We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [274]
Suddenly she stirred. She mumbled something as if half asleep, and tried to turn over. Instinctively he tightened his grip around her neck and shoved her face into the bed. She screamed, but the pillow muffled it. Her body arched in protest, and her arms flailed about.
As he entered her she let out a sigh, as though he'd dislodged the air inside her: a sigh without emotion, the noise of lungs emptying. After that she was silent, as if a spear had impaled her.
He paused, and strained to make out if she was still breathing; seconds later he ejaculated in an involuntary surrender that made him feel he'd stepped off the edge of an abyss and was falling in the dark. His hips kept shaking for a long time. She continued to lie there, completely passive. He hugged her motionless body tight. A swarm of words buzzed through his brain: he wanted to say something, but nothing came out. To him she was Miss Kristina. But he couldn't call her that in this moment, when he'd finally become one with her. Thinking about this, he fell asleep.
He woke up, perhaps only a few seconds later: she was shaking herself free. He managed to sit up, but before he'd had time to react, she'd kicked out at him. He was flung out of the narrow berth and landed heavily on the floor. He got to his feet and tried to button his trousers. His groin felt damp.
She screamed and screamed.
He felt nothing, apart from irritation at the endless screaming, which filled the narrow cabin and forced him to the door with an almost physical pressure.
He stumbled out onto the deck. It was blowing harder, and the sails were taut. For a moment he looked across the sea. The foaming crests glowed in the dark. The only sounds were the howling of the wind in the rigging and the thud of the waves as they crashed across the deck. He went over to relieve Vilhjelm at the helm. He decided not to take in any sails, though he knew the risks of driving the ship so hard. Heavy rain pelted his face.
He wasn't a man to weigh up the pros and cons of things. Totally emptied of thoughts, he welcomed his inner blankness just as he'd recently welcomed sleep.
When he asked the boys to relieve him at the next shift, they refused.
"Do you want a shipwreck?" he asked them.
They didn't reply. They just stood there, waving their ridiculous confirmation presents, which they considered deadly weapons. The wind had fallen, and the ship lay calmer on the sea. Having secured the wheel again, he strode toward the captain's cabin. But the boys ran ahead of him and blocked the door, still holding their knives. Miss Kristina must have told them everything. Now they thought they were her protectors. He'd outraged their childish sense of justice. The worst thing about a sense of justice is that it makes people wild and crazy. In giving them courage, it robs them of their caution and their instinct to survive.
"If you come closer, we'll kill you," Knud Erik said, and his voice trembled.
Helmer was sobbing loudly, but he held on to his knife. They were blind with fear, and in their blindness they had only one point of reference, the jackknives in their hands. He didn't doubt in the least that they were capable of stabbing him. Perhaps it was the only way they could cope with the terror he'd provoked. They were