What bothered him, Knud Erik admitted, wasn't her rejection of him, or the stinging contempt in her voice that night on Signal Hill when she told him to stop chasing her like a dog, but the mystery of her fate and his own part in her disappearance. He was haunted by vague, nagging guilt.
When he'd finished telling the story, Vilhjelm looked at him directly.
"You think everything's about you," he said in his new, clear voice. "She was just crazy. That's all."
Knud Erik objected. "But—"
"I know what you're about to say. You can't remember what happened that night, so you think you might've done something bad. But that's rubbish. She's run off with someone, that's all."
Vilhjelm didn't have a mind superior to Knud Erik's, but in the matter of Miss Sophie, his was a more open one. He wasn't the one in love with her so he could see things objectively—which put him in a better position to judge what had happened.
Knud Erik was greatly relieved.
Having got this far, Vilhjelm started asking in detail about the kiss and its effect.
"I've never tried that." He pondered it, his curiosity finally satisfied.
"You will." Their roles had been reversed. Knud Erik suddenly felt like the wise, experienced one.
"Well, I nearly missed out on it altogether." It was the closest Vilhjelm ever came to admitting that his life had been in danger.
They kept waiting for the ice to break. Finally, the current turned south, the thaw arrived, and with it promise of the first open water. Soon they could say goodbye to their dead passengers. Water started raining down from the rigging: huge icicles came loose and crashed onto the deck. The sails, which had been too rigid to take in, dripped constantly, soaking everything on deck, as if the Kristina were an island with its own climate.
A sudden wind began to blow: a sure warning that the ice would soon break. Then a shower came, and they donned their oilskins. A huge crack split the ice close to the hull, followed by another. It was time to bury the dead.
Bager stayed in his cabin and refused to join them. He mumbled through the closed door that he was feeling ill and that they should leave him alone.
Dreymann went to fetch the Book of Sermons. They used boards to build a ramp against the rail and placed the bodies on top, so they could glide over the side and disappear into the sea. Soberly they lined up, clasping their sou'westers in their hands.
Dreymann turned to the final pages of the book. The lines were set in old gothic type and he had to squint to see them. The rain was pouring down his cheeks. "Damn it," he muttered. "I'm too old. I can't read those tiny letters. Could one of you young boys do it?" He held the book out toward Rikard and Algot.
"Let me, please," Vilhjelm said. "I know it by heart anyway."
Dreymann stared at him. "Are you telling me that you read aloud the rite for burial at sea on the Ane Marie?"
"Yes," Vilhjelm said. "I know the entire Book of Sermons by heart." Without waiting for Dreymann's reaction, he started reciting. "Our Lord Jesus Christ says: The hour shall come when everyone in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they shall go forth—those who have done well, to their resurrection, but those who have done ill, to their judgment."
Helmer stepped forward. In his hand he held a small shovel with ashes from the oven in the galley. This had to serve as the soil, to be scattered over the wrapped bodies before they were surrendered to the sea.
"Earth to earth," Vilhjelm said in his new voice, which Knud Erik still hadn't grown accustomed to. Helmer scattered ashes over the deceased. The rain was falling hard now, and the ashes dissolved and spread