We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [269]
They rowed around in circles, not knowing what else to do. One moment they were on the crest of a wave, the next they'd disappeared behind one. The Kristina drifted in the wind, and so did the life buoy. Where exactly was it that Ivar had disappeared? There were no signposts on the sea. They drifted farther and farther away until the lifeboat was nothing but a white-painted nutshell in the middle of the changing landscape of turbulent waves, which eternally reared and ran themselves out, tired from chasing the distant horizon.
Then something seemed to be happening out there. The tiny figures stood up in the boat, waving their arms. They bent forward, as if they were struggling with something. Had they found him?
Herman called out to Helmer in the rigging. "Do you see anything?"
"I think they've got him!" Helmer began waving with one hand, as if welcoming Ivar back to the land of the living.
It was unclear what happened next. The figures bent forward even more, almost disappearing over the side, and the lifeboat rocked perilously from the sudden imbalance. Then they straightened up again. Only one of them remained crouched. Again Herman called out to Helmer. "What's happening now? Have they got him?"
While he waited for the reply, he felt neither fear nor its opposite. If Ivar made it, he made it. Life went on regardless of what happened out there on the water. Herman was calm and openly indifferent.
"I think..." Helmer hesitated and narrowed his eyes. "I think they've lost him again ... at any rate, I can't see him." They were still lying against the wind. The sails flapped in the storm.
The lifeboat started circling again. It did so for a while, before heading back to the ship. Bager was the first to climb on board. He held his hand to his chest and he was pale. Miss Kristina followed him. She buried her face in her father's shoulder. She was shaking all over and sobbing loudly. Bager held her tight. He put his arm around her shoulder and led her down to his cabin, a clenched fist pressed to his chest, his mouth a thin line that cut across his anguished face.
Herman called Knud Erik over. "What happened?" he asked.
"We found him. He'd managed to stay afloat, but he was half-drowned and his eyes were strange."
"Strange?"
"Well, I don't know what to call it. As though it wasn't him. Like he'd gone mad. When we tried to pull him on board, he just thrashed about. We couldn't get a firm grip under his arms. So we started pulling at him—well, and then it just happened."
"What happened?"
"Well, his oilskins must have opened up. He slipped out of them. Suddenly all we were holding were the empty sleeves." Knud Erik's voice grew thick and he struggled to carry on. "He went right down. We never saw him again. But we'd just held him. We'd looked into his face. I was closer to him than I am to you now. He was saved. And then..." He stopped and gave Herman a peculiar look. "But that's what you wanted, wasn't it?" He shook his head and turned away.
Herman looked long and hard after him. Then his attention was caught by a loud slamming noise. It was the flying jib, still flapping in the storm. He called out across the deck. "We still have a flying jib that needs taking in. Any volunteers?"
Helmer was hanging in the rigging. Herman ordered him down and told him to get lunch going. There was a ship to be sailed and life had to go on.
Herman started thinking about what Knud Erik had said, and the peculiar look he'd given him. He had a feeling that the boy had looked straight through him. He remembered Kristian Stork's warning about Anton Hansen Hay, who'd found the skull of his stepfather. The boy might know something. Those blasted kids had stared at him until he was driven half crazy and had to leave town. But nothing had ever come out. Surely that story was long forgotten?
He took his lunch with the three boys. The mood was edgy and they ate in silence. He made a mental note to put them back on their old rations,