We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [279]
Her response was instant. She wiped her remorseful night vigils from her mind completely and sold the deck right out from under his feet. When the Claudia called at St.-Louis-du-Rhône, she offloaded the bark to Gustaf Erikson from Mariehamn on the Åland Islands. The remaining barks followed shortly after.
Having practically destroyed all seafaring in Marstal, she now decided to kill her son too. It would put an end to her constant fear of losing him.
For several tortured months she'd believed him dead and reproached herself for it. Then she'd found her agony was based on a lie. When Knud Erik returned to Marstal to pass his first mate's exam at the Navigation College in Tordenskjoldsgade, and she spotted him from the bay window coming to pay her a visit, she immediately ordered the maid to turn him away.
"Tell him he's dead," she said.
"I won't say that," the girl answered.
"Do it!" screamed Klara, losing control.
The girl went to open the door, but instead of remaining in the doorway and delivering Klara's message, she stepped out and closed the door behind her. "She doesn't want to see you," she told Knud Erik. "I don't know what's the matter with her. You'd best come back another day when she's in a better mood."
From her bay window Klara watched her dead son as he walked back to the harbor.
Was she a good person? Or a bad one? Was she someone who'd wanted to do good but ended up doing the opposite? These were questions she'd asked herself during her night vigils when she believed Knud Erik was dead and blamed herself. The doubts lingered, and her only way of suppressing them was to shut Knud Erik out of her life completely.
She'd founded her orphanage, and according to the school, its children were among the best in the class and always full of confidence. That had to be a good deed. She'd donated a library to the town and created a financial base for the Maritime Museum. She'd even done it anonymously. She'd given money to the Østersøhjemmet, the big old people's home that lay to the south, with a view over the meadow and the beach huts on the Tail. She'd donated funds to purchase equipment for the hospital in the neighboring town of Ærøskøbing.
Kristina wasn't the only young girl she'd helped get to America. Sometimes she thought she ought to send every young woman in Marstal across the Atlantic, so the men could learn their lesson. She kept in touch with the teachers at the school, and if a girl showed academic promise, she'd step in and pay for her education off the island. This was the future she'd planned for Edith. She wanted to make women independent. They had to help themselves and provide their own counterbalance to the tyranny of the sea.
In the old days, in the crisscross grid of Marstal, the main streets had always been those that led to the harbor and the sea. Then along came Kirkestræde, full of shops, with women bustling in and out. It was around their lives that she wanted to build a new town on the ruins of the old one. The orphanage, the old people's home, the library, the museum. Women would leave the island and return home stronger and wiser. And that was just the beginning.
It was a secret conspiracy and she was heading it.
"THIS IS YOUR big chance," Markussen said in his dry, detached manner. "War in Asia, civil war in Spain, crop failure in Europe. Things are looking up. Freight prices will rise again." He scrutinized her with that look of his, which she could never quite fathom and which made her feel both safe and uncertain. He took care of her. She never doubted that. Not once during all these years had he given bad advice. He'd trained her and she was an apt pupil, and every time she made the right decision, she received a look of approval that assured her that she'd not yet exhausted all her options. But there was